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No. 65 (2021)
Housing for All
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Editors: Ana Tostões

Guest editors: Zara Ferreira

Keywords: Modern Movement, Modern architecture, Modern housing, Post-war
housing, Welfare architecture, Mass housing.

Addressing a broader vision, entitled “Housing for All”, this issue is dedicated
to the welfare era, when governments across the world established ambitious
housing programs to provide housing for the greatest number and improve the
citizens’ living conditions, as a symbol of a modern and democratic society.
This bold course of action involved radical changes in the built environment,
through new approaches to architectural design and experiments in the use of
materials and techniques, the creation of space, and social transformation.
Nowadays, understanding how to deal with this legacy presents a major challenge,
in a continuously changing context, from the technical obsolescence of buildings
that no longer meet today’s demanding standards, or fast-moving sociocultural,
political and economic values. The aim of this docomomo Journal 65 is to outline
how these vast cultural and political ambitions were materialized in various
countries, and to analyze the contemporary challenges they face. More than five
decades later, are these buildings and neighborhoods resilient or obsolete? In
addition to the changes that postmodern society has brought in ways of living,
issues such as the demand for spatial and functional transformation, and the
updating of regulations on fire, seismic stability, user safety and energy
efficiency, are now part of the contemporary agenda. How can these sites be kept
alive while satisfying sustainability and contemporary ideas of comfort?

Published: 2021-07-01


EDITORIAL

 * Housing for the greatest number
   Ana Tostões
    * PDF
   
   Addressing a broader vision, entitled “Housing for All”, this issue is
   dedicated to the welfare era, when governments across the world established
   ambitious housing programs to provide housing for the greatest number and
   improve the citizens’ living conditions, as a symbol of a modern and
   democratic society. This bold course of action involved radical changes in
   the built environment, through new approaches to architectural design and
   experiments in the use of materials and techniques, the creation of space,
   and social transformation. Nowadays, understanding how to deal with this
   legacy...


INTRODUCTION

 * The right to comfort in the century of the self
   Zara Ferreira
    * PDF
   
   After the war, the world was divided between two main powers, a Western
   capitalist bloc led by the USA, and an Eastern communist bloc, driven by the
   USSR. From Japan to Mexico, the post-war years were ones of prosperous
   economic growth and profound social transformation. It was the time of
   re-housing families split apart and of rebuilding destroyed cities, but it
   was also the time of democratic rebirth, the definition of individual and
   collective freedoms and rights, and of belief in the open society envisaged
   by Karl Popper. Simultaneously, it was the time of the biggest migrations
   from...


ESSAYS

 * Modernity and housing production in France after WWII
   Joseph Abram
    * PDF
   
   After the collapse of 1940 and Occupation (1940-1944), France experienced a
   remarkable renewal after Liberation in 1944. Through reconstruction and
   intensive efforts to bring the country out of the housing crisis, the State
   set up a powerful production system, which based the expansion of the
   building sector on the concentration of investment in large companies. It was
   the era of the grands ensembles, of heavy prefabrication and giant
   construction sites. Initially well received by their inhabitants, these large
   housing complexes rapidly deteriorated and became ghettos. Despite the
   social...

 * President Alemán Urban Housing Project
   Louise Noelle
    * PDF
   
   The Centro Urbano Presidente Alemán, inaugurated in 1949, was a pioneer in
   more ways than one and can be considered as one of the most transcendent
   works of Mario Pani. It is the first Mexican high-rise housing complex, where
   many of the ideals of the European masters, especially Le Corbusier, are
   gathered together but with a design suited to its place and time. Mario Pani
   shattered the scheme of the single unit dwelling and proposed a density that
   allowed the presence of garden areas and integrated diverse services.
   Moreover, he invited the artist José Clemente Orozco to paint a mural,...

 * Housing explorations. Unidad Vecinal Portales in Santiago
   Umberto Bonomo
    * PDF
   
   This article explores the contribution of Unidad Vecinal Portales – built in
   Santiago de Chile by the studio Bresciani, Valdés, Castillo y Huidobro – to
   the debates on social housing in Chile between the 1940s and 1960s. A series
   of radical decisions, put into action in the complex, demonstrate a deep
   exploration at the urban, typological, and aesthetic levels. This exploration
   has given life to an important case study in Chile and Latin- America, where
   urban and architectural challenges of the second half of the 20th century
   blend harmoniously.

