Abstract
Grand Designs operates as a powerful discursive and material site of symbolic values and practices of home-making. This chapter examines the ideas of home as presented in the program, and the ways in which these ideas are mobilised in the work of home-making. This chapter is interested in how home-making relates to values and notions of homeownership, taste, personhood and place. We argue that homes are positioned in Grand Designs as lifestyle ‘vehicles’. The architectural form is certainly important in the program; however, it is the human stories of the owners and affective meaning of the build that are mobilised as narrative drivers through reflexive interviewing and dramatic narration. While much emotional and physical labour is invisible in Grand Designs compared to other property TV programs, this chapter demonstrates how it is no less dramatic.
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Podkalicka, A., Milne, E., Kennedy, J. (2018). Home: Ideas of Home and the Work of Home-Making. In: Grand Designs. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57898-3_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57898-3_3
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