Learn about Lincoln’s Aluminum House on Jan. 29

Sure we know that aluminum is all around us — in our beverage cans, laptop cases, kitchen foil, baseball bats and airplanes, but in a house? An aluminum house?

It’s true. Lincoln is home to one of the rare Care-Free aluminum homes built by the Aluminum Company of America in 1957.

It’s not clear how many of the 48 Care-Free Homes were actually built, but the only one in Massachusetts is here in Lincoln, and will be the focus of a free program from 7 to 9 p.m. Jan. 29 at the Lincoln Library. Katherine Mierzwa, from Friends of Modern Architecture/Lincoln will give an illustrated lecture on the interesting history of aluminum and its role in 20th-century architecture as well as the history of the Care-Free Home program. Lincoln architect Gary Anderson and the house’s current homeowners will be on hand to explain how they have carefully and ecologically updated this local architectural treasure.

During World War II, the U.S. ramped up its aluminum production for all kinds of urgent military needs. But after the war the many aluminum plants with their huge stockpiles of aluminum ore had to go looking for new things to produce. Manufacturing giants ALCOA, Reynolds and Kaiser Aluminum were desperately looking for ways to keep their businesses running and workers employed.

ALCOA hired Charles Goodman, a nationally-prominent architect who was very familiar with aluminum’s unique properties, to design a better house that incorporated as many aluminum building materials as possible for a lower maintenance home.

The ALCOA Care-Free Home was Goodman’s solution to a house full of aluminum products that didn’t look like a metal igloo or an Airstream trailer. ALCOA’s plan was to have one Care-Free Home in each of the 48 states, as a showplace to publicize ALCOA’s products and its virtues.