[ARCHITECTURE]. The Best Way to Achieve Low-Cost Housing is to Build Low-Cost Homes
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- Washington, DC: National Small Homes Demonstration, Inc, 1939
Washington, DC: National Small Homes Demonstration, Inc, 1939. First Edition. Very good. 4to. 32 pp. Printed in blue, orange and black, color-tinted photo illustrations, blueprint floor plans, diagrams, text illustrations throughout. Original color printed wrappers, dramatic typography on black ground and a 2-storey house rendered in negative (i.e. tree foliage in white and the siding of the house in black). Minor dust-soiling but a lovely copy, unmarked and unblemished. NOT ex-library! PRESCIENT AND STILL HIGHLY TOPICAL, THIS FULLY ILLUSTRATED 1939 "SALES CATALOGUE" DEMONSTRATES HOW PROPERLY DESIGNED, SMALL WOOD HOMES COULD MEET HOUSING SHORTAGES FOR LOW- AND MIDDLE-INCOME FAMILIES. OUR COPY IS PRESERVED IN EXCELLENT CONDITION AND APPEARS TO BE THE ONLY ONE ON THE MARKET.
Issued by the National Lumber Manufacturers Association (NLMA), we find herein the "latest" homes and apartments that were designed to correct what was then -- as now -- an alarming imbalance, as addressed on p. 2:
"What's wrong with this picture? One third of the people [buy] two thirds of the houses. Two thirds of the people [buy] one third of the houses."
Enter the NLMA's novel approach to selling kit homes in 1938-1939: LESS IS MORE. Obviously a single "tiny home" kit would result in the sale of less board feet, but more kits could be sold to first-time buyers in a housing market that was still soft.
Our catalogue contains beautiful illustrations and floor plans of 12 National Small Homes Demonstration Designs, plus 8 (recte: 7) photographs and floor plans of homes (exterior and interior!) executed for the 1938 Laboratory Community. The "centerfold" offers photographs of homes built on Cedar Lane, Bethesda, MD and elsewhere. The text on the back cover states that plan number 2 will be included in the "Homes of Tomorrow" section at the 1939 New York World's Fair.
Suprisingly there is no copy at the Avery Art and Architecture Library, Columbia University.
IN OUTSTANDING CONDITION, SUITABLE FOR EXHIBITION AND STUDY.
§ Thomas Jester, Twentieth-Century Building Materials: History and Conservation, pp. 102-103.
Issued by the National Lumber Manufacturers Association (NLMA), we find herein the "latest" homes and apartments that were designed to correct what was then -- as now -- an alarming imbalance, as addressed on p. 2:
"What's wrong with this picture? One third of the people [buy] two thirds of the houses. Two thirds of the people [buy] one third of the houses."
Enter the NLMA's novel approach to selling kit homes in 1938-1939: LESS IS MORE. Obviously a single "tiny home" kit would result in the sale of less board feet, but more kits could be sold to first-time buyers in a housing market that was still soft.
Our catalogue contains beautiful illustrations and floor plans of 12 National Small Homes Demonstration Designs, plus 8 (recte: 7) photographs and floor plans of homes (exterior and interior!) executed for the 1938 Laboratory Community. The "centerfold" offers photographs of homes built on Cedar Lane, Bethesda, MD and elsewhere. The text on the back cover states that plan number 2 will be included in the "Homes of Tomorrow" section at the 1939 New York World's Fair.
Suprisingly there is no copy at the Avery Art and Architecture Library, Columbia University.
IN OUTSTANDING CONDITION, SUITABLE FOR EXHIBITION AND STUDY.
§ Thomas Jester, Twentieth-Century Building Materials: History and Conservation, pp. 102-103.
Details
Title
[ARCHITECTURE]. The Best Way to Achieve Low-Cost Housing is to Build Low-Cost Homes
Author
National Lumber Manufacturers Association
Condition
Very Good
Publisher
National Small Homes Demonstration, Inc: Washington, DC
Date
1939
Edition
First Edition