MASS HOUSING

MODERN ARCHITECTURE AND STATE

POWER  A GLOBAL HISTORY

Miles Glendinning

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 BLOOMSBURY VISUAL ARTS
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ii
CONTENTS

Acknowledgements vii
Interviews viii
Illustration Credits ix

Introduction 1
Cuius regio, eius religio: the multiple modernities of housing 1
Mass housing: spearhead of radical modernization 3
Methodological challenges and constraints: balancing narrative and geography 4

Part 1 Mid-Nineteenth Century to 1945: The Gathering Storm

1 Pre-1914: The Long Mobilization 11
Mid-nineteenth-century innovators and experiments 11
Late nineteenth–early twentieth-century ideologies: public housing and arm’s-length building 16
The dual market: working-class tenements and middle-class apartments in North America 21
Housing and colonialism: building for rulers or the ruled? 23
The upsurge in emergencies: 1905–14 27
Conclusion 30
2 1914–1945: The Maturing of Mass Housing in the Age of Emergencies 31
Systematization and individualism: the emergence of modern mass housing 31
World War I: war socialism and rent control 32
The Hare and the Tortoise: municipal housing in ‘Red Vienna’ and Britain 34
Continental permutations in the 1920s 40
Totalitarian housing visions in the Great Depression 48
Democratic housing systems of the 1930s 54
Interwar Latin America and the colonies 67
World War II: the globalization of emergency 73

Part 2 1945–1989: The ‘Three Worlds’ of Postwar Mass Housing

3 Postwar Mass Housing: An Introductory Overview 81
First World, Second World, Third World 83
International modernism: from global to local 86
4 Housing by Authority: Postwar State Interventions in the ‘Anglosphere’ 92
Red scares, race scares: the brief heyday and long retreat of US public housing 93
New York City: the monumental exception 97
Local trajectories of renewal and decline 107
Canada: government intervention and the revival of renting 116

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Contents

‘Big Daddy’ and mass housing in Metro Toronto 119

New Zealand and Australia 125
Commonwealth and states: the CSHA 128
High flats and slum reclamation in Victoria and New South Wales 130
5 Council Powers: Postwar Public Housing in Britain and Ireland 141
Central and municipal 141
Postwar housing design in England 143
Slum clearance, planning and the ‘land-trap’ 147
Financing and organizing high flats in the 1960s 152
London and the English cities 153
Scotland’s housing blitzkrieg: the legacy of ‘Red Clydeside’ 161
Island diversity: Ireland and the Channel Islands 164
6 France: The Trente Glorieuses of Mass Housing 170
1945–55: a hesitant revival 170
SCIC, SCET and the état planificateur 173
‘Le hard french’: the housing legacy of Perret 176
1955–75: ‘grands ensembles’ and the industrialization of national grandeur 180
7 The Low Countries: Pillars of Modern Mass Housing 194
Socialist skyscrapers versus Catholic cottages: postwar housing in Belgium 194
The Netherlands: planned housing and ‘polder politics’ 200
Standardization and galerijbouw: postwar Dutch housing design 206
8 Stability and Continuity: West Germany and the Alpine Countries 215
Tenure-neutral building in Switzerland and Austria 215
West Germany: the housing of soziale Marktwirtschaft 223
‘Wohnungen, Wohnungen und nochmals Wohnungen’: Neue Heimat and 1950s–1970s production 225
9 The Nordic Countries: Social versus Individual? 239
Building the ‘folkhem’: housing and Social Democracy in Sweden 239
Denmark: modernization through quiet quality 250
Finland, Norway and Iceland: mass housing for the individual 259
10 Southern Europe: Social Housing for Kinship Societies 268
The progressive South: postwar housing in Italy and Malta 268
INA-Casa: the Christian Democratic housing vision 270
Left Turn? 1960s–1970s ‘comprehensive’ planning in Italy 281
The conservative South: postwar housing in Spain, Portugal, Greece and Turkey 288
Conclusion: First World housing in summary 297
11 The USSR: Developed Socialism and Extensive Urbanism 298
‘Quickly, cheaply and well’: Soviet housing under Khrushchev and Brezhnev 299
The curate’s egg: national and local housing production in the postwar Soviet Union 300
Order out of chaos? Central and private-sector initiatives 304
Monumentality and space in postwar Soviet housing 306
SNiP and DSK: standardization and industrialization 310

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 Contents

Taming the colossus: towards ‘complexity’ and ‘flexibility’ 320

A brotherly mosaic: regionalist housing in the USSR 328
Tashkent: model Soviet city 333
Soviet housing in the perestroika years 338
12 A Quarrelsome Family: The European Socialist States 342
The satellite bloc: dissidence and decomposition 342
The diversity of socialist standardization 350
Socialist outliers: European divergences from the Soviet model 360
The ‘Ongoing Revolution’: self-management and monumentality in Yugoslavia 367
Novi Beograd: epicentre of decentralism 372
Late socialist cluster-developments across the Yugoslav republics 376
13 Socialist Eastern Asia: Mass Housing and the Sino-Soviet Split 383
Danwei: fragmentation and austerity in Chinese socialist housing 383
From the Great Leap Forward to the Cultural Revolution: austerity and anarchy 390
‘Soviet’ Asia: mass housing in Mongolia and North Vietnam 397
Building at ‘Pyongyang speed’: housing in Juche Korea 399
Conclusion: Second World housing in summary 402
14 Latin America: Chameleon Continent 404
Mass housing and the politics of charismatic leadership, 1945–64 405
Housing as social security: pre-1964 Brazil 415
1960s Cold-War housing politics in Latin America 426
Order and progress? Post-1964 housing in Brazil, Argentina and Chile 432
15 Echoes of Empire: Postwar Housing in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa 441
The Middle East: decolonization and development 442
Israel: creating a ‘new geography’ through public housing 448
India and South Asia: building on colonial bureaucracy 455
Capital colonies: post-independence Delhi 456
Bombay/Mumbai and MHADA: pressure-cooker building 458
Sub-Saharan Africa: colonialism’s last stand 461
‘Progressive’ housing decolonization in Francophone Africa 465
Divide and rule? Segregation and mass housing in ‘British’ Africa 468
South Africa: segregated housing in a siege society 473
Conclusion 478
16 From Third World to First World: Mass Housing in Capitalist Eastern Asia 479
Towards the developmental state: postwar housing in Japan 481
Housing the ‘Asian Tigers’ 487
‘Housing Gangnam-style’: South Korea’s tanji revolution 490
Hong Kong and Singapore: a study in sibling rivalry 501
Shek Kip Mei and Bukit Ho Swee: from resettlement to home-ownership 503
Race to the Top: HDB and HKHA architecture 513
First cousin: Macau 518
Conclusion 522

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Contents

Part 3 1989 to the Present: Retrenchment and Renewal

17 Resilience and Renewal: Mass Housing into the Twenty-first Century 525
Introduction 525
The aftermath: mass housing at bay in the former First and Second Worlds 525
Residual mass housing in the Global South 530
18 Race to the Top: The New Asian Developmentalism 532
TOKi and AKP Turkey 532
Developmental Eastern Asia into the twenty-first century 534
Building for the ‘Mass Line’: social housing in twenty-first-century China 539
19 Conclusion: Global and National, Idealism and Realpolitik 550

Notes 554
Bibliography 631
Index 641

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Grateful thanks are due to the following for help, advice and support in the preparation of this book: Rosa
Aboy; Changmo Ahn; Yael Allweil; Asseel Al-Ragam; Pétur Ármansson; Shukur Askarov; Kat Atkinson;
Kerstin Barup; Melinda Benkő; Özgür Bingöl; Johanna Blokker; Ian Bowman; Noni Boyd; Anna Bronovitskaya;
Nick Bullock; Sofie de Caigny; Stephen Cairns; Gaia Caramellino; Moa Carlsson; Jiat-Hwee Chang; Rachel
Collie; Tanja Conley; Louise Cox; Ellen Creighton; Rory Dack; Madhav Deobakhta; Filippo De Pieri; Mohit
Dhingra; Lynne Di Stefano; Andrew Dolkart; Marija Drėmaitė; Michał Duda; Helka Dzsacsovszki; Caroline
Engel; Alistair Fair; Zara Ferreira; Donatella Fiorino; Chris Gabriel; Inbal Ben Asher Gitler; Isla Glendinning;
Jacqui Goddard; Hannia Gomez; Javier Sanchez Gomez; Luciana Gotta; John Grindrod; Sigurður
Guðmundsson; Maren Harnack; Alison, Amy-Felicity, Kitty, Margaret and Sali Horsey; Eoghan Howard;
Jelena Ivanović; Haim Jacobi; Jane Jacobs; A K Jain; Jelica Jovanović; Mart Kalm; Shraddha Karkar; Jonghun
Kim; Joonwoo Kim; Victoria Kolankiewicz; Marieke Kuipers; Andres Kurg; Johan Lagae; Siri Skjold Lexau; Rui
Leao; Priyanka Lele; Hannah Lewi; Li Yuechuan; Jorge Lizardi; Cameron Logan; Lucas Longoni; Aonghus
MacKechnie; Flora Manteola; Renee Martin; Ólafur Mathiesen; Dawn McDowell; Christopher Metz; Philipp
Meuser; Anthony Mitchell; Giuseppina Monni; Henrieta Moravčíková; Nicolas Moulin; Kasia Murawska;
Michał Murawski; Stefan Muthesius; Ni Zixuan; David Nichols; Rexford Oppong; Aylin Orbaşlı; Annunziata
Maria Oteri; Hongbin Ouyang; Andrea Pane; Michael Passmore; Nina Petrovna; Elisa Pilia; Monica Platzer;
Grethe Pontoppidan; Carmen Popescu; Uta Pottgiesser; Caterina Quaglio; Stephanie Quantin-Biancalani;
Paul Quigley; Carolina Quiroga; Anne Raines; Katie Rice; Svava Riesto; Kristina Rimkute; Pál Ritook; Lou
Rosenburg; Indrė Ruseckaitė; Danny and Noah Saleeb; Victoria Sanchez; Ruth Schlögl; Ben Schrader; Gaurav
Sharma; Robin Skinner; Kuba Snopek; Martin Søberg; Marko Spikić; Giovanni Spizuoco; Vitaly Stadnikov;
Lukasz Stanek; Graeme Stewart; Ruxandra Stoica; Iva Stojanović; Sun Yumeng; Jón Rúnar Sveinsson; Poul
Sverrild; Mark Swenarton; Reina Takagawa; Ian Tan; Sophie Tann; Dave Taylor; James Thompson; Ana Tostoes;
Anastasios Tsakanas; Irina Tulbure; Maria Tzeli; Ola Uduku; Florian Urban; Lawrence Vale; Karina Van Herck;
Julian Varas; Kaja L. Vehovar; Luc Verpoest; Mitali Vij; Rosman Wai; Rémi Wang; Pauline Ward; Diane Watters;
Ola Wedebrunn; Ameya Welling; Richard Williams; Anna Wojtun; Michael Wright; Wu Yao; Lokman and
Selcen Yalcin; Yen Hsin-Yi; Dimitrij Zadorin; Ana Maria Zahariade; Kimberly Zarecor; Federico Zavala; Zhao
Xiaofeng; Zhu Rong.

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INTERVIEWS

The book benefited from a wide range of historical recollection interviews with key political and administrative
figures, and architects and planners, involved with mass housing in various countries and during various
periods. These were carried out both during the immediate period of preparation of this book, and in 1987–9
as part of the research for the 1994 book, Tower Block (with Stefan Muthesius).
The interviewees comprised the following (1980s interviewees in italics): Sir David Akers-Jones; Genovaitė
Balėnienė; A. W. Cleeve Barr; Ramūnas Beinortas; George Bowie; Dmitri Bruns; Harold Buteux; Kenneth
Campbell; Sigitas Čereškevičius; Ken Cheung; Oliver Cox; John Darbourne; Lady Evelyn Denington; A. G.
Sheppard Fidler; Reg Freeson; Ada Fung; Fung Tung; Chris Gabriel; Sadie Gibson; Andrew Gilmour; Sir Robert
Grieve; Elizabeth Gullick; Ted Hollamby; A. K. Jain; Lord Joseph; Lord Kennet; Alf King; Denis Ko; Gennadi
Ivanovich Korobovtsev; Harold Lambert; John Lambon; Sir Denys Lasdun; Robert Lennox; H. J. Whitfield
Lewis; Donald Liao; Arthur Ling; Liu Thai-Ker; Berthold Lubetkin; J. Dickson Mabon; Lada Markejevaitė; Percy
Johnson Marshall; Sir Leslie Martin; Darko and Milena Marusić; Česlovas Mazūras; Lord Mellish; Tony Miller;
John Ng; J. A. Oliver; John Partridge; Nina Petrovna; Stephen Poon; Mart Port; Sir Philip Powell; John and
Margaret Richards; Martin Richardson; Konrad Smigielski; Ivor Smith; T. Dan Smith; Alison Smithson; Eric
Smythe; Rosemary Stjernstedt; Jón Rúnar Sveinsson; Rosman Wai; Rosanna Wong; Michael Wright.

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ILLUSTRATION CREDITS

The images, and their captions, are intended to provide much of the book’s specifically architectural-historical
information. The captions include, where possible, the dates of housing schemes, and the names of their
commissioning authorities and designers. Bracketed dates at the end of captions denote recent field survey
photos taken by the author (marked ‘MG’) or by others.
Although every effort has been made to trace and contact copyright holders, this has not been possible in
every case: we apologise for any that have been omitted. Should the copyright holders wish to contact us after
publication, we will be happy to include an acknowledgement in subsequent reprints.

ACER Bologna Photo Archive (all rights reserved) 10.6f

Adkins & Associates, Pittsburgh 4.9a
Africa Archive (Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs) 15.10a, b, c
Huguette Akpoué 15.10g
Alexander Turnbull Library/National Library of New Zealand 2.13d
Almomento Mexico 14.9g
Asseel Al-Ragam 15.1b, c
American Institute of Architects 2.12d; 4.3b, c
Amsterdam City Council 7.6c, 7.7bArchives de Strasbourg (632 W 1 – drawing by Gustave Stoskopf) 6.3h
Archives du Comité centrale du Lignon 8.2e
Arquivo Nacional (Brazil) 14.5b, c; 14.7a; 14.11b
Arquivo Publico do Distrito Federal 14.7b, c, d, e
Balency et Schuhl 6.3d
Cámara Argentina de la Construcción 14.11e
Cement Concrete & Aggregates Australia 4.19f, h
China Pictorial 13.1a
City of Espoo 9.10d
CLEAN Edizioni 10.7b
COHAB-SP 14.11c
Creaphis Editions 12.3a
Department of Human Services, Victoria 4.16c; 4.17a
Design & Artists Copyright Society 2.1b; 6.2c
Dietz Verlag 12.5b
DOCOMOMO-Venezuela 14.9c, d, e, f
Andrew Dolkart 2.11g
Enfield Local Studies & Archive 5.1a; 5.6c
Expressen 9.5c
Alistair Fair 5.4a
FGV CPDOC 14.11a
Flanders Heritage Agency 7.3e

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Illustration Credits

Fondation CIVA Stichting 7.1b, c

Fundación ICA 14.4b
Germanisches Nationalmuseum (DKA, NL, May, Ernst, I, B–25 – 0017) 2.7f
GPOPhoto (Government Press Bureau, Israel) 15.10d
Hamburgisches Architekturarchiv (Bestand Neue Heimat Bildarchiv) 8.4a, c, d, e; 8.7d; 8.9e
Ton Heijdra 7.4a, c; 7.6a
Horst Hellbach 12.7a
Louis Hellman/RIBA Collections 3.1d; 17.1a
Hong Kong SAR Government 16.10a
Kitty Horsey 2.7f
Sali Horsey 14.10c, d
Huss-Medien (VEB Bauwesen) 11.3c; 11.10a, c; 12.3d, e; 12.5a, f; 12.7b, c, f
INAH-Mediateca 14.3b
Institute of Planning and Development, Prague 12.2a; 12.4a
INU Edizioni, Rome 9.4e
Jersey Evening Post 5.10a
Kheel Center, Cornell University 4.6b
Laing O’Rourke 5.6e; 5.7f
Livraria Nobel 14.10e
London Borough of Hounslow 5.1b
London Borough of Lambeth 5.6d
Aonghus MacKechnie 6.3a
Philipp Meuser/Dimitrij Zadorin (Towards a Typology of Soviet Mass Housing. Prefabrication in the USSR
1955–1991, DOM, Berlin, 2015) 11.4c, d, e, g; 11.5b, c, e; 11.6b; 11.7a, c; 11.13a; 11.14c
Ministry of Construction (Israel) 15.4d
Modulbeton 9.8a
Museum Africa 15.12c
Nicolas Moulin (2008) 13.6c, d, e
Museum of Estonian Architecture 11.11d
National Archives of Iceland (Einar Sveinsson architect) 9.12d
National Photo Collection (by courtesy of Zvi Elhyani, Israel Architecture Archive) 15.3a
New York City Housing Authority 4.1b, c; 4.2a, b, c, d; 4.4a, 4.4d; 4.11a
Het Nieuwe Instituut/Dienst Stadsontwikkeling 7.5c
Ray Nyce (MSRI) 16.1a
Alexandru Panaitescu 12.9e, g; 12.10a, b
Photothèque, École nationale d’architecture de Rabat 15.2a, b, c
Presses universitaires de France 6.2b
Stéphanie Quantin-Biancalani 6.5c
Repro KADOC-KU Leuven 7.1a
Royal Town Planning Institute 7.7a
Gaurav Sharma 15.6b
Stadtarchiv Dresden (4.217 Stadtbauamt, Nr. M.102, Plan 5, Konrad) 12.3g
Summa Revista 14.12c, d
Tidskriften Arkitektur (Byggmästaren) 9.1c
Bill Toomath 4.15a

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 Illustration Credits

Toronto Public Library 4.12c

Maria Tzeli 2.5e
UPSpace, University of Pretoria 15.12b
Urban Activists Collection, Deakin University 4.18d
Ville de Sarcelles 6.4b, c
Wates Ltd 5.5c
Richard Williams 14.6d, f, g; 14.8b, c, e, f, g

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xii
INTRODUCTION

Cuius regio, eius religio: the multiple modernities of housing

This book has a double focus: the modern state, and modern architecture. It tells the story of their interaction
on a heroic scale, over the past century, in generating one of the most ubiquitous patterns of modern urban
development: the ‘mass housing’ complex of state-sponsored homes for lower-income citizens, especially in
tall apartment blocks. This was a pattern that came to dominate many cities across the developed world, as well
as to feature, more uncertainly, in some ‘developing’ countries – above all in the postwar reconstruction
decades between 1945 and 1975.
Most dwellings built in the twentieth century simply perpetuated earlier patterns, including individual
private houses or informal dwellings erected by the inhabitants themselves. The building complexes that form
the subject of this book are quite different. They were shaped less by individual motives than by the collective
interventions of the modern state, responding to urgent political and economic pressures. And their often
monumental built form broke sharply from the old patterns of the nineteenth century, under the revolutionary
influence of the architectural Modern Movement. Mass housing developments reared up in cities across the
world, from Moscow to Buenos Aires, from Stockholm to Singapore, in a vast wave unleashed by the confluence
of the strong modern state and modernist architecture. And for over half a century, almost all commentaries
on this tide of state-sponsored modernization have been agreed on one claim above everything: that it was a
phenomenon not just of typically crushing ‘High Modernist’ teleological self-will, but also a force of
overwhelming global homogeneity, of architectural, cultural, social sameness, not just in the vast expanses of
Soviet cities but equally in Western countries. To take just one example, in the tellingly-named 1998 book,
Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition have Failed, anthropologist and
social scientist James C. Scott characterized ‘high modernism’, in the built environment as elsewhere, as a failed
‘monoculture’ propped up by state power, whose ‘strict functional segregation’ resulted in ‘standardisation and
homogeneity’ from Paris to Brasilia. An alternative to condemnation is blank incomprehension, an attitude
expressed more poetically in Thomas Hardy’s nineteenth-century novel, The Mayor of Casterbridge, describing
the unearthing of Roman burial sites: ‘Their time was so unlike the present, their hopes and motives were so
widely removed from ours, that between them and the living there seemed to stretch a gulf too wide even for
a spirit to pass.’ If ‘the past is a foreign country’, in the case of mass housing that sense of estrangement has
come very close to the present day.1
This book is written from a very different standpoint: it is a history of one of the grandest of all modernist
grand narratives, written from a distinctly postmodernist standpoint. Although its overall approach is generally
empirical rather than theoretical, it is significantly influenced by the concept of ‘multiple modernities’, which
holds that recent centuries have been a time not of driving, suffocating homogeneity but of ever-proliferating
‘unique expressions of modernity’. Taking issue with the idea of a single, overarching meta-narrative, it argues
that modernist mass housing, far from a monochrome desert of uniformity, was a global landscape of riotously
colourful variety and complexity, responding both to the diversity of the twentieth-century and early twenty-
first-century state and to the countless permutations of modernist architecture. Even the names given to

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Mass Housing

mass-housing complexes vary not only between languages but also between countries: for example the Spanish
‘polígono’ is a ‘conjunto habitacional’ or ‘barrio’ in most of Hispanic America, but a ‘casério’ in Puerto Rico. In
its emphasis on the local ‘facts on the ground’ as a foundation for wider trends and narratives, Mass Housing
takes its cue from recent developments within other branches of history. For example, Peregrine Horden and
Nicholas Purcell have proselytised a bottom-up reinterpretation of Mediterranean ancient history around the
interactions of innumerable ‘micro-regions’ and ‘micro-ecologies’, adapting these to a twentieth-century, global
context. Likewise, recent accounts of the development of the modern concept of heritage conservation have
strikingly emphasised the balance between international networks and often conflicting local diversities.2
In tackling such a vast subject, this book’s approach is necessarily highly focused. It does not deal, for
instance, with the experience of mass housing by its inhabitants, or evaluate its ‘success’ or ‘failure’ in solving
social problems, or its moral standing in general: as we will see, many active housebuilding regimes were
distinctly authoritarian or undemocratic in character! It does not directly challenge the tradition of blanket
condemnation of modern mass housing – condemnation that has burst out again in Britain following the
2017 Grenfell Tower fire disaster. Nor does it attempt to systematically apply the lessons of past social housing
experience to future housing policymaking. Its sole concern is historical, and ambitious enough at that: to
provide the first-ever global overview of what was built in this vast movement, and why – emphasizing
throughout its all-pervasive diversity. But this is no static survey of ‘vernacular building’ or ‘folk tradition’, but
a historical narrative of epic proportions, a dramatic story involving highly professionalized or political actors
in all its key roles, and drawing on the deepest driving-forces and anxieties of society. In order to tell the story
of modern mass housing with sufficient completeness, we need to touch not just on discourses of ‘housing
need’ and architectural form, but also on a wide range of other topics, such as social policy, economics, urban
planning, demography, engineering and construction, and colonialism and postcolonialism – each with its
own distinctive methodological challenges.
To fully comprehend mass housing’s paradoxical combination of concerted institutional force and
kaleidoscopic diversity, one could potentially look right back to the initial emergence of the modern, sovereign
state – a concept developed theoretically by Bodin and Hobbes in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and
politically by the 1555 Peace of Augsburg, which sanctioned national diversity through the concept of ‘cuius
regio, eius religio’, and the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, which encouraged the emergence of unitary sovereign
nations.3 However, the modern, reformist nation-state only emerged in the late eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, in the capitalist urban revolution, and population explosion, dubbed ‘The Great Transformation’ in
Karl Polanyi’s 1944 book – an upheaval that began in Britain, and pitted the disembedding forces of mass
dislocation and pauperization against mounting demands for re-embedding through social protection and
redistribution of the fruits of increased productivity. These demands, led especially by the labour movement,
provoked an increasingly interventive stance by the state – at first reactively, as in Bismarck’s social insurance
provisions, but eventually evolving into more ambitious welfare provisions, spreading in tandem with Fordist
consumer capitalism.4
In the sociological movement of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the writings of authors
such as Marx, Durkheim, Engels and Weber, the state became a depersonalized and yet also dominant idea. Its
growing ambition and power, in turn, spurred the emergence of distinctive institutions, functionally
differentiated in typical modernist fashion, which intervened in areas of political crisis where the private
market was criticized for alleged ineffectiveness, and which then in turn helped shape the practices of the state
and their concrete built outcomes: in Giddens’s words, ‘the structural properties of social systems are both the
medium and outcome of the practices that constitute those systems’.5 Ultimately, state-sponsored low-income
housing would exemplify this duality, as both an outcome and a vehicle of expanding state power. In that
sense, this book also reflects the ‘material turn’ in post-1990s cultural studies, with its emphasis on the role of

2
 Introduction

material infrastructures, alongside ideologies and ideas, in modern state organization: this is not a history just
of ‘discourses’ or ‘texts’ but of massive, literally ‘concrete’, built reality. 6

Mass housing: spearhead of radical modernization

Within the housing field, the circular process of mutually-reinforcing policies and institutions, as we will see
in chapter 1, began to intensify around the turn of the twentieth century. Here a sharp divergence of rhetoric
and underlying motives became prominent. From this point onwards, interventions were usually advocated in
messianic salvation language, extolling ideals such as ‘decent housing for all’ or ‘homes for the people’, and
promising to satisfy spiritual yearnings as well as material needs.7 And as the twentieth century proceeded,
country after country, city after city, developed complex discourses of ‘housing need’, combining local polemic
with statistical investigations and reports, and disguising huge disparities behind similar reformist rhetoric,
disparities which were only revealed by unexpected juxtapositions: in 1937, for instance, Manchester housing
reformer E. D. Simon commented on a Soviet study-visit that ‘90% of the families in Moscow could improve
their housing conditions beyond recognition if they could have for themselves one of those houses that are
being pulled down in Manchester as unfit for human habitation’. 8 As early as 1899, art critic Theodore Andrea
Cook had argued, ‘A nation has no individuality. No single phrase can fairly sum up the characteristics of a
people. But a town is like one face picked out of a crowd.’9 And that civic individuality, in many cases, only
became accentuated during the twentieth-century era of multiple modernities.
Yet beneath all the lofty rhetoric and massive housing-need statistics at both civic and national level, the
ruling classes also felt more urgent, existential fears of social instability, with results that differed enormously
from place to place, but almost always focused on the vital issue of who counted as a full member of society,
and often prioritized the housing of skilled workers rather than the ‘poor’, as a way of securing their loyalty.
Mass housing’s ineradicably ‘political’ character, both in terms of ideology and action, stemmed above all from
this perception of threat – and one of the most enduring housing paradoxes was the fact that, for all the talk
of fighting injustice, the most effective and long-lasting mass housing programmes often focused on somewhat
better-off citizens, whereas attempts to build directly for the poorest, most notably in the United States,
frequently came to a premature and controversial end. In the early twentieth century the worry about instability
increasingly sharpened into a fear of violent revolution, although revolutionary transformation also had
positive connotations. The experience of World War I added ‘total war’ to this destabilizing mix, while
fomenting social-collectivist change. As Charles Tilly argued in 1975, ‘War made the state and the state made
war . . . preparation for war has been the great state-building activity.’10
By the time of World War II, social welfare had become enshrined as an international as well as national
policy goal, and the mobilizing rhetoric and organizational devices of warfare and national emergency
pervaded social policy, within planned campaigns that echoed Clausewitz’s axiom that strategy ‘must give an
aim to the whole military action that corresponds to the goal of the war’.11 One of the very foremost weapons
in the armoury of the disciplined, ‘strong state’ and ‘strong city’ of the twentieth century was housing. Planning
theorist Peter Marcuse argued that the ‘benevolent state’ was fundamentally ‘a myth’, and that twentieth-
century social-democratic rhetoric was used by states to dominate as much as care for their citizens.12 Indeed,
it would be only a slight exaggeration, echoing medieval European history, to label the entire mass-housing
epic as a ‘Hundred Years’ War’ – a century-long succession of campaigns across the world, prosecuted with
military fervour and military standards of strategic planning, yet also shaped on the ground by tactical
decision-making, formulating policy opportunistically rather than cumulatively. In every war, there needs by
definition to be an ‘enemy’, and mass housing was always shaped by reaction against the ‘Other’ of ‘bad housing’,

3
Mass Housing

a contrast emphasized through martial slogans such as ‘the war against the slums’ or even ‘the enemy within’.
Sometimes the ‘enemy’ was the dilapidated inner-urban housing of the industrial era, but more often it was the
shanty towns of the urban peripheries, resulting from seemingly limitless mass rural-to-urban population
influxes.
During the mid-twentieth century, the many actual wars and revolutions not only deepened and
strengthened existing state structures and social programmes, but also, at the same time, disintegrated the
European states’ colonial empires. This massively increased the overall number of independent states – in
other words, adding breadth to depth. At this time, too, a new transnational force, the Modern Movement of
architecture and planning, was making itself felt in those areas of the built environment claimed by the
emergent ‘mass’ state. This was an architectural ideology which combined an almost Leninist scientific
authoritarianism, rooted in rationalist efficiency doctrines, with the poetic, prophetic writings and designs of
individualistic pioneers, interpreted by the ‘priesthood’ of CIAM: this was an ideology that could seem both
utopian and dystopian at the same time. And while the Modern Movement made sweeping claims of universal
applicability, it always combined these with an open embrace of national and local variety in place-specific
interpretation. This local diversity of modernism stemmed not from ‘vernacular folk tradition’, of course, but
from the interaction of professional, organized groupings and bodies, including private and publicly-employed
designers, as well as the growing impact of official institutions and regulations.13

Methodological challenges and constraints: balancing narrative and geography

The very broad scope of Mass Housing poses a number of significant methodological challenges. To begin
with, there is the fundamental task of defining its core subject matter: it is by no means self-evident how ‘mass
housing’ is to be singled out and differentiated from other categories of housing outside its scope. Here, rather
than setting down any rigid formula, or becoming bogged down in unproductive English-language semantic
debates about a topic that is intrinsically global and multilingual in character, the book adopts an empirical
approach that balances its two main themes – the modern state and modern architecture – on a case-by-case
basis. Here, housing programmes including both state agency and modernist architecture are prioritized,
those involving neither are excluded, and those in between are dealt with more selectively.
The second significant challenge concerns the implications of the book’s broad global scope for its choice
of source material. Responding to that, it is chiefly based on an extensive survey of secondary literature, both
in English and also in some other Romance and Germanic languages. A minority of sections, such as those on
Hong Kong, Singapore and the UK, however, do make significant use of primary sources. The fact that the
book’s secondary sources are inevitably highly variegated in character leads to some unevenness of coverage,
including a probably excessive emphasis on housing programmes in capital cities, and on the roles of architects
and designers – whose names are very often publicly documented – as opposed to the commissioning agencies
of housing projects, whose identities are sometimes more difficult to establish.
Thirdly, the book’s overall framework of argumentation is also distinctly empirical in character. Whether in
politics or in architecture, Mass Housing deliberately steers away from explicit theoretical or ideological
frameworks, instead following an issue-by-issue approach, constantly offsetting the overall narrative of mass
housing against myriad local variations; in its architectural coverage, too, it avoids elite catchphrases, and
places stress on more everyday, prosaic aspects. A further, linked methodological challenge arises from this
stress on balancing overarching narrative with local specificity, in view of the fact that most historical accounts
of mass housing hitherto have confined themselves to individual nation-states, leading to a ‘national silo-
mentality’ in historical interpretation – with accounts in the USA, for example, focusing on racial politics and

4
 Introduction

stigmatization, in France on the ‘grands ensembles’, in the former USSR on prefabrication and standardization,
and so forth. To counteract that rather unbalanced approach, in this volume the stress on local and national
specificity is combined with continuous efforts to correlate these narratives with one another, and to identify
key transnational themes. The most urgent of these themes was arguably the question of why, and for whom,
mass housing was built in the first place – a question that inspired idealistic justificatory rhetoric of social
need alongside pragmatic political motives, and featured huge disparities between individual countries’
organizational effectiveness. It is in that context, balancing local and supra-national, that the book’s emphasis
on the vast local diversity of mass housing should be seen – an emphasis that applies both organizationally, in
the variety of state agencies and tenurial approaches involved, and architecturally, in everyday mass housing’s
highly oblique relationship to canonical or avant-garde modernism and its endless local variety in basic spatial
aspects of density, design and building height.
Finally, and responding to all of these constraints, there has been the challenge of how to structure the
contents of Mass Housing, and in particular how to appropriately balance the need for a unifying chronological
narrative with the stress of geographical diversity. The remainder of this Introduction explains the approach
adopted in some detail. Overall, the book presents mass housing chronologically as a dramatic, indeed epic,
story, in which the first precocious initiatives in a relatively restricted range of developed countries were
followed by a general explosion of activity and energy in the post-1945 decades of reconstruction, expansion
and decolonization, and a subsequent retrenchment in the old housing heartlands. Corresponding to these
three phases, Part 1 of the book (chapters 1–2) comprises a coordinated narrative of the build-up period prior
to 1945; the quantitatively dominant Part 2 (chapters 3–16) reflects mass housing’s vastly greater breadth of
scope in those years through a geographical arrangement of chapters, covering the world’s chief regions of
mass housing production while stressing the particular conditions in each individual nation; and Part 3
(chapters 17–18) draws the narrative together again in the more uncertain years after 1989.
During the period covered by Part 1, the constant alternation of wars, revolutions and economic crises, and
the bitter ideological conflicts between communism, fascism and liberal democracy, or between bourgeois
societies and statist regimes of all kinds, both fuelled and at times retarded the development of large-scale
mass housing, but a general consensus was all the while growing that the old, mixed-together urban fabric and
private rental housing tenure were obsolete and untenable. In some cases, dramatically contrasting approaches
followed one another in the same location, all equally expressive of modernity in their own way, as with the
boldly innovative municipal housing drive of 1920s ‘Red Vienna’, followed immediately by the conservative
‘Austro-fascist’ regime of 1935–8; or the strong swing from state intervention to the private market around
1928–30 in countries such as the Netherlands, Denmark or Britain.14 In other cases, there were striking
simultaneous contrasts, as in the coincidence of the European dictatorships of the later 1930s with the
burgeoning democratic state interventionism of Sweden or the USA.
Only once World War II had discredited fascist totalitarianism, and communism became a hegemonic
totalitarian doctrine, its prestige hugely boosted by the USSR’s wartime victory, did a new geopolitical
structure of social provision emerge – a structure within which mass housing played an exemplary and
prominent role. The new framework was most famously summed up in 1952 by social critic Alfred Sauvy, in
an echo of the French eighteenth-century ‘Three Estates’, an echo which reflected both the Cold War and
decolonization.15 He interpreted the developed world through a single binary opposition between the ‘First
World’ (Western capitalist) and ‘Second World’ (the communist bloc). Defined by its ‘otherness’ in relation to
these two groupings was a ‘Third World’ of developing and non-aligned states, a category now suddenly and
hugely inflated by the postwar collapse of the European empires. The arrangement of Part 2 of this book
reflects this well-known structure, in the first instance in an obvious geographical way, but also through a
more subtle internal narrative of the postwar mass housing drive, under which the ‘First World’ programmes

5
Mass Housing

(chapters 4–10) somewhat preceded those of the ‘Second’ and ‘Third’ (11–13). There was relatively little overlap,
for example, between the main phase of public housing in the United States, which was already waning during
the 1950s, and that in the Soviet Union or Hong Kong, where production was only getting seriously underway
during the same period. The chapter order within Part 2 thus reflects not just global geography but also this
internal global chronology of the postwar era, within which the ‘welfare states’ of Western Europe fall fairly
neatly in the middle. Part 2 also, however, highlights the significant geo-political subdivisions and anomalies
within this structure, including the splits within the First and Second Worlds between ‘American anti-socialist’
and ‘European Welfare State’ approaches, and between different branches of socialism (Soviet, Yugoslav, etc.).
Overall, as mass housing was intrinsically a discourse, and practice, of organized modernity, significant mass
housing programmes were overwhelmingly concentrated in the First and Second Worlds, which therefore
inevitably and overwhelmingly dominate Part 2 – and, indeed, Mass Housing as a whole.
Contrary to the later claims of top-down homogeneity, by the 1960s almost all the existing states of the
First and Second Worlds had developed their own distinctive patterns of social provision and housing
production,‘multiple institutional and ideological patterns’ energized by strong state control and new collective
values: in the Second World these focused on communist social engineering and in the First World on ‘soft
nationalism’, reacting against fascist concepts of national ‘essence’. In all cases, the underlying agenda was to
use housing to define membership of the ‘imagined community’ of national society, but the results in each
country varied radically.16 Within these national structures, a further layer of micro-regional diversity stemmed
from the semi-autonomous status of key cities such as Moscow, London or New York, and the considerable
power of even the lesser urban centres. Western countries’ recipes of mass-housing production usually
involved ‘special circuits’ of state-supported housing finance, and place-specific balances of capital, labour and
the state.17 Behind the public rhetoric of housing need and social solidarity, many mass housing campaigns,
with their language of combat and power, were bound up with authoritative, patriarchal social structures and
strategies of forcible intervention or segregation – including residential zoning by race or social class.18 But
this still permitted a wide variety of financing and organizational regimes, including private, philanthropic or
cooperative agencies enjoying state support (often indirectly, via taxation concessions), or direct agencies of
the state itself, whether area-based (municipal or national) or functionally-based, as with the housing projects
directly built by government factories and enterprises under state-socialism. And there was constant debate
about the optimum targeting of state-led housing campaigns: who should be the recipients? A balance of
affordability and ethical prioritization had to be struck between the poorest citizens, often displaced through
coercive clearances or squatter settlement fires, and middling income groups that could cover more of their
housing costs. There was a similarly wide range of tenure permutations between the extremes of public-rental
and social home-ownership regimes – including various cooperative or condominium tenures. The political
place of mass housing within the First and Second Worlds ranged from unquestioned security, especially in
the socialist bloc, to extreme precariousness, as in the United States under 1950s McCarthyism. Left and right
often fed off one another, with doctrines such as the Catholic-dominated Christian Democracy parrying the
appeal of socialism through their own social programmes, and communism appropriating capitalist
organizational ideologies such as Fordist hierarchical mass-production.
Architecturally, too, individual countries developed their own variants of the ‘universal’ formulae of
international modernism. Most pressing were basic choices of building-patterns, such as between high
apartment blocks and single-family dwellings, or between straightforward new development on city
peripheries and surgical ‘slum clearance’ in inner cities. Postwar mass housing architecture was undeniably
shaped by the avant-garde design and planning concepts of modernist pioneers, notably Le Corbusier or the
younger Team 10 grouping, with their advocacy of dense cluster and megastructural planning. However, we
must beware of excessive reification of architectural creativity in this field: far more significant were relatively

6
 Introduction

impersonal, contextual factors such as land control, density pressures or building-industry organization. On
the ground, the multiple modernities of mass-housing architecture simplified and mixed together the main
elite concepts, especially tall towers in open space, in countless local permutations. Many perpetuated elements
from pre-modernist phases of housing, including repetitive, staircase-access ‘sectional plans’, adapted from
nineteenth-century tenements into an infinitely-extensible formula ubiquitous in the postwar USSR; or the
external gallery-access blocks of nineteenth-century philanthropic London, which ultimately lay behind the
postwar era’s avant-garde deck-access concepts as well as the more everyday ‘galerijbouw’ blocks that
predominated in the Netherlands and elsewhere. The copious colour illustrations in the following pages, most
specifically taken for this book, provide a visual overview of this incredible diversity. Both architecturally and
in policy terms, Part 2 of the book constitutes an exercise in ‘micro-history’ as much as global ‘macro-history’.19
Alongside these strong local micro-regional specificities, however, the sub-regions of the First and Second
Worlds, such as the Low Countries, the Nordic states and the Mediterranean world, also had many common
features of organization and architecture: these aggregated subdivisions are reflected in the chapter
arrangement within Part 2. Anglophone countries such as the USA, Australia and New Zealand shared
significant policy preferences, especially for state-promoted homeownership and mass slum-clearance. And in
the Second World, the closest satellites of the USSR – countries such as Poland, East Germany or Czechoslovakia
– also significantly resembled one another, even as other neighbours such as Yugoslavia and Romania diverged
sharply. Commonalities were also fostered by cross-cutting internationalist ideologies such as ‘socialist mutual
assistance’ or ‘Americanization’, the latter being much debated in general public discourse in Western Europe
and yet in some ways surprisingly restricted in actual effect (chiefly in dwelling interiors and ‘mod cons’). The
international effects of decolonization were two-way in character, with the ‘export’ of ‘development aid’ to
newly emancipated countries being mirrored in the ‘repatriation’ of colonial expertise.20 As chapter 15 shows,
that continuing interdependence, and the relative weakness of many newly independent states, ensured the
large-scale mobilization process needed for mass housing only coalesced rarely within the Third World, as well
as in hybrid postcolonial societies such as Israel or Kuwait.
In two parts of the world – Latin America (chapter 14) and capitalist Eastern Asia (chapter 16) – distinctive
region-wide housing patterns, significantly different from the mainstream patterns of both the First and
Second Worlds, emerged after 1945. These were conditioned in Latin America by the frequent alternation of
authoritarian and democratic regimes, the pervasiveness of anti-communism, and the addiction to spectacular,
gestural housing campaigns, and in Eastern Asia by the Japanese-led invention of a new formula of state-
directed developmental capitalism. Both these generated significant outputs of mass housing, equal in energy
and diversity to those of the First and Second Worlds, while mostly avoiding welfare-state social-entitlement
policies: the cases of Hong Kong and Singapore saw the housing power of the individual city reach an all-time
maximum. In all the places covered in chapters 14–16, state housing initiatives were shadowed not only by the
traditional bogeyman ‘Other’ of self-built informal housing, but by a variant of the latter sanctioned by
international officialdom: the ‘aided self-help’ doctrine, promoted by international agencies as a more
individualistic alternative to public rental housing, and also significantly shaped by American anti-socialism.21
In both the First and Second Worlds, social housing programmes’ very impact eventually undermined their
political support and made them vulnerable to opposition and protests, especially after the ‘1968’ Western
upheavals and the 1989–91 revolution in the socialist bloc. From that point (chapters 17–18), mass housing
complexes became a lightning rod for wider critiques of progress-led modernity; and accusations of top-
down, alienating sameness in the former First and Second Worlds became universal in the late twentieth and
early twenty-first centuries – even as the new Eastern Asian ‘front’ in the Hundred Years’ War heated up further.
Although not infused with the same utopian reformist spirit as their twentieth century predecessors, the
twenty-first-century programmes of countries such as Singapore, South Korea, China and Turkey revived and

7
Mass Housing

even accentuated the strong state formula, while radically intensifying the modernist architectural formula of
massed apartment-construction in new, ultra-high-density ways. Although there are doubts about the reality
of the achievements trumpeted in some cases, and the old ideal of the ‘benevolent state’ now often seems quite
remote, at the very least these efforts seem to belie the assumption that the only remaining housing options in
the twenty-first century are ‘unaffordable’ free-market home-ownership housing in rich countries, and aided
self-help in poor countries. Today, the concept of state-led ‘progress’ in housing now seems to be back on the
agenda, albeit in the distinctly different form of ‘welfare state building without the welfare state’.22

8
PART 1
MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY TO 1945:
THE GATHERING STORM

9
10
CHAPTER 1
PRE-1914: THE LONG MOBILIZATION

Introduction

Although modernist mass housing only reached its full, explosive force after World War II, its roots extended
back nearly a century – and from the beginning it was characterized by a strong diversity of approach between
different countries and cities. The decisive early twentieth-century shift towards state interventionism and
modernist architecture, across the developed world, rested on a more amorphous foundation of professional
and political reformist initiatives during the nineteenth century. During that time, although all-consuming
total warfare was beyond the horizon, constant mid-level crises arose out of the economic, industrial and
political turmoil of the ‘Great Transformation’.1 In continental countries, following the 1814–15 Congress of
Vienna’s resurrection of the old order, the mid-nineteenth century saw repeated popular uprisings, while in
Britain, capitalist ‘improvement’ generated unprecedented urban poverty. Swelled by the destabilization of
traditional rural society, and catastrophes such as the 1845–9 Irish famine, the poor seemed to pose a growing
menace to the middle and upper classes.2 In Europe, rural-to-urban migration was internal, but in North
America, the more open societies attracted constant flows of migrants from Europe, with shanty towns ringing
most major American cities. In the unique case of New York City, the combination of concentrated immigration
and constricted site created the world’s first ‘siege metropolis’ – a pattern of externally-constrained density that
would frequently recur elsewhere in the mass housing era.3

Mid-nineteenth-century innovators and experiments

By the late nineteenth century, responses to these ‘threats’ began coalescing into coherent ideologies of low-
income housing reform. From the very beginning, specific recipes were associated with specific countries and
showed a remarkable resilience and longevity. The mid-nineteenth century had witnessed seminal initiatives
by individual pioneers in a handful of hotspot-cities, especially London and Paris. In Britain, fear of disease
and social degeneration outweighed fear of revolution, and an impassioned discourse emerged of outrage and
violent attack against the ‘slums’ – dilapidated areas where these evils were thought to be concentrated – and
an influential 1842 report by Edwin Chadwick began to sensitize middle-class opinion to the idea of publicly-
orchestrated intervention in the urban fabric of the ‘slums’. As these, in Britain, were clustered around city
centres, the concept of surgical slum redevelopment, first pioneered in 1820s Edinburgh, naturally stimulated
the idea of building new ‘sanitary dwellings’ for the working classes. The years 1849–51 saw the first significant
schemes of philanthropic housing, masterminded by the world’s first international housing reformer, the
architect Henry Roberts. He not only designed some of the earliest social housing complexes, but was an
indefatigable pan-European traveller and proselytizer, enthused by the fervent social Protestantism of the
Evangelical Conscience.4
For designers of prototype schemes of urban social housing, the paradox was that England was one of the
few European countries lacking an urban flatted tradition, other than in specialized collegiate contexts.5

11
Mass Housing

Accordingly, other collective building types provided significant inspiration, especially those emphasizing
hygiene, openness and surveillance. On an 1829 Italian tour, Roberts had been impressed by Naples’s Albergo
dei Poveri, a vast, six-storey courtyard hostel housing 2,600 inmates, begun in 1751. In England, William
Blackburn’s pioneering late eighteenth-century prison designs had developed continental precedents into a
pattern of tiered cells accessible by external galleries, as at Gloucester and Northleach prisons.6 Equally
relevant were mid-century hospitals, with their well-ventilated parallel north–south wards, maximizing cross-
ventilation and insolation – a pattern combined with external galleries by the 1810s, as at Port Royal Hospital,
Jamaica.7 The undisputed continental capital of gallery-access was Budapest, whose speculative-built
tenements combined galleries with top-lit internal courtyards, but it is unclear whether Hungarian precursors
influenced English reformist housing designs.
Exploiting these precedents, Roberts’s first philanthropic workers’ scheme, the ‘Model Houses for Families’
in Streatham Street, London (1849–51), single-handedly established one of the most enduring social housing
typologies: the block of self-contained flats accessed by individual doorways on continuous side galleries,
reached by a common staircase. Its hygienic-cum-moral aim was ‘the preservation of the domestic privacy and
independence of each distinct family, and the disconnection of their apartments’.8 An ingenious alternative
formula, incorporating greater subdivision of communal spaces, was pioneered in Roberts’s two-storey Model
Lodge, built with financial support from Prince Albert at the 1851 Great Exhibition, incorporating staircase-
access to smaller balconies, accessing only four flats per floor (see Fig. 1.1).
There ensued a frenzy of experimentation and debate about how to house the ‘lower classes’. A higher-
density alternative was provided by model army married-quarters at Hounslow (1860), designed following an
outcry over ‘insanitary barracks’ by the Inspectorate-General of Fortifications: three-storeyed, with one-room
flats and cast-iron galleries.9 Within a decade, too, the special strength of municipalities in Britain prompted
the first local-authority attempts to intervene in this field, through urban improvements including not only
slum demolition for new street-lines, but also building of municipally-owned replacement ‘council’ dwellings.
The very first ‘council-housing scheme’, a gallery-access tenement block built by the wealthy Corporation of
London in its Farringdon Road street-improvements of 1863–4, was followed by a smaller-scale redevelopment
by the City of Liverpool in 1869. At this stage, even the most basic issues were up for debate. Who should the
dwellings be built for? How large and costly they should be? Should they be one-roomed flats, lacking self-
contained facilities but affordable by the very poor (especially displaced slum-inhabitants) or larger dwellings
for artisans, with self-contained sanitary facilities and multiple bedrooms (to ensure hygienic and moral
wholeness)? Here an inexorable trend emerged, later to recur in many places across the world: a ratchet-effect
of cost–income escalation, as dwellings intended for the ‘poor’ became too expensive for them, and were
appropriated instead by politically-influential ‘respectable’ workers excluded from the normal housing market.
Should the aim be regulation of the poor, or emancipation of the ‘respectable’ working class, and should the
dwellings be for rental or home ownership? Roberts hailed the latter tenure as an effective means of social
stabilization. What should be the location and architectural form: garden-suburb cottages, or dense fl ats
conveniently close to urban workplaces? And if the latter, could the blocks be planned to avoid excessive site
density and internal promiscuity? All these challenges would continue, with ever-broader geographical scope,
throughout the entire period covered by the narrative in this book.
Architecturally, the most pressing issue was probably the access layout, and here, within Britain, a very
different formula from English gallery-access had already been pioneered by 1800–10 in the middle-class
tenements of Scotland: internal staircases accessing a few flats per floor, coupled with perimeter-block
planning. During the late nineteenth century, this became a favourite of advanced housing reformists across
Europe, in ‘Reformblock’ set-pieces such as Vienna’s Kaiser Franz-Josef I Jubiläumshäuser (1897–1901, by
architects T. Bach and L. Simony). Coupled with the British insistence on building urban dwellings in repetitive

12
 Pre-1914: The Long Mobilization

A B

C D
Fig. 1.1 (a – b): Architect Henry Roberts’s ‘Model Houses for Families’, Streatham Street, London, 1849–51: rear galleries
and plan (MG 2015). (c): Roberts’s demonstration four-unit ‘Model Lodge’ at the 1851 London Great Exhibition. (d): The
world’s first public housing project: ‘Corporation Buildings’, gallery-access flats at the Corporation of London’s Farringdon
Road improvement scheme, 1863–5, designed by Alfred Allen, chief clerk in the City Architect’s Department, and modified
by Horace Jones. The block included ground-floor shops and basement warehousing.

13
Mass Housing

G
Fig. 1.1 (e): Dundas Street (originally Pitt Street), Edinburgh: internal staircase-access middle-class tenements of c. 1820
by architect Thomas Bonnar – forerunners of ‘sectional’ planning (MG 2018). (f): The Cité Napoléon, Rue Rochechouart,
Paris, 1850 – a complex network of internal flying staircases and galleries, designed by architect Marie-Gabriel Veugny as
a commission for Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte (MG 2015). (g): The ‘Mulhouse plan’ – a garden suburb of ‘quarter houses’
(carrés mulhousiens) designed for the Société Mulhousienne des cites ouvrières by architect Émile Muller, from 1853.

14
 Pre-1914: The Long Mobilization

rows, or terraces, the Scottish tenements anticipated the endless arrays of staircase-and-lift-access flats after
1945, especially in the socialist bloc, where a special name, ‘sektsya’ (section), was coined for them. Scottish-
style enclosed staircase-access was avoided as unhygienic by nineteenth-century English reformists, who also
tried to break up canyon-like street-line building through open layouts of parallel gallery-access blocks.10
Overriding all this was a stark ideological-cum-architectural polarization among builders of reform-
housing for the better-off working class: between any kind of dense, urban rental flats and the radical alternative
of ‘family houses’ in gardens on the city outskirts. In England and Belgium, the prevalence of single-family
row-houses allowed early compromise solutions, in planned settlements such as Le Grand Hornu (1820–30),
Saltaire (from 1851) or Akroydon (from 1859, by G. G. Scott), aiming to take skilled workers out of the unruly
city into a controlled company setting. But in countries with traditions of dense urban flats and high land
prices, the ideology of home-ownership and single-family houses was far more controversial, with nationalists
attacking the bogeyman of the dense tenement, and socialist class commentators, led famously by Engels,
denouncing home-ownership as a snare.11 The Communist Manifesto underlined the early socialist concern
with tenure reform rather than bricks-and-mortar sanitary building: ‘The theory of the Communists may be
summed up in a single sentence: abolition of private property.’12
The opposition between home-ownership and dense urban solutions first emerged in France, the other
great European centre of housing-reform experimentation, which had seen abortive attempts at government-
supported workers’ dwellings as early as the 1780s.13 The late 1840s and early 1850s witnessed urban-
regeneration attempts paralleling those in London, and invested with national status (like the Prince Consort
Dwellings in London) by the Emperor Napoleon III, one of Roberts’s chief international interlocutors.
Napoleon passed a law on workers’ housing in 1850, while directly financing a pioneering development
contemporary to Streatham Street – the Cité Napoléon in the Rue Rochechouart. Here, a more complex system
of internal gallery access was employed, involving parallel linear blocks linked by intersecting flying balconies
and staircases, with a top-lit glazed roof.14 When completed, the Cité Napoléon encountered intractable
problems of affordability and, ultimately, social-political breakdown. And although subsequent decades saw
numerous pioneering schemes in the Paris area, including an 1850s plan by the Puteaux brothers for staircase-
access blocks with only two flats on each upper floor, to minimize neighbourly interaction and deter
‘immorality’ and sedition, in general the dense flatted pattern provoked increasing suspicion in France,
especially among conservative Catholic propagandists. But how could one build family houses at a sufficiently
high density and low cost to allow artisans to buy them? Here, a decisive initiative came paradoxically from a
somewhat ‘Protestant’ source – the Société Mulhousienne des cités ouvrières (SOMCO), an industrialists’
consortium in Mulhouse, an evangelical-dominated town near the Swiss border. In the 1850s the consortium’s
chief designer, Émile Muller, following close consultation with Roberts (who visited in 1856), designed an
ingeniously-configured block of four dwellings, divided into four corner ‘quarter houses’, each with a separate
garden quadrant.15
This ‘Mulhouse plan’ proved highly influential internationally, as a prototype of planned, low-cost owner-
occupied (location-vente) houses – an agenda that would thrive throughout the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries, serving as the ‘Other’ to public rental housing. Within France and Belgium, it proved particularly
appealing to Catholic advocates of reformed ‘family homes’ and opponents of ‘casernes ouvrières’; but it
equally attracted reformers elsewhere, notably in Germany.16 More generally, European debate about working-
class housing, and advocacy of collectivist policies such as compulsory-purchase and state subsidies, was
fuelled by reformers’ international exchanges in conferences and expositions, which spread the Roberts and
Mulhouse philosophies to countries such as Norway, Italy, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands – or
Romania, where workers’ riots prompted the 1910 foundation of a municipal company for low-cost housing,
charged with building standardized cottages on the outskirts of Bucharest.17

15
Mass Housing

The only conceivable rival to London and Paris as an early housing hotspot was New York, whose unceasing
influx of immigrants was rapidly and dramatically changing it from a London-style city of row-houses to a
city of tenements – tenements far denser than even the densest in Europe. Although the first purpose-built
tenement-block, Gotham Court, was built as late as 1851, following a further decade of mass immigration and
subdivision the city already had 15,369 tenement buildings by 1863. In response, 1855 saw the first efforts at a
semi-philanthropic tenement scheme, the ‘Working Men’s Home’, equipped with wide access balconies, but the
subsequent trajectory of housing reform in the city would be quite different from that of its tenemental
European counterparts.18

Late nineteenth–early twentieth-century ideologies:

public housing and arm’s-length building

From 1871, Mulhouse ceased to be part of France for half a century, following its annexation by Germany. The
Mulhouse plan, too, was appropriated by German housing reformers, symbolizing the shift from the
experimental individualism of the mid-century towards more cohesive social housing ideologies, straddling
internationalism and nationalism, and often spanning several nation-states. Only after World War I, with the
establishment of social housing as a central concern of the mobilized nation, would housing ideologies take
on exclusive national characteristics. For the moment, the situation was still fluid.19
In the policy field, the emergent social housing movement followed three broad approaches to the issue of
state intervention, and what form it should take. First, there was ‘public housing’: a policy of radical intervention,
under which the state itself, locally or nationally, not only financed social working-class housing schemes but
built, owned and rented them to the occupants; this policy was, before 1914, overwhelmingly concentrated in
Britain and its dependencies. Second came an enabling policy of arm’s-length encouragement of social house-
building, both for rental and home-ownership, by both subsidy and regulation, a policy associated initially with
France and Belgium, but which rapidly became the European continental mainstream, supported by a wealth
of financing mechanisms, including subsidies, tax rebates, subsidized building land, and low-interest loans from
state savings banks or insurance societies. Third, a minimalist policy of indirect intervention in the housing
market through regulatory constraints was pioneered in New York City under the Progressive reformist
administration of the 1890s–1910s. As we will see in the following chapters, all three of these approaches would
endure in various permutations up to the present day, spreading ultimately right across the world.
The late nineteenth century saw the beginning of an enduring tradition of British exceptionalism, under
which – paradoxically for a supposed redoubt of free-market capitalism – the state embarked on a radically
interventionist strategy in working-class housing provision, with local rather than central government the key
driving-force. In contrast to France’s centralist traditions, English and Scottish cities had steadily accumulated
power and wealth, with Glasgow Corporation, for instance, building four successive headquarters complexes
during the nineteenth century.20 This fuelled a growing movement of so-called municipal socialism, under
which British city councils took over all utilities and services within their borders and began tackling slums by
aggressive ‘Improvement’ demolition schemes. Fuelled by practical liberalism rather than outright socialism,
this movement initially restricted itself to clearance and replanning, leaving new buildings to the free market
in cities such as Birmingham and Glasgow.21 From the 1860s, this policy also began to include direct building
of tenements, culminating in the large-scale turn-of-century operations of the London County Council
(LCC), or Liberal-controlled Glasgow Corporation’s 2,000-unit 1897 programme.22 It also embraced elite
architectural discourse: the LCC’s Boundary Street Scheme of 1893–9, a development of 1,069 flats in five-
storey, internal-staircase-access tenements, was designed by its own advanced Arts and Crafts architects

16
 Pre-1914: The Long Mobilization

(especially Reginald Taylor and Charles Winmill) on a reform-block layout, with picturesque neo-Baroque
gables.23 Despite their link to slum-clearance, most of these British programmes were not directly targeted at
‘the poor’ but at displacees from a higher income group. British municipalities’ direct interventions in the
housing market were facilitated by the political weakness and disorganization of private landlords in Britain,
unlike European continental countries, leaving them ill-placed to oppose public intervention.24
The 1890s’ shift to large-scale ‘council housing’ in Britain was facilitated by another, more remarkable
precedent: the world’s first national public housing programme, underway across the Irish Sea since the 1880s.
Concerned with rural, not urban, housing, Ireland’s pioneering state housing drive, between the 1880s and
1914, focused on the building of small detached cottages, but for rent, not ownership. It uncannily presaged
twentieth-century national housing programmes in its intensely political character. To fend off the political
Home Rule demanded by the Nationalist Party, the Unionist government hit upon housing and land reform
as an alternative. As so often with twentieth-century public housing, the urgency of the programme stemmed
not from ‘poor housing conditions’ (with the Irish peasantry arguably already among the best-housed in
Europe) let alone socialist ideals, but from political expediency. For speed, the Dublin government tasked the
county and district councils with direct building of thousands of standardized, improved cottages across
Ireland. Following a patchy start and further nationalist agitation, the subsidy was boosted in 1905, and by
1914 a grand total of 54,000 cottages had been completed. By the mid-1880s, council housing had begun to
spread to the city, with attempts to redevelop Dublin’s dense urban slums through an alliance of philanthropic
trusts with Dublin Corporation – the latter’s first housing scheme at Benburb Street (1886–7) anticipating the
LCC’s by six years. Overall, within pre-1914 UK council housing, while Britain led in architecture, Ireland led
in policy innovation (see Fig. 1.2).25
In the heartlands of industrializing Europe – France, Belgium and Germany – the last quarter of the
nineteenth century saw the ripening of a very different approach from ‘council housing’. In what would
ultimately prove the world’s most popular formula of social housing, this involved arm’s-length support by the
state, through subsidized building of dwellings by semi-public organizations, usually for occupation by better-
off artisans whose support was important to regime survival. Initially, this ideology was fuelled by active
dislike of Britain’s direct municipal interventionism. In post-1871 France, the conservative fear of urban chaos,
combined with Catholic family values, moulded the values of a generation of housing reformers, led by Jules
Siegfried, Georges Picot and others – all unswerving in their insistence on the Mulhouse regime of home-
ownership cottages and condemnation of state intervention and dense tenement building. Their approach
gained in influence following the 1889 International Housing Conference in Paris,26 reinforced by the efforts
of their neighbours in Belgium, where a far more extreme culture of home-owning individualism prevailed,
expressed architecturally in the ubiquitous higgedy-piggledy row-houses and the intricate courtyards of the
Brussels ‘impasses’. As part of a package of ‘lois sociales’ masterminded by Catholic politician (and Congo
imperialist) Auguste Beernaert following ‘la grande peur’ of 1886 – a year of violent riots and strikes – a key
housing law of 1889 promised government tax reliefs and Caisse des Depôts et Consignations (CDC: Deposits
and Consignations Office) loans for workers’ home-ownership via a highly decentralized system of
philanthropic housing companies: the Loi Beernaert facilitated the building of 63,000 dwellings in twenty-
four years, chiefly row houses with gardens.27 By 1900, the emergence of ‘verzuiling’ (parallel Catholic and
socialist social provision) had also allowed limited development of workers’ flats in Brussels, notably the Cité
Hellemans of 1906–15, a group of parallel gallery-access five-storey tenements in the style of 1880s England,
clad in strident polychromatic brick.28
In France, the Loi Beernaert was copied by Siegfried in an 1894 law, with similar policy outcomes but fewer
completed dwellings. Under the designation of ‘HBM’ (habitations à bon marché), numerous arm’s-length
executive agencies emerged, the two principal sub-categories being the limited-profit company and the

17
Mass Housing

A B

C D
Fig. 1.2 (a): The London County Council’s Boundary Street Estate, 1893–9 – slum-clearance and Arts and Crafts
architecture, by the LCC Architect’s Department (MG 2018). (b): Dublin Corporation artisans’ tenements at Bride’s Alley
Area Housing Scheme, built in three stages, 1896–1910, Charles James McCarthy architect (MG 2014). (c): The Cité
Hellemans, 1906–15 – English-style polychromatic brick gallery-access flats in seven parallel blocks for slum redevelopment
in Brussels, named after originator and architect Émile Hellemans (MG 2014). (d): The ‘La Ruche’ garden suburb, St Denis,
built in 1893–6 to architect Georges Guyon’s designs following an 1890 competition by the Société française des habitations
à bon marché: the first built outcome of the 1894 Loi Siegfried (MG 2015).

18
 Pre-1914: The Long Mobilization

G H
Fig. 1.2 (e, f): The Groupe Prague complex, Paris, a 1909 development designed by architects Henri Provensal and
Gustave Majou: the outcome of the 1904–5 Fondation Rothschild competition for reform apartment blocks incorporating
indentations and air-breaks: original plan showing linked courtyards and shops (MG 2015). (g, h): Courtyard-plan
philanthropic HBM complex of 1913 in the Rue Annam, Paris, built by the ‘Groupe des maisons ouvrières’ foundation
(headed by Mme. Jules Lebaudy) to the designs of architect Auguste Labussière (MG 2015).

