Styles
(2006) on lodging-houses, the homes of the poor and evidence for them Exercise 3.5.3
I want to use this exercise to reflect again on different
kinds of evidence in architectural history. Linked to this is the ever-present
concentration on ‘thing theory’ and materiality in the literature. This is
something we need to come to terms with, since the issue about the definition
of things, objects and commodification and mass-production are all interlinked
but I still really only have the pointers from the course on this and may need
more reading.
In its portrayal of work on interiors this section has
concentrated on ‘probate inventories’ as evidence of the materials in which we
see, often though in list-form rather than ordered as an appearance, which they
also were, the home-interiors of the rich and ‘middling’ (that horrible vague
word. There is important evidence taken on the importance of a population of
single women on p. 11 (original 70).
The persons dealt with by styles own nothing, rent (by
choice it is somewhere naively said). The whole issue seems to be that the role
of CHOICE and agency raised by probate inventories in the life of the rich can’t
be applicable to this class in which choice of accommodation was limited by
income and unmet needs raised by a way of living they would not have chosen
anyway. Now too things can’t be presumed to be owned by these persons. We move
from probate inventories to police inventories related to theft. Here an issue
rises between the ownership of things between tenant lodger and landlord.
Very interesting data is raised in comparing these
inventories in changes of the relative importance to owners, tenants and
criminals of item types – linen staying stable in importance (with good critical-caveats)
but the importance of metalwork things, often utilitarian rising). The
reflection on this evidence comes on p. 10 (original 69).
