The immediate post-World War II period saw a dramatic increase the number of prefab efforts, which were often subsidized by the federal government as an expedient way of alleviating the nation’s housing shortages and as a method of converting factories from wartime to peacetime production. For example, the Vultex Aircraft Company commissioned industrial designer Henry Dreyfus and architect Edward Larrabee Barnes to design a prefabricated house (1946), which utilized large, factory-made, paper core wall panels sheathed in aluminum that were erected on site. Despite the fact that there were nearly three hundred prefabricated homebuilders by 1946, their combined output accounted for only a small percentage of new house construction. The reasons for this limited production are as unique and varied as the projects themselves: in general, some designs never made it past the prototype stage, some were too unconventional for mainstream markets, while still others required prohibitively expensive capital investments for full factory production. More significantly, assembly-line methods for on-site construction dramatically increased the number and speed of conventional house construction. The striking efficiency of this approach could be seen in the construction of Levittown—where the correct quantity of materials for each house was distributed lot-by- lot and built by teams of workers—effectively duplicated the basic premise of the assembly line stretched across the landscape. William J. Levitt boasted that he could build a house every fifteen minutes at the height of production at his eponymous Long Island development, where more than 17,000 houses were constructed between 1947 and 1951.

Andrew Blauvelt, Exhibition Curator, Walker Art Center

“Just like our cars, our dwellings will be factory produced within the foreseeable future.”\\

The immediate post-World War II period saw a dramatic increase the number of prefab efforts, which were often subsidized by the federal government as an expedient way of alleviating the nation’s housing shortages and as a method of converting factories from Turbulence wartime to peacetime production. For example, the Vultex Aircraft Company commissioned industrial designer Henry Dreyfus and architect Edward Larrabee Barnes to design a prefabricated house (1946), which utilized large, factory-made, paper core wall panels sheathed in aluminum that were erected on site. Despite the fact that there were nearly three hundred prefabricated homebuilders by 1946, their combined output accounted for only a small percentage of new house construction. The reasons for this limited production are as unique and varied as the projects themselves: in general, some designs never made it past the prototype stage, some were too unconventional for mainstream markets, while still others required prohibitively expensive capital investments for full factory production. More significantly, assembly-line methods for on-site construction dramatically increased the number and speed of conventional house construction. The striking efficiency of this approach could be seen in the construction of Levittown—where the correct quantity of materials for each house was distributed lot-by- lot and built by teams of workers—effectively duplicated the basic premise of the assembly line stretched across the landscape. William J. Levitt boasted that he could build a house every fifteen minutes at the height of production at his eponymous Long Island development, where more than 17,000 houses were constructed between 1947 and 1951.

The house, despite its size and complexity, became an ideal candidate for experiments in mass production. Plagued by weather delays, varied abilities of and access to skilled labor, conflicting subcontracting schedules, and wasted and inefficient use of materials, the conventionally built home seems to be a perfect product for industrial production. In fact, the evolution of the house can be seen as a study in the increasing use of prefabrication to produce its many parts—components such as wood framing, doors, windows, trusses, walls, trim, and so on. In fact, most of today’s production houses are to a certain extent prefabricated ones, even if they are thought of as primarily “stick-built” at the building site. But shifting the location of assembly from the building site to the factory was not just a change of venue but also one of attitudes undermining one of architecture’s long-held principles, the uniqueness of structure to site. Unlike the automobile, which was an entirely new technological invention, the construction of a house has a long history and geographically specific traditions making it highly resistant to new forms of industrial transformation. Despite these historical constraints and the hit-or-miss nature of modern prefab efforts, the factory production of houses, whether designed with architects or not, was inevitable. In fact, the modular construction industry (the moniker for prefab) has existed for many decades, producing both residential and commercial structures in more traditional styles—everything from Lindal Cedar Homes to Butler Buildings.

