Why aren’t properties manufactured from metal? Within the late Nineteen Forties, one firm posed that query. Lustron made prefabricated properties that have been speculated to be the way forward for housing. So why did it fail?

For only a few years — 1947 to 1950 — the Columbus, Ohio-based Lustron represented the way forward for housing. Utilizing a metal body and porcelain enamel-covered metal panels, Lustron made properties in a manufacturing unit and shipped them across the nation.

Vox’s Phil Edwards visited a Lustron residence simply outdoors Dayton, Ohio, to expertise the weird options, like magnetic partitions, for himself. This residence’s quirks weren’t relegated to the supplies. Via a mix of presidency funding sources, an try and reinvent the manufacturing cycle for properties, and a singular distribution plan, the Lustron residence helps clarify how housing does — and doesn’t — work in America.

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