Instant Houses, Then and Now

By Nicolai Ouroussoff

The idea of a well-oiled assembly line churning out gleaming and affordable new houses, flooded with light and as compact as a ship’s cabin, is a well-worn Modernist fable.

For the average middle-class American, however, prefabricated housing has always lacked sex appeal. The masses tended to prefer a traditional style, no matter how shabbily designed, and never really bought into it. Nor did most of the industrialist tycoons with the money to make the dream real.

So “Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling,” which opens on Sunday at the Museum of Modern Art, is a delightful surprise. Organized by Barry Bergdoll, MoMA’s chief curator of architecture and design, it presents more than 80 projects, from humble experiments in suburban living to stunning works of creative imagination. In a tour de force Mr. Bergdoll was able to build five full-scale model houses for the show in a lot just west of the museum. The effect is startling: expressions of a suburban utopian world surrounded by Midtown’s looming skyscrapers.