The amount of assembly performed at the building site as well as the degree to which the various components are designed as part of a larger system are the primary criteria used to decide whether a house can be considered prefabricated. In the context of this exhibition, Some Assembly Required, prefabrication is defined as the difference between a unique, custom-designed and essentially site-assembled home at one end and a pre-existing design for a factory-produced house on the other. Occupying this spectrum are three types of prefab construction, progressing from the least amount of pre-assembled pieces to the most: the kit home, the panelized house, and the volumetric module.

The closest contemporary versions of the single-volume, finished prefab are smaller structures such as Loftcube (2004/2006), a rooftop module designed by Werner Aisslinger, various converted shipping container schemes like LOT-EK’s MDU (Mobile Dwelling Unit, 2003), and Wes Jones’s Technological Cabins series (1995). Others such as those in the exhibition—Michelle Kaufmann’s Glidehouse (2004) and Sunset Breezehouse (2005), and Alchemy Architect’s weeHouses (2003)—are perhaps the closest realization to the factory-built house. These architect-designed prefabs are produced in factories that also make other types of more conventional modular housing. Because the modules are large and expensive to transport, manufacturers need to be in regional proximity to the building site, thus limiting the availability of this type of prefab. Another factor limiting the geographic reach of volumetric prefab is variability in state inspection processes and building codes. Because wall cavities are sealed, inspections must take place at the factory where certified inspectors can perform the task. The architecture firm Marmol Radziner has taken the next step by incorporating the manufacturing process under their direct supervision and control by building their steel-framed modules in their own factory near downtown Los Angeles. With extensive experience in custom design-build work, they have integrated the various aspects of the residential building process, from design and manufacturing to assembly and site preparation. Their website takes its cues from those of automotive companies, allowing users to select from base models and see finish choices and choose upgrades while automatically updating the price. Although it may take years to fully establish the manufacturing processes for a particular prefab home, or months waiting in the queue for fabrication, a fully formed house on an empty lot can be erected in a matter of hours.

The Modernist prefab is also premised on some deeply held beliefs about rationalizing the often chaotic and ad-hoc nature of residential building construction itself. Practically anyone involved in home construction or renovation projects has experienced first-hand the harried conditions and unpredictable nature of what is the equivalent of a handcrafted, albeit large, one-off. The modern prefab quest is not only about how and where the pieces of the house are assembled (on-site versus off-site), but also the efficiency and standardization of the constituent parts (modular versus customized). The development of the prefabricated kit home, such as the more than 100,000 units sold by Sears, Roebuck and Co. between 1908 and1940—making it perhaps the most commercially successful prefab line—was an attempt at packaging the myriad parts of a house in one conceptual box, although many such kits included an average of 30,000 parts. The overall perceptual clarity of a kit or packaged house from the homebuyer’s standpoint often outweighs the intrinsic complexity confronting the myriad components necessary for building it. By contrast, Rocio Romero’s LV Home (2003) featured in the exhibition offers kit homes of varying square footage that provide only the most critical components necessary for realization of its unique design, including a complete set of drawings, details, window and door schedules, as well as materials such as exterior wall panels, roofing, and cladding. Items such as kitchen cabinets, flooring, and interior walls are left to the buyer or subcontractors to complete. By segregating those aspects of the house that are more readily available and whose processes have been, for most part, refined over the years, Romero is able to provide buyers with a more cost-effective solution. The kit home, including Romero’s, is often purchased by owners—do-it-yourself, home improvement, weekend warriors, willing to participate in the construction process and acting as general contractor. This contribution of “sweat equity” often substantially lowers the final construction cost.

