The Barbie Dreamhouse Is an Accidental Funhouse Museum of American Design

"All six rooms have a modern look," purrs the voiceover from this 1979 commercial for the vividly decade-specific Barbie Townhouse, as a small hand places Barbie in a bedroom sporting hectic floral wallpaper and a lamp with a fringed shade. "You can help Barbie arrange the living room!" the same voice continues, moving the doll so she’s in front of a white brick fireplace, a white sofa, and a plush white rug. There are ferns everywhere you look—true to form, this iteration of one of Barbie’s many homes had all the latest and greatest touches of the era.

Mattel introduced Barbie in 1959, and in the 63 years since, they’ve produced an absolutely staggering number of dolls, outfits, and accessories, showing careful attention to whatever was happening in the culture at the time. Barbie has been everything from a 1950s "teenaged fashion model," to a power suit-clad 1980s businesswoman, to a 2020s barista. Accessories have run the gamut: a 1965 scale set permanently to 110 pounds; chunky late 1980s home electronics; a tiny purple facemask.

One result of that deep dedication to the ebbs and flows of consumer culture is that Mattel has managed to accidentally create a funhouse museum of American design, tracking trends and technologies as they filtered into—and out of—American homes. "Barbie has always reflected the culture," explains toy expert Chris Byrne. "That’s why a Barbie in 2022 really looks nothing like a Barbie in 1950, because Barbie’s always reflected the world that kids see around them. And it’s always been somewhat aspirational, as well."

Barbie has amassed a stunning real estate portfolio over the years—townhouses, mansions, beach houses, country cottages—but the original was the surprisingly humble Dream House. Introduced 60 years ago, in 1962, it looked nothing like today’s elevator-sporting models. Perhaps the most striking thing to a child of the early ’90s era is the degree to which Barbie’s original home isn’t aggressively pink. In fact, it looks distinctly midcentury modern. Designed to fold up into a carrying case, it’s got the clean lines and the color palette of the era, with eye-searingly yellow walls and wood veneer throughout. 

"With a little imagination, one could discern the influence of Art & Architecture Case Study Houses—bold, modernist designs from the likes of Pierre Koenig, Craig Ellwood, Charles and Ray Eames—that sprang up in California from 1945 until the early sixties," wrote MG Lord in her book Forever Barbie. And, as a matter of fact, in 2011, LACMA included the original Dream House in the exhibition "California Design, 1930-1965: Living in a Modern Way." An accompanying essay by the curators noted how Barbie as a whole "allowed young girls to act out their own dreams of a California future. Naturally, this fantasy included a comfortable but modern ‘Dream House’—a cardboard ranch complete with an Architectural Pottery–like planter and Scandinavian-inspired furnishings."

It’s a weird jumble of what people wanted, what people actually had, and what people were supposed to want, all of it filtered through children’s great love of everything over-the-top.

But it’s not an architectural showpiece sitting high in the Hollywood Hills, either. It’s a modestly sized place with state school pennants on the walls. "It isn’t Philip Johnson’s glass house," points out antiques appraiser Dr. Lori Verderame. "This is what a normal neighborhood would look like, and this could be your house and Barbie happens to be your neighbor."

It got bigger fast, though. The 1964 Dream House is less modest, more in-your-face midcentury prosperity, and it’s stuffed with up-to-the-minute design decisions. There’s a pass-through window from the kitchen—which is pink with pinky-orange appliances—to the living room, which boasts a big brick accent wall. Her pink closet has scalloping along the top.

Lord—who sums up the style as "Levittown rococo"—consulted architectural critic Aaron Betsky to parse the influences at work: 

 "‘Well, there’s a brick wall that’s right out of late Frank Lloyd Wright thirties school,’ he said, squinting at the Mattel catalog. ‘Then there’s this slightly Beidermeyer sofa and chair set, next to the television. And over there, next to the modern kitchen, these fake sort of Scandinavian arts and crafts chairs that have suddenly become bar stools.’"  

It’s less pure stylish California modernism, maybe, but it’s a very prosperous 1960s Sunbelt, like the sort of now-dated ranch houses that Chip and Joanna Gaines might show clients on Fixer Upper. The outside featured a red-brick patio with a built-in barbecue, floor-to-ceiling arched windows looking out on it from the living room. "There’s even a sliding door that really opens!" boasted a commercial for the model. (But for how long, and with how much frustration, wonders the skeptical parent.)

It’s hard to imagine a better time capsule of the chaotic aesthetics of the 1970s than Barbie’s Townhouses through the decade. Any sleek modernist lines are gone, in favor of an absolutely unhinged layering of styles, patterns, and colors typical of the decade. These had printed-on backdrops for each of the rooms, and that’s where you can really see the fashions changing. There were several kitchens in various slightly tweaked versions across the decade: yellow appliances with wood veneer cabinets and white stone floor; white lower cabinets and green upper, with orange-red walls and countertops against a neural tile floor; goldenrod yellow cabinets with an earth-tone floor.