Yo, homes

If I were a deconstructionist (my license expired) I'd write a book about the changing conception of the "Home of the Future" over the last century--with special emphasis, of course, on malignant consumerist-corporate control of the mass idea of "the home" "the future," and blah blah oink.

But I'm not. The only reason I mention it is that the Rocky touts a Home of the Future today, bulleting, among other wondrous features:

• Digital photos can be downloaded to a media server, then immediately viewed on touch screen panels in each room or computers throughout the house.

• The touch screens throughout the house display four TV channels at once, and viewers can touch one if they want it to fill the screen.

Whoa. Pretty boring. Again, I'm no deconstructionist, but for some reason earlier Homes of the Future had more oomph (the "Xanadu" more or less deconstructed itself), so I'll just post a few pics 'n' links of them and leave it at that.


Designed by eggheads: Behold Futuro! (1968)

A Disney HotF:


Cheesy: Famous mouse had hand innow-ubiquitous "cheesewheel" design.
Actually, Monsanto built the place (see "consumerist-corporate influences," above), so it's probably a toxic-waste dump now. I know I am. Disney made a film about the house. Haven't seen it, but I bet it's better than The Barefoot Executive.

Okay, here's one HotF that really did catch on:


House of the Future (1933) with now-standard personal aeroplane).

Styrofoam? No way!

Despite my earlier-expressed disdain for the Xanadu, I've got to admit: a styrofoam house is a styrofoam house. Here's a better picture of the Kissimmee Xanadu:






It's you: inside the Kissimmee Xanadu. Think the place squeaked when you walked around in it like styrofoam does when you pull it out of a box? That would get annoying.

This is my absolute fave: the cardboard house:


The D-blog has come close to living in a cardboard "house" before.Nothing anywhere near this fancy, though.
And just because I like the paper cutout people standing around drinking and ignoring each other, here's the "Treehouse of the Future."


(It's a model.)