House Housing shows that the inequalities of all types being discussed in the current US presidential campaign have been fundamental to the operation of real estate development for generations. Considering historical and contemporary cases, MAK and the Buell Center invited scholars and practitioners to discuss how we might reframe our understanding of the relationships between architecture, housing, and real estate in light of the inequalities they both produce and reflect.

At once vulnerable and inviolate, a disappearing architectural species and the most protected building type in the city, the single-family house continues to play an outsize role in debates over architecture, planning and growth in Los Angeles. Can the suburban house-and-garden model that has helped define Los Angeles for nearly a century — and given architects a place to try out their most innovative design experiments — be updated and improved to make it relevant to a denser region? Or is the single-family neighborhood destined to be preserved in amber, a once-important product of the L.A. growth machine now no more than a relic?