House style preference and meanings across taste cultures

Landscape and Urban Planning 44 (1999) 33±42
House style preference and meanings across taste cultures
Jack L. Nasar*, Junmo Kang
City and Regional Planning, The Ohio State University, 289 Brown Hall, 190 W. 17th Ave., Columbus, OH 43210, USA
Received 27 July 1998; received in revised form 14 September 1998; accepted 12 October 1998
Abstract
Theorists have speculated that taste cultures differ in their design preferences. To test this, we interviewed 150 adults (30
representing each of the ®ve taste cultures) in central Ohio. We obtained their responses to photographs of house exteriors
representing 15 different styles. Did the taste cultures differ as predicted by the theorists? Not really. The results showed strong
similarities in the responses across the groups. However, the similarities decreased as the educational/occupational distance
between the groups increased. In ®ndings echoing many other studies, we found strong similarities with highest preferences
for the Tudor style, and highest friendliness score for the Farm style. Even for style, preference is not a matter of taste. Widely
different groups show commonalities. # 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Aesthetics; House preference; House meanings; Social class
1. Introduction
Architects have long thought that the style of a
building conveys social meanings and affects emotional experience. Empirical evidence supports these
speculations. One review found that residents use their
house exterior to de®ne identity and convey personality traits such as friendliness, privacy and independence, social status, aesthetic sense, life style, ideas
and values to others (Despres, 1989a, b). Kinzy
(Langdon, 1982) found common preferences among
Buffalo suburbanites in response to black and white
elevations of nine house styles. They liked Tudor
most, Farm next, then Ranch, Mediterranean, Early
American, Colonial, Contemporary, and Modern the
*Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-614-292-1457; fax: +1-614292-7106; e-mail: nasar.1@osu.edu
0169-2046/99/$19.00 # 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII S0169-2046(98)00109-1
least. Tuttle (1983) compared the preferences of
homeowners and developers. He found that they
had similar preferences. Again, the public liked Tudor
the most and the `high' style ± International ± the least.
The preference for Tudor was followed by Queen Ann,
Mediterranean, Contemporary, Saltbox, Georgian
Colonial, Greek Revival, International and Spanish
Pueblo last. In an explicit test of responses to a variety
of `high' and `popular' styles, Devlin and Nasar
(1989) con®rmed that adult professionals liked `popular' styles and disliked `high' design styles. Finally,
in a two-city study, Nasar (1989) found that styles
conveyed common meanings across adult respondents
from Columbus, Ohio, and Los Angeles. As in many
other studies, they gave the most favorable rating to
the Tudor style.
The inferences from the exterior serve an additional
purpose. Exterior form gives observers cues about
34
J.L. Nasar, J. Kang / Landscape and Urban Planning 44 (1999) 33±42
how to behave and what to expect. Consider the
®nding by Taylor et al. (1976) that the presence of
resident-generated visual features in a neighborhood
related to social expectations about people who live in
those neighborhoods. Verschure et al. (1977) found
that observers made judgments of the occupant's
personality traits (such as trustworthiness) and
socio-economic status (income and education) from
the house exterior. Sadalla et al. (1987) found that
observers' inferences from house exteriors about a
homeowner's personality agreed with the owner's
actual personality. Cherulnik and Wildrerman
(1986) found that students accurately identi®ed the
socio-economic status of neighborhoods built in the
nineteenth century. For example, they accurately identi®ed the previous professional areas as areas where
professionals lived. They judged the owners of the
upper-middle class houses as neat, intelligent, energetic and ambitious, and the owners of the other
houses as timid, gullible and lazy. They described
the ®rst group of houses as tasteful, friendly, beautiful
and clean and the second group as dangerous and
noisy. In sum, the research consistently shows that
attributes of house exteriors convey meanings to
others.
Do these symbols hold across different groups?
According to Lynes (1954) and Gans (1974), the
American society has different taste cultures. Lynes
(1954) divided the public into four cultures ± High-
brow, Upper Middlebrow, Lower Middlebrow, and
Lowbrow. He felt that the Upper Middlebrows aspire
to what they think Highbrows have; Highbrows look to
Lowbrows for new ideas; and Lower Middlebrows just
do not care. Gans (1974) saw America as consisting of
many ``taste cultures, each with its own art, . . ., which
differ mainly in that they express different aesthetic
standards.'' He listed ®ve taste cultures: High, UpperMiddle, Lower-Middle, Low and Quasi-Folk, and
gives clear de®nitions of each. He believes, as we
do, that ``buildings should be designed for people who
will use them . . . A beautiful building is . . . one that
satis®es the aesthetic standards of its users.''
