FROM THE LEXICON - CUDC Quarterly 2:3/4 - Fall 2002

Bungalow

There is some confusion about the origins of this word, but most sources agree that it came from British India, where it was used to describe the square houses with large verandas designed for the hot, humid environment of what is now Bangladesh. After a long journey through the British Empire, "bungalow" washed up on American shores toward the beginning of the last century, where it became the name of a new type of single family house noteworthy for its affordability and compactness.

For Californians (or former Californians, like the Lexicons), the true bungalow has a generous front porch, overhanging, low-pitched roofs and thoughtful craftsman detailing, as in the example above. This type is indeed very prevalent on the West  Coast, and there are good examples from 1900-1920 in most American cities. They were distinguished from their older neighbors by their lack of pretense, a modesty that was valued as antidote to Victorian gaudiness and also had the practical advantage of making home ownership possible for people of modest means.

It’s little wonder, then, that the basic bungalow formula outlived the craftsman style of the early century. In the boom years of the 20s, they were built in vast quantities and in a variety of styles. In the boom years after World War II, they were sometimes built with almost no style at all. What remained constant was the emphasis on compactness and practicality. Much the same could be said of the environments created for them, which offered each homeowner his own little patch of green in a thicket of closely spaced houses.

After a certain point, an increasingly affluent society changed its view of the bungalow. "Compact" became "cramped," "practical" became "plain," and the children who grew up in bungalows left their parents to age in them, moving to newer, more spacious suburbs and ever larger, more ostentatious houses. This has left the bungalow neighborhoods of the older suburbs in an interesting position. On the one hand, many find bungalows hopelessly declassé. On the other hand, they are still affordable, and their scale is about right for many of the unconventional households for which the housing industry seems quite unwilling to build. They offer a little outdoor space for recreation, maybe a garden, and just enough indoor space for a few people to set up house. Perhaps time hasn’t passed the bungalow by after all.