Separated only by a narrow portion of the Atlantic, two allies in the Second World War, France and Great Britain, developed similar government-driven postwar rebuilding programs with a focus on prefabrication. Concrete became the go-to material in France whereas the UK promoted a diversity of systems sometimes referred to as non-traditional construction methods. Even before the war was won, the UK was dealing with a critical housing shortage; efforts were made to support new methods and policies aimed at increasing productivity and encouraging budding industrial models.
In 1942, the Burt Committee, part of an Interdepartmental Committee on House Construction, was formed to “consider materials and methods of construction suitable for the building of houses and flats, having regard to efficiency, economy and speed of erection”. Sustained by these attempts regarding prefabrication, Winston Churchill promised 500 000 new homes beginning in 1944 to absorb shortages and provide affordable options for young servicemen returning from the front lines once the war was over. The Tate Gallery held an exhibition of prototypes in the same year - the Exhibition of Prefabricated Houses - to increase knowledge about the potentials of these new building methods.
Along with some international examples, UK's industry presented the Portal's Palace, the Arcon, Uni-seco, and Tarran bungalows as non-conventional or non-standard systems. Traditional construction methods for housing in England relied on brick and mortar, stone load-bearing walls and tile roofs. The new building methods employed steel or aluminium, and new materials like asbestos, which were largely foreign to vernacular approaches. The Pheonix is a notable example of light steel components being used to quickly assemble a house that was meant to last 10 to 15 years. Most of these systems were intended as basic emergency dwellings and earned a bad reputation as they were evaluated by standards and criteria different from those for which they were designed. The exhibit also showcased the AIROH houses, also known as the Aluminium Bungalow, proposed by Aircraft Industries Research Organisation for Housing which was to redirect aeronautic infrastructure and production capacity used in the war effort toward home building.
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| Top left: Tarran Bungalow structure; Top right: Tarran Bungalow; Bottom left: Exhibition at the Tate; Bottom right: AIROH house section |
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