Stereos and the suburbs
An exploration of the cultural impact of the home stereo in contrast to today's personalized listening experience.
Today, much of our music listening is personal and virtual. We listen over headphones, we pick personalized music streams targeted to our individual tastes. Many of us have given up on physical forms of music entirely. Back in the '60s though, high fidelity stereos grew in popularity, promising to turn the living room into a shared concert hall, and reshaping the physical space of the postwar home. Dianne Harris teaches architectural history and suburban history. She explores the cultural impact of the stereo.
Dianne's article, A Tiny Orchestra in the Living Room.