19
Mass Housing

cooperative association, both deriving finance from state-backed banks (caisses d’épargne or CDC).29 Typical
of the built outcomes of Siegfried’s reforms was the first-ever scheme sponsored by his 1894 law: ‘La Ruche’, a
cottage garden suburb built between1893 and 1896 for skilled workers in the working-class suburb of St
Denis.30 Owing to the sharply pyramidal social structure of French cities, with their poorest areas around their
edges, the demand for slum-clearance or London-style high-density flats was relatively low – and the centuries-
old French codification of urban development deterred radical innovation. Nevertheless, the decades after
1894 saw efforts to devise more open alternatives to the traditional French deep apartment block, with its high
site coverage and narrow courts – culminating in the famous Fondation Rothschild housing competition of
1904–5.31 Those years also witnessed economy-driven attempts to apply the Viollet tradition of structural
rationalism to apartment-housing design, initially using concrete in-situ construction but soon also
experimenting with prefabricated concrete panel or framed systems.32
A more effective variant on the Siegfried theme was arrived at in Germany, whose large cities had developed
with an explosive speed unmatched in France and even in Britain. Like Beernaert in Belgium, Bismarck and
his successors proactively combated working-class social democracy with extensive social insurance
provisions.33 Mirroring Britain’s combination of political stability with wild housing-policy swings, late
nineteenth- and twentieth-century Germany balanced political instability with extraordinary consistency in
housing policy: a single policy framework prevailed (in western Germany at least) from 1890 until 1988 – the
Third Reich included! Housing was unambiguously seen as a regional rather than a Reich matter, so great
diversity prevailed from the start. Yet there was much common ground among reformists, not least in hailing
single-family homes and Mulhouse-style home-ownership as a social ideal: blood-and-soil nationalist writers
such as Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl excoriated Mietskaserne tenements as a moral abomination, and criticized the
industrialized culture of ‘Manchesterismus’ as an awful warning of how not to modernize a country. Similar
condemnations of the effect of unconstrained land speculation on urban densities came from their political
opponents, the socialists.34
Although there was little support in Germany for Irish- or British-style direct municipal building, there
was widespread enthusiasm for strong municipal planning and zoning powers over land use. Where in Britain,
public debate focused on population decentralization from the city, as exemplified in Ebenezer Howard’s 1902
book, in Germany the ‘land question’ was emphasized, and taxation or restriction of land was widely advocated,
under the influence of US reformist Henry George. A practical solution was found in 1891, when Frankfurt
am Main’s Oberbürgermeister, Franz Adickes, pioneered the first municipal system of functionally-graded
density and land use.35 Ultimately this system involved not just regulation of all urban land, including
municipally-controlled plot rearrangement (Umlegung), but also accumulation of large municipal land banks
and granting of cheap leasehold land under close public control.
Coordinated land planning and supply were only half of the new German formula: the other was an
effective system of non-profit housing, executed by limited-profit companies and cooperatives. Before the
1890s, this system was only embryonic, owing to inadequate finance, but after 1890 it gained access to funding
from Germany’s newly-established regional insurance banks – a potentially vast financing source with
potential to revolutionize housing output. Pre-1914 output was still patchy by British/Irish standards, with
Frankfurt surging ahead (9.5% of all new housing built by co-ops and social companies) and Berlin lagging
far behind (only 1%); but overall the groundwork had been laid for a vast post-1918 expansion in the non-
profit sector.36 Many of the new German social housing developments comprised low-density ‘Siedlungen’ of
single-family houses, often grouped in rows.37 But the inner-city areas also saw much activity, with
commentators such as Theodor Goecke (in 1905) defending city life and praising London-style model
tenements: numerous schemes of ‘reform-blocks’ with perimeter or set-back plans were built in Berlin from
the 1890s, chiefly fronting Scottish-style staircase-access plans.38 Munich reformer Max von Pettenkofer was

20
 Pre-1914: The Long Mobilization

an especially articulate advocate of maximum space standards in reform tenements, to curb disease. This
discourse, bolstered by rationalist ‘Taylorism’, would later establish aggregate floor space (measured in square
metres) as the preferred gauge of housing progress in a number of countries, especially Soviet Russia. The
German association of flatted blocks with renting was accentuated by the (Reich-wide) 1900 Civil Code,
which banned ownership of individual flats in collective blocks – a prohibition that applied in several European
countries, including Austria and Denmark, in the early twentieth century.39
Across Europe, various countries began similar housing schemes for the ‘respectable working classes’ –
with important regional variations. In Hungary, the first ‘lakótelep’ (mass housing scheme) was built in 1908
in Kobanya ut, Pest, by the M ÁVAG railway machine works, as a five-storey perimeter-plan group with
reformed internal-gallery plan and lavish communal facilities.40 In Denmark, where large (three-roomed),
low-density tenements and Scottish-style perimeter block-layouts already prevailed in working-class housing,
a long-established tradition of agricultural cooperativism encouraged a boom in cooperative building
organizations, aided from 1887 by state loans; by 1910, 6% of Copenhagen’s new dwellings were built by this
sector. In 1912–13, following a building crisis, the system was bolstered when building workers founded
Copenhagen’s first profit-sharing workers’ housing society (the AAB) and workers’ building society (the
AKB).41 The Danish precedent inspired a cooperative ripple-effect across Scandinavia. In the Norwegian
capital of Christiania (Oslo), more than twenty philanthropic societies had already built 2,500 dwellings by
1899, and in that year the government introduced a tripartite housing system which still endures today: it
supplied credit, the municipalities supplied and planned building-sites, and a national system of cooperatives
built and owned the housing schemes. In Russia, the housing-association principle was extended to multi-
city-block scale in St Petersburg’s Basseinaia Street complex, a middle-class cooperative development of three-
to six-room apartments in seven-storey blocks, built in 1912–14 to the designs of E. F. Verrikh and A. Zazerski,
and arranged in a dense perimeter plan, including cross-bars (see Fig. 1.3).42
The problem that dogged such systems was not that they failed to cater for ‘the poor’ – no one seriously
expected that – but that they were often not even affordable by artisan workers, and that any state subsidies
might largely end up lining speculators’ pockets. Such was the fate of Italy’s pioneering social-housing
legislation of 1902, the legge Luzzatti, passed following widespread civil unrest around 1900 and providing for
cheap loans and credit from savings-banks’ funds.43 It stimulated the establishment of regional social housing
institutes, or istituti per le case popolari (ICP, later IACP), in key cities, including Rome (1903), Turin (1907)
and Milan (1908), created by municipalities but funded by savings banks and Catholic societies. These built
prototype schemes of tenement blocks, mostly with Scottish-style staircase-access plans (Quartiere MacMahon,
Milan, 1906–10; Via Pinerolo, Turin, 1908; and Testaccio in Rome, 1910–13). In Trieste, the municipality
founded in 1902 a similar organization, the Istituto comunale per le abitazioni minime (ICAM), which built
staircase-access tenements at the Via Vergerio and San Luigi (both 1906). Direct municipal building on the
Dublin/London model was less common, although the pioneering four-storey municipal flats in Milan’s via
Ripenati (1905–6) were designed by the city technical department. But overall output of dwellings through
any of these Italian schemes was low, and projects were largely occupied by middle-class tenants.44 The
monumental, classical ICP tenement pavilion-blocks inspired isolated echoes elsewhere in Europe, such as St
Petersburg’s philanthropic Gavanskii Settlement of 1904–6.45

The dual market: working-class tenements and middle-class apartments in North America

North America witnessed far more limited state intervention in working-class housing, confined almost
entirely to regulatory controls in the exceptional conditions of New York City. Despite the vast open-endedness

21
Mass Housing

A
B

C D
Fig. 1.3 (a): Promotional poster of c. 1912 by the Arbeidernes Andels-Boligforening, Copenhagen. (b): Basseinaia Street,
St Petersburg, 1912–14: housing-association street-block tenemental redevelopment by architects E. F. Verrikh and A.
Zazerski (MG 2016). (c): Pioneering IACP gallery-access tenements in the Quartiere MacMahon, Milan, 1906–10, by
architect Giannino Ferrini (MG 2015). (d): Via Pinerolo, 1908: the first IACP project in Turin, designed by engineer Pietro
Fenoglio (MG 2017).

of immigration, there was far less consciousness in the United States of a general ‘housing problem’, and any
difficulties could normally be resolved within the private system. The cheapness and simplicity of the prevailing
timber construction and of pattern-book design, the copious supply of suburban land, and the early spread of
building and loan associations, all ensured rapid post-Civil War expansion of economical housing: by 1900,
85% of the population of Philadelphia, the self-styled ‘City of Homes’, lived in a separate family dwelling.46

22
 Pre-1914: The Long Mobilization

By the 1890s, a voluble nationalistic rhetoric already dominated housing debates, claiming that the home-
ownership and the mortgage-lending industry was a protector of American values: this discourse would
equally predominate during the twentieth century. In some cities, such as Cincinnati, however, the nineteenth
century also saw the spread of private tenements – a building pattern that conflicted with the nascent ideology
of the ‘American family home’.47
Above all, the tenement became dominant in New York City, whose confined site and constantly-growing
population forced land prices ever-upwards. By 1890, recent immigrants comprised 42% of its total population;
and in 1900 only 17% of the city’s inhabitants had a separate ‘home’. Shanty towns still covered parts of Manhattan,
while tenements, in an opposite pattern to the Scottish perimeter plan, crammed accommodation on every spare
inch of each site, with actual residential densities of over 2,000 persons per acre – a system that many reformers
attacked as un-American with a vehemence equal to German anti-tenement polemicists. In New York, a
consensus reigned in the late nineteenth century, especially among Progressive reformers led by Lawrence Veiller,
that the ‘housing problem’ must be addressed by public intervention. This, however, must involve not direct
building but restrictions on the most extreme, dense housing patterns, restrictions legislated by the state rather
than federal government: the noun ‘housing’ seems to have first entered English-language usage in New York
around 1878. US local political life was notoriously vulnerable to pressure from special interest groups, which
made Britain, with its assumed freedom from political corruption, a positive reference-point for reformers.48
During the 1890s and 1900s, successive New York tenement laws alleviated the worst site-cramming, and
architects such as Ernest Flagg devised ingenious plan-types to open out building layouts, especially by
merging adjacent lots into Scottish-style perimeter groupings. City planning also entered the equation, with
widespread acceptance of zoning, and the first industrial garden-city developments.49 But by the 1890s, a new
factor emerged – a dramatic turnaround in middle-class opinion concerning the highly-serviced apartment
blocks of ‘French flats’, first built in Boston in 1855 and in New York in 1869. Branded as alien interlopers and
tenement-like hotbeds of promiscuous immorality as late as the 1860s, by the 1880s they were instead widely
hailed for their convenience and high standard of equipment. And by the 1890s, the best-equipped apartment
houses featured free-flowing living/dining areas and high standards of domestic technology, including central
heating, while their external styling shifted from bristling ornamentation towards a more austere classicism,
influenced by the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition (see Fig. 1.4).50

Housing and colonialism: building for rulers or the ruled?

In the late nineteenth-century European scramble for imperial possessions, a different type of social-housing
discourse emerged, coercive rather than emancipatory in character, and extending the utilitarian-inspired
concepts of segregation and control from ‘home’ class politics to racial colonialism. Within the French colonial
world, the emphasis was on grand replanning schemes in the Haussmann tradition. Redevelopment plans by
Henri Prost for Casablanca and other Moroccan cities after 1912, commissioned by resident-general Hubert
de Lyautey, combined racial segregation, monumental axes and preserved historic districts. The most ambitious
interventions, however, emerged within the British Empire, with its unparalleled record of creation of
municipalities and public executive bodies, and its complex colonial planning tradition, drawing on the city-
improvement and garden-city developments of the home country, including the discourse of ‘slum’ outrage
and attack. Many leading Arts and Crafts and housing reformers held colonialist views: Raymond Unwin, for
example, advocated the building of garden cities of yeoman cottages across the empire. The first concerted
colonial replanning and slum-clearance initiatives, however, responded not to poor housing conditions but to
political threats to the ruling order. The Indian Rebellion of 1857–8 was followed by sweeping clearances in

23
Mass Housing
old areas of Lucknow and Delhi, echoing the 1757 Wide Streets Act in Dublin, while the mid-nineteenth
century also saw the widespread building of self-regulating ‘cantonments’ for Europeans on city outskirts. The
world’s first large-scale slum-improvement programme tackled the shanty-town ‘bustees’ of Calcutta from
1876 to 1901, incrementally and without significant new construction. For military and public buildings a
sophisticated technology of timber, metal and concrete prefabrication was used, subsequently adapted for
housing purposes, including prefabricated single-storey barracks for ‘native workers’, demountable ‘chattel
houses’ in the West Indies and multi-storey, galleried or centre-corridor ‘chawls’ in Bombay or Calcutta – for
example, echoing London tenement blocks in a far denser form.51

A C
Fig. 1.4 (a): Central Park Apartments, Manhattan, New York City (1883, Hubert, Pirsson & Hoddick architects): a three-
part courtyard flanked by eight ten-storey towers of ‘French flats’, linked by bridges and clad externally in a florid neo-
Romanesque style. (b): The Bombay Improvement Trust’s Chandanwadi Chawls, Mumbai, 1904 (MG 2014). (c): Sunach
Terraces (later renamed Spruce Court), Toronto: cooperative low-rise courtyard flats designed by architect Eden Smith
and built by the Toronto Housing Company from 1913 (MG 2012).

24
 Pre-1914: The Long Mobilization

E
Fig. 1.4 (d): Gloucester Street, The Rocks, Sydney – gallery-access tenements by the New South Wales Department of
Works, 1910–12 (MG 2016). (e): High Street, Miller’s Point, Sydney – low-rise terraced-flat redevelopment built by the
Sydney Harbour Trust in 1910–11 (MG 2016).

25
Mass Housing

In the following chapters, the role of wars and existential crises in mobilizing support for the mass-housing
campaigns of the twentieth century is repeatedly emphasized. The first of these emergencies, however, was
concentrated in the colonial world: the great plague scare of the late 1890s and 1900s, which began in 1894 in
Hong Kong and spread rapidly to Bombay, Sydney, Cape Town and Johannesburg. Although medical records
showed that as many Europeans as ‘natives’ fell victim to the diseases, the crisis sharply increased segregationist
pressure, and advocacy of slum-clearance surgery of a more radical and aggressive kind than ‘at home’,
reflecting the supposedly more diseased and overcrowded character of the ‘oriental slums’. In the British
Empire’s dense port cities, a flurry of redevelopment schemes attempted to open up or separate out ‘native
areas’. In India, these were led by newly-established Improvement Trusts (beginning with Bombay, in 1898)
whose limited attempts at sanitary clearance provoked bitter opposition and even riots, along with a
conservationist counter-attack from pioneering planner Patrick Geddes, who criticized their ‘death-dealing
Haussmannising’. These initiatives did not usually involve construction of public housing as such, but in South
Africa, the plague scare fuelled more far-reaching segregationist policies. These were focused not on slum-
clearance but on banishing non-white ethnic groups to segregated ‘locations’ – a mirror-image of the Indian
policy of elite, garden-suburb cantonments – and often including the building of new accommodation in
hutments. The plague crisis prompted an explosion of activity in Cape Town, where 4,000 ‘native’ workers were
removed in 1901 to the Ndabeni location (augmented by ‘model cottages’ built in 1902 by the Public Works
Department), and in Johannesburg, where a similar movement took place in 1904 to the Klipspruit location
(nucleus of the later Soweto).‘Native Reserve Location Acts’ were passed in 1902 and 1905 to sanction both
government coercion and self-help house-building in the locations.52
The self-governing dominion-territories of the empire witnessed radically diverse housing interventions.
In Canada, low-density rental or home-ownership prevailed, leavened by pioneering apartment blocks from
the 1890s in various cities. However, soaring rental costs in Toronto around 1910 prompted pioneering non-
profit initiatives by the philanthropic Toronto Housing Company, which built a scheme of low-rise (two–
three-storey) flats and open garden courtyards from 1913 at the Sunach Terraces.53 During the twentieth
century, Toronto multi-storey housing would develop very differently from US cities, emphasizing state-
regulated private-rental flats. In Australia and New Zealand, by contrast, a combination of very low-density
public rental and owner-occupied housing emerged instead. In Australia, with its strong tradition of
government intervention and organized trade-union power, and a British-style bipolar system of Liberal and
‘Labor’ parties, housing policy was largely the responsibility of the states rather than the Commonwealth
(federal) government: between 1910 and 1919 almost all states attempted to assist low-cost housing. In the late
nineteenth century, the New South Wales government had intervened in landlord–tenant relations, and it now
joined Sydney Harbour Trust in responding to the 1900 plague scare by a slum-redevelopment (known as
‘reclamation’ in Australia) of the Rocks area. This scheme included terraced cottages in Napoleon Street
(1902–3), two-storey terraced flats at Millers Point, 1910–11, and gallery-access tenements constructed by the
state Department of Public Works in Lower Fort Street and Gloucester Street in 1910–12.54 Despite attempts
to encourage Irish- or British-style local-authority rental building, notably Sydney Municipal Council’s
Strickland Flats reclamation scheme of 1914, the relative weakness of most Australian municipalities
encouraged centralized public interventions by state governments – a model later applied in other self-
governing Anglophone colonial or ex-colonial territories, including Hong Kong and Singapore. The
establishment of state housing boards began in Queensland and South Australia in 1910, followed by New
South Wales in 1912 and Victoria in 1914. New South Wales’s incoming Labor government began a garden
suburb at Daceyville in 1912, built through a short-lived Housing Board.55 In Victoria, an abortive 1913 local-
authority housing programme preceded an influential Royal Commission report of 1914–18, which advocated
a mixture of slum-reclamation and new building aided by the State Savings Bank.56

26
 Pre-1914: The Long Mobilization

Initially, Australian state housing policy balanced direct rental building, often backed by Labor, with
subsidized owner-occupation, supported by the anti-socialist parties – a dual system which continued
throughout the twentieth century. In New Zealand, also a highly urbanized country (43% by 1896) with a
developing discourse of slum clearance, a similar dual system also prevailed, after an initial Liberal government
proposal of 1891 for Irish-style council housing had proved unworkable. Government grants to owner-builder
cottage-settlers were disbursed from 1894 by the State Advances Office (State Advances Corporation from
1936), while direct rental building for workers under a 1905 Act generated several hundred State houses in
Wellington and elsewhere: construction petered out by 1919 because rents proved too high. In New Zealand,
Great Britain provided a constant reference point, negatively as well as positively: there was unanimity that all
subsidized development should be low-rise, preferably detached single-storey, single-family houses.57

The upsurge in emergencies: 1905–14

While South Africa was precocious in developing its own special housing discourse of ‘emergency action’, after
the turn of the century the same ethos also took root in Europe and America, feeding directly into mainstream
twentieth-century mass-housing policy and architecture. In his 1909 short story, The Machine Stops, E. M.
Forster wrote of a dystopian urban breakdown, and if the pre-1914 decade saw escalating international tension,
domestic politics in many countries was equally dominated by a sense of escalating crisis. Within a few years,
the crescendo of wars and revolutions would sweep mass housing into prominence across the developed world,
whether as a vehicle for radical change or as a socially stabilizing defence against it. For example, the first of
those revolutions, the 1910 overthrow of an entrenched, despotic regime in Mexico, spurred fearful governments
across Latin America to encourage low-income home-ownership through diverse mechanisms including low-
cost loans to private developers, assistance to worker cooperatives or direct state building, all aided by
modernizing planning legislation.58 A few Latin American cities had seen earlier small-scale attempts at public
housing – notably in Buenos Aires, where the municipality built two schemes of one- and two-storey workers’
dwellings at Barrio Butteler in 1907, and Parque Patricios in 1910, under French-inspired housing enabling
legislation of 1905 (Ley Irigoyen) and 1915 (Ley Cafferato): the latter created an HBM-style Comisión Nacional
de Casas Baratas. In Brazil, two isolated pre-1914 projects were built in Rio by the Federal District authorities.59
In Europe, the pre-war decade witnessed a self-reinforcing pattern of housing-market viability crises,
involving plunges in building output together with rising tenant and worker militancy, as in Denmark (1907)
or Britain (1906). In response, national and municipal governments ventured increasingly interventive social-
housing measures, coupled with more densely-flatted architectural solutions. In Vienna, whose polyglot
population reached an all-time maximum of over 2 million in 1910, the tenemental housing stock
overwhelmingly (95%) comprised flats of no more than one room and kitchen, often with no toilet. Although
pre-war architectural outcomes were modest, and chiefly confined to the ‘Jubiläumshäuser’, a wave of rent
strikes in 1911, coupled with growing anti-landlord hatred, pointed to future socialist militancy, and a massive
municipal land-acquisition campaign from 1904 left much of the city’s land municipally owned in 1914 – by
which time the rising power in the city, the Social Democrats, had pledged to begin building public housing.60
These tentative harbingers of interwar ‘Red Vienna’ were doubtless inspired by the dramatic developments
in the other capital of the dual empire, Budapest. It launched in 1908–9 an ambitious state-backed municipal
building strategy, aiming to construct a welfare city-state through housing and school programmes. These
were planned by the first of many civic ‘housing czars’ in cities across the world, Mayor István Barczy (supported
by Prime Minister Sandor Wekerle and Emperor Francis Joseph I). Developed alongside the 1908 M ÁVAG
scheme, Barczy’s plan aimed at remedying a shortage of rental flats for salaried employees in large state-owned

27
Mass Housing

organizations such as the railways, the post office or the police. A programme of 6,000 municipal rental
dwellings of one to three rooms was planned, using expropriated land, and chiefly using site-specific, open-
courtyard reform blocks on inner-urban slum-clearance sites such as Hungaria Boulevard (1909), Jaszberenyi
Street (1911) and Arena Street (1911–14).61 Barczy’s programme depended on creative loan-financing and his
own personal auctoritas, and growing economic problems during the 1912–13 Balkan wars brought it to a
permanent halt. By that time, however, Wekerle had taken over the initiative and begun a central-government
housing programme, spearheaded by the 4,000-dwelling Workers State Scheme of Kispest (Kispesti Állami
Munkás Lakótelep, 1909–16). Later known simply as Wekerle, the project was headed by engineer Ottman
Győri with architect Karoly Kos among other designers, following an architectural competition. Although it
echoed the LCC recipe of unified architectural design and freely-planned reform-blocks mingled with
cottages, its community provisions were more extensive and its architectural expression was far more
exuberant: the national-romantic ‘Transylvanian Style’ evoking the supposed spiritual heartland of Hungary
through a cornucopia of spires, gables and pointed roofs (see Fig. 1.5).62
The same conception that a housing scheme should be a ‘designed work of art’ was found elsewhere,
including France, where the 1912 Loi Bonnevay paved the way for more concerted action between the wars,

A B
Fig. 1.5 (a): Margit Boulevard, Budapest: reform-block tenement of 1911 for civil servants, designed by architect Virgil
Nagy – part of Mayor István Barczy’s municipal rental programme (from 1908) (MG 2015). (b): Kispesti Állami Munkás
Lakótelep, Budapest, 1909–16: exuberantly-styled national-romantic tenement blocks designed by Karoly Kos and others
as part of a 4,000-dwelling central government garden-suburb housing scheme headed by engineer Ottman Győri (MG
2015). (c): Spaarndammerbuurt, Amsterdam – development of 1917–20 by the Eigen Haard housing association, including
tenement flats and community facilities, clad by architect Michel de Klerk in full-blooded ‘Amsterdamse School’ exoticism
(MG 2015). (d): Amstellaan, Amsterdam-Zuid, 1921–3: ‘schortjesarchitectuur’ (apron-architecture) featuring standard
staircase-access tenement blocks styled externally by De Klerk (MG 2015).

28
 Pre-1914: The Long Mobilization

D
Fig. 1.5 (c): Spaarndammerbuurt, Amsterdam – development of 1917–20 by the Eigen Haard housing association,
including tenement flats and community facilities, clad by architect Michel de Klerk in full-blooded ‘Amsterdamse School’
exoticism (MG 2015). (d): Amstellaan, Amsterdam-Zuid, 1921–3: ‘schortjesarchitectuur’ (apron-architecture) featuring
standard staircase-access tenement blocks styled externally by De Klerk (MG 2015).

29
Mass Housing

and, above all, in the Netherlands. Here, the long-standing traditions of municipal autonomy and separate
social provision by Catholic, Protestant and socialist organizations (verzuiling) fuelled what would soon
become Europe’s most comprehensive system of arm’s-length housing provision, targeted firmly at the better-
off working class. The late nineteenth-century Netherlands had witnessed heated debates between cottage and
tenement advocates, widespread admiration for the stringent management principles of Octavia Hill and
building of Mulhouse-style self-help suburbs such as Agnetapark (1885). After 1850, housing societies emerged
as a preferred organizational system: the first was formed in 1852 by wealthy Amsterdammers.63 But only after
1900 did the entire system suddenly coalesce, prompted by the famous Woningwet (Housing Act) of 1901.
Influenced by both philanthropic and English-style employer housing, the Woningwet established a
comprehensive national system of private housing associations embedded in municipal regulation. Two
categories of society were supported, philanthropic and cooperative, with much debate around 1905 about
their respective merits. Although rooted in verzuiling, the new system depended equally on the advances of
the socialist SDAP, especially in Amsterdam and Rotterdam.64
In Amsterdam, a new municipal Building and Housing Office developed a concerted Woningwet
programme, with the SDAP-backed, English-inspired Rochdale Cooperative building the city’s first public
rental dwellings.65 Here, as in London or Budapest, ‘artistic design’ played a key role, but its scope extended
over far larger areas through its link-up to the municipal planning framework. The focus of the latter was H.
P. Berlage’s vast Plan Zuid (1915), whose layout envisaged relatively conventional reform-blocks, albeit on
Camillo Sitte-influenced pictorial street-alignments, but whose facades featured increasingly flamboyant
schemes by Amsterdamse School designers (see chapter 2). The pre-war years also saw vigorous debates over
internal flat layouts, including the advantages and disadvantages of the parlour. In Rotterdam, a similar
housing-planning framework emerged following an influential 1912 municipal report, whose aim was to
control working-class agitation and maintain the labour force.66

Conclusion

During the twentieth century, housing would become one of the principal ways in which the modern state,
sloughing off its last feudal remnants, set out to create a shared national identity, alongside more explicitly
symbolic building-types, such as parliament buildings or national expo pavilions. In 1914, that take-off point
for mass housing’s ‘Hundred Years’ War’ had not yet been reached, but existing developments in organization
and architecture had provided powerful pointers as to how matters would be likely to go. Key trends already
visible included the way housing policy change was driven not just by rational extrapolation from housing need
but, equally, by ad-hoc policy opportunities and the urgent impact of wider socio-economic and political forces.
These included the sudden crises and reversals of public opinion (e.g. regarding apartment blocks in 1860s–1880s
New York);67 the use of housing for both emancipation and coercion, especially in colonial contexts; and the
passionately-held opinions about housing tenure (rental versus owner-occupation; artisan housing versus
housing for the poor) or built form (cottages versus tenements). Owing to the interplay of these forces, strong
local and national microecologies were beginning to coalesce around the housing question. And these national
trends, in turn, were shaped by the gradual spread of international housing discourses, whose formative
influences included the work of innovators such as Roberts, Muller and Berlage, or political leaders such as
Barczy, or the innumerable international conferences and publications at the turn of century. This ‘unique
combination of fragmentation and connectivity’, as we will see in chapter 2, would assume far more urgent and
complex forms in the climate of incessant emergency during the three decades following 1914.68

30
CHAPTER 2
1914–1945: THE MATURING OF MASS HOUSING
IN THE AGE OF EMERGENCIES

Systematization and individualism: the emergence of modern mass housing

In the interwar years, the close interconnection between external emergencies and convulsive mass housing
programmes reached maturity. Those years seemed to be almost entirely composed of crises, one after another,
in Europe and North America at least. Accordingly, this chapter is structured in three chronological sections,
while also taking account of mass housing’s now well-established geographical diversity: first, World War I and
the attempts at restored ‘normalcy’ preceding the economic crash of 1929; second, the Great Depression of the
1930s, with its left and right totalitarianisms and collectivist recovery efforts in the democratic countries; and
third, World War II itself, whose mobilizations opened the way to mass housing’s vast postwar spread. A
cumulative process was at work, with each successive emergency legitimizing even more radical policies, based
on ideas long in gestation among specialists, but now suddenly projected into wider currency. That process was
often described teleologically, as an expression of inevitable progress towards an ever more collectivized society.
The most extreme form of such argumentation was communist historical materialism, but concepts of
irresistible Zeitgeist were also commonplace among Western commentators, whether Catherine Bauer on
housing policy or Nikolaus Pevsner on modern architecture. To be sure, this progress was usually convulsive
and disjointed, with architectural and political innovations often significantly out of step, and glaring disparities
between different countries and societies, as highlighted in Simon’s 1937 comparison of Moscow and
Manchester.1 Yet there was undeniably a common thread of advocacy, a master narrative of inexorably
increasing intervention, especially among the rapidly spreading international networks of housing reformers
and modern architects.2 Within the European and American heartland of wars and emergencies, a few countries
maintained a distance from this master narrative, notably Switzerland, whose tradition of radical political
dispersal allowed unusual continuity with the pre-1914 system, dominated by private renting and small-scale
philanthropy. The power of the collectivist paradigm also steadily diminished with distance. Within Europe,
Mediterranean countries generally opted for private-sector housing dominated by ‘family’ values, while beyond
Europe and North America, ‘emergency’ took very different forms, including tidal waves of rural-to-urban
migration and shanty town proliferation, and confrontations over decolonization and racial segregation.3
Architecturally, the early interwar years saw radical changes in the built environment of mass housing,
under the umbrella of the Modern Movement. Its central demand was that all factors involved in shaping the
built environment, from political and economic organization to city planning and architectural design, must
be completely integrated. It demanded radical renewal of the often chaotically mixed-together environments
bequeathed by the ‘Great Transformation’, whether by drastic redevelopment surgery on the existing fabric or
by building completely new and rationally-planned settlements, as advocated in Ebenezer Howard’s Tomorrow:
A Peaceful Path to Real Reform (1898) or Tony Garnier’s 1904 project for an ideal city, Une cite industrielle. To
match the city planners’ macro-concerns, the micro-scale of the dwelling interior also attracted attention from
theorists such as Margarete Schütte-Lihotsky or Karol Teige, aiming to devise compact, logically-organized
dwellings for the ‘Existenzminimum’. Architecturally, with the rejection of old-style facades and ornamentation,
this disciplined collective effort inspired very diverse expressions, ranging from extreme repetition to strong

31
Mass Housing

individualism, often combined in flamboyantly utopian visions. Echoes of neoclassical sobriety ran alongside
visionary proposals for jettisoning traditional urban architectural hierarchy, as in the endless, flat-roofed,
rectangular slabs of Ludwig Hilberseimer’s 1927 manifesto, Großstadtarchitektur, laid out rigidly in parallel,
like lines on a page (‘Zeilenbau’), or the entry by architect Marcel Breuer for the Berlin Haselhorst competition
of 1928, with enormously long, nineteen-storey blocks stretching to the horizon.4
The organization of the Modern Movement itself balanced the collective and individual, especially in the
central role of CIAM (International Congresses of Modern Architecture), which brought together key
innovators at periodic conferences. In CIAM housing debates the two overwhelmingly dominant figures were
Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier. Their most famous initiatives proposed to open out the traditional city by
combining tall blocks, green open space and zoned segregation of functions. Gropius’s contribution at CIAM
3 (Brussels, 1930) rhetorically asked, ‘Flach-, Mittel- oder Hochbau?’ (‘Low-rise, medium-rise or high-rise?’)
and proposed an optimum solution of long, uniform ten-storey slabs.5 In three successive urbanist initiatives
by Le Corbusier – the Ville Contemporaine (1922), the Plan Voisin (1925) and the Ville Radieuse (1930) – the
same message was framed more spectacularly, with a grid of cruciform, sixty-storey towers of offices and elite
apartments, adjoined by rectangular zigzag lines of lower workers’ flats, raised on ground floor columns
(‘piloti’). The Plan Voisin hypothetically applied this formula to central Paris, proposing the removal of almost
all existing structures. This was the prototype of one of modernism’s most stereotypical tropes, the tabula-rasa
redevelopment. It inspired numerous interwar progeny, for example a 1934 London proposal for closely-
packed ten-storey cruciform blocks by the Council for Research on Housing Construction. Open discussion
of architectural aesthetics was usually avoided, yet the modernist style was also very much a visual movement,
emphasizing clear rectilinear lines, glass, metal and white render (see Fig. 2.1).6
Initial realizations of these ideas were inevitably more modestly-scaled, and destined for elite groups, as at
the Deutscher Werkbund’s pioneering Weissenhof Siedlung, Stuttgart (1927–30), coordinated by Mies van der
Rohe – a housing-zoo of detached private villas, terraces and low flats by various modernist designers,
including Le Corbusier. Only in two German cities, Frankfurt-am-Main and Berlin, were full-scale programmes
of 1920s modernist social housing implemented: in Berlin, under Gropius’s aegis, and in Frankfurt, directed
by Ernst May, a leader in the secondary wave of modernist innovators who followed the ‘masters’. Although the
actual building of massed multi-storey towers as prophesied in Corbusier’s utopian projects lay far in the
future – for example, in the arrays of forty-one-storey tower blocks built in late-twentieth-century Hong Kong
– initial isolated social-housing examples appeared in various locations, such as the pioneering gallery-access
slab block at Bergpolder in Rotterdam (1932–4).7
More common than these modestly-scaled international modern set pieces were complexes that combined
modernist ideas of collective organization with eclectic stylistic expressions. Pre-1914 reformist layouts of
perimeter-planned tenements were garnished with exotic expressionist styling in the Amsterdam School
blocks of the 1910s–1920s or the ‘Hof ’ developments of Red Vienna (see below). In the 1930s, some pioneering
multi-storey developments combined planning elements of Le Corbusier’s tower utopia with conservative
styling, such as the classically-styled, cruciform towers of New York’s Castle Village (1938–9) or the Art-Deco
spired arrays of Villeurbanne, near Lyon (1927–34).8 But by then, the new dictatorships of left and right were
introducing a new traditionalism into the housing-architecture mix.

World War I: war socialism and rent control

World War I was a decisive turning-point in the development of virtually every aspect of the mid-twentieth-
century strong state, including the acceptance of egalitarian ideals of community as a prerequisite for wartime

32
 1914–1945: The Maturing of Mass Housing in the Age of Emergencies

Fig. 2.1 (a): A 1928 project by architect Ludwig Hilberseimer for redevelopment of the Friedrichstraße area of central
Berlin with rigid lines of Zeilenbau blocks. (b): 1922 utopian perspective of a new town by Le Corbusier, including both
medium-rise slab blocks and high towers. (c): Bergpolderflat slab block, Rotterdam, 1932–4, designed by architect Willem
van Tijen in collaboration with Brinkman & van der Vlugt, for social housing company Volkswoningbouw Rotterdam NV
(MG 2015).

33
Mass Housing

national unity; the ‘economization’ of national struggles by integration of industry; and the belief that modern
scientific research and mass production could solve virtually any modern problem – an idea first pioneered in
the nineteenth-century writings of Frederick Winslow Taylor (Taylorism), extended by wartime organizers
like Germany’s Walter Rathenau into a secular gospel of rationalization and standardization, and further
elaborated in the command production system of Henry Ford (Fordism). But the immediate trigger for the
post-1918 development of state housing as a policy solution in so many countries at once stemmed not just
from the war’s general conjunction of soaring demand and plummeting production, and the perception that
the old private system was incapable of responding to this crisis, but also from one specific repercussion of
wartime emergency – the distortions in the housing market caused by the imposition of rent controls, to
appease worker discontent at soaring rents, and the consequent disintegration of the pre-war system of
private-rented working-class housing.9
This wartime housing market crisis had not come out of the blue. Many European countries had experiences
deepening pre-war difficulties of output and economic viability: were these crises insoluble? A range of forces
was at work, including the relative politico-economic strengths of landlords, workers and public institutions
and the broader economic-policy strategy of reducing labour-power costs and diverting private investment
from housing towards industrial development: the existing housing cultures of the late-nineteenth century
formed the basis of much of what was to come. For example, the first rent controls were introduced in Britain,
a country which was uniquely ripe for the sidelining of the private landlord and the decisive intervention of
municipal authority. Great Britain would duly develop in the interwar period the world’s most extensive
system of municipal housing.10 Overall, with the new and radical exception of the Soviet Union, interwar
continental Europe perpetuated the prewar division between direct municipal building and arm’s-length
construction in the Siegfried tradition, with the latter forming a broad, ever-more diverse mainstream. Within
this majority approach lay a further continuing division, between rental housing and building for Mulhouse-
style workers’ home-ownership, the latter becoming especially prevalent in Catholic European countries, with
their strong family ethos. Overall, though, the contribution of social housing to overall 1920s production in
many European countries was uniformly high: 36% in Britain, 29% in the Netherlands, 42% in Germany.11

The Hare and the Tortoise: municipal housing in ‘Red Vienna’ and Britain

In the late nineteenth-century debates about municipal intervention in housing, distrust of socialist agitation
was a stock argument of the upholders of private property and family privacy. With the 1917 Russian
Revolution, socialist housing assumed at least potential reality – but in its first decade of power, it provided few
hard clues about what form a truly socialist housing policy and ‘new lifestyle’ (novyi byt) should take. The
initial housing priority for the impoverished, war-torn regime was not new construction but the egalitarian,
often forcible, communal redistribution from 1918 of the existing large houses of the bourgeoisie (uplotnenie).
Reflecting Engels’s formulation of the housing problem around access to ‘Wohnraum’, the Soviet leadership
enshrined as the central gauge of housing quality the nineteenth-century French concept of ‘living space’, or
‘zhilaia ploshchad’, measuring housing provision by square metres rather than by numbers of dwellings or
rooms – the original Soviet norm being 9m2 per occupant. Transferred from old houses to new, this became
the principal way in which Soviet housing targets were expressed and output successes celebrated.12 The
umbrella term, ‘kommunalka’, included both subdivided old houses and deliberately-formed communes.
During the 1920s, housing policy fluctuated wildly between confiscatory collectivism and semi-privatizing
tolerance (of cooperatives, etc.), but what was not encouraged at this stage in the USSR was any kind of
consistent municipal housing programme. Housing tensions between local and central, territorial and

34
 1914–1945: The Maturing of Mass Housing in the Age of Emergencies

functional, and public and private, would endure in a variety of permutations for the entire history of the
USSR.13
The cause of directly-built public housing was promoted most spectacularly within a different socialist
framework, that of the ‘Austro-Marxism’ of postwar Vienna – a socialism infused by an openly anti-Bolshevik
ethos of ‘Hineinwachsen’ (growth from within the system). Vienna’s postwar ‘Gemeindebauten’ comprised not
just a municipal housing programme, which built no less than 64,125 dwellings between 1919 and 1933, but
also a complete municipal-socialist world, expressed in a style that was arrestingly modern yet also rooted in
the tradition of Reformblock planning. The collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire had left 1920s Vienna as
the world’s leading social-democratic metropolitan government, a socialist island marooned in a conservative
rump state, supported by the tax powers and federal funds stemming from its post-1922 status as a Bundesland
(federal state). But this was a city-state in constant crisis, swamped by refugees and ringed by radical squatter
settlements – a siege-identity echoed in the later cases of Hong Kong and Singapore. In response, the Vienna
state government boosted its restrictions by reinforcing rent controls, imposing a draconian tax from 1923 on
bourgeois property values (the Wohnbausteuer), and pursuing accelerated land acquisition (encompassing
25% of the total city area).14
On these foundations, the city’s Social Democratic leaders launched an unprecedentedly bold programme
of social housing, targeted at the entire working class, including the very poor – an approach very different
from other pioneering modernist programmes, as in Frankfurt-am-Main. The first phase replaced the city-
edge shanty towns with garden city-style Siedlungen steered by a municipally owned housing company,
GESIBA, but refocused rapidly on a massive programme of high-density, inner-urban ‘superblock’
developments of flats – commencing with the Margarethengürtel development of 1919 (designed by Robert
Kalesa). Most of these differed little from the pre-war philanthropic tenement developments of London or
Paris, and the dwellings themselves were similar, being mostly two- or three-roomed – although the programme
also echoed contemporary rationalist demands for mass-produced components and fittings. What had
changed radically was their wider social context. In one of the frequent reversals of opinion typical of
housing debates, the moral-hygienic drive to discourage working-class mixing, and isolate each individual
household, was now being questioned. Instead, there was a concern to encourage sociability and community
among workers. In Vienna, this was chiefly pursued not through the design of the somewhat cramped flats,
or the fairly conventional staircase-access plans, but through construction of a vast infrastructure of
collective services within the housing areas, overseen by the office of the Stadtbaurat (established in 1919) (see
Fig. 2.2).15
To emphasize their proud civic status, the Gemeindebauten were ornamented with huge inscriptions and
monumental plaques commemorating the city council and key leaders. The collective ethos did not, however,
extend to the design process. Unlike the LCC, with its architectural department, design was here allocated
mainly to private architects. They were especially attuned to site-specific design, reflecting the artistic planning
principles of Camillo Sitte on the many complex inner-urban infill sites such as Am Fuchsenfeld (1924–5) or
the three-phase, 1,100-flat Rabenhof (1925–8, by Schmid & Aichinger). Developments were strongly varied in
style, ranging from classical or steep-roofed ‘Heimat’ to exuberantly modernist solutions. The climax was the
Karl Marx Hof, a colossal array of arched, stepped and towered units on an unpromising slice of land north of
the centre, complete with communal facilities such as kindergartens and laundries (Karl Ehn, 1927–30).16
Needless to say, this bricks-and-mortar approach to ‘solving the housing problem’, so different from Engels’
austere redistributive prescription, was scorned by Soviet commentators, who glossed over their own slowness
to build new workers’ housing by denouncing the Red Viennese as capitalist lackeys. After completion of the
Karl Marx Hof, however, it was instead a radical rightwards shift in Austrian politics that brought the
Gemeindebau programme to a decisive and violent end.17

35
Mass Housing

A B

C D
Fig. 2.2 (a): Early 1920s Viennese Social Democratic propaganda poster, trumpeting the construction of 25,000
‘Volkswohnungen’ in inner-urban flats (around 40% of the eventual total) as well as peripheral Siedlungen. (b): The
Margarethengürtel, epicentre of early Vienna council Großhäuser, depicted as the ‘Ringstrasse of the Proletariat’: 1930
illustration from the Social Democratic women’s magazine Die Unzufriedene (‘The Dissatisfied’). (c): Matteotti-Hof,
Vienna, 1926–7, designed by Schmid & Aichinger as a rear consolidation of the earlier Gemeinde-Hof complexes lining the
Margarethengürtel (MG 2010). (d): Rabenhof, Vienna, 1925–8, a three-phase, 1,100-unit redevelopment on the site of a
former barracks and slum cottages by architects Schmid & Aichinger: this 1928 site plan shows the complex, piecemeal
mixture of new building and retained structures.

36
 1914–1945: The Maturing of Mass Housing in the Age of Emergencies

F G
Fig. 2.2 (e): Professor-Jodlhof, Döblinger Gürtel, Vienna, 1925–6: an ingenious Gemeindebau intervention, encompassing
and integrating an existing street; architects Rudolf Perco, Karl Dofmeister and Rudolf Frass (MG 2010). (f): Sandleitenhof,
Vienna, 1924–6, an exurban garden-courtyard development, with southern section designed by architects Emil Hoppe,
Otto Schönthal and Franz Matouschek; view of eight-storey focal-point tower on Sandleitengasse (MG 2010). (g): Karl
Marx-Hof, Heiligenstadterstraße, Vienna, 1927–30, a monumental array of 1,400 flats in a continuous, linear Gemeindebau
block more than a kilometre long; conceived by architect Karl Ehn as a multi-storey ‘garden city’, enveloped by open space
(MG 2010).

37
Mass Housing

While Red Vienna prioritized community life over self-contained family life, the other leading 1920s
municipal programme, the council housing of Great Britain, pursued identity-building in precisely the
opposite way, stressing highly-equipped, self-contained dwellings designed to bring middle-class domestic
privacy to the working class, in a mixture of garden-suburb peripheral developments and gallery-access flatted
‘block dwellings’ in inner city redevelopments. If the Karl Marx Hof symbolized Red Vienna, then the English
equivalent was the LCC’s Becontree Estate, a vast low-rise development east of London, built in multiple
stages between 1920 and 1934, designed by the LCC Architect’s Department and accommodating 120,000
inhabitants in 26,000 two-storey houses and flats.18 Great Britain’s council housing, uniquely, extended
municipal housing into a national programme, a programme feasible because of the special strength of
municipalities in Britain. Here, the precipitate decline in the power of the private landlord, and the early
imposition of rent controls in 1915, helped polarize state rental housing and owner-occupation, a pattern that
contrasted with the more complex relationships in continental Europe.19 Thus despite its long capitalist
heritage, Britain paradoxically saw the deepest state interventionism in housing provision within the Western
world (see Fig. 2.3).
Interwar council housing was clearly indebted to the pre-war innovations in Ireland and London, and the
wartime radicalism of the 1917 Ballantyne Report on Scottish working-class housing, which advocated
abandonment of both private-rented housing and the Scottish tradition of urban tenements. In 1919, the
government launched an initial, lavishly-financed intervention (the ‘Addison Act’), at first aiming to defuse
industrial militancy through ‘general needs’ cottage-building but then retrenching to more selective
programmes. Despite subsequent policy fluctuations, the council-housing formula allowed an exceptional

A B
Fig. 2.3 (a): LCC Becontree Estate, Essex, the first block completed (November 1921): Type 54 terraced cottages in the
Ilford (No. 1) Section, built by contractor C. J. Wills and designed by the LCC Architect’s Department (William Hepburn,
project leader); (MG 2019). (b, c): Bethnal Green Estate, London: slum-clearance ‘block dwellings’, including experimental
maisonettes, built in 1920–2 by Bethnal Green Borough Council, with the central government Office of Works acting as
consultant designers (MG 2019).

38
 1914–1945: The Maturing of Mass Housing in the Age of Emergencies

D E
Fig. 2.3 (b, c): Continuned. (d): Blackhill Rehousing Scheme, Glasgow, 1935, blockwork tenements designed and built
by Glasgow Corporation Housing Department (W McNab, Director) (MG 1983). (e): Pearse House, Dublin: slum-
clearance flats built in 1933 by Dublin Corporation, designed by Housing Architect Herbert Simms (MG 2014).

39
Mass Housing

continuity of output.20 Overall, by 1938, Britain had recorded the highest social housing production in
Europe (3.7 million dwellings), but in Scotland, where anti-landlordism was strongest, the public housing
proportion of total new house-building was highest: 61% in 1919–34, as opposed to 25% in England
(itself a huge proportion, by continental standards). Only in the postwar Soviet bloc would the Scottish
proportion of public housing at times be exceeded. Architecturally, the British developments distanced
themselves from the pre-war Arts and Crafts Picturesque, and from the civic exhibitionism of Red Vienna.
Their emphasis was on a rationally-restrained homogeneity, pursuing modern standardization through
plain neo-Georgian cottages – an approach developed by Raymond Unwin at the vast Gretna and Eastriggs
munitions-worker townships (from 1916). The council housing built by municipalities under early
postwar acts (1919, 1923 and 1924) featured architecturally conservative variants on standard themes,
including (in Scotland) three-storey tenements and two-storey ‘four-in-a-block’ flats; inner London saw
some experimental schemes of ‘block dwellings’, such as the four-storey maisonettes of the Bethnal Green
Estate (1921–2).21 In Glasgow, whose heavy-industry economic base began to disintegrate after 1918, the
emphasis rapidly shifted from schemes for better-off tenants to very-low-rent ‘Rehousing’ schemes of
economically-built tenements, linked to slum-clearance: the Corporation built 71% (54,289 dwellings) of
Glasgow’s interwar housing.22
Outside Britain and Vienna, municipal housing was far less prominent. Even in pioneering Ireland, the
1921 partition slashed output, the surviving set piece being Dublin’s 1,362-unit Marino cottage garden suburb
of 1923–9; projects elsewhere were much smaller, such as Cork Corporation’s 152-house Capwell scheme of
1926–8, built under City Commissioner Philip Monahan.23 Instead, subsidies to private builders initially
prevailed both north and south of the border. In the Irish Free State, the 1920s Cumann nan Gaedhael
government pursued a parallel policy of private suburban building and ‘pay-back’ council-house sales, together
with continued building of rural labourers’ cottages.24 Rural-orientated Irish nationalism rejected urban
environments as ‘British’, and working-class life as degenerate: as in other societies dominated by Catholic
family values, such as Belgium and Portugal, low-density cottages were equated with higher moral standards.
However, Irish politicians were also pragmatic in their housing policies and 1931–2 saw enabling legislation
for a 10,000-dwelling slum-clearance drive by Dublin Corporation. After 1932, the more militantly nationalist
Fianna Fáil government, led by Eamon de Valera, even intensified that programme, strongly encouraged by the
council’s Housing Committee chairman, Alderman Tom Kelly. A quarter of the Corporation’s programme
comprised slum-clearance flats, designed by a newly-appointed (1931) Housing Architect, Herbert Simms, on
three-/four-storey perimeter layouts, with Art Deco brick exteriors but traditional ‘British-philanthropic’ rear
gallery-access: examples included Townsend Street (1936–42) and Marrowbone Lane (1937–9). The Northern
Ireland government focused on owner-occupation, reorientating the private-enterprise system from renting
to subsidized speculative builders and owner-builders, who provided 82% of all new interwar housing; local
authorities built only 15% of overall production, and just 6% in urban areas.25 Elsewhere in Europe, pockets of
municipal housing construction clearly reflected the Vienna formula, including the Avsekļa iela development
in Riga, Latvia (1927), with 117 flats in a single six-storey courtyard block, or the Torino IACP’s dense
courtyard complex of 1928 at Corso Grosseto, with striped brick and concrete walling.26

Continental permutations in the 1920s

The most vigorous municipally-based national housing system on the continent was, however, found in the
neutral Netherlands, where the imposition of rent controls in 1917 led to a sharp post-1918 drop in both
housing-association and private construction, creating a short-term opportunity for municipal intervention.

40
 1914–1945: The Maturing of Mass Housing in the Age of Emergencies

The latter peaked in 1920 at 33% (up to 50% in some cities, such as Den Haag), but thereafter plummeted as
private building recovered to 83% of output by 1926: the ratio of municipal to housing-association output
peaked at 5:1 in 1919 but dropped to 2:1 from 1927.27 Whether social housing was built directly by local
authorities or indirectly by the philanthropic or cooperative societies, the local authorities were still in the
driving seat, controlling cooperative building activities from several directions at once. That, however, did not
mean unity of municipal purpose, as was emphatically demonstrated in Amsterdam, where 1915 saw the
creation of a separate Housing Department, responsible for Woningwet (Housing Act) dwelling output,
alongside the Public Works Department, with its long-standing planning responsibilities. As often in the
history of public housing, the development of parallel housing and planning empires incited rivalry among
ambitious municipal politicians and professionals, including Amsterdam’s renowned Housing Alderman,
Floor Wibaut, and Director of Housing Arie Keppler, and the long-standing Town Planning director (1929–
59), Cornelis van Eesteren. Within Amsterdam’s housing system, the planners demanded to set the overall
framework, beginning at area level with Berlage’s 1915 Plan Zuid, and expanding to the vast scope of the
General City Extension Plan (Algemeen Uitbreidingsplan, or AUP), the world’s first functionally-differentiated
modernist city plan, published 1935. Under this often-leaky umbrella, Wibaut acted as gatekeeper for central-
government Woningwet housing finance, while Keppler planned individual council developments in detail,
some comprising several thousand dwellings, such as Betondorp, Watergraafsmeer (1923–5), with its
pioneering mass-concrete construction; private architects such as Piet Kramer and Jop van Epen were also
used.28 Within this self-styled ‘Mecca of social housing’, the relationships of the two-headed official system
with the outside world were often uneasy. The rapidly-proliferating cooperatives were distrusted by the
Housing Department as ‘unruly and opinionated children’, and often clashed with the municipality – although
fully-fledged pillarization, with official proportional allocations to Catholic, Protestant and socialist housing
blocs within each new development (the ‘OPA’ system), would only emerge after 1945.29
The bipartite system, which equally applied in Rotterdam, freely accommodated architectural avant-
gardism, and the interwar years saw the appearance of many modernist manifesto groups, including Groep 32
and De 8 in Amsterdam and Opbouw in Rotterdam. But the ‘Amsterdam School’ of architects had already
made a decisive contribution in the 1910s to the emergence of modern mass-housing design. As in pre-war
Budapest, this combined reform-block perimeter planning with innovative and exotic street-façade styling,
but on a broader scale, fuelled by the power and ambition of the post-Berlage city planning apparatus. In the
work of architects such as Michel de Klerk and Piet Kramer there was a gradual transition from quirky Arts
and Crafts individualism to a more austerely modernist approach, but this journey was punctuated by many
extreme individual solutions. Unsurprisingly, given these earlier innovations, Red Vienna’s modernists
regarded Amsterdam as a special inspiration – Karl Marx Hof designer Ehn was greatly influenced by an early
1920s visit to the city. Amsterdam also helped translate into reality another modernist leitmotiv – the
freestanding multi-storey tower – with J. F. Staal’s Victorieplein ‘Wolkenkrabber’ (skyscraper), a private
development of 1929–31 built by NV-Gewapend Betonbouw ‘De Kondor’ for developers K. Hille and J. Reijn,
with 284 flats in a twelve-storey tower and lower flanking blocks.30 In Rotterdam, a social housing system
emerged one year after Amsterdam’s, with the 1916 establishment of a Gemeentelijke Woningdienst (municipal
housing department) under engineer Auguste Plate and architect J. J. P. Oud – and the city thereafter played its
share in innovative housing design, breaking from the Netherlands’ long-established perimeter planning and
staircase access from individual street-doors, towards a new pattern of upper-floor access from open galleries
(galerijbouw). The pioneering gallery-access development at Justus van Effenstraat (1919–22) was initially
received with uncertainty, even hostility. Debate focused partly on whether the galleries constituted a new
kind of upper-level ‘street’ (just as at Streatham Street) and partly on their relationship to Dutch national
identity. Here, as in New York’s ‘French flats’ debate fifty years earlier, wider opinion shifted from suspicion of

41
Mass Housing

the alien, ‘un-Dutch’ interloper to acceptance of its potential advantages – to the point where, after 1945,
galerijbouw slab blocks would eventually dominate Dutch multi-storey housing.31
The formula of strong municipal regulation, within a multi-headed social housing system, was pursued
even more energetically in 1920s Germany – but within a very different chronological framework, dictated by
the postwar economic chaos and 1923 hyperinflation that wiped out most middle-class savings. Here any
return to private-enterprise normality would have been impossible even if individual ownership within blocks
of flats had been permitted. The central principle of the German housing system, which was established in
1920 and has endured ever since, was a sharp separation between the central or local state, which controlled
legislation, finance and regulation, and the producer agencies, which were treated with strict neutrality:
municipalities, cooperative/social companies and private firms were all eligible for the same assistance and
subject to the same regulations. The municipalities’ oversight role was, if anything, more dominant and
interventive than in Britain; but because of the absence of any ideological/political preference for council
house-building, it lacked Britain’s strong local-political edge.32 After 1918, most major cities set up a
Gemeinnützige Wohnungsbaugesellschaft (a municipally-owned building organization) which built numbers
of conventional three–four-storey Reformblock perimeter developments (Blockrandbebauung). At the same
time, following a raft of tenant-protection, rent-control and housing regulation laws in 1922–3, the municipal
Wohnungsamt (housing office) assumed an almost total control over housing allocations.33
Following the 1923 economic meltdown, however, the country suddenly faced a fully-fledged national
housing emergency, as the repercussions of the wartime production backlog and the refugee influx came to a
head, with informal hut-colonies proliferating around Berlin by 1925. Here, just as in other twentieth-century
housing crises, the response was a radical stepping-up of state intervention – but here through massive
financial subsidies rather than direct building, supported by a national emergency tax on housing values
(Hauszinssteuer) introduced in 1924. From the resulting revenue (850 million Reichsmark after three years),
an increasing percentage was siphoned off into social-housing subsidies, peaking at 15–20% in 1926, as part
of a programme by the centrist government to build 1 million houses. Quantitatively, the results were dramatic:
between 1924 and 1933, annual average output (222,000) was only slightly below Britain’s. By 1928–9, just
before the Depression, 89% of all new housing received state support – a situation radically different from
the Netherlands, which was then returning to private-enterprise normality. Germany’s support comprised
cheap second mortgages to builders, not direct grants for construction, and was orientated towards building
for rent rather than lower-income home-ownership. Overall, this building boom would last around five–six
years until, with the Depression in 1931, the tap was abruptly turned off; the Hauszinssteuer was redirected
elsewhere (surviving until 1943) and housing support was slashed by 80% by 1933. As always in Germany,
unlike Red Vienna, the main client group was not the poor but the impoverished lower middle classes and
skilled workers – many of whom then had to quit their expensive modern dwellings during mass unemployment
in the Depression.34
Throughout all the vicissitudes in support and output, the principle of producer-neutrality was rigidly
upheld, allowing great diversity of local solutions, with varying emphases on the roles of building companies,
cooperatives, municipal companies or benevolent associations. In Berlin, social housing was built chiefly by
housing cooperatives within the free market, including the national society GAGFAH, or the local trade-
union-owned GEHAG, all building for rents beyond the means of the average worker. In Frankfurt-am-Main
a programme closer to Red Vienna or Britain’s council housing was pushed through from 1925 by Ernst May,
director of the municipal planning department (until 1931), using mostly city-owned building companies to
achieve an output of 15,000 dwellings.35 Architecturally, Berlin’s low-rise, staircase-access blocks – in the case
of the Britz Hufeisensiedlung (1925–33), arranged in a spectacular horseshoe ring around a communal garden
– broke strongly with the old Mietshaus pattern without actually introducing tall towers, and Frankfurt’s

42
 1914–1945: The Maturing of Mass Housing in the Age of Emergencies

developments largely comprised low-rise garden suburbs with lavish communal facilities. Locally-sponsored
Siedlung construction also prospered in the independent Free City of Danzig, where the ruling Senate had
unparalleled control over land and development policy, and subsidized a 15,000-dwelling programme between
1920 and 1933, largely in garden suburbs of two-storey vernacular flats and cottages built by house-building
subsidiary Danziger Siedlungs AG (see Fig. 2.4).36

A B

Fig. 2.4 (a): Victorieplein, Amsterdam-Zuid: pioneering

(privately-built) twelve-storey tower built in 1929–31 to the
designs of J. F. Staal (MG 2015). (b): Pioneering ‘galerijbouw’
development at Justus van Effenstraat, Rotterdam, 1919–22:
designed by J. J. P. Oud for the city’s Gemeentelijke
Woningdienst (MG 2015). (c): 1931 poster advertising an
exhibition display by GEHAG, Berlin’s trade-union-
controlled housing organization, showcasing prominent
C housing projects such as the Hufeisensiedlung (cf. 2.4 (e)).

43
Mass Housing

D E

Fig. 2.4 (d): 1926–7 issue of

Das Neue Frankfurt (published
by Ernst May’s department),
vividly contrasting May’s new
modernist housing complexes
with the dense, mixed-
together urban fabric of the
nineteenth-century city. (e):
GEHAG’s Hufeisensiedlung,
Berlin-Britz, 1925–33, by
architect Bruno Taut and
municipal planner Martin
Wagner, contrasted with the
dense environments of the
nineteenth-century ‘steinerne
Berlin’ in Werner Hegemann’s
polemical 1930 book of the
same name. (f): Großsiedlung
Römerstadt, Frankfurt-am-
Main, 1927–9, the centrepiece
of Ernst May’s late-1920s social
housing programme; architect
Carl-Hermann Rudloff (MG
2011). F

44
 1914–1945: The Maturing of Mass Housing in the Age of Emergencies

Within Central Europe, the tolerant tenure-neutrality of the German system ensured that it, rather than
militant Red Vienna, exerted the more pervasive influence – for example in Czechoslovakia, with its left-wing
intelligentsia and industrial proletariat. Here, a comprehensive loan-subsidy scheme and tax relief laws of
1921 and 1930, which applied even-handedly to municipal authorities and cooperatives, unleashed a boom in
social-housing apartments, many of advanced modernist design, such as the six-storey reinforced-concrete
frame Zeilenbau gallery-access Unitas complex in Bratislava (1930–7) or the nearby Nová Daba (New Age)
project of 1932–6, whose cross-bar courtyard layout uncannily resembled the contemporary Harlem River
Houses in New York City (see below): these cooperatives were designed by the German-trained, avant-garde
architect Friedrich Weinwurm.37 In Hungary, the 1920s–1930s also saw a pluralistic system, including
municipal building financed by bank loans – including the monumental, six-storey classical Kecskehegy Hill
scheme (1927) for civil servants, and the gallery-access Daranyi Houses of 1936–7, for low-income slum-
dwellers – alongside growing involvement after 1928 by insurance and pensions agencies, notably the National
Bureau of Social Insurance (OTI).38
The role of Germany’s postwar economic crisis in whipping up a climate of emergency housing mobilization
is highlighted by the very different policy outcomes in Switzerland and Scandinavia, all wartime-neutral states
that shared Germany’s strict separation of enabling state and tenure-neutral production; here, social-housing
campaigns were short-lived, limited in scale and structured by traditions of local and civic autonomy.
Encouragement of cooperatives was a common theme. The Swiss confederation decided in 1918 to subsidize
them, but as housing policy was a cantonal preserve, implementation was patchy: the Geneva municipal
housing office supported co-ops from 1929 in developments such as Vieusseux.39 Denmark, Sweden and
Norway all resembled the Netherlands in emphasizing a speedy return to market normality, whether by the
early lifting of rent controls in Sweden (1923) or the abolition of building loans in Sweden (also 1923) and
Denmark (1927). Unlike their later reputation as welfare-state strongholds, private-market housing was
predominant in these countries – a policy endorsed in Sweden even by the up-and-coming Social Workers
Party (SAP), which backed state-supported owner-occupation (1925) and subsidies for self-built, single-
storey timber ‘småstugor’ (1927). However, this was paralleled by increasing encouragement of co-ops in all
three countries, culminating in the 1922 foundation of the Swedish Hyresgästernas Sparkasse- och
Byggnadsförening (HSB: Tenants’ Savings and Building Association), a tenant-controlled national umbrella
group influenced by English guild socialism, and liaising with the national cooperative umbrella organization,
the Kooperativa förbundet, founded 1919.40 Sweden’s postwar support system (1917–23) covered one-third of
the cost of small flats: of this, two-thirds was met by central and one-third by local government, anticipating
the postwar strength of municipal housing in some Swedish cities.
In Norway, postwar social housing was initially dominated by British-style municipal housing: in 1919,
thirty of Norway’s urban municipalities began construction, notably Oslo, which built numerous Reformblock
perimeter-plan groups, including the 2,000-dwelling Torshov. But this was swamped from the 1920s by a great
wave of cooperative building: a city co-op was formed in Trondheim as early as 1921, followed by a trade-
union co-op in Oslo in 1924 and three years later by the capital’s most important housing co-op, OOBS (later
OBOS) – inspired explicitly by the HSB.41 The emphasis on co-ops was strongest in Denmark, with its long
cooperative tradition since the 1870s. Here, initial state intervention was limited to the decade following the
1916 introduction of rent controls, with a strict division between state financing and dispersed production.
The first five years (1917–21) featured German-style state loans to local authorities, building co-ops and
societies: an initial boom in local-authority building around 1919–20 was followed by a building burst by non-
profit and co-op associations (coordinated from 1919 by a National Federation of Non-Profit Housing
Organizations) – these built one-quarter of 1916–31 national housing output, including 67,000 in Copenhagen
alone. The years 1922–8 saw a shift in financing from second mortgages to state-guaranteed bonds, especially

45
Mass Housing

for single-family owner-occupied houses, under the Statsboligfondslov (State Housing Fund Law). Much
1920s social housing in Copenhagen was overseen by the Copenhagen General Housing Association (KAB,
founded in 1920), and in the 1930s assumed an increasingly modernist style, for example at Ved Volden
(1936–8).42
While Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark combined high output with regimes of state enabling and
devolved production, the original home of arm’s-length social housing, France, had far less output success
during the 1920s, partly because of the preoccupation with reconstruction of the devastated areas of the
north-east. The Loi Bonnevay, in 1912, had reinforced the distinction between central government sponsorship
and local HBM production: alongside the existing privately-sponsored ‘societiés anonymes’, numerous public
HBM offices (OPHBMs) were established by municipalities or departments. The latter were, of course, still
strictly forbidden to build directly. In 1921 the state took over from the Caisse des dépôts et consignations
(CDC) as the chief source of loans to HBM organizations, but obstruction by the conservative-dominated
Senate delayed investment for a further seven years, until the 1928 Loi Loucheur took a decisive step forward,
openly targeting the middle classes.43 A similar system, both organizationally and in its relative lack of output
impact, prevailed in Italy, where the northern industrial centres, such as Milan and Turin, resembled post-
Haussmann France in their pyramidal social structure, with elite core and low-status suburbs. There the local
IACPs, some now twenty years old, played a similar role to the OPHBMs, embarking on limited apartment-
building drives. In Trieste, the old municipal housing office (ICAM) became an IACP in 1924 and began a
programme of hof-type courtyard developments of up to eight storeys, including the massively-stepped group
at Piazza dei Foraggi in 1926–7. The 1924 foundation of the Istituto nazionale per le case degli impiegati statali
(INCIS: National Institute for Civil Servants’ Housing), with its lavish, classical apartment projects, only
benefited government employees, and by the late 1920s, with rural-to-urban migration becoming a flood
(peaking in 1927), the situation was increasingly seen as politically insupportable (see Fig. 2.5).44

A B
Fig. 2.5 (a): Historical interpretation board at Tallkrogen, one of Stockholm’s largest developments of prefabricated
timber småstugor (950 houses, built 1933–43) (MG 2014). (b): Denmark’s grandest 1920s co-op project, the Hornbækhus,
Copenhagen, 1922–3, by Kay Fisker: a nearly 200m-long neoclassical staircase-access tenement block, with a vast, unified
internal courtyard landscaped by G. N. Brandt (MG 2018).

46
 1914–1945: The Maturing of Mass Housing in the Age of Emergencies

C D

E
Fig. 2.5 (c): Via Arquata, Turin (Quartiere 10): a pavilion-plan, classical IACP development of 1920 (MG 2017). (d):
Piazza dei Foraggi (Rozzol ‘C’), Trieste, by architect Umberto Nordio, 1926–7: an early, tentatively multi-storey IACP
development, in ‘Baroque’ classical form (MG 2017). (e): Alexandras Avenue, Athens, a modernist Zeilenbau complex built
in 1933–5 (architects Kimon Laskaris and Dimitrios Kyriakos) and later bombarded by the British army in 1944 as a
communist stronghold (Maria Tzeli, 2016).