Table 1 shows the Gans (1974) taste cultures in
terms of their education and occupation. According to
(Gans, 1974, p. 126) ``people not only tend to choose
the taste culture which is congruent with their education, but they cannot be expected to choose content
which is incongruent with their education.'' Although
other factors may in¯uence taste, Gans rules them out.
He says that incomes are not reliable as upwardly
mobile people ``will move quickly into a neighborhood that expresses their new status but may never
adopt the taste culture associated with that status. This
. . . re¯ects, at least in part, their lack of education
which prevents culture mobility (p. 115). He rules out
religion, ethnicity, religious origin, radical background ``as disappearing rapidly in American society''
(p. 70).
Table 1
Five taste cultures according to Gans
Taste culture
Education (and major)
Occupations
High
college graduate, private or state public university
or some graduate/professional school (art, architecture,
landscape architecture, industrial design, or other design).
creator-oriented artists, designers, design educators; and
user oriented, administrators and managers
Upper Middle
college graduate, private or state public university
(non-design, non-art)
manager, administrator, technical/professional speciality
Lower-Middle
high school graduate if over 45, community college
graduate or some college at state university or small
college if under age 45
administrative support, public school teacher, lowest-level
white-collar
Low
some high school if over age 45, high school grad
or pre-professional school if under 45
skill or semi-skilled factory or service worker (blue collar),
operator, semi-skilled white collar
Quasi-Folk Low less than 8th grade
unskilled blue collar, service unemployed
J.L. Nasar, J. Kang / Landscape and Urban Planning 44 (1999) 33±42
According to Gans, each group reads different
magazines, watches different television programs
and likes different kinds of designs. These different
patterns of behaviors ®nd some support in market
research studies, such as the massive VALS inventory
(McConnell, 1990). Concerning design, he writes that
High Culture ``likes expressionism, impressionism,
abstraction and conceptual art'' (p. 76); Upper Middle
prefers ``substantive, unconcerned with innovation in
form, and uninterested in making issues of method''
(p. 82) though, it borrows ``from . . . High culture'' (p.
83); Lower Middle dislikes the abstract art favored by
the High and Upper Middle, and High and Upper
Middle, looks for ``substance: [such that] form must
serve to make substance more intelligible or gratifying'' (p. 85), and prefers vernacular or traditional
forms; Low dislikes abstract ideas and follows the
Lower Middle culture; the Quasi-Folk Low may favor
old and rural styles.
The ideas of Lynes and Gans, while compelling,
have not been tested empirically. Do the different
taste cultures differ in their architectural preferences
and if so do they differ as predicted by Gans or
Lynes? To test this, we conducted a study in two
phases. In the ®rst phase, we developed a representative set of house styles. In the second, we obtained
responses to these styles from representatives of each
taste culture.
Table 2
Style lists derived from three kinds of sources
Historic and
professional texts
(22 styles)
Builder survey
(24 styles)
Plan shop
books
(13 styles)
Cape Cod
Cape Cottage
Cape Cod
Carpenter Gothic
Classical (or
Colonial Revival)
Cape Cod
Coltswold
Dutch Colonial
Farm
Federal
French
French Mansard
Gambrel Roof
Garrison Colonial
Georgian
Georgian Colonial
Greek Revival
Medieval
Neo-Victorian
New Orleans
Post Modern
2. Method
2.1. Selecting house-styles for study
We wanted to select a set of styles recognizable by
both, the experts and non-experts, popular with the
current housing industry and available throughout the
continental USA. To do this, we ®rst developed several
lists of styles. We derived our list from the Historic
American Building Survey (The Old-house Journal,
1979; Poppelliers, 1977), and a variety of architectural
books (Foley, 1980; McCoy, 1982; Pickering, 1951;
Rifkind, 1980; Scully, 1974; Walker, 1981; Whiffen,
1969a, b; Whiffen and Koeper, 1981). These references listed many styles varying from a low of eleven
(The Old-house Journal, 1979) to high of about three
hundred (Foley, 1980). Focusing on two-story houses,
we also eliminated other house forms, such as Mobile
35
Saltbox
Spanish
Spanish Colonial
Tudor (or Elizabethan)
Williamsburg
Dutch Colonial
English Colonial
Federal
French Colonial
Georgian
German Colonial
Gothic Revival
Greek Revival
International
Italianate
Colonial
Contemporary
Early American
Mansion
Farm
French
French Colonial
Gambrel Roof
Georgetown
Georgian
Neo-Victorian
Period
Prairie
Queen Ann
Richardonian
Romanesque
Roman Revival
Saltbox
Second Empire
Shingle
Spanish Colonial
Stick
Tudor
Saltbox
Tudor
homes and split levels. We also eliminated styles that
no longer exist or that closely resembled other styles.