The quest for the modern prefab house has also been an extension of a rationalist desire for systematic efficiency and consistency. Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer articulated their “Building Blocks” approach, a standardized system for housing, as early as 1923. Six years later Buckminster Fuller presented an early concept for his Dymaxion House at Chicago’s Marshall Fields department store to large crowds of the curious public—a prescient glimpse of the current phenomena of prefab interest on the part of architects, developers, media, and of course, potential homebuyers. Fuller’s design claimed a number of efficiencies: that its parts could fit into the tube of its central mast, the efficacy of its heating and passive cooling systems, and the spatial efficiency of its spherical form. Walter Gropius and Konrad Wachsmann’s Packaged House (1942) by General Panel Company was an early attempt at a rigorously conceived system. Despite governmental support and financial backing, however, few houses were produced. In his book, The Prefabricated Home, Colin Davies locates this failure in actual production with Wachsmann’s obsession with perfecting his universal system: “It was enough for Wachsmann that the Packaged House had become possible. His satisfaction came not from the production of thousands of houses or the alleviation of a housing crisis, or even from the financial rewards that commercial success would bring; it came from the design of a perfect abstract system.”

Customization in the prefab process can happen at a number of levels, from simply choosing interior finishes for surfaces to configuring floorplans based on programmatic uses to the selection of roof type. In the exhibition, Pinc House, a company based in Stockholm, offers a different kind of market choice. The vast majority of Swedish houses are prefabricated and residential design is dominated by pattern books and catalogues with conventional housing choices. The residential markets of Sweden and the United States suffer from the same lack of alternatives, although each market reality is dominated by different construction methodologies. By identifying a market demand for alternative choices in dwellings, Pinc House’s Black Barn (2005)—reminiscent of a Viking long house with a black-stained exterior and white-washed interior—or its Sport series of prefabricated wood-clad weekend lake houses—caters to a smaller market of homebuyers that more readily identifies with the contemporary, amorphous notion of “lifestyle” over the expectations of what constitutes a proper house in that cultural context. Interestingly enough the idea of a black-stained house seems less of a marketing challenge in Sweden than it appears to be in the United States. Another niche, but fast-growing market, is the demand for “greener” houses. Michelle Kaufmann’s Sunset Breezehouse (2005) offers an array of ecologically sensitive features such as options for solar panels and standard items such as bamboo flooring, recycled paper and resin countertops, and low-volatile paint finishes, as well as the intrinsic advantages of its design that allows for easy cross-ventilation through retractable glass walls and a garden off of each room in the house.

Systematic modularity is at the heart of Lazor Office’s FlatPak (2004) house, displayed in the exhibition through full-size wall sections. Operating from the logic of an eight-foot grid, FlatPak is a panelized wall system that allows owners to choose among a variety of external material options: from clear and translucent glass to concrete and enameled steel panels to Douglas fir. The location of panels is determined by programmatic needs and site conditions. A range of interior wall panels banishes the specter of architecturally maligned “dry wall” or gypsum board. As a system FlatPak suggests an almost infinite range of possible configurations, although a series of three floorplans is currently offered by Empyrean Homes, the manufacturer of the house. Other versions of FlatPak have been created for specific clients on a case-by-case basis. This difference in offerings constitutes a schism in prefab itself, between off-the-shelf products and the oxymoronic concept of custom-built prefab. This approach is exemplified by Resolution: 4 Architecture’s “modern modular” typologies, a series of differently shaped modules that can be configured in numerous ways, responding to a range of site and program conditions—from suburban lots to waterfront property. Born in the age of computer-aided design, these modular components are built in a factory and assembled on site. This highly variable approach thus must confront the efficiencies of the assembly line. Although some robotic factories exist in Japan to automate the production of houses, the U.S. market still relies on the efficiency created by repetitive human labor. It is not so much the different, specific tasks that are the problem as much as it is the creation of only one such unit in a factory run. Developments such as Computer Numerically Controlled (CNC) milling of products and manufacturing has addressed some of these issues in mass customization, whereby production is controlled by machines capable of executing variable details rapidly and in large quantities. Steven Holl Architects employed a variant of this method in the creation of Turbulence House (2005), a “one-off” prefab guest residence situated in New Mexico. The shell of the house was formed by joining twenty-four differently shaped metal panels that were cut by a CNC device in a factory and then assembled on site using traditional methods. The potential of mass-customization offers a merger between the specificity of the architect-designed, custom-built home and the control and efficiencies of a factory-produced house.

