Summary of The Secret Life of the Home

The video "The Secret Life of the Home" is a detailed retrospective on a popular gallery at the Science Museum dedicated to household gadgets and domestic life, which closed after 29 years. The creator shares insights into the gallery’s development, key exhibits, and the challenges of working within a large institution. Key points and highlights include:

Lifestyle and Historical Household Tips & Exhibits

• Household Gadgets and Appliances:
  • Displayed a wide range of domestic objects including irons, tea-making machines, heating devices, washing machines, refrigerators, cookers, toilets, vacuum cleaners, radios, and home security systems.
  • Interactive exhibits showed the inner workings of gadgets by taking them apart.
  • Highlighted the evolution of appliances from Victorian to modern times, emphasizing design, function, and cultural impact.
• Specific Exhibit Highlights:
  • Irons: From stove-heated irons to modern electric ones, including a demonstration of what happens when an iron thermostat shorts out.
  • Tea Machines: Clockwork Victorian tea makers, early electric models, and sci-fi styled espresso machines.
  • Heating: History from wood and coal fires to gas and electric heaters, including imitation coal effect gas/electric fires for coziness.
  • Washing Machines: From hand-powered to electric models with mangles, noting safety issues and the introduction of automatic machines in the 1960s.
  • Refrigerators: Transition from ice boxes to sealed compressor units; a cutaway fridge showing insulation and cooling coils.
  • Personal Care: Bed heaters, electric hot water bottles, hair dryers, health lamps, curling tongs, and massage machines with a 1930s sci-fi aesthetic.
  • Cookers: Gas and electric cookers evolving from coal-fired designs, first oven thermostat in 1923, and early microwave cooking demonstrated with an interactive neon-lit chicken model.
  • Toilets: From communal to advanced Japanese models with control panels; an interactive flushing toilet showing the mechanics and humorously animating a “turd.”
  • Home Security: Clockwork burglar alarms that could dial emergency numbers, motion sensors, tamper-proof wiring, and exposed mechanisms of automatic doors.
  • Locks and Fastenings: Large, beautiful locks that visitors could puzzle over, plus automatic double doors with visible mechanisms.
  • Vacuum Cleaners: From hand-powered to industrial and domestic electric models, including early robot vacuums and a Dyson vacuum donated by the inventor.
  • Home Entertainment: Radios (crystal sets to transistor radios), early TV sets, hi-fi systems, and models explaining CD players and stereo sound.
  • DIY Tools: Electric drills and accessories, including a drill-powered concrete mixer.
  • Sewing Machines: Decorative Victorian machines, Singer dominance, and the shift to electronic and stepper motor models.
  • Early Computer Games: Collected cheaply and later recognized as valuable, including a working version of Pong.

Gallery Design and Experience

• Removed outdated Victorian wallpaper and added more engaging labels.
• Increased exhibit density by about 25% without cluttering.
• Added ceiling-hung interactive objects that animate when approached (e.g., flying hot water bottles, trapped hand in blender).
• Emphasized accessibility and engagement for visitors familiar with household items.
• Faced institutional challenges, including lack of maintenance support and eventual gallery closure due to museum management decisions.

Reflections on Museum Work and Personal Journey

• The project was the largest undertaken by the creator, offering great creative freedom but also exposing bureaucratic challenges.
• The museum’s shift in style during the 1970s favored modernization and removing narrative-driven galleries, often resulting in shallower exhibits.
• After the gallery’s closure, the creator moved on to running arcades and making amusement machines, preferring smaller-scale, independent work.

Notable Locations, Products, and Speakers

• Science Museum, London: Location of the Secret Life of the Home gallery.
• Products: Victorian and modern irons, tea machines, heaters, washing machines (Thor, Bendix, Hoover), refrigerators (General Electric), vacuum cleaners (including Dyson), radios, TVs, sewing machines (Singer), and arcade machines.
• Speaker: The gallery’s creator and curator, who shares personal anecdotes and insights from the project and career.

This video offers a rich historical overview of domestic technology and design, combined with reflections on museum curation and personal creative evolution.

Category

Lifestyle

Video