Witold Rybczynski Visits MoMA's "Home Delivery" Exhibition
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 08.13.08
Architectural writer and teacher does one of his great slide shows of his visit to "Home Delivery," the prefab show at the Museum of Modern Art. He writes, "Prefabricated houses have remained an elusive goal for architects, and the MoMA show is a stylish litany of second-place finishers, also-rans, if-onlys, and downright losers."
Good eye candy at ::Slate
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I went to see this show a couple weeks ago. For the most part it was nice to see some cool architectural ideas. The interiors of the buildings were super simple with the basic "idea" of how things would look. Most of them had nearly nothing inside or wood areas that gave the idea of where a bed might be. There was little to no explanation of inside systems, only a plaque out front that gave an overview of the construction material. I'm glad to see a show like this and it is nice to see ideas that might lead to something more sustainable and low impact.
I see these pre-fabricated houses here, all the time.
but I don't see how they are good for the environment.
They are definitely very pretty..but the cost of making them at the price they are.. seems very detrimental..
Manufacturing -which might be efficient if done in mass.. is not an advantage with these homes-- since they are custom designs...
None of them seemed practical in any sense...
I too saw this exhibition. Good intentions, and very good historical documentation, but when it comes to the current surge in pre-fab- they just did not get it. Many of the drawings of pre-fab designs came with the caveat- "Not realized/never built" And, of course, there was a reason why they were not built, they were just bad ideas. Why waste MOMA space for a inconsequential detour in the quest for pre-fab? The models (some full size) were pretty lame as well (I certainly would not want to live in one)
And, of course, they did not even put my pre-fab treehouse (the hooch) as part of the mix- even though It has well over 2 dozen successful plantings on this earth- and they all still exist! Hmmmm....
www.tropical-treehouse.com