47
Mass Housing

Elsewhere in Mediterranean Europe, given the absence of a coherent proletarian culture, housing
production was polarized between modern, private apartment blocks or villas for sale or rent to the better-off,
and informal housing (i.e. shanty towns) for the poor, whether rural migrants or refugees. However, in Greece,
where the 1922 conflict with Turkey unleashed a 1.2 million refugee influx from Asia Minor, a Refugee
Settlement Commission, established 1923, implemented a massive emergency programme of rural resettlement
in the north-east, including foundation or enlargement of over 1,000 planned villages (out of 2,085 nationally).
This plan was spearheaded from 1924 by a semi-modernist programme for 10,000 single-storey detached
houses, awarded by the RSC and League of Nations to a German consultancy, the Danziger Hoch- und
Tiefbaugesellschaft (DHTG), headed by contractor Adolf Sommerfeld. The houses were timber-framed with
self-help infill by the refugees; a further 43,000 houses were built across Greece by the RSC and 14,000 by
other state agencies. One of the new villages, Skopos in Thrace, was visited in the late 1930s by Zionist organizer
David Ben-Gurion – a intriguing link to the postwar planned colonization of Israel (see chapter 15). In Athens,
refugees were largely left to fend for themselves, covering a third of the city-region with shanty towns, while
middle-class apartment-blocks were also built in an unplanned way. Only in the late 1930s, with responsibility
for refugee housing transferred to the Technical Department of the Ministry of Welfare, was there some effort
at slum-clearance, the chief outcome being a 228-dwelling, flat-roofed modernist complex of three-storey
Zeilenbau blocks in Alexandras Avenue, Athens, by architects Kimon Laskaris and Dimitrios Kyriakos and
built in 1933–5 in plastered rubble stonework.45
That a French-style HBM system could generate large-scale output, suitably supported by the state, was
demonstrated by the achievements of Belgium, where a national house-building system operated from 1919,
without local intermediary OPHBM/IACP-style agencies. There, 1919 saw implementation of a reform
originally passed in 1914, establishing a national credit and supervisory agency (Nationale Maatschappij voor
Goedkope Woningen – NMGW/SNHBM, or National Economic Dwellings Association), charged with
allocating loans to local building companies to build rental houses for better-off workers. This resulted in
significant building of flats in dense urban contexts, and of low-density suburban schemes of family houses.
In 1924, the system was changed so that the local companies could also build for sale, but this was dwarfed by
a large-scale emergency owner-occupation building programme for workers, supported by the 1889 Act,
which provided cheap credit for mortgages via the ASLK (Algemene Spaar en Lijfrentekas – General Savings
and Annuities). The subsidies for NMGW-supported construction fluctuated wildly, being introduced in
1912, abolished in 1926 and resurrected in 1935, with the foundation of a further support agency, the Nationale
Maatschappij voor de Kleine Landeigendom (NMKL: National Association for Small House Ownership). In
Belgium, as in Germany, owner-occupation was confined to single-family houses, whereas flats had to be
rented or cooperatively owned. In Luxembourg, the Societé nationale des habitations à bon marché (National
Low-Rent Housing Society), also founded in 1919, focused chiefly on building for sale, and only built a few
hundred rental dwellings after 1945.46

Totalitarian housing visions in the Great Depression

The housing impact of the global economic slump of the early 1930s was as far reaching as that of World War
I. The mosaic of mass housing efforts was thrown back up in the air, with some countries retreating from
prominence and others rapidly advancing. In the Americas, a concerted mass-housing discourse began to
emerge for the first time, expanding the ‘Hundred Years’ War’ from a European to a global scope. In the colonial
world, too, there were growing demands for more reformist, developmental housing policies. Architecturally,
debates over housing design and planning indirectly reflected the new, polarized political and economic

48
 1914–1945: The Maturing of Mass Housing in the Age of Emergencies

context. On the one hand, there was conflict: modernism’s spread in Europe provoked opposition from some
authoritarian states, with consequent worldwide migrations of refugee designers and a significant shift in the
geographical balance of mass housing efforts. Yet the generalized sense of social and political crisis also
energized modernist technocratic optimism, especially after CIAM’s publication of the 1933 ‘Athens Charter’
on urbanism; by the end of the 1930s, there was a growing consensual support in countries as diverse as
Sweden, Italy, the USA and Brazil that modern urban housing should be designed with flat-roofed modernist
styles, restrained Zeilenbau layouts of medium-rise flats and sectional staircase-plans.
Standing at one remove from all this, and perceived by European housing commentators as a background
presence, for good or bad, was Stalin’s USSR, where 1929 saw not a depression but a shift to a crash
industrialization and urban settlement programme, trumpeted in an adaptation of the rhetoric of Western
Taylorism and Fordism. Instead of redistributions, significant new housing production targets were launched,
expressed in square metres of ‘zhilaia ploshchad’ (living space). This centralized system was bound up with
Stalinism’s rejection of the laissez-faire cooperativism of the New Economic Plan and assertion of the
prefectural dirigisme of central state enterprises. Well-resourced ministries could build almost at will on the
land supposedly overseen by the local soviets – a problem of ‘disjointed monism’ that would persist throughout
the entire Soviet era. A 1937 housing law attempted to balance housing output allocation between soviets and
work-enterprises, but the latter’s dominance continued: there would be no USSR equivalent of Britain’s
powerful council housing. With the overwhelming emphasis on heavy industry, new production was far less
than later under Khrushchev and Brezhnev, with a maximum of 624,000 m2 built in 1933, as against 3 million
m2 in 1960 and 3.4 million in 1973. 47 The most decisive shift towards central enterprise (‘vedomstva’)
production occurred during the first Five-Year Plan (1928–32), responding to the inefficiency of the municipal
and cooperative sectors in accommodating the waves of migrants from the countryside: nationally, enterprises
built 82% of new housing in 1933, and of the 3,700 apartments completed in Moscow in 1928–32, 60% were
built by enterprises and institutions, in parallel with barracks for single workers. Many belonged to the Serp i
Molot (Hammer and Sickle) steel plant and ZiS automobile factory, whose house-building was concentrated
in the eastern Proletarskii raion, comprising four- to six-storey sectional staircase-access blocks: construction
was commissioned by plant managers from the city housing construction trust, bypassing the city and raion
soviets altogether.48 For elite cadres, military staff and skilled workers, lavish apartment complexes were
built in classical-cum-modern styles, including Levinson and Fomin’s concave-fronted Lensovet building of
1931–5 in Leningrad and Boris Iofan’s far larger, ten-storey Central Committee Residential Complex in central
Moscow. The first two housing complexes of post-revolutionary Kiev were for doctors and ‘Arsenal’ factory
munitions workers – both built in 1928–31 in a restrainedly modernist style. Smaller cities boasted their own
equivalents, a typical example being the massively baroque residential building of the Senior Command Staff
of the Volga Region Military District, in Kuybishev’s central square (1938).49 This phase of Soviet housing was
less important in itself than as a foundation for the vast achievements of the post-1953 years, both within the
USSR and across the newly-expanded Soviet empire (see Fig. 2.6).
Architecturally, the Stalinist orthodoxy of the 1930s decisively rejected the modernist collective house
experiments of the 1920s, whose externalization of private life was exemplified by M. Ginsburg and I. Milinis’s
balcony-access Narkomfin Building of 1928–30, and Ivan Nikolaev’s communal house for students of the
Moscow Textile institute (1929–32). This was replaced by a rhetoric of individual family self-containment.50
The abstractions of avant-garde modernism were rejected as ‘bourgeois formalism’ and a more traditional
architecture of grand facades and classical columns, and sectional plans, was substituted. As always with Soviet
policies, there was a huge gap between spectacular visual rhetoric and reality. In practice, most new urban
settlements were polarized between prestige apartments for high officials lining grand boulevards, and
temporary, barracks-like, collectively-occupied settlements elsewhere. The shift away from modernism in the

49
Mass Housing

B C
Fig. 2.6 (a): Lensoviet First Apartment Building, Leningrad, 1931–5: housing for elite municipal officials in a classical-
modern complex by architects Y. A. Levinson and I. I. Fomin (MG 2016). (b): Ivanovskaya Street, Volodarsky Raion,
Leningrad: grandly uniform Stalinist neoclassical facades fronting standard staircase-access layouts with two flats on each
floor: 1937–40, architects E. A. Levinson, I. I. Fomin and S. I. Yevdokimov (MG 2016). (c): The 1931 masterplan by Ernst
May’s department for Avtostroy, near Nizhni Novgorod – the ‘Soviet Detroit’ – showing the Zeilenbau arrangement of
standard housing areas: in the event, what was built, in 1931–4, was a mixture of two-storey timber houses and three- or
four-storey apartment blocks.

50
 1914–1945: The Maturing of Mass Housing in the Age of Emergencies

early 1930s was vividly illustrated in the outcome of the high-prestige project for the prestigious Siberian new
industrial city of Magnitogorsk. This was the most important of the many city-planning projects overseen by
Ernst May during his appointment in the USSR as Chief Engineer of Planning and Housing from October
1930 until April 1932 – during which time he did much to proselytize and lay the foundations for the eventual
triumph of CIAM-style industrialized planning and housing in the post-Stalin era. May’s plan for Magnitogorsk
promoted CIAM-style zoned planning and industrialized concrete Zeilenbau apartment blocks, but the
housing eventually built used traditional brickwork and timber, and May eventually left the USSR altogether
in December 1933 after the regime’s turn towards architectural traditionalism. And Moisei Ginzburg’s unbuilt
1935 plan for the industrial city of Nizhni-Tagil combined a grandly symmetrical, classical layout with a line
of multi-storey towers dominating a central forum. These patterns continued into the early postwar years until
Stalin’s death in 1953; only in the Khrushchev years, from the mid-1950s, would the discourse of standardized
modern mass housing and planning proselytized by May become fully mainstream in the Soviet housing
system.51
A huge gap between rhetoric and reality equally characterized the emergent European fascist countries,
whose interpretation of modernity stressed the need for national ‘rebirth’. In post-1933 Germany, the Nazi
government pursued economic recovery by massive rearmament spending – a policy dependent on the
ultimate promise of plunder through war. Within this strategy, the position of housing was somewhat
peripheral, and its share of public expenditure plummeted from 6% to 1.2% by 1939 (while military spending
rose from 4% to 50%). Much emphasis was placed on the extension of central controls, with all trade-union
housing absorbed in 1933 by the German Workers’ Front (DAF). All social housing companies were placed
under the oversight of the DAF’s Reichsheimstättenamt in 1938, and the overall proportion of housing
built by social housing agencies fell by around a third. Architecturally, Nazi ideologues vehemently
rejected modernist architecture and flatted social housing as incubators of Marxism, and demanded a
return to sturdy yeoman cottages in ‘Gemeinschaftssiedlungen’ (‘community estates’). Yet the overriding
emphasis on rearmament also required large amounts of urban housing to be produced quickly, and so the
allocation powers of the municipal housing offices were boosted and the output of rental flats was raised,
albeit in more traditional, pitched-roof styles: rental output recovered from a minimum of 141,000 in 1932
to 370,000 in 1937. Typically of the Nazi state’s addiction to overlapping competences, a range of new
social housing organizations emerged, such as the DAF-controlled ‘Neuland’ organization, tasked with
development in the Stadt des KdF-Wagens (later Wolfsburg), and a new, DAF-sponsored national umbrella
organization, ‘Neue Heimat’, established in 1939.52 The fascist-cum-corporatist ‘Ständestaat’ that ruled
Austria from 1934 until the 1938 German annexation was more restricted in its housing aspirations, chiefly
building low-rent, tenemental ‘Familienasyle’ for poor households and subsidized suburban cottages under
a 1937 Kleinwohnungsförderungsgesetz (Small Dwelling Finance Act) (see Fig. 2.7).53
Within Italy, the mid-1930s had seen a fresh flood of rural dwellers into the cities, an influx scarcely
diminished by the highly-publicized Fascist programme of land reclamation and settlement foundation in the
Apulian tableland and the Pontine marshes.54 The same years witnessed a highly publicized attempt to realign
the IACP system more closely with PNF (Fascist Party) ideology: a 1935 law set up an overarching national
structure, the local institutions being converted to provincial-level ‘Fascist IACPs’ (IFACP), with a central
CNIAFCP to coordinate policy. But the decentralized system largely survived behind this rhetorical façade:
very often the change was largely one of name, as with the 1937 redesignation of the IACP of Rome as the
IFACP della Provincia di Roma, and a 1938 consolidating housing act actually increased the IFACPs’ financial
and political autonomy. What also continued largely as before was the system’s relatively low output, even in
Milan, where only a few showpiece schemes were built. Architecturally, Italian mid-1930s social housing
followed a rather different trajectory to that in Germany, with a growing unanimity around generally modernist

51
Mass Housing

B C
Fig. 2.7 (a): Otto Speckter Straße, Hamburg: a 1936 extension to an existing housing area by the Gemeinnützige
Kleinwohnungsbau-Gesellschaft-Groß-Hamburg (GKB), built after its 1933 takeover by the DAF; the somewhat ‘neo-
Biedermeier’ design was by architects Richard Opitz, Carl Arnold and Hans Mütel. Badly damaged in 1944, the scheme was
rebuilt in 1950 in a more simplified, ‘modernist’ manner (MG 2018). (b): Schwarzwaldsiedlung, Essener Straße, Hamburg-
Langenhorn, 1935–41, a scheme of 152 low-rise flats for munitions workers transplanted from south-west Germany to the
nearby Deutsche Messapparate GmbH (Messap) bomb-detonator factory, and designed by Paul Alfred Richter in a style
intended to remind the workers of their original home region. Constructed by the ‘Neue Heimat Arbeiterfront im Gau
Hamburg’, the scheme was inherited by Neue Heimat-Hamburg after 1952 (MG 2018). (c, d): IFACP Fabio Filzi and
Gabriele d’Annunzio developments, Milan, 1935–8 and 1938–41 respectively: Zeilenbau walk-ups designed by architects
Albini, Camus and Palanti (MG, 1982 and 2015 photographs).

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 1914–1945: The Maturing of Mass Housing in the Age of Emergencies

E F
Fig. 2.7 (c, d): Continued (e): Bairro Económico de Belem, Lisbon, 1933–8: low-income home-ownership scheme built
under the Casas Económicas programme, designed by architects Eugénio Correia and Raul Lino (MG 2016). (f): Bloco
Duque de Saldanha, Porto – an isolated and contentious U-plan gallery-access municipal flat project of 1937–40, designed
by the city engineering department. (Kitty Horsey, 2016).

53
Mass Housing

CIAM patterns of Zeilenbau planning and flat roofs, as seen for example in the IFACP Quartiere Fabio Filzi
(1935–8) or Quartiere G. d’Annunzio (1938–41) in Milan, with their arrays of five-storey blocks.55 Even Italy’s
stuttering social housing output, however, looked impressive alongside the paltry output of Salazar’s Estado
Novo in Portugal, whose authoritarian reordering as a corporatist, Catholic state between 1926 and 1933 led
to an overriding emphasis on family values and the nationalist cottage ideal of the ‘Portuguese House’. Under
Duarte Pacheco (Minister of Public Works, 1932–6 and 1938–43), the ‘Casas Económicas’ programme of 1933
built subsidized home-ownership garden suburbs, typically in symmetrical, parallel rows of cottages, as at the
Bairro das Condominhas in Porto (1934–6) or the Bairro Económico de Belem in Lisbon (1933–8); although
only 300 units had been completed by 1936, some 16,000 units would eventually be built under the same
programme by 1974. The housing was designed and built by the Affordable Houses Section of the para-
governmental National Institute for Work and Welfare, using standard single-storey house types designed by
architect Raul Lino. Several planned rural colonies were also built between 1926 and the mid-1950s by a
separate Junta de Colonizaçao Internal (JCI). The only significant interwar attempt to build urban rental flats
– the four-storey, gallery-access Bloco Duque de Saldanha, a somewhat Viennese-style courtyard project, built
in 1937–40 by Porto city council – provoked fierce debate in the ruling party, with some condemning flats as
encouraging ‘revolution and confrontation’.56

Democratic housing systems of the 1930s

In most Western European countries, the late 1920s and early 1930s had seen a switch in emphasis from state
to private building, but from the mid-1930s there was a growing consensus that the resulting output stagnation
needed to be addressed, preferably by a revival of public support. Sometimes only minor tweaks seemed
necessary, as in Belgium, where 1935–7 saw the reintroduction of subsidies and extension of ASLK support
to middle-class housing, or in Denmark, where 1933–8 witnessed a fresh burst of social housing construction,
via self-governing housing associations and cooperatives, now closely regulated by government. In Norway, a
formal, tripartite system of social housing was established in 1935–6: the national government would oversee
policy, loans and grants, via a new National Housing Bank (only finally established in 1946); local government
would manage sites and plans for projects; and private enterprise, including co-ops such as Oslo’s OBOS,
would build and administer the new housing. In France, although the arm’s-length HBM system continued in
force, the 1929 Loi Loucheur had given it a massive boost; originally intended as a Belgian-style measure to
assist home-ownership, the law was modified to emphasize rental housing, and the new system rapidly became
a vital support of the ‘red suburbs’ of Paris – the depressed and chiefly Communist-controlled suburban
municipalities ringing the capital, whose OPHBMs worked closely with the OPHBM Seine under Henri
Sellier, pioneer of extensive garden suburbs.57 The result, although the work of arm’s-length organizations,
resembled British council housing in its intensely local-political character. Architecturally, despite their
Communist sympathies, these authorities simultaneously promoted garden suburbs and dense modern
apartments, some in Viennese Hof-style and others more arrestingly modern – as seen most spectacularly in
the slender towers and linked low-rise blocks of La Muette in the small town of Drancy, north of Paris, built
for the local OPHBM in 1932–5 by architects Beaudouin and Lods. Similar, but built by a public–private
partnership, was the ‘Quartier des gratte-ciel’ (‘Skyscraper District’), developed in 1927–34 in the Lyon
suburban town of Villeurbanne, as a symbol of its independence from the neighbouring city. Instigated by
Mayor Lazare Goujon and designed by architect Môrice Leroux, the 1,700 social-rented flats, in stepped,
paired Art Deco blocks up to nineteen storeys high, were built and managed not by an OPHBM but by a
specially-established ‘Societé villeurbannaise d’urbanisme’ (see Fig. 2.8).58

54
 1914–1945: The Maturing of Mass Housing in the Age of Emergencies

Fig. 2.8 (a): 1930s postcard of the depressed outer-suburban landscape

of Drancy and Bobigny, with the towers of La Muette rearing up in the
distance. (b, c): La Muette OPHBM development of 1932–5 in Drancy,
by architects Eugène Beaudouin and Marcel Lods: 1934 plan and section,
and advertisement by the steel-framing contractor. (d): Quartier des
gratte-ciel, Villeurbanne, 1927–34: 1,700 flats in blocks up to nineteen
storeys high, designed by architect Môrice Leroux (MG 2007). D

55
Mass Housing

In Britain, by contrast, the well-oiled machinery of council housing, with its strong local-political overtones,
merely required regulation and adjustment. In some areas, rental council housing was already becoming a
dominant tenure, especially in Scotland, where by 1941 it accounted for nearly 25% of all housing – not just new
output! The response to the Depression was conditioned by Britain’s long-standing emphasis on municipal slum-
clearance. In England, the 1930s recovery strongly emphasized speculatively-built suburban owner-occupation,
and so legislation in 1930 and 1935 refocused council housing on slum-clearance building for the poor,
accompanied by impassioned warlike rhetoric: one LCC councillor called in 1936 for an all-out attack against ‘the
Hindenburg Line of slums and overcrowding’. Here Britain contrasted strongly with many other countries, which
assumed that skilled workers or middle-class workers were the main target of state housing intervention. Yet the
1935 legislation’s introduction of rent-pooling, between old and new dwellings, encouraged a sense of overall
equality within council housing.59 Architecturally, although traditional low-rise tenements still dominated urban
output in Scotland, the sharp split in England continued between Becontree-style peripheral garden suburbs and
higher-density gallery-access blocks, generally classically-styled but also including some experimental modernist
philanthropic schemes such as the Gas Light and Coke Company’s Kensal House (1936–8). Modernist slum-
clearance council flats were embraced by several provincial English cities, notably Liverpool under City Architect
L. Keay, and culminated in Leeds City Council’s spectacularly-scaled Quarry Hill project of 1934–8 (R. A. H.
Livett, City Architect), with its vast, sweepingly-curved, Viennese-scale courtyard plan.60
In a few Western European countries, the 1930s brought more revolutionary changes, and in some cases
even the beginning of social housing altogether. In Iceland, a nation addicted to owner-occupation owing to
ingrained intense anti-landlordism, 1930 saw the foundation of the Workmen’s Housing Society and the start
of Danish-style cooperative owner-occupation societies, heavily subsidized by the government. This began a
rolling programme of state-subsidized dwellings for sale, using mass concrete to combat the lack of timber
supply. The first scheme, at Hringbraut (1931–2, extended 1936–7, designed by Guðjón Samúelsson), was a
lower-density, two-storey version of earlier Danish schemes of perimeter blocks and central communal
gardens (such as Kay Fisker’s five-storey Hornbækhus of 1923 in Copenhagen).61 Elsewhere in Scandinavia,
the emergence of social-democratic Sweden pointed in a different direction, towards sweeping state oversight.
Although Sweden had had a long history of relative poverty, the SAP’s breakthrough to power in 1932 under
Per Albin Hansson – just as socialism was retreating in Germany and elsewhere – showed strikingly that the
local severity of the Depression was a weak predictor of political and social innovation. Here there was no
question of extreme socialism taking control, as the SAP relied on coalitions (initially with the Agrarian
Party) that emphasized self-help and economic productivity, and had from 1929 shifted its focus from class
politics to a broadly-defined, pan-social concept, the ‘folkhem’ (People’s Home) (see Fig. 2.9).62
Housing, according to SAP Finance Minister Ernst Wigforss, was both a social question and an employment
generator – a hard-headed principle that would recur in social housing elsewhere, for instance Singapore. But
the folkhem concept also permitted wide political-cultural diversity (especially as Swedish local authorities
already enjoyed significant local autonomy), and accordingly, unlike Britain or France, there was no single
preferred social housing formula. Overall, a general continuity prevailed with the pre-1932 policy, with
cooperatives the preferred production vehicle and the HSB increasingly elevated into a parastatal umbrella
role.63 The system was modified in detail in the 1930s, notably by the exclusion of all other types of co-ops than
tenant-ownership organizations, closely coordinated with the municipalities, as in the pre-1933 German
system. As in Germany, this proved a highly effective vehicle of production, and was stepped up steadily, with
an annual maximum output of 11,000 recorded in Stockholm in 1939. Architecturally, the SAP folkhem
concept encouraged strong diversity, with different housing layouts hotly debated between modernist
architectural and planning factions. The first manifesto of Swedish modernism, acceptera, had appeared in
1931, and a garden suburb of modernist villas for civil servants was started in 1933 at Södra Ängby, Stockholm,

56
 1914–1945: The Maturing of Mass Housing in the Age of Emergencies

B C
Fig. 2.9 (a): Quarry Hill, Leeds, 1934–8, by City Architect R. A. H. Livett – a steel-framed, prefabricated municipal
successor to the Viennese Hof: pictured newly-completed. (b): Workers Housing Second Stage, Hringbraut, Reykjavik,
1931–7: state-subsidized owner-occupation project in low-rise Hof form, by architect Guðjón Samúelsson (MG 2013). (c):
Ved Volden, Copenhagen: 1936 KAB infill project by architects Tyge Hvass and Henning Jørgensen (MG 2018).

57
Mass Housing

D E

Fig. 2.9 (d): Vestersøhus, Copenhagen,

1935–9, by K. Fisker and C. F. Møller: a
modernist update of the Hornbækhus
neoclassical formula, in a single long
(300m) block of 436 middle-income flats
(MG 2018). (e): Hjorthagen, Stockholm:
1935 scheme of ‘lamella’ (shallow-plan)
Zeilenbau flats by private developer Olle
Engkvist (MG 2014). (f): The Kooperativa
förbundets arkitektkontor’s entry in the
1932/3 City of Stockholm Housing
Competition (under the socialist motto,
‘One day the earth shall be ours’):
perspective watercolour by Arvid Fougstedt
of Type ‘B2’ Zeilenbau terraces in Swedish
idyllic setting. F

58
 1914–1945: The Maturing of Mass Housing in the Age of Emergencies

designed by Edvin Engström, chief architect of the city council’s property office (fastighetkontor).64 The focus
of modernist design efforts was increasingly the flat. Within the conventional modern formula of low-rise
Zeilenbau flats, there was furious rivalry between advocates of deep and shallow blocks (tjockhus and lamella):
the lamella formula triumphed in a 1933 City of Stockholm building competition, later built in 1935 at
Hjorthagen. Tjockhus advocates, led by Sven Wallander, claimed greater economy in compact planning. The
1940s, in turn, brought criticism of the Zeilenbau uniformity of 1930s developments.65
The most revolutionary 1930s housing transformation, however, occurred not in any socialist regime but
in the heartland of capitalism, the United States, as part of the New Deal – a wide-ranging governmental
response to the 1929–33 slump. And the course of the American turn to social housing then, correspondingly,
helped shape policy in the remainder of North and South America. The New Deal was a vastly variegated
programme, whose ethos of state-promoted, planned reorganization, in strict collaboration with local
initiative, was exemplified by the work of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), particularly its Resettlement
Department and new-town-building programme. The TVA and the New Deal for the first time established
the USA as an international exemplar in housing and planning. From the beginning, however, housing’s place
within the system was uncertain, and thus housing-specific New Deal policies only emerged gradually over
the 1930s. The most important housing challenge posed by the Depression was quite distinct from the
traditional crisis-discourses of slums or overcrowding – although US public housing was from the outset
overwhelmingly orientated towards slum-clearance, not least in reaction to the 1930s spread of vast ‘dead
subdivisions’ in big cities, covering 36 square miles of Chicago by 1934. Instead, the central problem was a
collapse of income stemming from the slump – a similar quandary to that of Germany. Unlike the Nazis,
however, US policymakers avoided direct deficit-spending as a recovery strategy: New York City mayor
Fiorello LaGuardia in 1940 argued that public housing must be ‘a big-business proposition’.66
The first New Deal housing policy thus set out to create investment and jobs as much as to build housing in its
own right: the preferred means, mass single-family home-ownership, was supported through government
mortgage guarantees (Loan Guaranty Programs) and home loans – reinforced by the founding of the Federal
Housing Authority and Federal National Mortgage Association (‘Fannie Mae’) in 1938. Within a housing system
dominated by home ownership, the position of anything resembling ‘public housing’ was inherently precarious,
not least because of the persisting suspicion of large apartment blocks in much of America. Equally contentious
was anything suggestive of ‘planning’, owing to anti-socialism and entrenched federal/local antagonisms.67
Despite the forces opposing it from the start, the 1930s US democratic-left movement initially enjoyed an
intoxicating burst of progress, especially in the second phase of the New Deal after 1935. Leading this heady
charge was the housing-policy proselytizer Catherine Bauer – one of the relatively few first-rank female actors
in the overwhelmingly patriarchal world of the twentieth-century ‘housers’, in America or anywhere else.
Stemming originally from the intellectual world of built-environment reformism, Bauer spent the late 1920s
synthesizing a vast range of technical and policy data and intensively touring and networking in Europe with
figures such as Ernst May – a campaign that culminated in the 1934 publication of her timely and influential
Modern Housing. From that point, she focused on housing policy and trade-union lobbying, playing a key role
in the emergence of a distinctive public-housing strand within the New Deal, influenced by European
precedent but shaped for American conditions.68
Given the completeness of the dismantling of wartime public housing in 1918, any US public housing
programme would need to be built from the ground up. Only partial precedents were available in interwar
America, including a 1920s boom in cooperative and philanthropic apartment complexes, with numerous
garden apartments in New York, such as Mesa Verde (1926), or the U-plan three-/four-storey private courtyard
apartments built in large numbers in Chicago from 1891 to 1929.69 The early and mid-1930s saw a succession
of small-scale but influential philanthropic developments, increasingly in modernist form, such as the

59
Mass Housing

trade-union-built Carl Mackley Houses in Philadelphia. In 1933, the New Deal’s Public Works Administration
(PWA) established a programme of loans to limited-dividend corporations to clear slums and build low-
rental housing projects, including Neighborhood Gardens in St Louis (1933–5), the Julia Lathrop Homes in
Chicago (1934–8) and the Techwood Flats in Atlanta (1933–6). The unwieldy and slow programme was
replaced in 1935 by a PWA direct-subsidy programme, which achieved fifty-two projects, some for black
tenants, including Washington, DC’s Langston Terrace, a modest brick courtyard group built from 1935 on a
sloping site to the designs of Hilyard Robinson, or the renowned Harlem River Houses in New York, a
574-apartment complex of four- and five-storey blocks on an indented courtyard plan, built in 1936–7
following race riots in Harlem (see Fig. 2.10).70

A B

C D
Fig. 2.10 (a, b): Juniata Park Housing (Carl Mackley Houses), Philadelphia, 1933–4; a PWA-financed, garden-courtyard
modernist complex designed by Oscar Storonov for the American Federation of Full-Fashioned Hosiery Workers: layout
plan and 2016 (MG) photograph. (c): Julia Lathrop Homes (Diversey), Chicago, a PWA-sponsored project of 1934–8
designed by a team of architects led by Robert S. DeGolyer (MG 2016). (d, e): Langston Terrace, Washington, DC, a
274-apartment complex built 1935–8 as one of the first PWA federal direct-subsidy projects; designed by the young black
architect Hilyard Robinson, with sculptural relief, ‘The Progress of the Negro Race’, by Daniel Olney (MG 2016).

60
 1914–1945: The Maturing of Mass Housing in the Age of Emergencies

E F

G H
Fig. 2.10 (d, e): Continued. (f, g, h): Harlem River Houses, Manhattan, New York City, built by the PWA Housing Division
in 1936–7 to designs by a team led by Archibald Manning Brown: 2016 courtyard view and estate map display (MG), and
1930s contextual perspective including ‘Old Law’ and ‘New Law’ tenements and an adjoining philanthropic project.

The neighbourhood-unit principle devised by planner Clarence Perry in 1929 offered a new, cellular model of
community planning, while segregation of vehicles and pedestrians was developed in the famous plan at Radburn,
New Jersey (1929–35); a 11,000-unit programme of planned new townships was also commenced by the PWA.71
At the same time, a range of civic housing authorities was formed, beginning with Boston and New York in 1935,
continuing to Chicago and Philadelphia in 1937, Atlanta, Washington, DC, Los Angeles and Baltimore in 1938, and
St Louis in 1939. Empowered to sell bonds to finance their activities, and exploiting existing legislation, these were
intermediate in character between British municipal councils and French OPHBMs. Early projects included the
‘First Houses’ of 1935–6, on a site acquired by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) using new eminent-
domain powers and comprising 122 staircase-access flats in reform-tenement blocks by architect Frederick L.
Ackerman; or in Boston, the OId Harbor project of 1937–38 (see Fig. 2.11).72

61
Mass Housing

A B

Fig. 2.11 (a): Radburn, NJ, 1929–35 –

pioneer of cellular estate planning and
pedestrian-vehicular segregation: 1929
layout map. (b, c): First Houses, Manhattan,
New York City, 1935–6: the NYCHA’s first
housing project, designed by Frederick L.
Ackerman. Initial plans for selective
demolition and rehab of existing tenements
were replaced by a completely new scheme:
a landmark court case established eminent-
domain rights for slum-clearance housing
redevelopment (MG 2016). C

62
 1914–1945: The Maturing of Mass Housing in the Age of Emergencies

D E

F G

Fig. 2.11 (d): The Boston Housing Authority’s first project, Old Harbor Village, built 1935–8 (architect Eleanor Manning)
(MG 2016). (e): Poe Homes, Baltimore, designed by James R. Edmunds and built in 1939–40 as the first phase of the
Baltimore Housing Authority’s slum-clearance programme: the home of the writer Edgar Allan Poe was spared from
demolition and carefully embedded in the layout (MG 2016). (f): The strong linkage between public housing and
slum-clearance in the USA: NYCHA poster of 1936. (g): Willert Park Houses, Buffalo, NY, 1939, by architect Frederick
Backus – one of the first USHA-supported projects. 2011 photo by Andrew Dolkart.

At the same time, Bauer and her allies were agitating fiercely in Washington for new federal legislation to
establish a national public-housing programme, a campaign that faced bitter resistance from the owner-
occupation sector. The concentration of 1930s policy lobbying in Washington contrasted with Britain’s strong
municipal powers, while financially, the lack of a municipal support system equivalent to the British local
‘rates’ bolstered the housing powers of the Federal government, which mostly (except in New York – see
below) picked up the subsidy bill for public housing.73 It became clear that the only terms on which a general

63
Mass Housing

public-housing programme would be tolerated was as low-rental accommodation for those too poor to afford
a subsidized owner-occupied unit within the FHA system, and especially for those displaced by inner-city
slum-clearance. This was a system radically divergent from most Western countries’ linkage between social
housing and elite workers or middle-class government employees. After much acrimonious negotiation, the
eventual 1937 legislation (the Wagner-Steagall Act) established a national public-housing umbrella agency, the
USHA, tasked with working with the existing local public housing authorities and integrating them into a
national framework, all within severe income, cost and output limits. Its restriction to slum clearance,
mandating demolition of one slum dwelling for every public-housing unit erected, reflected recent restrictive
policies in 1930s England (then moving away from general-needs housing) and distanced the US sharply
from anything remotely resembling the Swedish folkhem. This restrictiveness also helped prevent competition
with the private sector and contained the seeds of what would ultimately be widely seen as a ‘new ghetto’. Even
this restricted programme, with its austerity and limitation to the poor, attracted isolated right-wing criticisms
(as early as 1935 in Atlanta). In relative output terms, the wartime years were a peak of the programme: it
accounted for 8% (11,700 units) of the total national housing production in 1938–40. By 1942 the first-stage
programme of 190,000 public-housing dwellings, including 20,000 built by the PWA, was complete. In 1938,
Bauer had felt confident enough to claim that ‘today there are no longer any doubts. The public-housing
programme is here to stay, and it is on the way towards vast achievements.’ But public housing in the USA was
a movement with two heads – an idealistic, reformist head and a pragmatic, political-organizational head, with
only a weak ideological commitment to public housing as a cause of social betterment, as opposed to a job-
creation expedient.74 As in the case of post-1918 Europe, in the 1930s USA a public-housing programme
would have been inconceivable without the energizing stimulus of the Depression.
New York City rapidly established itself as a hotbed of public-housing production and policy debates, with
heated exchanges between the NYCHA chairman, the mayor, development coordinator Robert Moses, and
the USHA over the Authority’s strategy, and growing resistance by the city against lowest-common-
denominator approaches: in 1933, incoming Mayor La Guardia pledged that low-cost housing was now
‘exclusively a function of government’. A succession of innovative but economical USHA-supported projects
was undertaken, culminating in the 3,149-unit Queensbridge Houses of 1937–40 – the largest public-housing
project in America, planned by F. R. Ballard (with Henry S. Churchill) as a complex honeycomb of six-storey
brick courtyard blocks. By 1941, however, the NYCHA was beginning to push beyond six storeys, for example
in the East River Houses of 1941 onwards.75
However, straightforward low-income public rental housing was not the only story in the modern housing
efforts of Gotham. For these years also saw efforts to reinvigorate the city’s philanthropic housing tradition through
laws to facilitate large-scale housing operations by insurance companies – efforts facilitated in 1938 by an
amendment to the New York State Insurance Code. The resulting programme began in 1939 at Metropolitan Life’s
Parkchester (see chapter 3), with its over 12,000 flats in high-density seven- to thirteen-storey blocks.76 Projects
evolved from low-rise or Zeilenbau patterns, or the indented-courtyard reform blocks of the 1920s, towards
geometrically planned tower layouts of uniform height, influenced to some extent by the work of Le Corbusier, but
also by private apartment tower projects in the highly-serviced US tradition, for example at Alden Park,
Philadelphia, or Castle Village, Manhattan (both in a residually classical style), or Metropolitan Life’s more overtly
modernist projects at Parkmerced, San Francisco (from 1939) and Park La Brea, Los Angeles (from 1944, 4,255
units), designed by Leonard Schultze Associates with a mixture of low-rise garden apartments and cruciform
thirteen-storey apartment towers.77 As early as 1928, G. H. Edgell could pronounce that ‘the prejudice against
apartment blocks is almost gone’, and a vast proliferation of tall blocks began, with little in their austere exteriors,
or plan-forms, to differentiate middle-income or philanthropic developments from housing for the poor: austerity
was also commercially advantageous, as a way of preventing private blocks from ‘dating’ too rapidly (see Fig. 2.12).78

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 1914–1945: The Maturing of Mass Housing in the Age of Emergencies

A B

C D
Fig. 2.12 (a, b): The Boston Housing Authority’s Charlestown redevelopment (BHA project Mass. 2-1), a 1,100-unit
slum-clearance scheme (replacing 460 existing houses), built 1939–40: ‘before and after’ perspectives from contemporary
BHA publication, and 2016 view (MG). (c, d): Queensbridge Houses, Queens, New York City, 1937–40, a USHA-supported
NYCHA project designed by F. R. Ballard and Henry S. Churchill. With 3,149 units, it was by far the largest public housing
project in America at its construction, and strongly influenced the many medium-rise ‘star’ or ‘honeycomb’ schemes built
subsequently (e.g. Gröndal, Stockholm) (MG 1982).

65
Mass Housing

E F

G H
Fig. 2.12 (e): Alden Park, Philadelphia, 1925–8: a private housing development designed by Edwin Rorke, comprising
six apartment towers of nine–fourteen storeys and X, Y and double-Y plans; a Corbusian Ville Radieuse clad in neo-
Jacobean ornamentation. Aerial photo from George B. Ford, Building Height, Bulk and Form, 1931. (f, g): Castle Village,
Manhattan, New York City, built in 1938–9 for private rental by developer Charles V. Paterno. Similarly to Alden Park,
architect George F. Pelham’s designs combined an array of free-standing, Corbusier-like towers, exploiting the panoramic
river views, with mildly historical detailing (original plans and MG 2016 exterior). (h): Parklabrea, Los Angeles, from
1944: 4,255 flats in double-Y towers and low-rise blocks, designed by Leonard Schultze Associates: image as reproduced in
E. F. Borrie’s influential Melbourne Metropolitan Planning Scheme report of 1954 (cf. chapter 3).

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 1914–1945: The Maturing of Mass Housing in the Age of Emergencies

The 1930s debates and policies in the United States found echoes in Canada, where Federal Deputy Finance
Minister W. C. Clark ensured, from 1935 to 1952, that housing policy was yoked to the subsidizing of home
ownership. In 1935, defying left-wing calls for a national public-housing commission, he created a Canadian
National Housing Corporation, on the FHA model, to subsidize home ownership, augmented from 1938 by
public rental housing as well. These early policy choices so structured Canadian housing debates as to preclude
any significant public-housing programme: Clark aimed to ‘make use of private lending agencies instead of
driving them out of business’.79
A very strong contrast to the Canadian position was provided by Australia and New Zealand, where the
British tradition of strong state intervention encouraged a more activist response to the depression – involving
precisely the measures of central–state coordination ruled out by Clark in Ottawa. In Australia, with its strong
trade unions and state sector, the late 1930s saw the creation of a path-dependency that would lead to a
postwar emphasis on state-promoted home-ownership rather than rental, and single-family houses, not flats;
unlike municipal Britain, the Australian state governments were the leading local actors, in collaboration with
the (federal) Commonwealth. The late 1930s saw an explosion of state-level public-housing organizations,
beginning in 1937 with the South Australia Housing Trust (which built large numbers of low-rental single-
family houses linked to industrial-growth strategies) and in 1942 in New South Wales, which also encouraged
local-authority building: the Erskineville scheme in Sydney had already commenced in 1938. In Victoria,
estate corporations enjoyed a central place in public administration. Following a 1930s suggestion by reformist
Oswald Barnett and a report by his housing investigation and slum abolition board (HISAB), a 1937 act
founded a Housing Commission for Victoria, charged with starting slum reclamation: 1939 saw its first efforts
at prefabrication at Fisherman’s Bend.80 In New Zealand, the state’s intervention in social housing was
organized centrally and had a more overtly political thrust: the election of a Labour government in 1935 was
rapidly followed by a Housing Survey and formation of a Department of Housing Construction within the
State Advances Corporation, tasked with direct construction of rental state houses. By 1939, 5,000 units had
been completed, almost all single-family timber-framed cottages at a density of only four dwellings per acre:
the first state house, 12 Fife Lane, Miramar, Wellington, was opened in 1937 by Prime Minister Michael Joseph
Savage. In 1938, British Labour leader Clement Attlee lauded New Zealand as a ‘laboratory of social experiment’,
but the housing ingredient in that laboratory was not yet recognizably modern in architectural form – a
situation that was about to change radically (see Fig. 2.13).81

Interwar Latin America and the colonies

Within Latin America, the 1930s also saw widespread housing debates and government intervention, but
against a significantly different background. Here, as in some colonial territories, the Great Depression,
followed by World War II, was a catalyst for far-reaching demographic changes, above all through waves of
rural-to-urban migration. Latin American cities from the 1930s onwards faced a complex of economic,
political and material crises, which provoked a range of state-housing interventions, combining European and
US precedents with locally-specific formulae of private or philanthropic involvement – at the same time as
their outer zones were taken over by swathes of low-income, informal settlements.82
The US colonial territory of Puerto Rico acted as chief laboratory for the adaptation of US ideas and
policies for export to Latin America and the Caribbean. Following a well-publicized visit to the island in 1934
by Eleanor Roosevelt to inspect slum dwellings in San Juan’s La Perla, the Roosevelt administration introduced
a raft of New Deal measures, including the 1935 foundation of the Puerto Rico Recovery Administration
(PRRA) and rural land redistribution; in 1941, the impact of reformist planning was further deepened by

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A B

D
Fig. 2.13 (a) Erskineville Public Housing Scheme, Sydney, built from 1938 by the New South Wales Housing Improvement
Board to the designs of W. R. Richardson and Morton Herman, and extended after World War II in several stages (MG
2016). (b): 324–6 Howe Parade, Fishermans Bend, Melbourne: experimental precast concrete house built in 1939 by the
Housing Commission for Victoria (MG 2016). (c): 12 Fife Lane, Miramar: the first completed state house in New Zealand,
built in 1937 in timber-framed construction (MG 2016). (d): Poster from New Zealand’s 1938 general election, emphasizing
the benefits of state housing: the governing Labour Party was duly re-elected.

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 1914–1945: The Maturing of Mass Housing in the Age of Emergencies

E F

G
Fig. 2.13 (e): El Falansterio (Tenement Group Project A), San Juan: PRRA-funded slum-rehousing complex in
reinforced concrete construction, built 1935–7 to the designs of architect Jorge Ramírez de Arellano (MG 2015). (f):
Mansión Popular de Flores, Buenos Aires, completed 1924: philanthropic garden courtyard project by the Unión Popular
Católica Argentina, designed by architect Fermín Bereturbide (MG 2017). (g): Casa Colectiva América, Buenos Aires,
CNCB garden-courtyard complex built in 1937 for municipal employees (MG 2017).

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Mass Housing

Roosevelt’s appointment as governor of Rexford Tugwell, a leading New Deal policymaker. Within Puerto
Rico, New Deal policy was conditioned not only by rural-to-urban migration but also by the territory’s shift
towards self-governing autonomy under the charismatic Luis Muñoz Marin, initially in alliance with Tugwell
and then after 1938 as leader of a new autonomous political party (the Partido Popular Democratico, PPD)
and directly-elected governor from 1949.83
As in the United States, New Deal housing in Puerto Rico fell into two phases: experimental and
institutionalized. In 1935, a pioneering, PRRA-funded group of low-rise flats, the Tenement Group Project A
(later dubbed the ‘Falansterio’), was commenced in San Juan. With its balconied Art Deco blocks in indented
patterns around a courtyard, it echoed the New York garden-apartment schemes of the 1920s and provided a
significant architectural reference-point for early flatted mass housing in Latin America.84 Then, following
passage of the Wagner-Steagall Act, various local and national agencies were established in Puerto Rico,
including a Housing Authority for San Juan as well as a National Housing Authority (Autoridad sobre Hogares
de Puerto Rico), which began a dozen projects by the outbreak of war, mostly only one- or two-storeyed
except for the Falansterio. Another distinctive AHPR project, an aided self-help, sites-and-services programme
(commencing in Ponce in 1939), would later prove highly influential internationally, as part of an emerging
ethos of US-promoted self-help housing in the Global South.85 Overall, as we will see in chapter 14, Muñoz
Marin’s initiatives would enjoy much higher support within Puerto Rico than did public housing in the USA.
Organizationally, Puerto Rico’s US-style system of housing authorities had little impact elsewhere in Latin
America, where various systems of arm’s-length indirect social-housing provision prevailed. The most
centralized was Argentina, where, despite Buenos Aires’ precocious municipal schemes of around 1910, the
mainstream mass-housing organization, established by the 1915 Ley Cafferata in open imitation of the French
HBM system, was the Comisión Nacional de Casas Baratas (CNCB: National Cheap Dwellings Commission).
The CNCB built both rental low-rise flats and home-ownership cottages, all for occupancy not by the poor,
but by lower-middle-income groups, funded by the Banco Nacional Hipotecario (BNH: National Mortgage
Bank) with 100% twenty-year loans. By 1939, however, the CNCB had only completed 1,800 rental and 3,100
home-ownership dwellings, owing to opposition from Social Catholic commentators, and the MCBA’s record
was hardly better; key CNCB apartment complexes included Buenos Aires’ Casa Colectiva America of 1937
and the CC Patricios of 1939.86 Similarly, in Mexico, where early twentieth-century rural-to-urban land
influxes had been encouraged by free distribution of state-owned ‘ejido’ land, and a 1917 constitutional
amendment required employers to provide sanitary dwellings, a Banco Nacional Hipotecario Urbano y de
Obras Publicas (BNHUOP: National Mortgage and Public Works Bank) was founded in 1933; it subsidized
social housing in tandem with a new metropolitan housing authority for Mexico City.87 Although there were
other exceptions, such as the modernist housing programme in Uruguay, centralized by a 1937 housing law
under the Instituto de Viviendas Economicas (Economic Dwellings Institute; part of the Ministry of Public
Works), in most of Latin America indirect finance via some sort of Banco Obrero, or workers’ bank, prevailed
– for example in Chile, where clearance of ‘conventillo’ slums and the building of 6,000 new dwellings by 1943
was channelled through successive parastatal organizations, including a Caja de Seguro Obrero Obligatorio
(Compulsory Insurance Fund – from 1926).88
Puerto Rico’s only interwar Latin American rival, in the embedding of social housing in a comprehensive
state ideology by a charismatic leader, was Brazil. There the 1938 revolution under Getulio Vargas ushered in
an ‘Estado Novo’ very different to that of Salazar in Portugal. Like Muñoz Marin, but on a far greater scale,
Vargas was determined to decisively modernize Brazil, transforming it from a rural-agrarian to an urban-
industrial economy by reducing the cost of urban labour and creating a large public sector. It was thus
politically and economically imperative to provide cheap housing for the burgeoning sector of state employees.
His chosen vehicle was not a state housing authority, but the existing system of social security for government

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employees, which was nationalized and made compulsory under 1933 legislation, and elaborated in 1933–7
into a range of six Institutos de Aposentadoria e Pensões (Retirement and Pension Institutes, or IAPs – the
IAPI, IAPD, IAPB, IAPC, IAPETEC and IAPE).89 Their operations were not just confined to workplace
pensions but included other occupational benefits, including direct construction and rental letting of housing.
All this was tied into a comprehensive strategy of housing interventions (Plans A–D) drawn up under the
influence of Catholic social reformer Rubens Porto, whose advocacy of modernist community planning
anticipated postwar Christian Democratic reformism in Europe. The IAP programmes consolidated Brazil’s
early acceptance of an uncompromisingly international-modern, flat-roofed style for apartments, a style here
dominated by four-storey Zeilenbau blocks – for example at the IAPI’s Realengo project, west of Rio de Janeiro
(from 1938). In 1939, Vargas proclaimed that housing was one of the ‘basic rights of the worker’, but what was
meant here was not a Marxist-style proletarian worker: 80% of new IAP dwellings (totalling some 175,000 by
1964) were occupied by middle-class tenants, and the decision that IAP output should be rental-only reflected
not on the occupants’ poverty but the IAPs’ prudent concern to maximize return for a valued asset – a slightly
unusual outlook for an overtly Catholic-influenced policy.90
Outside the Western heartlands of government intervention, in eastern Asia the great rivals, Japan and
China, attempted only tentative modernist social-housing and apartment-building initiatives. In the ‘Nanjing
decade’ of relative prosperity in republican China (1928–37), this largely took the form of municipal schemes
of single-storey terraces, such as Shanghai’s ‘pingmin cun’ (commoners’ village) of 1927–35, Tianjin
municipality’s ‘low-income residence-compound’ of 1931, or Nanjing city council’s 1935 project to build low-
rise workers’ houses and to redevelop shanty towns with sites and services and aided self-help work; but the
1937 Japanese invasion curbed further progress. In Japan, with its higgledy-piggledy, low-rise, timber-built
urban fabric, an isolated pointer to the future was provided by the middle-class apartment blocks constructed
in the early 1930s by the Dojunkai foundation, incorporating reinforced-concrete construction and modern
internal amenities.91 Within the colonial world, the shift to a policy of ‘dual mandate’ or ‘trusteeship’ heralded
a move towards integration of ‘native’ populations into colonial cities through permanent housing. However,
these normally comprised small single-family houses or (at most) low-rise flats, for example in Nigeria’s first
government backed housing project at Yoba (owner occupation) and Surulere (rental), built by the newly
founded (1928) Lagos Executive Development Board as part of redevelopment on Lagos Island following a
1925–8 plague outbreak.92 In the port cities of the British Empire the plague-inspired work of the improvement
trusts continued erratically, including, most significantly for the future of mass housing, the foundation of an
Improvement Trust in Singapore in 1927, whose first estate, Tiong Bahru, commenced in 1936, included 784
interwar flats in gallery-access four-storey blocks. The Indian capital of Delhi also established a similar trust
in 1936 to administer government estates and implement slum-clearance, following A. P. Hume’s 1936 planning
report. In a twin-track approach, the DIT developed low-rise estates for better-off tenants (Daryaganj South,
1936) alongside slum-clearance sites (Ajmeri Gate, from 1937). However, by 1941, only 242 DIT dwellings had
been completed after five years’ work (see Fig. 2.14).93
The chief spatial expression of modernism in colonial cities was that of zoned planning, a system whose
association with racial segregation was gradually lessening in most places – with the egregious exception of
South Africa, where the opposite was the case. Here, too, the processes of housing production for ‘Bantus’ was
becoming systematized, with municipal authorities in a key organizing role: their council housing would be
regularized on a vast scale within the fully-fledged post-1948 apartheid system. During the 1920s, there was
much debate as to the optimum design of new ‘native locations’ in simplified Garden City form, but any
attempts were dogged by tenant resistance, not against their repetitive form but against the very high rents
required for even this standard of accommodation – for example at Langa, Cape Town, in 1923 (planned by
the city engineer). All the time, rural-to-urban migration continued relentlessly, including numerous land

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Mass Housing

C
Fig. 2.14 (a, b): Tiong Bahru estate, commenced in 1936, to the Art Deco designs of architect Alfred G. Church – the
third housing development of the Singapore Improvement Trust, including four-storey gallery-access flats and shops:
c. 1945 plan and 2011 (MG) view. (c): Worli, Mumbai: a massive development of 121 central-corridor chawl blocks of
one-roomed flats, built in 1921–5 by the Bombay Development Department, founded 1920 (MG 2014).

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 1914–1945: The Maturing of Mass Housing in the Age of Emergencies

invasions. At Johannesburg City Council’s Orlando development, south-west of the city and the nucleus of the
future Soweto, the first houses were completed in 1931 following a housing competition: the layout was a
simplified Garden City of detached, two- or three-room cottages, with no electricity or running water,
ultimately covering four square miles and housing 80,000 people. Alongside this peripheral development,
slum-clearance was also getting underway, to expel ‘natives’ from the regular urban areas (for example, in a
1934 Slums Act passed by Cape Province).94
It was ironical that in South Africa, the Garden City formula, widely seen in other contexts as a utopian
ideal, should have become, with very little physical adaptation, an emblem of racist ‘concentration camp’
planning – in exactly the same years as that most daring and ‘iconic’ 1930s development of towers and slabs,
La Muette at Drancy, was degenerating into the world’s first ‘uninhabitable Modernist slum’ (by 1939), followed
shortly by its conversion into an actual concentration camp for deportees during World War II. From the very
beginning, the modernist architectural-determinist concept of the cause–effect impact of architectural design
seemed to be so riddled by paradoxes such as these as to be almost meaningless.95

World War II: the globalization of emergency

With the outbreak of war, the global patterns of social-housing production, newly-reorganized during the
Depression, were thrown up in the air again, and only the chance patterns of wartime invasion or neutrality
determined which countries could continue building. Many places suffered massive housing-stock depletion,
provoking previously inconceivable counter-measures: in the USSR, where 1940–5, for example, saw 83% and
88% housing-space losses in Voronezh and Smolensk, a May 1944 decree granted individuals state subsidies
for self-help house-building, usually via municipal bank loans channelled through their state-enterprise
employers.96 Those countries that managed to continue building did so under nationalized conditions, and
sharply-increased government subsidies to offset high costs and shortages. Switzerland embarked on a
significant social housing programme in the early 1940s: after 1942, the German cantons saw large-scale
construction of collective groups of flats, with 50% of dwellings built in Zürich in 1942–50 being publicly-
subsidized, while French and Italian cantons focused on single-family social house-building. In Sweden,
likewise, the years 1940–2 saw a massive boost to planned building and subsidies for housing production, and
rent control from 1942.97 In Denmark the low-key German occupation allowed house-building to continue,
with completions declining only from 21,400 in 1939 to 8,400 in 1945. In 1941, a coordinating organization,
‘Arbejderbo’, was initiated by the non-profit sector and the trade unions: its role was to establish new housing
authorities. And in occupied Norway, 1941 saw the founding of a new, Oslo-style housing association in
Bergen, the BOB.98 Within newly Franco-controlled Spain, the 1940s emphasis was on rural repopulation,
with over 300 new villages planned by the newly-founded Instituto Nacional de Colonizacion (INC). East-
Central Europe faced a more fundamental rupture: the largest development by Hungary’s OTI, the 751-dwelling
Miklos Horthy Garden City at Angyalföld, was curtailed in 1943 and only resumed after 1945 as a working-
class flatted district.99
Within the combatant or more oppressively-occupied countries, most initiatives remained on paper, for
example in Vichy France, which saw a flurry of reports on postwar industrial and planning policy. In Germany,
alongside much stirring rhetoric of ‘total war’ and of the coordination of all organizations, significant efforts
were made to overcome the previous, fragmented governmental structures in distinctly modernist ways that
would directly shape postwar West German policy (see chapter 7): a consolidating non-profit housing law of
February 1940, enforced later that year, was paralleled by a ‘Führererlass’ (‘Erlass zur Vorbereitung des
deutschen Wohnungbaues nach dem Kriege’ – Decree on Preparation for Postwar German Housebuilding)

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decreeing postwar coordination of the public and private sectors, including industrialized methods, and by a
November 1940 plan for an annual programme of 300,000 units, later to be boosted to 600,000. Planners
Johannes Göderitz, Roland Rainer and Hubert Hoffmann were commissioned to research a new planning
framework suitable for eastwards Reich expansion.100
The progress already made under the New Deal in the USA, and the huge increase in federal spending ($7
billion in 1938, $98 billion in 1945) and federal bureaucracy, made it far easier to launch into a fully-developed
war-mobilization economy there, including large-scale house-building for war workers: a 700,000-house
emergency housing drive was duly authorized in 1940 by the Lanham Act. Continuity of ideas with 1917–18
was provided by figures such as Bernard M. Baruch, war-industry coordinator and a member of Roosevelt’s
Brain Trust. In New York, the Housing Authority, under a new chairman (from 1939), Gerard Swope,
increasingly developed into a ‘public-housing thoroughbred’. In 1944, Mayor La Guardia hailed its progress,
especially in slum-clearance: ‘Tear down the old. Build up the new. Down with rotten, antiquated rat holes.
Down with hovels. Down with disease. Down with crime. Down with firecraft. Let in the sun. Let in the sky. A
new day is dawning. A new life. A new America!’101 Wartime government housing also, however, included
many huts and temporary dwellings: in Chicago, the city council built 3,400 temporary houses in 1945.102 The
wartime housing boom, unlike Europe, boosted home-ownership, and the war saw a more general political
shift to the right, which distanced US social-policy debates from Western Europe’s emergent welfare-state
discourse. Reflecting this mood, in 1942 President Roosevelt proclaimed that ‘a nation of home-owners, of
people who own a real share in their own land, is unconquerable’. In the late 1930s, the attacks on public
housing had begun to gain wider public support, for example in a concerted onslaught in 1938 by real-estate
interests in Philadelphia, the ‘city of homes’, or from 1942 by citizen neighbourhood groups in Boston.103
In Australasia and South America, many states entered the war on the Allied side, resulting in social-
demographic distortions and emergencies, and spurring heightened government housing efforts. One of the
boldest individual initiatives sprang, remarkably, from the previously ultra-low-density state housing
programme in New Zealand, where the wartime years saw construction of the Dixon Street Flats (1940–4),
one of the earliest multi-storey modernist public housing blocks outside Europe or North America. This 116-
unit rental public housing project, an in-situ concrete slab block with stepped roofline and rear balcony-
access, soaring above Wellington city centre on a prominent hillside site, was designed by the government
Department of Housing Construction (DHC) architects, under Gordon Wilson, who had previously designed
the low-rise, modernist Centennial Flats (1938–40) at Berhampore: historical controversy has long raged
about the degree of involvement at Dixon Street by the innovative émigré Austrian architect, Ernst Plischke.
This daring gesture had no immediate progeny on the same scale, but low-rise modern complexes of state flats
were later built elsewhere. The year 1943 saw the transfer of the Department of Housing Constructionto the
Ministry of Works, and the passing of an emergency Finance Act providing for sale of state houses to sitting
tenants – later put into effect on a large scale by the post-1949 National Party government (see chapter 3). All
the time, large-scale DHC building of standardized single-storey state houses continued apace, most famously
in the Lower Hutt Valley, north of the capital, including the 10,000-unit garden suburb of Naenae, planned
from 1942 by John Mawson and Plischke.104 In Australia, too, 1943 saw the passing in Victoria of a Housing
Act that allowed the Housing Commission to build for sale, and the same year witnessed the first suggestion
of intervention in social housing by the Commonwealth (federal) government, through the appointment of a
Commonwealth Housing Commission (see Fig. 2.15).105
In South America, the wartime emergency opened the floodgates of rural-to-urban migration, the
mushrooming of shanty towns (with favelas spreading from São Paulo to Rio de Janeiro in the 1940s) and
skyrocketing rents; rent controls were introduced in 1940 in Mexico, in 1942 in Brazil and in 1943 in Argentina.
However, the lack of direct warfare destruction made it possible, as in Sweden, for continuing experimentation

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 1914–1945: The Maturing of Mass Housing in the Age of Emergencies

B C
Fig. 2.15 (a): Berhampore (Centennial) Flats, Wellington, 1938–9: the first complex of ‘multi-unit’ state flats built by the
New Zealand government’s Department of Housing Construction (MG 2016). (b, c, d, e): Dixon Street Flats, Wellington,
1940–44: internationally pioneering multi-storey slab block of state housing, designed by the DHC Architects (MG 2016).

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Mass Housing

E
Fig. 2.15 (b, c, d, e) Continued.

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 1914–1945: The Maturing of Mass Housing in the Age of Emergencies

in modernist designs, and actual large-scale building.106 In Mexico, as in New Zealand, a significant boost was
given by refugee architectural arrivals, especially Hannes Meyer (in 1938), who reinforced Juan O’Gorman’s
campaign for a socialist modern architecture and ‘supermanzanas’ – a strategy that stemmed from the 1938
IFHTP International Congress in Mexico City, where the Union of Socialist Architects of Mexico mounted an
influential display, ‘La Ciudad Obrera de Mexico’. In 1941, Garcia Tellen, the Cardenista leader, appointed
Meyer as Technical Director of the Workers’ Housing Department of the Labour Ministry, and he duly
designed an influential 1942 Zeilenbau project for a Colonia Obrera (1943) for the Seguro Social. By this time,
as in New Zealand, experimental efforts at extending the Zeilenbau/CIAM formula to multi-storey height had
also begun, for example in Brazil in the Jaipura 1942 IAPI development and the IAPR’s Jardim de Ala (1944),
comprising a tall slab; while in Venezuela, burgeoning oil wealth allowed the Vilanueva Medina government
to begin large-scale social housing development at El Silencio (1941), with its approximately 7,800 dwellings.
Caracas, like Hong Kong, was hemmed in by steep hillsides and had only 11,000 hectares available for
development, at a time of doubled city population in the 1940s – which would pose major problems for the
future.107
In the colonial territories, likewise, the wartime years saw massive population movements and chaotic
urban growth. Between 1940 and 1948, for example, the African population of Kinshasa tripled to 280,000,
with little effort at systematic planned extension. Within the British Empire, there were attempts to adapt the
modernist planning apparatus to a decolonizing agenda: the 1939 Moyne Commission report led to the 1940
Colonial Development and Welfare Act, which unleashed numerous modern planned developmental
initiatives – for example in West Africa, where Max Fry became town planning adviser in 1943–5. The mass-
housing implications of all this were not slow to emerge – and increasingly in a form that emphasized general
‘African housing’ rather than the old-style two-tier, segregated formula. In Uganda, the 1940 Act triggered a
new focus on modern ‘African housing’ in 1944, with £250,000 earmarked as part of a six-year industrial and
urban development plan by Governor John Hall; previous plans for informal sites and services-based
developments were replaced in 1943 by public rental housing projects, although the resulting developments
largely comprised semi-detached cottages.108
Overall, while this second global conflict had once again disrupted the growing global network of mass
housing initiatives – to say nothing of the vast devastation of existing stocks, backlogs of housing demand, and
refugee influxes – it had also finally and irreversibly established mass housing’s own ‘Hundred Years’ War’ as a
campaign of unambiguously global scope, as well as energizing it with a fresh infusion of ‘strong-state’
dynamism. At the same time, that global scope fuelled an exponential growth in mass housing’s geographical
diversity, in both its organizational and architectural aspects. The outcome of this momentous expansion,
together with all its varied microecologies within individual countries and cities, forms the subject of Part 2.

77
78
PART 2
1945–1989: THE ‘THREE WORLDS’ OF POSTWAR
MASS HOUSING

79
80
CHAPTER 3
POSTWAR MASS HOUSING:
AN INTRODUCTORY OVERVIEW

Part 1 of this book traced the organizational and architectural innovations that shaped early state-sponsored
mass housing. By 1939, its reach extended not just across Europe and North America, but also into other
continents, including Latin America and colonial territories. After 1945, these threads coalesced into a dense
network spanning the whole world – although that coverage featured huge disparities of intensity, with some
countries, ranging in size from Singapore to the USSR, acting as energizing hotspots, and other areas, including
much of the developing world, largely avoiding mass housing altogether.
That geographical diversity, that combination of depth and breadth in the constantly proliferating ‘multiple
modernities’ and microregions of mass housing, has dictated the chiefly geographical structure of Part 2. But at
the same time, there was a strong story, a sense of narrative. Postwar mass housing’s pattern of spread was itself
a strong unifying theme, as it remained overwhelmingly concentrated in the developed world, where it was
widely accepted that it should be elevated into a state-backed project of massive proportions and symbolic
weight. Usually the most intense housing production coincided with countries where ‘strong states’ prevailed,
able and ready to pursue political goals through sweeping interventions, steered by dedicated housing ministries
and local agencies, and commanding a level of technological organization permitting both advanced design/
planning and large-scale production. These campaigns took on an overlapping form, shifting from one part of
the world to another, initially from the First World to the Second, and then on to the developmental states of
Eastern Asia – an arrangement strongly reflected in the main narrative sequence of chapters in Part 2.
Ideologically, modern mass housing’s global cohesion was enhanced by its many unifying ‘grand narratives’,
such as ‘community’, ‘industrialized building’ or ‘regional planning’: two of the eight war aims enshrined in the
1941 Atlantic Charter dealt with social welfare. The heady interconnection between science, warfare and social
policy was parodied in 1945 in the final volume of C. S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy, one of whose dystopian characters
exulted that ‘the real thing is that this time we’re going to get science applied to social problems and backed by
the whole force of the state, just as war has been backed by the whole force of the state in the past’.1
The political challenges that preoccupied these ‘strong states’ were structured by the two predominant geo-
political issues of the age: the multi-theatre Cold War between capitalism and communism, and the postwar
wave of decolonization. The years 1939–45 radically boosted both US capitalism and Soviet communism: the
US economy doubled in size, and communist parties boomed worldwide – quintupling their membership in
Latin America, for instance. All this was at the expense of the old colonial powers. The countless sub-narratives
included ideological conflicts within each of the blocs (and mediating concepts such as the welfare state or the
mixed economy); wider tensions over ‘Americanization’ and consumerism; the discourse of scientific planning;
and East–West competition over developmental aid in decolonized territories.2 Although direct international
confrontations over housing were rare – notably the famous 1959 Moscow ‘Kitchen Debate’ between Khrushchev
and Nixon – a key motivating role was played by ideological polarizations, not only internationally but also
within individual countries.3 US public housing in the 1950s, for example, was branded by domestic opponents
as not just ‘anti-American’ in its social-welfare values but actually a redoubt of communist fifth-columnists. The
domestic politics of housing within each society ranged from small-scale, tactical issues to fundamental,
strategic questions – the basic political motives that drove governments of all kinds to intervene in an area once
seen, in the nineteenth century, as the ultimate stronghold of private life and initiative (see Fig. 3.1).

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Mass Housing

A B

C D
Fig. 3.1 (a): Soviet Communist Party First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev and US Vice-President Richard M. Nixon
debate the relative merits of the socialist and capitalist systems at the July 1959 opening of the American National
Exhibition at Sokolniki Park, Moscow: this much-publicized exchange took place in the ‘model kitchen’ of a showhouse
pavilion designed around the budget of ‘a typical American worker’. (b): ‘Flowers Grow where Slums once Stood’: late
1940s publicity pamphlet by the Chicago Housing Authority. (c): The front cover of Postwar Housing in the United
Kingdom, a 1962 publicity compendium prepared by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government: the illustration
shows the LCC’s Roehampton Lane housing development of 1955–62 (cf. 5.2 (d)). (d): The rejection of modernist urban
planning in the 1970s. Cartoon by Louis Hellman, Built Environment 4, no. 3 (1978).

