Building of the Week: Worker's house in Arvida

This week's building of the week is a worker's house in Arvida, Quebec that we had the pleasure of touring last week. The house is a small two-bedroom house that must be put into context to understand its true value.

Erected in the group of houses built for Alcoa Aluminum after 1927, this small house was part of a newfangled idea on the part of the company's owners to give each worker a house of his own.  Company towns prior to this provided cramped spaces for workers, so the idea to provide separate single-family dwellings for each employee was quite radical.  Since the average family size at the time would have been much larger, a private house on this scale would have been incredibly appealing to workers.

The town boasts that it was built in 135 days, a feat which was achieved by the use of prefabricated elements to construct the houses, much like the assembly line ideals of Ford.

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