 * Preserving a modern housing model the restoration of Pedregulho Housing
   Neighborhood
   Flávia Brito do Nascimento
    * PDF
   
   This paper examines the history of Pedregulho Housing Neighborhood, built
   between 1948 and 1960 by the Department of Popular Housing in Rio de Janeiro,
   Brazil, from the first concepts to the restoration in 2015. Conceived by the
   urbanists Carmen Portinho and Affonso E. Reidy, it became one of the most
   emblematic works of modern Brazilian architecture. After years of neglect, in
   2015 housing Block A of the neighborhood underwent restoration, one of the
   only such projects on social housing complexes in Latin America. The paper
   discusses the housing complex’s history, focusing on the...

 * The survival and resurrection of a “Bakema-experiment” in an Amsterdam garden
   city
   Tim Nagtegaal
    * PDF
   
   There is a hidden gem in the Amsterdam garden cities. Jaap Bakema was the
   founder of an experiment in the 1950s. A piece of “Rotterdam in Amsterdam.”
   Based on the philosophy of an open society and the human scale. Forty years
   after completion, there is a call for renewal. The architect’s heritage ends
   up on the demolition list. Due to the economic crisis, demolition has been
   postponed and there was time for reflection. The neighborhood seems to
   survive the test of time. The careful renewal proves to be a great success.
   This is a story about the resurrection of a Bakema experiment.

 * Conservation by consensus heritage management in large housing estates
   John Allan
    * PDF
   
   This study considers the role of management guidelines in regulating the
   pressures for change in large housing estates where heritage constraints are
   involved but where the use of formal enforcement procedures would be
   unrealistic and uneconomical. The author’s experience in creating such
   documents indicates the importance of cultivating a sustainable consensus
   among stakeholders that balances respect for and understanding of
   architectural and historic significance with a realistic acceptance of the
   need for change. The author suggests that the success of such instruments
   depends upon...

 * Reconstructing housing and communities the INA-Casa Plan
   Rosalia Vittorini
    * PDF
   
   Among the Italian initiatives for social and material reorganization in the
   aftermath of WWII, the most interesting was undoubtedly the INA-Casa Plan.
   The plan was designed to counteract widespread unemployment in the
   construction sector and aimed to provide new and modern social housing to the
   poorer classes, thus simultaneously responding to the housing emergency.
   During the 14 years between 1949 and 1963, architects designed, and
   construction companies built a housing patrimony of remarkable quality, which
   now becomes an opportunity to develop strategies of urban revitalization.

 * Large-scale housing projects in Lisbon Olivais and Telheiras
   Ana Tostões, Zara Ferreira
    * PDF
   
   The neighborhoods of Olivais Norte (1960), Olivais Sul (1963) and Telheiras
   Sul (1974) are paradigmatic examples of the Portuguese State’s response to
   the housing shortage that was acknowledged in Lisbon, in the period of the
   post-WWII. Featuring a varied catalogue of architectural trends, this series
   of projects demonstrated extensive structural, formal, and spatial
   experimentation that revealed the concerns and quest by their designers to
   respond to the need for “housing for the greatest number”. What all three
   projects shared was that they were large scale, publicly financed, started...

 * Avanchet-Parc in Geneva an experimental housing scheme, an exemplary complex
   Franz Graf, Giulia Marino
    * PDF
   
   In the teeming context of the 1970s, the Cité Avanchet-Parc is an undeniably
   original achievement, representative of the approach – above all cultural –
   of a generation of architects who sought to experiment with new urban and
   architectural forms in response to current practice. The satellite precinct
   is also a sign of skillful construction, undoubtedly pioneering in the
   context of the 1970s and which is still today, half a century later, the
   essence of its relevance to the present. An exemplary experience, the Cité
   Avanchet-Parc today deserves renewed recognition.

 * Sunny flats will replace…A congested slum block Sydney’s post war housing
   improvement schemes
   Noni Boyd
    * PDF
   
   The present text traces the post war slum clearance program in Sydney,
   Australia, that saw the construction of modern blocks of flats drawn from
   international examples of rehousing schemes. This State-funded urban renewal
   program continued from the late 1940s until the 1980s. Many of the blocks of
   flats are slated for demolition, yet no overall assessment of their design
   quality or detailed discussion of the range of building forms or apartment
   layouts has been undertaken. There is a danger that these well-designed
   blocks will vanish rather than be retrofitted and that this unparalleled...

 * Preservation and public housing in the United States
   Theodore Prudon
    * PDF
   
   Public housing is an important part of the heritage of the 20th century that
   deserves preservation, but is in danger of being demolished or unrecognizably
   altered. The United States, which saw the construction of such government
   sponsored projects, largely between 1930 and 1975, is no exception. In the
   last four decades government efforts have continued to shift towards
   financial incentives for private initiatives for design, construction and
   property management. This housing legacy, if being preserved, still needs to
   be improved so it can continue to serve as affordable housing in the...