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 Postwar Mass Housing: An Introductory Overview

The combined chronological and geographical arrangement of Part 2, while generally exploiting Sauvy’s
framework of ‘First’, ‘Second’ and ‘Third Worlds’ to highlight the power-asymmetries that survived
decolonization, also emphasizes the further divergences within the three worlds, to underline the global, and
microregional, diversity of state-supported modern housing.4

First World, Second World, Third World

The first group of chapters in Part 2, chapters 4–10, is devoted to the ‘First World’ of Western Europe and North
America, commencing with the brief, stormy history of mass housing in the postwar United States – where it
was already sharply declining by the 1950s, other than in the isolated hotspot of New York City – and in other
mainly Anglophone territories: Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Chapter 5 shows how Britain and Ireland
formed a bridge between the Anglophone world and continental Western Europe. With the latter, they shared
the postwar ideal of the socially-integrative ‘welfare state’.5 With the former, they shared the sharp polarization
of private and public housing, and the characteristic saucer-like profile of housing status, with city centres
ringed by low-status ‘blighted’ zones, as enshrined in the ‘concentric-zone model’ of Chicago School sociologists
such as Ernest Burgess. In ‘Anglo’ countries there was a strong association between public housing and inner-
city slum clearance, often in clusters of tall towers – a discourse of ‘bulldozing’ urban renewal that lent itself
easily to warlike rhetoric.6 In Britain, the dominance of municipal authorities within the social-housing sector
privileged the urgent pressures of local politics. Here, genuine political idealists could occasionally seize
temporary control of housing policy in defiance of realpolitik, as in the case of the impassioned socialism of
Glasgow Corporation’s early 1960s Housing Convener, David Gibson.
As the diverse narratives of chapters 6–10 demonstrate, the remainder of Western Europe instead favoured
indirect, arm’s-length organizations and state-support arrangements, ranging from the HLM public agencies
of France to the social housing companies of the Low Countries and the German-speaking countries, the
cooperatives that dominated in some Scandinavian nations, and the more erratic mechanisms of Southern
Europe. Politically, the built environment was seen as a potential vehicle of economic redistribution almost
everywhere. But this was associated with very varied political worldviews, including not just Scandinavia’s
universalist social democracy but also the Christian democracy of many Catholic countries, with their
restricted, social insurance-based welfare states, or the ‘pillarized’, sectarian systems of the Low Countries.7
Even Scandinavia saw significant internal polarization of housing approaches between its various micro-
regions, the collectivism of Swedish social democracy contrasting with the fervent individualism of state-
aided home-ownership in Norway, Finland and Iceland. In some Southern European countries, such as Spain,
Portugal, Greece or Turkey, the strength of family-based structures, coupled often with conservative
authoritarian regimes, precluded full ‘welfare states’ and encouraged restricted mass-housing campaigns,
focused on owner-occupation. In France, too, the ‘assisted sector’ systematically boosted owner-occupation
building. Most continental Western European cities featured a pyramidal profile of housing status very
different from the Anglophone cities and their ‘slum belts’. This encouraged the building of spacious new
projects around the urban periphery, exemplified by the French ‘grands ensembles’ or the Swedish
‘miljonprogramm’, and dominated by expansive slab blocks rather than compressed towers. Almost invariably,
Western European state-supported programmes began in a rush in the late 1940s and early 1950s reconstruction
years, rising to a climax in the mid- to late 1960s, before losing impetus and popularity as the political demand
for massed housing construction faded. This ebbing of impetus occurred in Britain as early as 1968, in response
to fierce public criticisms and a polemical press, and was followed within a decade by large-scale demolitions,
but elsewhere it peaked around five or ten years later: in France, the postwar reconstruction period later

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dubbed the ‘Trente Glorieuses’ lasted from 1945 to 1975, although housing production only got seriously
underway in the mid-1950s.
In chapters 11–13, the ‘Second World’ of the state-socialist bloc is reviewed – a sequence that corresponds
directly to the chronological relationship of development in West and East, with a time-lag of around a decade
between the two. Immediate postwar policy in the vastly-expanded socialist bloc, until Stalin’s death in 1953,
still favoured development of heavy industry alongside postwar reconstruction, with public housing somewhat
downplayed. Only with the ascendancy of Khrushchev, from the mid-/late 1950s, did large-scale mass housing
become a key state policy goal. This was a programme whose ‘extensive urbanism’ hugely amplified key aspects
of the French grands ensembles, including vast spaciousness, slab configurations, standardization and
industrialized prefabrication, in a programme that continued in full flow until the end of the Soviet empire in
1989–91. Yet despite the imposing coherence of the state-socialist ‘grand narrative’, with its rhetoric of
centralized planning, communist mass housing was as diverse as its earlier Western equivalents, not least in
the variegated organizational structures of the myriad socialist microregions, ranging from the industrial
‘enterprises’ of central ministries to cooperatives, social companies and even state-sponsored home-ownership
schemes not unlike their Western European equivalents. Even within the USSR, standardization rhetoric
concealed a wide diversity of approaches, and in countries outside the immediate Soviet orbit, idiosyncratic
variations flourished, ranging from the quirkish ‘systematization’ campaign in Ceauşescu’s Romania to the
near-anarchic housing systems and architectures of Tito’s Yugoslavia. Equally distinctive were the solutions of
Asian socialist countries, especially the rhetorical monumentalism of Kim Il Sung’s North Korea and the
constant upheavals of Maoist China, whose self-contained ‘danwei’ (‘units’) decomposed urban life into a
muddle more like nineteenth-century capitalist cities than any orthodox ideal of ‘socialist planning’.
In chapters 14–15 – as something of an excursus from the main narrative of mass housing in developed
states – we come to Sauvy’s ‘tiers monde’, which he defined through its ‘non-alignment’ between the Cold War
adversary blocs, but which also, through the impact of that other ‘grand narrative’, decolonization, became
increasingly diverse in character. Here, too, there were many multiple modernities, but these ‘rose from
different notions of modernity, nationhood and nationalism, and in many cases were closely linked to the
history of colonialism and imperialism’.8 Some countries matched the political-organizational cohesion of the
developed capitalist and socialist worlds, but others emerged from colonization dogged by poverty and
governmental incapacity. Repeated rural-to-urban migrations were almost universal, but the responses
differed radically.
The most organized extreme among ‘developing’ countries – to the point that it hardly belonged to the
‘Third World’ at all – was the case of Latin America, the subject of chapter 14 and the focus of the second wave
of nation-building after the ‘Global North’. Its often strongly nationalistic governments mostly boasted well-
developed infrastructural foundations, frequently backed by significant natural resources, as in oil-rich
Venezuela. Housing programmes often resembled Southern Europe in their reliance on building for home-
ownership by state-regulated social-insurance companies, as in the initial housing zone of the new capital of
Brasilia. Cold War tensions exerted an indirect but persistent effect here, especially in the proliferation of US-
backed military dictatorships, beginning in Brazil (1964) and continuing in the 1970s in Argentina and Chile:
modernist mass-housing complexes formed an essential support for regime clientilism, often alongside drastic
shanty-town clearances.
In chapter 15, by contrast, the mass housing efforts of the Middle East, Africa and southern Asia are
reviewed. Here, the ‘strong housing regimes’ of countries such as Israel, South Africa and to some extent India
– all underpinned by emergency conditions – contrasted with the governmental weakness and predominance
of informal housing in many other former colonies, with state intervention largely confined to clientelistic
home-ownership provision, especially for government employees. This left the field open to the late twentieth

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century’s burgeoning international housing consultancy apparatus, led by the United Nations and the World
Bank, which ceaselessly promoted ‘sites-and-services’ upgrading of shanty towns as a low-budget version of
the US home-ownership utopia.9 Often, colonial housing and planning experiences fed back into policies ‘at
home’. Where direct building of public housing was attempted, plentiful land supply encouraged low-height
low-density solutions, often single-storeyed.
In strong contrast to regions dogged by governmental incapacity, the subjects of chapter 16 – the
‘developmental capitalist’ states of Eastern Asia – bring us back with a vengeance to our mainstream narrative
of disciplined mass housing. Within a time frame that overlapped significantly with the First and Second
World campaigns but continued far beyond it, they embarked on national modernization programmes
intended to catapult them from Third to First World status, programmes within which state planning and
mass housing were as central as in First World welfare states, and were deployed with even more focused
determination, especially in securing land supply. These microregions of Eastern Asian mass housing were
states, or statelets, every bit as disciplined as anything in the First and Second Worlds, but their housing
programmes enshrined a very different aim: the rapid development of organized capitalism, within a cohesive,
collectivist cultural framework influenced by ‘Confucian’ values. In housing, the undisputed pioneer of Asian
developmentalism, postwar Japan, was also an exception, both in its early date, coinciding with immediate
postwar reconstruction in Europe, but also in its avoidance of very-large-scale ‘grand ensemble’ developments
– partly owing to Japan’s traditional fragmented urban fabric and its earthquake vulnerability. It was, instead,
the later ‘Asian tigers’, especially Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea, that established from the 1950s a link
between Asian developmentalism and large-scale mass housing. They adopted a strongly interventive response
to rural-to-urban migration and informal housing, through redevelopment and state housing for rental and
home-ownership – an innovative hybrid of the US mass owner-occupier ideal with high-density modernist
public housing.10 In decolonizing Singapore and Hong Kong, the ‘Anglo’ tradition of urban slum-clearance
with tall towers was appropriated and transformed into a pattern of unprecedentedly dramatic density and
height.
Chapter 16 forms an appropriate climax to Part 2’s overlapping succession of postwar global housing
booms, not only in its uninterrupted continuation into the 1990s and beyond, even after the Soviet system had
fallen from the ‘race’, but in its ever-increasing scale, culminating in built forms unprecedented in the history
of mass housing, such as the standard forty-one-storey towers of Hong Kong public housing from the late
1980s, or the endless Zeilenbau slab arrays of contemporary South Korean ‘apatu-tanji’. Chapter 16 also forms
a bridge to Part 3 of the book, which rounds off the global story to date, in the years since the end of the grand
narratives of the Cold War and decolonization – years within which Asian developmentalism has gained
further in popularity and geographical spread.
These geo-political themes provide one of the main structural frames around which the vast subject matter
of Part 2 is deployed. Equally important, given this book’s dual focus on state organization and modernist built
form, were the canonical ideas of the ‘International Modern Movement’ in architecture and planning – a
thread of concepts whose coherence and authoritative character was widely acknowledged by both advocates
and opponents, and whose sources we traced in chapter 2 as part of the early emergence of modern mass
housing. Those avant-garde roots were almost entirely confined to Europe and North America, and were
defined especially by the dashing individualism of ‘pioneers’ such as Le Corbusier, with his daringly utopianist
visions of the city. By the time of the ‘trente glorieuses’ – let alone the late 1970s and 1980s explosion of mass
housing in the Soviet Union and Eastern Asia – those days were far behind. Now the lead in diffusing mass
housing was instead taken by myriad everyday ‘designer-officials’ preoccupied with practical questions – even
as Western intellectuals such as Henri Lefèbvre and the Situationists began attacking the ‘alienating’,
‘technocratic’ character of modernism.11 However, a strong thread of canonical international-modernist

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innovation still continued after 1945, and, although its efforts were still chiefly concentrated in Western Europe
and North America, we need at this point to briefly review its main features before plunging into the vast
diversity of everyday mass housing across the world.

International modernism: from global to local

The ‘International modernist’ housing discourse, with its insistence on integrating the social, technical and
aesthetic, existed at two levels: the macro-level of city planning and urban landscape, and the micro-level of
architectural form. We saw in chapters 1 and 2 how key reformists, including early modern architect-planners,
had relentlessly championed the opening-out and functional separation of the mixed-together nineteenth-
century urban fabric, initially by thinning out dense urban blocks into perimeter-planned apartment layouts
(as in Amsterdam or Vienna) or garden suburbs, and then moving, under international modernist planners
like May or Gropius, towards fully open landscapes of free-standing slabs in greenery, usually arranged in
regular parallel Zeilenbau layouts and ‘neighbourhood’ groupings. The utopian projects of Le Corbusier had
vividly suggested how this framework could be combined with high towers, although in practice, few significant
social-housing towers were built between the wars: the only really tall, early ‘slab block’, Raymond Hood’s
sixty-six-storey RCA Building in New York’s Rockefeller Center (1931–3), not only contained offices, rather
than dwellings, but fell outside strict modernist orthodoxy with its sculpturally stepped profile. By the early
postwar years, some modernist planners such as Perret at Le Havre (to say nothing of Stalinist socialist-realist
designers) still remained faithful to Haussmann-like urban stateliness, and even unimpeachably modernist
city-planning formulae might conceal pre-modern roots – as with the Nazi colonialist origins of Göderitz,
Rainer and Hoffmann’s Die Gegliederte und Aufgelockerte Stadt (‘The Zoned and Opened-Out City’) of 1957.
But on the whole, the segregated and opened-out formula evoked in that book’s title now prevailed throughout
‘First World’ modernist city-planning. This formula also significantly impacted elsewhere in the world,
including Lucio Costa’s spectacularly gestural plan for the new capital of Brasilia, or its less flamboyant but
infinitely more far-reaching triumph in Khrushchev’s Soviet embrace of the modernist neighbourhood-unit
formula.
Yet by the late 1950s, as always in the restlessly polemical world of modernist debate, all this was becoming
questioned, in the wake of a widespread and highly diverse architectural drive for ‘humanization’ of the strict
orthodoxies of the international Modern Movement. The predominant trend was inexorably towards greater
density and ‘urbanity’, with utopian advocates of extreme anti-urban decentralization, such as Erwin Gutkind,
now marginalized.12 Of the first generation of modernist ‘pioneers’, the leader in the move towards urban
‘density’ – and thus the only ‘pioneer’ who retained a truly leading prestige in advanced housing design circles
– was Le Corbusier. His Unité d’habitation (or Cité radieuse) project of 1947–52 in Marseille – a 337-unit
private apartment block of twelve storeys on a tall columned podium – combined complex, multi-level
sectional planning and internal ‘streets’ with a new, calculatedly rough and primitive concrete aesthetic image.13
Other, more extreme high-rise high-density concepts of the early postwar years, such as architect Sergei
Kadleigh’s 1952 ‘High Paddington’ project, for a massively decked redevelopment of the London railway yards,
or the yet more outlandish amateur project of 1949 by West German electronics scientist Fritz Bergtold, for a
350m-high, hollow cylindrical Turmstadt (‘Tower Town’) containing 10,000 wedge-shaped flats, found little
favour. But by the mid-1950s, criticism of the vast spaces and serried lines of free-standing parallel slabs was
already flaring up, led by a new generation of individualistic theorists such as the Team 10 members,
‘Structuralists’ such as Herman Hertzberger, or Kevin Lynch in the USA, who advocated greater social and
visual complexity and a more densely agglomerated urbanism. In more traditional or low-scaled contexts,

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appropriate variants of this new conglomerate planning were devised, such as the low-rise high-density
‘carpet’.14 And just as this ‘clustered’ approach started to spread internationally, in major 1960s projects in
countries such as Italy or Yugoslavia, a further reaction got underway, led by critics such as Jane Jacobs,
rejecting all large modern redevelopments for ‘traditional streets’, rehabilitation of old houses, a return to ‘style’
and ‘decoration’, and commodified urban planning – all of which would become hallmarks of ‘postmodern
urbanism’ (see Fig. 3.2).

B
Fig. 3.2 (a): Interbau 1957, West Berlin (Hansaviertel): a canonical ‘architectural zoo’ of high modernist planning and
housing, designed by a galaxy of international and German architects. It was commissioned by the West Berlin Senate and
the federal housing ministry as a riposte to the East Berlin Stalinallee. This view shows the block designed by Oscar
Niemeyer, an eight-storey RC crosswall slab on V-shaped pilotis built in 1956–8, featuring a communal area along one side
of the block on the sixth floor (MG 2015). (b): Architect Sergei Kadleigh’s utopian 1952 ‘High Paddington’ project for a
decked and towered megastructural redevelopment of the London railway yards.

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C D

E F
Fig. 3.2 (c): West German electronics scientist Fritz Bergtold’s even wilder project of 1949 for urban redevelopment
using a 350m-high, hollow cylindrical ‘Turmstadt’ containing 10,000 wedge-shaped flats: this perspective includes Munich
town hall and cathedral for scale. (d): Quartiere Tiburtino, Rome, 1950–4, one of the setpieces of the Italian Christian
Democrats’ early postwar INA-Casa programme – designed by architects M. Rudolfi, L. Quaroni and others in the
exaggeratedly picturesque and ‘vernacular’ style associated with the programme (MG 2013). (e): Split 3 city extension,
Croatia (Yugoslavia), master-planned by Slovenian architects Vladimir Mušić and Marjan Bežan. The pedestrian
promenade of Areas S-2/4, 6, 7, 8 (1970–82) was designed by Ante Svarčić of the ‘Tehnogradnja’ project combine, Split, for
the city development agency PIS and the Yugoslav Army (JNA) as a megastructural echo of the Diocletian Palace ‘cardo’
(MG 2018). (f): Sui Wo Court, Sha Tin, Hong Kong, 1978–82; Hong Kong Housing Authority complex designed by
architects Palmer & Turner with ‘windmill’ towers of variegated heights (MG 2013) (cf. 15.10 (e)).

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In narrowly-defined terms of ‘architectural style’, a similar trajectory is traceable from the clean shapes,
white walls and light glass and metal construction of interwar international modernism – itself a reaction
against the idiosyncratic Art Deco styles of Vienna or Amsterdam – through to the wealth of complex,
expressive forms that prevailed in the 1960s and which are today often lumped together under the collective
term ‘Brutalism’. Individual countries often developed their own stylistic variants on these themes – for
example, the late 1940s/early 1950s ‘vernacular’ movement took distinctly different forms in Sweden
(‘empiricism’) and in the Italian INA-Casa programme. All these variants, ‘early’ and ‘late’ modernist alike,
decisively fell from favour by the 1970s throughout the West, with the general shift towards postmodernism’s
architecture of add-on façade decoration, a shift that was especially prominent in some late housing
programmes, Singapore’s in particular. Although a fresh phase of ‘modern style’ emerged in reaction against
this in the 1990s, the image-led value-system of postmodernism remained dominant behind this ‘iconic
modern’ facade.
Within the canonical discourse of modern architecture, complete integration of scientific progress with
planning and design was normally assumed. Yet postwar housing construction was a far cry from the
exhilarating advances of late nineteenth-century steel-framed skyscraper technology. It operated within a
distinctly restricted innovation range. Its towers were largely confined to load-bearing concrete, the main
choices being between reinforced-concrete frame and load-bearing wall or ‘box’ construction, and between
in-situ casting and factory prefabrication of concrete slabs. These were echoed indirectly in a 1960s architectural
debate between ‘closed systems’, whose design was controlled by builder-promoters, and ‘open systems’,
supposedly more amenable to free manipulation by the architect. For lower blocks, a range of modernist
innovations was available, including ‘calculated brickwork’ or rationalized timber construction, but much low-
rise construction remained conservative in character. Decisive in the relative viability of ‘traditional’ and
‘industrialized’ construction in specific mass housing microregions was the severity of shortage of skilled
building labour: this posed a significant problem in some countries, such as Khrushchev’s USSR, but
emphatically not in others, such as 1940s–1950s Italy or Brazil.
Inside the dwelling, the interwar international modernists had set out an optimum agenda of ‘mod cons’,
including modern kitchens and bathrooms, and, for tall flats, modern collective heating, refuse disposal and
lift access – although with that most renowned modernist ‘mod con’, the ‘Existenzminimum kitchen’, it is
unclear whether the ‘minimum’ aspect chiefly denoted economy for the poor, or advanced, optimal planning
in its own right. By the 1960s, while most of this was taken for granted, other more extreme innovations, such
as ‘Garchey plumbing’, had become rejected as unviable.
Throughout Part 2, we need to remember these canonical modernist themes when tracing the shifts and
cross-currents in postwar housing architecture, especially in Western Europe and North America. Yet the
relationship between this master narrative and the built patterns on the ground was normally very indirect,
with the former often glimpsed only diffusely, as if through a frosted glass. At microregional level, constraints
such as land control, density pressure, political motivation and building-industry structure often exerted a far
more direct impact on built form than avant-garde architectural concepts. However, four canonical formulae
of modernist architecture recurred repeatedly and pervasively in postwar mass housing across the world.
Firstly, there was the concept of the planned ‘neighbourhood unit’ in all its different names and size
permutations, and its complex interrelationships with utopian ideals of ‘community’. Secondly, there was the
free-standing tall block in open space, whether a soaring tower or a vast, Franco-Soviet slab. Thirdly, there was
the recurring drive for prefabrication or ‘industrialized’ construction in all its forms. Fourthly, and finally, from
the later 1950s there were the many variants of conglomerate planning, including decked megastructures or
‘low-rise high-density’ clusters. All these could potentially appear anywhere and at any time; but the sequence
and condition in which they appeared bore little relationship to the canonical narrative. In some cases, the

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conventional chronology and geography was reversed or radically disrupted, as in South Korea, where the first
huge megastructure, the linear Seun complex of 1965, predated the first massed building of Zeilenbau slabs; in
Morocco, where Michel Écochard’s Carrières Centrales (‘Central Quarries’) project of 1951–2 antedated the
‘low-rise high-density’ movement in the European ‘heartland’; or in Hong Kong, where very tall, slender
point blocks only emerged in the 1980s and 1990s, after decades of building lower but highly dense complexes,
and were normally combined with commercial megastructures in a way unknown within the ‘canonical’
formula.
Often, force of circumstances in any individual location significantly diluted the ‘classic’ formulae – for
example in the piecemeal realization of slum-clearance in Britain, for reasons of political expediency; the
economy-driven watering-down of vast initial plans, an especially frequent occurrence in the Soviet bloc, as
seen at the ‘motor city’ of Togliatti (Chapter 11); or the tendency of ‘Third World’ cities to build diluted
Zeilenbau layouts lacking the enveloping green spaces essential to the pure variant of that idea, and instead
permeated by traditional urban clutter. Often, what was built had deep roots in traditional, pre-modern
patterns. Two patterns originally devised in nineteenth-century Britain later cropped up in postwar mass
housing elsewhere, whether by diffusion or coincidence: the internal-staircase-access layouts of Scottish
tenements that eventually developed into the USSR’s ubiquitous ‘sectional’ plans, including the famous five-
storey ‘Khrushchevki’; and England’s gallery-access nineteenth-century philanthropic formula, which became
almost universal in postwar Dutch mass housing (galerijbouw) as well as widespread in Asian countries as
varied as Japan, Singapore, South Korea, India and communist China.
Despite this vast microregional diversity, everyday mass housing was not in any sense a new ‘vernacular’ or
an ‘architecture without architects’. Almost invariably, postwar mass housing, avant-garde or not in its design,
was designed by highly qualified professionals operating within highly structured organizational contexts. In
New York City, for example, the distinctive red-brick towers of the New York City Housing Authority, with
their idiosyncratic ‘alphabet plans’ and jarringly ‘un-Modern’ avoidance of uniform parallel layouts, stemmed
not from some local vernacular culture but from a sequence of design decisions by some of the city’s most
eminent architectural practices. In 1950s–1970s France, too, the most important ‘grands ensembles’, far from
being avant-garde in their combination of rationalism and monumentality, were designed by the heirs of the
elite academic traditions of Beaux-Arts culture, figures such as the Alsatian architect Charles-Gustave Stoskopf,
a ‘hegemonic’ regional leader equally at home in urban modernist ‘production de masse’ and in heritage-
sensitive old-town rehabilitation.15 But at the simplest level of design, in the small detached cottages or two-
storey flats on garden-city layouts that dominated some government housing programmes, such as the state
houses of New Zealand or the ‘locations’ and ‘townships’ of apartheid South Africa, we eventually reach the
outer limits of any kind of specifically ‘modern’ mass housing. These demarcation issues recur frequently in
the remainder of this book, as the split between Modern and ‘un-Modern’ was never as sharp as it was portrayed
in polemical rhetoric, either within the canonical modernist narrative or in parallel polemical discourses such
as Khrushchev’s mid-1950s onslaught against Stalinist ‘wedding-cake’ architecture.
In the following chapters, the mass housing microregions of the First and Second Worlds (and to a limited
extent, the Third World) are traced in a combined narrative and geographical overview. In chronological
terms, the course of mass housing’s ‘Hundred Years’ War’ seems at times like a series of overlapping campaigns,
whose ‘front line’ jumped convulsively from one region of the world to another as pressures and crises
demanded. In this sequence, the Anglophone group of countries was arguably among the first to embark on
large-scale production (chapters 4 and 5), with the United States positioned at the start: its brief flirtation with
public housing was already almost at an end by the mid-1950s, by which time the variegated social housing
campaigns of Western Europe (chapters 5–10) were only getting seriously underway, followed after some
years’ time-lag by the vast building drive of Khrushchev’s USSR and its satellites (chapters 11–13); the

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developmental states of Eastern Asia followed later still, beginning mainly in the 1960s (chapter 16). Somewhat
outside this grand narrative of explosive bursts of activity were the cases of Latin America (chapter 14) and
the ex-colonial ‘Third World’ (chapter 15). In the next chapter, however, our survey of these world regions of
postwar mass housing begins with the somewhat unexpected rise, fleeting heyday and precipitous fall of
public housing in the United States of America.

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CHAPTER 4
HOUSING BY AUTHORITY: POSTWAR STATE
INTERVENTIONS IN THE ‘ANGLOSPHERE’

Within the overall global narrative of postwar mass housing, with its succession of overlapping campaigns, the
Anglophone countries, perhaps surprisingly, were among the first to make significant progress, perhaps partly
owing to their lesser wartime losses and devastation, which allowed them to embark early on large-scale
postwar development. Strongly polarized between public-rental and private owner-occupation tenure, they
avoided the intermediate solutions that predominated in many countries, and instead emphasized
unambiguously public structures of direct rental provision, dominated by executive ‘housing authorities’.
These organizational characteristics were coupled with equally distinctive spatial solutions, including the
tendency to build mass housing not in completely new city extensions but as part of surgical slum-clearance
of existing ‘obsolete’ built fabric – often trumpeted in a violent language of ‘war’ and ‘crusading’. If the definition
of mass housing as a ‘war’ is one of the overriding themes of our narrative, this approach was seen at its most
extreme in these countries’ radical slum-clearance policies.1 With its strong linkage between mass housing and
discourses of emergency and threat, this was associated with a social-economic urban dichotomy between
‘poor inner-city’ and wealthy suburbs – the opposite of many European cities – and with a broad societal
consensus in support of free-market liberalism. That dichotomy was especially strong in the United States,
where it became entangled with special racial pathologies of housing. But this chapter and the next also
highlight the significant organizational and architectural differences between the various micro-regions of the
Anglophone world (or partly Anglophone, in the case of Canada) – differences that prevented them from
being a cohesive group.
The most startling of these divisions was chronological: between the United States and all the others. In
most developed countries, the three, even four, postwar decades witnessed a sustained boom in social-
housing production, especially of rental housing – a chronology that applied equally to direct and arm’s-
length systems, and in both capitalist and socialist countries. In some parts of the First World, such as
Great Britain, Australia or West Germany, the production peak came relatively early, in the 1950s and 1960s,
with marked declines from the late 1960s, while in others, such as Canada, France or the Netherlands,
production expanded from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s. Sometimes the eventual output decline was
accompanied by a gradual reputational decline. But in the United States, the trajectory of social housing
was quite different, with a sharp blip in confidence in the late 1940s and early 1950s, followed by a collapse in
both the reputation and output levels of public housing from the mid-1950s, with only restricted revivals
thereafter – a pattern to which the vigorous housing programmes of New York City provided a significant
exception.2
The narrative sequence of chapter 4 reflects this chronology, beginning with the United States, and
proceeding to the other mainly-Anglophone liberal-welfare societies, which are traced in ascending order of
state commitment and durability: Canada, New Zealand and Australia. Chapter 5 is dedicated to the fully-
fledged welfare-state housing programmes of Great Britain and Ireland, which formed a three-way bridge
between the limited interventionism of the liberal Anglophone regimes, the multi-polar systems of Western
Europe and South America, and the mass state provision of the state-socialist bloc.

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Red scares, race scares: the brief heyday and long retreat of US public housing

For the American public housing movement, the mid-1940s were an Indian summer of hope and bustling
activity. Wartime and immediate postwar initiatives such as the Truman administration’s Veterans Emergency
Housing Programme of February 1946, with its goal of 2.5 million units in two and a half years, were exploited
by some city housing authorities, such as Boston’s, as a way of extending their existing programmes – although
real-estate advocates successfully argued that the main veterans’ housing programme should be entrusted
to the private sector.3 Among public housing champions, hopes briefly rose that the slum-clearance restriction
of the Wagner-Steagall Act could be overcome. In 1945, Chicago Housing Authority director Elizabeth
Ward told the American Public Works Association that public housing should be ‘bold and comprehensive’
rather than ‘islands in a wilderness of slums’. But this was largely rhetoric, as policy under the Truman ‘Fair
Deal’ continued to shift towards home-ownership, with private-sector lobbyists pervading the housing system
at both federal and state level; congressional housing-policy committees were dominated by builders,
developers and bankers.4
This lobby skilfully exploited the mounting ‘red scare’ by labelling all welfare-state advocates as communist
fifth-columnists. Public housing was described by National Association of Real-Estate Boards (NAREB)
President Morgan Fitch in the late 1940s as ‘the cutting edge of the Communist front’, and by Senator Joseph
McCarthy in 1948 as ‘the spearhead of the Communist plot’. More specifically, multi-family apartment blocks
and rental housing were labelled ‘socialistic and un-American’.5 In a 1954 article in the NAREB journal, ‘A
Realtor Says No to Public Housing’, Fitch blasted public housing as ‘Barrack houses . . . tenement dwellings’,
which were ‘too expensive’ and ‘not paying [their] fair share of municipal services’. By the early 1950s, the
escalating moral panic left all public housing leaders, including Bauer, liable to denunciation: 1952 saw a mass
staff purge at the Los Angeles City Housing Authority, previously labelled a Communist Trojan horse by the
Californian Un-American Activities Committee, which argued that ‘Public housing is a shining target for
Communist infiltration.’ 6
The real focus of mass state housing intervention in postwar America was, of course, the Federal Housing
Administration’s (FHA) home-ownership support system. Bound up with the populist ideology of
individualism and voluntarism, this appeared ideologically invisible for the same reason that the small-scale
public housing programme was so prominent and contentious – a situation that was an unusual variant on the
disparity stressed repeatedly in this book, between public rhetoric and underpinning realpolitik. The indirect
financial character of the FHA programme, involving mortgage income-tax relief, helped conceal the massive
state intervention it represented. By 1965, home-ownership tax deductions were costing the US Treasury
$7 billion per annum, but the public housing programme a mere $500 million.7 Some FHA aid was allocated
to private apartment buildings, under the 1940s Section 608 programme, which guaranteed up to 90% of their
cost, and its 1950s successor, the Section 207 programme. And the FHA supported redevelopment schemes
under the Title I strand of the 1949 federal Housing Act (see below).8 In these, as in all its subsidy-programmes,
the FHA acted as ‘the stern and complicated parent of American residential construction’: its plethora of
regulations about apartment layouts, block layouts or cost limits interacted with investors’ or contractors’
preferences to encourage standardized solutions.
Quantitatively far more important than the FHA’s involvement with apartment construction was its
massive support of low-density single-family construction: as late as 1958, ‘multi-family’ construction only
accounted for 16% of all starts in the US. Single-family housing was increasingly organized on a huge scale by
large ‘merchant builders’ (720 firms nationwide in 1949) who industrialized the traditional timber-frame
construction of US houses, cutting the cost of an average dwelling below $4,000, well beneath 1920s levels.9
Of these large-scale developments, the most renowned was Levittown, Long Island, New York. Levittown

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began life in 1947 as a mainly rental development, but from 1948 it mutated into a home-ownership project in
response to the changing governmental-policy background. This shift was framed in stridently political terms
by the firm’s chairman, William Levitt, who declared in 1948 that ‘No man who owns his house and lot can be
a Communist, because he has too much to do.’ Overall, between 1947 and 1950, some 15,000 dwellings were
built by Levitt under FHA mortgage guarantees.10 The drive to build swathes of owner-occupied houses was
encouraged not only by the Red Scare, but also by race, the other emotive issue of twentieth-century US
housing. This long-standing preoccupation was, by the 1940s, becoming bound up with the specific spatial
process of suburbanization and with the new consciousness of a polarization between inner-urban black
ghetto and threatened urban ‘whiteness’, especially as the pace of black migration from the Southern states
increased.11 The FHA directly supported suburban ‘white flight’: by 1952, 98% of the 3 million dwellings
insured by it were in whites-only areas.12
For the postwar development of low-cost housing, the pivotal year was 1949, when a seminal new federal
housing law, the Taft–Ellender–Wagner (or T–E–W) Act, was enacted. Demands for higher public subsidies
were sharpened by the rapid postwar doubling of building costs above $1 a cubic foot by 1948. As with the
Wagner-Steagall Act of 1937, the previous four years had seen a furious debate in Washington and nationally,
now with the escalating Red Scare as a background, and culminating in fist fights in Congress during the
debates themselves.13 Between 1945 and 1948, the NAREB and Senators Joseph McCarthy and Jesse Wilmott
had doggedly fought the proposed public housing legislation, arguing it would be ‘a key to opening the door
to socialism in America’.14 With the eventual passage of the T–E–W Act, public housing now superficially
seemed to have a long-term, federal-based future, with a six-year programme of 810,000 dwellings authorized
under Title III: Truman had wanted to create a unified housing agency, but was still elated at the Act’s passage.
But this triumph was short-lived, as public housing was only institutionalized in a severely curtailed form,
orientated towards slum-clearance and the ‘poor’ rather than skilled workers, especially since a 1947 federal
directive that higher-income tenants must be evicted. A huge exception, as we will see shortly, was the housing
programme of New York City, which remained diversified and healthy – but this was an exception that proved
the rule.15
The 1949 Act’s Title III programme was first undermined, however, by something far more tangible than
anti-socialist rhetoric: the 1950 outbreak of the Korean War, which sent building costs soaring again and
provoked drastic cuts to federal public-housing funding: a 75% cut in annual output was mandated by
Congress from 1952, leading to the virtual collapse of public housing programmes in cities from Los Angeles
to Detroit.16 Subsequently, even the modest 810,000 target of Title III seemed increasingly impracticable. As
late as 1967, only 674,000 units had been built, leaving public housing at less than 2% of the overall national
stock; the Title III allocation was only finally used up by 1972.17 In reality, the T–E–W Act, even more than
Wagner-Steagall before it, was predominantly orientated towards encouragement of private enterprise: while
public housing was relegated to Title III, priority was given to privately-led urban renewal (Title I) and
enhanced FHA mortgage support (Title II). Locationally, the Act was sharply polarized between the
‘mainstream’ suburban owner-occupation of Title II and the slum-clearance-orientated Titles I and III. Title
I, despite its far smaller scale than Title II, was a crucially important programme, focusing on redevelopment
of ‘blighted’ areas like Britain’s slum clearances, but on a proportionally larger scale. Francesca Ammon’s
Bulldozer highlights the linkage between the vast wartime construction efforts of the US military and this
postwar urban ‘culture of clearance’: ‘the war-inflected ideology, technology, policy and practice of large-scale
demolition’, under which 7.5 million housing units were demolished between 1950 and 1980, mainly for urban
renewal and highway construction.18 The ‘urban renewal’ agenda was first enunciated in 1942 by the NAREB’s
think-tank, the Urban Land Institute, in an FHA-endorsed report which advocated private-led urban renewal
to complement middle-class suburbanization. The main principles of Title I had been established in the earlier

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housing activities of the Metropolitan and New York Life Insurance companies, chiefly in New York. They saw
moderate-rent housing as a solid, gilt-edged investment, and built nearly 35,000 dwellings, chiefly in the late-
1940s, including pioneering interpretations of the ‘towers in a park’ formula.19
Title I aimed to offset acquisition costs of expensive land in blighted areas by covering two-thirds of the
‘write-down’ cost of the land to approved renewal authorities, who would then make the cleared sites available
for private-enterprise redevelopment; it also extended the powers of eminent domain (compulsory purchase)
and land-assemblage. The primacy of redevelopment within the T–E–W Act was acknowledged by Truman,
who argued that ‘it equips the federal government, for the first time, with effective means for aiding cities in
the vital task of clearing slums and rebuilding blighted areas’.20 The requirement that cleared sites should be
attractive to the private sector ruled out the formula which prevailed in equally clearance-addicted Britain:
direct rebuilding with high-density public housing on the same sites, with some overspill to peripheral
locations. Instead, building on the 1937 Act formula, Title III in effect became a servicing mechanism to
Title I, with public housing chiefly built to accommodate displaced slum-dwellers on inner-city sites elsewhere;
subsequent 1950s urban-renewal legislation only accentuated the pattern. By 1960, 838 Title I schemes were
underway and most large cities appointed redevelopment ‘czars’ (such as Louis Danzig in Newark, Ed Logue
in New Haven and Boston, and Ed Bacon in Philadelphia) (see Fig. 4.1).21
Not only was Title I organizationally bound up with mainstream public housing, but in design and
construction, the two were also closely related. This stemmed partly from developers’ preference for a neutral
image that would not easily date – which led both middle-class and public housing apartments to adopt a
plain, brick-clad aesthetic.22 Construction was generally conservative, involving conventional reinforced-
concrete framing: despite the dominance of steel frames in the pioneering turn-of-century skyscrapers, they
were rarely used in postwar housing. In the 1950s, RC frame construction was said to be uneconomic above
twenty-one storeys, with steel frames necessary for higher buildings, but the boundary of viability kept shift ing
upwards.23 And despite the long American tradition of timber prefabrication, there was no drive towards
concrete system-building for apartment blocks, as in Europe and the USSR. Even in low-rise housing, where
many timber components, such as roof trusses, were prefabricated after World War II, state-sponsored
experiments proved ineffective – as with the Truman administration’s 1946–50 prefabrication drive, or the
Department of Housing and Urban Development’s ‘Operation Breakthrough’ of 1969–70, which vainly
attempted to aggregate the building-components market and apply advanced ‘systems technology’ to housing.
Whether in low-rise Levittown or in public-housing apartments, the overwhelming emphasis was instead on
efficiency and cost-saving, through unglamorous but crucial economies in type-planning, ordering of
components and organization of the building process. Truly industrialized production was instead seen at
work in the mobile-home industry, which in 1969–73 alone produced 2.5 million units (almost 100 times
greater than the total output of Operation Breakthrough).24
Within multi-storey construction, public rental and Title I alike, conventional reinforced-concrete frame
techniques were incrementally refined for efficiency gains, to yield maximum space for minimum rent. For
example, the flat-slab construction used in the massive programme of the New York City Housing Authority
(NYCHA) allowed large floor-plates and deep plans, and more economical ratios of flats to services than the
slender towers of Great Britain or the shallow sectional-plan slabs of the USSR. Flat-slab construction also
allowed buildings to be clad in cheap non-load-bearing panels of brickwork – although some architects and
engineers experimented with load-bearing exteriors, as at I. M. Pei’s Kips Bay Plaza, New York, in 1963, defying
the caution of FHA’s conservative scrutineers.25 On a 1957 study visit, Ministry of Housing research architect
Alec Bellamy calculated that US public-housing towers were 20–50% more efficient than English ones, for
example in the ratio of inhabitants to lifts and in the external walling required to enclose any given habitable
area.26 Bellamy contrasted the projects’ efficiency with their utilitarian planning and architecture – both

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A B

C
Fig. 4.1 (a): What Public Housing did to England, propaganda leaflet of c. 1946 issued by the National Association of
Home Builders as part of the battle against the Wagner-Ellender-Taft Bill, highlighting Britain’s ‘laboratory status of world
guinea pig infected with the public housing disease’. (b): ‘The federal bulldozer’ (Martin Anderson, 1964) of the Title I
programme: City of New York brochure of 1956 showing thirty-five already-built and planned slum-clearance projects in
the city. (c): Bronxdale Houses, The Bronx, New York City, 1952–5, a 1,497-unit federally-funded scheme: perspective on
cover of 1952 NYCHA Annual Report.

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stemming equally from the economy agenda. These practical advances, together with high land costs, made it
around 10–25% cheaper to build New York mass housing in high rather than low blocks.27
But by the mid-1950s, US public housing seemed increasingly on the defensive. Partly, this decline stemmed
from a national-level change of opinion, especially during the presidency of Eisenhower, who was
temperamentally opposed to public housing. Although the Red Scare abated after the mid-1950s, the restrictive
climate only intensified, including a 1954 Supreme Court ruling circumscribing eminent-domain powers.
Even the old defenders of state intervention began sounding a critical note. By the early 1940s, Catherine
Bauer was already writing of the ‘charity smell’ of public housing, arguing that under the 1937 Act, ‘what
Congress has established was another sort of poor-house’ clad in the ‘brave, new, now tragically-deflated
architecture of Weimar Modernism’. By the early 1950s, her chief target was multi-storey towers, ‘super-
tenements’ and ‘standardised barracks’ that flouted ‘the overwhelming preference for ground-level living’. And
in 1957 she attacked the ‘dreary deadlock of public housing’, whose ‘bleak efficiency’ imposed a ‘highly
organised, collective type of community life for which most American families have no desire and little
aptitude’. She concluded that ‘public housing, after more than two decades, still drags along in a kind of
limbo . . . not dead but never more than half alive’. With such withering criticism from its defenders, public
housing hardly needed enemies, and its continued decline was inevitable. Attempted counter-measures from
the mid-1950s included the targeting of a less contentious group – the low-income elderly. As early as 1954,
the Massachusetts State Housing Board announced a shift in emphasis to elderly apartment projects, with
initial developments completed around 1962–3, and in 1956 Congress introduced the first federal funding for
elderly housing.28
Over the United States as a whole, the highly decentralized governmental system ensured that the micro-
regions of mass housing were many and varied – although almost all reflect in one way or another the
overarching national framework of rapid rise and even sharper fall. The following pages trace these local
trajectories of public housing across the United States from its heyday following the 1949 T–E–W Act to its
protracted decline across the country. Our local overview of mass housing in US cities inevitably commences
in New York and proceeds onwards to the more mainstream narratives of other centres, especially Chicago
and Philadelphia.

New York City: the monumental exception

It is a curious quirk of US mass-housing history that the focal-point of the movement, New York City, was also
atypical of it, not least because it largely escaped the perception of early, catastrophic failure that dogged public
housing in other US cities.29 More specifically, New York’s postwar mass housing programme was distinctive
in three interrelated ways: firstly, because the city’s classic enclave geography and high land prices necessitated
higher densities and discouraged nearby single-family housing; secondly, because the demand for higher-
density mass housing made large-scale middle-class apartment production viable; and finally, because this
allowed a far more diverse funding base, insulated from the dependency on federal funding and prescriptive
regulations that prevailed elsewhere.30 Social housing’s resilience in New York was also underpinned by a vast
diversity of programmes, all overseen to varying extents by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA):
by 1960 the city boasted ten separate social-housing construction programmes.31 Partly because of this
diversity, NYCHA commanded considerable financial power and locally-sourced funding, owing to its ability
since 1938 to sell its bonds on the local financial market. In 1965, only 41% of even the city’s mainstream
public-rental housing was built with federal funds, the remainder being split 2:1 between state and city
sources.32

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It was in the late 1940s and early 1950s that the foundations for this remarkable programme were
constructed, with a steady accrual of state and city local housing powers, not just in construction but in
other areas such as rent controls.33 In some ways, NYCHA outdid the power of British council-housing
authorities – and has certainly exceeded them in active longevity, celebrating its 85th birthday in 2020. That
longevity was aided by the way its development activity was always balanced with maintenance and
management, with only half of the $200m budget for 1952 spent on new building; the Authority even had its
own police force for many years (1952–95). Yet New York’s postwar programme was also significantly different
from its European contemporaries, not least in the anti-socialist values of its controlling oligarchy – an
oligarchy which in its heyday had one man at its centre, the renowned city development ‘czar’, Robert Moses.
His paradoxical achievement in New York was to justify a programme of massive state intervention and
clearance of ‘blighted’ housing, at a time of rampant anti-communism, by casting it as a necessary evil, while
condemning planning in general. For this, Moses used an often ferociously combative language, deriding
planning as, at best, a fantasy of woolly-headed academics and, at worst, a communist plot. As early as 1935,
he lambasted Rexford Tugwell as a ‘planning Red’ and Lewis Mumford as an ‘outspoken revolutionary’. Postwar,
his contempt of ‘long-haired politicians’ continued: ‘I recommend you file the “master plan of land use” and
forget it.’ In 1948, Moses denounced the ‘hokum’, ‘bunk’, ‘mumbo-jumbo’ and ‘tripe’ of the ‘smart-aleck . . . paper
planners’, and chided another planning advocate, ‘My advice to him is to give up Karl and study Harpo Marx.
He will get more sound advice out of “Horse Feathers” than out of Das Kapital.’34
Overall, Moses flatly rejected the idea of any general housing shortage, or standing public housing
programmes other than those specifically tied to slum clearance and urban renewal. Yet under his aegis, New
York developed by far the largest, most sustained mass housing programme in the United States, including not
only large-scale public rental housing but also a vast, state-sponsored middle-income housing programme –
supported by land programmes that required very considerable ‘planning’. This required Moses to display
considerable verbal agility, if not outright sophistry: in 1953, he argued that NYCHA was ‘building . . . for
people of many income groups. This is not socialism. We see here progressive government working with
progressive private capital’ (see Fig. 4.2).35
How did this paradoxical achievement come about? First came the fundamentals of Moses’ power base. In
the mid-1940s, he had helped bulldoze through the limited-profit projects of the life insurance companies,
such as Stuyvesant Town, in his capacity as parks commissioner.36 Now, he exploited the oligarchic character
of the US housing-authority formula, comprising a small arm’s-length board under strong municipal influence,
rather than a directly-elected municipal committee, as with Britain’s council housing. This personalized,
oligarchic housing-cum-planning system had few counterparts in other developed countries – other than,
perhaps, in Lee Kuan Yew’s Singapore. During the mid-1940s, exploiting the ‘Tammany Hall’ municipal
patronage system, and the wartime slump in housing production, Moses forged alliances with mayors William
O’Dwyer and Vincent Impelliteri, and secured the three key posts of chairman of the emergency committee
on housing, city coordinator of construction and chairman of the mayor’s committee on slum clearance.
Moses and O’Dwyer established dominance over the small NYCHA board, muzzling opposition from the city
board of estimates. A second, equally vital power base was financial: Moses constructed an extensive network
of alliances with banks, which allowed him to concoct ingenious financial support schemes, including the
issuing of city bonds in parallel with federal and state subsidies.37
The first element in Moses’ housing strategy was the mainstream public-rental programme, which he
personally controlled throughout the late 1940s and 1950s, selecting and signing off all sites in close
coordination with slum-clearance decanting. Initially, under Chairman Gerard Swope (from 1939), NYCHA’s
aim had been to minimize federal funding and avoid a lowest-common-denominator approach, while
maintaining the slum-clearance link. By 1942, twelve projects were already complete and in 1944, Fort Greene,

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A B

C D
Fig. 4.2 (a): Meeting of New York City Housing Authority, illustrated in the 1950 NYCHA Annual Report. From left to
right: Frank R. Crosswaith (member), Fannie S. Glaser (Recording Secretary), John S. Parke (Vice-Chairman), Harold
Klorfein (Secretary), Philip J. Cruise (Chairman), Gerald J. Carey (Executive Director), W. M. Wilson (member), Thomas
J. Shanahan (member). Framed perspectives of projects completed 1950–1: Albany Houses I, Brooklyn (left); Sedgwick
Houses, The Bronx (right); model on table, Parkside Houses, The Bronx. (b, c): Illustrations from the 1952 NYCHA
Annual Report highlighting the link between slum redevelopment and public housing. (d): Illustration from the 1950
NYCHA Annual Report showing the three-stage redevelopment programme of the Governor Smith Houses, Manhattan,
with Section 1 (1948–50, 1,140 flats) being used to decant the site of the second phase, completed in 1952.

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the first New York State-funded project and the USA’s largest public housing scheme, was completed, including
thirty-nine buildings and 3,500 apartments. The city’s own independently-funded public housing and slum-
clearance programme, presaged pre-war with First Houses and recommenced at Vladeck City Houses in 1940,
took a leap forward in 1947–8, with the City Part III programme of fifteen projects to house 60,000 inhabitants,
financed by a local telephone tax, together with an ingenious ‘no-cash subsidy’ scheme for higher-rental
construction, devised by Moses. Aided by Moses’ vigorous use of his slum-clearance powers to generate large
sites, output soared: 43,500 flats were built in 1950–5, and in Manhattan alone, 30,680 public housing
apartments were built in the 1947–59 period of Moses’ hegemony; by 1961 the Housing Authority had
completed 110,000 apartments, and 38,500 more were in the pipeline.38
But the architecture and construction of New York’s public housing also played a key role in this output
triumph. For without any suggestion of system-building or prefabrication, the programme was converted into
a veritable housing factory by the simple expedients – rooted in the US building-efficiency ethos – of highly-
standardized organization, efficient block-planning and avoidance of individualistic tweaking.39 Despite
Moses’ rhetoric, this programme demanded planning of a high order, especially in complicated slum-clearance
regeneration zones like the Lower East Side, where staged redevelopment and decanting (labelled ‘sectional
construction’) was a key principle: for example, in the state-funded Governor Smith Houses of 1948–52, the
first phase accommodated the displaced tenants from the site of the second phase.40
Building on the 1937–40 precedent of the Queensbridge Houses, with its innovative interlocking trident-
plan network of six-storey blocks, and the pioneering high-rise East River Houses (1940–2, with linked
cruciform patterns of six-, ten- and eleven-storey blocks), several key design principles were introduced by
Richard Rosenthal, NYCHA’s director of design, and rigidly maintained, irrespective of funding body or rent
level. Firstly, there was utmost economy in the use of lifts, in conjunction with deep plans and internal
corridors. Secondly, there was simple reinforced concrete frame construction, clad all over with plain red
Hudson River Valley brick. Thirdly, equal air and light were provided to each apartment. The result was a
utilitarian, and yet oddly distinctive, pattern of tall blocks, resembling European developments in its ‘tower-in-
a-park’ ensembles and low site coverage, but diverging sharply from them in its planning. The buildings,
contrary to conventional Zeilenbau uniformity, typically featured somewhat exaggerated geometrical plans –
the so-called ‘alphabet’ towers in the shape of an X, T, Y or asterisk. And the drive to maximize use of each site
prompted extreme irregularity in layout, with ‘standard’ blocks planted facing this way and that. Typical of the
asterisk plan-type was the state-aided Farragut Houses project (1949–52), whose fourteen-storey towers
sprouted five wings, yielding ten apartments on each floor (see Fig. 4.3). By around 1949, however, the alphabet
towers were already being supplanted on cost grounds by in-line slabs with internal double-banked corridors,
and storey heights were creeping up towards flat-slab construction’s supposed economic maximum of twenty-
one storeys. This progression is traceable in successive 1940s–1950s developments in the Lower East Side. The
Jacob Riis Houses and the Lilian Wald Houses, both completed 1949, featured towers of up to thirteen or
fourteen storeys, with 20% site coverage and 240 ppa net density. The nearby Baruch Houses (1953–9), a
$37 million federally-aided project, featured 2,200 flats in seventeen fourteen-storey cranked slabs, distributed
at all angles across the 27-acre site: these, NYCHA argued, provided ‘an interesting variation on the X, T, Y, or
ribbon, used in other projects’ (see Fig. 4.4).41
In cases like this, the problematic concept of diffusion of modern architecture is highlighted. Conceivably,
NYCHA’s shift from towers to slabs may indirectly have reflected the ‘canonical modernist’ shift from Ville
Radieuse-style towers to the Marseille Unité slab. Yet, arguably, that relationship was so oblique as to be almost
meaningless; what was far stronger was the overriding effect of local conditions and local cumulative policy
evolution. One effect of those conditions, especially the effect of high land costs in compelling multi-storey
construction in the city, was to counteract the supposed American national preference for single-family

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A B

C D
Fig. 4.3 (a, b, c, d): The ‘asterisk plan’ fourteen-storey towers of Farragut Houses, Brooklyn, 1949–52, a New York State-
funded NYCHA rental project designed by Fellheimer, Wagner and Vollmer: external view showing Hudson River brick
cladding, site plan, block floor plan and curving ground floor internal corridor (MG 2016).

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A B

C D

E F
Fig. 4.4 (a): Gun Hill Houses, The Bronx, a city-funded scheme of 1948–50, architects Alfred Hopkins & Associates: six
fourteen-storey blocks with ‘in-line’ plan (linear-plan double-loaded internal corridors). (b): James Weldon Johnson Houses,
East Harlem, Manhattan: a 1,310-flat New York State-funded NYCHA development of cruciform towers up to fourteen
storeys, 1945–8, designed by Julian Whittlesey, Harry M. Prince and Robert J. Riley (MG 2016). (c, d, e): NYCHA’s Baruch
Houses, Manhattan, 1953–9, a federally-funded project of seventeen irregularly-aligned fourteen-storey slabs, designed by
Emery Roth & Sons: site plan and 2016 views (MG), showing scattered block disposition and double-banked ‘in-line’ internal
arrangement. (f): NYCHA’s Brownsville Houses, Brooklyn, a New York State-funded project completed in 1948, by architect
Frederick G. Frost: thirty-three three- and six-storey blocks aligned at 45% to the existing street grid (MG 2016).

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dwellings and abhorrence of high density.42 Although the architectural profession voiced growing criticism of
the projects’ utilitarian designs, with the AIA condemning the ‘grimness’ and ‘barren and barracks-like design’
of contemporary Housing Authority work,43 NYCHA vigorously denied that its projects risked becoming
‘slums of the future’, while contending it was better to provide ‘good housing for many rather than ideal housing
for a few’ – arguments that, as we will see in chapter 9, would soon be echoed by Soviet leader Nikita
Khrushchev.44 Criticisms of high-density flats were undermined not only by the long history of middle-class
apartment living in New York, but also by the increasing confidence and scale of the city’s postwar private
apartment developments, especially after a 1961 zoning resolution encouraged large, modernist-style planned
schemes, such as the 5,000-unit Lefrak City of 1962–7, with its twenty cruciform seventeen-storey blocks.45
But the Housing Authority’s mainstream public rental housing was far from the totality of mass social
housing in New York City – or of Moses’ machinations and achievements during the 1940s and 1950s. Almost
as prominent were the many government-controlled private-participation programmes that flourished in
those years – resulting in projects of often greater scale and ambition than regular public housing. The wartime
and postwar limited-dividend operations of the life insurance societies provided the foundation for this work,
with the New York Life Insurance Company (NYLIC ) and Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (MLIC)
pursuing contrasting layout and density patterns in two suburban projects. The NYLIC pioneered a distinctive,
moderate-density formula in its Fresh Meadows project (1946–9), whose 3,000 flats were spread out at
seventeen dwellings per acre, mainly in two- and three-storey blocks with two thirteen-storey landmark slabs.
The MLIC’s Parkchester, by contrast, was a monumental ‘city within a city’, implanted in the suburban sprawl
of the north-east Bronx and built in 1939–43. Its 12,272 flats housed 40,000 inhabitants at an average rent of
$14 per month (less than 20% of an average middle income), in a fortress-like network of twelve-storey brick-
clad blocks featuring quirkish gargoyles and sculptured details, many the work of Joseph Kiselewski, and laid
out on a symmetrical splayed plan at 340ppa (see Fig. 4.5).46
Parkchester’s first tenants had taken up residence in 1940, but already Moses was negotiating a denser
urban redevelopment follow-up at MLIC’s Stuyvesant Town, on the Lower East Side. Completed in 1947, this
provided for the ‘rehabilitation’ (redevelopment) of eighteen city blocks on a panopticon-like layout at 393ppa
with 8,755 apartments in thirteen-storey slabs (totalling 110 buildings in Stuyvesant Town and the adjacent
Peter Cooper Village); despite the project’s dense appearance, site coverage was only 25%. Under the deal
reached with Metropolitan Life, the city used its power of slum-condemnation in exchange for tax and profit
concessions.47 But any further limited-dividend progress was undermined by controversy over racist letting
policies: as late as 1960, over 99% of Stuyvesant Town, Peter Cooper and Parkchester tenants were white,
although MLIC had also built a smaller, all-black development at Riverton (1,200 dwellings, 1944). In 1945,
New York City Council passed an anti-discrimination law, which veteran housing commentator Lewis Pink
predicted ‘will mark the death knell of slum-clearance by private enterprise’.48
Overall, by 1949, some 16,749 limited-dividend flats had been built since 1945, and significant developments
were subsequently commenced, such as the Equitable Life Insurance Society’s Fordham Hill Apartments
(1949–50), a 1,118-dwelling rental development of nine sixteen-storey towers, aligned in typically randomized
manner.49 But now the initiative was taken over by Title I of the T–E–W Act, which Moses embraced eagerly
as a more effective way of yoking federal support to private-led urban development, as ‘our big cities must be
rebuilt, not abandoned’. In New York, Title I became a radically modernized version of the old city-improvement
clearance formula of nineteenth-century Europe and the colonies, but unlike the nineteenth century, displaced
slum-dwellers were not simply left to fend for themselves. During the 1950s, Moses’ slum-clearance committee
authorized clearance of 314 acres and demolition of 26,000 dwellings, and replaced them with thirty-two
middle-income projects comprising 28,400 apartments, paired with public-housing projects to rehouse the
displacees. This was radically different from general-needs public housing: as Moses explained, ‘Title I was

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A BB

C D
C D

E
Fig. 4.5 (a) The NYLIC’s Fresh Meadows project, Queens, 1946–9, by Voorhees, Walker, Foley & Smith, showing one of
the two thirteen-storey focal towers and the low-rise flats around (MG 2016). (b, c, d): Parkchester, The Bronx, an MLIC
development of over 12,000 affordable-rental flats built in 1939–43 (chief architect Richmond H. Shreve): aerial view from
east, street view, and detail of one of the over 500 quirky terracotta sculptures supplied by the Federal Seaboard Terra Cotta
Corporation (many by sculptor Joseph Kiselewski) (MG 2016). (e): MLIC’s Stuyvesant Town, Manhattan, 1943–9
(coordinating architect, Gilmore D. Clark): external view from east (MG 2016).

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never designed to provide housing for people of low income . . . Title I aimed solely at the elimination of the
slums and substandard areas.’50 The programme was facilitated by an idiosyncratic New York version of the
standard Title I procedures set out in the T–E–W Act. Officially, a city housing authority should draw up a
development plan, relocate the residents and clear the site, and only then invite proposals from developers. In
New York City, the actual procedure was the opposite. First, Moses would personally select the developer and
draw up the redevelopment plan with him, using his power as a gatekeeper for the federal two-thirds write-
down funding to make possible the assembly of viable sites. Then the developer would manage both the
relocation and demolition and the building development phases. Typical Title 1 New York City developments
maintained the ‘towers-in-a-park’ formula.51
By the late 1950s, however, the radical clearances were provoking increasing opposition, especially from
resident groups outraged by the heavy-handed tactics: a 1958 counter-plan for West Side renewal stressed
participation and rehabilitation. At the same time, accusations of corruption swirled around land purchases
for Title I slum-clearance. Colourful exposés of involvement with ‘hoodlums’, and controversial figures like
banker and Democratic fund-raiser Thomas J. Shanahan, significantly discredited the New York Title I
programme by the late 1950s. Projects were also dogged by labyrinthine funding and administrative hurdles,
as with the lengthy gestation of the Chatham Towers redevelopment in Park Row, a non-profit cooperative
Title I scheme finally built in 1965. But by then, ringing the changes, Moses had alighted on a further, less
controversial means to the same end, in a state-only programme free from complex federal regulations – the
‘Mitchell-Lama’ programme of limited-dividend, limited-rental housing, introduced in 1955. This directly-
funded, New York State programme, with separate state and city funding streams, allowed local housing
authorities to acquire land by eminent domain and pass it on to developers, together with low-interest
mortgages covering up to 90% of project cost and property tax exemptions. Developer profits were capped at
6% of investment; from 1957, co-ops were also allowed. Title I and Mitchell-Lama frequently combined forces
in individual projects, with Title I providing the land and Mitchell-Lama the development finance. The
Mitchell-Lama programme was extraordinarily effective, and generated some 273 developments and nearly
140,000 dwellings in New York City alone, especially in the Bronx but also in Queens and Brooklyn. Here, in
contrast to the ‘housing factory’ of 1940s public housing, every development was unique, with individually-
negotiated funding arrangements administered either by NYCHA (whose staff now reached an unprecedented
8,000) or the New York State Division of Housing.52 Typical of the tenure-neutral approach was the 3,700-unit
Trump Village development of 1964 on Coney Island, containing low-cost co-op and rental apartments in
seven twenty-three-storey towers, hailed by developer Fred Trump as a ‘miracle mile of luxury housing’.53
Moses had personally introduced the Mitchell-Lama programme in the city in 1955; but only four years
later, his New York housing empire was under siege. Mayor Robert Wagner curbed his dominance of NYCHA
in a 1958 reorganization; the following year he lost his slum clearance chair; and between 1962 and 1968 he
was finally manoeuvred by Governor Nelson Rockefeller out of his remaining chairmanships. Just before that,
Moses ventured a final, flamboyant gesture, embarking on a giant Mitchell-Lama partnership with the United
Housing Foundation, a workers’ cooperative building society established in 1951 by several trade unions with
philanthropic developer Abraham Kazan; the UHF acted as general contractor on its own sites, with architect
Herman J. Jessor providing designs. This partnership generated 23,000 state-funded Mitchell-Lama apartments
in the 1960s in three tower-in-park projects. These began with the 5,800-dwelling Rochdale Village of 1960–3,
a pioneering integrated-community development, and culminated in the colossal Co-op City project of 1965–
72, a five-stage development on a 320-acre landfill site, comprising 15,382 apartments in thirty-five cruciform
blocks of twenty-four to thirty-five storeys, together with a handful of low-rise town-houses for higher-income
families: the overall ground-coverage was only 20%. Three basic high-rise block-plans were used: the so-
called ‘triple core’, ‘chevron’ and ‘tower’ types. Construction was conventional reinforced-concrete-frame

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slab-and-beam, clad in standard New York State red brick: nothing novel, but incrementally-developed since
the 1950s to allow much higher towers. The project was funded by a $261 million mortgage at 5.2% interest,
granted by the New York State Housing Finance Agency to the UHF, covering 90% of the contract cost,
augmented by a thirty-year, 50% city tax abatement. The 50,000, mainly Jewish, residents covered the remaining
10% themselves through co-op equity contributions.54 Despite Governor Rockefeller’s growing tensions with
Moses, he strongly supported the bold social vision of the Co-op City project, with its cooperative ethos and
community facilities, and the two of them cut the first sod together in 1966 (see Fig. 4.6).55
By 1970, Co-op City was attracting architectural controversy, with accusations of ‘sterile’ barrenness and
‘environmental failure’ from Ada Louise Huxtable. Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi more thoughtfully
pondered that there was ‘no body of evidence linking social pathology with bleak or beautiful architecture’,
and that ‘Co-op City is not “hideous” or “sterile” but “conventional” and “ordinary”, and these are good, or
potentially good, qualities’. In their view, the UHF’s ethos had ‘an air of New Deal idealism, a little shaken but
resolved and more successful than some new ideas. Perhaps we have seen the past, and it works.’56
But now, with the halting of the Moses juggernaut, mass social housing in New York was in full retreat. By
the early 1960s, over 30% of new NYCHA sites were ‘vest-pocket’ gap-sites, and by 1966, a ‘scattered-site’

A B

C D
Fig. 4.6 (a): The nine sixteen-storey towers of the Equitable Life Insurance Society’s Fordham Hill Co-operative
Apartments, The Bronx, 1949: Leonard Schultze & Associates, architects (MG 2016). (b): Co-op City, The Bronx, New York
City, a giant 15,382-apartment development by the United Housing Foundation (architect Herman J. Jessor): ground-
breaking ceremony in 1966. Front row of adults, second from left Robert Moses, fifth from left Governor Nelson Rockefeller.
(c, d): Co-op City, aerial view from north-east and external view of southern section (MG 2016).

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programme was underway. The accession of the reformist Republican mayor, John V. Lindsay, in 1966 coincided
with a diversity of conflicting pressures. Firstly, there was pressure for higher output: following a highly-
publicized 1962 visit by President Kennedy, targets were stepped up to 100,000 low-income and 40,000 middle-
income dwellings – a strategy for which Lindsay established a city housing and development agency in 1966,
with Edward Logue as ‘czar’. Secondly, there was pressure for rehabilitation and participation, and against
blanket demolition, following Jane Jacobs’s 1961 battle to ‘save’ the West Village from redevelopment. Thirdly,
full racial integration in all new developments was demanded. And fourthly, more site-sensitive, diversified
designs were promoted: in Lindsay’s words, ‘Public housing should not be a reminder of how grim life is, but
how rich.’ The result of this confusion was predictable: a collapse in output, with public housing completions in
the six years 1965–70 totalling a mere 6,000, compared to 43,406 in 1950–5. A further attempt at revival, via
‘turn-key’ projects delegated to private developers (under a 1965 Housing Act), proved equally problematic.
From the sidelines, Moses acidly commented in 1970 that ‘the need is for the surgeon followed by the bulldozer’,
but the response was merely an avalanche of city reports, culminating in George Sternlieb’s massive 1970 study,
The Urban Housing Dilemma, and the establishment of a range of new organizations, including a New York
State Urban Development Corporation, in 1968, and a Housing Development Corporation, in 1971.57
Perhaps predictably, New York’s output decline coincided with burgeoning architectural creativity. This
short-lived revolution in subsidized housing design began with the Riverbend Houses, Harlem (1963–8), a
624-dwelling Mitchell-Lama project designed by architects Davis Brody & Associates, comprising two tall
towers with unusually high site coverage (39%), intended for subsidized purchase by middle-class blacks.
Then followed the Waterside development, a combined Mitchell-Lama and federal development of two
soaring, sculpturally-notched towers, completed in 1974, also by Davis Brody; and the UDC/NYCHA-
sponsored Tremont and Twin Parks renewal of 1966–76 in the Bronx, a fiendishly complex scheme of
contextual new-build and rehab interventions on twenty separate scattered sites.58 Boldest of all was Roosevelt
Island – a UDC attempt, masterplanned by Philip Johnson in 1969, to use cluster and spine planning to create
a high-density architectural community on Welfare Island, through a combination of craggy eight- to ten-
storey linear development with twenty-storey outcrops; drastically curtailed by financial problems, it was only
partly completed in 1976. Implicit in these complex designs was a sharp reaction against the standardized
blocks of earlier public housing: Lewis Davis (of Davis Brody) argued that the word ‘project’ should be banned,
as it conjured up a ‘hideous vision of drab brick slabs’ (see Fig. 4.7).59

Local trajectories of renewal and decline

Mass housing in New York City showed a remarkable resilience, owing to its broad-based, multi-programme
character, embracing both lower- and middle-income groups; but the micro-ecologies of other US cities could
not have been more different, or more diverse; the housing-authority structure established in the 1930s
encouraged the development of intense localism. In other cities, the social housing sector was dominated by
straightforward public rental housing, linked to slum clearance, and the overall trajectory was of short-lived
hope and activity in the late 1940s, followed by the curtailment of mainstream building and attempted
reinventions of the programme around the new mission of elderly persons’ apartments. In most large cities,
the sudden rise in the black population around World War II, coupled with the late 1940s expulsions of better-
off tenants, rapidly converted many public-housing slum-clearance projects into a ‘new ghetto’.60 But the pace
of transition varied markedly in different places.
Unlike the sense of common purpose between the city and state agencies involved in New York, inter-
organizational relationships elsewhere were often fraught with institutional and ideological tensions. In some

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A B

D E
Fig. 4.7 (a): Riverbend Houses, Harlem, 1963–8, a Mitchell-Lama project for subsidized purchase by middle-class black
residents, designed by Davis, Brody & Associates (MG 2016). (b): Waterside, Manhattan: a Mitchell-Lama and federal
development, completed 1974, by Davis, Brody & Associates (MG 2016). (c): Valentine Apartments, Twin Parks, The
Bronx, designed by Giovanni Pasanella & Associates and completed in 1973: part of a twenty-site piecemeal urban renewal
project (MG 1982). (d): Keith Plaza, Twin Parks, The Bronx, New York City, designed by Pasanella & Associates and
completed in 1975 (MG 2016). (e): The UDC’s Roosevelt Island complex, a cluster-spine development partially built in
1969–76 (MG 2016).

