The mass production of dwellings obeyed two opposing value systems during the twentieth century; The single-family dwelling and the collective housing block were both generated from demand for cheap and quickly built dwellings. The previous blog post examined Raymond Camus’ contribution to the «panel building», an icon of socialist collective building production systems and supply chains supported by government intervention. A more capitalist vision, federated by public and private partnerships spawned the most recognised manufactured house of the twentieth century.
Driven by accumulated pre-war housing shortages and supplemented by returning veterans encouraged to set up a post-war family life, industrialist Carl Gunner Strandlund directed more than 37 million dollars of government aid toward his newly invented porcelain enameled steel coated panels to invent the Lustron House. Encouraged by aggressive housing policy and a projected military-industrial complex, steel components would be leveraged to feed industrial development and the mass construction of houses. Steel was synonymous with modernity, strength and durability. The small 31-foot by 35-foot Lustron bungalow was patterned on a simple modular planning grid informed by the 2-foot by 2-foot enamel cladding panels. The open plan with included amenities, linked with traditional imagery offered an affordable representation of a burgeoning mid-century modern lifestyle. At 10 000$ per unit the house’s price was competitive with traditional construction.
The cold-formed steel framed components were welded in the factory into panels for walls and roof trusses. The enamel panels enveloped the interior and exterior of both walls and roofs. Compressible sealing gaskets provided weathertight joints revealing the relationship between home construction and an a potentially increasing level of industrialization. The production facility began delivering houses in September 1948. Components were arranged and sequenced on iconic trailer trucks. Pre-wired and pre-plumbed walls displayed the structural skeleton and mechanical guts while conveying an image of neatness, organisation and reduced waste. In the end only a few thousand Lustron dwellings were actually built. A combination of market resistance, fragmented construction industry and an aversion to the public funding of privatized housing production led to the company's bankruptcy and the house «America had been waiting for» became another blip in the field of prefabrication experiments.
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| Image from Lustron.org |
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