From his new biography:
“Eichler did a great thing,” Jobs said on one of our walks around the neighborhood. “His houses were smart and cheap and good. They brought clean design and simple taste to lower-income people.”….
Jobs said that his appreciation for Eichler homes instilled in him a passion for making nicely designed products for the mass market.
“I love it when you can bring really great design and simple capability to something that doesn’t cost that much,” he said as he pointed out the clean elegance of the houses. “It was the original vision for Apple. That’s what we tried to do with the first Mac. That’s what we did with the iPod.”
A lot of interesting thoughts on the importance of architectural design and the influence on its inhabitants – whether it is directly perceived or not. Interesting to see Eichler and other modernist thinking from that period applied to today’s mass market housing production, to the house as product. Smart and cheap and good still? Cheap and big and comfortable still seems more appropriate. Funny that Eichler homes are now basically collectors items in that part of the United States. Smart and good but highly-sought-after and expensive and brand-name fashions. For a reason. Hard to imagine people boasting they live in an “Eichler” or a “Haver”, etc. in the 50′s. Very hard to imagine people now or in the future talking about their homes as “Pultes” or “Hortons” or “Lennars”. For good reason.



