Build by numbers to address housing shortages

In the late 1940s, when William Lyon Mackenzie King’s Liberal government began publishing “catalogues” filled with floor plans for modest homes meant to relieve a crippling post-Second World War housing crunch, the federal officials overseeing the initiative adopted a conspicuously modernist, suburban and mass-produced aesthetic.

Distributed by Central (later Canada) Mortgage and Housing Corporation offices across the country from 1947 well into the 1950s, the catalogues were filled with single-family homes in various permutations, including “strawberry boxes,” bungalows, backsplits and semis. Many came fitted out with iconic postwar features, such as carports and picture windows.