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instances, the mainstream programme had already effectively ended by the mid-1950s; probably the most
dramatic case was Detroit, where a programme of twelve projects was abandoned following a 1949 mayoral
election (cf. Fig. 17.1b). Elsewhere, decisive swings against public housing more typically occurred in the
course of the 1950s. In Boston, the city’s postwar public housing programme comprised undramatic brick
low-rise Zeilenbau apartment blocks, with the significant exception of the theatrically-stepped, thirteen-
storey cruciform Cathedral project, designed by architect H. F. Kellogg and built in 1949–50 by contractor
M. S. Kelliher. The Boston Housing Authority’s (BHA) last ‘family project’, Columbia Point, was completed in
1954, after which the Authority rapidly refocused construction on elderly housing, and the city council’s
development interest shifted to urban renewal. In Los Angeles, the chronology was similar, but passions were
more extreme: following a 110% increase in the black population in 1940–3, and the onset of the Red Scare,
the early 1950s saw a bitter ‘public-housing war’ over whether the city council should cancel a 100,000-unit,
low-rise programme of Title III public housing, already authorized and allocated funding by the federal
government, and backed by the city Housing Authority. In 1953, a mayoral election campaign settled the issue,
and City Ordinance 101,993 officially ended the contract and repudiated its federal funding.61
Surprisingly, in some relatively conservative, low-density cities, significant programmes flourished into the
1950s and beyond, such as in Dallas, Texas, where 6,500 public-housing units were built until 1965.62 Even in
Phoenix, Arizona, the Phoenix Housing Authority completed ten projects, containing 1,604 units, between
1941 and 1963, beginning with single-storey superblock courtyards and progressing to denser, two-storey
developments, financing its operations by sale of temporary loan notes, in defiance of opposition from the
conservative-dominated city council – a case of American public housing at its most remote from British
‘council housing’. In other cases, initially dramatic progress was made, before sudden decline set in. In depressed
St Louis, where veteran city-planner Harland Bartholomew had established precocious, but distinctly
segregationist, systems of zoning, eminent domain and urban renewal in the 1930s. A bold postwar attempt
was made to directly import the New York experience by a new mayor, Joseph M. Darst. Infatuated by
Manhattan, and following a visit hosted by O’Dwyer in 1949, Darst devised a bold strategy of using public
housing in tall Zeilenbau slabs as a direct vehicle of urban renewal, and to attract middle-class whites to move
back into the city. He pushed through a succession of New York-inspired, ‘racially-balanced’ redevelopments,
including the all-white Cochran Gardens (1949).63
The St Louis Housing Authority’s multi-storey programme continued until 1961. Its chief set piece was the
vast redevelopment of the decayed DeSoto-Carr district, planned from 1950 by architect Minoru Yamasaki
and completed in 1956: the Wendell Oliver Pruitt Homes and the William L Igoe Apartments (or, for short,
‘Pruitt-Igoe’). Unlike the irregular layouts of New York schemes such as Baruch Houses, Pruitt-Igoe’s thirty-
three eleven-storey slabs, containing 2,870 flats, were arranged in a relentlessly parallel pattern; internally,
‘skip-stop’ lifts and gallery access incorporating internal children’s play spaces were included, but its
construction was hobbled by drastic economies (owing to inflated local building costs). The Pruitt-Igoe
project was fervently welcomed by the first tenants, despite the failure of the ‘racially balanced’ concept, but
their satisfaction was short-lived. Lacking the driving forces of New York’s high land cost, buoyant demographic
demand and efficient city agencies, the twin projects entered a catastrophic financial and physical vicious
circle, fuelled by declining tenant income, deferred maintenance and soaring vacancies.64 Despite a $5 million,
federally-funded attempt at rehabilitation in 1965, the entire ensemble was eventually demolished, starting
with three blocks in 1972 and ending with the remaining thirty in 1975. Especially notorious in architectural
circles through its showcasing in Charles Jencks’s Post-Modern Architecture as an example of the ‘failure of
modern architecture’, the Pruitt-Igoe story should instead be seen as an egregious example of the political-
organizational fragility of the T–E–W Title III mainstream public housing programme, especially in cities
with rapidly falling populations (see Fig. 4.8).65

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A B

C D

E F
Fig. 4.8 (a, b): The South End/Cathedral housing project, Boston, 1950–1, the first of the BHA’s postwar federally-
assisted developments: a 508-dwelling slum-clearance project with a cruciform thirteen-storey centrepiece (MG 2016).
(c, d): The St Louis Housing Authority’s Wendell Oliver Pruitt Homes and William L. Igoe Apartments (‘Pruitt-Igoe’), St
Louis – a redevelopment of the DeSoto-Carr slum district, comprising 2,870 flats in thirty-three eleven-storey gallery-
access slabs, conceived by Mayor Joseph M. Darst, planned from 1950 by architect Minoru Yamasaki, completed in 1956
and famously demolished in 1972–5: oblique and vertical aerial views, 1956. (e, f): McCulloh Homes and Extension,
Baltimore: an original Baltimore Housing Authority low-rise scheme of 1940–1 (featuring Henry Barge’s cast-concrete
sculptures ‘Recreation’ and ‘Education’, replaced in replica in 2013); the project was extended in 1971 with one fifteen-
storey and one sixteen-storey block built under a ‘turnkey’ contract with Neumayer & Feutz (MG 2016).

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 Housing by Authority: Postwar State Interventions in the ‘Anglosphere’

In Baltimore, too, public housing received a massive initial fillip from a ‘go-ahead’ Democratic mayor,
Thomas L. J. D’Alesandro Jr (1947–59); his hobby horse was not so much the general cause of modernization,
as in St Louis, but a ‘crusade’ against the city’s large stock of dilapidated row-houses. Following commencement
of an initial Baltimore Housing Authority programme of 4,500 dwellings in 1945, on four large sites, Mayor
D’Alesandro inaugurated the main slum-clearance drive in December 1952 by personally commencing
demolition on the site of the Housing Authority’s first tower project, the eleven-storey Lafayette Courts,
opened in 1955. In 1952, too, he announced a pilot rehabilitation programme, the ‘Baltimore Plan’, and by 1956
the city’s urban renewal board reported 45% of its dwellings would have to be cleared or rehabilitated within
twenty years: eventually, the Housing Authority owned a stock of over 18,000 dwellings.66
The two largest public housing programmes outside New York were those of Philadelphia and Chicago.67
These contrasted strikingly in detail, although the eventual outcomes were similar, with both programmes
gradually dragged down by racial and local political pressures. Philadelphia’s image of itself as a ‘City of Homes’
ensured that the City Council obstructed public-housing proposals from the start: the anti-New Deal
Republican mayor (from 1939), Robert Lamberton, insisted that ‘the homeowner is the backbone of our
people’, and the Philadelphia Housing Authority and the city council, as in Phoenix, were initially at daggers
drawn. In 1941, the Authority built the city’s first large public-housing project, the three–four-storey,
1,324-dwelling Allen Homes, but the sharp postwar decline in traditional employment and 50% rise in the
city’s black population in the 1940s created similar policies of decline and stigmatization to elsewhere, with
the Allen Homes shifting within a few years from skilled working-class white to low-income black occupancy.68
However, following the election of reformist Democratic Mayor Joseph S. Clark in 1951, the 1950s saw a
notable fightback in Philadelphia by mass-housing advocates, both in planning strategy and in architecture,
where many high-rise developments, such as the 886-dwelling Southwark Plaza (1963), combined sculptural
concrete architecture with a restive ghetto-style population. The Housing Authority initiated a large-scale
multi-storey programme in 1951, envisaging it in socially-inclusive terms as a battering ram against racial
segregation, but after William Rafsky became council ‘housing coordinator’ in 1954, and drew up two years
later a programme of 2,850 public housing dwellings to be built on scattered sites in largely white
neighbourhoods, local resident protests erupted – and the programme was duly retargeted on low-amenity
sites in existing black ghetto areas. Eventually, some 6,000 public housing units were built between 1953 and
1961, 77% of them multi-storey, and two-thirds occupied from the beginning by black tenants (see Fig. 4.9).69
Rather as in New York, Philadelphia’s public housing programme was chiefly an adjunct to a vigorous
programme of redevelopment. However, urban renewal was here tied to an explicitly planning-dominated
philosophy, promoted by a municipal coalition, the Citizens’ Council on City Planning (CCCP); from 1947,
Ed Bacon and the Philadelphia Planning Commission mounted a unique ‘shelter-orientated’ redevelopment
programme, aiming, unlike the Moses bulldozer, to tackle blight ‘with penicillin, not surgery’. Exploiting Title
I funds, Philadelphia launched in the 1950s a vigorous and architecturally complex urban-renewal programme
in the areas of East Poplar, Mill Creek and South West Temple. But the eventual drying-up of Title I funds led
Philadelphia, like other cities, into a vicious circle of financial, social, ethnic and physical decline, with a
tendency from the late 1950s to blame social and management difficulties on the high-rise building-form.70
In Chicago, the controversies and pathological dramas of US public housing were at their most exaggerated.
Here, racial-demographic and site-selection crises flared earlier than Philadelphia, with the main site-selection
dispute climaxing in 1948–9 rather than 1956. Under the direction of Elizabeth Wood and its African American
chairman, Robert Taylor (1943–50), the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) responded to the 80% wartime
rise in the city’s black population by adopting in 1946–7 an assertively integrationist development policy. The
CHA began high building early, its first multi-storey development being the cruciform-plan Dearborn Homes
(1950), evoking CIAM modernism in its open, park setting. In reaction, local white extremists, most from

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A B

C D
Fig. 4.9 (a): Racial distribution map of Philadelphia, 1950–70, highlighting the effects of the 1956 policy shift away from
Rafsky’s proposed ‘scattered sites’ white areas (shown by white triangles) to projects actually built in black ghetto and
‘transitional’ areas. (b): Wilson Park, Philadelphia, a Philadelphia Housing Authority project of four eight-storey towers
and low blocks, opened in 1954 as an ‘all-white’ complex, but 60% black-inhabited by 1966 (MG 2016). (c): Westpark
Apartments, Philadelphia, a 381-flat Housing Authority project of three nineteen-storey towers, built 1961–3 for all-black
occupancy (MG 2016). (d): Southwark Plaza, Philadelphia, an 886-dwelling Housing Authority redevelopment of a four-
block slum pocket in 1963, with three twenty-five-storey towers (two since demolished) and low-rise housing by architects
Oscar Storonov and J. Frank Haws (MG 2016).

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Catholic immigrant backgrounds, staged a guerrilla-warfare campaign aimed at keeping black residents out of
public-housing projects. Their protests included a fully-fledged riot at the Airport Houses project in 1946 and
in the suburban municipality of Cicero in 1951 (where a mob of several thousand besieged a black family). In
1948, alarmed by the growing furore, Mayor Martin Kennerly intervened to curb the CHA’s explicitly
desegregationist site selections, by weeding-out ‘white’ sites – a process culminating in the 1951 ‘Duffy-
Lancaster’ compromise programme of 10,500 slum-clearance units. By 1952, Elizabeth Wood claimed that the
CHA had become a ‘captive authority’ whose opponents ‘have won hands down’. She stubbornly opposed
building of multi-storey apartments for families with children, reluctantly conceding the conversion of the
Cabrini-Green row-housing project into fifteen medium-rise slabs (completed in 1958). In 1954, she was
dismissed from her post, with fresh race riots in Trumbull Park used as the pretext. Thereafter the high-rise
proportion of CHA’s programme surged to 95% between 1957 and 1968 – mostly at densities of below fifty
dwellings per acre – and the percentage of black tenants rose to 65% in 1955 and 85% in 1969. Eight further
fifteen- to sixteen-storey slab blocks opened at Cabrini-Green in 1962, taking the latter to 3,609 dwellings –
not a gigantic total in the global context of mass housing, but significant in a North American context.71
The CHA’s pre-stigmatized ‘new ghetto’ programme culminated in a project named, ironically, after its
chairman: the Robert Taylor Homes of 1960–3, a 4,415-dwelling scheme, incorrectly hailed by local
commentators as ‘the largest public-housing project in the world’, and comprising twenty-eight identical
sixteen-storey slab blocks, distributed along an extensive strip of land on Chicago’s South Side. Completed by
contractors Newberg Construction Company in three years at a cost of $70 million, the development featured
an overall ground coverage of only 7%, and slab blocks economically accessed not by internal corridors but
from external galleries. As with the earlier Pruitt/Igoe projects in St Louis, the rush of new dwellings on this
large scale, in combination with the usual financial and maintenance difficulties, led to letting problems from
the start. By 1965, Chicago Daily News reporter M. W. Newman was already bemoaning the degradation of the
project caused by ‘feckless’ extended family groupings, and another commentator labelled it ‘the $70,000,000
ghetto’.72 In calculated contrast to this uniformity, architect Bertrand Goldberg’s slightly later CHA Raymond
Hilliard Homes of 1965–6 provided 750 dwellings in a far more idiosyncratic form: two arc-shaped, twenty-
two-storey blocks of family flats and four circular sixteen-storey towers containing elderly apartments, with
‘organic’ fan-shaped plans and ovoid windows to give occupants ‘a sense of physical and psychological freedom’,
unlike the ‘ghetto boxes’ of the Taylor Homes: Goldberg had become convinced by anthropological and
sociological theories that urban black families were dominated by ‘matriarchal’ structures for which special
community provisions were necessary. At a 1963 press conference, the long-serving Democratic mayor,
Richard J. Daley, fancifully speculated that ‘these unusual buildings will attract retired artists, musicians and
others who might share their talents with the children of the adjoining buildings’ (see Fig. 4.10).73
The limited-profit sector in Chicago was slower to develop than in New York. Its focus was the Chicago
Dwellings Association, a non-profit city cooperative founded in 1948, whose first project, Midway Gardens,
completed in 1955, comprised a seventeen-storey block; by that date the CDA had in effect become the
middle-income arm of the CHA.74 The most ambitious limited-profit initiative was the urban-renewal
programme developed by the city’s Metropolitan Housing and Planning Council, with the aid of 1947 eminent-
domain powers to enlist private-enterprise help in urban renewal. This began with the ‘grand experiment’ of
the New York Life Insurance Company’s Lake Meadows Project, developed under a 1949 agreement between
the NYLIC and the Chicago Land Clearance Commission: the Commission assembled building land by
eminent domain and the NYLIC built the project under Title I provisions, around 10–15% of existing
inhabitants being offered rehousing. Targeted at middle-income blacks anxious to escape ghetto conditions,
the project was designed on mainstream CIAM open-plan lines, initially with five twelve-storey towers and a
shopping centre, with twenty-one-storey blocks added later. A. A. Bellamy, visiting Lake Meadows on his 1957

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study tour, commented that the vast spaces dwarfed the twelve-storey blocks, making them appear from a
distance only half their actual height.75 As in New York, public housing seemed ‘the central key to freeing land
for redevelopment by private enterprise’ – a role it would also play elsewhere, for example in Hong Kong. The
CHA’s Dearborn Homes project was by 1951 exclusively a decanting site for Lake Meadows.76
In the late 1950s, the CHA anticipated the national shift from family to elderly public rental dwellings,
constructing a prototype complex in 1959, the Lathrop Apartments; federal legislation preceded the CDA’s
Drexel Square project, completed in 1963. By 1976, CHA’s 39,637-dwelling stock was split 3:1 between family
and elderly units, and housed 4.5% of the city’s population – its largest landlord. New family projects
increasingly imitated ‘white middle-class suburban’ patterns, as with architect Stanley Tigerman’s low-rise
CHA Woodlawn Gardens (1968–9).77 Nationally, this reorientation of public housing from family to elderly
accommodation formed one response to the terminal crisis of the mainstream programme – a crisis that was
unintentionally accentuated by the ideals of equality promoted by the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.

A B

C D
Fig. 4.10 (a): Frances Cabrini Homes, Chicago, a wartime CHA row-house project of 1941–2, designed by Henry
Holsman and others, and later absorbed in the 1950s into a predominantly high-rise sequence of developments (MG
2016). (b, c): Robert Taylor Homes, Chicago, 1960–2: 1973 views of the 4,415-unit CHA rental development designed by
Shaw, Metz & Associates and built by Newberg Ltd. The twenty-eight identical sixteen-storey gallery-access U-plan slab
blocks, along a strip of land on the South Side, were by 1965 already labelled a ‘$70,000,000 ghetto’. (d): Lake Front Homes
(Lake Parc Place), Chicago, 1962–3: the two surviving fifteen-storey blocks of a six-tower 1962–3 development by CHA
(MG 2016).

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 Housing by Authority: Postwar State Interventions in the ‘Anglosphere’

E F

G
Fig. 4.10 (e): Raymond Hilliard Apartments, Chicago, 1965–6: architect Raymond Goldberg’s idiosyncratic CHA
development of two curved twenty-two-storey family blocks and four circular sixteen-storey towers of elderly apartments
– intended as a riposte to the ‘ghetto boxes’ of the Robert Taylor Homes (MG 2016). (f, g): Lake Meadows, Chicago, a ‘grand
experiment’ by NYLIC in large-scale tabula-rasa urban renewal on the Chicago South Side, from 1949 onwards, initially
with five twelve-storey towers: perspective of initial slab concept, and 2016 view of first phase (MG 2016).

Kennedy’s November 1962 Executive Order 1063 banned racial discrimination in federal-supported facilities,
including public housing, while under Johnson, Title VIII of the 1968 Civil Rights Act enforced local
desegregation by measures that included ending discrimination in the sale or rental of housing, arguing this
was ‘essential for social justice and social progress’. But the civil rights movement also made the task of building
and managing public housing more complex, especially with the onset of ‘black’ race riots (contrasting with
the ‘white’ riots of the 1940s and 1950s). Martin Luther King’s assassination in 1968, for instance, saw the
Cabrini-Green complex in Chicago explode with unprecedented fury. In 1960s Boston, where the degradation
of BHA projects was especially late and sudden, public housing projects also now became ‘the battleground
hospitals for the War on Poverty’.78 Among academics and commentators, these issues were debated
passionately: Daniel Moynihan’s 1965 book, The Negro Family, argued that black family cohesion had been
damaged by centuries-long oppression, but other writers blamed poverty for apparent social breakdown in the
projects. The late 1960s saw diversion of direct subsidies away from public rental production to tenant-
consumers of privately-built housing – a production–consumption shift that reduced public housing’s share
of directly-subsidized new housing units from 100% in 1965 to 4% in 1976–80.79

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The mid- and late 1960s saw an upsurge in revitalization strategies under President Lyndon Johnson, who
held lofty aspirations for urban regeneration: he argued in 1965, for example, that ‘the city is not an assembly
of shops and buildings, it is not a collection of goods and services; it is a community for the ennoblement of
the life of man. It is a place for the satisfaction of man’s most urgent needs and his higher aspirations.’.That year,
Johnson created a new Cabinet-level agency, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), as
‘an instrument for the advance of civilization’, appointing black civil servant Robert C. Weaver as its first
secretary in 1966 – itself a controversial anti-discrimination gesture. In 1966, Johnson’s Demonstration Cities
and Metropolitan Development Act trumpeted ‘a year of rebirth for American cities’, using surplus federal
land for accelerated urban renewal under a ‘New Town in Town’ programme. A follow-up 1968 Housing and
Urban Development Act was hailed by Johnson as ‘the Magna Carta to liberate American cities’. But all these
initiatives rapidly became bogged down in delays and obstruction, and proved largely ineffective (see
Fig. 4.11).80
The refocusing of mainstream public housing on the ‘welfare poor’ occurred in different cities at different
times – for example, in New York, as late as 1973. In many places the focus on elderly housing and special
projects for ethnic groups allowed a final Indian summer of public housing output, with 1970 completions
exceeding any year since 1951.81 In 1973, with HUD’s Operation Breakthrough (1969–73) revealed as
ineffective, the new and unsympathetic Republican president, Richard Nixon, called a halt, cutting off federal
subsidies to all new public-housing projects, using the argument that ‘this high-cost, no-result boondoggling
by the federal government must end’. From 1974, the entire system was reorientated from production to
consumption, under the so-called Section 8 programme of subsidies to tenants (whether private or public). By
the 1980s, the proportion of postwar social housing in the United States (3%) was far below equivalent
European countries (West Germany 15%, France 23%, UK 30%, Netherlands 43%).82 Eventually, from the
1990s, mass demolitions of mainstream public housing under the ‘HOPE VI’ programme would leave cities
like Chicago with almost no mainstream high-rise public-housing whatsoever (see chapter 16).

Canada: government intervention and the revival of renting

Postwar housing in Canada had significant similarities with its neighbour to the south, notably the widespread
consensus that private-enterprise single-family housing was the only natural, the only intrinsically ‘Canadian’,
way of organizing housing provision. For example, a 1957 letter to the Toronto Globe and Mail argued that the
Ontario municipal board’s advocacy of public housing was ‘preposterous, unjust and probably immoral’. By
the 1970s and 1980s, home-ownership was commonly referred to simply as a ‘Canadian tradition . . . thoroughly
Canadian’. Public housing remained even more of a minority phenomenon in Canada than in the USA, with
an all-time maximum of 205,000 units in 1988, half for elderly tenants: comprising only 2% of the national
housing stock, this was distributed between 4,800 projects, in other words with an average of fewer than forty
dwellings each. The public housing programme was generally abandoned in 1978.83
Yet the differences are equally significant. Home-ownership in Canada peaked far earlier than in the USA,
at 66% in 1950, and thereafter actually declined until the 1990s – as did the proportion of single-family houses
in the housing stock. Partly, this reflected the lack of tax support for homeownership.84 More crucial was the
role of private rental housing, whose reputation remained resolutely positive, unlike most Western countries,
and which underwent a massive postwar boom, accounting for over 40% of all new housing demand. This
rental building boom was fuelled by high production-side government assistance, as well as by a general
international property boom in the years 1965–75. In the developed world, Canada’s mid-twentieth-century
expansion was exceptional, including blistering wartime economic growth and a 69% population rise from

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A B

C
Fig. 4.11 (a): Illustration from NYCHA’s Journal, February/March 1989, featuring the Authority’s then chairman,
Emanuel Popolizio. (b, c): Charles L. Curran Court, Yonkers, NY: three-storey elderly housing of 1964–6, typical of the
later phases of US public housing; built by the Yonkers Municipal Housing Authority, with Burton S. Yolen & Associates
as architects (MG 2016).

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1950 to 1975. And among Western countries with high rental production, Canada peaked late, in the late 1960s
and early 1970s, along with France and the Netherlands.85
But this special rental orientation only developed well after World War II. The first postwar decade was
dominated by a strong home-ownership tide, the chief counter-trend being a limited public housing drive. In the
1935 and 1938 Dominion Housing Acts (see also chapter 2), although some provisions for rental housing support
were included, owner-occupation was the dominant target, with loans of up to 90% for small houses. The
imposition of rent controls in 1941–51 further weakened the market, leaving the advocates of private enterprise,
led by Deputy Finance Minister Clark, facing mounting calls for public housing.86 Exacerbated by growing
controversy over the accommodation of veterans in old barracks or temporary accommodation, the confrontation
rose to a climax at a July 1945 meeting at the Ministry of Finance, at which Clark narrowly headed off public
housing plans by reviving a pre-war proposal for a central mortgage bank to aid home-ownership.87
An overall national housing target had already been fixed in 1944 by Prime Minister Mackenzie King, who
demanded that over 750,000 houses should be built from 1945 to 1955, overwhelmingly in owner-occupation
form. As the federal government was reluctant to establish an executive housing ministry, a new Housing Act
created, in 1945, an arm’s-length national housing agency and mortgage bank, the Central Mortgage and
Housing Corporation (CMHC). Its first director (1946–54), David Mansur, argued that its key task was to
encourage private-enterprise involvement in ‘economic’ housing, and secured its transfer to the sponsorship
of the Ministry of Reconstruction. Further amendments introduced by the 1954 Housing Act allowed banks
to lend for housing purposes, with the CMHC providing public mortgage insurance. Housing starts more
than quadrupled between 1951 and 1955, and in Toronto the home-ownership level soared from 40% in 1941
to 60% in 1951. To support this strategy, Mansur’s CMHC engaged a large staff of planners, architects and
engineers, who developed model suburban layouts and house plans.88
Within this structure, a regular public housing programme stuttered into uncertain life. The 49,000 housing
units built in 1941–5 by the federal government’s Wartime Housing Ltd were all sold after 1949. After the war,
many key federal and provincial politicians still trenchantly opposed public housing: in 1947, Prime Minister
Louis St Laurent pledged that ‘no government of which I am a part will ever pass legislation for social housing’.
Nevertheless, a limited public rental housing programme was put together, with a 25%–75% provincial–federal
split in government loan support. The high entry hurdle of this system, covered by housing authorities through
debenture issues, deterred most cities outside the Toronto region from participating: by 1963, 98% of all
federal public-housing finance was channelled to Ontario. Overall, public housing in Canada followed the
same trajectory as in the USA, from relatively mainstream working-class dwellings to low-rent, slum-
clearance-orientated welfare housing – but with a time-lag of about twenty years and without the toxic
influence of racial and anti-Communist moral politics. The programme had heavy organizational and design
support from CMHC, whose architectural division planned most of the principal 1950s projects, including
Lawrence Heights and Regent Park South in Toronto, Habitations Jeanne-Mance in Montreal, Skeena Terrace
and Maclean Park in Vancouver, and Mulgrave Park in Halifax. By the late 1950s, however, only 12,000 public-
housing units had been built under the 1949 Act system of federal–provincial partnership (less than 1% of
overall housing output). In 1964, amendments to the National Housing Act, including provision for 90% direct
CNMC grants, and 10% contribution from the provinces, revitalized the programme, especially in Ontario,
where the government established the Ontario Housing Corporation in 1964 as a provincial public housing
authority. Eventually, by 1974, the national total of public-housing units would reach 115,000.89
However, public housing in Canada was more significant than these figures imply, for an indirect but vital
reason: that it supported the business model of the half-dozen large development corporations which built most
of the massive private rental projects of the 1950s to the 1970s. Their profits stemmed not only from their own
speculative land development, rental income and property appreciation, but also from contracts to build public

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housing. And although cheap CMHC 90% loans were available for limited-dividend rental and home-ownership
building, relatively few private-rental dwellings were generated this way: most development corporations derived
finance not from direct CMHC lending but from debenture issues and equity participation by lenders.90
Outside the urban mainstream, some Arctic Inuit areas also witnessed publicly-supported rental or home-
ownership programmes, as part of wider government development strategies. These included small, detached
CNMC ‘multiple houses’ built in Inuvik by the federal Department of Public Works in 1954–61 and by the
Northwest Territories Housing Corporation from 1974, or 2,559 prefabricated rental units built at Nunavik,
Québec, initially between 1959 and 1981 by the federal government and then in 1981–92 by the Québec
government’s housing agency, the Société d’habitation du Québec (SHQ).91

‘Big Daddy’ and mass housing in Metro Toronto

Among the strongest parallels between Canada and the US was the fact that Toronto and its region had a close
equivalent to Robert Moses, in the form of Frederick ‘Big Daddy’ Gardiner. This Conservative (anti-socialist)
lawyer became the first chairman (1953–6) of Metro Toronto, a confederative regional authority established to
coordinate the resources (including building land) of Toronto and its three neighbouring suburban
municipalities: North York, Scarborough and Etobicoke. Its responsibilities included planning permission for
housing in the region, whose population soared by 60% between 1950 and 1961. Like Moses, Gardiner was a
self-styled ‘supermayor’ and political entrepreneur, who worked not through formal bureaucracies but through
an informal oligarchic circle, with a tiny supporting office of three to four clerical staff. He also combined
contempt for ‘academic planners’ and for ‘planning as a substitute for action’, with a strong belief in targeted
state intervention on an empirical basis. Indeed, the inspiration was more direct than that, as the two exchanged
views personally on a 1953 visit by Moses to Toronto. When the latter asked Gardiner what he planned to ‘do
with’ the new Metro authority, ‘I said I was going to be like Stalin. I’d have a five or ten-year plan.’ Moses
retorted supportively, ‘Never mind those high-minded advisers. Keep your staff small. Don’t let them boss you
around.’ Gardiner commented later, ‘he didn’t have to convince me . . . That’s why they call me a bulldozer.’92
Unlike its US equivalents, Toronto’s dilapidated inner-eastern fringe was low-density and lacking in racial
tensions, and so there was no threat of a slide towards new ghettos and ‘white flight’. Gardiner’s housing
strategy therefore differed significantly from US cities, in pursuing social cohesion rather than segregation. It
combined a lower-pressure programme of slum redevelopment, aimed at increasing rather than lowering
densities, with a tough land-use policy regime for Metro’s outer zone, integrating private developments with
selective public housing. Contrary to Toronto’s reputation as a less apartment-minded city than Montréal, this
planning strategy envisaged the creation of high-density clusters of apartment towers across Metro’s vast
outer-suburban expanses – a paradoxical recipe of ‘dense sprawl’ that contrasted sharply with any city in the
US. Under Gardiner’s regime, the proportion of single-family housing output in Metro dropped from 61% in
the early 1950s to under 50% in 1961. Gardiner trenchantly opposed social polarization, arguing in 1955 that
‘there is no room for bamboo or iron curtains in this city’, and that public-housing tenants ‘do not want to be
isolated as if they were inferior’.93
Gardiner’s overriding aim was to create enabling frameworks for private development, including road
construction (the Gardiner Expressway, 1955–64) and planned city extensions across the Metro area. Here he
mined a rich seam of regional planning initiatives, including a slum-clearance report by the ‘Bruce Committee’
(1934), and a 1943 city master plan by Italian-Hungarian emigré planner Eugene Faludi, containing Canada’s
first modernist vision of inner-urban redevelopment. Faludi followed up his master plan with a series of
hypothetical demonstration projects around 1950, involving suburban developments of low-rise apartments

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in open green space. Reinforcing this trend, the Ontario government passed in 1946 the first comprehensive
planning act in Canada. Gardiner’s planning concept for Metro prioritized sites-and-services provision for
private-enterprise suburban development, supported from 1955 by compulsory developer-contributions to
imposts (service costs). All of this was based on assumed density levels significantly higher than US cities: a
new 1959 strategic plan for Metro Toronto proposed a development density of 9,000 persons per square mile.
For the first twenty years of Metro, apartments accounted for 60% of suburban development, and 30,000
multi-storey units were built in 1968 alone.94
Initially, in 1953, Gardiner argued for increased suburban density through building of apartment blocks,
although by 1960, with building heights shooting up, he had begun to increasingly question the proliferation
of multi-storey ‘piles of tinfoil’. Under his regime, the planned development of Metro’s suburbs began with
low-density single-family developments and evolved towards higher-density cluster planning, as the market
shifted from single-family home-ownership to multi-storey rental housing. The pioneer of planned single-
family suburbs was Don Mills, laid out in 1953 by the influential amateur planner Macklin Hancock, in four
low-rise quadrant neighbourhoods. Its developer, E. P. Taylor of the Don Mills Development Company
(DMDC), was the first to agree to pay for imposts. The same organizational formula was then applied to the
alternative planning formula of high-density modernist apartments, beginning, as we will see shortly, with
Thorncliffe Park (from 1955) and Flemington Park (1959).95
After 1960, the Metro municipal authorities became the driving forces of residential planning. They
generated a succession of highly prescriptive suburban district plans, beginning in 1962 with the District 10
plan for the Jane–Finch corridor, which combined moderate overall population density of thirty persons per
acre with high net densities of up to 150 persons/60 dwellings per acre on specific sites zoned for multi-family
development, and specified a mix of rental and home-ownership tenure, to increase dwelling yield while
avoiding ‘monotony’ in civic design.96 In 1965, these principles were refined in the draft plan for District 12A,
issued by the Planning Board of the Township of North York. This sharply increased densities, including up to
50% of dwellings in multi-family apartments. Various ingenious mechanisms facilitated this, including
redistribution of density-allocations between different parts of the district, to permit higher densities along
transport corridors, from which single-family or two-family houses would be banned. To avoid ‘undue
scatterization’ of multi-family development, it would be ‘front-loaded’ through additional rezoning of schemes
already started. Overall, the district would provide 25,770 dwelling units.97
In parallel with this prescriptive state-planning framework for moderate and low-income rental suburban
development, inner-Toronto slum-clearance also proceeded apace. Here public housing had a different function
from its US role as a servicing mechanism for private-led slum-clearance and urban renewal, being distributed
evenly across both slum redevelopments and suburban developments. In the former, the set piece was Regent
Park – Toronto’s first and largest public-housing project, built in two phases between 1948 and 1959. Located just
east of the CBD, the site was picked out for redevelopment by both the 1934 Bruce report and Faludi’s 1943
master plan, as well as a 1944–8 citizen pressure campaign. Following much debate on its organization, the
British city council housing committee formula was ruled out, and a US-style ‘Housing Authority of Toronto’ was
established in 1947 to build Regent Park as a ‘geared-to-income’ public rental housing project. During late 1947
and 1948, a CMHC-sponsored design competition selected a conservative proposal by architect J. E. Hoare for a
layout of three-storey dumb-bell plan blocks, and the cornerstone for the first section was laid by Mayor Hiram
McCallum. In 1952, to facilitate decanting of the follow-on development, Regent Park South, the heights of the
proposed western section were raised to six storeys, with the result that the existing 765 dwellings in Regent Park
were in the end replaced by 1,289 new dwellings – mainly for families with young children. The overall cost was
$16 million, funded through a 50–50 split between the City and the CMHC, under new federal legislation that
helped with the very high land acquisition costs of clearance of blighted areas (see Fig. 4.12).98

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A B

C D
Fig. 4.12 (a): Regent Park, Toronto, a US-style slum redevelopment public rental housing project, built from 1948 by the
newly-established ‘Housing Authority of Toronto’ and funded by the city council and CMHC: the 765 existing ‘slum’
houses were replaced by 1,289 new flats, in three- and six-storey dumb-bell-plan blocks designed by Architect J. E. Hoare
(MG 2012). (b): Lawrence Heights, Toronto, 1955–9, a three-storey walk-up project designed by CMHC architect Ian
MacLellan (MG 2012). (c): Regent Park South, as visualized on the cover of the 1955 Regent Park Study by the City of
Toronto Planning Department. (d): Regent Park South, as built in 1955–9 to the designs of Peter Dickinson of architects
Page & Steele, combining five fourteen-storey maisonette slab blocks and townhouses (MG 2012).

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Suburban public housing in Toronto Metro was pioneered by the Lawrence Heights project, developed in
1955–9 directly by the CMHC as an exemplary low-rental project on a Perry-inspired superblock layout. The
scheme was developed against bitter opposition from North York Council, which worried about its social welfare
costs, and advocated development ‘in the firetrap slum areas of the city’ instead. Unlike his US counterparts,
Gardiner resisted these objections, fending off a threatened federal veto from Prime Minister St Laurent and
predicting that Lawrence Heights could become a showcase of modern suburban apartment design.99 The
concept was watered down following planning reverses, including a freeway driven through the site and the
scaling-down of originally-planned cruciform twelve-storey multi-storey blocks owing to the proximity of
Downsview Airport. Eventually, a scattered layout of three-storey walk-up blocks was designed by CMHC
architect Ian MacLellan in economical red brick, but the debate had significantly furthered the cause of suburban
flats.100 From that point, it was the private rental developers, working within the prescriptive frameworks set out
by the public-authority planners (and sometimes using CMHC designs), who implemented suburban apartment-
building on an increasingly massive scale. As at New York’s Co-op City, reinforced-concrete slab and shear-wall
construction, with cement and block/brick veneer running from one floor-slab to the next, allowed block heights
to escalate rapidly up to a maximum of around thirty-five storeys by the late 1960s and 1970s.
The pioneers in this process were Thorncliffe Park, first designed in 1955 but only completed in 1971, and the
5,000-dwelling Flemingdon Park, planned by Macklin Hancock in a layout of neighbourhoods largely comprising
blocks of twelve to sixteen storeys, and built in 1959–65. These two privately-sponsored projects developed the
Metro recipe of high-density suburban nodes with clusters of tall blocks on dramatic sites, sometimes lining
highways, sometimes adjoining Metro’s many steep ravines (to ‘borrow’ their open space for density calculations),
and often directly adjoining low-rise bungalow estates.101 By the late 1960s, suburban developments of over thirty
storeys were commonplace, many planned in community groups such as Crescent Town (1969–71) by Belmont
Construction. Constructional innovations, as in the US, focused on incremental advances such as flying-form
construction, to accelerate pouring (introduced to Toronto in the early 1960s by Tridel Construction), or
component-prefabrication, designed pragmatically to lower the rental cost of projects. In-situ construction also
made possible a more flamboyantly aesthetic or iconic approach, similar to Eero Saarinen’s Idlewild airport
terminal (opened 1962) – as exemplified in architect Uno Prii’s Jane and Exbury slab blocks (1968–70), with their
giant curved gable-walls. Architecturally, the outer-suburban developments frequently intermingled tall private-
rental or condominium towers with lower public-rental schemes. Echoing 1940s New York, alignments were
often highly disparate, with blocks scattered haphazardly across a development area, and separated by fences into
individual plots. In District 10, for example, 600 acres of land at Jane and Finch, previously appropriated by the
provincial and federal governments, were developed incrementally with tall blocks, including a condominium
group at San Romanoway (1975–7) comprising two curved eighteen-storey slabs (469 flats) and a Y-plan thirty-
three-storey tower (423 units); just to the south, the Jane-Yewtree MTHA public-rental project at 2999 Jane
Street (1972) comprised a fifteen-storey reinforced-concrete-frame slab (see Fig. 4.13).102
In inner Toronto, unlike New York’s gigantic phased renewals, the public-rental slum redevelopment
programme was limited in ambition and scale, but invariably aimed at significant dwelling gain. First came a
southern extension of Regent Park, for which stodgy initial plans of 1955 by Hoare were scrapped at the
instigation of CMHC. They argued higher blocks were more appropriate on higher-cost land, and arranged
for Peter Dickinson of Page & Steele Architects to design five thirteen-storey maisonette slab blocks, giving
direct ground-floor access to all families with young children: Regent Park South was completed in 1959, and
its ‘vibrant’ facades were hailed in the Canadian Architect for their ‘vivacity’ and ‘joy of rhythm’. Only two
further public-housing redevelopments were undertaken, at Moss Park and Alexandra Park, following which
a decisive swing towards rehabilitation ensued, commencing with the Trefann Court controversy of 1966.
Moss Park, a site first earmarked for clearance in the 1934 Bruce report, was selected in 1958 for redevelopment

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after Regent Park South: original plans for six eighteen-storey blocks were scaled down to three sixteen-storey
slabs (completed in 1961, with a fourth added in the 1970s). And Alexandra Park, also first proposed in 1958
as a net-gain scheme of 380 dwellings in replacement of 200, was built in modified form in 1967–8, combining
rehabilitation with dense medium-rise planning, including a maze of walkways.103
Far more ambitious than these public redevelopment schemes was the giant St Jamestown project,
immediately north-east of the downtown area, which provided 15,000 dwellings in place of 435 existing
houses, in eighteen multi-storey blocks developed by a public–private alliance – four by the Metro Toronto
Housing Authority and fourteen by private firms. St Jamestown was only finally completed in 1973, although
it had been under negotiation since 1956, following City Council rezoning in 1953 at an unprecedentedly high
plot ratio of 3.5. The delay stemmed from the complexities of the project’s public–private organization: by

A B

C D
Fig. 4.13 (a): District 12 land-use map of 1965, North York Township, Toronto, showing high-density clusters around
the main transport corridors. (b): Thorncliffe Park, Toronto, 1955–71, master-planned by architect Eugene Faludi (MG
2012). (c): Flemingdon Park, Toronto, 1959–65, planned by Macklin Hancock in a neighbourhood-unit layout (MG 2012).
(d): Crescent Town, Toronto, 1969, planned and built by Belmont Construction (MG 2012).

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E F

G
Fig. 4.13 (e): Jane-Exbury Towers, Toronto, ‘sculptural’ slab blocks by architect Uno Prii, 1965–70 (MG 2012). (f): Jane-
Finch Towers, Toronto, 1975–7 condominium development of two eighteen-storey blocks and one thirty-three-storey
(Y-plan) tower, and a fifteen-storey MTHA rental block at 2999 Jane St (MG 2012). (g): Edgeley Village, Jane-Finch,
Toronto, 1967, an Ontario Housing Corporation public housing complex of townhouses and multi-storey flats designed
by architect Irving Grossman (MG 2012).

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1956, only about half of the site had been acquired, and after two rental towers had been built by private
enterprise with CMHC funds, the development syndicate collapsed, leaving the project to be publicly rescued
and coordinated from 1962 by Walter Manthorpe, newly appointed city Commissioner of Development, and
a high-density enthusiast. Eventually, St Jamestown resembled a more monumentally concentrated version of
the largest outer-suburban cluster sites, complete with a similarly disjointed pattern of tall towers.104
Aided by these rather stuttering projects, by 1966 77% of new Metro housing sites comprised apartments,
with 30,000 high-rise units built in 1968 alone.105 Elsewhere in Canada, a similar pattern of limited public-
rental housing, combined with a gradual shift from home-ownership towards private rental, manifested itself.
In Windsor, Ontario, for example, a city Housing Authority was established in 1952 and an initial, small
economic-rental project was built, but the first subsidized low-rental redevelopment of a blighted area,
Glengarry Court, took several years to organize, with fifty-seven row houses opened in 1961, followed the year
after by a ‘magnificent’ eight-storey, eighty-dwelling multi-storey tower, including several units specially
designed for paraplegics: further phases followed in pursuit of the Housing Authority’s aim to ‘eradicate all
traces of the cancer . . . of blight’.106
In Montréal, the city’s reputed preference for apartment living was not specifically reflected in its postwar
housing. Some 50% of its eventual, modest building stock of 16,620 public-housing dwellings (as at 1999) were
built in 1969–80, following establishment of the Office municipal de l’habitation de Montréal (OMHM: Montréal
Municipal Housing Office). The city’s previous mass-housing set piece, the 788-unit Habitations Jeanne Mance
(1958–61), had been designed and built largely by the CMHC, with input from the city council and various civic
organizations over an extended prior period, beginning in the early 1950s: following the 1954 Dozois Plan, which
identified the site as a prime candidate for redevelopment, an Office municipal de l’habitat salubre (OMHS:
Municipal Sanitary Housing Office) was established to start demolition. The $10 million construction cost was
covered by a standard pre-1964 federal–provincial partnership, with 75% funding from CMHC, 25% from the
city of Montreal, and the Quebec provincial government completing the package with a further $1 million.
The project comprised a mixture of low-rise flats and five towers for elderly residents: an artist’s impression in the
newspaper La Patrie hailed ‘the city of the future – a cité Radieuse in the centre of Montréal’ (a caption that
presumed some architectural erudition among its readers).107 Standing sharply at a tangent from this mainstream
context was ‘Habitat’, Montréal’s demonstration project from the 1967 Expo, a megastructural agglomeration of
individualized dwelling-boxes designed by Moshe Safdie and, in its truncated built form, containing 158 dwellings
in sixteen configurations: its setting in Montréal was almost incidental (see Fig. 4.14)!108
By the time the Canadian public-housing programme petered out in the late 1970s, 47% of all housing in
large cities was privately or publicly-rented, roughly double the level of the US or Australia; and this rental
stock formed a central part of the housing assets of development companies. In contrast to Australia, whose
public housing, as we will see below, mainly took the form of bungalows, in Canada three-quarters of social
housing comprised apartments (40% multi-storey) – a pattern that was far closer to Europe.109

New Zealand and Australia

If the chief positive and negative reference point for postwar housing in Canada was the United States, the
equivalent for the equally vigorous housing systems of Australia and New Zealand was Great Britain. Unlike
North America, the three latter all featured a strong reliance from the beginning on large-scale building by a
strong, interventionist state, not targeted specifically at the poorest, although slum clearance (called
‘reclamation’ in Australia) was always a prominent element, as in all Anglophone countries.110 Another
common feature was the tendency of public authorities to embark on mass privatizations of public-rental

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A B

C D

E F
Fig. 4.14 (a): Moss Park redevelopment, Toronto, 1958–61 (Stage 1), with a further block added in the 1970s (MG 2012).
(b): St Jamestown renewal area, Toronto, seen from north-west: eighteen multi-storey blocks developed by a public–
private alliance, planned from 1956 and built between 1962 and 1973; 15,000 new flats in place of 435 existing units – one
of the most extreme examples of the slum-clearance dwelling gain typical of Anglophone countries (MG 2012). (c, d):
Habitations Jeanne-Mance, Montréal, 1958–61, a 788-unit redevelopment designed and built by CMHC: ‘la cite Radieuse
au centre de Montréal’ (MG 2012). (e, f): ‘Habitat’, Montréal’s demonstration project from Expo 67, by Israeli architect
Moshe Safdie, built in truncated form, with 158 flats in sixteen different configurations (MG 2012).

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stock – a policy initiated early in New Zealand and Australia, but only much later in Britain, after the end of
the building drive, under Margaret Thatcher’s government. However, unlike the British welfare state, both
Australia and New Zealand more closely resembled the liberal regimes of the United States and Canada in the
strong position of private home-ownership ideology; the Queensland Housing Commission’s 1948 annual
report, for example, hailed owner-occupation as a bulwark against ‘slavery’, and 1952 protests by Victorian
house-builders described the Victoria Housing Commission as ‘an octopus . . . sucking the lifeblood from our
industry’.111 Between New Zealand and Australia there were significant differences both in organization and in
architecture – notably that New Zealand, as a much smaller country, organized its state housing mainly
through unitary national bodies, unlike the devolved character of social housing in Australia and the United
States. Architecturally, in New Zealand the boldest public-authority high flats came in the 1940s, whereas in
Australia, modernist public housing interventions built up to a climax in the later 1960s and early 1970s, with
clusters of tall towers not unlike contemporary Canadian private-rental estates.112
In New Zealand, the most overtly modernist phase of public housing came at the very beginning of the state
housing drive and was, as we saw in the previous chapter, overwhelmingly tied up with the welfare-state ethos of
the pre-1949 Labour government: in general, it was Labour that showed most interest in slum-clearance and
urban development. Following the 1945 establishment of a planning division in the Ministry of Works, unrealized
avant-garde regeneration proposals for the Te Aro Flat area in Wellington acted as a focus for modernist
aspirations to broaden the scope of state housing to include slum-clearance and planning. Architecturally, the
modernist innovativeness already exemplified in the Dixon Street Flats of 1940–4 continued after the war, with
New Zealand’s émigré European architects still prominent: Frederick Newman, later in charge of housing in the
Ministry of Works from 1956, designed the Symonds Street Flats in Auckland, in1945–7.113
By 1948, the central government had completed ten flatted developments, containing 376 dwellings, at up
to 234 persons per acre (at Dixon Street – cf. chapter 2). But after the return of the right-wing National Party
government, led by Sidney Holland, in December 1949, the position of state housing became more precarious.
Already, the percentage of state houses within overall national output had plunged, from 3,870 out of 8,877 in
1941 to 2,769 out of 12,876 in 1947.114 The new National administration systematically bolstered private-
enterprise housing, including home-ownership and self-building, as well as niche programmes such as Maori
housing.115 With the relaxation of rationing in 1949 and the boom in car ownership, suburban private
development was poised to soar; the government eased access to SAC loans and passed legislation to allow
existing state tenants to buy their own houses. After these sales, although many detached state houses continued
to be built, an increasing proportion of output comprised flats – around 50% by the late 1960s.116 The postwar
years also saw limited house-building by local authorities, especially Wellington City Council, but state
housing still dominated the public sector.
Responding to further government policy adjustments in 1957, the work of Newman and his Housing
Division architects within the Ministry of Works shifted away from single-storey houses to slightly higher
densities, to be obtained by ‘multi-unit’ row-housing, duplex blocks and ‘star flats’ – three-winged, three-storey
blocks with a central stair-core. For inspiration, this new programme looked not just to Britain but also to
other international precedents; Newman visited Italy in the early 1960s, liaising with the organizers of the
INA-Casa programme.117 During the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, both the Housing Division and Wellington
City Council built isolated multi-storey schemes, varying wildly in design from the stodgy, gridded frame of
the Housing Division’s Gordon Wilson Flats (1957–9), a slab block perched on a hillside overlooking the city
centre, to the extreme eccentricity of the council’s George Porter Towers, Hopper Street (1970–8), a ten-storey
Brutalist outcrop conceived by avant-garde city designer Ian Athfield as a bristling agglomeration of towers,
balconies and other excrescences, and juxtaposed jarringly with the gabled, geometrical neo-vernacular of the
adjacent low-rise Arlington project (see Fig. 4.15).118

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A B C

D E
Fig. 4.15 (a): ‘Te Aro Replanned’, 1948 student project for redevelopment of a dilapidated zone of Wellington, adapted
into a wildly successful project at the Architectural Centre, Wellington; this drawing by William Toomath includes a
collaged image of actress Deborah Kerr to denote glamour and modernity. (b): Late 1940s cartoon in Building Progress
journal about the alleged role of state housing in starving the private sector of resources in New Zealand. (c): ‘Star flats’ at
Strathmore, Wellington: three-storey standard blocks of twelve flats grouped around a stairwell, designed in 1957–8 by
Frederick Newman, chief architect of the Housing Division, as part of a drive for higher densities; the design was inspired
by INA-Casa flats in Italy (cf. chapter 9) (MG 2016). (d): Gordon Wilson Flats, Wellington, 1957–9, designed and built by
the Housing Division (MG 2016). (e): George Porter Towers (1970–8) and Arlington low-rise housing, designed by Ian
Athfield for Wellington City Council (MG 2016).

Commonwealth and states: the CSHA

Within Australia, the early postwar years saw the first significant housing intervention by the Commonwealth
(federal) government, through funding of large-scale public-housing programmes – organized not by the
relatively weak municipalities but by the state commissions. Nationally, even pre-1914, a strong public sector
accounted for 40% of investment and 10% of employment, and society was highly unionized, leading to a
pursuit of welfare goals through wages and labour policy – a system that continued after 1945.119 During the
war, the Commonwealth government’s Department of Postwar Reconstruction had monitored UK debates
about postwar housing and planning, and in mid-1944, following the report of a Commonwealth Housing
Commission, the prime minister wrote to the state governments mandating them to embark on large-scale
house-building after the end of the war, with an initial rental emphasis and with public housing accounting for
up to a quarter of total production. In 1945 discussions concerning how this aspiration was to be realized,

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Australia’s strong party-political right–left division led to robust exchanges, including the famous assertion by
the Labor Minister of Reconstruction, John Dedman, that ‘the Commonwealth Government is concerned to
provide adequate and good housing for the workers; it is not concerned with making the workers into little
capitalists’ – a statement roundly attacked by Country Party (right-wing) representatives as an illustration of
Labor’s supposedly anti-libertarian socialism.120
In 1945, it was decided that the main vehicle for this collaborative programme would be a ‘Commonwealth-
State Housing Agreement’ (CSHA) – a formal contract for several years, providing fixed levels of central
support through annual loans. Initial discussions envisaged a five-year programme of state-built housing for
low-income families with rents capped at 20% maximum of income, the Commonwealth bearing 60% of the
losses. Eventually, the first CSHA was extended to 1956, by which time it had financed nearly 96,300 new
houses.121 Some 15% of postwar dwellings was originally public housing (far more than Canada’s 0.7%) –
‘originally’, because in 1954, as earlier in New Zealand, the central government, under anti-socialist Prime
Minister Robert Menzies, began to encourage sales of CSHA houses (with repayments over forty-five years).
Thus by 1956, 6.6% of the first CSHA tranche had already been sold – a trend which, as in New Zealand,
consequentially boosted the proportion of flats in the remaining public stock.122
In a strong case of path-dependency, the resulting recipe of combined public intervention, owner-
occupation and privatization endured for decades, until around 1970. It enjoyed general cross-party backing,
not just from Labor, which vociferously supported home-ownership from 1961 onwards, but also, more
surprisingly, from the Australian Communist Party, which came out in the mid-1950s in favour of accelerated
sales of CSHA homes, to boost owner occupation!123 Later CSHA phases showed ever-increasing concern to
facilitate owner-occupation: by 1965 (under the 1956 CSHA) the Commonwealth government was providing
40% of all mortgage funds, a position welcomed by most states except South Australia, which concentrated
CSHA funding in public-rental housing and minimized privatization. In Victoria, between 1956 and 1969,
despite rising HCV output, the Commission consistently sold more houses than it built, so the publicly-
owned share of the housing stock actually fell to 3% by the 1970s; and in New South Wales, the state government
had a formal policy of selling 80% of all CSHA-funded NSWHC housing. By 1970 the sales policy
encompassed half of all CSHA housing: the result was a hybrid of British general-needs council housing and
US FHA mass state-sponsored home-ownership. Excluded from this system, however, were aboriginal
Australians, who were branded, during the 1950s–1960s, as unsuited and ineligible for state housing, and
instead continued to suffer the draconian controls of the state-based Aboriginal Protection (or Welfare)
Boards – a curious contrast to contemporary South Africa, where (as we will see in chapter 14) the apartheid
state made deliberate attempts to provide individual houses for ‘native’ inhabitants, albeit on a relatively small
scale and in remote ‘locations’.124
Architecturally, as in post-1918 England and contemporary New Zealand, most postwar housing output
comprised single-family houses, in this case single-storey bungalows, especially in the production pioneer,
South Australia, where the Housing Trust built 15,232 dwellings in 1945–51, almost all single-family houses,
with rents capped at 8% of building costs. In general, Australian cities began the postwar period with very few
flats (5% of housing stock in Melbourne and 16% in Sydney). The proportion of flats in all Australian
completions steadily rose thereafter, from an average of 4% in 1956–7 to 28% in 1971–2, many in suburban
infill-blocks of four or six flats (the so-called ‘six-packs’). Originally, to accommodate the first CSHA, the
states were encouraged in 1945 to shelve any existing slum-reclamation plans. But within Australia, like the
other Anglophone countries, the lure of the ‘war against the slums’ could not long be resisted, and pressure
grew within anti-socialist (Liberal/Country Party) circles for a policy shift to integrate public housing with
reclamation programmes. In 1960 the Commonwealth Housing Minister, Senator W. H. Spooner, proposed a
new CSHA designed to concentrate Labor voters in situ by encouraging high-density reclamation through

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grants to state housing agencies. The underlying political gerrymandering motive was well disguised in his
public justifications, which emphasized the planning desirability of preventing costly suburban sprawl.
Australian ‘slums’ were vastly different from ‘slums’ in, say, New York or Hong Kong, generally comprising
solidly-built low-rise terraced houses of fairly low density, and so redevelopment, as in Toronto, could easily
yield a net dwelling gain rather than loss. Accordingly, both New South Wales and Victoria duly saw a shift to
large-scale redevelopment at precisely this time. In 1966, Liberal Party policy at Commonwealth level was
partly reversed, when Senator Annabelle Rankin, newly-appointed Minister of Housing, proposed a CSHA
extension which would actively discourage states’ reclamation programmes on the economic grounds that
inner-urban land was too valuable for low-cost housing, and would instead incentivisz development on the
periphery.125 But in the end, as so often, not much actually changed in practice.

High flats and slum reclamation in Victoria and New South Wales

In a manner typical of the complex relationships between local, regional and national micro-ecologies of mass
housing in the First World, the twists and turns of Commonwealth housing policy often corresponded only
loosely with the realities of development on the ground in the states – as seen in the sequence of policy
advocacy and realization in Victoria, where an exceptionally vigorous public housing redevelopment
programme was mounted in and around Melbourne. In Victoria, the postwar decades saw only brief periods
of Labor rule, in the early 1950s and late 1980s, framing a thirty-year epoch of Liberal or Liberal/Country
administration, including the seventeen-year premiership of Sir Henry Bolte (1955–72). Immediately after
World War II, Victoria had witnessed a staggering, immigration-driven population growth – nearly 41% in
1946–50 alone. The state government began a massive land acquisition drive, and a 1943 Housing Act for the
first time allowed the HCV to build for sale. The Commission shelved its earlier reclamation schemes and
focused on suburban output, building for a time around 15% of all new housing; Victoria accounted for 31,000
out of the 97,000 dwellings completed nationally in the first CSHA (1945–56). Alongside this, the Liberal and
Country Party administration pursued a programme of industrial decentralization to development locations
like Geelong, where a large HCV housing scheme of single-family houses, the Norlane Estate, was built in
1948–58. Within the Melbourne metropolitan area, much postwar building was also low-rise, notably at the
HCV’s Olympic Village, Heidelberg West, in 1956. The Commission’s new, technocratic reconstruction agenda
edged out the old Christian-Socialist crusaders of the Housing Investigation and Slum Abolition Board and
the HCV, such as F. Oswald Barnett or Walter Burt. Barnett’s loss of influence also partly stemmed from
Australia’s relatively low-intensity Red Scare of the late 1940s and early 1950s. Like Philadelphia in America,
1950s Melbourne saw a sharp turn to a pro-homeownership policy of selling existing CSHA homes: even the
Labor regime of John McCain Senior backed accelerated privatization in 1954, except in ‘residue’ estates
occupied by the poor (see Fig. 4.16).126
The policy shift towards inner-urban redevelopment was embraced with particular fervour in Victoria,
where the HCV anticipated the Commonwealth’s late-1950s policy shift, and vigorously amplified it during
the 1960s and early 1970s. Forty-seven multi-storey projects were built between 1962 and 1974, thirty-three
for families and fourteen for the elderly – a stark contrast to the contemporary US trend away from high-rise
family public housing. The HCV approached slum reclamation with moralistic fervour as well as technical
efficiency: a 1966 publication branded slums ‘the Enemy within our Gates’, echoing the old evangelistic
language of Barnett’s 1930s slum study group. The build-up to this campaign had begun as early as 1950, when
the Victorian cabinet advised the Commission to begin reclamation as soon as the general housing shortage
was eased; in 1952, the cabinet attempted to vote £500,000 for reclamation, only to be frustrated by the CSHA.

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A B

C D
Fig. 4.16 (a): Olympic Village, Heidelberg, Victoria, 1956: designed and built by HCV, originally as an athletes’ village
(MG 2016). (b): Ascot Estate, Essendon, Victoria: a HCV development of 1947–55 designed by consultant architect Best
Overend (MG 2016). (c, d): Ashburton Estate, Camberwell, Victoria: precasting of prototype large-panel two-storey
blocks underway in the HCV’s Holmesglen works, and completed dwellings (1954) in Alamein Avenue (MG 2016).

In 1954, the regional planning authority, the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works (MMBW) paved
the way with an ambitious Melbourne Metropolitan Planning Scheme, authored by chief planner E. F. Borrie.
Reclamation was a key Liberal Party manifesto commitment in 1955, and by early 1956, the Bolte government’s
intentions were hardening further. The Victorian Minister of Housing once again allocated £500,000 for
redevelopments – this time supported by the Commonwealth government in Canberra, where Spooner
backed the HCV shift towards reclamation while allowing private enterprise to cover the general housing
shortage. This policy shift was bolstered by the long-standing campaigns of Father Gerard Kennedy Tucker of
the Brotherhood of St Laurence against slums in the Fitzroy district: in 1949 the Brotherhood had led an all-
church ‘slum abolition campaign’. Small-scale reclamation on scattered sites had begun as early as 1955, but the
decisive moment came in 1959–60, when the ‘Shaw-Davey Survey’, a somewhat perfunctory windscreen
survey of Melbourne and district by two HCV officials, branded over 1,000 acres, and 10,000 dwellings, as
‘substandard’ and requiring redevelopment – an argument substantiated by citing the London County Council
precedent of slum-clearance alongside green belts.127
Despite initial opposition to flats higher than three storeys, Melbourne City Council agreed to support a
slum reclamation programme with a £200,000 annual grant, and by 1961, with the realization that denser

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building could help revive population and local taxation revenue, support for multi-storey reclamation was
growing among the Melbourne region’s local authorities. At the HCV’s Ascot Estate (1947–55), consultant
architect Best Overend, a vocal advocate of flat-building, originally proposed a thirteen-storey block, but this
was reduced to three storeys as built.128 Housing decision-making in the metropolitan area was monopolized
by an alliance of the City, the MMBW and the HCV, marginalizing the smaller inner-suburban municipalities.129
A large-scale programme of US-style urban renewal now emerged, especially with the mid-1960s declaration
of a 400-acre redevelopment area in Carlton; by 1965, six reclamation projects were underway. As to what
architectural form this programme should take, a 1958 report by the HCV’s deputy director of housing, Jack
Gaskin, and chief engineer, Ray Burkitt, following an overseas study trip, had argued that multi-storey
development had been adopted ‘in all overseas countries visited where slum reclamation or urban
redevelopment schemes were being undertaken in the areas of large cities’.130 Prominent among the countries
championing inner-area slum clearance was, of course, Britain, but Gaskin and Burkitt had also just visited
Chicago and reacted favourably to the CHA’s slum-clearance drive in the South Side ‘Black Belt’. Significantly,
the MMBW’s 1954 planning scheme report had illustrated as an exemplar of mixed high and low blocks not
an LCC estate but MLIC’s Park La Brea mega-project in Los Angeles, with its massive, cruciform towers.131
Gaskin and Burkitt duly recommended adoption of an LCC-style mixture of high and low blocks, beginning
with a prototype sixteen-storey block (from 1960) on the Emerald Hill estate, South Melbourne. They received
strong support from recently-appointed Victorian housing minister, Horace Petty, who returned from a 1957
visit to Sydney’s Greenway project enthusiastic about high building, declaring that ‘These flats were a real
eye-opener.’132
The HCV’s shift to multi-storey flats also powerfully interacted with another prominent policy – its pursuit
of prefabrication. This was developed steadily over forty years, from 1938 to 1978, in the ‘Concrete House
Programme’, or CHP, which supplied panels for one-third of HCV output. The Commission built these
prefabricated dwellings not through private contractors and proprietary systems but through its own direct-
labour workforce, a recipe combined only infrequently with large-scale multi-storey flats in First World
countries – for example in Glasgow. Having first erected an experimental group of prefabricated houses in
1939 at 324–6 Howe Parade, Fishermen’s Bend, the Commission in 1945 acquired a redundant munitions
factory at Holmesglen to build precast-concrete large-panel houses, using a system developed in 1928 by local
engineer T. W. Fowler, and acquired in 1942–4 by HCV following Fowler’s death. Steady development of the
CHP ensued, with complete 4-inch-thick wall sections successfully cast by 1946, using both factory and
mobile plant. In Holmesglen’s first experimental precast block of twelve two-bedroom flats was constructed,
at Molesworth Street, and by 1956, prototype three-storey industrialized flats were under construction at Solly
Avenue, Yarra. From 1952, the direct-labour programme produced 1,000 dwellings a year, rising to 58% of the
2,414 dwellings built by HCV in 1957–8; two decades later, by 1978, 47% of the entire stock of Victorian public
housing was CHP-built.133
By the early 1960s, a ratchet effect of increasing height was underway: HCV engineers had developed a
multi-storey CHP variant, and following the 1961–2 construction of a pilot eight-storey slab block at Holland
Estate, Kensington, prefabricated blocks of rapidly escalating height were produced by Holmesglen, including
three identical twenty-storey blocks in 1964. In some ways, the planning of the reclamation schemes, with tall
towers mixed with low blocks, resembled Great Britain’s slum-clearance housing. But American resemblances
were also strong: the standard block types were designed on ‘alphabet’ configurations by HCV’s architects
(under R. R. Prentice), mainly with US-style enclosed gallery-access on upper floors, including T-shaped and
Y-shaped blocks, and an ‘H’ twin-slab linked by a core unit (see Fig. 4.17). The largest projects included the
Atherton Street Estate, Fitzroy (1970–2, 800 flats in four twenty-storey Z-plan blocks) and High Street and
Reeves Street, Carlton, with 848 dwellings (1961–8, a mix of Z, Y and T blocks). The culminating gesture was

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A B

C D

Fig. 4.17 (a, b, c, d): Carlton Estate (Reeves St/High St), Melbourne, 1961–8: inspection of model of multi-storey block
in 1961 by Vic Bradley, HCV Director (on right) and Jack Gaskin, Deputy Director (left), and 2016 (MG) views of
completed estate, with its two twenty-one-storey Z-plan, one fourteen-storey Y-plan and one thirteen-storey T-plan
(single-person) blocks; HCV standard blocks designed by HCV architect Roy Prentice and built by the HCV Concrete
House Project.

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E F

G
H
Fig. 4.17 (e): Atherton Street Estate, Fitzroy, Victoria, 1970–2: four twin-slab twenty-storey ‘Type 69’ towers with 200
units each, designed by HCV Architects (MG 2016). (f): Debney Meadows (Flemington Estate), Melbourne, 1965–9,
including four twenty-storey Z-plan towers designed by HCV architects (MG 2016). (g, h): Frank Wilkes Court,
Heidelberg Road, Northcote, Victoria, 1969–71: thirteen-storey tower for elderly tenants designed by Prentice’s HCV
architects (MG 2016).

Park Towers, South Melbourne (1967–9), a thirty-storey U-plan block containing 299 dwellings of one to
three bedrooms; on its completion, it was hailed as the world’s tallest all-prefabricated tower, and an illuminated
model was set up on the HCV headquarters’ executive floor. By 1968, all new HCV flats were twelve-storeyed
or more, and an innovative programme of single-person prefabricated thirteen-storey towers for the elderly
was underway, for instance at the H-plan, gallery-access Frank Wilkes Court, Northcote, opened in April 1971
by the Victorian Housing Minister, E. R. Meagher (see Fig. 4.18).134
By the late 1950s, however, the first discordant signs of local opposition to Victoria’s reclamation and CHP
prefabrication programmes were emerging, including 1958 protests in Collingwood against the Dight Street
multi-storey scheme: Collingwood’s largely impotent council accused the HCV of ‘terrorising the people of
Collingwood’ by relocating tenants to multi-storey ‘concentration camps’. Site selection in Melbourne and
surrounding municipalities had an important political undertone, in the unofficial ‘green-lining’ of suburban

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A B

C D
Fig. 4.18 (a, b, c): Park Towers, South Melbourne, 1967–9: a thirty-one-storey, 299-flat block with an E-plan; at its
completion, touted as ‘the tallest precast load-bearing block in the world’ (MG 2016). (d): Anti-HCV protest poster by
Richmond Association, c. 1970.

