Editors: Ana Tostões, Zara Ferreira
Guest editors: Josep Maria Montaner, Zaida Muxí Martínez
Keywords: Modern Movement, Modern architecture, Living heritage, Modern housing, Housing preservation.
Housing is a central program in contemporary architectural production. Incorporating civilizing values of 19th century culture, the house arrives in the 20th century at the time notions of private space and domestic comfort come to the fore in Western Culture as values inseparable from the emergence of the family in domestic space: the home. In 1951 Martin Heidegger (1889–1976), in his Darmstader sprache, “Bauen, Wohnen, Denken”, relates the word building (bau) with the verb “to be” and the action of “being” (bin), to conclude that dwelling is the fundamental trait of being, the mortals’ living condition. Looking to reframe the sense of construction and to identify the meaning of “being”, Heidegger’s criticism is moved by the failure of the so-called rational materialistic solution, and opens the discussion up to the re-evaluation of the design action as a unique, magical and creative action.
Published:
2014-11-01
Book Reviews
Documentation Issues
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The architecture of the Modern Movement in Oporto, Portugal, built between 1940 and 1960, is a recent heritage, whose scant recognition has been accelerating its natural degradation and increasing interventions of questionable quality. On one hand, the technical and structural weaknesses of the architecture of this period can be the cause of accelerated degradation, which are, in part, a consequence of successive experiments of new materials like concrete. On the other hand, we note the absence of disciplinary criteria in contemporary interventions, which suggests the fragility of the...
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In the mid–20th century in Mexico there was a close link between collective housing production and the most important welfare state in the country. IMSS commenced its brief but active program of housing provision with its 1956 complex of almost 500 apartments, followed by its emblematic projects: the Santa Fe Unit (1957) and the Independence Unit (1960), with around 2,200 dwellings, each one placed among gardens. The agency’s apogee was ruled by a social justice mandate that contributed to having high quality living standards in its complexes.
Editorial
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Housing is a central program in contemporary architectural production. Incorporating civilizing values of 19th century culture, the house arrives in the 20th century at the time notions of private space and domestic comfort come to the fore in Western Culture as values inseparable from the emergence of the family in domestic space: the home. In 1951 Martin Heidegger (1889–1976), in his Darmstader sprache, “Bauen, Wohnen, Denken”, relates the word building (bau) with the verb “to be” and the action of “being” (bin), to conclude that dwelling is the fundamental trait of being, the mortals’...
Essays
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One of the main subjects in contemporary architecture is how to deal with the physical and intellectual requirements of transforming modern housing. Joan Busquets points out in his contribution to this issue, that the special effort made by modern architects and progressive housing politics during the 20th century must be reinterpreted and followed today. Intentionally, this issue brings a special focus on the Iberoamerican world, specifically Spain, Portugal and Latin America, with the aim of relocating it in a cultural world of predominantly Anglo-American historiography. In any case,...
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To analyze the life and transformation of modern housing is a key subject for architectural knowledge. There are very positive cases of evolution, such as Casa Bloc in Barcelona, Spain, by GATCPAC architects, which still functions as living patrimony after two architectural rehabilitations; and disastrous, such as Robin Hood Gardens in London by Alison and Peter Smithson. The article explains why some cases are very alive while others have suffered progressive degradation and will be demolished. A key and decisive element is the design of the corridors, which due to their forms and sizes...
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In London, in the context of a shortfall of homes that has achieved the status of “housing crisis”, the replacement of obsolete social housing stock, inherited from the post-war period of mass production, for housing that satisfies the demands of the private market and the need for more sustainable cities is one of the main issues for the 21st century. Robin Hood Gardens’ demolition will become a paradigm for the positions to be taken respecting urban obsolescence. Across London, one can see examples that show how, by the criteria of contemporary urban planning, the domestic and urban...
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This paper explores contemporary collective housing as a community resource and living heritage. The first part of the article is a conceptualization of citizen activation as a valid concept to merge actions that can transform housing into a platform to promote social cohesion. The second part lists the steps to reach citizen activation. The article highlights some examples in Barcelona: buildings where some activation activities have been stimulated and others that could start the process.
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The Siedlung Halen (Halen Estate), built in the late 1950s near Berne, Switzerland, is still visited by many architects and students from all over the world. The houses of the Estate, once sold for a moderate price, are in high demand nowadays, which leads to a higher expectation for available space and comfort. After 50 years of existence, the normal problems of long-time maintenance are not easy to resolve. Although hampered by problems of concordance among the owners, the exemplary process of planning raises hope for an equally exemplary execution.