“Just like our cars, our dwellings will be factory produced within the foreseeable future.”// —Theo Van Doesberg, 1926

The prefabricated house, long sought after and seldom realized, has been a persistent theme in twentieth-century architecture, a quest haunting the pages of architectural history books. “Prefab” has been described, often derisively, as Modern architecture’s “oldest new idea.” In its Modernist guise the concept of the prefabricated house was foreseen as the natural and logical consequence of industrialization itself, but was always destined to be the next beneficiary of the assembly line. As early as 1919 Le Corbusier had written about “mass-production houses,” which he believed should follow the modern production logic of automobiles, airplanes, and ships—an extension of his understanding of the modern house as a kind of “machine for living.” The automobile, the ultimate product of the modern assembly line, became the dominant metaphor for the mass-produced house. Indeed, General Houses Corporation, whose name was evocative of automotive giant General Motors, introduced a pressed-steel panel house in 1932. Beginning in the late 1920s Buckminster Fuller applied his “dymaxion” (dynamic maximum tension) concepts to both a round, metal prefabricated house and a three-wheeled, aerodynamically shaped automobile, although both remained essentially concepts at the prototype stage.

The immediate post-World War II period saw a dramatic increase the number of prefab efforts, which were often subsidized by the federal government as an expedient way of alleviating the nation’s housing shortages and as a method of converting factories from wartime to peacetime production. For example, the Vultex Aircraft Company commissioned industrial designer Henry Dreyfus and architect Edward Larrabee Barnes to design a prefabricated house (1946), which utilized large, factory-made, paper core wall panels sheathed in aluminum that were erected on site. Despite the fact that there were nearly three hundred prefabricated homebuilders by 1946, their combined output accounted for only a small percentage of new house construction. The reasons for this limited production are as unique and varied as the projects themselves: in general, some designs never made it past the prototype stage, some were too unconventional for mainstream markets, while still others required prohibitively expensive capital investments for full factory production. More significantly, assembly-line methods for on-site construction dramatically increased the number and speed of conventional house construction. The striking efficiency of this approach could be seen in the construction of Levittown—where the correct quantity of materials for each house was distributed lot-by- lot and built by teams of workers—effectively duplicated the basic premise of the assembly line stretched across the landscape. William J. Levitt boasted that he could build a house every fifteen minutes at the height of production at his eponymous Long Island development, where more than 17,000 houses were constructed between 1947 and 1951.

The house, despite its size and complexity, became an ideal candidate for experiments in mass production. Plagued by weather delays, varied abilities of and access to skilled labor, conflicting subcontracting schedules, and wasted and inefficient use of materials, the conventionally built home seems to be a perfect product for industrial production. In fact, the evolution of the house can be seen as a study in the increasing use of prefabrication to produce its many parts—components such as wood framing, doors, windows, trusses, walls, trim, and so on. In fact, most of today’s production houses are to a certain extent prefabricated ones, even if they are thought of as primarily “stick-built” at the building site. But shifting the location of assembly from the building site to the factory was not just a change of venue but also one of attitudes undermining one of architecture’s long-held principles, the uniqueness of structure to site. Unlike the automobile, which was an entirely new technological invention, the construction of a house has a long history and geographically specific traditions making it highly resistant to new forms of industrial transformation. Despite these historical constraints and the hit-or-miss nature of modern prefab efforts, the factory production of houses, whether designed with architects or not, was inevitable. In fact, the modular construction industry (the moniker for prefab) has existed for many decades, producing both residential and commercial structures in more traditional styles—everything from Lindal Cedar Homes to Butler Buildings.

The amount of assembly performed at the building site as well as the degree to which the various components are designed as part of a larger system are the primary criteria used to decide whether a house can be considered prefabricated. In the context of this exhibition, Some Assembly Required, prefabrication is defined as the difference between a unique, custom-designed and essentially site-assembled home at one end and a pre-existing design for a factory-produced house on the other. Occupying this spectrum are three types of prefab construction, progressing from the least amount of pre-assembled pieces to the most: the kit home, the panelized house, and the volumetric module.