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middle-class areas, to exclude HCV developments and potential Labor voters: eight north-eastern and eastern
authorities accounted for only 1% of the 30,000 HCV units built from 1938 to 1980. Gradually many councils,
including Melbourne itself, shifted from support to opposition, even as the areas designated by HCV for
reclamation spread to a maximum of 293 acres by 1973. The protests, as in Britain in slightly later years, were
not so much class-based as concerned with the perceived insensitivity and dirigisme of evictions and
demolitions. From the early 1960s, the local press increasingly carried stories of individual householders
heroically battling bureaucratic HCV eviction orders, and 1966 saw a ‘Hands Off Carlton’ campaign.135
Outside Victoria, the other hot spot of postwar urban public housing and slum-clearance was naturally the
Sydney metropolitan area, whose economy was generally more prosperous than Melbourne during the early
postwar decades. There, the reformist wartime administration of Premier William McKell had begun an
ambitious public housing programme, chiefly under the newly-founded (1942) Housing Commission of New
South Wales (HCNSW); by December 1949, over 12,000 dwellings had been completed. From the 1950s, the
emphasis shifted to building homes for sale, through the Rural Bank; by the time the Commission completed
its 100,000th dwelling in 1972, over 20,000 had already been sold. Much of this, as elsewhere in Australia,
comprised low-rise houses on large peripheral estates, albeit with gradually-increasing planned densities – for
instance at the 8,000-unit Mount Druitt estate, planned from 1963 with many medium-density terraced
townhouses.136 Slum reclamation and tall blocks were embraced by the Commission rather earlier than in
Victoria, beginning with four-storey ‘garden flats’ at Nicholson Street, Balmain, in 1943–8, and the monumental
Greenway scheme, Milson’s Point, built in 1948–54 on a dramatic harbour-side site left over from the interwar
construction of the Harbour Bridge. Here, after a British study tour, architects D. T. Morrow & Gordon
designed a multi-spur conglomerate, studded with towers of eleven and six storeys, monolithically faced in red
brick but constructed in load-bearing brick for the lower sections, and concrete and steel framing for the
towers.137
A rapid scaling-up duly followed, but in a more individualistic manner than the systematized Victorian
programme, designed by private rather than Commission architects and with the multi-storey highlights in
areas such as Redfern and Waterloo offset by large numbers of HCNSW low-rise flats. The chief multi-storey
set pieces were the massive, polygonally-winged, galleried, fifteen-storey John Northcott Place, Surry Hills
(1958–62, by Lipson & Kaad), opened by Queen Elizabeth in 1963; and the even more monolithic ‘Poet’s
Corner’ estate, Redfern, of 1964–6, with three cranked-plan seventeen-storey slab blocks in a row (designed by
Peddle Thorp & Walker) (see Fig. 4.19). The multi-phase Endeavour slum-reclamation project in Waterloo, by
Stafford Moor & Farrington, commenced with four seventeen-storey slab blocks of family flats in 1968–74,
followed in 1974–8 by two more unusual and far taller (thirty-storey) towers,‘Matavai’ and ‘Turanga’, containing
552 small elderly flats, with each floor individually named and equipped with a common room to foster a
‘family’ atmosphere.138 Unlike Melbourne, but similarly to Wellington, Sydney Municipal Council also built
several multi-storey projects directly itself, gallery-access but more modestly-scaled, such as the thirteen-
storey Glebe project of 1958–9 or the splay-planned, eleven-storey Camperdown housing scheme of 1960.
During the 1960s, an alternative, medium-height approach emerged in some HCNSW schemes, including
Harry Seidler’s Maloney Street project, with two eight-storey galleried slabs joined by a service tower, and two
inventive schemes by architect Tao Gofers: the ziggurat-like, intensely megastructural Drysdale and Dobell,
Waterloo, built in 1979–82 on a reduced scale after community protests, and the elegantly-stepped ‘Sirius’,
inserted on a sensitive Rocks site beside the Harbour Bridge (1977–81) (see Fig. 4.20).139
The postwar status quo in public housing in Australia lasted until the early 1970s. Although the HCV
progressively stepped up production, reaching 2,650 completions in 1969–70, by 1973 the public-housing
share of total national housing production had fallen from 18% in 1962 to only 8%. The Commonwealth
Labor administration of Gough Whitlam (1972–5) made a last attempt to revitalize the programme, aiming to

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A B C

D E

Fig. 4.19 (a, b): The Greenway complex, Sydney, built by HCNSW on a dramatic harbour-side site and designed by
Morrow and Gordon: the conglomerate of towers, up to eleven storeys high, was constructed in reinforced concrete and
red brick (MG 2016). (c): John Northcott Place, Sydney, a polygonally-winged, galleried fifteen-storey HCNSW slum-
clearance scheme of 1958–62 by architects Lipson & Kaad (MG 2016). (d, e): The three in-line slabs of the Poets’ Corner
HCNSW estate, Redfern, 1964–6, designed by Peddle Thorp & Walker (MG 2016).

cut the waiting list to twelve weeks by large-scale building on outer sites; dense multi-storey development was
phased out, and a particularly controversial redevelopment scheme at Sydney’s Woolloomooloo was
downscaled. By that stage, from around 1975, the emphasis was firmly on rehabilitation of the many surviving
areas of terraced housing. This coincided with a growing revolt at state level against large-scale slum
reclamation: in 1973, the new Victorian Minister of Housing, Vance Dickie, redirected the HCV to build for
low-income city-dwellers some thirty to fifty miles from Melbourne, backing this up with rhetoric against the
‘concrete jungle of the big city’. But by 1977 it had become clear that this new peripheral policy was hopelessly
mired in land acquisition controversies, with hugely inflated prices. Following two official enquiries in 1978–9,

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G H
Fig. 4.19 (f , g, h): Endeavour (Waterloo) slum-reclamation redevelopment by HCNSW; 1978 drawings and 2016 (MG)
external view of the thirty-storey Matavai and Turanga elderly-residents’ towers; architects Stafford, Moor & Farrington.

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 Housing by Authority: Postwar State Interventions in the ‘Anglosphere’

A B

C
Fig. 4.20 (a): Sydney City Council’s Glebe housing project, 1958–9: Albert Alexander Smillie, SCC Chief Architect (MG
2016). (b): Sirius, The Rocks, Sydney: HCNSW infill scheme of 1977–81 designed by Tao Gofers on a highly prominent
site next to the Harbour Bridge (MG 2016). (c): Dobell Housing, 1982–3; HCNSW infill scheme in Waterloo designed by
Tao Gofers and realized on a reduced scale following public protests (cf. 3.18d) (MG 2016).

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the state government legislated to merge the HCV with its Ministry of Housing: within three years, large-scale
public housing construction had ceased in Victoria, and the Holmesglen factory had been closed.140
This final collapse in the public-housing programme echoed the wider ideological and financial shift at
Commonwealth level following the controversial deposing of Whitlam in 1975: the 1978 CSHA, introduced
by the replacement Fraser government, not only accelerated the sale of CSHA houses, but forced state housing
authorities to use the proceeds to repay the loans granted under previous CSHA phases – a policy that
effectively bankrupted many authorities and made the later attempt by the 1989 Labor Hawke government to
revive public housing largely futile.141
Overall, the housing systems traced in this chapter shared certain key tendencies, notably the general
privileging of owner-occupation, liberal private-market solutions, and low-rise individual houses, alongside a
preference for direct rather than oblique government interventions; yet almost all of them were able to
generate, from out of that context, mass housing complexes of enormous size and architectural monumentality.
In that sense, they exemplify this book’s wider emphasis on the interplay between overarching themes and
narratives of housing organization and built form, and the sometimes paradoxical organizational and
architectural outcomes that resulted from that, especially at the level of individual microregions. In the next
chapter, our focus shifts towards the equally diverse heartland of First World mass housing – postwar Western
Europe – beginning with the hybrid cases of Great Britain and Ireland.

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CHAPTER 5
COUNCIL POWERS: POSTWAR PUBLIC HOUSING IN
BRITAIN AND IRELAND

At this point, in chapters 5–10, we reach the first of the pivotal campaigns of mass housing’s ‘Hundred Years;
War’: the Western European building drive of the welfare-state heyday years. Its colossal driving force, far from
burning out within a short time, as with US public housing’s jagged trajectory, endured for over thirty years,
the decades memorably labelled in France the ‘trente glorieuses’. And in these chapters, the principal regions
of Western European mass housing are systematically surveyed, tracing the key themes and narratives that
linked them, alongside the distinctive, microregional localisms that divided them.1
But why start this story ‘offshore’, in Britain and Ireland? In these postwar years, all First World countries
experienced strong state intervention in their housing markets. In the countries surveyed in the previous
chapter, much of that intervention, including the rise of ‘public housing authorities’, was concerned with
facilitating private-market initiatives. But in the north-west European countries covered in chapters 5–9, the
aim was instead to use state subsidies and bureaucracies to build a fully-fledged welfare-state society, combining
government and market contributions within strong, planned frameworks. In that context, the mass housing
systems of Britain and Ireland provided a unique bridge between the Anglophone housing-authority tradition
and the European welfare-state ethos – an ethos that was itself significantly shaped by British innovators such
as Keynes and Beveridge.

Central and municipal

In organizational terms the unique and dominant feature of postwar mass housing in Britain was the system
of directly municipally-controlled ‘council housing’, whose very name highlights the fact that its central
decision-makers were elected local politicians, and which consequently became bound up with local political
and civic microecologies to an extreme degree. In most Western European countries, it was mainly arm’s-
length bodies that organized social housing, with exceptions such as the mighty Red Vienna. Great Britain –
that is, England, Wales and Scotland – was unique in giving local municipal authorities the lead role in the
national ‘housing drive’, directly planning, building and managing large social housing stocks. That uniqueness
is highlighted later in this chapter in the rather different patterns that prevailed even in the immediately
adjacent countries and territories of Ireland and the Channel Islands.
Following its large-scale launch in 1919, the council-housing system had achieved remarkable output
figures, but even these were now eclipsed: between 1945 and 1965, council housing accounted for 57.8% of all
new dwellings – twice the interwar percentage.2 The reforms of the 1945–51 Labour government left welfare-
state socialism as the default ethos of postwar reconstruction – with significant national policy differences. In
Scotland, council housing, and the Labour Party, became unambiguously dominant. But even in England and
Wales, council housing, alongside growing home-ownership, flourished under the Conservatives and Labour
alike, with the universally-despised private landlord squeezed out in the middle.3 At a local level, national
political differences were less important. Labour councillors normally operated in a unified way, which allowed
them generally to take the initiative, whereas in most cities the non-socialists comprised diverse ratepayer

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groups, under such names as Progressives, Moderates or Independents. Local political controversies were
usually concerned as much with scandals or symbolic conflicts as with policy matters such as housing
programming. More important than party politics was competition between different council committees,
each defending its own fiefdom: the Housing Committee was a key power base in any large authority.4
Central government played an uncertain role within this system. There never was a single dedicated state
department for housing, which often formed part of another ministry. In England, the municipally-dominated
character of mass housing was emphasized in the very title of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government
(1951–70). In Scotland, where housing was a devolved area, administered by the Scottish Office, it was
joined after 1962 with planning, within the Scottish Development Department. Central government’s
housing role across Britain was like an imposing facade. At first glance, it appeared to play a crucial role in the
overall encouragement of output, by setting national targets and passing enabling legislation. Labour was
often more ambitious here, but some key innovators were Tory ministers, such as Harold Macmillan in the
1950s and Keith Joseph in the early 1960s: the first showpiece annual housing target, of 300,000 houses, was
attained by 1953.5 The precise role of these national strategies remained unclear, partly because of the influence
of macro-economic factors such as interest rates, or the lending policies of the Public Works Loan Board
(which provided most housing and infrastructure capital until the late 1950s). The government could try to
influence municipal housing production more precisely in two ways: firstly, by directly regulating housing-
policy details and building-types; and secondly, through conditional subsidies. Regulatory ‘loan-sanction’
vetting of tenders occurred too late in the development process to affect building policy, being concerned
solely with value for money, and did not apply to Britain’s largest housing authority, the London County
Council (LCC).
The effects of government policy on subsidies were more complex, and higher Exchequer (central
government) subsidies did not necessarily mean greater influence. In Scotland, Exchequer support in 1967
covered 27% of public housing costs compared to only 18% in England and Wales. Yet it was in Scotland that
the strength of council housing, and the corresponding weakness of the central government, was most
pronounced.6 The vast new council schemes catered for the lower middle class and working class, the skilled
and unskilled alike, and rents were exceptionally low: Glasgow’s were only 25% of Birmingham’s in 1963.
Aberdeen city architect Tom Watson recalled that any proposals to raise rents and housing standards were
fiercely resisted by working-class councillors: ‘Raising rents seemed ridiculous to “stairheid Scotsmen” – they
expected their housing for nothing, still less paying more for it!’ Unlike England, there was also mass council
building in rural areas, controlled by powerful county councils. Overall per-capita public-housing output in
Scotland from 1945 to 1970 was twice that of England and Wales, and by the early 1960s, the proportion of all
new housing production directly built and managed by public agencies (79%) was much higher than any other
Western country, or the USSR and East Germany for that matter: in Glasgow between 1960 and 1975, 95% of
new housing was council-built. Central-government politicians and civil servants trembled in the long shadow
of Glasgow and its satellites: ‘Glasgow Corporation was the power in the land – no Minister sitting in Edinburgh
could do much about Glasgow!’7
To offset the municipalities’ power, central government also encouraged a secondary stream of public
housing production, segregated from local politics – that of the New Towns: their colonial-style Development
Corporations were dominated by administrators and architects. Additionally, in Scotland, the government
established in 1937 the Scottish Special Housing Association (SSHA), a nationwide programme financed
entirely by government grants and rent revenue, with substantial annual deficits: it built around 10% of
postwar public housing, especially in New Towns and planner-controlled ‘growth areas’. The government used
the SSHA programme to compensate for its own lack of influence over the large Labour authorities; the
Association was distrusted, and obstructed, by them.8

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Postwar housing design in England

While Scottish housing was dominated by production values, in England housing design was more prominent.
Here the leading exemplar was not central government but the LCC, a regional authority rooted in the capital of
a centralized country. It saw itself as a beacon of enlightened welfare provision, national rather than local in
status. In housing, its admirers believed, the LCC Architect’s Department was a ‘great enterprise in which the
concrete never sets’. Yet this was no homogenous monolith, but a diverse coalition of perspectives, architectural
and political, including the much-publicized early 1950s polarization between ‘Soft’ and ‘Hard’ factions,
respectively picturesque-orientated socialists/communists and ‘Corbusian’ aesthetes. Basking in the reflected
sunlight of the LCC, other municipal architectural departments, in London and the ‘provinces’, grew in
assertiveness, often dominated by city or borough architects with an ex-LCC background. Public housing design
underpinned the status of all major local-authority architects of the age. They worked closely with their
counterparts in the ‘development groups’ of central government, who frequently pressed for lower densities or
more variegated architectural design solutions, while also investigating dwelling use and furnishing, most
famously in the 1961 Parker Morris Report, a product of the Central Housing Advisory Committee (see Fig. 5.1).9
The inescapable backdrop to all debates on housing types in England was the assumption, among academics
and policymakers as well as inhabitants, that the normal, indeed normative, working-class dwelling was the
terraced house, and that the flat was ‘a deviant, arguably inferior, dwelling type’.10 But in London, flats in some
form seemed unavoidable. There, the first postwar modernist council flats reacted against stodgy interwar
galleried ‘block dwellings’ through a mainstream modernist approach, using long slabs arranged in Zeilenbau
groups, as for example at Tecton’s Rosebery Avenue and Hallfield estates (from 1946 and 1949 respectively),
or Powell & Moya’s Pimlico, from 1947. But by the late 1940s, many designers were clamouring that council
housing needed greater architectural diversity. In response, the ‘mixed development’ concept emerged. Its
main point appeared simple: every major new development should cater for a ‘normal’, diverse population
through a mix of dwelling and block types, including at least some terraced houses, disposed freely in green
landscaping. The first generation (‘Mark I’) of post-1946 New Towns, which strongly emphasized
neighbourhood-unit planning and picturesque landscaping – echoing Canadian architect Christopher
Tunnard’s 1938 proposals for a ‘modern dormitory town’ on a redeveloped country-house estate – naturally
attracted this kind of thinking. The first complete mixed development, including a free-standing ten-storey
tower block (Frederick Gibberd’s ‘The Lawn’, in 1950), appeared in Harlow New Town; it provides a visual
pivot in an area of low-density terraced houses and three-storey flats. From 1950, all major LCC estates were
mixed developments, especially the three main 1950s Roehampton schemes: Princes Way and Portsmouth
Road (from 1952/3, by the Soft faction) and Roehampton Lane (from 1955, with ‘Corbusian’ slabs, by the
Hards), all including high blocks despite their leafy outer-suburban setting.11 Mixed development was both a
sociological and architectural theme, with overtones of community and neighbourhood. But it also expressed
the English preference for orderly systematization of housing, unlike the higgledy-piggledy suburbs of many
continental countries. In 1958 the government housing design guide, Flats and Houses 1958, celebrated mixed
development with numerous design solutions for each density range (see Fig. 5.2).12
The most popular type of high block in postwar England was the slender tower – an import from Sweden,
whose overall welfare-state set-up, and architecture, found strong admirers in Britain. The Swedes called this
‘punkthus’, translated into English as ‘point block’, and it went through numerous permutations, including
‘Brutalist’ sculptural concrete LCC towers built from 1962 at Brandram’s Works Site, Bermondsey, and
elsewhere.13 Slab blocks in the Gropius/Hilberseimer tradition were less popular overall, although there was a
vigorous campaign from 1952 by the Hard grouping of LCC designers, who introduced blocks up to 250 feet
long and containing 100 dwellings or more, in two-level ‘maisonettes’ – echoing Corbusier’s Marseille Unité.

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From an English perspective, the maisonettes could also seem like ‘individual houses’ stacked on top of each
other. Built on many inner-urban LCC sites, including Bentham Road, Hackney, and Picton Street, Camberwell
(both 1955), they continued the English philanthropic or public-housing tradition of open access balconies,
now only on every second floor. Also echoing the Unité was their emphatically concrete-dominated appearance.
The next slab-type devised by the official architects was much more complicated inside, in its ‘scissors’, or ‘split
level’, or ‘cross-over’ sections, as in LCC projects such as Royal Victoria Yard, Deptford (from 1962).14

A B

C D
Fig. 5.1 (a): Council Homes: official opening of Enfield London Borough Council’s 10,000th public rental housing unit
(131 Bounces Road, Edmonton) in January 1967, by the Minister of Housing, Anthony Greenwood. From left to right:
Councillor Charles Wright, Mayor of Enfield; Mr and Mrs Robertson (tenants); Greenwood; Councillor Eric Smythe,
Housing Committee Chairman of Enfield LBC. (b): Council Towers: official opening of the Brentford Waterworks Stage I
housing development, London Borough of Hounslow, in 1971. From left to right: Councillor and Mrs Fred Powe (Mayor
and Mayoress); Mrs Dora King and Alderman Alfred King (Council Leader); Councillor R. Foote (Housing Committee
Chairman); Michael Wates (Director, Wates Ltd). The six twenty-three-storey towers were built by Wates from 1967.
(c, d): Invitation postcards to official estate opening ceremonies in Leeds (see also 4.7d), issued by Housing Committee
Chairman Karl Cohen.

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E F

G H
Fig. 5.1 (e): Glasgow Corporation Housing Committee meeting in session in the City Chambers, 1962: Bailie David
Gibson and Councillor Edward Clark (Housing Committee Convener and Sub-Convener) are third and fourth from right.
(f): The new English Picturesque ideal of modern flats in greenery: proposal for a housing development on the
London periphery in Christopher Tunnard, Gardens in the Modern Landscape, London, 1938, p. 51 (cf. 4.2c, d). (g): The
first free-standing point block in greenery in Britain: Frederick Gibberd’s nine-storey ‘The Lawn’ tower at Area 2, Mark
Hall North, Harlow New Town, 1950 (MG 2019). (h): The rapid turnover of modernist housing fashions in Britain: 1950
cartoon by LCC chief architect Robert Matthew (under pseudonym ‘J. F. MCCosh’): ‘I may be old-fashioned, but there’s a
lot to be said for the jolly old traditional prefab.’

From the early 1960s, English housing designers played a leading role, alongside continental Structuralists,
in the international turn from free-standing blocks to conglomerate designs. Many 1960s estates combined
unprecedented size with the highest allowable densities (in Britain, generally 200 persons per acre). The City
of London Corporation’s Golden Lane development of 1954–9, by Chamberlin, Powell & Bon, combining six-
storey maisonettes and a seventeen-storey slab of small flats, was an early model, not least for the same
architects’ giant Barbican complex (built from 1962). Later noteworthy London conglomerates include
Broadwater Farm in Haringey, with over 1,000 flats in towers and deck blocks, from 1966; Kensington &
Chelsea’s West Chelsea Redevelopment (World’s End), from 1969, by architect Eric Lyons; and the Greater
London Council’s vast, decked, system-built Thamesmead satellite town of 1967–73, its multi-level podium

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studded with thirteen-storey towers. Typical large provincial echoes of these include Wolverhampton’s Heath
Town, from 1967, large by any British standards at 1,265 flats, and mingling different household units in a
complex amalgam of horizontal and vertical blocks up to twenty-three storeys high; or Portsmouth’s
monumental array of megastructural brick-clad towers at Portsdown Hill (1968–71) – a project later
demolished after only seventeen years’ occupation (see Fig. 5.3).15
The 1960s trend towards greater densities and heights stemmed not just from practical economic pressures,
but also from growing architectural demands for greater ‘urbanity’, fuelled by international propagandists such
as Team 10 and the Smithsons, and by the monumental built reality of the pioneering deck-access project
(built from 1957) at Park Hill in Sheffield, with its polygonal block-groupings. Greenery was not excluded
altogether, but it was now tightly confined; the core spatial value was enclosure, combined with horizontal
connectivity and increasingly intricate plans, for example at John Darbourne’s densely interconnected
‘traditional brick’ Lillington Street in Westminster (from 1964). Some other countries, such as the Netherlands
or Japan, would embrace gallery-access blocks with equal enthusiasm, but in simpler, separated-out patterns.
The next stage in England was rejection of high flats altogether, a trend pioneered in 1963–4 by government

A B

C D
Fig. 5.2 (a): Britain’s first major CIAM-style redevelopment: Westminster City Council’s multi-phase Pimlico, 1947–59,
architects Powell & Moya (MG 2019). (b, c): The LCC’s pioneering mixed development at the Roehampton estate, designed
by Matthew’s staff: the brick-clad point-blocks and terraces of Portsmouth Road (Alton East), 1953–6, by the ‘empiricist’
or ‘Soft’ faction, especially Rosemary Stjernstedt; 1951 model and 2019 view (MG) (cf. 11.11b). (d): The concrete-clad,
Corbusian Roehampton Lane (Alton West) of 1955–62, designed by the ‘Hard’ faction (MG 2019) (cf. 3.1c).

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E F

G H
Fig. 5.2 (e): The LCC Brandon Estate, including six seventeen-storey towers, from 1957, principal designer Ted Hollamby
(project group leader in LCC Architect’s Department) (MG 1981). (f): The two twenty-one-storey point-blocks and
low-rise flats of the LCC Brandram’s Works Site redevelopment (Canada Estate), from 1962, principal designer Colin
Lucas (group leader) (MG 1988). (g): The GLC Swedenborg Square development, 1965–71 – a mixed development of
three point-blocks (up to twenty-eight storeys) and low-rise housing: designed by the LCC/GLC Architect’s Department
(MG 2019). (h): The LCC Picton Street development, 1955: four eleven-storey slab-blocks of two-level maisonettes, built
by Laing: principal designer A. W. Cleeve Barr (group leader) (MG 1988).

research and development architects at the ‘Family Houses I’ low-rise high-density project at Ravenscroft
Road, West Ham (1963–4) (see Fig. 5.4).16

Slum clearance, planning and the ‘land-trap’

While all Anglophone countries emphasized area redevelopment of ‘obsolete’ housing, in Britain this process
was especially exaggerated, and was dominated by the large urban municipal authorities. Partly, this was
because the early suppression of private landlords had caused faster housing decay than in many other
countries; and partly it was fuelled by the British tradition of polemical debate about urban conditions. With
the private landlord squeezed in the middle, and both owner-occupation and rented state housing going from

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strength to strength, the municipalities piled up ever more radical powers of slum-clearance. Successive laws
had empowered them to compulsorily purchase land and buildings, compensating private landlords only for
site value, rather than market value, whereas in West Germany, for example, minimum-compensation
expropriation was declared generally unconstitutional in the 1950s. In Britain, too, the criteria of ‘slum’
unfitness were more exacting than in most other European countries: it was seen as shocking in 1953, for
example, that 37% of homes in England lacked a bathroom. Ever-tightening stipulations such as these led to
calls for ever-expanding slum-clearance: in 1963 it was estimated that 3.5 million old houses would need

A B

C D
Fig. 5.3 (a): Golden Lane, City of London: a City Corporation design of 1954–9 by Chamberlin Powell & Bon – mixed
development optimized for an inner-urban site with six-storey maisonettes and seventeen-storey tower (MG 2019).
(b, c): Barbican redevelopment, City of London: higher-rental urban rebuilding of bombed area by Chamberlin, Powell &
Bon, planned from 1955 and built from 1962, including megastructural podium and three towers of forty-three to forty-five
storeys: 1968 construction view and 2020 view (both MG). (d): Broadwater Farm, Haringey, London, a complex of ‘ziggurat’
deck blocks and towers in Larsen & Nielsen precast construction, from 1966: C. E. Jacob, Borough Architect (MG 2012).

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E F

G
Fig. 5.3 (e): Kensington & Chelsea Borough Council’s West Chelsea (World’s End) redevelopment, designed by Eric
Lyons and built 1969–75: a high-density ring-plan podium studded by towers up to twenty storeys high (MG 2012).
(f): Wolverhampton Borough Council’s decked and towered Heath Town Redevelopment Area, 1967–70, by Borough
Architect A. Chapman with Wates Ltd (MG 1984). (g): Portsmouth City Council’s monumental Portsdown Hill complex,
1968–71, crowning an escarpment overlooking the city; designed by architects E. Theakston and J. Duell following a
competition win, but demolished after only seventeen years (MG 1984) (cf. 16.1c).

replacing within twenty years. Even in semi-rural Norwich, the city plan of 1945 became so carried away as to
propose eventual destruction of all the city’s nineteenth-century terraced houses.17
Although the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had already seen limited clearances, what followed
1945 was totally different in character and scale: gigantic demonstrations of municipal power, clearing vast
expanses, often erasing their street patterns and rebuilding them on completely new layouts. The first major
modernist redevelopment was a complex mosaic of London East End sites in Stepney and Poplar from the mid-
1950s. Birmingham designated five redevelopment areas ringing the city centre, while Manchester cleared
swathes of Hulme. Most dramatic were Glasgow’s Gorbals and other clearance areas, with their spectacular
razing of blackened tenements, and soaring new towers. But local authorities’ autonomy in housing, including
slum-clearance, did not presuppose general unity of purpose and strategy. Far from it: the large councils were

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ridden by fundamental conflicts between housing and planning factions concerning the relationship between
council housing, slum-clearance and land policy. As a municipal affair, slum-clearance had traditionally been
controlled by city engineers and surveyors. Now the expansionist town planning profession tried to appropriate
it, arguing it should not be carried out piecemeal but within coordinated ‘comprehensive development areas’
(CDAs) at reduced densities, with ‘overspill’ population shipped out to planned New Towns or rural overspill
reception towns; designation of green belts around major cities would stop them from accommodating the
‘decanted’ citizens by boundary-extensions. This formula, developed in Patrick Abercrombie’s County of

A B

C
Fig. 5.4 (a): ‘The Coventry Mural’, Lower Precinct, Coventry, 1957: tiled mural by Townscape advocate Gordon Cullen,
depicting the city’s modern architectural showpieces, including not just Basil Spence’s cathedral and parish churches, but
also multi-storey council housing schemes such as the Wimpey-built tower blocks of Tile Hill (1953) and planned
maisonette slabs of Queen Street (built from 1959). Photo by Alistair Fair, 2019. (b): Park Hill, Sheffield: world-renowned
pioneering deck-access complex, designed by the City Architect’s Department (City Architect Lewis Womersley) and built
from 1957; 1985 (MG) view of tenth-floor street-deck. (c): The rejection of CIAM open planning: Lillington Street,
Westminster, pioneering brick-clad, medium-rise, high-density courtyard project built from 1964 to 1972 following John
Darbourne’s 1961 competition win: 2019 (MG) view of Phase 1 (1964–8).

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F G
Fig. 5.4 (d, e): Patrick Abercrombie’s Greater London Plan, 1944: section of overall proposal map, showing planned New
Towns north of London, and case-study proposal (not implemented) for New Town at Ongar, Essex, showing neighbourhood
unit layout. (f): Lincoln Green, Leeds: 1987 (MG) photograph showing (very late) slum-clearance of nineteenth-century
brick back-to-back houses in progress in the foreground; in the background is one of the twelve ten-storey towers built at
Lincoln Green in 1958–60, following the T-plan standard design by City Architect R. A. H. Livett, 1956. (g): Hackney
Borough Council’s fifteen-storey tower development at Paragon Road, built in 1957 by direct labour (MG 2019)

London and Greater London plans of 1943 and 1944 and the Clyde Valley Regional Plan (with Robert Matthew)
of 1946–9, explicitly discouraged any general adoption in Britain of what would become the dominant
continental formula: high-density ‘grands ensembles’ ringing the city periphery.18
From the municipal housing committees’ viewpoint, this planning-led strategy threatened significant losses
of both population and local taxation revenue. But the emergence of the modernist tower block in the 1950s
provided a new method of decanting and clearance which could cut through all this, providing the inhabitants
with modern homes as quickly as possible, without overspill. In the words of Councillor Eric Smythe, the
1960s Housing Committee chairman of Enfield Borough Council in outer London, ‘Firstly, you had to create

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the holes to put a tower block up, which you did by pulling a couple of streets down. Then you put in the block,
and commenced pulling down the rest of the area!’ This was, essentially the same formula described by
NYCHA as ‘sectional construction’, but here driven by the separate needs of independent-minded
municipalities.19 In other authorities, where ‘comprehensive planners’ succeeded in establishing a general
ascendancy, tower blocks often formed part of architecturally-complex design formulae – above all in inner
London, where the LCC saw itself as a beacon of ‘enlightened planning’. Smaller towns looked to all these alike
as exemplars both in output and design. To a councillor from the West Midlands town of Halesowen, visiting
inner London in 1960, Hackney Borough Council’s fifteen-storey towers at Paragon Road (built in 1957)
‘made his own authority, which thought it was progressive, look like a snail which had lost its way’.20

Financing and organizing high flats in the 1960s

The real driving forces of the 1960s public housing boom in Britain are elusive. The politicized council-housing
system meant that there was much rhetoric, national and local, and party-political competition around
escalating national housing targets, most dramatically the declaration of a 400,000 annual target at the 1963
Conservative Party conference by the new Minister of Housing, Sir Keith Joseph; Joseph’s pledge was elaborated
by Labour after 1964 into a ‘National Housing Plan’. But the underlying political and organizational realities of
housing production had changed very little. Once the housing factions within the great cities had decided to
combat overspill through multi-storey building, government administrators opportunistically devised rules
and subsidies to support them. Recognizing high blocks’ greater cost, cities such as Birmingham or Glasgow
successfully pressured the government to introduce (from 1956–7) special subsidies for them; from 1965–7
onwards a ‘cost-plus’ deficit subsidy for all council housing was introduced, tied to a system of cost limits.21
By the early 1960s, at any rate, it seemed that the scene was set for an unrestrained output of modern flats
across Britain – a chronology similar to metropolitan Melbourne or Toronto, but radically different from the
reputational collapse by then underway in the USA. High blocks were now an accepted housing pattern, and
soon, massive schemes would be routinely channelled through council committees almost without discussion.
George Bowie, company architect of contractor Crudens, recalled that ‘I used to joke, in Dundee’s Housing
Committee, that there was often far lengthier discussion about rebuilding public lavatories than about doing
multi-storeys!’22 Before that process could begin, however, the unexpected obstacle of a general construction
shortage, especially of labour, had to be circumvented in the early 1960s. Output-orientated local authorities
did this through new contractual and constructional methods – notably contractor-designed ‘package deals’
and prefabrication.23 The urgent pressure from large urban authorities to embark on high building rapidly
attracted large contractors to new organizational and constructional approaches.
In the face of the building shortages, government curbs on negotiated contracts were the first to be relaxed,
followed by a stampede towards package deals. Most package-deal blocks devised by big contractors were
actually in ‘rationalized-traditional’ in-situ concrete construction, as with the ‘no-fines’ construction used by
George Wimpey Ltd.24 Prefabricated ‘system building’ was much slower to develop. Load-bearing large-panel
concrete construction of high flats was experimentally introduced to England in 1956 by Reema at Leeds as a
main contractor. The years 1961–3 saw an upsurge in government-supported initiatives in system building,
including the founding of a ‘National Building Agency’ to provide consultancy help to local authority consortia.
Built realizations were more erratic, especially compared with the vast systematization of industrialized
housing in the contemporary USSR, or even France. Early attempts by the Soviets’ favourite French
prefabrication firm, Camus, to clinch a municipal deal in Britain only succeeded in the production-minded
City of Liverpool, where local Conservative and Labour leaders impulsively ordered a large number of twenty-

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two-storey blocks on an inspection visit to Paris in 1962, only to discover that the peripheral sites earmarked
for them were blocked by Green Belt restrictions.25 In the field of large precast-panel prefabrication, Concrete
Ltd was the only contractor to make a significant impact in all parts of Britain. This firm’s reputation as the
‘Rolls-Royce of Systems’ derived partly from the structural flexibility of its ‘Bison Wall-Frame’ prefabrication,
and partly from the organizational advantage that it was originally a specialist precast concrete supplier rather
than a main contractor. The systems boom was fleeting: the ‘industrialized’ proportion of public housing
tender approvals rose briefly from 28% in 1965 to 42% in 1967, before rapidly falling to 19% in 1970.26
One of the most extreme manifestations of British ‘council powers’ in housing was the direct labour
organization (or DLO) – a municipal equivalent of the publicly-owned building combines of state-socialist
countries, or of the CHP in Melbourne. The LCC’s force was the largest in Britain, but it was mainly employed
on maintenance. In some entrenched Labour-controlled municipalities, well-established DLOs built a high
proportion of council housing, sometimes including significant construction of high flats.27 Exemplifying the
latter was ‘EDLO’: the DLO of Edmonton Borough Council in Middlesex (later Enfield Borough Council) –
the longest-established force in England, which had since 1925 carried out all the borough’s building work,
including construction of some 10,000 dwellings. In the 1950s, under the encouragement of Housing Chairmen
Thomas Joyce and Eric Smythe, and the management of Borough Architect Tom Wilkinson, it launched
vigorously into multi-storey building, including its own technique of battery-cast prefabrication, used after
1965 for a succession of massive, idiosyncratically-patterned towers at Barbot Street, Edmonton Green (both
1966) and elsewhere.28 Conversely, the most spectacular DLO debacle was the Red Road project of 1962–9 in
Glasgow, where anxiety not to be left out of the city’s 1960s multi-storey boom (see below) led the Corporation’s
huge DLO to commission a wildly experimental project of stark, steel-framed towers and slabs, twenty-seven-
to thirty-one-storeys high and clad in asbestos panels; designed by the charismatic but erratic architect Sam
Bunton, the project suffered calamitous mismanagement and overspending (see Fig. 5.5).29

London and the English cities

The culture of innovation in England has always been highly concentrated in the capital, and so the initial shift
to modern flats was overwhelmingly concentrated in London. But this did not last: 80% of all high flats
approved in the UK in 1945–52 were in London, but by 1958–62 the proportion had fallen to only 23%. By the
early 1960s, falling London housing output coincided with a worsening housing and land shortage. This
stemmed, paradoxically, from a prosperity-related population influx, and its much-publicized manifestations:
homelessness, landlord abuses, tenement unfitness. This demographic pressure was greatly amplified by
organizational shortcomings in the housing drive, caused by the two-tier system of local government: housing
was the responsibility of both the regional LCC and the lower-tier metropolitan boroughs, while the LCC also
exercised town-planning oversight over the boroughs’ housing projects – a confused, multi-headed structure
that nurtured an almost unparalleled complexity of local housing microecologies.30
In the County of London, the LCC’s claims to overall authority over public housing production were
undermined in the 1950s and early 1960s by the individualistic design ethos within the Architect’s Department.
Under the mid-1950s regime of chief architect Leslie Martin, it was grandly assumed that the LCC had an
example to set, whether in constructional innovation or in patronage of the arts, while cost and output
efficiency seemed secondary, as discovered by the young architect Martin Richardson on joining Colin Lucas’s
renowned group: ‘The whole of the Housing Division seemed like a giant nursery school, whose main object
was the happiness of architects – nothing would make them use the same design twice, or, worse, use someone
else’s design!’31 Extreme ivory-tower thinking coloured LCC attitudes to the industrialized-building efforts of

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the early 1960s. The Architect’s Department vetoed adoption of contractor-designed package-deals, and
invented its own ‘systems’, some improbably experimental, such as the steel-framed ‘S.F.1’ point-block, clad in
modified plastic ambulance body panels – a scheme eventually terminated after only four towers were built, at
Walterton Road, Westminster and Watney Street Market, Tower Hamlets (from 1965).32
The LCC also exercised planning control over the metropolitan boroughs’ housing operations, and its
Housing Committee leaders, such as Mrs Evelyn Denington, strongly favoured density controls. These were
challenged unsuccessfully by some boroughs, notably in the 1954 ‘Perkins Heights’ proposal for fifteen-storey
towers on a small site in Paddington.33 Only the most determined lower-tier boroughs could start significant

A B

C D
Fig. 5.5 (a, b): Manston Road Allotments, Ramsgate (Staner Court): the prototype of Wimpey’s ‘1001’ standard tower,
using dry-lined no-fines construction and marketed as a MHLG-endorsed ‘system’; built 1963–4 (MG 2020). (c): Leyton
Borough Council’s Oliver Close development: three twenty-two-storey Wates blocks designed and built in 1963–6: 1965
view of on-site model by Wates. Wates Ltd. (d): Liverpool Corporation’s low-rise prototype Camus block at Classic Road,
1962–3, test-bed for the standard twenty-two -storey block series (MG 1984).

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E F
Fig. 5.5 (e): Brettenham Road Estate Phase II, Enfield, London: eighteen-storey towers built using EDLO’s direct-labour
battery-cast system in 1968–9. (MG 2018). (f): Glasgow’s Red Road tower scheme (1962–9): seven steel-framed tower and
slab blocks of twenty-seven to thirty-one storeys, built by the council’s direct labour force and designed by architect Sam
Bunton (MG 2012).

multi-storey programmes. Foremost among these was Shoreditch, a wealthy inner borough with relatively few
slums, which built many architecturally-repetitive slab-blocks (from 1948) and point-blocks (from 1955),
allowing its per-capita completions rate to outstrip both the LCC and all other boroughs. Shoreditch was only
bettered by the City of London Corporation, whose miniscule population and vast resources echoed its
situation in a more extreme form.34 Its programme culminated in the heroic scale of the high-rental Barbican
scheme (planned from 1955 and built between 1962 and 1971), designed by architects Chamberlin Powell and
Bon with a cluster of forty-three- to forty-five-storey towers rising from a megastructural podium of walkways
and medium-rise courtyard blocks.35
The government’s remedy for the London output crisis, implemented in 1964–5, was to rebalance the two-
tier system in favour of the boroughs, and replace the LCC by the larger, but less powerful, Greater London
Council – a strategy that resulted in a 55% jump in per-capita output in 1964–7. On the planning side, the
tables now turned: the new London boroughs were virtually full planning authorities in the housing field. For
the most ambitious of them, mass council housing was a means of creating civic identity – an ethos boosted
under the post-1964 Labour government by the progress-chasing work of junior minister Robert Mellish: ‘I
set up what was tantamount to a league table, and said the people at the bottom would be relegated!’ 36 Within
five years, a jumble of parochial towns and suburbs had become forceful, city-like authorities – resembling the
‘red’ municipalities ringing Paris in their fiercely independent housing policies, but differing from them in
the absence of communism from their political set-up.
Among the new inner London Boroughs, there was much ostentatious muscle-flexing, to emphasize their
emancipation from the LCC and compete with one another. Some, however, continued the LCC emphasis on
architectural individualism, notably Lambeth LBC, whose leadership regarded housing design as a municipal
flagship, and astutely secured prominent LCC architect Ted Hollamby in 1963 as their first Borough Architect.
To raise output, Hollamby began in 1966 a programme of twenty-two-storey tower blocks on small gap-sites,
designed in an individualistic, craggy style by his own architects. These were complemented by low-rise
projects, including a complex scheme for the borough’s prime site at Central Hill, designed by Hollamby’s ex-
LCC ‘Soft’ colleague Rosemary Stjernstedt.37 By contrast, the capital’s most forceful new borough, Southwark
LBC, was energized by a conscious search for grandeur, both in output and in architecture. It built massive,

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horizontally-accentuated complexes of deck blocks rather than towers, designed by the staff of Borough
Architect Frank Hayes. The centrepiece of the programme was the Aylesbury redevelopment area, a piecemeal
site dotted with numerous existing buildings, into which immensely long slab blocks and low terraces were
inserted in 1967–75. On a similarly commanding site to Central Hill, Hayes’s solution was far more
monumental: the proud, rugged brick-clad outcrop of the Dawsons Hill development (1968) (see Fig. 5.6).38

A B

C D
Fig. 5.6 (a, b): GLC Watney Street Market development, Tower Hamlets, designed from 1965 (group leader John Davidson)
and built 1966–9, including two twenty-four-storey ‘SF1’ (or ‘Indulex’) towers clad in modified plastic ambulance panels: 1982
general view and 1979 close-up (both MG). (c): Labour’s London housing minister, Robert Mellish, opens Block A of the
Angel Road redevelopment in Enfield, EDLO’s first battery-cast tower block, in 1965. From left to right: Mrs and Mrs Henry
Green (tenants); Councillor Eric Smythe (Housing Chairman); Robert Mellish; and Councillor Kit Harvey (Mayor of Enfield).
(d): The opening of the ‘Tomorrow’s Lambeth Today’ exhibition at the Royal Festival Hall, 1965: inspection of model of
Clarence Avenue project, including new standard tower blocks (designed by architect George Finch – partner of Kate
Macintosh, cf. 5.6g). From left to right, Marcus Lipton MP; Councillor Ewan Carr (Mayor); Richard Crossman, Minister of
Housing; Mrs Betty Carr; Councillor Spencer Fagan (Housing Chairman); Ted Hollamby (Borough Architect).

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E F

G
Fig. 5.6 (e, f): Aylesbury Estate, Southwark, 1967–75, 12M Jespersen slab-blocks designed by the staff of Borough
Architect Frank Hayes: a monumental slum-clearance scheme inserted into a complex network of piecemeal sites; 1969
and 2018 (MG) views of Block B9. (g): Dawsons Hill development, Southwark, 1968–73: a grandiose suburban project of
ziggurat slabs, designed by Hayes’s department, with Kate Macintosh as project architect (MG 2020).

In the English provinces, the housing drive was also highly diverse. During the 1960s the largest cities
began sustained production of multi-storey blocks, as did many smaller centres in the main conurbations,
often in rivalry with each other, creating, as in London, a vast variety of local microecologies. The greatest
enthusiasts for LCC-style ‘enlightened’ design were the New Towns, whose governance by appointed
administrators insulated them from local municipal housing politics and allowed them to behave as centres of
excellence in housing design and landscaping. Some Mark I New Towns, such as Harlow and Stevenage,
continued to build a few point-blocks in the 1960s for mainly visual reasons, continuing Gibberd’s concept
of the landmark tower, but the focus of their architectural innovation was by then moving on to low-rise

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high-density patterns, influenced by the pioneering Scottish ‘Mark II’ New Town at Cumbernauld (from
1957) – for example, in Neylan & Ungless’s hilltop ‘carpet’ at Bishopsfield, Harlow (from 1961).39
Within council housing proper, the provincial city most committed to LCC-style designer-controlled
mixed development was Coventry, which saw itself as a privileged authority duty-bound to innovate for
the benefit of more architecturally utilitarian city councils.40 Coventry’s City Architect and Planning
Officer, Arthur Ling, on succeeding D. E. E. Gibson in 1955, devised a Modern housing programme subtly
influenced by his own communist ‘socialist realist’ predilections – including landscaped redevelopments
with LCC-like slab-blocks, and landmark towers of small higher-income rental flats, dotted around the city
centre and at suburban focal-points, echoing Gibberd’s ‘church spire’ towers in Harlow and, indirectly,
Stalin’s skyscrapers in Moscow.41 The other leading provincial city architect, Lewis Womersley of Sheffield,
pursued a more radically diverse architectural policy under the Maecenas-like political patronage of the city’s
two design-orientated housing leaders, councillors Albert Smith and Harold Lambert. Womersley’s
departmental architecture ranged from mixed developments and suburban cottages to the internationally-
renowned, pioneering deck-access complex at Park Hill, designed by project architects Ivor Smith and
Jack Lynn. To its south, Norfolk Park (1963–7) ranged fifteen massive seventeen-storey twin-towers
along another hillside site, and Woodside Lane (1960), to the north-west, sprouted another cluster of point-
blocks. Lambert rhapsodized that ‘like Rome on its seven hills, Sheffield’s redevelopments were built on
three hills . . . It was a fantastic thing – it reflected even on a layman such as me, the changing view of Woodside
on its hill as you move round.’42
In other large English cities, aesthetic ideals such as mixed development or ‘dense urbanity’ were balanced
with more urgent output pressures, as exemplified in the housing drive initiated in 1963 by Alderman
Harry Watton, the ‘little Caesar’ of Birmingham. Incensed by the planners’ decentralization agenda, in 1959
Watton declared, ‘Birmingham people are entitled to remain in Birmingham if they wish, and Birmingham
industry has the right to remain in the city it has done so much to make great.’ In 1963–4, overruling
the design-minded City Architect, A. G. Sheppard Fidler, Watton imposed a policy of faster development
of gap-sites and the redundant Castle Bromwich Airfield using negotiated repeat contracts. Infuriated
at Watton’s ‘starting to dictate what I could build, and where’, Sheppard Fidler resigned.43 To replace
him, Watton imported Leeds’s City Architect, J. R. Sheridan Shedden, who reorientated Birmingham’s
programme towards production, with output soaring from 2,542 completions in 1964 to 9,023 in 1967: three
times the per-capita level for the whole of Greater London. From 1966 to 1974, this policy was expanded
further by a new City Architect, Alan Maudsley. His organizational gift, one Bryant director recalled, was ‘an
uncanny way of cutting through red tape . . . You’d finish a job and he’d just walk up to the plans on his wall,
rub “X” out and put “Y” in: “They can’t produce – you can!” ’ Maudsley minimized the number of dwelling
types, while also precociously reducing the proportion of high flats: from a 1964 maximum of 59% of all
approvals, they fell to 21% in 1967, 11% in 1970 and nothing thereafter. His gleaming white-tiled towers were
dotted sparingly in a sea of two-storey cottages and flats, and low-rise types comprised over 85% of the
14,000-dwelling Chelmsley Wood city-periphery project (from 1966): ‘the size of a Mark 1 New Town – but
built in five years’.44
In Newcastle, a modern housing drive of high-tower building formed the ‘ladder to power’ of Northern
England’s most buccaneering city leader, Councillor T. Dan Smith. He conceived a bold vision of Newcastle
as a modernized regional centre of the North East, and forbade both overspill and reduced densities.
Elected to the housing chair in May 1958, Smith focused on the city’s slums as ‘a perfect target for vigorous
attack’. The city’s extreme shortage of development land meant any redevelopment would be ring-fenced,
so Smith enthusiastically began building newly-designed point-blocks on landscaped gap-sites near the
centre, including his showpiece, Cruddas Park. By mid-1959, the use of tower blocks on central gap-sites had

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raised construction by 150% in a single year, allowing a cycle of slum clearance and decanting to
commence, and had provided a curtain-raiser for Smith’s wider modernization plan, securing him the council
leadership. Much later, from 1971 onwards, the city hosted a very different, and distinctly anti-modernist
reconstruction vision: architect Ralph Erskine’s fantastically complex, ‘participatory’ Byker redevelopment
project, with its barrier ‘wall’ shielding a dense network of artistically haphazard-looking terrace houses
(see Fig. 5.7).45
Elsewhere, various more utilitarian approaches to modernist mass housing production predominated,
some sharply in conflict with each other. In north-west England, the city of Manchester, traditionally opposed
to dense urban development and favouring planned population overspill and garden suburbs, had allowed its
City Engineer to clear vast expanses of slums without any replacement plans – arguably the most extreme
example of the ‘bulldozer cult’ in the Anglophone world – and was reluctantly prodded by the Ministry of
Housing in the early 1960s into a limited programme of tower and deck-access construction in order to fill
some of the empty expanses. Yet Manchester’s immediate neighbour, Salford, was implacably opposed to

A B

C D
Fig. 5.7 (a): Norfolk Park, Sheffield, 1963–7, designed by the staff of City Architect Lewis Womersley, including fifteen
seventeen-storey twin tower blocks (MG 1987). (b): Castle Vale, Birmingham: Area A (approved 1964), eleven- and
sixteen-storey Bryant RC towers, designed by City Architect A. G. Sheppard Fidler (MG 1987). (c): Slum-clearance
triumphant: Newcastle-upon-Tyne’s council leader, T. Dan Smith, inspects progress in the Scotswood Road (Cruddas
Park) area in 1963. (d): Slum-clearance deconstructed: Newcastle’s Byker redevelopment, 1971–7, a hyper-complex
barrier-block and low-rise terrace design by Ralph Erskine’s Arkitektkontor (MG 2012).

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Mass Housing

E F

G H
Fig. 5.7 (e): Wellington Hill, Leeds, Wimpey tower blocks designed by the City Architect and built 1960–2 (MG 2011;
cf. 4.1). (f): Heywood, near Manchester, ‘out-county’ City Council estate designed and built by Laing, in 1963. (g): Salford,
Ellor Street and High Street Redevelopment Areas, 1962–74: a vast, 89-acre zone packed with towers, several designed by
the Architectural Research Unit of Edinburgh University (MG 1987). (h): Mortlake/Eldon/Clever Roads development,
Newham, London – nine twenty-three-storey towers built in Larsen & Nielsen construction, 1966–8; Ronan Point at
extreme left (MG 1982).

overspill, and launched a massive, 89-acre clearance area at the Ellor Street–Broad Street CDA (1962–74),
packing it with high flats to maximize its housing output, which soared from a mere thirty completions in
1962 to 1,468 in 1966. Until the early 1970s, Salford kept up the highest per-capita production of any English
city; but by then the fortunes of high council flats in England were in precipitate retreat, fuelled not only by
the sharp swing in architectural fashion against CIAM modernism but by public revulsion at the vast clearances
– a shift accelerated by the partial collapse in May 1968 of Ronan Point, a system-built tower in the London
Borough of Newham, following a gas explosion, and rapidly converted to action by the heavily-politicized
council-housing system, when widespread Conservative gains in local elections were boosted by promises to
phase out multi-storey building.46

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Scotland’s housing blitzkrieg: the legacy of ‘Red Clydeside’

Pressure for design-dominated solutions was largely absent in Scotland, especially in Glasgow, where the
unremitting political output pressure, combined with firebrand socialist politics, created the fiercest hot spot of
British ‘council powers’. Just as in the LCC, cost economy was of strictly secondary importance here – but for
reasons not of design but of production. The long-standing city architect, Archibald Jury (1951–74), recalled, ‘It
always came back to the target . . . as many as could be constructed in the least possible time – throughout my
entire service in Glasgow!’ Glasgow had suffered almost no wartime damage and so its decayed nineteenth-
century tenements had almost all survived. The city’s Housing Committee initially set out not to redevelop
these but, like many continental cities, to thin out their population into large new peripheral developments of
conservatively-styled low-rise flats. During the mid-1950s, a powerful regional-planning alliance within the
Scottish Office and Glasgow Corporation attempted to stop this programme through an aggressive pincer
strategy of planner-controlled comprehensive development areas combined with mass overspill.47 The first of
these CDAs, Hutchesontown-Gorbals, targeted the symbolic epicentre of the city’s slums through mixed-
development plans dominated by two very different multi-storey set pieces: Area B by leading Scottish modernist
Robert Matthew, with four tall towers surrounding low-rise courtyards (1958–64); and Area C by Basil Spence,
with two ruggedly-profiled twenty-storey maisonnette slabs, indented with communal ‘garden slabs’ (1960–6).48
But by the mid-1960s, Glasgow’s programme was heading in a very different direction from this planner-
coordinated strategy. Beyond the CDA zone, waves of colossal ‘multis’ were rising, some over thirty storeys
high. These were not located in carefully-planned mixed developments, but were thrown haphazardly on gap-
sites, defying the planners’ prescriptions and reversing the relative proportions of new housing built within the
city and in overspill towns. The Housing Committee’s fightback resulted from the initiative of one individual:
David Gibson, its Convener from 1961 to 1964. As a former member of the radical Independent Labour Party,
Gibson’s worldview was one of impassioned, homespun socialism. Exploiting the special power and autonomy
of council housing authorities in Scotland, Gibson in 1961 launched a stunning counter-blow against the
planners, who recognized him as ‘the frightening one – a white-faced, intense, driving idealist’. His dominance
in Glasgow was a rare, but all the more dramatic, example of messianic idealism as the genuine driving force,
rather than a mere rhetorical pretext, for mass housing production in a major hot-spot city: in 1962, for
example, he rhapsodized that soon

. . . the skyline of Glasgow will become a more attractive one to me because of the likely vision of multi-
storey houses rising by the thousand. The prospect will be thrilling, I am certain, to the many thousands
who are still yearning for a home. It may appear on occasion that I would offend against all good
planning principles, against open space and Green Belt principles – if I offend against these it is only in
seeking to avoid the continuing and unpardonable offence that bad housing commits against human
dignity. A decent home is the cradle of the infant, the seminar of the young and the refuge of the aged!49

Gibson realized that if the towers proposed by the planners for mixed-development use in the CDAs were
instead built on gap-sites anywhere in the city, this would permit a self-contained cycle of decanting within the
city, bypassing overspill. A tranche of such gap-sites was generated by rezoning open spaces such as golf
courses and demolishing the city’s large estates of 1940s single-storey ‘prefabs’, redeveloping them intensively
with high towers, as at Lincoln Avenue and Scotstoun House in Knightswood (1962–4). Derelict industrial
land generated large ‘bonus’ sites which were similarly exploited: notably Sighthill (1963–9) with its
monumental array of twenty-storey Crudens Zeilenbau slabs. Far more of Glasgow’s multi-storey flats were in
very high blocks than elsewhere: the proportion over twenty storeys was three times that of London and
eighteen times that of Birmingham (see Fig. 5.8).50

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A B

C D

Fig. 5.8 (a): Drumchapel Township

Unit 2, Glasgow, 1953–6, four-storey
precast concrete crosswall tenements
designed by Sam Bunton (MG 1980). (b):
The visiting card of Glasgow Corporation’s
Housing Convener, David Gibson, 1964.
(c): David Gibson examining existing and
proposed view of Sighthill at his home, 5
Cardowan Road, in 1961. (d): Sighthill,
Glasgow, 1963–9: ‘package deal’ twenty-
storey slab-blocks designed and built by
Crudens (MG 2006). (e): Townhead Area
A, Glasgow, 1961–4, designed by the staff
of City Architect A. G. Jury (MG 2019) E

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 Council Powers: Postwar Public Housing in Britain and Ireland

Other Scottish housing leaders soon joined Gibson’s ‘housing war’. In Edinburgh, for instance, the city’s
traditionally non-socialist administration had confined slum clearance to small, individualistic sites, including
Cables Wynd (1962–5, by architects Alison & Hutchison), a ten-storey deck-access slab planned on a curved
alignment to fit round a retained tenement, or the more outlandish Leith Fort, a combination of industrial-
aesthetic towers, brick deck blocks and low-rise courtyard-houses (from 1960, by Shaw-Stewart, Baikie &
Perry). In 1962, however, the Housing Committee chair passed for the first time to a Labour member,
Councillor Pat Rogan, who began a crash drive of suburban tower-building, exploiting Edinburgh’s prefab
estates, the largest in the country: 3,616 bungalows were demolished and replaced by 9,272 permanent flats,
trebling the City’s programme. In Aberdeen, the long-standing civic ethos of thrifty prudence shaped the
carefully-designed programme of suburban towers, from 1959, and crossover-section slab blocks in inner
clearance areas, building up to the massive Gallowgate and Castlehill redevelopments (1964 and 1966
respectively), their walls clad with distinctive pebble-faced slabs.51 In the rival city of Dundee, the city’s
colourful reputation for municipal corruption coincided with by far the largest public housing drive per head
of population in Britain. It featured numerous dramatic 1960s projects, some on CDA gap-sites, such as the
grandiose, twenty-three-storey slab-blocks of Maxwelltown (from 1965) and Derby Street (Camus, from
1967), monumentally crowning the city’s skyline as seen from the River Tay. Suburban development included
Crudens’s six mighty seventeen-storey Zeilenbau slab-blocks at Ardler, from 1964, located on a redeveloped
golf course and each containing 298 flats; and another vast Crudens scheme of 2,460 flats in 130 medium-rise
Skarne deck blocks, interspersed with two conventionally-built slabs, at Whitfield – a relentless honeycomb of
hexagonal courtyards, juxtaposed with stark, open country to the north (see Fig. 5.9).52
Aided centrally by the mid-1960s ‘progress-chasing’ efforts of Labour Scottish Office minister J. Dickson
Mabon, the ‘Gibson crusade’ of mass housing spread right across the country. Unsurprisingly, Scotland’s

A B
Fig. 5.9 (a): Martello Court, Muirhouse Phase II, Edinburgh, externally galleried point-block designed by Rowand
Anderson Kininmonth & Paul, 1962–4 (MG 2017). (b): Gallowgate Phase II, Aberdeen, city-centre redevelopment, 1964–
6, designed by the staff of City Architect George McIntosh Keith and featuring ‘local’ granite gable cladding (MG 2018).

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C D
Fig. 5.9 (c): Hutcheon Street CDA, Aberdeen, slab-blocks designed by Keith’s staff and built from 1973 (MG 2018).
(d): Somerville St/High St Redevelopment, Burntisland, 1956–7: development of forty-seven new and nine restored
houses designed by Wheeler & Sproson as part of a phased redevelopment in this historic Fife burgh (MG 2019).

multi-storey drive proved exceptionally resilient, not only significantly outlasting that of England and Wales,
but modestly reviving around 1970, when an absolute maximum in Scottish public-sector output was reached,
with just under 35,000 completions. Meticulous management of Aberdeen’s high flats allowed its programme
to continue far longer than in any other UK city: the last project, an eleven-storey point-block at Jasmine Place,
was completed only in 1985.53 Parallelling these high-rise campaigns, small Scottish historic towns saw a
different pattern of slum redevelopment, informed by the place-sensitive ‘conservative surgery’ ideology of
Patrick Geddes, as in the work of architects Wheeler & Sproson in Fife, or the picturesque, intricate interventions
of council flats by Richard Moira in the Shetland capital, Lerwick (1956–66).54

Island diversity: Ireland and the Channel Islands

Just as in Scandinavia and the Low Countries, where culturally similar countries generated strikingly divergent
microecologies of public housing, the same applied to the other islands in the archipelago. In the semi-
independent Crown dependencies of the Channel Islands – the Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey – the small
scale and high population density, swelled by higher-income immigration, encouraged significant public
housing construction, while dictating a more centralized regime, with dwellings directly built and let by
central government (the ‘States’). Both Jersey and Guernsey had fought postwar low-rent housing shortages
through draconian controls over sale and letting of dwellings, and grants to private builders, supplemented by
a significant programme of direct building: architecturally, States housing in both Jersey and Guernsey
generally resembled council housing in southern English towns such as Brighton or Exeter. In Jersey, the States
Housing Committee, headed successively by Senators J. E. Gaudin and John Averty, embarked during the
1960s on a vigorous slum-clearance and multi-storey building drive in the capital, St Helier. The first high
block of States flats was commenced at Green Street in 1962, but in the late 1960s and early 1970s the
programme really got underway, with seven projects for blocks up to sixteen storeys, culminating in the
Samarès Marsh development of 1971, with its four T-shaped fifteen-storey towers, designed by the Public

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Buildings and Works Department. By the late 1970s, 639 multi-storey flats had been built, accounting at one
stage for over 20% of all States rental housing in Jersey.55
The position in Ireland was not only very different from both Britain and the Channel Islands, and from the
world-leading efforts of pre-1914 Ireland itself, but also featured a postwar divergence between the two parts
of the partitioned island – the Unionist-ruled north, where British levels of public housing output were
achieved by a crash housing programme supervised by central government rather than powerful municipalities,
and the independent Republic of Ireland, where the overriding emphasis on subsidized private housing was
offset by a limited boom in council housing, especially for slum-clearance in Dublin city.56
In Dublin, we saw in chapter 2 that slum-clearance flat-building, and the revival of council housing, had
paradoxically been boosted under the socially-conservative Fianna Fáil government of 1932–48.57 However,
during the Emergency (i.e. World War II), official policy took on a socially conservative anti-urban, anti-flat
slant – not dissimilar to the position in Portugal (see chapter 9). In the post-Emergency years the subsidized
building of owner-occupied suburban houses, reaching 60% owner-occupation overall by 1961, was paralleled
by significant low-rise public developments, including thousands of non-traditional concrete houses built by
public utility Bord na Móna in 1950s townships for turf-burning power-station workers. Under the Costello
coalition government of 1948–51, the emphasis on Dublin slum-clearance flats was tentatively revived, in an
architecturally conservative form. The last scheme designed by housing architect Simms before his 1948
suicide, Fatima Mansions (1941–51), resembled the pre-war schemes, but from the late 1950s, under a new city
architect, Dáithí Hanly (in post from 1955–6), working closely with Director of Housing T. C. O’Mahony and
the city council Housing Committee Chairman John J. Phelan, a fresh boom in Corporation low-rental flat-
building began. Following rejection of initial proposals for nine-storey slum-clearance towers, the old gallery-
access pattern cautiously mutated into a new, standard five-storey block-type, with reinforced-concrete-frame
construction and incorporating two-storey maisonettes for larger families. The first examples of this new type
were designed by Hanly’s staff (including J. F. Maguire, Liam Boyle and Seamus Delaney) from 1959 onwards,
and a total of thirty-five maisonette schemes followed during the 1960s and early 1970s, in Constitution Hill,
Charleville Mall, Basin Street and elsewhere.58
These small-scale developments helped perpetuate piecemeal slum-clearance, but 1963 saw an unexpected
housing crisis following a tenement collapse at Fenian Street, including two deaths and the evacuation of 156
tenement houses.59 Suddenly, the existing municipal mechanisms and piecemeal development pattern no
longer seemed adequate, and the long-serving Minister for Local Government (1957–66), Neil Blaney, cast
around urgently for an all-embracing national solution. Following a 1964 tour of system-built projects in
Stockholm, Paris and Copenhagen, the recently-established Irish National Building Agency was charged with
organizing an emergency system-built slum-clearance drive in Dublin. To provide a radical output boost,
development impetus was diverted from scattered inner-city sites into a single, massive peripheral project, at
Ballymun. The development mechanism combined national and local, public and private, agencies. Design
and construction were entrusted to a private-sector consortium (Cubitt Haden Sisk), including consultant
architect Arthur Swift and landscapist Fehily Associates, and Dublin Corporation took over management
post-completion.60 Built in just four years (1965–9) at a cost of £9.5 million, the 3,021-unit Ballymun, like
many 1960s grands ensembles in France and the Soviet bloc (see chapters 5, 10–11), was organized on a
dispersed, yet schematically geometrical layout – here a four-arm spiral, including seven sixteen-storey towers
and several eight-storey slabs in the Balency system, and low-rise housing by Lowton-Cubitt. Speaking in the
Dáil in October 1966, Blaney boasted that ‘I stake my reputation . . . on the value of a new system, an
industrialized system, never tried before in this country and on a scale not exceeded . . . in any country in
Europe, in a single contract for housing, and it is going well.’ Almost immediately, however, the concrete
massiveness of Ballymun provoked public opposition, and the appointment of Jack Maguire as city Housing

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Architect in 1970 heralded a shift towards low-rise high-density patterns. In 1987 the national public housing
programme finally petered out, followed by piecemeal privatization, via ‘Housing Surrender Grants’; demolition
of Ballymun eventually began in 1998 (see Fig. 5.10).61
In Northern Ireland, the postwar quarter-century witnessed a more dramatic housing-policy transformation
than anything in Britain or the Republic of Ireland, steered not by local authorities but by a civil service elite
within the devolved government (‘Stormont’), led by Permanent Secretary Ronald Green. After 1945, Stormont
was reluctantly drawn into convergence with the British welfare state – known as ‘parity’ – including
commencement of a mass-housing drive, although the very idea of mass housing supported by public subsidies
was viewed with suspicion by more conservative Ulster Protestants, including many local councillors.62 Private

A B

C
Fig. 5.10 (a): December 1964 article in the Jersey Evening Post, reporting the opening of St Helier’s first multi-storey
States flats, a fifteen-storey tower at Green Street. (b): Basin Street Flats, Dublin, 1967: slum-clearance redevelopment of
five-storey maisonette blocks for large families, designed by City Architect Dáithí Hanly’s staff (MG 2014). (c): City
Council maisonette blocks in Constitution Hill (1968) and King Street North, Dublin (MG 2014).

