Review: House

House by Tracy Kidder

I just finished reading House, a book written by Tracy Kidder about how a house gets built.  It’s not a recent book–it was published in 1985, with a reprinting in 1999.  In House, Kidder follows all parties involved in building a house in western Massachusetts–from the couple commissioning the home to the architect and builders that are also involved.  Along the way, Kidder gives enthralling descriptions of everything from how lumber is brought from tree to house, to how one particular building company creates bids and divvies up profits, to the history of the Greek Revival style in America.   My favorite aspect of reading House was probably just losing myself in Kidder’s poetic use of words.  For example, in the Wood chapter on page 125, Kidder describes an aspect of the tree as lumber:

Each time Alex slices the end off a two-by-ten, a whiff of the Big Woods comes out. The aroma hangs in the air all day. After a day of carrying the lumber here and there, the carpenters’ hands have grown sticky with pitch. It might be the blood you find in the cellophane package of a steak. The pitch reminds you that the wood came from something living. It would be easy otherwise to forget that lumber is a piece of tree, but the freeness of lumber is the salient fact about framing. It informs all of the accumulated wisdom and scientific data’ behind the lumber-grading books and building codes that speak to the issue of sturdiness in houses. A tree can grow tall, withstanding gravity and bending instead of breaking in the wind, because its fibers are very strong in compression and in tension. You can’t easily crush those fibers–shorten a piece of wood. And it’s even harder to pull a piece of wood apart along its grain. A proper frame for a house reproduces treeness. Studs standing vertically in a wall are trees in compression, withstanding gravity. The underpinnings of a floor–girders and joists laid horizontally on one edge–are trees in the wind as people walk over the floors above. A girder or a joist, properly laid out, will scarcely bend at all if it is as hefty as it ought to be, but it will bend a great deal before it breaks. Jim could have consulted his book of stress tables to learn the proper sizes for the pieces of the frame. This time, an engineer, hired by Bill, has already done most of that job for Jim.

One caveat is that this book might disillusion those that aren’t used to the hard and superficially cold culture of New England folks.  Some Amazon reviewers said this story put builders and architects in a bad light, but for people that have been in New England for a while, a little confrontation never meant any harm, and never left any bad feelings once everything was done.  If anything, the interactions felt milder than what I’d expect in home-building transaction, especially given the high level of professionalism among all parties.  Kidder does a fine job in teasing out the backgrounds of each of the parties, sometimes so honestly that I felt myself squirming on behalf of the subjects.  But the rich backgrounds really helped me to sympathize with all parties even during their disputes over contracts, style, and deadlines.

If you’re in the housing industry, or looking to build a house, I’d definitely recommend this book.  Kidder writes about ideals here, showing the dreams and ideals of carpenters who are truly artists, an architect who aspires to do things just right, and home owners who hope of setting down deep roots.

Other Reviews

Check out what some others have to say about House.  One reviewer on Amazon used this book in the classroom:

When I first read House I was enthralled. Finally, a book about the building of a house from inception to possession. I started to use excerpts from the book in my high school construction classes, and then bought 35 copies to use with my students. I now have the book broken down into about 25 lessons and read it each year with my new classes. It adapts very well in a construction technology program for Vocational high school students, and with the current emphasis on literacy we get an added bonus. Thank you Tracy Kidder, you have helped many students over the past 5 years.

A blogging architect loves the book but admits it hits home negatively at times:

I can’t deny that this is a really good book. Architects may decide to skip this one to avoid frustration and anyone in the middle of a home renovation should probably stay away (House would also certainly serve as a cautionary tale for anyone planning on building their own home). But for anyone who likes well-written nonfiction, I highly recommend House.

Time Magazine in 1985 had a review describing Kidder as a virtuoso:

[T]he author is a virtuoso of lucid and compelling narrative. Here he gives equal time to client, architect and builders. The result is a three- dimensional view of an activity instinctive to the species, and a subtle examination of cultural and class differences.

Related Tidbit re: the Cambridge Public Library

The architect featured in House, Bill Rawn, ended up moving on from building a residential home to creating one of the foremost architectural firms in the country.  Of local note, his firm designed the new main branch of the Cambridge Public Library, which just opened in October of 2009.  One of the cool features is a double wall of glass that provides transparency and openness while still providing good heat and cooling insulation.