The ®rst column of Table 2 shows the 22 styles that
resulted.
We also interviewed four of the ®ve largest builders
in Central Ohio to ®nd which styles they provided to
their prospective buyers. This group of builders
36
J.L. Nasar, J. Kang / Landscape and Urban Planning 44 (1999) 33±42
accounted for 63% of the total permits for detached
single-family houses in the three counties surrounding
Columbus, Ohio. The second column of Table 2 lists
the 24 styles resulting from the interviews.
Finally, we reviewed publications by plan shops.
The International Directory of Home Plans (1988) by
Garlinghouse Co. listed 312 plans. The Home Planners Inc. Encyclopedia of Home Designs (1988) listed
450 plans. We also referred to Home Planner Inc. Twostory Home (1986), Early American Home Plans
(1986), Contemporary Home Plans (1986), English
Tudor Homes (1986), Spanish and Western Home
Design (1986), Traditional and Contemporary Plans
(1986) and Most Popular Homes (1996). The third
column of Table 2 shows the 13 styles derived from
the plan shop publications.
The combined list of styles from the three sources
totalled to 42. Because 42 styles would be unwieldy
for the study plan, we narrowed that list further. We
dropped styles of a particular period or territory,
encompassing other styles within them, not occurring
in the US or in central Ohio (where we needed to take
photos), not occurring in the two-story form, or indistinguishable from styles of other labels. This process
left us with 15 styles: Gambrel roof, Garrison Colonial, Federal, French, Farm, Greek Revival, Georgian,
Queen Ann, Spanish, Italianate, Second Empire,
Tudor, International, Prairie and Post Modern.
We thought there might be some perceived overlap
in the styles. To develop a set of perceptually relevant
categories of style, we ran one additional analysis.
First, we photographed three examples of each style to
scan into the computers. The photos looked head on to
the facade as seen from the street. We edited out trees,
bushes and cars obstructing a clear view of the front
facade. The ®nal scenes were superimposed on a black
background, so they only differed in style. We printed
the resulting color images as color photos.
We interviewed 30 students recruited from eight
colleges at the Ohio State University. Most students in
the sample were between 18 and 25 years old (77%),
white (80%), undergraduates (63%) who had lived in
Ohio for more than three years (80%). We asked each
student to sort the houses into piles in terms of their
similarity. They could use as many piles as necessary
and could make corrections on completion of the task.
Then, they ranked the houses in each group from the
best to worst example of the category.
We calculated the frequency with which the students paired each house with each other house. We
then used the resulting similarity scores in a cluster
analysis to derive groupings of styles by similarity.
The analysis used Ward's minimum variance agglomerative hierarchical cluster procedure. This is a widely
used method that results in the fewest errors (Harvey,
1986; Milligan and Cooper, 1988). It used the Hubert
and Levin (1976) c-index stopping rule. The analysis
yielded ten clusters of houses. Three clusters had three
examples of the same style: Farm, Greek Revival, and
Spanish. The other clusters had mixes of styles. For
example, one cluster had the three International examples and one Prairie style. Another had the three
Queen Ann examples and the three Italianate. Another
had the three Post Modern examples joined with two
of the Tudor examples. For the study comparing
responses across taste groups, we selected the style
from each cluster that had the highest goodness-ofexample score in the cluster. Fig. 1 shows the ten houses.
The sample included Farm, French, Greek Revival,
International, Spanish, Georgian, Post Modern
(Tudor), Queen Ann, Federal, and Garrison Colonial.
2.2. Respondents for taste cultures
We interviewed 150 individuals (30 each of the ®ve
taste groups). Interviews took place in a regional
shopping mall in Columbus, Ohio. Interviewers had
a job lists and educational levels for each group. The
criteria followed Gans' criteria described in Table 1.
