Europe Meets America. William Lescaze, Architect of Modern Housing

An analysis of the New York professional milieu between the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the aftermath of WWII reveals an unexpected scenario, in which diverse branches of technical culture and professional and institutional spheres often overlap, and initiatives in the field of architecture are characterised by tensions between designers and technicians, which pave the way for issues of architects’ autonomy, responsibility and social roles in the New Deal.From an initial portrayal of William Lescaze (1896–1969) as an unconventional figure “straddling two continents,” this book challenges a long-established interpretation that sees Lescaze exclusively as promoter of the International Style canons in the United States. Moving beyond it, this book focuses on the role that the Swiss architect played in defining the main features of New York social housing and in the evolution that marks the encounter between European modernity and an American federal scene still profoundly tied to local conventions. From an initially difficult status as an émigré to his involvement in decisional processes and bureaucratic organisations, Lescaze’s professional progress coincides with the gradual acceptance of European forms and models, which, little by little, became part of the institutional language related to public housing which would remain prevalent in New York City until the end of WWII. Drawing from yet-unpublished archival sources pertaining to two fields – housing and architecture – which have traditionally been separate in American historiography, this book sheds light on many crucial issues in a branch of architecture that is particularly relevant today

<Symposium Overview: Presentations' outlines>Reading the Exchange : Mapping Journals as Platform for Urban Knowledge

Mapping the Transfer (1920s-1970s): Magazines as Platforms for Architecture and Urban Knowledge (resp. Gaia Caramellino and Nicole De Togni) is a project inaugurated in 2014 and developed over the last three years with the contribution of the Master students of the course in History and Theory of Architecture, at the Politecnico di Milano. It is based on the inquiry conducted on forty-six periodicals published in seventeen diverse countries between the 1920s and the 1970s. The presentation will discuss the creation of a database aimed at facilitating the study of the international circulation of models, persons and discourses in areas of diverse cultural and linguistic background. A powerful tool/source for the research in the field of transnational studies, the database will not be used to address the history of periodicals and the editorial culture – observed within their national boundaries –, but will rather encourage a cross-national and cross-cultural reading, aimed at investigating the international dimension of the process of production and discussion of architectural and planning knowledge over the 20th century. As a testing ground, the database will be used for the investigation of the transfer of urban notions and visions between US and Italy, after WWII. The main goal will be to map the exchange, but also to analyze the forms of reception and adaptation at local level, by questioning their impact on the urban environment

Negotiating the middle-class city. Housing and equipping post-war Turin, 1950-1980

The article explores the pattern of fragmented public spaces and collective facilities built in Turin between the 1950s and the 1970s, as the result of negotiation processes conducted between public institutions, private developers and professionals over the design and construction of housing devoted to the middle-class. Considering three developments – the complexes of Moncalieri and Collegno located at the outskirts of the city, and the new residential district of Quartiere Ippodromo in the southern sector – the article observes public facilities as the outcome of a set of different policies, mirroring the encounter between an heterogeneous set of actors and initiatives: from the scale of the playground close to the condominio to the public park at the edge of the new residential sectors, from the neighborhood’s kindergartens and primary schools, to the community and sports centers in the new districts. During this period, houses devoted to middle-class and new public facilities were negotiated, designed and built simultaneously, bringing light to the fragmented process of construction that generated post-war Turin, implemented through series of punctual agreements between private and public actors. Through an uncommon approach, that aims at combining traditional sources with the analysis of less explored planning tools (mainly the convenzioni urbanistiche and the piani di lottizzazione), the article contributes to a deeper understanding of the development of post-war Italian cities, by looking at the aggregation of houses and facilities as two dimensions of inhabiting/living – closely interrelated in middle class housing – that together contribute to actively build the “ordinary” city. Nowadays this interrelationship still represents a focal point of social cohesion, urban quality and liveability

Von der Settlement-Bewegung zum Wohlfahrtsprojekt. Mary Simkhovitchs Beitrag zum Diskurs uber den New Yorker Wohnungsbau

Der Beitrag der Frauen an der Planung von Städten, ein bedeutendes und bislang ungeschriebenes Kapitel der Städtebaugeschichte, wird in dieser Publikation anhand der Schriften und Pläne verschiedener Autorinnen und Akteurinnen erstmals aufgearbeitet. Frauen und die Planung von Städten – dies war bislang ein ungeschriebenes Kapitel der Städtebaugeschichte. In dieser Publikation wird nun erstmals die Bedeutung der Autorinnen und Akteurinnen anhand ihrer Schriften und Pläne illustriert. Dokumentiert wird dies durch den Abdruck von zahlreichen Quellentexten aus dem 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Die Untersuchung erweitert nicht nur den Horizont der städtebaulichen Historiographie, sondern begibt sich auch auf die Suche nach neuen theoretischen Denkmodellen für die Stadtplanung

Middle-class Housing as a Cross-cultural and Multi-disciplinary Project: Rethinking Critical, Interpretative and Methodological Frameworks

