To browse Academia. Through the state-sanctioned construction of mass housing and development of towns on the outskirts of existing cities, a new world materialized where sixty years ago little more than cabbage and cottages existed. Known as the banlieue, the suburban landscapes that make up much of contemporary France are near-opposites of the historic cities they surround. Although these postwar environments of towers, slabs, and megastructures are often seen as a single utopian blueprint gone awry, Kenny Cupers demonstrates that their construction was instead driven by the intense aspirations and anxieties of a broad range of people.
Narrating the complex interactions between architects, planners, policy makers, inhabitants, and social scientists, he shows how postwar dwelling was caught between the purview of the welfare state and the rise of mass consumerism.
The Social Project unearths three decades of architectural and social experiments centered on the dwelling environment as it became an object of modernization, an everyday site of citizen participation, and a domain of social scientific expertise. Beyond state intervention, it was this new regime of knowledge production that made postwar modernism mainstream.
The first comprehensive history of these wide-ranging urban projects, this book reveals how housing in postwar France shaped both contemporary urbanity and modern architecture. Log in with Facebook Log in with Google. Remember me on this computer. Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link. Need an account? Click here to sign up. Although these postwar suburban environments of towers, slabs, and that their construction was instead driven by the intense aspirations and anxieties of a broad range of people.
Beyond state intervention, this new regime of knowledge production made postwar modernism mainstream. Kenny Cupers is assistant professor of architectural history at the University of Illinois at Urbanaβ Champaign. Fonds Aillaud. Reproduced with permission of Fabio Rieti. Then suddenly, the other Parisβperhaps the truly modern oneβappears. Housing slabs and tower blocks in bright white, daring pink, and drab gray. Palaces for the people, giant but mostly less than glamorous.
