ABSTRACT
Since 1908, London has hosted the Daily Mail sponsored Ideal Home Exhibition. While the exhibition has changed a great deal since its early years, it remains an occasion where people can go along and find out what the latest fashions are in domestic architecture, interior design and house furnishing, and see on display all of the latest labour saving gadgets. From a sociological point of view, the Ideal Home Exhibition provides interesting insights into the way that big companies attempt to persuade show visitors to subscribe to a particular model of the ideal home. As the purpose of this book is to explore the way that the ideal home is imagined, as well as the way that it is actually lived, this exhibition proves a unique model of the home as it has been popularly imaged and idealised in society. Not only does it reflect popular representations of the ideal home, but also it attempts to project the way that it should develop so that people can live ideal lives. By definition, this means that the exhibition organisers need to sow a seed of doubt in the minds of visitors about their quality of life in their current homes. This was achieved at the 1995 Ideal Home Exhibition by the principal feature, entitled 'Yesterday's Homes', which presented to the public a mock-up terrace of four houses which were constructed to depict the changing design of housing across the twentieth century.