The volumetric module could be mostly easily compared to the way the automobile arrives at the end of the line assembled and ready to drive. The ultimate dream of the factory-made house is similar to the car as a holistic entity, complete with a finished interior ready for occupancy. This level of completeness has been only fully realized in the mobile home and recreational vehicle, two industries that are frequently conflated with prefabricated housing. That confusion has in fact contributed to negative impressions about prefabricated houses as synonymous with “trailer homes.” In 1980 the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which governs such code requirements, officially changed the nomenclature from “mobile home” to “manufactured housing,” since few such homes were actually mobile. However, modular, not manufactured housing is the term used to describe prefabricated housing. Whether mobile homes or prefab houses, the shipment of such large volumes was constrained by the infrastructure that was needed to transport them. Efforts such as the all-enameled steel Lustron homes (1948-1950) created by industrialist Carl Strandlund were produced under one roof in a very large factory in Ohio, but still arrived at the site as a series of many, perhaps too many, parts. A special truck was created to haul the nearly twelve tons of steel parts for each house. Beginning in the 1950s, the introduction of the interstate highway system brought with it, the standardization of the trucking industry. The creation of more uniform roadways enabled the shipment of larger, factory-finished modules. Even with these accommodations, modules must be dimensioned to fit the width and height restrictions of roadways, and are therefore often connected to each other at the site to create larger living spaces. This assembly process only requires finishing work such as the elimination of floor, ceiling, and wall seams, as well as the installation of appliances and utilities, although most units are shipped with complete interiors, including paint, finishes, and millwork.

The closest contemporary versions of the single-volume, finished prefab are smaller structures such as Loftcube (2004/2006), a rooftop module designed by Werner Aisslinger, various converted shipping container schemes like LOT-EK’s MDU (Mobile Dwelling Unit, 2003), and Wes Jones’s Technological Cabins series (1995). Others such as those in the exhibition— Michelle Kaufmann’s Glidehouse (2004) and Sunset Breezehouse (2005), and Alchemy Architect’s weeHouses (2003)—are perhaps the closest realization to the factory-built house. These architect-designed prefabs are produced in factories that also make other types of more conventional modular housing. Because the modules are large and expensive to transport, manufacturers need to be in regional proximity to the building site, thus limiting the availability of this type of prefab. Another factor limiting the geographic reach of volumetric prefab is variability in state inspection processes and building codes. Because wall cavities are sealed, inspections must take place at the factory where certified inspectors can perform the task. The architecture firm Marmol Radziner has taken the next step by incorporating the manufacturing process under their direct supervision and control by building their steel-framed modules in their own factory near downtown Los Angeles. With extensive experience in custom design-build work, they have integrated the various aspects of the residential building process, from design and manufacturing to assembly and site preparation. Their website takes its cues from those of automotive companies, allowing users to select from base models and see finish choices and choose upgrades while automatically updating the price. Although it may take years to fully establish the manufacturing processes for a particular prefab home, or months waiting in the queue for fabrication, a fully formed house on an empty lot can be erected in a matter of hours.

The Modernist prefab is also premised on some deeply held beliefs about rationalizing the often chaotic and ad-hoc nature of residential building construction itself. Practically anyone involved in home construction or renovation projects has experienced first-hand the harried conditions and unpredictable nature of what is the equivalent of a handcrafted, albeit large, one-off. The modern prefab quest is not only about how and where the pieces of the house are assembled (on-site versus off-site), but also the efficiency and standardization of the constituent parts (modular versus customized). The development of the prefabricated kit home, such as the more than 100,000 units sold by Sears, Roebuck and Co. between 1908 and1940—making it perhaps the most commercially successful prefab line—was an attempt at packaging the myriad parts of a house in one conceptual box, although many such kits included an average of 30,000 parts. The overall perceptual clarity of a kit or packaged house from the homebuyer’s standpoint often outweighs the intrinsic complexity confronting the myriad components necessary for building it. By contrast, Rocio Romero’s LV Home (2003) featured in the exhibition offers kit homes of varying square footage that provide only the most critical components necessary for realization of its unique design, including a complete set of drawings, details, window and door schedules, as well as materials such as exterior wall panels, roofing, and cladding. Items such as kitchen cabinets, flooring, and interior walls are left to the buyer or subcontractors to complete. By segregating those aspects of the house that are more readily available and whose processes have been, for most part, refined over the years, Romero is able to provide buyers with a more cost-effective solution. The kit home, including Romero’s, is often purchased by owners—do-it-yourself, home improvement, weekend warriors, willing to participate in the construction process and acting as general contractor. This contribution of “sweat equity” often substantially lowers the final construction cost.

