REMEMBRANCE OF HOUSES FUTURE….If, like me, you adored the House of the Future at Disneyland when you were seven years old, you might enjoy P.J. O’Rourke’s account of his visit to the HP/Microsoft revival version this summer. 
Unsurprisingly, considering the designers, it was closed down at the time due to “technical difficulties,” but he was at least able to view it from above:
According to Disney, the shape of things to come can be found at Pottery Barn, with a quick stop in Restoration Hardware for “classic future” touches and a trip to Target to get throw rugs and cheap Japanese paper lanterns. HoF II was designed by the Taylor Morrison company, a home builder specializing in anodyne subdevelopmental housing in the Southwest.
….Any random dull normal person (we have one in our family) could come up with snappier ideas for the future than HoF II seems to contain. How about self-washing windows? Automobiles have had them since the 1930s. And have you watched the clever manner in which convertible car tops operate? What keeps that technology from being applied to self-making beds?….I didn’t even see one of those robot vacuum cleaners that trundles around hoovering on its own agenda, never mind, say, a helium balloon with a propeller and a mop of feathers that flies about dusting things (it might not do a very good job dusting, but at our house neither do we).
More here on the original HoF if you want a trip down memory lane. More here on the new one.
