1. I am grateful to Hilde Heynen for her invitation to participate in the 'Architecture, Gender and Domesticity' colloquium and her exemplary critique - Architecture and Modernity (MIT Press, 1999) - that have been important motivators in revising my ideas concerning questions of identity in the interpretation of domestic design. I do, however, take full responsibility for the rather tentative 'conclusion' to this essay, maybe more accurately described as a starting point for a new direction in my continuing study of the social meanings of the home interior.
2. The current Labour government is still trying to buildin Aneurin Bevan's ideal 'living tapestry of a mixed community' through current planning policy by inserting an element of so-called 'affordable housing' in every private housing development even though the desired effect is not reflected in reality. A. Minton 'Utopia Street' in Guardian Society, 27 March, 2002, pp. 10-11.
3. The term 'free' plan derives from Le Corbusier's theory. See R Boudon Lived-in Architecture: Le Corbusier's Pessac revisited (London, Lund Humphries [1969], 1972), pp. 123-4.
4. It is significant that many reforming ideas on changing the status of interior domestic space have emanated from feminist research. See J. Rothschild, Design and Feminism, ibid.
5. J.Attfield, 'Pram town', op. cit.', D. Miller 'Appropriating the state on the council estate' in T Putnam & C. Newton (eds.) Household Choices (London, Futures, 1990), pp. 43-55.