The quest for the modern prefab house has also been an extension of a rationalist desire for systematic efficiency and consistency. Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer articulated their “Building Blocks” approach, a standardized system for housing, as early as 1923. Six years later Buckminster Fuller presented an early concept for his Dymaxion House at Chicago’s Marshall Fields department store to large crowds of the curious public—a prescient glimpse of the current phenomena of prefab interest on the part of architects, developers, media, and of course, potential homebuyers. Fuller’s design claimed a number of efficiencies: that its parts could fit into the tube of its central mast, the efficacy of its heating and passive cooling systems, and the spatial efficiency of its spherical form. Walter Gropius and Konrad Wachsmann’s Packaged House (1942) by General Panel Company was an early attempt at a rigorously conceived system. Despite governmental support and financial backing, however, few houses were produced. In his book, The Prefabricated Home, Colin Davies locates this failure in actual production with Wachsmann’s obsession with perfecting his universal system: “It was enough for Wachsmann that the Packaged House had become possible. His satisfaction came not from the production of thousands of houses or the alleviation of a housing crisis, or even from the financial rewards that commercial success would bring; it came from the design of a perfect abstract system.”

While today’s prefab lacks the dramatic obsession and control exercised by Wachsmann, it does nevertheless confront the opposite problem of how much flexibility can be handled in systems of mass production. At first glance this would seem to cut against the grain of prefab, after all prefab is synonymous with uniformity. The greatest efficiencies are created by limiting choices and variations in the manufacturing process. The initial success of Henry Ford’s Model T was its utter restrictive predictability. Of course, competitors would soon offer customers more choices, allowing them to “personalize” their purchase, overturning Ford’s dominance in the automobile industry. Even early prefab offered customers some choices, such as the aforementioned Lustron homes, which were offered in a range of color choices, not unlike choosing a car color.

Customization in the prefab process can happen at a number of levels, from simply choosing interior finishes for surfaces to configuring floorplans based on programmatic uses to the selection of roof type. In the exhibition, Pinc House, a company based in Stockholm, offers a different kind of market choice. The vast majority of Swedish houses are prefabricated and residential design is dominated by pattern books and catalogues with conventional housing choices. The residential markets of Sweden and the United States suffer from the same lack of alternatives, although each market reality is dominated by different construction methodologies. By identifying a market demand for alternative choices in dwellings, Pinc House’s Black Barn (2005)—reminiscent of a Viking long house with a black-stained exterior and white-washed interior—or its Sport series of prefabricated wood-clad weekend lake houses—caters to a smaller market of homebuyers that more readily identifies with the contemporary, amorphous notion of “lifestyle” over the expectations of what constitutes a proper house in that cultural context. Interestingly enough the idea of a black-stained house seems less of a marketing challenge in Sweden than it appears to be in the United States. Another niche, but fast-growing market, is the demand for “greener” houses. Michelle Kaufmann’s Sunset Breezehouse (2005) offers an array of ecologically sensitive features such as options for solar panels and standard items such as bamboo flooring, recycled paper and resin countertops, and low-volatile paint finishes, as well as the intrinsic advantages of its design that allows for easy cross-ventilation through retractable glass walls and a garden off of each room in the house.

