Urban Planning (ISSN: 2183–7635)

2019, Volume 4, Issue 3, Pages 291–298

DOI: 10.17645/up.v4i3.2383

Commentary
CIAM and Its Outcomes
Eric Mumford

Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA; E-Mail: [email protected]

Submitted: 28 July 2019 | Accepted: 28 July 2019 | Published: 30 September 2019

Abstract
CIAM, the Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne, founded by a coalition of European architects in 1928, was an
international forum for new ideas about the urban design of housing and cities in an emerging socialist context. Its most
influential concepts were the Existenzminimum, the small family housing unit affordable on a minimum wage income and
the focus on CIAM 2, 1929; the design of housing settlements of such units, the focus of CIAM 3, 1930; and the Functional
City, the idea that entire cities should be designed or redesigned on this basis. This article briefly explains these ideas and
considers some of their subsequent outcomes.

Keywords
CIAM; Existenzminimum; functional city; urban housing; Zeilenbau

Issue
This commentary is part of the issue “Housing Builds Cities”, edited by Luca Ortelli (École Polytechnique Fédérale de
Lausanne, Switzerland), Chiara Monterumisi (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland) and Alessandro
Porotto (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland).

© 2019 by the author; licensee Cogitatio (Lisbon, Portugal). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribu-
tion 4.0 International License (CC BY).

CIAM, the Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture be CIAM’s most significant concept, as the group defined
Moderne, was founded by a coalition of European ar- it as the basic planning unit for larger structures ranging
chitects in 1928. It defined itself as a forum for new de- from a single building to entire regions. Individual build-
sign ideas, and not as a bureaucratic organization, with ing projects by CIAM members based on it include Wells
the result that its financial basis was always quite ten- Coates’s Isokon Flats (Figure 4) in Hampstead, London,
uous and reliant on individual patrons. At CIAM 2, held 1934, Josep Lluis Sert’s, Casa Bloc in Barcelona, 1933, and
in Frankfurt in 1929, with representatives mostly from Sven Markelius’s Collective House in Stockholm, 1935.
various northern European cities, the group took up the At CIAM 3, held in Brussels in 1930, CIAM turned
issue of the Existenzminimum, the family housing unit to the design of housing settlements composed of min-
affordable on a minimum wage income (CIAM, 1930). It imum units, whose form was then a subject of de-
also began using same-scale plans to compare various bate. CIAM rejected the then-standard European use
minimum unit layouts by its members, illustrating the of perimeter block urban housing patterns, as they ar-
idea that previous conceptions of ‘architecture’, based gued that these did not create equal access to sun-
on the use of historic precedents and intended for ex- light and good ventilation in every unit. Instead, CIAM
pensive and honorific buildings, were now obsolete. This advocated that new housing be built in widely spaced
direction was part of the Neues Bauen (New Building) in Zeilenbau rows, like those designed by Ernst May and
Germany, where architects like Hannes Meyer, the direc- his associates in Frankfurt, which they would also soon
tor of the Bauhaus from 1928–1930 and a participant begin to propose for new Soviet cities like Magnitogorsk,
at La Sarraz, had advocated that architects turn toward Russia. These were to be organized into walkable ‘neigh-
scientifically-based solutions to the immediate living and bourhood units’, a term first used in North American
working conditions of the masses (Figures 1–3). planning. Each unit would be no larger than ½ mile
Since then, the validity of this direction for architec- (0.81 km) in diameter, centred on an elementary school
ture has been much debated. The Existenzminimum may and also including other collective services. This concept

Urban Planning, 2019, Volume 4, Issue 3, Pages 291–298 291

Figure 1. Model for hotel for auto tourists project, 1923, by Gabriel Guévrékian. Source: Gropius (2019, p. 50).

Figure 2. Neubühl housing settlement 1932, Zurich, by Swiss CIAM architects (originally published in Rationelle
Bebauungweisen, 1931). This project was example #19 from the CIAM 3 proceedings. Source: Wikimedia Commons (2007).

Figure 3. Neubühl housing settlement, Zurich, 1931, by Swiss CIAM architects. View of a row of minimum housing units,
looking toward Lake Zurich. Source: Mumford (2009).