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 Council Powers: Postwar Public Housing in Britain and Ireland

E F
Fig. 5.10 (d, e, f): Ballymun, Dublin, 3,021-unit peripheral grand ensemble built in 1965–7, including sixteen-storey
towers and eight-storey slabs in the Balency system constructed by Cubitt Haden Sisk (consultant architect, Arthur Swift);
1985 aerial panorama and ground view, and 2014 pre-demolition detail (MG 1985, 2014).

builders still provided much output, aided by generous subsidies, but their contribution was now surpassed by
public housing. This was built partly by local authorities – despite the lack of enthusiasm from Belfast Corporation,
the province’s largest council – and partly by a new, autonomous, central government-financed body, the
Northern Ireland Housing Trust (NIHT). Set up by Green in 1945 to build 2,000 houses annually for rent, the
Trust rapidly became indispensable to his efforts to raise output. Of the 200,000 dwellings built by 1971, the Trust
had constructed just under 25% and the local authorities and private builders just under 40% each.63 Architecturally,
the largest 1950s developments, such as the Trust’s Rathcoole, resembled British Mark 1 New Towns; their brick
or roughcast terraces and flats were designed by NIHT architectural staff, and were augmented in the late 1950s
by isolated landmark point-blocks, beginning with two eleven-storey towers at Cregagh in 1959–61.64 Alongside
these, an issue of more troublesome relevance to the building of modern flats was pushing its way to the fore:
slum clearance. In 1956, Northern Ireland’s first redevelopment powers and slum-replacement grants were
introduced, under the ‘parity’ agenda. In the Ulster context of religious-political division, the upheavals of slum-
clearance posed an especially acute problem, and were opposed in particular by the Roman Catholic Church.65
In 1958, Green highlighted the lack of consistent financial support as the reason that ‘the housing programme
has staggered from crisis to crisis. Blood transfusions of subsidy have been given when the patient was at death’s

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door, but he is still pretty shaky and only engaged in light work.’ Accordingly, the 1960s saw a massive new push
for output, led not by powerful local politicians, as in Britain, but by Green’s administrators, supported from
1963 by the new, reformist prime minister, Terence O’Neill. Grounded in the principle of parity, Green’s strategy
aimed to achieve British levels of public-housing output, while setting production within a comprehensive
system of statutory planning: a stark contrast to Gibson or Watton in Britain. A twenty-year target of 200,000
dwellings (70% public housing) was supported from 1962 by a new ‘deficit-based’ subsidy system, and public-
housing output accelerated to 6,000 in 1964, and 9,215 in 1971.66 The planning framework for the programme
was inspired by the Clyde Valley Regional Plan and was masterminded from 1960 by Abercrombie’s Clyde co-
author, Robert Matthew. Matthew’s Belfast Regional Plan reports appeared in 1961 and 1962, and recommended
that a ‘stop-line’ should be established to curb peripheral spread.67
During the mid-1960s, the construction of modern flats in Northern Ireland reached its fleeting climax.
Under the pressure of the Matthew stop-line, the two programmes of multi-storey construction – the slow and
difficult redevelopment of inner slum areas, and the addition of point-blocks to peripheral estates – were both
stepped up. Suburban developments resembled provincial English cities, with point-blocks informally dotted
among the terraces of Rathcoole, Seymour Hill or Braniel, often in lavish landscaping. While virtually all these
estates were of mixed religious composition, the multi-storey blocks themselves contained small flats at
relatively high rents, mainly occupied by Protestant tenants.68 In inner Belfast and Londonderry/Derry, the
situation was far more problematic, as the religious polarization of the slum belt had created an acute lack of
elasticity in the phasing and location of new development. This had to be strictly confined within the respective
nationalist and unionist ghettoes, unlike the ‘pillarized’ religio-political segregation of housing in the Low
Countries, which was not linked to ‘territory’ at all (see chapter 7). In Ulster the most pressing consideration
was not which type of mass housing to build, but whether any could be built at all. In Belfast, the main obstacle
was the Corporation’s continuing dilatoriness. To cut through this tangle, Green decided in 1965 to bring in
the Trust, assigning it a large clearance area in the Lower Falls, at Cullingtree Road. Here, between 1966 and
1972, Laing erected the most grandiose redevelopment scheme in the province, with 800 dwellings in Sectra
deck blocks, and one nineteen-storey rationalized-traditional Storiform point-block (collectively dubbed the
‘Divis Flats’). In Derry, a similar attempt to use Sectra deck blocks to circumvent the city’s entrenched sectarian
land pressures and ‘gerrymandering’ ended in failure by 1967 (see Fig. 5.11).69
In response to the spread of civil unrest and the sending of British troops in mid-1969, the Home Secretary,
James Callaghan, suggested that Northern Ireland’s local/national public housing system should reorganized
by putting everything under the impartial control of a ‘Central Housing Authority’. Inaugurated in October
1971 as the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, the new organization inherited the entire 200,000-unit
public housing stock, and based itself on the staff and structure of the NIHT, with a governance structure
modelled on the British New Town corporations – a strikingly similar pattern to the new Hong Kong Housing
Authority founded two years later (see chapter 16). Alongside the overwhelming concern to end sectarian
tenancy allocations, the NIHE also aimed to boost annual production to 10,000, but the escalating violence
prevented this: maximum output was 7,676 in 1977, while 57,000 dwellings were built in its first thirteen years,
a period that saw forty-nine bomb or arson attacks on NIHE offices and the killing of five staff members.
Underlying cultural doubts about high density and high blocks also remained a background constraint on
output: influenced by its conservationist board member Charles Brett (chairman 1977–84), NIHE’s 1973
‘Strategy for New Building’ ruled out high flats or high densities and pledged a picturesque, low-rise policy of
‘traditional’ cottages or low flats, to combat ‘the grim tedium of endless repetition’. But by then, Northern Irish
housing tenure was diverging strikingly from that of the Republic of Ireland, with the percentage of public
rental housing rising from 21 to 37 (well above the British average) between 1961 and 1981, while that of the
Republic dropped from 18 to only 12.70

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A B

C D
Fig. 5.11 (a): Cregagh, near Belfast: the Northern Ireland Housing Trust’s first multi-storey blocks, built 1959–61
(designed by the staff of J. Cairncross, NIHT chief architect) (MG 1988). (b, c): Cullingtree Road development (‘Divis
Flats’), Belfast, NIHT tower and deck complex built in 1966–70 by Laing in the Sectra ‘system’: 1981 external view and 1988
view of deck (MG 1981, 1988). (d): Municipal architect’s view of the ‘breakdown’ of modern housing in Britain: cartoon,
‘Housing in the Public Sector’, by Peter Cooper, senior architect in Norwich Corporation, in the Municipal Review, 1971.

This chapter has demonstrated in a particularly vivid way how postwar mass housing was able to generate
pyramidal networks of diversity and autonomy, within which an almost limitless variety of local microregions
was able to flourish within supposedly ‘national’ housing systems. The devolved national and civic systems
within Britain, the divided systems within Ireland, and the statelets of the Channel Islands each generated
their own distinctive approaches – although the strong policy distinctiveness of Northern Ireland’s mass
housing programme vis-à-vis Britain was arguably at the outer limit of the diversity feasible within a single
nation-state. Within Britain, however, council housing occupied a generally hegemonic status within the social
sector, as an assumed norm against which all other solutions were judged – a status that it enjoyed nowhere
else in the world. That position would only be changed significantly in the 1980s by radical state intervention,
in the form of the ‘Right to Buy’ privatization provisions of Margaret Thatcher’s 1980 Housing Act. Elsewhere
within Western Europe, as we will see in chapters 7–10, there were many other cases of strong national and
civic divergences, among and between ‘sibling’ housing systems such as those of the Low Countries or Nordic
countries. However, as the next chapter’s account of postwar housing in France will demonstrate, solutions
featuring national centralization were equally feasible.

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CHAPTER 6
FRANCE: THE ‘ TRENTE GLORIEUSES ’ OF MASS HOUSING

In this chapter, we begin our survey of postwar continental European mass housing with a system that was as
far removed as possible, within the overall First World framework, from the municipal patchwork of British
council housing: the system in France, which not only featured a high level of central control, but deliberately
kept its local agencies at one remove from local government. Internationally, the programme of ‘grands
ensembles’ built in France during the ‘trente glorieuses’ formed a central reference point for postwar European
housing, both in its monumental built substance and in its confident external projection – even if, in almost
all cases, the approaches adopted elsewhere turned out to be strikingly different. No other continental social-
housing programme, except perhaps Sweden’s, had such rhetorical coherence, with political, professional and
architectural elements reinforcing one another: and this architectural imagery chiefly derived not from the
utopian projects of Le Corbusier but from the time-honoured national tradition of classical grandeur, now
infused with the modernist technocratic spirit. Paradoxically, the direct influence of this programme, in both
rhetorical and built-form terms, was mainly felt beyond Western Europe, through its massive impact on the
construction and planning of industrialized housing in the USSR.1
If the architecture of French mass housing in the trente glorieuses was steeped both in tradition and in
innovation, the same applied to its organization, where the long-standing ‘Siegfried’ policy of arm’s-length
provision continued undiminished. Yet this mainstream preference was repeatedly offset by radical,
authoritarian interventions by the powerful centralized state. This frequently left local government, so strong
in other countries, at the bottom of the heap. ‘The French culture of regulation could not allow facts on the
ground to take shape without channelling them, and the framework for doing this could only be put together
in Paris,’ argued François Bloch-Lainé, the 1953–67 head of the Caisse des dépôts et consignations (CDC:
Deposits and Consignations Office), France’s premier public-works funding agency.2 In national politics, the
old tension between socialism and Catholicism was increasingly drowned out by a republican rhetoric of
national salvation through planned technological progress, with planning and housing helping lead the way:
President De Gaulle claimed in the 1960s that his 4th National Plan was ‘la grande affaire de la France’ (‘France’s
Big Deal’).3 The mechanisms that supported low-income housing fluctuated frequently and radically. Yet there
were strong continuities, not least in the centrality of the HBM/HLM system (see below), whose national
network of several thousand autonomous local organizations carried forward the building of low-income
dwellings, chiefly for rent but also sometimes for sale. In France, local housing micro-territories flourished in
great number, but always in and around the initiatives of the strong central state.4

1945–55: a hesitant revival

This confident integration of housing and national planning took almost a decade to fully emerge. Initially,
despite the social-democratic idealism inherited by the Fourth Republic from the Resistance, social house-
building lagged behind other leading Western European countries: output only caught up with Great Britain’s
in 1958 and never approached that of West Germany.5 The first national plan, the 1947–52 Plan Monnet, set
about ‘modernizer sans loyer’ by downplaying housing and social building for industrial development; 6

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 France: The ‘Trente Glorieuses’ of Mass Housing

between 1945 and 1948 only 1,400 HBM dwellings were built. As after 1918, the emphasis was on patching up
war-damaged cities, using temporary prefabricated ‘baraques’ (barrack houses) supplied by French and US
firms: the 450,000 destroyed dwellings – 12% more than in World War I – were concentrated along the north
Atlantic coast. In severely-bombed Brest, for example, some twenty-five ‘cités’, containing 4,000 baraques for
up to 20,000 people (15% of the city’s population), were built by 1949, and only finally demolished, as degraded
‘ghettos’, in the mid-1960s.7
As early as October 1945, the newly-founded Ministry of Reconstruction (MRU), headed by minister
Raoul Dautry, began pressing for replacement of this ‘provisional’ programme by permanent reconstruction
housing, including the ISAI (immeubles sans affectation individuelle: ‘buildings without individual allocation’),
a concept, devised in 1944–5, for group-redevelopment of war-damaged plots by co-proprietorial ‘associations
syndicales de reconstruction’ with 100% state pre-financing. This plan was first significantly implemented in
Auguste Perret’s 1946 reconstruction plan for Le Havre, where the first 350 ISAI dwellings were built in
1947–50 in the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville in a stately array of reinforced-concrete-frame blocks up to twelve
storeys high. Perret also jointly master-planned the 1949–53 ISAI reconstruction of Marseille’s Vieux-Port
district, including the contextual ‘architecture moderne située’ of Fernand Pouillon’s stone-faced La Tourette
scheme, planned in Sitte-style courtyards around a focal sixteen-storey tower.8 This programme was not
specifically linked to low-income housing and only yielded limited output results, and in the reconstruction
context, large-scale slum-clearance was out of the question: instead, the long-standing peripheralization of
poverty worsened further, with 100,000 families living by 1954 in shanty-town bidonvilles and lotissements in
greater Paris, and many others squatting or living in slum hotels. The 1954–62 Algerian War led to further
influxes into both bidonvilles and government resettlement camps, the so-called cités de transit; of all the
decolonizing powers, France was arguably the one where colonial and home reconstruction most pervasively
interacted. In the Anglophone countries, left-wing municipal housing politics were most intense in the inner
slum zones targeted for redevelopment, whereas outer-suburban building was impeded by green-belt
designation and the opposition of wealthy suburban municipalities. In the dilapidated Paris periphery, by
contrast, municipalities such as Bondy, Nanterre or Noisy-le-Sec became hot beds of local, class-based
reconstruction crusades, while the concentrations of bidonvilles ensured that land supply was never a
significant obstacle to redevelopment; municipalities and local housing agencies could requisition land at
will, using the compulsory purchase powers of the 1952 land law, with boundary extensions also an option
(see Fig. 6.1).9
Throughout the late 1940s, the low output of social housing attracted growing criticism, especially given
the dilapidation of existing private-sector accommodation, and the rapidly-changing governments in Paris
faced mounting pressure for action. The influential centrist Reconstruction Minister (1948–53) and ex-
Resistance leader, Eugène Claudius-Petit, argued in 1949 that ‘construire 20,000 logements par mois est, pour
la France, une question de vie ou de mort’ (‘building 20,000 dwellings a month is a life-or-death matter for
France’).10 In 1950 legislation the HBM system received a new name, Habitation à loyer modéré (HLM: low-
income housing), and gained access to a new public loan-finance system, covering up to 80% of the cost of
dwellings for limited-income families and delegated in operation to various local agencies, including place-
specific offices publics d’HLM (OPHLMs – public HLM societies created by municipalities and departments)
and sociétés anonymes d’HLM (private HLM companies), both building for rent, together with private
mortgage-companies and home-ownership cooperatives.11
This new system was massively boosted in 1953 by a fresh housing law put forward by a newly-appointed
conservative Minister of Reconstruction, Pierre Courant. The ‘Plan Courant’ boosted HLM finance by a new
1% tax on salaries, collected and disbursed by a new agency, OCIL.12 The plan aimed to build 240,000 houses
annually – triple the existing 1952 level. Reflecting Courant’s anti-socialist, family-orientated outlook, the

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A B

C D
Fig. 6.1 (a): President Vincent Auriol passes the baraques of the Cité du Bouguen on a visit to Brest in May 1948. (b):
Auguste Perret’s reconstruction of Le Havre from 1946: Front de Mer Sud, îlots N23 and N37 (MG 2016). (c): OPHLM
housing scheme parking sign, Bondy, near Paris (MG 2010). (d): Abbé Pierre (with walking stick) meets local clergy and
inhabitants on a visit to Maastricht, August 1957 – three years after his famous indictment of France’s housing shortages.

eligibility criteria were tenure-neutral between HLM and private agencies, and significantly broadened the
focus of social housing from ‘the poor’ to national modernization and the fostering of a consumer society.
Eventually, by the mid-1970s, HLMs would total a quarter of all postwar dwellings: of the 1,200 active HLM
corporations, 650 were landlords of rental stock – split 60%–40% between OPHLM and SAHLM – and the
remainder cooperatives and mortgage companies. HLM-supported programmes were equally varied, most
being for rental, under ever-shifting government funding schemes, but a significant minority targeting limited-
income home-ownership (accession à la propriété), especially in industrial growth areas: by 1970, 1,550,000
rental and 665,000 home-ownership units had been built, and between 1947 and 1961, the target groups were
split 50–50 between manual and skilled workers.13
The Plan Courant was dramatically reinforced by a sensational propaganda development which catapulted
housing into the midst of media and political attention as an ‘affaire d’État’. This stemmed not from government
or from socialism, but from Catholic philanthropy: the so-called ‘insurrection de la bonté’ (‘rebellion of
goodness’), proclaimed by a Catholic priest, the Abbé Pierre, in an intervention of February 1954, in a revival

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 France: The ‘Trente Glorieuses’ of Mass Housing

of the grand old tradition of Church social action. He lambasted the focus of HBM and HLM building on
better-off tenants and demanded attention for impoverished bidonville-dwellers. His Emmaüs community
had been active at Neuilly-Plaisance since 1947, and now commissioned a series of emergency housing
schemes.14 More significant, however, was a flurry of new programmes emanating from the Ministry in Paris,
intended to boost output in ways that addressed the Abbé Pierre’s demands. These began with a 1954
programme of ‘logements économiques de première nécessité’ (LEPN: economic emergency dwellings) –
small prefabricated bungalows and single-storey terraces with simple monopitch roofs, built by OPHLMs in
‘cités d’urgence’ within the peripheral bidonville zone – for example, in Nanterre in 1954. Rebranded in
October 1954 as the ‘logement Million’ programme, in reference to the stipulated ceiling cost of the four-room
flats, the LEPNs were already denounced by 1956 as ‘taudis neufs’ (new slums). The LEPN programme was
replaced after 1955 by the LOPOFA (logements populaires et familiaux) – a new HLM variant, featuring
lower equipment standards than the ‘HLM ordinaires’.15
Housing for social owner-occupation was also central to Courant’s strategy. The late 1940s had already seen
voluntaristic home-ownership promotion of small suburban ‘maisons pavillionaires’, including the initiatives
of the Société Phoenix from 1945 to provide cheap house-purchase credit, and the ‘apport-travail’ self-build
formula of the Castor movement from the late 1940s. The Plan Courant promoted social home-ownership not
just by expanded subsidies but also through systematic promotion of standardization and industrial
prefabrication. This began with the ‘Logécos’ (logements économiques et familiaux), a series of recommended
type-plans intended for use by subsidized private developers, inspired by the consumerist-Fordist success of
the mass-produced Renault 4CV car – a comparison first made by Claudius-Petit in the late 1940s and
elaborated in media campaigns such as the 1953 competition for a ‘Paris-Match house with all mod. cons for
540,000 francs’. The Logécos featured both detached houses and staircase-access low-rise flats, all smaller than
previous equivalent dwellings: after a poor take-up by owner occupiers, and architectural criticism for their
retrograde style, they were relaunched in 1958 for social rental occupation. The peripheral-orientated
development pattern of Paris-region HLMs was replicated in provincial centres, as in Toulouse, where the
1950s saw rehousing of over one-fifth of the population in HLM and Logéco complexes by SOTOCOGI, an
OPHLM that built mainly about 3–4 kilometres from the Capitôle. In France, systematization of housing
design also led the government to designate house-types with codes, widely understood across the entire
housing industry: for example an ‘F4’ denoted the most common, four-roomed apartment type (see Fig. 6.2).16

SCIC, SCET and the état planificateur

To augment the mainstream HLM programme, the years 1953–4 also saw a further direct intervention by the
central state: the establishment of a parallel system of social housing provision intended to boost middle-
income home-ownership through, in effect, a central-government HLM, empowered to build anywhere in
France. This organization, the Societé centrale immobilière de la CDC (SCIC, or CDC Central Property
Service), was created as part of the CDC’s postwar aggrandizement. Already, around World War I, the Caisse
had become significantly involved in reconstruction financing, but now, under its new director (from 1953),
François Bloch-Lainé, it became the central state’s financial driving-motor of modernization: CDC public-
works loans soared tenfold between 1958 and 1976. To give practical effect to the new ideals of technocratic
transformation, Bloch-Lainé founded two subsidiary organizations: the SCIC (in 1954; headed by engineer
Jean-Paul Leroy) and a parallel town planning arm, the SCET (1955).17
The SCIC was seen from the start in hegemonic terms, as a ‘large-scale public-sector developer’, a central
state agency charged with accumulating a national land bank and developing an 11,000-unit annual building

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Mass Housing

A B

C D
Fig. 6.2 (a): Logéco proposal for six-storey blocks, 1953, by Association Baticoop, Paris. (b): A 1953 design by architect
Robert Auzelle for ‘repeatable’ housing groupings of three-storey (left) and twelve-storey (right) blocks. (c): Reconstruction
Minister Eugène Claudius-Petit (centre) seen with Le Corbusier during a 1948 visit to the latter’s Marseille Cité radieuse/
Unité d’habitation cooperative block (constructed 1947–52). (d): Le Corbusier’s Marseilles Cité radieuse seen in 2008
(MG).

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 France: The ‘Trente Glorieuses’ of Mass Housing

programme, linked loosely to the HLM system and to programmes such as LOPOFA, and in its turn spawning
an army of subsidiaries, some for single projects and others for multi-site programmes, such as CIRP
(Compagnie Immobilière de la Région Parisienne, founded in 1955). SCIC’s initial activities were concentrated
in the Parisian periphery, including most prominently the 12,362-dwelling Sarcelles township of 1954–75, and
were overwhelmingly (97%) for rental rather than owner-occupation. Influenced by the conservative tastes of
Leroy, an alumnus of the École nationale des ponts et chausseés, most SCIC developments avoided extremes
of gestural monumentality, preferring the more low-key approach of Leroy’s favourite architects, C.-G.
Stoskopf and Jacques-Henry Labourdette. Yet, overall, the impact of the SCIC’s operations on ‘target’
municipalities was overwhelming, and any local attempts at resistance were futile, a ‘combat du pot de terre
contre le pot du fer’ (‘a battle between a clay pot and an iron pot’). This stark asymmetry of power was
highlighted in SCIC’s operations north-west of Paris, where it systematically overrode the boundaries of the
weak and fragmented local municipalities – as in the small suburban town of Villers-le-Bel, whose objections
in 1961 to the implantation of a massive SCIC/CIRP development were swatted aside by an alliance of the
MRU and the prefecture.18
Overall, the activity of the CDC, SCIC and SCET formed part of an intellectually-informed ‘état
planificateur’ (planning state), pump-primed by Marshall Plan aid, whose comprehensive interconnectedness
was unique to postwar France, and which combined a passionate desire to revive national pride with
unacknowledged indebtedness to Vichy initiatives.19 Arguably, the foundation years of postwar housing policy
were 1940–1, when Vichy established the DGEN (Délégation générale à l’équipement national, or National
Infrastructure Commission) to promote the urban-industrial regeneration of France, aided by a replanning
subsidiary armed with compulsory-purchase powers and by the research of engineer Gabriel Dessus into
new-town planning.20 The DGEN, whose modernity sat uneasily alongside Vichy’s archaizing traditional
rhetoric, was converted almost intact by De Gaulle in 1944 into the new MRU – although its extreme
centralism was diluted and significant powers were returned to the municipalities. The self-consciously
enlightened, exemplary character of reconstruction was developed by MRU in numerous initiatives from
1945. De Gaulle proclaimed in that year that ‘the great task, the sacred task, the task of the nation is
RECONSTRUCTION’.21
Elsewhere in Western Europe, this kind of intellectually-informed official housing-planning strategy was
usually relatively limited in scope, as with the LCC and New Towns in Britain. In France, despite the slow start
in actual housing output, an all-embracing vision rapidly coalesced, encompassing building science and the
building industry. In the late 1940s, Claudius-Petit launched an ambitious series of experimental projects for
rationalized, prefabricated construction, beginning with low-rise ‘experimental sites’ at Belle-Beille, Angers
(1947–51) and Plateau Rouher, Creil (1947–52), and a scheme of detached system-houses at Noisy-le-Sec. This
programme rapidly escalated into multi-storey form in two ambitious competitions mounted by Claudius-
Petit in 1949–51 for ‘grands chantiers expérimentaux’ (large experimental sites) at Villeneuve-Saint-Georges
and Strasbourg – projects which set out to comprehensively integrate architecture, city planning and
industrialized building (see below). All these, in turn, formed part of Claudius-Petit’s National Land-Use
Development Plan of 1950.22
Inevitably, this ‘état planificateur’ generated a multitude of competing planning agencies, which the MRU
and the CDC had to reckon with at every stage, including (in the 1960s) the Commissariat General du Plan,
and the engineers of the Ministry of Public Works.23 But, uniquely to France, mass housing also had an
extensive intellectual hinterland, including a precocious sociological movement focused on the concept of the
building user (usager). In the 1940s and 1950s, this was fronted by sociologist Paul-Henry Chombart (de
Lauwe), whose speculations combined enlightened social Catholicism with love of the ‘everyday’, ‘organic’ city,
and a demand for multi-disciplinary information-gathering, as against simplistic, architect-led Functionalism;24

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the philosopher Henri Lefebvre also castigated orthodox modernist segregation of needs and functions. These
critical arguments were absorbed within mainstream official discourse, notably in the CDC-sponsored ‘Grille
Dupont’ of 1958, with its elaborate scheme of infrastructure requirements.25 This governmental appropriation
of habitation sociology contrasted with the moralizing voluntarism of Anglophone proselytizers such as Jane
Jacobs – just as French concepts of community, with their origins in social Catholicism, differed from the
concept of the neighbourhood unit. Especially characteristic of France was the ‘politician-civil servant-
intellectual’, able to keep pace with these theoretical efforts and to synthesize them into workable political-
administrative programmes, as exemplified in the 1959 sociological enquiry into life in housing estates
established by the new Minister of Construction, Pierre Sudreau, or the work of MRU civil servant André
Trintignac in the 1950s in establishing sociologically-grounded national housing norms. Yet paradoxically, the
very centrality of these intellectual efforts within the developmental system seemed only to reinforce the
systematized monumentality of the built environments themselves.26
While the overall trajectory of the mass housing of the trente glorieuses was dominated by central agencies
and Parisian debates,27 the subservience of the local was by no means total, particularly in areas where the
local OPHLM collaborated closely with the municipality. This position prevailed especially in the Communist-
controlled towns of the ‘ceinture rouge’ (‘Red Ring’) around Paris. There powerful mayors, steeped in working-
class pride, spoon-fed their local OPHLMs with land and money, and in return were allowed to nominate up
to 20% of tenants.28 Between 1920 and 1959, over forty OPHLMs in the Paris suburbs built nearly 43,000 flats,
with especially vigorous activity by some Communist municipalities, such as feisty little Ivry, under its famous
mayor (1944–65), ex-Resistance fighter Georges Marrane, which built over 2,600 postwar social flats, or Saint-
Denis, where radical architect André Lurçat masterminded a series of experimental multi-storey HLM
complexes.29 Municipal experience could be a powerful stepping stone to national status in Paris, as with
Pierre Courant, author of the eponymous Plan, who had also served as reconstruction mayor of Le Havre (in
1941–4 and 1947–54), or Jacques Chaban-Delmas, mayor of Bordeaux from 1947 to 1995 and prime minister
from 1969 to 1972. The OPHLM of the Ville de Paris, like the LCC, enjoyed a hybrid local-national status, able
to requisition land in surrounding municipalities to build projects of sometimes grandiose scale: the renowned
Cité des 4000 at La Courneuve (1956–67), with its egregiously long fifteen-storey slabs, was only handed over
by Paris to the local HLM office in 1984.30

‘Le hard french’: the housing legacy of Perret31

With the monumental ‘barres’ (slab-blocks) planted by Paris in La Courneuve, we pass to the specifically
architectural aspects of early postwar housing in France. Here, perhaps surprisingly, the story is not specifically
dominated by the work of Le Corbusier, which represented something of a diversion, in its emphasis on strong
artistic individualism as opposed to collective consistency. To be sure, Corbusier’s own rhetoric of utopian
reconstruction strongly chimed in with the language of Claudius-Petit and other founders of the état
planificateur, and his world-renowned Unité d’habitation in Marseille – a private cooperative project of 1947–
52 comprising a twelve-storey slab of 337 two-storey apartments with internal corridors, faced in rough
concrete – spawned some social-housing spin-offs, such as a 1955 slab built at Nantes-Rezé as an 85% HLM-
financed development for port technicians. But other interventions were less effective, such as a 1963 project
at Briey, where Claudius-Petit brokered the involvement of Georges-Henri Pinguisson and Le Corbusier to
design a mainstream HLM rental project in a romantic forest setting, resulting only in acrimonious exchanges
between architect and municipality.32 Le Corbusier also enjoyed a semi-detached relationship with the French
movement of officially-sponsored architectural sociology, again largely through Claudius-Petit, with whom he

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 France: The ‘Trente Glorieuses’ of Mass Housing

devised ‘A SCORAL’, a 1943 research blueprint for postwar reconstruction. In 1945, after ASCORAL had been
rejected as too radical by the government, there followed ‘ATBAT’ (Atelier des Bâtisseurs), a planning research
group inspired by the Tennessee Valley Autority, which Corbusier and Claudius-Petit had admired on a visit
to the United States in 1945–6: ATBAT’s most influential work was in North Africa, where it pioneered
urbanist concepts later applied in France by CDC and others.33
The real architectural mainstream of postwar French mass housing, however, was a much more
straightforward formula of integrated planning and building, presaged above all in the work of Perret – an
formula of repetitive, normative, ‘scientific’ concrete, dubbed by historian Bruno Vayssière in 1988 as ‘le hard
french’.34 Its ultimate, generic outcome was the ‘grand ensemble’, but it was previously developed systematically
in a series of state-approved early postwar schemes, beginning with Perret’s reconstruction of Le Havre from
1946. There he consciously set out to evoke the grandeur of Haussmann’s Paris in modern, reinforced-concrete-
frame form, with wide boulevards and stately towers of ISAI, HLM and cooperative apartments, in ensembles
such as the Place Hotel de Ville, Rue de Paris, Porte Oceane and Front de Mer, whose modern monumentality
was inspired by his pre-war projects such as the 1931 Porte Maillot scheme.35 Perret’s drive for classical-
modern monumentality culminated in his MRU-financed ISAI ‘experimental’ project for a 110m-high,
twenty-seven-storey reinforced-concrete skyscraper on a war gap-site near Amiens station (the ‘Tour Perret’).
Conceived during the occupation, construction was inaugurated in 1949 by Claudius-Petit, and a local
newspaper boasted that it ‘will give the city an American feel, which will certainly cause a sensation’. The tower,
crowned by a multi-stage polygonal spire, was structurally complete by 1952 and was for many years the tallest
block of flats in Western Europe.36
The gradual HLM drift towards multi-storey building was always overshadowed by the notorious fate of
the La Muette project – by far the earliest example of showpiece housing ‘failure’. Even early HLM tower
projects provoked fierce criticisms from architectural conservatives, as with Toulouse preservationists’ 1954
attacks against ‘Manhattan’-style ‘mastodons’. Equally widespread, however, was architectural condemnation
of individual detached houses, as retrograde, disharmonious and hardly different from shanty-town
lotissements.37 The first postwar experimental projects were mainly low-rise: of the early MRU-sponsored
schemes, examples such as Angers and Creil (both imposed by the Ministry on the local OPHLMs) featured
architecturally conservative, tenement-style pitched-roof blocks of two to six storeys. The first of André
Lurçat’s postwar projects for St Denis, L’Unité de quartier Fabien (1946–59), was also medium-scaled, with
stubby six-storey and ten-storey towers – a similar formula to many of the ISAI blocks at Le Havre.38
The first decisive move towards postwar high flats came, appropriately, from Marcel Lods – now in the form
of slab-blocks rather than Muette-style pencil towers. In 1946, at the instigation of Claudius-Petit’s predecessor
as minister, Raoul Dautry, Lods designed the pioneering Sotteville-lès-Rouen development – a project closely
interrelated with Lods’s abortive proposal of 1947–8 for the city-centre rebuilding of occupied Mainz with five
slabs, of ten and nineteen storeys, for French military administrators. His Sotteville plan comprised three cliff-
like, eleven-storey slabs, arranged in strict Zeilenbau pattern at a density of 250ppa and projecting an
overpoweringly rectilinear, Fordist grandeur. The conservative staircase-access sectional layout contrasted
with the innovative construction, which exploited Lods’s wartime experiments into ‘maisons usinées’ (factory
houses) (see Fig. 6.3).39
Equally decisive steps towards grand-ensemble architecture were taken in two Ministry-sponsored
competitions, for Villeneuve-St Georges (1949–50) and the Cité Rotterdam, Strasbourg (1950–3). Both
required entries by teams of architects and contractors, to allow integrated use of precast concrete and
hopefully enhance both the quality and quantity of mass housing. The Villeneuve St Georges competition was
envisaged as a proving-ground for a new generation of large-scale Paris peripheral projects, and most of the
sixty competing teams proposed arrangements of Zeilenbau slabs, anticipating the eventual mainstream grand

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A B

C D
Fig. 6.3 (a): Perret’s 1949–52 skyscraper in Amiens – for a number of years Western Europe’s tallest (110m) block of flats.
Photo by Aonghus MacKechnie, 2018. (b): Sotteville, near Rouen: ISAI slab complex designed by Marcel Lods and built
from 1946 (MG 2016). (c, d): Villeneuve St Georges: 2010 (MG) view of the completed tower scheme by M. and L.
Solotareff (1949–50) for the local OPHLM, and Balency & Schuhl perspective (1950) of the ‘chemin de grue’ travelling-
crane prefabrication system proposed by Zehrfuss & Sebag for the same site.

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E F

G H
Fig. 6.3 (e, f): Cité Rotterdam, Strasbourg, 1950–3: the competition-winning project by E. Beaudouin (MG 2014). (g):
Bernard Zehrfuss’s Nanterre complex (1952–6), with three north–south slabs built by Balency & Schuhl using their
‘chemin de grue’ system (MG 2019). (h): Architect Gustave Stoskopf ’s Quartier d’Esplanade redevelopment, Strasbourg
(1958–74): ‘une ville résolument contemporaine’ on ‘un plan d’inspiration classique’.

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ensemble formula. But the jury, dominated by Perret and older modernists, instead picked the entry of M & L
Solotareff, which unusually proposed a group of towers: the runner-up scheme by Bernard Zehrfuss, for slab
blocks, was later built on a different site, at Boulogne-Billancourt.40 A similarly unexpected outcome transpired
at Strasbourg, where a more architecturally ‘progressive’ jury headed by Claudius-Petit narrowly rejected a
Zehrfuss scheme for three giant slabs in rigorously standardized, industrialized construction, and instead
picked a more architecturally-complex scheme by Eugène Beaudouin, which spread the accommodation
around the site perimeter in an irregular ‘girdle’ of slabs. Again, the Zehrfuss scheme was later realized
elsewhere, at Nanterre, in three north–south slabs up to 153m long built by Balency and Schuhl in 1952–6
using a crane-track system. The punctual completion of the fifteen-month Strasbourg contract in March 1953,
and its highly-finished quality, suggested that the Ministry had indeed successfully reconciled quality and
quantity, and it became the inspiration for an ambitious nationwide ‘secteur industralisé’.41 Eventually, however,
mainstream ‘hard french’ housing adopted a subtly more traditionalist approach, inspired by the Beaux-Arts-
style monumental ‘composition’ of architects such as Stoskopf, whose conservatively orthogonal, decoratively
corniced Quai des Belges HLM project of 1950–2 was strongly preferred to Beaudouin’s Cité Rotterdam by
Leroy on a 1954 visit to Strasbourg. Stoskopf later claimed that his grandiose Quartier d’Esplanade project of
1958–74 in Strasbourg had been inspired by Perret’s success at Le Havre in building ‘a resolutely contemporary
city’ on the foundation of ‘a classically-inspired plan’.42

1955–75: ‘grands ensembles’ and the industrialization of national grandeur

While the first postwar decade laid the organizational and architectural foundations for France’s housing
boom, further decisive central interventions in the late 1950s and 1960s propelled it to full maturity. This
phase of reinvigoration coincided with the 1958 political shift from the chaos of the Fourth Republic to the
executive strength of the Fifth, and echoed De Gaulle’s strategy of using state-supported modernization to
establish France as the focus of the new Europe emerging out of the 1957 Treaty of Rome. Here housing played
a key symbolic cultural role, in addition to its practical function in accommodating rural-to-urban and
Algerian immigration. Already, government-supported strategic industrial developments integrated significant
housing elements – Simca’s 1958 plant at Poissy was presaged by two CIRP developments of 1956–9 designed
by Stoskopf on stately, orthogonal ‘hard french’ lines: the Cité Beauregard, Poissy (‘Simca-ville’) and the Cité
du Parc, Vernouillet.43 From 1958, a new, accelerated system of planned development was introduced by the
central state, to further boost large-scale building on city peripheries: the ZUP (zone à urbaniser prioritaire,
or priority urbanization zone). This gave the government enhanced land-assembly powers for large-scale
developments of 500 or more dwellings, financed with low-interest CDC loans. The system neutrally allowed
both the existing authorities (OPHLMs, SCIC, etc.) and new semi-private partnerships or SEMs (sociétés
d’économie mixte) to participate on equal terms, often with multiple authorities and private firms involved in
individual projects. Some 140 ZUPs were immediately declared by the government, many around Paris, and
averaging 5,700 units each.44 The ZUP system, which built on SCIC’s experience and formed a key element in
the Fifth Republic’s attempts to banish petty land-ownership and housing-production structures, was also
closely intertwined with the drive for building industrialization and with the growing shift from public to
private initiative: the new system made significant provision for owner-occupiers, at up to 10% of the total.45
The ZUP system yet again underlined the disparity between the powerful central state and the fragmented
peripheral communes, many of which were now swamped with incomers: for example Grigny, which ballooned
from 1,700 inhabitants in 1962 to 25,600 in 1975.46 Their impotence was highlighted by the case of the ZUP
Bures-Orsay, a development straddling two municipalities, established in 1960 by a ministerial decree from

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Sudreau, and built from 1966 after the objections of both municipalities had been dismissed.47 The ZUP
programme aimed to finally resolve the bidonville crisis, significantly exacerbated by Algerian ‘repatriés’ after
1958.48 A decisive end of all bidonvilles only came with the municipal expropriation powers of the 1964 Loi
Debré, the last areas being finally cleared in 1974, following a disastrous 1970 fire in an overcrowded hostel in
Aubervillers. Inner-urban renewal featured much less prominently in the ZUP framework:49 in this respect
the tabula-rasa imagery of Corbusier’s 1925 Plan Voisin was especially deceptive, for in postwar France, as in
most other Western European countries, the Anglo-American emphasis on ‘bulldozer’ area clearances was far
less prominent. Instead, the early postwar emphasis was on rebuilding areas devastated by Anglo-American
bombing, together with new estates on the periphery. In cities spared wartime destruction, high land costs and
site-acquisition difficulties ensured any slum-redevelopments proved painfully slow – as seen in the
fragmentary outcome of a 1957 renewal plan for inner Toulouse championed by socialist mayor Raymond
Badiou, or in the tribulations of Bordeaux’s sole slum-clearance project, in the notorious quartier Mériadeck:
the latter was eventually redeveloped largely with elite offices, the original inhabitants having been decanted
to slab blocks in the Grand Parc peripheral scheme (1955–62).50
The mature French mass-housing discourse was also pervasively interlinked with the North African
colonial legacy. There was a strong link in France between ideals of universal progress and colonialism. The
colonies, as in Britain, had acted as vast ‘champs d’expérience’, laboratories for planning experiments whose
lessons were repatriated to France in the 1950s and 1960s: the returning administrators moved in many cases
to organizations such as CDC.51 In Algeria and Morocco (cf. chapter 14), the link was more specific, with the
proliferation of official HBM projects in the late 1940s and 1950s for European settlers, and, to a lesser extent,
the indigenous population – a phase followed in Algeria by the multi-disciplinary Plan Constantine of 1958–
62. The early efforts provided a template for the MRU’s experimental planning-housing efforts at home under
Claudius-Petit in 1948–53, while the Plan Constantine anticipated the later mass-building programmes of the
ZUPs and grands ensembles. Some 1960s housing developments were specifically targeted at returning French
Algerians, as at Le Petit Seminaire, Marseille (1960).52
The ZUP was a planning and financial system, rather than a building pattern, but it formed part of a
powerful triangular relationship with two other concepts of distinctly physical, tangible character – the ‘grand
ensemble’ and the ‘secteur industrialisé’. Of these, the former was far more directly architectural, as well as
dramatically time-limited. Its clear terminal point materialized in March 1973, in a highly-publicized circular
from the Minister of Infrastructure (Équipement), Olivier Guichard, who declared, ‘I’ve signed a directive that
can be summed up in six words: the grands ensembles are henceforth prohibited.’ For French mass housing, the
expression ‘grand ensemble’ was the most emblematic term of all, equivalent to the various names for panel-
construction in the socialist bloc, or tenure-specific labels in the Anglophone countries (‘council scheme’,
‘housing project’, etc). Unlike these, the term simply denoted a combination of large-scale housing – defined
as a minimum of 500 or 1,000 dwellings – and unified, monumental design, even if development was by
multiple agencies. Coined in 1935 by planner Maurice Rotival in relation to HBM housing, its postwar spread
was also influenced by interwar utopian fantasies such as Le Corbusier’s Ville Radieuse or Hilberseimer’s 1924
Hochhausstadt, with its 120 uniform fifteen-storey slab blocks – visions for which Lods’s Drancy project (and
Villeurbanne) had provided a first glimpse of built reality. Equally influential, though, were Perret’s modern
inflections of the Beaux-Arts tradition of vast, axial compositions, allied to planning and construction logic,
as expressed in the typically modernist ‘plan-masse’ – a formal, three-dimensional concept for a project.53
As fleshed out in the 1940s and 1950s, great diversity developed around the interaction of the two terms
‘grand’ and ‘ensemble’. More conservative developments, as exemplified by SCIC’s Sarcelles, could comprise
thousands of dwellings, multi-phased but generally unified in appearance, retaining conventional orthogonal
layouts, as in Perret’s Le Havre, while incorporating concepts of scientific territorial planning.54 Other, bolder

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design conceptions followed the Sotteville and Strasbourg formula of highly self-contained, unified modernist
schemes, rejecting traditional street patterns for free-flowing layouts and an arresting architectural ‘image’.
Common to both was an overwhelming preponderance of flats, over 90%, in a combination of multi-storey
towers and slabs and medium-rise (three to five storeys) sectional-plan staircase-access blocks (see Fig. 6.4).55
Socially, the mixed-tenure ZUP framework ensured that grands ensembles, unlike pre-stigmatized US
public-housing projects, initially had no negative connotations. It gave a wide variety of people access to the
‘bourgeois’ comforts of self-contained family space with mod cons (especially bathroom and central heating).
In 1953 the writer Germaine Beaumont proclaimed in Elle magazine, ‘I’m in love with the suburbs.’

A B

C D
Fig. 6.4 (a): The Cité Beauregard, Poissy (1956–9), a self-contained CIRP suburb for Simca workers designed by
Stoskopf (MG 2019). (b): SCIC’s Sarcelles grand ensemble (planned by Jacques-Henri Labourdette and Roger Boileau),
late 1950s map showing Phase 1 (1955–7) at the bottom, Phase 2 (from 1956) at the top, and the Castor self-build area in
between. (c): A 1964 map of Sarcelles: by this stage, the first phases have been embedded in harmonized rectilinear
extensions planned on a 400m/800m grid. (d, e): Sarcelles, views of Phase 2 and of the Castor zone (with Phase 2 behind)
(MG 2015).

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E F

G H
Fig. 6.4 (d, e): Sarcelles, views of Phase 2 and of the Castor zone (with Phase 2 behind) (MG 2015). (f): Undated
postcard of the Unité de Construction de Bron-Parilly (1954–60) by the OPHLM du Rhône; designers Pierre Bourdeix
and others. (g): Haut du Lièvre, Nancy: architect Bernard Zehrfuss, 3,400 flats for the OPHLM de Nancy (1956–62),
including a slab-block with over 350 flats (MG 2014). (h): The thirty-storey ‘Obelisque’ tower at Épinay (1969–79),
designed by Daniel Michelin as part of SCIC’s Cité d’Orgement extension (MG 2014).

Architecturally, while complex grands ensembles like Sarcelles continued to mushroom around Paris, it was
the attention-grabbing, image-led projects that claimed the limelight.56 A succession of projects, stemming
from a variety of commissioning organisations (maîtres d’ouvrage), spawned longer and longer barres,
beginning with La Courneuve’s 4,000-unit development, whose landscape architect, Jacques Sgard, offset the
monumental rectilinearity with complex landscaping (from 1958). The earlier Unité de Construction de Bron-

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Parilly, near Lyon (1954–60), a 2,600-flat MRU-sponsored development by the OPHLM du Rhône, designed
by Pierre Bourdeix and others, included one slab 320 metres long, containing 378 flats, together with sinuous,
lower-height blocks and towers.57 Other leaders in this trend of vast length were Zehrfuss’s Haut-du-Lièvre
project for the OPHLM de Nancy (1956–62), including one slab containing over 350 flats, and Lyon-La
Duchère (1958–66), built by a local SCIC subsidiary. Projects including very tall towers were in a minority,
with an extreme of height represented by the SCIC’s thirty-storey L’Obélisque project in Épinay (1969–73),
designed by Daniel Michelin.58
To some foreign visitors, France’s housing monumentality seemed overpowering, even alienating: a 1961
Architectural Review report recorded the ‘extreme formality’ of Paris peripheral schemes such as Marly les Grands
Terres, while US architect Amos Rapoport later (1969) criticized the paradoxical combination of high density
‘and yet extreme openness . . . huge slabs of building in vast, dead, open spaces’, and English journalist Ian Nairn
lamented in 1968 that, in Sarcelles, ‘you feel like an ant subject to some vast, rectilinear discipline’.59 Critical
perspectives were already being heard in France, too: while the MRU produced positive propaganda films about
the first set pieces throughout the 1950s, among intellectuals the years from 1957 to 1959 saw mounting criticism
of grands ensembles as ‘rabbit hutches’. In 1959, even Construction Minister Pierre Sudreau joined in, arguing
that the state had merely replaced ‘the little shack’ by ‘the big barracks’.60 By 1962–3, these criticisms spread to the
mass media, with a claim in L’Aurore that Sarcelles was ‘a factory of hooligans and a school of violence’, and that
a distinct sickness, ‘la Sarcellite’, stemmed from the supposedly alienating life in grands ensembles.61
In response, architects tried to humanize the vast developments by various devices, ranging from the
architectural sociology of the ‘usager’ (see above) to metaphor-laden organic forms intended to soften the
uncompromising rectilinearity. Foremost among the latter was Émile Aillaud, who designed grands ensembles
with curved layouts and geometric-plan towers clad in bright colours, combining iconic design with
industrialized (Camus) construction, in a psychedelic echo of NYCHA’s ‘alphabet towers’. These began in 1956–
61 with the Cité de l’Abreuvoir, Bobigny, and Les Courtillières, Pantin, both for local OPHLMs, comprising
sinuous low-rise barrier blocks and a landscaped inner zone dotted with curvaceous point-blocks, 62 and the
1,002-dwelling Cité du Wiesberg in Forbach (1959), with curved walk-ups and wedge-planned towers. The
series culminated in the 3,775-unit La Grande Borne, Grigny, of 1967–71– laid out in sinuous, medium-rise
‘coquillages’ (‘shells’ – a metaphor for barrier blocks). All these towers featured unusual geometrical plans,
whereas the medium-rise blocks had conventional staircase-access sectional layouts.63 A similar serial
programme of modestly-scaled, highly-individualistic projects was designed by Candilis for the SA d’HLM
Emmaus to replace temporary cités d’urgence in the ‘red ring’ municipalities of Aulnay, Bobigny and Blanc-
Mesnil: these mostly comprised medium-rise courtyard layouts, and culminated in the 737-apartment Cité de
l’Étoile at Bobigny (1956–63), with its single focal tower and surrounding courtyard (see Fig. 6.5).64
From the 1960s, some large projects tried to reflect social complexity through an agglomerative,
megastructural form, avoiding the vast empty spaces of traditional grands ensembles.65 But economic problems
of the 1970s left this generation of projects largely on paper. Emblematic of this phase, and its implementation
problems, was the giant ZUP of Toulouse-le-Mirail, planned by architects Candilis, Josic and Woods, following
a 1961 competition win, as a ‘parallel city’ adjoining France’s aviation-industry hot-spot city: the vast,
800-hectare project would house 100,000 inhabitants in a conglomerate pattern influenced by the architects’
previous colonial Moroccan work for the ATBAT-Afrique habitat research team.66 Toulouse-le-Mirail, as
originally envisaged, was apportioned 75%–25% between HLM and private enterprise, with planning and
construction controlled by Toulouse-Équipement (a municipally-run SEM) and the Atelier Municipal
d’Urbanisme. A cluster of three linear ‘poles’ of development around the ‘stem’ or ‘trunk’ of a raised ‘rue dalle’
(pedestrian deck) would facilitate community interaction – an approach foreshadowed in the architects’
unbuilt 1961 project for Caen-Hérouville. However, the inefficiency of Toulouse-Équipement and the

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inflexibility of the linear layout slowed development to a crawl; the first pilot area (Bellefontaine) was only
begun in 1968, and the private-sector investment failed to materialize.67 Similar, more carefully-managed
grands ensembles elsewhere included Grenoble’s Villeneuve, conceived in the late 1960s as a direct municipal-
building project by go-ahead mayor (1965–83) Hubert Dubedout: it combined HLM towers and private
owner-occupiers within a high-rise megastructure by avant-garde architects AUA (Atelier d’urbanisme et
d’architecture). An initial phase (L’Arlequin) was opened in 1972.68
The third element in the key triangular relationship of postwar French mass housing was the ‘secteur
industrialisé’, which contributed significantly to the high external reputation of French building while boosting

A B

C D
Fig. 6.5 (a, b): Bobigny, Cité de l’Abreuvoir, OPHLM development of 1956–60, designed by Émile Aillaud in a deliberate
reaction against the rectilinear discipline of the ‘chemin de grue’: external view, and staircase of circular block (MG 2014).
(c): Aillaud’s 1,002-flat Cité du Wiesberg in Forbach, 1959 (Stéphanie Quantin-Biancalani, 2015). (d): Culmination of the
series: Aillaud’s La Grande Borne complex in Grigny (1967–71): sinuous ‘coquillages’ for local HLM organization
OPIEVOY (MG 1981).

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E F

G H
Fig. 6.5 (e): The ZUP Toulouse-le-Mirail: concept plan of 1963 by Candilis-Josic-Woods following their 1961
competition win, showing the ‘trunk’ of the raised ‘rue dalle’, linking clustered ‘poles’ of development. (f, g): Bellefontaine,
the first development of Le Mirail, begun 1968: block exteriors and access deck (MG 2011). (h): Grand-Parc, Bordeaux,
grand ensemble to accommodate government employees, Algerian refugees and slum displacees from Mériadeck, planed
by Jean Royer from 1954 and built in multiple phases, 1959–75 (MG 2011).

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its productivity: the average time to produce a dwelling fell from 3,500 hours in 1950 to 1,250 in 1960, and further
after that. The first efforts at state-sponsored prefabrication had begun under Vichy, in 1942, focusing on concrete-
panel construction, initially in hybrid systems including framed elements and facade panels (‘les Bloco’). The
early postwar experiments, in the late 1940s and early 1950s, were interrelated with the MRU-sponsored projects
at Noisy-le-Sec and Creil. In parallel, modernist architects such as Lods continued their own research into
industrialized building, as did Zehrfuss & Sebag in their Villeneuve-Saint-Georges and Nanterre projects.69
It was, appropriately, Perret’s Le Havre that witnessed the most decisive step forward towards prefabrication
of floors and walls from storey-height panels. Le Havre was mostly rebuilt in conventional reinforced-concrete
frame, with precast panels for infill. Perret certainly favoured standardization, but in Beaux-Arts aesthetic
terms of sublime repetition of grandiose ensembles; he was relatively uninterested in industrialized
prefabrication. The pioneering incorporation of prefabricated elements in some parts of his plan, such as
Front-de-Mer Sud, was thus largely adventitious, and he was equally happy to employ complex one-off
solutions, such as the portal-frame system devised by the company Monod for the north side of the Porte
Oceane (1946–56) owing to poor ground conditions.70 However, within the less prominently-located Îlot N17,
a cooperative HBM/HLM development of 1949–51, a young engineer, Raymond Camus, for the first time
employed storey-height large-panel construction, here still combining it with a concrete skeleton. The battery-
cast panels were six metres long and four tonnes in weight, complete with service ducts, and were transported
to the site by lorry (see Fig. 6.6).71
In the wake of the success of Îlot N17, Camus founded his own company, Entreprise Camus, with Ministry
support, to exploit his system further. The stodgy, pitched-roof style of the four-storey sectional-plan blocks
had little architectural appeal, yet the project was uniquely well connected to the growing official movement
for heavy prefabrication, being backed both by Ministry construction director Adrien Spinetta and the
Communist trade unions, who dreamt of extending their housing powers.72 The industrialization agenda was
not just confined to cheap housing for the ‘poor’: under a new ‘réglement national de la construction’, introduced
in 1955, construction of all new housing, public and private, became directly regulated by the state. The 1951
law for promotion of the secteur industrialisé included Le Havre’s Front-de-Mer Sud as a pilot project, the
Plan Courant of 1953 emphasized prefabrication as crucial to any expanded home-ownership programme,
and finally in 1957 the Loi Chochoy introduced five-year plans for industrialized house-building.73 French
building firms now increasingly reconfigured themselves as US-style general enterprises, which were preferred
for public-works contracts and for HLM building, whether by the SCIC, the OPHLMs or the SAHLMs.74
The Camus system thus enjoyed a strong following wind, and its progress was rapid, especially after its
selection by MRU in June 1951 for a large-scale trial in part of the SHAPE Village of officers’ quarters at St
Germain-en-Laye. There, architect Jean Dubuisson decisively developed it by suggesting that the residual
skeleton should be omitted and that the large load-bearing panel structure should also be used for internal
cross-walls, creating the potential for a true box-frame construction and significantly accelerating construction:
the project was finished in only eleven months, by May 1952.75 A layout of diagonally-slanted, eight-storey
Zeilenbau slabs was adopted by Lods at a second SHAPE village, in woodland at Fontainebleau, Camus again
being imposed by the MRU. Camus’s Ministry backing continued in 1954–6, when it was selected as preferred
contractor for another emergency programme on the Paris periphery – the ‘opération 4000 logements en
région parisienne’, built by ‘SERPEC’, a joint construction agency co-owned by Camus, Balency and Schuhl
and others.76 In 1954 the Ministry authorized building of a Camus factory at Montesson, west of Paris, and by
1956, production had reached ten dwellings per day, with SERPEC contracts secured for 110, mostly medium-
rise, Camus blocks at Boulogne-Billancourt, Nanterre and Bagnolet. By the early 1960s, one Camus dwelling
required 1,255 worker-hours to assemble, only 25% of which was traditional on-site building. A newly-
completed twenty-one-storey tower at Maisons Alfort, designed by architects A. G. Heaume & A. Persitz and

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A B

C
Fig. 6.6 (a): Camus advertisement, c. 1959. (b): The Îlot 17 HBM/HLM development at Le Havre, 1949–51: Raymond
Camus’s first experiment with storey-height large-panel construction, here combined with a concrete skeleton (MG 2016).
(c): SHAPE Officers’ Village, St Germain en Laye (1951–2) – the first large-scale trial of Camus’s system, sponsored by
MRU and designed by architect Jean Dubuisson (MG 2015).

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F G
Fig. 6.6 (d, e): A twenty-one-storey SERPEC Camus tower at Maisons-Alfort, by architects A. G. Heaume and A. Persitz:
1960 perspective drawing and 1984 (MG) view of base. (f, g): The Cité Pierre Collinet, Meaux, Tracoba development of
1959–65 planned by architects Jean Ginsberg and M. Doignon-Tournier: 1963 elevation drawing and 1989 (MG) view.

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built by SERPEC as part of a 659-unit, OCIL-funded grand ensemble along with ten-storey slabs, was
acclaimed in 1962 as ‘the tallest fully-prefabricated building in the world’: altogether it contained 3,484 precast
panels.77 Following Camus’s success, a range of other engineering-led concrete prefabrication systems emerged,
including Coignet, Balency and Tracoba; the latter’s most dramatic realization was the Cité Pierre Collinet in
Meaux (1959–65), an 1,800-flat grand ensemble comprising six sixteen-storey slabs (containing three-storey
maisonettes and internal corridors) and three twenty-three-storey towers, designed by architect Jean Ginsberg
and clad in coloured mosaics.78
The integration of heroic scale and technical sophistication gave French industrialized housing a unique
international appeal. This was epitomized in the image of the ‘chemin de grue’ (crane track), a linear system for
assembling large-panel slab-blocks using cranes on parallel railway lines – a solution partly recalling Ernst
Neufert’s 1943 proposal for a ‘Hausbaumaschine’.79 Soon, branch factories for prefabricated panel systems
sprang up across many countries, led naturally by Camus, whose showpiece schemes and factories impressed
a wide range of foreign delegations. Council visitors from Liverpool in 1962, for instance, hailed the Maisons
Alfort tower as ‘a first-class job both architecturally and structurally’, and duly ordered a Camus factory. By
then, there were already Camus works in places as varied as Hamburg, Algeria (for low-rise patio housing)
and, above all, the USSR, where two complete factories were erected in Tashkent and Baku in 1958–9 –
following which Camus became generalized throughout the prefabrication programme of the entire Soviet
Union, with over 380 factories nationwide.80 We will return to that in chapter 11, but it is clear that the
command-planning egalitarianism of the French grand ensemble concept was potentially very appealing
from a state-socialist perspective.81 Camus’s reputation further highlighted France’s leading role in the
international projection of building ‘know-how’, above all in its former colonies: agencies like SCIC could
exert a dominant influence in countries like Côte d’Ivoire, at the same time as the colonial experience helped
inform programmes at home, such as the Operation Million or the grands ensembles.
Although the French secteur industralisé became overwhelmingly associated with large-panel concrete
prefabrication, France’s postwar emphasis on technological daring also made possible other experimental
techniques. For example, the GEAI system of steel-framing clad with glass and aluminium panels, devised by
Lods in 1962 with the St Gobain glass company, was trialled on a large scale in 1968–9 at the ZUP Grand’
Mare in Rouen, but fire concerns deterred its wider adoption. More pragmatic was the lightweight fibro-
cement clad reinforced-concrete construction adopted in Stoskopf ’s SCIC schemes.82
More generally, by the mid-1960s, cracks appeared in the imposing structure of French mass housing. The
état planificateur still flourished: De Gaulle’s successor as president, Georges Pompidou (1969–74), was an
unrivalled enthusiast for science-led national modernization.83 The year 1965 saw publication of the Paris
Regional Plan (SDAURP) and 1966 the formation of the Ministère de l’Équipement (Infrastructure); a
national ‘Plan Construction’ was launched in 1971 under Paul Delouvrier and Robert Lion to promote
research-led national development. However, the 1968 protests had fatally undermined the prestige of the
Beaux-Arts architectural-composition system, and existing governmental players, such as CDC, were
challenged by new initiatives, including an ambitious New Town programme, masterminded by Delouvrier.
The last, gestural set pieces of both mainstream ‘hard french’ and its organic, Aillaudesque variant were only
just being completed, notably in the Créteil satellite town south-east of Paris. There, Stoskopf ’s spectacular,
tower-studded ring blocks at Créteil-Montaigut (1971–4) jostled with Gérard Grandval’s wildly eccentric
‘Choux et Maïs’ OCIL complex of 1970–4, crowned by ten circular fifteen-storey location-vente towers,
studded with petal-like balconies. But by then, more complex, structuralist-style projects such as Evry New
Town’s agglomerative ‘Pyramides’ of 1971–80 (architects Michel Andrault and Pierre Parat) were radically
undermining the traditional grand ensemble formula, and the Plan Construction was spawning a ‘laboratory’
programme of flexible system-building, the ‘Modèles Innovation’ (see Fig. 6.7).84

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 France: The ‘Trente Glorieuses’ of Mass Housing

A B

C
Fig. 6.7 (a): Créteil-Montaigut, SCIC development of 1971–4 designed by Stoskopf in a monumentally formal circular
layout punctuated by centrifugally-aligned towers (MG 2019). (b): Nouveau Créteil, architect Gérard Grandval’s Choux et
Maïs OCIL complex of 1970–4, with its ten circular fifteen-storey location-vente towers (MG 2019). (c): Évry Centre,
1984 street map, showing cluster layout concept (MG 2019).

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E
Fig. 6.7 (d): Évry New Town’s Les Pyramides complex, built in 1973–80 following a 1971 competition; architects Michel
Andrault and Pierre Parat (MG 2019). (e): Mass housing goes PoMo: Noisy le Grand, Les Espaces d’Abraxas, designed by
Ricardo Bofill and built in 1978–83 in precast concrete for the SA HLM Les Trois Vallées (Arc, Théatre) and CNH 2000
(Palacio) (MG 2015).

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 France: The ‘Trente Glorieuses’ of Mass Housing

A polarization between elite and stigmatized HLM was now firmly established: in October 1971, the
Minister of Infrastructure, Albin Chalandon, visited La Courneuve incognito and denounced its ‘oppressive
and inflexible social structure’. The Guichard edict, banning grands ensembles altogether, followed within two
years, and the largest slab-blocks at La Courneuve were demolished from 1986. Eventually, all kinds of
modernism were replaced by full-blown postmodern monumentalism, in the work of Ricardo Bofill at Marne-
la-Vallée and elsewhere. These reputational challenges to mainstream HLM were paralleled by a post-1967
reform of development-planning processes, from the ZUP to the conservationist ‘ZAC’ (zone d’aménagement
concerté, or joint development zone). Constructionally, heavy precast-panel concrete construction rapidly lost
support, and in-situ concrete returned to favour.85 Under Chalandon’s ministership from 1969, the state
promotion of owner-occupation through the secteur aidé loans system, which already accounted for 36% of
dwellings built between 1945 and 1975, was further elaborated, with large-scale development of low-cost
‘Chalandonettes’. 86 Increasingly too, the ‘Red Ring’ lost its cultural-political cohesion, with the Communist-
controlled municipalities around Paris dropping from forty-one in 1977 to twenty-seven in 1989. Yet the
HLM system, protected from direct governmental interference by its arm’s-length status, survived all this
upheaval generally intact, both in existing stock and new building, and SCIC continued to build, totalling
415,000 units by 1981.87
As we will see in the next four chapters, a similar continuity tended to prevail across the remainder of
continental Western Europe – a distinct contrast to the earlier and sharper downturns in the fortunes of public
housing in Britain and, above all, the United States. But the strength and grandeur of the central state in mass
housing remained largely unique to France – at least outside the command economies of the state-socialist
bloc, as we will see in chapters 11–13.

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CHAPTER 7
THE LOW COUNTRIES: PILLARS OF
MODERN MASS HOUSING

In the next four chapters, our narrative arrives at what was arguably the mainstream core of Western European
mass housing: the system of so-called ‘corporatism’, one of the chief variants of the First World welfare state
identified by Gøsta Esping-Andersen. Corporatism involved the maintenance of social peace and prosperity
through consensual, proportionally-distributed state provision among different interest groups, whether
political, social (class) or religious, and often by efforts to protect individual workers’ incomes through social-
insurance: a strong contrast to systems emphasizing centralized state authority, such as that of Fift h-Republic
France.1 While corporatist systems applied in a number of the countries surveyed in the next four chapters,
the most elaborate were those of Belgium and the Netherlands, where the legacy of previous religio-political
struggles was etched into the governmental apparatus through the ‘verzuiling’ (‘pillar’) system. Here, social
services were organized into separate, parallel systems serving the main groupings. In Belgium, these
comprised the anti-clerical socialists and liberals, and the traditionalist Catholics; in the Netherlands, there
was a more complex pattern of socialists, liberals, Protestants and Catholics.2 Illustrating the incorrigible
diversity of the European welfare state, the differences between the two countries were as prominent as their
resemblances, with Belgium’s laissez-faire conservatism contrasting with the highly-planned, self-consciously
progressive policies of its northern neighbour.
In the built environment, pre-war Belgian house-building – including the vast reconstructions in the
devastated areas – had acted as a vehicle for the country’s tentative efforts at town planning, whereas the
opposite applied in the Netherlands, whose housing was structurally embedded within the town-planning
system since the 1901 Woningwet (Housing Act). That contrast was hugely exaggerated by their differing
wartime experiences, with Belgium emerging relatively unscathed and able to return rapidly to a market-
dominated development system, but the impoverished Netherlands resorting to more extreme measures of
collectivism and coordination than before.3

Socialist skyscrapers versus Catholic cottages: postwar housing in Belgium

Both countries’ mass housing systems were internally polarized between two different formulae of state-
sponsored provision, creating microregions of mass housing that were as much socio-political as geographical.
The Dutch division was between alternative forms of flatted rental housing, local-authority and housing-
association, but in Belgium the polarization was far stronger, between state backed home-ownership in
detached houses with gardens – ‘het huisje op het heide’ (‘the cottage on the heath’), with the possibility of a
‘right to buy’ after fifteen years – and rental flats provided by social housing companies, with home-ownership
expressly forbidden. Within popular discourse, the two Belgian patterns were stereotypically associated with
‘Catholics’ and ‘socialists’: in 1953, for instance, Jeanne Van Der Veken of the Socialistische Vooruitziende
Vrouwen (Socialist Visionary Women, SVV) argued that ‘a family of high moral standards . . . can live in a flat
as well as in a single-family house’. Power was generally shared through coalition governments, the BSP
(Belgische Socialistische Partij) dominating up to 1949 and in 1954–8, and the CVP (Christelijke Volkspartij)

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 The Low Countries: Pillars of Modern Mass Housing

otherwise, but with the Liberals also often involved in coalitions (with the shorthand names ‘orange’, ‘blue’ and
‘red’ used for CVP, Liberals and BSP). Equally important were other interest groups, such as trade unions, civil
servants or employers, who had in 1944 agreed a social-insurance concordat; others such as the Boerenbond
and the SVV also made their contribution. All this fed imprecisely into built-form preferences: predictably, the
CVP was a strong supporter of home-ownership, arguing that ‘eigen haard is goud waard’ (‘your home is your
castle’), but equally the renowned Communist-leaning architect Renaat Braem could hail the cottage in a
garden as an optimum dwelling for families.4 And Braem’s well-known sardonic 1953 cartoons of ‘Catholic
housing as seen by the Socialists’ (a parochial jumble of discordantly-gabled houses) and ‘Socialist housing as
seen by the Catholics’ (menacing ‘neo-slum’ modernist slabs daubed with Communist slogans) arguably
reflected his own polemical campaign against the anarchic disorder of Belgian architecture, rather than
contemporary architectural and ideological polarizations.5 In any case, most of the local housing companies
in larger cities were actually managed by a balance of socialist and Catholic representatives.
The late 1940s and early 1950s, following an influential 1946 housing exhibition in Brussels organized by
the NMGW (the national social-housing umbrella body), saw several attempts to address postwar shortages
within the constraints of verzuiling. The two most important laws, promoted by Alfred De Taeye in 1948 and
Fernand Brunfaut a year later, focused respectively on ‘conservative/Catholic’ houses and ‘socialist’ flats. The
De Taeye Act’s support provisions, including subsidies up to 15% of dwelling costs, and mortgages covering
the rest, were targeted at individual builders and Catholic housing companies. De Taeye argued that ‘one’s own
yard is first and foremost the realization of a dream held dear by any worker; it is a form of small property. The
small owner feels responsible for the continuation of his property, that is part of the national patrimony.’ They
were a roaring success, especially in urban Flanders, reaching over 100,000 beneficiaries, over twice as many
as planned, within five years, and fuelling Belgium’s vast suburban sprawl. Further supports for private building
were introduced in the 1940s and 1950s, and eventually De Taeye subsidies were also made available for
house-purchasers from social-housing companies.6
The Brunfaut Act established a National Housing Fund to cover losses by the NMGW/NMKL/WBKG
social housing companies in building urban rental and rural home-ownership housing, as well as subsidized
roads, services and landscaping infrastructure in all social-housing areas, whether for rent or sale: it succeeded
in briefly raising the NMGW/NMKL share of national housing construction to 25% in 1955, but the effects of
the Korean War forced a temporary cutback. Output was also, arguably, impeded by the government’s
endorsement of slum-clearance in an act of December 1953 – the Wet op de Krotopruiming, or Second De
Taeye Act – following a much-publicized visit by King Beaudouin and Minister De Taeye to the Marollenwijk
slum near the Palais de Justice a year earlier, at the instigation of yet another crusading Catholic priest, the
Abbé Froidure. The NMGW was encouraged to divert some subsidies towards slum-clearance, and an
experimental redevelopment began in the Marollen (Krakeelbuurt), with two phases of multi-storey housing
built by the Brusselse Haard housing-association in 1953–63 and 1963–75. Given the Belgian aversion to
radical state intervention, these slum-clearance efforts remained fragmentary, unlike the enormous output of
De Taeye houses, of which 1954 saw the foundation-laying of the 100,000th, in Wareghem. The extreme
cautiousness towards welfare-state intervention in housing at home contrasted with the active housing policy
of the late colonial regime in the Congo, steered by the government Office des Cités Africaines – as we will see
in chapter 15 (see Fig. 7.1).7
Owing to the higgledy-piggledy individualism of Belgian cities, the place of town planning was very
restricted by comparison with France and the Netherlands, focusing on road-building and industrial
development – the latter including housing developments such as Nieuw Sledderlo, near Genk, where 650
terraced houses and three-storey balcony-access flats were built in 1963–70 for a new Ford plant, by social
housing company Nieuw Dak. The De Taeye and Brunfaut systems each exerted consequential effects on city

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A B

C D
Fig. 7.1 (a): Cartoon by Marc Sleen of the presentation of the 100,000th De Taeye home-construction grant in 1954.
(b, c): 1953 cartoons by Renaat Braem of ‘Catholic housing as seen by the Socialists’ and ‘Socialist housing as seen by the
Catholics’. (d): ‘Help the Child get out of the Slums!’; 1930 poster by the Belgische Nationale Bond tegen de Krotten
(Belgian National Anti-Slum League).