The interviewers approached every passerby and
asked about educational level and current occupation.
The interviewers interviewed only those respondents
who ®t criteria for a taste group. The interviews took
place in a private of®ce. As we did not expect to ®nd
many High culture (designers) or Quasi-Folk Low
culture members at the mall, we obtained those samples elsewhere. For the High Culture group, we randomly sampled designer and architect of®ces from the
yellow pages. We phoned and interviewed those who
agreed to participate. For the Quasi-Folk Low Culture,
interviewers contacted people at homeless shelters,
public housing communities, Volunteers of America,
and several community churches and centers. If
responses differed across the groups, this differential
pattern of sampling would present a confounding
variable. If we found similar responses, in spite of
J.L. Nasar, J. Kang / Landscape and Urban Planning 44 (1999) 33±42
37
Fig. 1. Ten houses used in the study of taste groups. From top down, the left column shows Farm, Garrison Colonial, Federal, International,
French; and the right column shows Georgian, Greek Revival, Queen Ann, Spanish, Post Modern.
38
J.L. Nasar, J. Kang / Landscape and Urban Planning 44 (1999) 33±42
Fig. 1. (Continued)
the added difference in sampling procedures, this
would strengthen the likelihood of shared responses.
Table 3 shows the characteristics of respondents in
each group.
Members of the High Culture sample held degrees
in architecture, landscape architecture, interior design
or art. They worked in those ®elds as well. Members of
the upper-middle Taste sample had similar levels of
educational achievement, but they had not majored in
a design ®eld. Their occupations included manager,
administrator, engineer, scientist, home economist,
occupational therapist, respiratory therapist, registered nurse, psychologist, and musician. Members
of the Lower Middle sample had completed community college, technical school or some college (or if
over 45, a high school diploma). Their occupations
included teacher, bookkeeper, market research analyst, pharmacy assistant, salesperson, computer operator, house inspector, secretary, receptionist, recreation
worker, waiter/waitress, bartender, dietician, bank
teller, bank of®cer, electrician, and police of®cer.
Members of the Low Taste sample held a high school
diploma or had attended a community college or
technical school. Jobs included bus driver, machine
tool operator, construction machinery operator, cashier, waitress, operator, shipping/receiving clerk, truck
driver, construction worker, welder, salesperson, cook,
surveyor, teacher's aid. Finally, members of the QuasiFolk Low sample had not completed more than the 8th
grade. Most were unemployed, but a few held parttime jobs such as cashier, janitor, waiter, cook, garbage collector, house cleaner, and construction
worker.
2.3. Interview procedure
Interviewers showed respondents each of the ten
houses in 400 600 color photographs. Research suggests several important dimensions of housing meaning. These include perceived status, warmth and
preference. Though each meaning may differ across
`taste cultures', the theories of Gans (1974) and Lynes
(1954) speci®cally talk about differences related to
perceived status, and preference. On the one hand, the
theories argue that some groups aspire to what they
believe other groups have. In this sense, these groups
may evaluate the perceived status of housing exteriors.
On the other hand, the theories argue that the groups
have different tastes or preferences. Rather than ask
people directly about their preferences and perceived
status, we used a question format that put them into a
more realistic decision format. We adapted the instructions from those used by Nasar (1989) to measure
status, preference, and friendliness. For status, we
asked respondents to assume that residents of the
ten houses work together. We asked them to rank
the houses from `the one most likely to have the
person who takes charge and leads the group to the
one least likely to have the leader'. For preference, we
asked respondents to imagine that they had just won
the `Dream House Lottery', and had to choose the
house to receive free. They were asked to place the
houses in order from `the one you would most like to
receive to the one you would least like to receive'. For
friendliness, we asked respondents to imagine having
a ¯at tire in a street with the ten houses. We asked them
to place the houses in order from `the one you would
J.L. Nasar, J. Kang / Landscape and Urban Planning 44 (1999) 33±42
39
Table 3
Respondent characteristics
High
Upper-Middle
Lower-Middle
Low
Quasi-Folk
Total
Education
Less than 8th grade
Some high school
High school graduate
Community college graduate
Some college
College grad.
Masters or Ph.D.