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The history of Valencian architecture reached one of its highest points with a project for the Cooperativa de Agentes Comerciales, consisting of a group of 138 dwellings (1958–1961) on the corner between Pérez Galdós Avenue and Santa María Micaela Street, after which this complex is named. It is a residential complex unique for its early and conscious association with a distinct modernity that would not be limited only to the national setting, as we shall see. We only have to consider some of the leading works of that period, which revived the contributions of the grand masters, Le...
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At the beginning of the 70s in Bogotá, Colombia, an experimental housing project tried to respond, with adaptable and intelligent solutions, to the challenges of an increasingly urbanized country. It utilized a Low-Rise, High-Density (LRHD) urban system that enhanced the flexibility and the incremental process of housing units cells. This paper aims first, to explain the historical background and the objectives of an experimental project in a Latin American context; then to expose its innovative architectural proposals and finally, to evaluate its evolution in its 5th decade of...
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The housing deficit in Buenos Aires exceeds 143,000 dwellings. Fortunately, the city has ninety years of social housing experience to draw research from. Does this problem require new ideas or can it be studied from the existing examples? The essay proposes a quick overview of ten housing projects that were built in the 20th century and that represent different models of collective housing. One of them, Juan xxiii Complex — absent in the historical revisions — stands out for its design, size and integrated vision of the community. Architects and students committed to the city and its...
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The 60s was a decade of profound change in Brazil. The federal capital was transferred to Brasília, which represented the realization of the ideal of the modern city envisaged at CIAM IV. Modern architecture, which in its Brazilian version, was characterized by the Escola Carioca (Rio de Janeiro School), gave way to the São Paulo avant-garde, concerned with truth to materials and social aspirations. In politics we saw the shift from a democratic government to a military dictatorship, which sought to legitimize itself through the creation of a state funding system to solve the nation’s...
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In the early 20th century in Portugal, a new architecture was produced as the offspring of different references, conforming to a process of “Portugueseness” based on the picturesque. From the beginning of the dictatorship in 1926, the State took advantage of that phenomenon to sublimate nationalist values. Through the first programs of mass housing construction, the single-family house became an object of consumption and a cornerstone of national identity. The search for identity brings together different architectures across the century featuring a renewed Portuguese sentiment infused...
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“Poker Faces” interrogates the category of modernity in the history and criticism of domestic architecture, examining the relationship between formal innovation — typically used as our measure of originality — and planning innovation, in which new ways of living and experiencing the home are enabled through the translation of unconventional programs into interior spaces. Two examples of houses built for women clients — William Brainerd’s Colonial Revival “SCARAB” in Wellesley, Massachusetts (1907), built as a home for Professor Katharine Lee Bates and her life partner, Professor...
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From the end of the 19th century women architects had played important roles in the making of the built environment. But their presence and participation in the building of the modern city was a fact that has been forgotten over time. This text introduces the case study of the proposals made by four women: Margarete Schütte Lihotzky, Jakoba Mulder, Lotte Stam-Beese and Carmen Portinho. They are just a sample to show the importance of women’s contribution in the building of better housing and neighborhoods.
Lectures
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In the course of the 20th century, housing became a science due to the huge efforts of progressive architects and their great interest in addressing this issue that had been raised with major political impact by Engels in the first half of the 19th century. The concern of modernist architects with these new problems facing the population, prompted advanced designs that are still regarded as exemplary in the history of urbanistics. In the 1930s, housing complexes in Moscow, Berlin, Frankfurt and Rotterdam constituted role models for other cities. They even became banners of housing and a...
News
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Within the scope of the conference and of its “Expansion & Conflict” theme, the 13th International docomomo Workshop took place in Seoul, Korea, between 19 and 23 September 2014, under the theme “Strategies for the Sewoon Arcade”.
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T!e 13th International docomomo Conference took place in Seoul, Korea, between 24 and 27 September 2014. Jong Soung Kimm, Chair of the 13th International docomomo Conference, explains that “after much soul-searching, ‘Expansion and Conflict’ was agreed as the theme by the organizers, and was presented at the Helsinki conference in 2012. Jong Soung stresses that “the keyword in the theme is ‘conflict’, and that word at one point was put forward as the lead of the catch phrase. Not as a pejorative word, “conflict” was used as a challenge to invoke a...