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Figure 4. Wells Coates, Isokon Flats, Lawn Road, Hampstead, London, 1934. An application of the Existenzminimum idea in
a lowrise collective housing block by a member of the MARS Group, with shared services. It housed Walter Gropius, Arthur
Korn, and some other CIAM members in England in the mid-1930s. Source: Wikimedia Commons (2005).

was then widely applied in mass housing projects world- than the more economical four story Zeilenbau (Figure 5)
wide and has proved to be a durable legacy of CIAM, one patterns (Gropius, 1943).
that it shared with some other twentieth century plan- Among the reasons for this debate was the question
ning directions. of the nature of family life in a collectivist society. Some
At CIAM 3 another debate also emerged, on the Soviet CIAM architects and other CIAM members like the
suitability of high-rise building for workers’ housing. Prague critic Karel Teige advocated new forms of commu-
High-rise elevator apartment buildings had been con- nal living like the Narkomfin apartments in Moscow of
structed in New York since the early 1880s. Auguste Ginsburg and Milinis (1928). At the same time, this type
Perret and Le Corbusier in Paris each made design was already being widely used for hotels and luxury hous-
proposals that entire cities could be built in this way. ing, and soon modern architects began to make propos-
In Le Corbusier’s Contemporary City for Two Million als for it also, as at Gropius and Fry’s unbuilt project for
project (1922), the cruciform towers were for offices, sur- St. Leonard’s Hill, near Windsor Castle outside London
rounded by 8 story housing blocks organized into walk- (1935). Among the few built examples of a high-rise slab
able green superblocks bounded by high-speed traffic of minimum units like that envisioned by Gropius in 1931
routes. At CIAM 3, Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier both by a CIAM member is Willem Van Tijen’s Bergpolder Flats
argued that in areas of high land costs, widely spaced (Figure 6) in Rotterdam (1932–34). This debate over high
housing slabs with elevators were a better housing form versus low building was never resolved in CIAM.

Figure 5. A 1940 diagram of Zeilenbau planning, showing its advantages for preserving open space near the housing units.
Source: Reed and Ogg (1940).

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Figure 6. Willem van Tijen, with Brinkmann and Van der Vlugt, Bergpolderflat, Rotterdam, 1932–34. The first built high-rise
slab by a CIAM member, and a model for the many gallery access post-war slabs of British and later housing estates. Source:
Yorke & Penn (1939, plate 15).

Much more controversial for urban planning was the such as those being produced by his colleague Theodor
CIAM idea of the Functional City, derived from Cornelis K. Van Lohuizen. Instead of trying to thread new high-
van Eesteren’s Amsterdam planning, and the basis for ways through existing cities (as he had attempted to do in
CIAM 4 in 1933, originally planned for Moscow in 1932. a proposal for Paris in 1926, with Louis-Georges Pineau),
Van Eesteren had rejected the large scale perimeter block Van Eesteren instead joined Le Corbusier in advocating
planning of H. P. Berlage in Amsterdam South (1917), the replacement of “obsolete” urban districts with new
and instead looked to then-new North American indus- highways and housing, which he argued might be well
trial cities, which were increasingly being shaped by be high-rise. Appointed President of CIAM with Gropius’s
trucks and automobiles, as a model for what he called support in 1930, Van Eesteren’s approach was the basis
“Eine Stunde Städtebau” (One Hour City Building) (Van of the CIAM “four functions of the city” first publically ar-
Eesteren, 1997). Van Eesteren argued that the “func- ticulated at CIAM 4: dwelling, work, transportation and
tional elements” of the city, primarily large factories, recreation (Figure. 7).
ports, and collective recreation spaces, could be orga- The CIAM Functional City approach to urbanism de-
nized in relation to housing by using the most effi- rived from earlier European planning, which had also at-
cient transportation routes, guided by statistical studies tempted to structure urban environments to create a

Figure 7. Amsterdam General Extension Plan, 1935, by Cornelis van Eestern and team. H.P. Berlage’s Amsterdam South
plan, already built out by 1935, is at the lower right. Source: Giedion (1942, p. 528).