0.0%
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
56.7
43.4
0.0%
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
86.7
13.3
0.0%
0.0
0.0
23.3
56.7
20.0
0.0
0.0%
16.7
56.7
10.0
16.7
0.0
0.0
100.0%
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
20.0%
3.3
11.3
6.7
14.7
32.7
11.3
Income
Less than $10 000
$10 000±24 999
$25 000±34 999
$35 000±54 999
$55 000 or more
0.0%
36.7
26.7
20.0
16.7
0.0%
13.8
17.2
37.9
31.0
10.3%
31.0
31.0
20.7
6.7
16.7%
40.0
20.0
20.0
3.3
96.7%
3.3
0.0
0.0
0.0
25.0%
25.0
18.9
19.6
11.5
Home ownership
Own
Rent
Other
34.7%
48.0
17.3
56.7%
40.0
3.3
23.3%
63.3
13.3
23.3%
73.3
3.3
3.3%
33.3
63.3
34.7
48.0
17.3
Race
White
African-American
Asian
Other
83.3%
3.3
10.0
3.3
90.0%
10.0
0.0
0.0
60.0%
40.0
0.0
0.0
80.0%
20.0
0.0
0.0
43.3%
50.0
0.0
6.6
71.3%
24.7
2.0
2.0
Age
18±25
28±34
35±44
45 and older
3.3%
40.0
30.0
26.7
10.0%
53.3
16.7
20.0
36.7%
33.3
20.0
10.0
56.7%
13.3
16.7
13.3
23.3%
26.7
33.3
16.6
26.0%
33.3
23.3
17.4
Marital status
Married
Single
Divorced/widowed
60.0%
30.0
10.0
48.3%
44.8
6.9
20.0%
63.3
16.7
23.3%
66.7
10.0
16.7%
46.7
36.7
33.6%
50.3
16.1
Years in Columbus
Less than 1 year
1±3 years
4±5 years
6±10 years
More than 10 years
3.3%
13.3
3.3
33.3
46.7
33.3%
3.3
6.7
16.7
40.0
36.7%
23.3
3.3
3.3
33.3
23.3%
20.0
3.3
10.0
43.3
10.3%
13.8
17.2
20.7
37.9
21.5%
14.8
6.7
16.8
40.3
Gender
Male
Female
50.0%
50
46.7%
53.3
50.0%
50.0
50.0%
50.0
53.3%
46.7
50.0%
50.0
40
J.L. Nasar, J. Kang / Landscape and Urban Planning 44 (1999) 33±42
most likely go to for help to the one you would least
likely go to for help'.
3. Results
Did responses from each taste culture differ from
one another as predicted by Gans? The results showed
a mixed support for Gans' theory. We ran several kinds
of analyses. To examine differences between groups,
we looked at paired-comparisons across each pair of
groups in their rankings of the styles on each scale. To
examine similarities between the groups, we looked at
correlations of the scores across the groups.
The paired comparisons across each pair of group
rankings of the styles revealed no signi®cant differences across any pair of groups for desirability or
friendliness. For perceived status, only one group
differed from others. The High taste culture differed
signi®cantly from each other group (Upper-Middle:
tˆ2.08, p<0.05; Lower-Middle: tˆÿ1.79, p<0.01;
Low: tˆÿ1.76, p<0.01; Quasi-Folk: tˆÿ1.99,
p<0.05).
Table 4 shows the results of the Kendal Tau B rank
correlation analyses. As you can see, it shows high
levels of agreement among the groups. First, consider
the status scores. The results show signi®cant correlations between each group's rankings of the houses.
Yet, the results also offer support for the prediction of
Gans (1974). Although the group ratings have signi®cant correlations, the correlations peak for neighboring groups in education and occupation (those
along the diagonal), and they decrease as the education/occupation level difference increase. For example, High has its highest correlation with Upper
Middle (rˆ0.96), a lower correlation with Lower
Middle (rˆ0.78), a lower correlation with Low
(rˆ0.76), and its lowest correlation with Quasi-Folk
Low (rˆ0.60). Upper middle has its highest correlation with High, then Lower Middle, Low and then
Quasi-Folk Low. Thus, the mean correlation on the
diagonal is 0.85. One level below the diagonal, the
mean drops to 0.76. One level down, it drops again to
0.70; and the bottom cell correlation drops to 0.60.
Gans' prediction of a strong connection between the
High and Quasi-Folk culture did not emerge.
