Annual conference 2014 - edwin heathcote

Topic: The
Meaning of Home

Edwin
Heathcote

What
does a home mean?  It might seem a strange question.  Our homes mean
comfort, security; they are treated as assets and as a vehicle for our desires
for improvement.  Yet while we might explore a church, read a book or
watch a film and attempt to decode its symbols and references, we rarely look
at our homes with the same critical eye.

Yet
from the most ordinary apartment to the most extravagant mansion, every home is
a deep well of meaning which has passed down to us and which we subconsciously
recognise - even if we don't immediately know it.  Our houses and homes,
no matter what style they are realised in, no matter how modest or seemingly
ill-considered their architecture or design, are vessels of an extraordinary
history, perhaps the last repositories of a language of symbol and collective
memory.  In this talk, Edwin will explore the myriad meanings, the
symbolism and the iconography in the elements of the homes we live in.

Edwin has
been the architecture and design critic of The Financial Times since 1999 and
is the author of over a dozen books on architecture, culture and London. His
most recent books include The Architecture of Hope (with Charles Jencks) and
The Meaning of Home, an exploration of the symbolism and associations
underlying everyday domestic design