Pioneers in Model Home Exhibitions: The Women Advisory Committee in Rotterdam in the 1950s

In the post-WWII period in the Netherlands, a women’s organization set the agenda for improving the quality of social housing projects. Through bureaucratic procedures, the Vrouwen Adviescommissie (VAC, Women Advisory Committee) managed to open up a path for women’s interventions at the Municipality of Rotterdam, while expanding its network to more than 285 VACs in the Netherlands from 1946 to 1994. Their expertise influenced building codes, regulations and policies in social housing and urban design. However, their early role as model home organizers remains unknown. This paper unveils the conceptual and design work of the VAC through the model homes exhibitions they produced in Rotterdam and its surroundings in the earlier 1950s — such as the one in Overschie (which attracted around 3,000 people), in Hoogvliet (around 2,700) and Schiebroek (1,500). The research reveals that, before the well-known model homes exhibited in the Netherlands by the foundation Goed Wonen (Good Dwelling) during the mid-1950s and 1960s, the VAC made pioneering efforts in strengthening the public’s relationship with social housing and interior design. They displayed traditional and modern furniture in different combinations, focusing on the needs of women performing domestic (unwaged) work.