The Look of the Suburbs

Abstract

From a discussion of the broad dimensions of suburban landscape, we move now to a more detailed focus on specific and iconic aspects of suburban design: the plate glass or picture window, and the lawned lot. The picture window in particular has provided a resonant metaphor for poets. On a straightforward level it has allowed them to signal metonymically the larger physical, social, and ideological environment. More subtly it has offered a way of exploring the indeterminacy of suburban space (to quote Ashbery’s “The Bungalows,” discussed earlier, “How does it feel to be outside and inside at the same time” (Selected 114)) and of experimenting with a range of different viewing positions. As the chapter proceeds, it moves from an examination of the architectural “look” of the suburbs to an exploration of the actual process of looking, and from there to a discussion of various—perhaps unexpected—voyeuristic practices as exemplified by what I am defining as a suburban flânerie. Finally, we examine the place of that other icon of suburban development, the carefully manicured suburban lawn, asking how this feature further exemplifies the surveillant culture of the postwar suburbs and what it reveals about (particularly male) experiences of the suburban day-to-day.