Transformable furnishing: from ‘modern home’ to contemporary house

Abstract Among the many problems highlighted by the recent COVID-19 pandemic is the inadequacy of many homes to accommodate people during a health emergency. During the various lockdowns, flats that needed to be bigger, more distributed, or more modern did not help to organise one’s time or daily activities (studying, working, exercising, or simply secluding oneself) in the best possible way. Redesigning the existing seems a possible solution, not by demolishing obsolete dwellings, but by adapting them through ‘light systems,’ i.e., through furnishings: an ‘ex-post’ intervention that can redevelop spaces by leveraging the concepts of transformability and flexibility. Lessons can be learned in this respect, from the history of modern housing to contemporary experience. The article broadly traces this history (with a look at the culture of Italian living) so that from experience, we can learn solutions for living in the future.