Urban Planning, 2019, Volume 4, Issue 3, Pages 291–298 294

high quality environment for all. In the United States, ing industrial cities that had mostly been built in the late
the legislative aspect of these planning directions led to nineteenth century, which nonetheless often had more
the widespread use of zoning ordinances in the 1920s to pedestrian streets and interesting architecture.
mandate suburban environments of single family houses, Aside from the brief CIAM moment in Soviet urban-
with commercial and industrial uses then placed away ism in 1931–32, official acceptance of these directions
from them in separate zones. This residential zoning in most cities was quite limited before 1945 (Figure 8).
also typically intensified racial segregation, as most non- In France, despite Le Corbusier’s extensive propagandiz-
white Americans were not considered eligible for home ing for CIAM in his many published unbuilt projects and
mortgages and were thus excluded for the most part at CIAM 5 (1937), only a few CIAM-type projects for
from living in the detached house suburban environ- urban districts were built in the 1930s. These included
ments then considered to be normative. Beaudouin and Lods Cité de la Muette in Drancy, near
In Europe, and eventually much of the rest of the Paris (1934, mostly demolished). CIAM influence was
world, the Functional City approach instead tended to im- still present in the many Soviet housing projects built af-
prove housing conditions, as workers were often given ter 1932, but these were usually organized in perimeter
better multifamily housing environments within larger, block patterns with (in theory) collective services, a direc-
but still relatively more compact, metropolitan areas tion pioneered in Red Vienna in the 1920s, but designed
than those of North America. In combination with ear- within the rigid architectural framework of Soviet neo-
lier, related planning directions like German Städtebau classicism. It was only in the 1940s that CIAM Zeilenbau
and the British Garden City movement, the efforts of concepts began to widely apply to large scale urban rede-
CIAM to improve the overcrowded and unsanitary hous- velopment. These appeared both in Swedish social hous-
ing conditions of industrial cities laid the basis for most ing, which also began to sometimes use pitched roofs,
subsequent European and world master planning. This and to include taller ‘point blocks’, and in other European
involved first, the efficient design of individual units cities, as filtered through Le Corbusier and the French
(dwelling) in blocks in neighbourhood units (Giedion, CIAM group ASCORAL’s La Charte d’Athènes (The Athens
1951) so that all had good sunlight and ventilation, with Charter, 1943). It was at this time also that the earlier
easy pedestrian access to collective facilities (recreation). history of CIAM began to be presented without its ear-
These neighbourhood units were ideally linked together lier socialist political context, with an emphasis on the
by transit ways and by highways (transportation) to make economic and social rationality of CIAM solutions.
for shorter commutes to business and industrial areas In post-war Britain, these directions were used in a
(work). This pattern was intended to be, and often was, range of widely varying local circumstances that ranged
healthier than the dense, smoky, and unsanitary exist- from high-rises for the working class in a few cities,

Figure 8. Examples of housing by CIAM members. Top left: Beaudouin, Lods, and Prouvé, Cité de la Muette, Drancy, near
Paris, 1936. Top right: Alvar Aalto, Sunila Type B rowhouses, 1936. Bottom left: Arne Jacobsen, Bellavista Flats, Bellevue,
Denmark, 1931–34. Bottom right: Stonorov and Kastner, Carl Mackley Houses, Philadelphia, 1931. Source: Sert (1942).

