Table Of ContentPrivate Dwelling
What do housing professionals, architects, estate agents and town planners do
when they go home at night? Presumably they do the same as the rest of the
population. They indulge in that ubiquitous and unique activity called dwelling.
They use the housing planned, designed, managed, bought and sold by
professionals for uses specific to themselves: and while they are doing it, so is
everybody else.
Housing is something that is deeply personal to us. It offers us privacy and
security and allows us to be intimate with those we are close to. This book considers
the nature of privacy but also how we choose to share our dwelling. The book
discusses the manner in which we talk about our housing, how it manifests and
assuages our anxieties and desires and how it helps us come to terms with loss.
Private Dwelling offers a deeply original take on housing. The book proceeds
through a series of speculations, using philosophical analysis and critique, the
use of personal anecdote, film criticism, social and cultural theory and policy
analysis to unpick the subjective nature of housing as a personal place where we
can be sure of ourselves. The book will be of interest to students, academics and
researchers in housing, architecture, and planning as well as social theory and
philosophy.
Peter King is a pioneer in the area of social philosophy and housing. His main
research interest has been to differentiate how housing is used at the individual
level from the manner in which it is perceived as a social or collective entity. He
is the author of five previous books, which explore various aspects of housing,
including A Social Philosophy of Housing (2003). He is a Reader in Housing and
Social Philosophy at the Centre for Comparative Housing Research, De Montfort
University.
Housing, Planning and Design Series
Editors: Nick Gallent and Mark Tewdwr-Jones,
The Bartlett School of Planning, UCL
This series addresses critical issues affecting the delivery of the right type of
housing, of sufficient quantity and quality, in the most sustainable locations, and
the linkages that bind together issues relating to planning, housing and design.
Titles examine a variety of institutional perspectives, examining the roles of
different agencies and sectors in delivering better quality housing together with
the process of delivery – from policy development, through general strategy to
implementation. Other titles will focus on housing management and devlopment,
housing strategy and planning policy, housing needs and community participation.
Housing in the European Countryside
Edited by Nick Gallent, Mark Shucksmith and Mark Tewdwr-Jones
Housing Development: Theory, Process and Practice
Edited by Andrew Golland and Ron Blake
Private Dwelling: Contemplating the Use of Housing
Peter King
Forthcoming:
Decent Homes For All
Nick Gallent and Mark Tewdwr-Jones
Rural Housing Policy
Tim Brown and Nicola Yates
International Perspectives on Rural Homelessness
Edited by Paul Milbourne and Paul Cloke
Private Dwelling
Contemplating the use of housing
Peter King
First published 2004
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxfordshire OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004.
© 2004 Peter King
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
King, Peter, 1960–
Private dwelling : speculations on the use of housing / Peter King.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Housing. 2. Housing–Psychological aspects.
3. Functionalism (Social sciences) I. Title.
HD7287.K559 2004
363.5–dc22 2004001851
ISBN 0-203-42140-X Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-68074-X (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0–415–33620–1 (hbk)
ISBN 0–415–33621–X (pbk)
ISBN 0–415–42140–X (e-book)
To no. 78 and its contents
Contents vii
Contents
Preface and acknowledgements ix
Introduction: Looking out and looking in 1
1 What is dwelling? 17
2 Privacy: when dwelling closes in on itself 37
3 A brick box or a velvet case? 59
4 Talking about houses 77
5 Ripples: sharing, learning, reaching out 97
6 Want it, have it! 115
7 Fear and the comfort of the mundane 129
8 Loss 151
Conclusions: The stopping place 171
Notes 181
Bibliography 189
Filmography 192
Index 193
viii Contents
Preface and acknowledgements ix
Preface and acknowledgements
One of my obsessions has been to state, over and over again, that housing is
a means rather than an end in itself. By this I mean that housing is something
that we use rather than just have: its importance is that it allows us to do
other things. This simple fact, which we all implicitly accept in our daily lives,
is all too frequently forgotten when housing comes to be discussed by
academics, commentators and policy makers. There is just far too much
emphasis on the production and consumption of brick boxes, and not enough
appreciation of what we need them for.
Of course, one of the main problems in developing such an appreciation
is that much of what we do in our little brick boxes we seek to keep private,
and we want to share it only with those we know well. What goes on behind
closed doors is really not a matter for public observation. But this does not
mean it is not significant or important, merely that it is not to be shared with
those we do not know or care for. Just because we cannot see something does
not mean it is not there, nor that it is not of considerable import. And we
know this precisely because we all experience it as such. We all have ends and
interests that we have chosen, as individuals, as couples, or as families. We
make use of our housing in order to achieve these ends. Housing can therefore
be seen as a tool, albeit a complex and expensive one.
Having been obsessed by this simple idea, and frustrated that it appears
to be beyond (or beneath)1 the understanding of many, I decided to set about
exploring what it actually means to use our housing: what do we use it for or to
do, and therefore why is it so important to us? In doing so, I hoped to point
out just what it is that other thinkers have been missing. The result of this is the
speculations that follow. I have tried to consider some of the important aspects
about housing, or what I have termed private dwelling. I have looked at the
importance of privacy, how we describe our dwelling, how we share it, and
how it is created and modified by desire, anxiety and loss. This is not a complete
picture, merely a start, and many may disagree with my choice of topics.
What has conditioned my choice of topics for these speculations is the
method I have adopted in exploring them. Many people who I have spoken