Next, consider the desirability scores. A similar
pattern emerges. With the exception of one comparison (High and Quasi-Folk Low), the results show
signi®cant correlations in each group's ranking of the
Table 4
Kendall Tau B correlations between taste cultures
Desirability
Upper Middle
Lower Middle
Low
Quasi-Folk Low
High
0.56 b
0.49 a
0.42 a
0.33
Upper Middle
0.72 b
0.69 b
0.51 a
Lower Middle
0.58 a
0.72 b
Low
0.64 b
High
0.96 b
0.78 b
0.76 b
0.60 a
Upper Middle
0.82 b
0.76 b
0.64 a
Lower Middle
0.85 b
0.73 b
Low
0.76 b
High
0.67 b
0.38
0.47
0.42
Upper Middle
0.58 a
0.81 b
0.72 b
Lower Middle
0.73 b
0.78 b
Low
0.78 b
Leadership
Upper Middle
Lower Middle
Low
Quasi-Folk Low
Friendliness
Upper Middle
Lower Middle
Low
Quasi-Folk Low
a
b
p<0.05
p<0.01
J.L. Nasar, J. Kang / Landscape and Urban Planning 44 (1999) 33±42
houses. Again, the correlations between groups of
similar levels of education and income (along the
diagonal) tend to exceed those of the groups with
larger differences in education and income. For desirability, the results show two exceptions: the correlations between Upper Middle and Low (rˆ0.69) and
between Lower Middle and Low (rˆ0.72) are higher
than some of the scores on the main diagonal. Otherwise, as we move further from the diagonal, the
correlations tend to decrease. For example, the High
taste group has its highest correlation with the Upper
Middle. Its correlations drop as we move to LowerMiddle, Low, and Quasi-Folk. The Upper Middle had
higher correlations with the Lower-Middle than with
the Low or Quasi-Folk. This agrees with Gans' prediction of a strong connection between High and
Quasi-Folk. It contradicts his prediction, the Low
Middle had a higher correlation with the Quasi-Folk
than with the Low group.
Finally, consider the friendliness score. The results
show signi®cant correlations for seven of the ten
comparisons. Unlike the scores for status and desirability, the correlations do not show a pattern related to
income and education. The correlations on the diagonal are not higher than the off-diagonal scores.
4. Discussion
Gans and Lynes predicted systematic differences in
responses across the taste cultures. The present ®ndings offer weak support for their position. The High
Culture group had different ratings for perceived
status than did the other groups. Otherwise, the groups
displayed similar patterns of response. In partial
agreement with the model, as differences in education
and occupation level increased, the relationship
between perceived status scores decreased. This happened to a lesser extent for desirability scores, and to
an even lesser extent for friendliness scores. Signi®cant group differences emerged for only two of the ten
styles, and these differences were between the High
groups and the Low groups. The ®ndings also do not
support the theory that High culture draws ideas from
the Low or Quasi-Folk Low culture.
A large body of research has pointed to differences
between architects and others in their responses to
architectural stimuli (cf. Nasar, 1994). In agreement
41
with these ®ndings, the study found that the designers
differed from the others in their judgments of perceived status. However, the differences did not carry
over to their preference or friendliness ratings. Where
previous differences have centered on architects or
architecture students compared to others, our designer
group included architects and other design professionals. Perhaps the other designers had more similar
scores to the public than did architects.
Research on environmental aesthetics and meaning
have documented strong commonalities in preferences
for and the connotative meanings conveyed by architecture (cf. Nasar, 1997; Stamps, 1995, 1996). The
present ®ndings con®rm the presence of strong commonalities across groups. For example, all groups
converged on the Post Modern as most desirable,
the International as highest in status, and the Farm
as the most friendly. Where do the commonalities
come from? They may result from shared experience
among the American public. Repeated exposure to
house styles associated with various meanings might
lead observers to associate those meanings with similar styles. Thus, mass media exposure to house styles
associated with various contexts may account for the
similarities. Consider, for example, the US White
House (Colonial), regularly displayed as a backdrop
in TV reports on the President. TV also shows house
exteriors associated with various people in shows. The
choices of style may both echo and shape popular
meanings. In other cultures, having different housing
styles and media exposure, one would expect to ®nd
different patterns of meaning, but within a culture,
commonalities may well still emerge.
For urban design, the commonalities in meaning
suggest that design controls for style may well shape
the meanings conveyed by developments. Informed by
research, such controls can improve the appearance of
the surroundings for large numbers of people.
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