House & Home:
Four Hundred Years of
American Domesticity
National Building Museum
2012–ongoing
Co-curated with Thomas Mellins.
House & Home was a tour through the varied and rich history of residential architecture in America. The exhibition was a multilayered display of photographs, objects, models, and films that reveals American domestic life over four centuries. The exhibition explored changes in architecture, building construction, appliances, financing, community building, and the myriad ways that American homes have expressed both personal and national identity.
The project was launched and partially funded with National Endowment for the Humanities grants written by Mr. Albrecht and Mr. Mellins. They later worked with museum staff to select the exhibition’s artifacts and media presentations and to complete exhibition text.
Voted one of the 10 best exhibitions of the year by the Washington Post.
Press
“In photographs, films, models, timelines and nearly 200 artifacts (including a pink flamingo lawn ornament, a tortilla press, an early Apple home computer and a vibrator from the 1920s), all spread among six galleries, the show gamely asks some of the big questions….”
Penelope Green, New York Times, May 2, 2012
Credits
Co-curators: Thomas Mellins with Sarah Leavitt
Exhibition Design: Ralph Appelbaum and Associates
Photographs courtesy National Building Museum
