When the drills at the neighbors stop for a moment, I can hear the passers-by. The conversations often revolve around renovation. What to do with that one stained-glass window? With or without a dormer window? Should there be an open kitchen?
The theme also imposes itself during dinners. If at least one person in a group is renovating or thinking about renovating, the conversation often ends there, like a thunderstorm caught between two mountain ranges. The (proposed) renovation evokes memories in the others of their own renovation, that of friends, or of the neighbors. Almost everyone is renovating, has been renovating, is going to renovate or lives next to someone who is renovating.
The renovation drive has economic reasons, such as sustainability and a housing shortage – people just throw an extra floor on their house due to a lack of living space. But there must also be something else at play. Renovation conversations are often not about isolating or expanding, but about changing. The kitchen is too rural, the floor is passé, the bathroom has the wrong tiles and that wall has to be removed. The house must be tailored to the occupant.
The German sociologist Andreas Reckwitz states in his book Gesellschaft der Singularitäten that we live in the ‘paradigm of the particular’. “It is not on the standardized and regular that the hopes, interests and efforts of institutions and individuals are focused, but on the unique, the singular,” said Reckwitz. You can see that in home magazines and programmes. Aspiring renovators are urged to align their home with their identity: “Does your new staircase match your personality?” I read on a stair renovation site. Many housing coaches are ready for these kinds of issues. For example, if you are rooted in the past, but with an open mind to the future, it is advisable to combine antique and modern elements.
People still choose what others choose
Strangely enough, you see something else in those magazines and programmes, on Instagram and on Funda: a shocking uniformity. Think of all herringbone floors, steel connecting doors, sleek white or black kitchens with cooking island, angular flat sinks. What do they say about the personalities of the residents? And how come all those interviewed in the bathroom special of VT Renovatean edition of VT Livingopted for a ‘Japandi’ bathroom with ‘natural materials’, concrete ciré and brass taps?
There is already plenty of theorizing about this paradox. For example, the Canadian researcher Annetta Grant recently published in the Journal of Consumer Research a paper for which she had interviewed remodeling Canadians. Grant observes in them a split between a desire for uniqueness on the one hand (singularization) and, on the other hand, the pressure to comply with ‘market standards’. Those interviewed were wary of unusual tiles or ‘outdated’ kitchen cabinets: these would make the house less marketable. Grant makes the important point that this dynamic leads to ‘dysplacement’: people fail to really make their home their own.
Does this market-oriented view indeed explain the imitation among renovators? Not quite, I think. After all, you also see this uniformity in clothing or furniture. And such a term as dysplacement seems a little too much honor for modern man. I think many people can feel perfectly at home in an interchangeable decor. In fact, they flourish in it. I am reminded of the words of Vincent Buskens, professor of theoretical sociology, recently in de Volkskrant. “I don’t think we are individualized at all, I think that is very much a misunderstanding,” he said. an article about individualism in the Netherlands. According to Buskens, we are still sensitive to social influence, but in secret. “Those who have to justify a choice can no longer get away with the argument ‘everyone does that’. Then you are a follower.”
People still choose what others choose, only now they act as if their unique personality put them on the Japandi track. Media as VT Living respond to this cleverly: they show what others are doing (ergo: what you should do too), and at the same time provide the I-am-unique language with which you can justify your choice. People then believe that language themselves: they really think that concrete ciré their product. It’s almost a form of delusion.
It is also a kind of collective delusion. Because no matter how much man has learned to talk in terms of self-realization, in the end he remains a herd animal.
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper on July 22, 2023.