Urban Planning, 2019, Volume 4, Issue 3, Pages 291–298 295

notably Glasgow, to some of the more architecturally- lation of Singapore was housed in similar government-
driven housing experiments of the London County built housing, in individually owned apartments on 99-
Council (Bullock, 2015). While modern housing then be- year leases. (Glendinning, 2015).
came the focus of intense criticism in Britain by the late Hong Kong introduced this Singapore model of hous-
1960s, paralleling similar reactions to public housing in ing ownership into its government-built high-rises in the
American cities, these CIAM-inspired also had a forma- early 1970s (Figure. 9). In China after 1992, where Soviet
tive impact on the mass housing programs of the then- type “work unit estates” of midrise Zeilenbau housing
British colonies of Singapore and Hong Kong in the 1950s. blocks without elevators had continued to be built near
As Singapore moved toward independence, in 1959 factories into the 1970s, the Singapore model of modern
the Housing and Development Board (HDB) was estab- housing then began to be widely applied, as the country
lished, initially as a way of rebuilding ‘squatter settle- moved toward a mixed market economy under the tight
ments’ with one room ‘minimum units’ in concrete slab control of the Communist Party.
blocks. These paralleled similar efforts in Hong Kong, In Western Europe by 1953, the ideas of CIAM urban-
where the Hong Kong Housing Authority (HKHA) had ism put forward at its first eight congresses (1928–51)
been established after the Shek Kip Mei settlement fire began to be questioned by the group of CIAM “youth
in 1953. The HKHA was an outgrowth of the private phil- members” known as Team 10, which then led to very dif-
anthropic Hong Kong Housing Society, based on simi- ferent outcomes in urbanism. Team 10 demanded that
lar groups in London, with roots in the nineteenth cen- CIAM return to using the more traditional urban cate-
tury reform efforts of John Ruskin and Octavia Hill. To gories of house, street, district, and city, and at the same
meet growing housing demand, the HKHA began to build time offered a different kind of master planned urbanism
very high density projects (4,000 people per acre, versus to facilitate street life and human associations in inter-
200 people per acre in similar London projects) of sin- connected ‘megastructures’ (a term coined by Fumihiko
gle room units in seven story buildings, organized along Maki in 1964). Team 10 also rejected the urban plazas
external corridors with one bathroom per floor. By the and modern monumentality of the heart of the city idea,
1960s, the HKHA was building projects that combined put forward by CIAM President Sert at CIAM 8 in 1951, in
both low and high-rise (up to 25 story) elements, orga- favor of dispersing collective functions within the large
nized around open spaces with extensive communal fa- megastructures (Figure 10). This direction was influen-
cilities. In Singapore, as part of the 1951–58 Master Plan, tial on many practitioners in the 1960s, including Denys
the HDB began to develop the high-rise new town of Lasdun (London), Paul Rudolph (New York), and William
Queenstown in 1961 and expanded its New Towns pro- Lim (Singapore). It was also influentially rejected, along
gram in 1965. It also introduced mass social homeown- with CIAM and modern urbanism in general, by critics
ership (a departure from the British local public author- like Jane Jacobs (1961) and by postmodernist architects
ity ownership model) in 1964, in the 16 story slab blocks in the 1970s. Criticisms of the CIAM Functional City first
of the Queenstown Area 3. By 1987, 85% of the popu- made by Team 10 members were soon taken up by oth-

Figure 9. Hong Kong Housing Authority, by chief architect Donald Liao and others, Wah Fu development, Hong Kong,
1965–1971. Source: Mumford (2017).

Urban Planning, 2019, Volume 4, Issue 3, Pages 291–298 296

Figure 10. Golden Lane competition project panel, 1952, showing continuous interconnected housing blocks surrounded
by green spaces. Presented on a CIAM Grid, CIAM 9, Aix-en-Provence. Source: Smithson and Smithson (1953).

ers in the 1960s, often in combination with protests bridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
against urban renewal, evictions, and many other issues. Gropius, W. (1943). Houses, walk-ups, or high-rise apart-
In this century, with its many new urban challenges ment blocks. In W. Gropius, Scope of Total Architec-
in Asia and Africa, architects and planners have again ture. (pp. 103–115). New York, NY: Collier Books.
become interested in CIAM’s concepts. These design ap- Gropius, W. (2019). International architecture. Zurich:
proaches suggest ways that if designed well, high qual- Lars Müller Publishers.
ity urban housing for workers can be produced economi- Mumford, E. (2009). Neubühl housing settlement, Zurich,
cally, in combination with more contemporary concerns 1931 by Swiss CIAM architects. View of a row of
for the future of the natural environment. minimum housing units, looking toward Lake Zurich
[Photograph].
Acknowledgments Mumford, E. (2017). Hong Kong Housing Authority, chief
architect Donald Liao and others, Wah Fu develop-
Many thanks to the faculty of EPFL for their invitation to ment, Hong Kong, 1965–71 [Photograph].
participate in these events and in these publications re- Reed, W. V., & Ogg, E. (1940). New homes for old: Public
lated to the 90th anniversary of CIAM. housing in Europe and America. New York, NY: For-
eign Policy Association.
Conflict of Interests Sert, J. L. (1942). Can our cities survive? Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
The author declares no conflict of interests. Smithson, A., & Smithson, P. (1953). Golden Lane com-
petition project panel, 1952, showing continuous in-
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Urban Planning, 2019, Volume 4, Issue 3, Pages 291–298 297

About the Author

Eric Mumford (PhD) is Rebecca and John Voyles Professor of Architecture and Urban Design in the Sam
Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. He has pub-
lished numerous books and articles on the history and theory of modern architecture and urbanism,
including The CIAM Discourse on Urbanism, 1928–1960 (MIT Press, 2000), and most recently Designing
the Modern City: Urbanism since 1850 (Yale University Press, 2018). Mumford was also recently the
co-curator for the exhibition, Ando and Le Corbusier, at the new Tadao Ando designed Wrightwood
659 Gallery in Chicago (Fall 2018), and he is the editor of the forthcoming exhibition catalogue.

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