From Function to Fantasy in the New American Home

In this paper, I describe one dimension of the semiotic space constituting “the home.” Using the case of a prominent annual show home in the United States—The New American Home—I reveal the centrality of a Real/Ideal dichotomy in the cultural meanings deployed by homebuilders as they explain their construction decisions. Over time, shifting priorities among the builders of The New American Home lead to increasing reliance on Ideal meanings of the home and result in dramatic material changes in the annual show home. Taking advantage of both textual and visual data, I describe how homebuilders use cultural meanings to explain their actions and instantiate these meanings in the houses they build. In doing so, I identify an important underlying meaning structure describing the home, and shed light on how semiotic codes are translated into material objects.