Exhibitions / 01

The right to an ordinary life

Housing, ownership and the promise of provision.

Original interpretive vector study. Not a reproduction of the museum object.

A door that should not depend on wealth

A dwelling is a condition for almost everything else: sleep, intimacy, care and the ability to plan a future. Socialist housing projects made a claim that these conditions should be shared more equally. Begin with Red Vienna, where municipal commitment took the form of homes and collective facilities. Then look at the kitchen and panel system as different answers to the work of providing a home.

Sharing things, sharing decisions

The Rochdale shop makes the question of ownership explicit. A customer can also become a member of the organisation providing everyday goods. Compare that relationship with a state housing programme. The comparison asks what forms of responsibility and voice each arrangement creates.

The room after the plan

A plan is a beginning, not the whole of a life. People furnish, repair, argue, care and remember. A history should defend material security while asking whether those who live inside an institution can also change it. Leave this room with both questions: who has a place, and who has a say?