8 The Mass-produced Interior
The lack of standards in the design of apartments is also a hindrance for
the rationalizing of the building trade... For rationalization must be
based on standardization – as in other spheres of production, the motor-
car industry for example.
Stig Lindegren^1Together the processes of industrialization, rationalization and standard-
ization, all of which had their origins in the world of work and produc-
tion, defined modernization.^2 As we have seen their impact was felt not
only in the spaces within factories and offices but also in those in the
modern home. While industrialization increased the availability of fash-
ionable goods destined for the domestic arena, rationalization radically
changed the nature of spaces in the home, firstly in those areas dedicated
to work but quickly afterwards in others as well. Standardization also
found its way into the domestic arena, both through the mass-produced
objects that filled its interiors and through the idea of the standardized,
minimal interior.
For Modernist architects, whose thoughts and actions were driven
by a desire to democratize design, standardization was hugely important.
The idea that objects could, and should, be cheaply mass produced as
exact replicas of each other, with interchangeable components, had its
origins in American arms manufacturing where the development of
standardized parts had ensured that guns could be repaired easily. The
principle was subsequently transferred by Henry Ford into automobile
manufacture. The 1925 image overleaf of the production line in Ford’s
Louisville factory depicts the end of the assembly process when the body
and chassis come together. The factory workers are checking the last
details of the fully assembled, standardized automobiles. Standardization
required the existence of a ‘model’ or ‘prototype’ that was subsequently
replicated. For ease of assembly, distribution and repair all the constituent
elements of mass-produced objects had to be exact replicas of each other.
The same principles also influenced the development of the modern inter -
ior. The effect was a further erosion of the separation between the spheres
and a confirmation of the Modernists’ desire to minimize the presence of 147