11
The Prefabulous Forties
The size of the market is what promoted the
large-scale manufacture of the automobile, and in turn permitted the kind of tooling and productive processes that enabled the American automobile manufacturer to 2
make high-value cars at a relatively low cost. The same population that was financing the rise of the automotive industry was also in the market for homes. Designers and industrialists quickly began to explore the potential of the automobile manufacturing model to be applied to home
Notes 2 Franklin M. Reck, A Car-Traveling People: How the Automobile Has Changed the Life of Americans - A Study of Social Effects. (Detroit: Automobile Manufacturers Association, 1955), 46.
production as well.
Several prototypes for prefabricated housing,
such as Buckminster Fuller’s 1927 Dymaxion House, were introduced to the public before the war. Housing production in the 30’s was low however, and these prototypes were too expensive to produce as it was not feasible to manufacture them in a number large enough to benefit from mass-production. The marketing of early prefab prototypes was successful however, and was remembered by designers and homebuyers alike when demand for housing soared to unprecedented heights