Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling

'Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling' is both a survey of the past, present and future of the prefabricated home and a building project on New York's Museum of Modern Art's vacant west lot. Not since the mid-century House in the Garden series has MoMA built occupiable model buildings to demonstrate contemporary issues to the public.

Front cover image: Pieces of a Lustron Westchester prior to installation © Arnold Newman/Getty Images

The fives homes erected on the outdoor space to the west of the Museum building are designed by Kieran Timberlake Associates (Philadelphia); Jeremy Edmiston and Douglas Gauthier (New York); Horden Cherry Lee Architects / Haack + Höpfner Architects (London/Munich); Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Architecture and Planning / Associate Professor Lawrence Sass (Cambridge); and Oskar Leo Kaufmann (Dornbirn, Austria).

The exhibition, and its accompanying website, display the process of architectural design and production in equal measure with the actual end result. Within the gallery, eighty-four architectural projects spanning 180 years are presented by means of film, architectural models, original drawings and blueprints, fragments, photographs, patents, games, sales materials and propaganda, toys, and partial reconstructions. This diverse collection of material illustrates how the prefabricated house has been, and continues to be, not only a reflection on the house as a replicable object of design but also a critical agent in the discourse of sustainability, architectural invention, and new material and formal research.

Cellophane House designed in 1984 by KieranTimberlake Associates (Philadelphia)
© 2008 Kieran Timberlake Architects

Digitally Fabricated Housing for New Orleans designed in 2004 by Lawrence Sass (Cambridge) © 2008 Lawrence Sass

Burst House designed in 2008 by Jeremy Edmiston and Douglas Gauthier (New York)
© 2008 Floto + Warner

System3 House designed in 2008 by Oskar Leo Kaufmann and Albert Rüf (Dornbirn, Austria) © 2008 Oskar Leo Kaufmann and Albert Rüf

Micro Compact Home designed in 2001 by Horden Cherry Lee Architects / Haack + Höpfner Architects (London/Munich) © 2008 Sascha Kletzsch

Exhibition from July 20 to October 20, 2008
MoMA, The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art Exhibition Gallery, sixth floor - New York
West lot (outdoor space to the west of the Museum building)