Systematic modularity is at the heart of Lazor Office’s FlatPak (2004) house, displayed in the exhibition through full-size wall sections. Operating from the logic of an eight-foot grid, FlatPak is a panelized wall system that allows owners to choose among a variety of external material options: from clear and translucent glass to concrete and enameled steel panels to Douglas fir. The location of panels is determined by programmatic needs and site conditions. A range of interior wall panels banishes the specter of architecturally maligned “dry wall” or gypsum board. As a system FlatPak suggests an almost infinite range of possible configurations, although a series of three floorplans is currently offered by Empyrean Homes, the manufacturer of the house. Other versions of FlatPak have been created for specific clients on a case-by-case basis. This difference in offerings constitutes a schism in prefab itself, between off-the-shelf products and the oxymoronic concept of custom-built prefab. This approach is exemplified by Resolution: 4 Architecture’s “modern modular” typologies, a series of differently shaped modules that can be configured in numerous ways, responding to a range of site and program conditions—from suburban lots to waterfront property. Born in the age of computer-aided design, these modular components are built in a factory and assembled on site. This highly variable approach thus must confront the efficiencies of the assembly line. Although some robotic factories exist in Japan to automate the production of houses, the U.S. market still relies on the efficiency created by repetitive human labor. It is not so much the different, specific tasks that are the problem as much as it is the creation of only one such unit in a factory run. Developments such as Computer Numerically Controlled (CNC) milling of products and manufacturing has addressed some of these issues in mass customization, whereby production is controlled by machines capable of executing variable details rapidly and in large quantities. Steven Holl Architects employed a variant of this method in the creation of Turbulence House (2005), a “one-off” prefab guest residence situated in New Mexico. The shell of the house was formed by joining twenty-four differently shaped metal panels that were cut by a CNC device in a factory and then assembled on site using traditional methods. The potential of mass-customization offers a merger between the specificity of the architect-designed, custom-built home and the control and efficiencies of a factory-produced house.

Today’s modern prefab, is not reducible to a uniform aesthetic criteria or a predictable material palette. There are, of course, similarities and generalities that can be seen in the current offerings: a penchant for minimal rooflines, large expanses of glass, and a range of finish options. Although today’s projects share the optimism of postwar prefab, they lack the totalizing vision and utopian ambitions of some of their predecessors. It is a much more contingent affair, with production expressed in tactical terms: How much customization can exist without sacrificing the efficiencies of mass production? What kind of domestic lifestyle is suggested and supported by this house if the typical single-family home created by the post-war suburb is no longer a given? Even the simple but seemingly heretical idea of architecture as a mass produced product is a decidedly different orientation for architects. However, contemporary prefab could be considered one more way for architectural design to reenter the residential market—an arena in which ninety percent of what is built does not involve an architect. Can prefab offer more ecologically sensitive solutions that are missing in more mainstream housing segments? More importantly, how does one judge the success or failure of recent prefab efforts?

There are literally hundreds of prefab concepts, which exist as readily as computer renderings are producible. In this realm, the existence of a built prototype and units in production become useful indicators of progress. However, the combined output of all the projects in this exhibition is minute compared to the total number of conventional new house constructions. Is it realistic to expect a competitive number of prefab units, much less from modern-style prefab? While the postwar search for a modern prefab house was predicated on fulfilling an entire nation’s housing shortage or the transformation of the vast residential construction industry, the contemporary quest is currently a niche market with more modest ambitions. Developers can play an important role in expanding the use of prefab houses, not only because they deal in larger quantities of housing stock but also because they can more easily provide the land, which is the crucial missing link for most potential clients for prefab houses. Cost continues to be the primary judge in determining the relevancy of prefab despite the difficulties of cost-per-square foot comparisons. How is time saved or material waste reduction in the prefab process incorporated into such analyses? Ultimately, the Darwinian principles of the market decide the fate of prefab— as it has in the past and will no doubt continue to do so. So too with the other more philosophical questions affecting the place of prefab in the context of architectural history and practice, and these too will be decided, in time.

Andrew Blauvelt, Exhibition Curator, Walker Art Center