The Creation of the House

Judith Flanders, a historian and bestselling author on Victorian buildings and Victorian cities, reflects on the changes that the house and the very concept of it have undergone over the last 500 years. Using examples from Europe and America, the author traces how, gradually improving their dwellings, people accumulated more and more items and finally arrived at the houses in which our contemporaries live, with their various characteristics. Along the "path" from the 16th to the 21st century, Flanders vividly and engagingly tells the story of when and how the first tables, chairs, and toilets appeared, where beds originally "lived," and why people introduced curtains and tablecloths into everyday life, as well as many other household items. The author pays special attention to how marriages were arranged and family relationships were built, how children were raised, and what they were dressed in. The main idea of the author is that the house is a completely special, separate place where we belong only to ourselves and can be only ourselves.