What kind of building do you live in?

Where do you live?

  • Do you live in a house, a flat or somewhere different?
  • Does it look like the buildings in any of these photographs?
  • Are there lots of people where you live?
  • Do you know your neighbours?

Discuss:

What can you see in these photographs?

They are 60 to 70 years old. How can you tell that they are old photographs?

What has changed since then? What still looks the same?

People around the world live in all kinds of different buildings.

Black and white photograph of an old-fashioned caravan. A man lies in a hammock strung up outside the caravan and another man stands behind the caravan holding a bike.

Dr G Stables caravan, Bognor, dated 1901. Catalogue reference: COPY 1/450/766

Isolated igloo with short entrance and sleigh parked outside.

An Inuit igloo in Canada, 1944-1965. Catalogue ref: INF 10/80.01

Discuss:

What sort of buildings can you see in these photographs?

What are the buildings made of?

What can you see around the buildings?

Group of thatched roof houseboats, situated on a curve in the river with tree lined hills and washing drying on the adjoining land.

River dwellers on their raft homes at Kuala Lipis, Pahang. Malaysia, 1948-1962. Catalogue ref: INF 10/211.48

A person stands in the doorway of a stone building. Ornamental windows in the shape of small triangles are cut into the side of the building, creating geometric shapes.

A man stands in a doorway of a building with ornamental buildings in Ghana (then Gold Coast), early twentieth century. Catalogue reference: CO 1069/34/43 (4)

Painting of a summer scene with a large country house used as a post office, with lawn and trees. A farmer herding cows in the street in the foreground provides a rural feel.

Mansel Lacy, Hereford, by J Greene. England, 1962. Catalogue ref: NSC 62/28

Neat multi-floored apartment blocks line a major road with cars driving by.

Block of flats, Maalla Main Street. Yemen, 1963. Catalogue ref: INF 10/16.09

Black and white photograph of a group of people standing on top of a wooden house built in the crown of a very tall tree. A long ladder stretches from the ground to the house.

Tree hut New Guinea, 1887. Catalogue reference: COPY 1/380/473 (iii)

Old but sizeable thatched cottage with a path leading through extensive front garden to the wooden bench outside.

A cottage and garden in Woking, Surrey. England. Catalogue ref: INF 67/4

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