The history of the modernization processes of post-WWII European cities could be observed through the lens of the emerging middle classes between the 1950s and the 1970s when housing significantly contributed to establishing and defining new social identities. Middle classes were the main protagonists of the rapid urban development and massive expansion that profoundly influenced the production of new estates, neighborhoods, and urban sectors, leaving relevant traces on the contemporary built environment of the European cities. In a sense, Europe, in its various civic configurations and cultural representations, became the symbol of progress and prosperity for the middle classes, an international formation restored and restructured by the middle classes which was meant to serve and protect according to a new post-war social contract

Negotiating the middle-class city. Housing and equipping post-war Turin, 1950-1980

The article explores the pattern of fragmented public spaces and collective facilities built in Turin between the 1950s and the 1970s, as the result of negotiation processes conducted between public institutions, private developers and professionals over the design and construction of housing devoted to the middle-class. Considering three developments – the complexes of Moncalieri and Collegno located at the outskirts of the city, and the new residential district of Quartiere Ippodromo in the southern sector – the article observes public facilities as the outcome of a set of different policies, mirroring the encounter between an heterogeneous set of actors and initiatives: from the scale of the playground close to the condominio to the public park at the edge of the new residential sectors, from the neighborhood’s kindergartens and primary schools, to the community and sports centers in the new districts. During this period, houses devoted to middle-class and new public facilities were negotiated, designed and built simultaneously, bringing light to the fragmented process of construction that generated post-war Turin, implemented through series of punctual agreements between private and public actors. Through an uncommon approach, that aims at combining traditional sources with the analysis of less explored planning tools (mainly the convenzioni urbanistiche and the piani di lottizzazione), the article contributes to a deeper understanding of the development of post-war Italian cities, by looking at the aggregation of houses and facilities as two dimensions of inhabiting/living – closely interrelated in middle class housing – that together contribute to actively build the “ordinary” city. Nowadays this interrelationship still represents a focal point of social cohesion, urban quality and liveability

Histoires et quartiers. Méthodes, narrations, acteurs

In recent years, the history of neighborhoods has attracted a renewed interest with regard to urban policy investigations and their qualitative objectives, thus experiencing a return to human scale, to proximity, and to the “15-minute city.” A resurgence of historical engagement occurs from various directions and within different domains, such as habitat and housing, neighborhood facilities, employment, mobility, and neighbor relations. These new perspectives question several scales (local, national, transnational, global) by seeing neighborhoods as places where construction practices and spatial representation intersect at different levels. This issue on “Histories and neighborhoods” develops along the lines of two approaches: methodological and epistemological aspects, as well as research strategies (1), and the construction and uses of narratives with actors in specific urban contexts (2). It is interested in the ways in which these questions are addressed in different political contexts and scientific milieux. Over the past ten years, in the fields of urban history, architecture and landscape, and in urban sectors more specifically, we have witnessed attempts at interdisciplinary hybridization between research practices, methodologies and tools that come from different disciplinary backgrounds: archival research, ethnography, history written by public institutions, oral history, and field observations. These methodological dialogues go beyond cleavages between quantitative and qualitative research, subjective or objective observation, micro and macro-history, or architectural typology and uses of space. Indeed, these research approaches make it possible to develop interplays of scale, from the micro to the macro, from a domestic setting to the territory, and from everyday actors to structural, institutional or even political actors. Which research strategies are at work? What types of narratives do they produce? How does opening up to the field of representations and identities of local groups integrate social interactions into the analysis of spatial and structural logics? In addition to interview excerpts, as well as graphic, audible and pictorial documents, what types of materials are used? Finally, to what extent is architectural, urban and landscape research well positioned to develop new forms of methodological hybridization? These approaches also lead to different cross-referencing of research topics, and to multiple definitions of the notion of “neighborhood,” the implications of which are explored in this issue. Neighborhood histories can also be perceived as the result of a negotiation in which historians find themselves coproducing interpretations within the framework of a dialogue with narratives developed on different stages, particularly political ones, and carried out by actors with varied objectives and forms of communication. The issue questions the positioning of research as it faces an abundance of diachronic narratives already layered on neighborhoods, part of which do not circulate in academic literature, but rather through forms of oral or written transmission conveyed by political, administrative, professional, associative, and resident networks, etc. We will also focus on the “demand for history”, from the part of planners and other social groups, and on the need to develop historical accounts capable of addressing the questions about the transformation of space, but also on the risk of producing timeless, fictitious or “presentist” spaces. From this perspective, we can question historical research integrating a participatory research methodology and assembling non-academic forms of narration and representation. This will raise questions relating to the coordination of narratives and memories, the contribution of testimonies to the archive and, more broadly, the layering of narratives. In this framework, and in the face of memorial and heritage groups and their tools, the contribution of the architect, urban planner or landscape architect is approached in the production of a common or consolidated history, or even of history as a common good, simultaneously capable of integrating a plurality of perspectives, even potentially conflicting ones. Without revisiting debates on the notion of neighborhood, already thoroughly addressed in the social sciences, and without seeking to establish a universal definition, the issue questions the way in which historiography takes hold of this notion. As such, the diversity of case studies makes it possible to understand how the historical narrative captures the scales of the “neighborhood” in different contexts