ABSTRACT
It is seldom realized that retailing, and more particularly door-to-door delivery influenced not only the exterior characteristics of Dutch domestic architecture and its urban setting, but also the interior characteristics and ritual zoning of domestic space. Daily door-to-door delivery was the main provisioning system of Dutch households until the nation-wide emergence of supermarkets in the early 1960s. The predominance of apartment blocks in the new urban areas, especially of highrise housing blocks, with front doors arranged along narrow galleries proved to be a major stumbling block for home delivery of fresh food by among others the baker, the milkman and the greengrocer. In combination with the rival retail system of the supermarket, and the new societal trend of rising labour participation of young married women, the new domestic architecture was the deathblow to the traditional door-to-door delivery that had moulded Dutch domestic architecture for more than two centuries.