 * Kollektivhus the Swedish model
   Claes Caldenby
    * PDF
   
   Today there is a new wave of co-housing internationally. Co-housing is here
   understood as collaborative housing, based on collaboration between residents
   on cooking and house maintenance, a new phenomenon since the 1980s. Sweden
   has a tradition since early modernism of kollektivhus, collective houses, in
   multi-family dwellings with employed staff managing household work. In Sweden
   today there are only some 40 true kollektivhus or co-housing projects, while
   ordinary Swedish postwar multi-family dwellings have common facilities that
   potentially would make them co-housing. Co-housing is...


DOCUMENTATION ISSUES

 * Vegaviana, a colonization village the rural “naturalness and simplicity” of
   modern Spanish heritage
   Inmaculada Bote Alonso, Beatriz Montalbán Pozas
    * PDF
   
   The Instituto Nacional de Colonización built a series of villages all over
   Spain to support farmers who were working on the newly established irrigated
   lands. Vegaviana, which was projected by the architect José Luis Fernández
   del Amo, stands out among the almost 300 villages that were constructed,
   becoming a referent for INC colonization and also in modern Spanish
   architecture. Firstly, a brief contextual review is presented. Secondly, the
   emphasis is put on Vegaviana, and its presence in international contexts is
   analyzed, highlighting its outstanding low-cost design with local...

 * The Chandigarh Sector
   Sangeeta Bagga
    * PDF
   
   The neighborhood unit (Sector) in Chandigarh was conceived as a
   self-sufficient, repeated element to create the matrix of the city along with
   the hierarchical circulation system defined by the 7Vs to disburse traffic in
   an orderly manner. This arrangement was interfaced with a designed landscape
   at the behest of Le Corbusier and Dr. M. S. Randhawa whose passion for
   bio-aesthetics realized a city where landscape and built forms created a
   patina of the most charming capital of the modern world. Seven decades later,
   the city’s flowering landscape and modernist architecture continues to
   make...

 * Torres Blancas, a Vertical Garden City
   Alberto Sanz
    * PDF
   
   Torres Blancas, the building designed by Francisco Javier Sáenz de Oíza for
   the Huarte company, was built between 1964 and 1972. Its powerful sculptural
   form, the expressive use of bare concrete and its experimental nature make it
   an iconic example of Madrid’s architecture. Proposed as a vertical city with
   an organic emphasis, Torres Blancas is not the usual stack of flats, but a
   residential complex of independent housing units with garden terraces and the
   amenities of a small community. This building thus combines Le Corbusier’s
   unités d’habitation and Frank Lloyd Wright’s towers.

 * The young Paulo Mendes da Rocha Jockey Club of Goiás and a modernity project
   Eline Maria Mora Pereira Caixeta, Christine Ramos Mahler
    * PDF
   
   The Jockey Club of Goiás, located in the city of Goiânia, in the interior of
   Brazil, was the first building to adopt the language of exposed concrete in
   this city, in addition to other attributes of architectural and urban
   relevance. This discussion aims to analyze the design approach, the
   tectonics, the urban setting, and its transcendence in the architect’s
   career. It examines the conception of the project and identifies similarities
   between this project and his future work.


HERITAGE IN DANGER

 * The real reason why Nakagin Capsule Tower was never metabolized
   Tatsuyuki Maeda, Yuka Yoshida
    * PDF
   
   The first part of this two-part essay is about the Nakagin Capsule Tower
   restoration and preservation project and discusses the low awareness of the
   current situation of the building. In part two Showcase Tokyo Architecture
   tours share survey responses from enthusiastic capsule tower fans on the
   future of the building.


NEWS

 * A conference for the future From Bauhaus to the New House – Post-Covid
   Landscapes
   Jorge Figueira
    * PDF
   
   When, on 15th October 2020, the President of the European Commission, Ursula
   von der Leyen, in her State of the Union speech and an article published in
   several newspapers, launched the idea of a New European Bauhaus, it surprised
   politicians, cultural agents and citizens in general. After all, we are not
   used to having a leader at the highest level, putting forward a cultural,
   artistic, and architectural issue as a central policy motivation.
   
   Moreover, it drew on a century-old institution, the Bauhaus, undoubtedly one
   of the pillars of modern culture, where artists, architects,...


BOOK REVIEWS

 * Les immeubles de grande hauteur en France. Un héritage moderne 1945-1975 and
   more reviews
   Docomomo Journal
    * PDF
   
   -


ANNOUNCEMENTS


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2021-12-27

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the headquarters DOCOMOMO international from January 2022 onwards.

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