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 The Low Countries: Pillars of Modern Mass Housing

planning, with municipalities such as Antwerp laying out special De Taeye housing zones, and social housing
companies building houses for sale alongside their rental stock; NMKL-supported companies built only for
immediate sale. Development of areas with both De Taeye and Brunfaut housing could bring aggregate
financial benefits, combining the former’s single-family housing subsidies with the latter’s infrastructural
support – in the process further reinforcing the patchwork character of Belgian cities. Generally lacking, even
under Brunfaut, was the massed slab-building that prevailed in France, although the disparity was less obvious
in the early 1950s, when French housing was still in the doldrums. Belgian system-building focused on low-
rise individual houses, using techniques such as the Danilith-Delmulle lightweight bungalow panel system,
built from 1965 until the 1970s, often disguised with brick cladding. Multi-storey concrete large-panel blocks
were exceptional, including three very late seventeen-storey cruciform towers built in 1972–3 at Hoboken
Klein Heide I-III by the Vennootschap ‘Beter Wonen te Hoboken’.8
Typically, experimental multi-storey developments were ‘one-offs’ punctuating the suburban sprawl, such
as a fourteen-storey slab block designed by avant-garde architect Willy Van Der Meeren in 1954 for the
socialist housing company Ieder Zijn Huis (‘Everybody’s Home’) in the outer Brussels municipality of Evere,
responding to a call by socialist mayor Franz Guillaume for a secular landmark in the sea of ‘petty-bourgeois
Catholic’ small houses. Featuring access-galleries every three floors and a reinforced-concrete frame
incorporating prefabricated components dimensioned in accordance with Le Corbusier’s Modulor, the
individualistic project was only completed in 1961: adjoining it were conservatively-styled brick houses for
sale by the same social company.9 In middle-sized cities, isolated multi-storey blocks reared up amidst the
rows of little brick houses, built usually by complex networks of housing societies and building contractors, as
in late-1960s and 1970s Ghent and Bruges. An earlier example was constructed in Angleur in 1952–4: a nine-
storey staircase-access slab, designed by Groupe EGAU architects as the first phase of a development by the
Société Cooperative des Maisons de Bon Marché de Grivegnée, containing large flats of five rooms. In Kessel-
Lo, Leuven, Léon Stynen and Paul De Meyer built the Parkwijk Casablanca project for the Heuvelhof housing
company, from 1954, a mixed development including white-painted Zeilenbau terraced houses (for sale), low-
rise gallery-access blocks and a nine-storey slab (rental), as well as conservative-looking brick paired houses
by architects Charles Boghemans and L. Hublé (for sale) (see Fig. 7.2).10
In the large cities, more complex and ambitious approaches prevailed, with large extension sites often
apportioned among several locally-based housing enterprises (huisvestingsmaatschappijen, or HVMs). Even
so, each phase of innovative design was generally represented by only a handful of estates in Belgium – several
key examples in Flanders and Brussels being the work of Renaat Braem. In Antwerp, three large NMGW-
sponsored extension zones were all dominated by flats, even though the societies themselves were pragmatically
managed by a balance of Catholics and socialists.11 The earliest was the Luchtbal development of four nine-
storey Zeilenbau slabs, constructed in 1949–54 by the Onze Woning society to designs by local engineer-
architect Hugo Van Kuyck (later augmented with six tall towers in 1960–2), followed in 1952–6 by the
development by ‘De Goede Woning’, designed by Joseph Smolderen, in the Jan De Voslei.12 In the Kiel
development, led by the socialist enterprise Huisvesting-Antwerpen, the set piece was a characteristically
monumental network of eight-/twelve-storey slab-blocks by Renaat Braem at Zaanstraat (1950–8), with
extensive communal facilities and open access balconies: here Braem worked in a mixed team with Catholic
architect Hendrik Maes and socialist Victor Maeremans, pursuing a distinctly Constructivist concept of urban
complexes as social condensers.13
During the 1950s these Antwerp developments were rivalled in scale in Wallonia by the multi-phase, 1,800-
unit Champ de Manoeuvre (Cité de Droixhe) project in Liège, commissioned from Groupe EGAU from 1954
by the cooperative society ‘La Maison Liègeoise’. This included a row of thirteen-storey slab-blocks aligned
north–south (diagonally to the existing roads system), plus low blocks at right angles, and a later twenty-nine-

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storey tower, all with a significant element of large panel prefabrication and an overall density of 380 persons
per hectare.14 Within Brussels itself, the only development on a grand-ensemble scale was the famous Cité
Modèle/Modelwijk in Heysel, with its three high slabs and right-angled low blocks – another Braem project,
commissioned by the cooperative society ‘La Foyer Laekennois’; its protracted gestation and construction
stretched from 1955 to 1974.15 Subsequently, Braem designed several smaller social-housing projects with
landmark high blocks, such as the multi-phase, urban-periphery Kruiskenslei development in Boom-Noord,

A B

C D
Fig. 7.2 (a): Large-panel towers built in 1972–3 at the Woonwijk Klein Heide, Hoboken, Antwerp, by the ‘Beter Wonen
te Hoboken’ Society; architects Marc Denkens, Marc Appel and Jan Welslau (MG 2014). (b): Fourteen-storey rental slab
block designed by architect Willy Van Der Meeren in 1954 for the socialist housing society ‘Ieder Zijn Huis’ in the outer-
Brussels municipality of Evere; completed in 1961. In the foreground, owner-occupation De Taeye houses in the same
estate (MG 2019). (c): Angleur, near Liège: the Société Cooperative des Maisons de Bon Marché de Grivegnée’s pioneering
slab-block project by architects Groupe EGAU, 1952–4 (MG 2019). (d): Parkwijk Casablanca, Kessel-Lo, Leuven, from
1954: mixed development including owner-occupation terraced houses and nine-storey rental slab-block, designed by
Léon Stynen and Paul De Meyer (MG 2019).

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 The Low Countries: Pillars of Modern Mass Housing

E F

G
Fig. 7.2 (e): Residentie Olympia, Verpleegsterstraat, Ghent, 1953–6: maisonette block by architects Georges Bontinck
and Robert Rubbens for the Oost-Vlaamse Huurderscoöperative (MG 1982). (f): Luchtbal, Antwerp: the four nine-storey
Zeilenbau slabs (langblokken) built in 1949–54 by the ‘Onze Woning’ society: Hugo van Kuyck, architect (MG 1992). (g):
Architect Joseph Smolderen’s Jan De Voslei project, Antwerp (1952–6) for the society ‘De Goede Woning’ (MG 2014).

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south of Antwerp, built by the Boom Regional Housing Society, including two slender point-blocks (Phase 2,
1963–72).16 The most idiosyncratic of Braem’s projects was the Sint-Maartensdal development in Leuven
(1960–71) – a redevelopment of a redundant barracks, and the leading example within Belgian social housing
of the individualistic, organic late modernism of the 1960s. Stemming from Braem’s personal quest from
the late 1950s for a more open design approach to encourage ‘personal and spiritual liberation’, and co-designed
with Albert Moerkerke and Jan De Mol,17 the project broke from the rectilinearity of the Cite Modèle and
Kiel. Its twenty-storey, 115m-high, hexagonal ‘condensed tower’, crowned by a spire-like antenna, was flanked
by herringbone-plan ten-storey slabs. The project followed the accession of a ‘red–blue’ city administration in
Leuven in 1953: the reformist socialist mayor, Franz Tielemans, steered the local HVM towards an ambitious
multi-storey area redevelopment programme, Sint-Maartensdal being the chief outcome (see Fig. 7.3).18

The Netherlands: planned housing and ‘polder politics’

Despite the apparent similarity of Belgium and the Netherlands in areas such as verzuiling or brick row
housing, the two countries’ social housing policies headed in very different directions after World War II. The
Netherlands ended up closer to a universalist system such as Sweden’s, and the sharp urban-architectural
contrast with Belgian individuality further accentuated the divergence. The wartime privations hugely boosted
the role of organized corporatism and communitarianism within Dutch verzuiling. It re-emerged after 1945 in
a diluted form, with a wider array of ‘pillars’ which lasted until the late 1960s, including the socialist PvdA
(Partij van de Arbeid), the VVD (Liberals) and the KVP, ARP and CHU confessional parties. Echoing the
many wartime schemes for creation of a welfare state, most working-class Catholics now strongly backed
corporatism and modernization, as against Belgian-style family individualism: there was widespread cross-
pillar support for a regenerative ideal of ‘personalistisch socialism’.19 Some of these schemes had been prepared
secretly by modernist architect-planners, and others openly, under the aegis of the German-tolerated planning
and building-industry management system consolidated by engineer Johan Ringers – who became secretary
for public works in 1945–6.20 Special-interest groups within each pillar typically formed alliances with their
counterparts in others, allowing a protracted period of ‘Rooms-rood’ (Catholic–Socialist) coalition from 1946
to 1958, comprising the PvdA and the four religious parties and mainly led by Socialist Willem Drees. Indeed,
as the KVP (Catholic People’s Party) was also central to the other main alternative coalition permutation
(centre–right), it managed to control the housing ministry for an astonishing twenty-three years (1951–74)
– Western Europe’s only rival to the continuity of social-democratic rule in Swedish housing. From the later
1960s, reacting to protest movements such as Provo, the old-style deferential verzuiling began to break up, and
was replaced by a secularized ‘polder model’ of cooperation, involving labour unions and employers alongside
coalition governments.21
All of this was built on an extraordinary demographic foundation of explosive pre-1950 population growth
– 48% since 1920, in contrast to 17% in both Britain and Belgium and only 7% in France. Crowned by the
refugee influx from Indonesia in 1949–50, this boom accentuated wartime housing-stock losses (4% totally
lost, 25% damaged). Even in 1950 there was still widespread billeting in under-occupied houses, and police
control of residence permits.22 To cope with this situation, one of the most highly controlled housing and
planning systems in Western Europe emerged after 1945. The role of private single-family houses was curbed,
never accounting for more than 35% of output, and far less in the 1950s and mid-1960s. But housing played a
key role in national planned investment: the 1946 national plan allowed 25% for housing and 55% for industry.
The controlled character of the system stemmed partly from the strong powers of both central government
(Rijk) and local authorities, building on pre-war precedent. The government oversaw both the quantity and

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 The Low Countries: Pillars of Modern Mass Housing

A B

C D
Fig. 7.3 (a): Wooneinheid Zaanstraat, Antwerp-Kiel, 1950–8, designed by Renaat Braem, Hendrik Maes and Victor
Maeremans for the socialist-controlled Huisvesting Antwerpen (MG 2014). (b): Antwerp-Linkeroever, Huisvesting-
Antwerpen’a ‘Europark’ city-extension project, from 1967 (following a 1961 competition): eighteen multi-storey blocks up
to twenty-seven storeys maximum, by architects H. Aelbrecht, R. Brunswijck, R. Moureau and O. Wathelet (MG 1992).
(c): Cité du Droixhe, Liège, commissioned from Groupe EGAU from 1954 by the society ‘La Maison Liègeoise’ (MG 2019).
(d): Silvertoplaan, Antwerp-Zuid, twenty-one-storey slab blocks for ‘De Goede Woning’, designed by Jul De Roover, from
1967 (MG 1992).

quality of housing. Regarding quantity, it set national targets, manipulated regional distribution quotas for
individual towns, controlled construction permits and regulated rent controls (gradually relaxed after 1951).
Overall, its strategy until 1955 was to foster a low-wage economic revival with austere living standards to
maximize national competitiveness – a strategy within which social housing played a central role.23 Regarding
housing quality, as building costs had increased by 350% compared with 1939, the government’s most
important power was its subsidies for Woningwet dwellings and consequential regulation powers. The
subsidies comprised annual contributions, through block loans, towards local authorities’ operating deficits.
With the average weekly cost of a Woningwet house in 1953 running at 13 guilders, to achieve a weekly rent

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Mass Housing

E F

G H
Fig. 7.3 (e, f): Renaat Braem’s Cité Modèle in Heysel, 1955–74, commissioned by the cooperative society ‘La Foyer
Laekennois’: model at the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair, and 2013 (MG) exterior view. (g): Woonwijk Kruiskenslei, Boom-
Noord, designed by Braem (with Juul van Camp and Paul Van De Velde) and built in multiple stages in 1955–79 for the
regional housing society (Gewestelijke Maatschappij van Boom en Omliggende), including two slender point-blocks in
Phase 2 (1963–72): 2014 (MG) view of eight-storey Langblok, part of Phase 3, 1968–75, with ‘superellipsoïdes’. (h): St
Maartensdaal, Leuven, 1960–71 development designed by Braem, Albert Moerkerke and Jan De Mol for the local HVM,
including a twenty-storey ‘condensed tower’ flanked by herringbone slabs (MG 1982).

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of 7–8 guilders a state subsidy of 5.50 was needed.24 Up to 1948, the Woningwet subsidy had been entirely
covered by central government, and local authorities could at first decide whether to use it to build houses
themselves or to pass it on to the woningbouw vereningen (WVs, or house-building associations), through
construction loans and annual contributions to management costs. As a result, the early postwar Netherlands
saw Western Europe’s only direct nationwide equivalent to British council housing: of the roughly 200,000
dwellings built in 1945–51, council housing accounted for 41% , 29% were built by WVs and 30% were built
for owner-occupation (mostly regulated and government-assisted). This delegated subsidy was, in turn, a key
power of the local authorities, but even more important was their large-scale ownership of land and their
planning powers, allowing them to apportion land-disposals between different tenures, social and private. By
1966, a foreign observer could remark that in the Randstad, the country’s urban core region, municipalities
‘largely control the real estate market’ – a power that would have been inconceivable in Belgium.25
Of course, multi-layered systems of regulation and control of planned housing also emerged elsewhere, notably
in the socialist Second World. But unlike these undemocratic countries, in the Netherlands this was combined
with the complex coalition wheeling-and-dealing required by verzuiling. In the two largest cities, Amsterdam and
Rotterdam, although the postwar years saw formidable strides in planned extension and social housing
development, this achievement required constant inter-pillar negotiation, especially between KVP housing
ministers and the PvdA-dominated municipal coalition administrations and wethouders (aldermen). Within the
system, the fiercest clashes were still among technical/administrative groupings, for example between the municipal
planning department (Stadsontwikkeling) and the output-dominated housing department (Woningdienst). But
KVP oversight of national housing policy ensured a gradual policy shift after 1948 away from open-ended central
government subsidy of local authorities’ Woningwet activities, prodding the latter to borrow on the open market,
or (after 1950) from life assurance societies, pension funds and the Bank for Dutch Municipalities.26 From 1950,
the government gradually reduced the number of dwellings local authorities could build directly each year, and
pressed for economies in the approved building plans. At the same time, though, local authorities were granted
new powers of land expropriation at controlled prices from the mid-1950s, to check land speculation.27
There now began a constantly rising succession of national house-building targets to ‘solve the housing
shortage’. In 1949, following a panic that output was stagnating, a 55,000 annual target was announced, to ‘solve
the shortage’ by 1965. The year 1958 saw a temporary blip following the departure of the PvdA from the
coalition, when Housing Minister J. van Aartsen attempted to restrict subsidies to WVs, but his successor in
the new confessional-Liberal coalition after the 1963 elections, Pieter Bogaers, a representative of the labour
wing of the KVP who was determined to defend workers’ interests, focused once more on maximum output,
racing up and down the country and harrying his civil servants and municipalities to press on. His plan was
to tackle the housing shortage, first, by a new six-year plan requiring 125,000 completions annually, to ‘solve
the housing problem’ by 1970; only then would the housing powers be transferred to the WVs. Bogaers
reversed the place of the building industry in the government’s plans: rather than its existing capacity dictating
the scale of the programme, it would be expanded sufficiently to implement the 125,000 target – a policy that
would inevitably require adoption of industrialized building in one form or another. By the end of 1965,
148,000 dwellings were indeed under construction. In the mid-1960s the emphasis shifted back to WV control
of new social house-building, combined with more area rehabilitation.28 The years after 1973 also saw
strenuous efforts to expand home-ownership: 1973 saw the highest-ever overall completions level (155,000),
but 65% of this was purely private-enterprise. The percentage of Woningwet dwellings in national output also
fluctuated radically, with peaks of 75% in 1949 and 54% in 1967, and the council-housing share of Woningwet
completions dropped from 60% in 1951 to 49% in 1966 and 16% in 1973.29 Overall, the share of social
rental housing in the total housing stock increased steadily from 1950 (18%) to 1991 (52%), and the ‘millionth
post-war dwelling’ was formally opened in Zwolle in 1962.30

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The post-1948 decline in the percentage of council housing was slowest in the Randstad, not least because
of the messianic campaigning from 1948 of J. J. van der Velde, Amsterdam’s socialist Alderman for public
works and social housing, who relentlessly promoted proposals for a massive, 84,000-unit council-building
drive, defying opposition from within his own party and scepticism even from Communist councillor Henk
Gortzak, who attacked him as ‘a fantasist, posing as Santa Claus, or as some kind of magician’. His programme
piggy-backed housing output onto the extension plans of the pre-war AUP, and in eight years 33,000 dwellings
had been completed (see Fig. 7.4).31
Despite the modest scale and budget of late 1940s and 1950s housing architecture in the Netherlands, it was
the focus of impassioned debates among designers, planners and politicians, relating both layout plans and

A B

C D
Fig. 7.4 (a): Queen Juliana’s visit for tea with the Reusch family during her inauguration of Amsterdam’s first postwar
extension, Slotermeer, in 1952 (cf. 11.1b). (b): Wallraven van Hallstraat, Geuzenveld (c. 1956), identification plaque of the
RKCWV (Catholic Housebuilding Co-op) ‘Dr Schaepman’ (MG 2015). (c): Alderman J. J. Van de Velde, Amsterdam’s
messianic socialist alderman for public works and housing, addressing a 1952 explanatory meeting about the AUP (AUP
map on wall behind him). (d): The Catholic concept of a residential neighbourhood: diagram published in Katholiek
Bouwblad, 1947.

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E F

G
Fig. 7.4 (e): Van Tijen & Maaskant with Brinkman & van den Broek, 1940 study for a housing area north of Goudsche
Singel, Rotterdam, in a mixture of block heights (including multi-storey) and mainly strokenbouw layout. (f): Modernist
‘wijkgedachte’ concept, 1946, as publicized in Rotterdam Housing Director A. Bos’s 1946 publication, De stad van toekomst,
de toekomst der stad. (g): Stadsontwikkeling Amsterdam, wartime study of parcelling, showing an evolution from
straightforward strokenbouw to ‘hovenverkaveling’ (courtyard parcelling) that predominated in the 54,000-dwelling
Westelijke Tuinsteden.

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block designs to elevated ideals such as the fostering of ‘community’ or even national character: a Ministry
publication of 1953 asserted that the Dutchman was ‘a great lover of his home’, but the definition of home here
was clearly different from that in Belgium. Contentious debate, reflecting the national predilection for bluntly-
expressed opinions (‘bespreekbaarheid’), was long-established within Dutch architecture and planning: R.
Blijstra argued in 1960 that Berlage had ‘produced not only obedient but also unruly and opinionated
children’.32 Despite a traditionalist Catholic fightback led by Granpré Molière at the 1941 Doorn Congress, the
1940s and 1950s saw the inexorable rise of the Modern Movement concept of neighbourhood planning. This
began in wartime Rotterdam, where a 1941 report by modernist architects on ‘Urban possibilities in the new
Rotterdam’ inspired a hierarchical neighbourhood concept, or ‘wijkgedachte’. Devised by a multi-agency
committee chaired by city housing director A. Bos, it envisaged an ascending hierarchy of units, from ‘buurt’
to ‘wijk’,‘stadsdeel’ and ‘stadgeheel’, and was widely proselytized in Bos’s 1946 publication,‘De stad van toekomst,
de toekomst der stad’ (‘City of the Future – Future of the City’). Key interwar modernists worked closely with
Bos in the first large-scale realization of wijkgedachte, at Rotterdam’s Zuidwijk ‘modern garden city’: originally
planned by W. van Tijen in 1947 with only 16% flats, it was eventually built in 1954–8 at much higher density,
at the PvdA’s insistence. Even in this predominantly flatted form, linked to Radburn pedestrian/vehicle
segregation, the concept had wide appeal: 1952–3 saw enthusiastic initiatives by an Amsterdam PvdA study
group, whose report, ‘Mens en Stad’, hailed wijkgedachte as an antidote to urban alienation, and at the same
time from the KVP and influential clergymen such as J. P. Huibers, Bishop of Haarlem, who hailed it as an ideal
framework for family-based social stability.33

Standardization and galerijbouw: postwar Dutch housing design

It was, arguably, in the design of Woningwet dwellings themselves that the central government’s influence over
quality as well as quantity was most far reaching. This was achieved through its vetting powers over new
schemes, including detailed prescription of equipment and space standards in an official housing manual, the
so-called Voorschriften en Wenken (Regulations and Hints), first issued in 1951 by the Centrale Directie van
de Volkhuisvesting, and resembling the contemporary ‘Westholms bibel’ in Sweden and the INA-Casa
‘Suggerimenti’ in Italy.34 It was gradually updated: a 1953–8 study group on ‘fundamental housing principles’
by old-timers of Dutch modernist housing design – van Tijen, van den Broek, Stam and Merkelbach –
eventually fed into a comprehensive 1965 update of the Voorschriften en Wenken, greeted sardonically by van
Tijen as ‘twenty years and a million dwellings too late’. Overall, these ‘advances’ in design coincided with a shift
towards flats, accounting for 45% of new Dutch dwellings in 1967; average dwelling area per flat reached a
maximum of 646 ft.² the previous year.35
Postwar Dutch housing design increasingly enshrined modernist ideals of ‘need-fit’ planning and
standardization. An extreme example was the emergency ‘Duplex’ dwelling, of which 13,000 were built
immediately after the war to house two large families, each to be subdivided into two after ten years.
Standardization was exemplified in the rigid egalitarianism of ‘strokenbouw’ (i.e. Zeilenbau) layouts, first built
prewar in Bos en Lommer and then incorporated in the 1940 plan for 11,000 low-rise flats in Slotermeer.
A postwar attempt by Amsterdam city assistant planner Mrs J. H. Muller to combine the egalitarian benefits
of strokenbouw while avoiding ‘monotony’ through L-shaped rather than straight blocks was implemented in
Watergraafsmeer in 1947.36
In housing construction, unlike French large-panel prefabrication, the Dutch driving-force was a
combination of standardization and rationalization. Both these were reinforced by Ringers’s coordinated
national reconstruction programme, and by use of Marshall Plan aid to boost research and innovation in

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constructional systematization, through measures such as the 1948 establishment of the Bouwcentrum in
Rotterdam.37 The late 1940s saw an initial flurry of proposals for full prefabricated construction, with Zuidwijk
again playing a central role: its first neighbourhood was system-built at the insistence of PvdA councillors, but
after costs were found to be 100% higher, construction reverted to traditional brickwork. At Kleinpolder
(1947–52), two contrasting systems were trialled: BMB (Baksteen-Montage-Bouw), using brick-clad large
prefabricated panels, and Wijmer & Breukelman (including prefabricated balconies). By 1953, system-building
was well established within a minority of the annual housing programme – around 14% of total production,
almost all flats and for low-income groups; between 1947 and 1964, 128,000 system-built dwellings were
erected. From 1954, the central government tried to boost system-building by exempting it from annual
allocations (contingenten) and encouraging municipalities to adopt rolling, multi-year contracts. New systems
had to be approved by the government-sponsored Ratiobouw Foundation: the most popular were ‘rationalized-
traditional’ rather than fully-prefabricated. Calculated brickwork construction, for instance, permitted three-
storey flats with 11-inch outer and 4½-inch inner load-bearing brick walls – a system that facilitated
systematized construction of low and medium-rise Woningwet housing, as in the Malberg district of
Maastricht, a 2,330-dwelling social housing area built in repetitive strokenbouw layouts of one- to six-storey
blocks.38
Unlike France, in the Netherlands system-building was only loosely connected to high building. In the
latter case, the overall level of production followed a simple rise-and-fall trajectory, especially following a
forceful edict promoting high flats by Bogaers in 1963: Woningwet flats in blocks of nine or more storeys
soared from 18% of output in 1964 to 55% in 1967–8 and then receded to 40% by 1972. Overall, multi-storey
flats accounted for 21% of total postwar national output.39 As in England, a sharp turn against tall blocks began
in 1967–8, backed by conservative politicians reacting against their public unpopularity, but in the Netherlands
the social housing programme as a whole carried on unabated, in medium- and low-rise form. Immediately
after the war, multi-storey construction had been discouraged by the high cost, although the need for even
low-rise dwellings to be piled in Amsterdam diminished the differential. Early high-rise schemes, such as
Tijen and Maaskant’s pioneering Zuidplein thirteen-storey block of 1949 in Rotterdam, were isolated prestige
projects, and 1948 saw lively debates about how to cut the cost of high blocks in Kleinpolder and make them
affordable as Woningwet dwellings. One of the eventual solutions proposed was to adopt gallery access rather
than internal staircase plans.40 And it was, indeed, gallery access, or ‘galerijbouw’, that became the most
distinctive architectural feature of postwar Dutch flat-building – a building-preference that overrode
distinctions between high and low blocks, and Woningwet and private tenure. The first use of galerijbouw at
Spangen in Rotterdam around 1920 had provoked vigorous debates about its appropriateness in the
Netherlands; but it was the late 1940s that saw its use suddenly explode, with fevered debates around 1948–50
about the optimum planning of low-rise flats, and a sudden shift from internal-staircase-access sectional plans
to galerijbouw. After complaints that four-storey blocks were an unsatisfactory compromise, storey-heights
edged up further, to five storeys (11 metres being the maximum height before a lift became compulsory). As
late as 1952, reports on a low-rise, concrete-frame galerijbouw block at Moerwijk, Den Haag, for WBV ‘s
Gravenhage, emphasized its experimental character, and commentator G. Westerhout argued that galerijbouw
had only ‘very gradually taken root in our country’, facing distrust because of its excessive exposure to cold
winds.41
Sometimes, the early galerijbouw projects were combined with two-storey maisonettes, a combination
largely unique to the Netherlands and England – as in the Patrimonium Woonstichting Delfshaven’s 1952
project in Mathenesserweg, Rotterdam, with its six-storey blocks comprising three superimposed layers of
maisonettes. By 1958, however, English housing specialists visiting Rotterdam’s Pendrecht housing scheme
referred to the galerijbouw flats there as an established, popular pattern, which ‘may seem rather curious to us,

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since we now reject it as somewhat old-fashioned’. And, by 1966, visitors from Britain found that while
maisonettes were ‘on the way out’, the dominance of galerijbouw was still unchallenged, and indeed referred to
approvingly on the grounds that Dutch people did not mind being overlooked by passers-by, as ‘we have
nothing to hide’. The percentage of Woningwet flats in galerijbouw rose especially fast during the later 1960s,
from 46% in 1964 to 98% in 1970: even more astonishing was that 87% of private dwellings completed in the
same year were also gallery-access. The terminology of multi-storey building developed in parallel with that
of galerijbouw, with the term ‘toren’ being used for high towers, but ‘flat’ used for gallery-access slabs (referring
both to entire buildings and individual dwellings): in 1958 in Amsterdam it could still be said that ‘even the
word “flat” is new’ (see Fig. 7.5).42

A B

C D
Fig. 7.5 (a): Zuidplein, Rotterdam, pioneering thirteen-storey block with ground-floor communal facilities, designed by
W. van Tijen and H. A. Maaskant with E. F. Groosman, 1945–9 (MG 2015). (b): Mathenesserweg, Rotterdam, 1952 project
by Patrimonium Woonstichting Delfshaven: six-storey blocks with three superimposed maisonettes (MG 2015). (c, d):
Ommoord, north-eastern extension of Rotterdam laid out from 1962 by Dienst Stadsontwikkeling (under Lotte Stam-
Beese) and completed in 1977: a cluster of towers and galerijbouw slabs, ringed by low-rise housing; layout plan as
completed, and 2015 (MG) view.

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 The Low Countries: Pillars of Modern Mass Housing

Reflecting the strength of Dutch municipalities, the Netherlands featured a striking diversity of local
housing microregions, both in political-organizational and architectural terms, albeit with strong common
elements – as emphasized in the two leading cases of Amsterdam and Rotterdam. In both cases a diverse
administrative regime, politically dominated by the socialists and combining housing and planning factions,
pursued a programme of peripheral city extension, influenced but not dictated by national policies such as
the Bogaers multi-storey drive or the system-building push. But there were strong differences between the
two, with Amsterdam featuring constant clashes between different public-housing factions, and settling on
sometimes bold solutions, but Rotterdam following a more incremental, practical path towards housing
‘progress’.
In Rotterdam, the Dienst Stadsontwikkeling (SO – Planning Department) incrementally developed the
ideal of neighbourhood-unit community planning, with key figures such as architect-planner Lotte Stam-
Beese leading from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s. The city’s early postwar reconstruction schemes had
focused not just on neighbourhood-unit planning but also on flatted development: the Opbouw group had
produced a ‘Rapport etagebouw Rotterdam’ (Rotterdam Flats Report) in 1942–3. The consensual support for
modernism in Rotterdam allowed the pre-war avant-garde members of Opbouw and de 8 to help shape policy,
working through both the housing department and SO. At the same time, a new generation of modernist
architects such as Stam-Beese embarked on projects such as Pendrecht (from 1948), advocating greater
differentiation between dwelling and block types. The fevered argumentation reflected the early postwar
controversies within CIAM, including the advocacy of greater complexity at the Bergamo CIAM 7 conference.
Alongside this, in the early 1950s the former avant-gardes assiduously worked on city extension for the SO,
whose director, Cornelis van Traa, in 1953 assigned Opbouw the Alexanderpolder development. Their initial
response was a utopian proposal for a ‘vertische woonbuurt’ (vertical neighbourhood), a ‘mammoth’, ‘battleship’
block of 350 flats, raised on columns: the built outcome was more prosaic.43 In Rotterdam’s north-west
extension zone, four-storey strokenbouw predominated in SO’s plan for Kleinpolder (1947–52). In the north-
eastern extension zone, development was delayed until the 1960s–1970s, following a 1957 plan for two large
areas, Ommoord and Oosterflank. Ommoord was initially designed by Stam-Beese in 1962 as a conventional
mix of low-rise flats, but the Bogaers drive for higher blocks and raised output prompted a radical boost in
density and height, yielding 10,770 rather than 7,500 dwellings: as completed in 1977, the architectural form
was highly differentiated, with a central cluster of twenty-storey towers and angular ‘flats’ of eight and fourteen
storeys, ringed by low-rise housing. At Oosterflank (1962–81), the debate had moved on further: an initial
1962 plan by Stam-Beese for Ommoord-style slabs, with towers at the junctions, was replaced in 1973 with an
all-low-rise solution.44
In Amsterdam, there were greater tensions between housers and planners, including an early 1950s turf
war between van Eesteren’s SO and the WD, focused on ‘quality versus quantity’. The proliferation of competing
factions was arguably a sign of the strength of the public housing and planning apparatus in the Netherlands,
even if the practical urgency of housing output usually trumped the planners’ airy good intentions, as in many
other cases elsewhere, from New York or Glasgow to Hong Kong. The WD had an intimate working relationship
with the Ministry of Reconstruction and Housing, which allowed (as with Moses and Title I in New York)
some unusual working procedures in the early 1950s. In areas such as the first phase of Slotermeer, the WD
and the Ministry drew up the construction programmes, only informing the municipal council retrospectively,
for rubber-stamping purposes; the planners were incensed at being bypassed. In 1950 there was a significant
consolidation in Amsterdam’s WV umbrella federation, the AFW (active since 1917), and the instituting of a
building agreement with the HD. To facilitate a shift away from council housing to WP building, 65% of
output was allocated to ‘neutral’ associations such as AWV, 20% to Catholic associations Het Oosten and Dr
Schaepman and 15% to the two Protestant associations, Protestantse Woningbouw Vereniging and

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Patrimonium. This system would endure until the 1970s, with the role of the associations steadily increasing.
But the WD significantly influenced their operations, for example by issuing layout plans, excluding
‘troublesome’ architects and deciding which developments should be system-built. The SO fought its corner
by stressing the qualitative importance of urban image (stadsbeeld) and a more differentiated cityscape, which
inevitably foregrounded the question of multi-storey towers.45
These issues of conflicting power bases and design ideas were repeatedly played out in Amsterdam’s major
postwar extension zones: the 1940s–1960s ‘Westelijke Tuinsteden’ (Western Garden Cities), and the south-east
extension from the 1960s onwards. The first phase of western development, Slotermeer, begun in 1951, was a
hybrid of garden city and strokenbouw patterns; Queen Juliana opened the ‘first dwelling’ at Slotermeer in
1952. The clashes between SO and WD only really surfaced in the western extension of Slotermeer, Geuzenveld,
in 1953–60 – a modification of a 1939 zoning plan. Here each WV had its own architect – for instance van
Tijen for Rochdale, Dudok for AWV. Complex disputes erupted about open versus closed layouts, high-rise
versus low-rise, and van Tijen lined up with the WD against van Eesteren and the SO’s complex parcelling
arrangements: gradually the SO’s wartime courtyard-layout concept of ‘hovenverkaveling’ came to prevail in
the Westelijke Tuinsteden. Yet despite these furious debates, and the growing demands to offset the ‘monotony’
of strokenbouw with more high blocks, in practice there was much continuity. The same applied in the third
western phase, Slotervaart, where the WVs engaged no fewer than fourteen leading modernist architects, and
the first pile was driven in May 1954 by Van der Velde. In the following phase, Osdorp, from 1957, development
took a sharp turn ‘upwards’, towards more varied building types in general and large-scale multi-storey
galerijbouw in particular. Reflecting a continuing consensus that high blocks were unsuitable for families, and
indeed for Woningwet housing in general, the first suggested use of tall slabs, adjoining the Sloterplas lake at
the centre of the Westelijke Tuinsteden, had provoked complex debates during the years 1955–7, with
numerous alternative plans by architect P. Zaanstra. After WD proposals for a single, immensely elongated slab
were denounced by SO’s van Eesteren as ‘a disaster’, three diagonally-aligned blocks were finally authorized,
built not by the WD but by a private firm for higher-rental tenants: there was a strong correlation initially
between multi-storey building and the middle classes. The first pile at Osdorp was driven in May 1957 by A.
in ‘t Veld, director of Patrimonium and public health alderman. Although the bulk of multi-storey construction
at Osdorp took place during the early 1960s Bogaers multi-storey boom, the first low-rental multi-storey slabs
had already been built in 1960: a ten-storey galerijbouw development at Ookmeerweg, by the Algemene WV
(designed by municipal architect J. van Gool). Osdorp’s most architecturally innovative phase came at the very
end: the Dijkgraafsplein development designed by J. P. Kloos, a striking group of slab-blocks linked by flying
bridges (1970), reminiscent of the Van Nelle Factory and Bergpolder (see Fig. 7.6).46
Initial public reaction to the Westelijke Tuinsteden was rather muted. The Roman Catholic Volkskrant in
1954 attacked them as ‘an architectural monster’, and in 1959 bemoaned the ‘anonymity’ of Osdorp.47 But by
the 1960s, the old, disciplined social and architectural patterns of verzuiling, and early postwar modernism,
were dissolving under the influence of consumer culture. It was in this context of burgeoning affluence that
the second phase of postwar Amsterdam expansion, towards the south-east, was proposed in 1959 and
approved in 1964. Reflecting the economic bullishness of the times, the south-east expansion was now seen,
rather like Toulouse-le-Mirail, as not so much a suburb but a satellite ‘mini-city’. The strategy was informed by
a new kind of avant-garde architectural planning debate, very different from the old, staid CIAM orthodoxies
of Opbouw and the others – as was strikingly demonstrated in the ‘Pampus Plan’ of 1964–5, envisaging the
south-east extension as a linear city formed of ultra-high-density clustered nodes.48
Something of this utopian grandeur survived through to the more utilitarian development that was
implemented as the first instalment of the strategy: Bijlmermeer – a 40,000-inhabitant development formed
of a relentless honeycomb of nine-storey industrialized galerijbouw slabs studded with higher towers. Along

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 The Low Countries: Pillars of Modern Mass Housing

A B

C D
Fig. 7.6 (a): Amsterdam’s Westelijke Tuinsteden: Alderman Van der Velde drives the first pile at Slotervaart in May 1954.
(b): Slotermeer, Westelijke Tuinsteden: modular ‘portiekflats’ (with open entrance halls) of 1951–3 on the north side of the
de Vlugtlaan, designed by J. F. Berghoef, using a Dutch (NEMAVO) adaptation of the British Airey frame-and-panel
system (MG 2015). (c, d): Sloterplas maquettes by Dienst Stadsontwikkeling, Amsterdam, 1955–6: this site was the focus
of intense debate between WD and SO, with numerous alternative proposals by architect P. Zaanstra, and the resulting
three blocks (Noordzijde, designed by Zaanstra) were eventually privately built in 1960–1 (MG 2015).

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E F
Fig. 7.6 (e): De Sloterhof, Slotervaart, 1957–9: also designed by Berghoef using Airey block construction (MG 2015).
(f): Dijkgraafplein, Osdorp: bridge-linked slab blocks of 1970, designed by J. P. Kloos (MG 2015).

with Toulouse-le-Mirail, Corviale (Rome) and Alt-Erlaa (Vienna), Bijlmermeer was one of the few even
partly-built Western European realizations of the late-modernist utopian conglomerate or ‘structuralist’ vision
of mass housing: as we will see in later chapters, many more developments of this scale were built outside
Western Europe, in cities ranging from Belgrade to Hong Kong. Organizationally, Bijlmermeer looked
backwards rather than forwards, towards the old WD-dominated output system, although the government-
encouraged shift to WV control was well underway. No fewer than eighteen WVs notionally participated in
this vast development, but their role was merely to take ownership of completed blocks: the project was laid
out by the PWD and built to contracts organized by the WD, collaborating closely with the Ministry, which
intended Bijlmermeer as a showcase of the latest (1965) iteration of the Voorschriften en Wenken, ‘Woningen
voor de jaar 2000’ (Housing for 2000). Bijlmermeer would also hopefully break from the past by including
many higher-income, even middle-class residents.49
In 1965, Bijlmermeer’s detailed development plan was finalized, overwhelmingly comprising family
dwellings in multi-storey blocks, with open ground floors and extensive industrialized building. Under intense
political pressure to get started, the first 270 dwellings were built in 1965–6, even before the city-extension was
approved; sections B and C, designed by A. C. Kromhout and J. Groet, were erected from 1967. The first
industrialized building contract, with Intervam, for 1,080 prefabricated dwellings, required construction of a
precasting factory, and a second followed for later phases, in the ‘Indeco-Coignet’ system.50 The giant
development was finally completed in 1975, by which time government policy had turned decisively against
mass housing. Far from appealing to higher-income tenants, Bijlmermeer was blighted by the same under-
occupancy and poor maintenance as some other giant developments: by 1974 the turnover rate was 30%, and
ten years later 24% of the flats were vacant. Strenuous countermeasures were taken, including consolidation of
all the fragmented housing associations (1983) and a rehab and selective demolition programme (from 1992
– the year of the ‘Bijlmerramp’ jumbo jet crash). In later south-east extension phases, such as Gaasperdam
(1976–85), the work was firmly controlled by the WVs rather than the WD, and buildings were cut from nine
to four storeys (see Fig. 7.7).51
More generally, the years from the late 1960s saw a retrenchment from mass social building. With the
replacement of austere verzuiling by the affluent ‘polder model’, a limited shift towards home-ownership began,
but swings in private housing profitability around 1980 allowed a dramatic revival of WV social housing in the
1980s: by 1994, 40% of the housing stock was still socially-rented.52 Architecturally, Dutch social housing
lurched sharply towards quirky solutions such as Piet Blom’s ‘kasbah’ project of dense three-storey blocks on

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A B

C D

E
Fig. 7.7 (a, b, c, d): Bijlmermeer, Amsterdam’s great south-eastern city-extension, planned from 1965 by the Public Works
Department, developed by eighteen WVs (each with attendant architect) and completed by 1975: original 1965 layout and
perspective, 1985 view (MG) from upper deck of Kempering Flat, and 2010 view (MG) of Kleiburg before rebuilding.
(e): Blaakse Bos, Rotterdam, 1973–84, extravagantly Postmodernist development by architect Piet Blom (MG 2015).

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raised podiums (1969–74), and his outlandish Rotterdam Blaakse Bos development of 1973–84, garishly
postmodern in its surreal forms, juxtaposing an eccentrically-spired tower with rows of diagonal, timber-
framed ‘cube houses’ on stilts. The shift to conservation-neighbourhood planning (‘woonerven’) in the late
1970s was accompanied by the first large-scale demolitions of social housing, as at Linnaeusstraat, Leeuwarden,
where 430 flats were levelled in 1977.53 While the New Towns programme of 1960–85 provided a strong
element of continuity in housing-planning policy, the years from the late 1980s eventually saw the onset of a
‘new modernism’ in the Netherlands, reviving some forms of postwar modernist housing and planning,
including regional plans (Ijburg, Vinex) and galerijbouw, but within a distinctly market-led context – for
example in individualized apartment towers, as at the 1988 Weena scheme in Rotterdam.54 Yet despite the
mounting pressures for commodification and individualism within Dutch housing, the grip of the planners
seemed as strong as ever, and the place of the social housing sector, as in France, remained protected by the
arm’s-length organizational system.55
Over the next three chapters, we will encounter a wide range of further national and civic diversities in the
mass housing programmes within different regions of continental Western Europe. Nowhere else, however,
were there ‘sibling differences’ quite so sharp as between the pervasively-planned Netherlands and doggedly
laissez-faire Belgium – as will be underlined in the next chapter, with its focus on the distinctly similar, and
long-enduring, social housing systems of Switzerland, Austria and West Germany.

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CHAPTER 8
STABILITY AND CONTINUITY: WEST GERMANY
AND THE ALPINE COUNTRIES

Many Western European welfare states took a low-key, oblique approach to social housing – an approach
exemplified in West Germany, Switzerland and Austria, whose postwar mass housing combined significant
commitment of state resources with an avoidance of strongly-articulated national building programmes. The
general tendency was towards dispersed solutions, avoiding unified guiding principles and enshrining the
microregion, in various forms, as a central organizing principle: yet this synchronic fragmentation was
combined with a marked diachronic continuity. All three were strong, highly-organized states that chose to act
through low-profile, devolved mechanisms, in contrast to the high-profile national ideologies of, for example,
France or Sweden – a common pattern arrived at for widely differing politico-cultural reasons.

Tenure-neutral building in Switzerland and Austria

In Switzerland, the microregional principle of mass housing was seen at its most extreme, not just within the
group of states covered in this chapter, but in comparison with just about any other developed country in the
world. Here, owing to a combination of conservatism, devolutionary politics and wartime neutrality, a unique
continuity was maintained from pre-1914 housing patterns throughout the whole twentieth century: the
dramatic rise and fall of aggressive twentieth-century state housing intervention simply did not happen here,
and it was taken as axiomatic that there should be severe restrictions on central state powers over local
and individual rights, and equally on landlord exploitation of tenants. Unlike other European countries, there
was no rejection of private renting for owner-occupation, nor any grandiose state housing drive, nor even
any national welfare state. Instead, federal intervention after 1921 concentrated on indirect, tenure-neutral
taxation support for limited-dividend rental housing, assisting local social-housing organizations
(Wohnbaugenossenschaften, or WBGs) alongside private developments, and local hot spots of council
housing, notably in the municipal Liegenschaftenverwaltung (LSV, Property Management Department) of
Zürich, where a 1931 law reaffirmed cantonal responsibility for social housing.1 Continuity was overwhelming
not just at macro-policy level but at the micro-level of individual developments, for example in the suburb of
Friesenberg in south-west Zürich, built by the Familienheim-Genossenschaft Zürich (FGZ) in no fewer than
twenty-four stages (Etappen) between 1925 and 2003, without any pause during World War II – each phase
containing several low-rise blocks in parallel Zeilenbau layouts, in modestly modern-cum-vernacular styles.
By 2000, WBGs (averaging ninety-three dwellings each) owned 5.1% of the national stock, and other kinds of
social (gemeinnützig) housing, such as municipal schemes, accounted for 3.7% more: 40% of social dwellings
(57,000) were concentrated in Zürich canton alone, followed by Bern, Geneva and Basel (see Fig. 8.1).2
The postwar agenda was set in 1942–4 by massively-boosted state support at federal, cantonal and local
levels, allowing a recovery to pre-war output: the number of WBGs shot up from 261 to 928. In Zürich, a range
of emergency measures in the canton and city expanded social house-building ‘so that the subsidizing of
housing becomes not just a charitable act, but also a way of realising urban and ethnic ideological aims’. The
focus of housing finance was protection of the rental sector via tenure-neutrality and restricted rent rises,

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A B

C D
Fig. 8.1 (a, b): Exemplifying the extraordinary continuity of Swiss housing, the Friesenberg suburb in south-west Zürich
was developed in twenty-four phases from 1925 to 2003, mostly in modern-cum-vernacular styles, by the Familienheim-
Genossenschaft Zürich. This wartime phase (Etappe 13, Siedlung Arbental, 1944) was designed by architects Alfred
Mürset, A. & H. Oeschger and R. Winkler: 1947 advertisement for ceiling insulation panels and 2015 (MG) exterior. (c):
Schwyzerdütsch gable inscription on Etappe 13, hailing the FGZ’s battle to build family houses against the background of
wartime shortages, and proclaiming that ‘goodwill and united effort are the strengths of a co-operative’ (MG 2015;
translation by Stefan Muthesius). (d, e): Bocksriet-Siedlung, Schaffhausen, 1942–3: monopitch-roofed terraces in
prefabricated timber panels and brick crosswalls, designed by architect W. Vetter and built on a self-help basis by the local
Arbeiter-Baugenossenschaft Schaffhausen: 1943 construction photo and 2015 (MG) exterior.

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 Stability and Continuity: West Germany and the Alpine Countries

E F
Fig. 8.1 (d, e): Continued. (f): Sunnebuel, Volketswil, 1965–72: the largest early development in Ernst Göhner AG’s
system-built and company-designed housing complexes (MG 2015).

together with equalization between old and new developments. Enhanced subsidies for WBG and municipal
building supported over half the 8,000 dwellings built in 1943 in Zürich (mostly three- to four-storey flats),
and 14,300 dwellings were publicly-supported over the following eight years (36% each by city and canton,
28% by the Federation, or Bund).3 Within this decentralized system, financing packages for social housing
projects were complex, and dictated by target rents. In Schaffhausen in 1942–3, for example, the Bocksriet-
Siedlung, a development of prefabricated timber terraced houses with brick crosswalls, constructed by a local
cooperative workers’ association (Arbeiter-Baugenossenschaft Schaffhausen), saw 30% of its construction
costs covered by direct subsidies from Bund, canton and municipality, topped up with co-op membership
dues and residents’ down payments, while the city council guaranteed 85% of the balance of the construction
loan – all calculated to allow rents of 80–90 francs.4
Following this prodigious yet decentralized wartime effort, Swiss commentators concluded with satisfaction by
1947 that there was no longer any general housing shortage, and only specialized sub-categories of need remained:
large families, Altstadt (old town) slum-clearance pockets and farm workers. Five years later, most cantons were
even aiming for a 1% surplus over a ‘full’ housing stock.5 This contrasted in a most extraordinary way with the
devastation then prevailing in next-door Germany – yet in the event, as we will see below, postwar West German
housing policy, grounded in the ideal of the ‘soziale Marktwirtschaft’ (social market economy), developed similarly
to Switzerland’s, with policies including a declining proportion of direct social building and a recovery in the urban
private rental sector; in Switzerland, however, government-subsidized home-ownership programmes were avoided.
In Zürich, in 1952, the five municipal bourgeois parties founded an arm’s-length organization, the Stiftung Bauen
und Wohnen, as an alternative to direct public intervention. In the mid-1960s, the initiative in building moderate-
rental dwellings shifted to the private sector, spearheaded by Ernst Göhner AG, a development/contracting
conglomerate based at Volketswil, east of Zürich, which in 1965 launched a unique, 9,000-dwelling programme of
medium-rise, prefabricated-concrete apartment complexes in lavish landscaping – mostly sited in Zürich
peripheral municipalities, flouting an official planning dogma of promoting autonomous sub-centres. Here,
prefabrication, incorporating all services, aimed not to speed up construction but, through logistical efficiency, to
cut costs by 20% and reduce rents.6 Göhner’s largest early development, Sunnebüel, a 1,181-dwelling project of
1965–72, was in Volketswil itself: it was only outdone by the later Avanchet-Parc in Geneva (1971–7; 2,233
dwellings). But by the 1970s, the Göhner-Siedlungen were attracting architectural criticism resembling that levelled
at public housing elsewhere, underlining the autonomy of the architectural discourse of ‘Modernist alienation’.7

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Architecturally, wartime and postwar urban housing followed a tenure-neutral pattern, with a gradual shift
in both social and private sectors from low-rise, dispersed patterns to higher, denser blocks in the 1960s and
1970s. Typical of the 1940s were two-storey terraces in Zeilenbau or open courtyard plans, generally with big
pitched roofs, rendering and ‘traditional’ styling (as at Bern-Bümpliz, 1943–9), but on some occasions with
modernist touches, as in the way Schaffhausen’s Bocksriet rakishly dominates its hillside site with arrays of
monopitch roofs.8 That low-rise, landscaped pattern prevailed throughout the 1950s, for example in the Zürich
LSV’s Laimgrübel development of 1957–8, where Göhner acted as contractor. But by the late 1940s, some
architects, such as Werner Moser in 1949, were demanding a more intensive use of land, including selective
multi-storey blocks as landmarks, inspired by the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark. By 1952, the first high-
rise development was underway: a social housing project of slender, Y-shaped twelve-storey towers in the first
phase of Letzigraben, Zürich, designed by Stadtbaumeister (City Architect) Albert Heinrich Steiger: 35% of
the F5.8 million cost was covered by cantonal and civic subsidies. Building of ‘French-style’ slabs had been
modestly prefigured in a 1947–9 extension to the Montchoisy-Deux Parcs co-operative development in
Geneva, comprising two eight-storey slabs (Groupes K, L) in a heavy, Le Havre-like modernist style; further
slab developments followed from 1959–60 at Onex and Meyrin (see Fig. 8.2).9
As in France, it was only the late 1950s that saw a significant shift in scale upwards towards fully-fledged
grands ensembles on peripheral sites – but the number of these was very small by French standards and
adhered strictly to the principle of tenure-neutrality. The first was Tscharnergut in Bern (1958–66), by
architects Hans and Gret Reinhard, resembling contemporary Dutch projects such as Ommoord in combining
tall towers and gallery-access slabs. By 1967–9, the Zürich LSV’s Unteraffoltern project, on a peripheral site
north-west of the city, expanded from low-rise courtyards to include two tall slab-blocks sculpturally designed
in a ‘Corbusian Unité’ manner. But it was Geneva, appropriately, that spawned the most monumental grand
ensemble in Switzerland: the Cité du Lignon (1963–71). This miniature satellite city echoed Candilis’s original
1961 ‘stem’ concept for Toulouse-le-Mirail in its polygonal layout of linked eleven- to fifteen-storey slabs and
twenty-six to thirty-storey towers, designed by a Geneva architectural team led by Georges Addor, and using
an in-situ concrete frame cast using ‘tunnel formwork’ and clad in prefabricated aluminium and timber
external walling. Typically for Switzerland, this huge project was developed in a thoroughly hybrid fashion,
stemming from a concept by the canton and two private property firms, and developed via a consortium of
public interests (the État de Geneve and the Commune of Vernier) and two private metal-industry firms.
Some 1,100 of the 2,780 flats were for social rental, with the remainder as private ‘loyer-libre’ or condominium
ownership.10 Tall, slender point-blocks were a relative rarity in Swiss social housing, with two late exceptions
built by Zürich’s LSV: the inner-city Hardau II development of 1976–8, comprising four brown-clad towers
up to thirty-three storeys (93m) high – the tallest housing blocks in Switzerland – designed by Max Peter
Kollbrunner and containing two-roomed elderly people’s dwellings; and a slightly earlier version of the same
block-types on an outer-suburban estate at Heumatt (1972).11
In both West Germany and in Austria, a similarly dispersed tenurial and built-form outcome to that in
Switzerland developed. It emerged, however, out of completely different circumstances, including strongly
corporatist governmental systems shaped by the common legacy of interwar extremism, wartime Nazi rule
and postwar refugee influxes and Cold War divisions; a more specific link was the Third Reich’s 1940 social
housing law, which perpetuated a system originally established under Weimar and entrenched the position of
social housing companies for the coming decades.12
Within Austria, housing remained a provincial rather than federal matter: the latter was confined to
providing long-term low-interest construction loans (covering up to 90% of housing costs) and setting norms
and standards, although some wartime housing built by Nazi organizations, such as four-storey tenement flats
constructed in Innsbruck by Neue Heimat Tirol (founded in 1939 following the Anschluss), was passed first to

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 Stability and Continuity: West Germany and the Alpine Countries

A B

C D
Fig. 8.2 (a): Letzigraben, Zürich: pioneering Y-plan towers of 1952, designed by the City Architect, Albert Heinrich
Steiger (MG 2015). (b): The Tscharnergut complex, Bern, 1958–66, by architects Hans and Gret Reinhard (MG 2015).
(c, d): Unteraffoltern II, Zürich, 1967–9: two slabs of rental council housing by the Zürich city housing department
(Liegenschaftenverwaltung, LSV), by architect Georges Dubois (MG 2015).

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Mass Housing

E F

G H
Fig. 8.2 (e, f, g): Cité du Lignon, Vernier, 1963–71: Switzerland’s grandest grand ensemble, built by a public–private
consortium for mixed social rental and private/condominium ownership, designed by a Geneva architectural team led by
Georges Addor as a network of towers and slabs up to thirty storeys; 1963 concept drawing, and 2015 views (MG) of exterior
and upper access balcony. (h): Hardau II, Zürich, 1976–8: a rare example of slender point-block development in Switzerland,
here up to thirty-three storeys, built by the Zürich LSV and designed by Max Peter Kollbrunner (Stefan Muthesius 2012).

the federal government and later to the province.13 Overall, the polarization between Vienna and the other
provinces continued almost undiminished. Outside Vienna, the German-style arm’s-length housing system
prevailed, but with sharp fluctuations in the relative share of non-profit companies and co-ops, the latter
peaking in 1955 (compared to 1962 as peak membership year of the HSB in Sweden). The proportion of
social housing within national output dropped from its 1950s maximum of 80% until the 1970s (only 30%),
recovering slightly thereafter, while the same period saw a shift from territorially-based co-ops to non-
territorial housing companies. The extent of public intervention and subsidy in each province between
different gemeinnützig organizations was governed by Austria’s ‘proportional’ political principle of left–right
balance – a simplified version of Dutch–Belgian verzuiling, and dominated by the SD/VP.14
In Vienna, unlike the rest of Austria, the grand old council-housing tradition was revitalized after 1945
under the Stadtbaurat’s control – albeit in a diluted form, purged of Austro-Marxist radicalism. The
1,200-dwelling Per Albin Hansson Siedlung (built with Swedish contractual support and named after the

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 Stability and Continuity: West Germany and the Alpine Countries

Swedish SAP leader) was hailed at its 1947 foundation-laying as ‘a new era of municipal housebuilding . . . in
the spirit of the great works’ of the 1920s. Like West Berlin, Vienna’s dynamism had been sapped by Cold War
isolation, and although the city-province was once again dominated by the Social Democrats, and key interwar
policies were maintained, above all the 1917 rent controls and very low municipal rents, the ‘Austrification’
model of the 1955 Second Republic encouraged a shift from class-confrontation to consensual policy-
formation. Vienna’s postwar isolation and population stagnation had removed the perception of urgent
shortages, especially following the completion of the ‘100,000th municipal house’ in 1954. Location-wise,
Gemeindebau house-building no longer clustered in the working-class districts of the city, but reflected
the wider European shift to peripheral development, especially following completion of postwar damage-
reconstruction by 1958–60. From 1958 to 1962 the City Planning Office was briefly headed by Roland Rainer
(of Die gegliederte und aufgelockerte Stadt), who had strongly promoted satellite garden-cities in a 1957
proposal: as before, there was no question of Anglo-style mass ‘slum clearance’.15
Architecturally, the innovative edge largely went out of Vienna’s programme: the ‘Hof ’ pattern was now
largely rejected, although the Hugo Breitner-Hof of 1949–56 had an open courtyard layout; the Per Albin
Hansson Siedlung was ‘conservative’ in a different way, resembling the vernacular classicism of the Third
Reich.16 By the 1960s, a middle-of-the-road CIAM modernism was firmly established in Vienna’s large
peripheral developments, such as the Großfeldsiedlung (5,300 flats, 1966–73) or Per Albin Hansson Ost of
1976 (5,000 flats).17 Equally expressive of the city’s new systematization ethos was its industrialized programme,
beginning at Per Albin Hansson and proceeding in 1960 to a consortium with Camus and a 5,000-unit council-
housing contract the following year; a joint construction company, Montagebau-Wien GmbH, began operations
at the 1962 Siedlung Eipeldauersraße, a grid of four-storey Zeilenbau blocks laid out by the planning department.
On completion of a second factory in 1966, production increased at sites such as Großfeldsiedlung and the
development in Stadlau-Kagran until 1970, when the 10,000th prefabricated council flat was completed.18
However, even Vienna was not immune to the spread of the social-company model, especially from the
1970s. Here, a leading role was played by GESIBA (Gemeinwirtschaftliche Siedlungs- und Bauaktiengesellschaft
– Public Housing and Building Corporation), a cooperatively-owned agency set up in 1921 by the city; a leading
role was also played by the Social Democratic-owned ‘Sozialbau’ and BUWOG (Bauen und Wohnen Gesellschaft).
This reassessment coincided with Social Democrat Bruno Kreisky’s federal chancellorship in 1970–83, when
social-housing funding was substantially boosted.19 By the 1980s a stable, proportional formula had been agreed
in Vienna, with a 4,000-dwelling annual programme apportioned between council Gemeindebauten (1,500),
and the non-socialist ‘red’, conservative ‘black’ and neutral associations (1,000, 750, 750 respectively).20
In architectural terms, the 1970s and early 1980s were an Indian summer of Viennese public-housing
design, with highly innovative municipal and cooperative projects evoking the spirit of Red Vienna in diverse
ways. The spectacular centrepiece was GESIBA’s Wohnpark Alt-Erlaa project, planned from 1972 and built
from 1975, a megastructural 2,000-dwelling complex of tiered slabs up to twenty-seven storeys high, whose
sharply-sloping thirteen-storey base contained terraced flats, each with its own micro-garden. Soaring
monumentally on the city’s southern edge, the project was designed by architect Harry Glück with nineteen
variable housing types, evoking Red Vienna’s integration of housing and social facilities, only now for an age
of consumerism rather than mass socialism. Immediately north lay the municipality’s more modestly-scaled,
2,150-flat development, Am Schöpfwerk (1976–80), laid out around courtyards in a slightly ‘neo-Art Deco’
style, crowned by a seventeen-storey tower, while an inner-urban revival of the ‘hof ’ system was attempted at
the 1,056-flat Karl Wrba Hof (Neilreichgasse) of 1974–82 – here, unlike the 1920s’ rudimentary interiors,
incorporating a bewildering variety of block and dwelling configurations. A very different evocation of
Viennese density, including mixed public–private tenure, was Wilhelm Holzbauer’s Wohnen Morgen project
of 1975–9, with an introspective stadium-section (see Fig. 8.3).21

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A B

C D
Fig. 8.3 (a): Hugo Breitner Hof, Vienna, 1949–56: early postwar revival of Gemeindebau street-block planning, by
architects Fabrici, Lippert, Manhardt, Purr, Widmann (MG 1982). (b): Matzleinsdorferplatz, twenty-storey Gemeindebau
rental block built in 1954–7 to the designs of Ladislaus Hruska and Kurt Schlauss: Vienna’s first high tower, featuring
district heating and originally a top-floor cafeteria (MG 1982). (c): Großfeldsiedlung, 1966–73: a 5,300-unit Gemeindebau
development built in Camus construction, as licensed by Vienna city council in 1964 and designed by architects Leber and
Matha (MG 2010).

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 Stability and Continuity: West Germany and the Alpine Countries

E F

G
Fig. 8.3 (d, e): Alt-Erlaa, planned from 1972 and built from 1975 by the GESIBA municipal cooperative agency to
designs by architect Harry Glück, with tiered, megastructural blocks up to twenty-seven storeys high (T. Ledl 2016/MG
2010). (f): Am Schöpfwerk, 1976–80: courtyard-plan Gemeindebau development, with seventeen-storey focal tower, just
north of Alt-Erlaa; architect V. Hufnagl and others (MG 1982). (g): Wohnanlage Maderspergerstraße, built by GESIBA in
1974–8: an inner-city micro-version of Alt-Erlaa designed by Glück (MG 1982).

West Germany: the housing of soziale Marktwirtschaft

In Germany, whose totalitarian legacy was compounded by the postwar East–West polarization, the postwar
Federal Republic saw an overarching emphasis on indirect social-housing provision. Unlike Switzerland, the
state intervened decisively on the supply-side of housing, but in an equally dispersed manner. The initial
dominance of Konrad Adenauer’s Christian Democrat coalition fuelled a soziale Marktwirtschaft corporatism
that avoided both state centralization and French/British-style economic planning: the decentralized Weimar
social-insurance system was immediately restored. Owing to the catastrophic bombing devastation, housing
was seen as something of an exception to the preference for non-intervention. As in so many countries during

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mass housing’s ‘Hundred Years’ War’, the legitimacy and economic prosperity of the new state depended vitally
on large-scale housing production, but it was agreed from the start to pursue this indirectly, chiefly through
taxation concessions to stimulate private investment, as enunciated by Adenauer in his government’s first public
statement in September 1949. Small-scale landlordism and home-ownership (sometimes combined in the
letting out of self-contained flats within ‘detached houses’) were prioritized to a degree, reflecting the strength
of Catholic family values within Christian Democracy, but the non-profit organizations played a closely
supporting role, aided by subsidy-neutrality between rental and home-ownership: the close integration of
owner-occupation with social housing differed from most other north-west European countries. Despite the
massive indirect intervention in the form of tax breaks, indirect subsidies and tenant protection legislation,
more overt and concerted governmental intervention was impeded by the low proportion of land owned by
federal, state and local governments (27%), and by the huge number of local authorities (8,500 in 1969), although
many municipalities spent considerable sums in accumulating peripheral land-banks.22 Unlike the highly
politicized ‘housing drives’ of countries like Sweden, France or Britain, this was a huge housing programme
achieved behind the scenes, through ‘concealed bigness’, without trumpeting or overt national pride. There was
much political consensus, with the conservative parties anxious to prove their social commitment and the
Social Democrats opposing any return to inflation or economic instability. And – as East German critics
constantly claimed – there were unacknowledged continuities with the Third Reich: the economist Alfred
Müller-Armack, who coined the term ‘soziale Marktwirtschaft’ in 1946, had been a senior Nazi adviser.23
Initially, in the dire conditions of the late 1940s, the emphasis was not on new house-building but on
emergency repairs and erection of temporary ‘Baracken’ (sheds) on unoccupied sites, such as the Nuremberg
party-rally grounds, to help house the eight million ‘Heimatvertriebene’ refugees from the annexed territories
in the east, as well as ‘Zonenflüchtlinge’ (refugees from East Germany).24 In effect, a free housing market was
non-existent. Within existing dwellings, the 1940 Housing Law continued to regulate occupation, through rent
control, tenant allocation and refugee billeting in under-occupied houses, all administered as before by the local
Wohnungsamt. Although a 1951 Housing-Space Management Law made social-housing tenancy allocations
voluntary, even in 1958 600,000 households were still living in makeshift dwellings. The ‘space-sharing’ principle
was also reflected in the popular 1950s formula of an owner-occupied house incorporating an extra lettable flat
(see above). The Adenauer government’s annual target of 400,000–500,000 new houses was unprecedented in
Europe – yet grounded in small-scale private/social initiative rather than any centralized programme. Some 2.3
million new houses were actually completed in 1950–4 – an achievement which itself massively fuelled the
economic-recovery ‘miracle’. By 1951, West Germany was building eighty-seven dwellings per 10,000 inhabitants,
as against thirty-eight in Britain and twenty-four in France, and between 1950 and 1959 it completed 5.2 million
new units compared with 2 million in France. With these early successes, public expenditure could be steadily
reduced – again unlike France – from 44% of total housing investment in 1951 to only 7.5% in 1975. Although
the social housing programme only declined in absolute terms after 1980, its share of all housing investment
had been dropping for far longer: from 70% in 1949–52 to 45% in 1960 and 28% in 1970.25
These output and tenure shifts were supported by tax incentives to private-enterprise construction. They
were also eased by policies specific to the house-building industry, emphasizing not French-style factory
prefabrication but lower-profile rationalization of building components and site-organization, as in Switzerland
and Holland; enhanced building-crafts training was supported by government building-research institutes in
Hannover and Stuttgart. Grounded in the late 1930s–1940s work of former Bauhaus associate Professor Ernst
Neufert, postwar architectural rationalization focused not on big multi-storey blocks, but on low-rise walk-
ups and modestly-scaled towers (up to fifteen storeys) using calculated load-bearing-brick construction.26
West Germany’s large-scale yet dispersed housing construction was also supported by two organizational
foundations inherited in the first instance from National Socialism and, ultimately, from Weimar. The first was

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 Stability and Continuity: West Germany and the Alpine Countries

the regime of systematized tenure-neutrality and social housing companies, enshrined in the 1940 Housing
Law, which remained in force until 1990; the second was the special centrality of trade unions, a status influenced
by the dominance of the DAF (German Workers’ Front) in 1933–45 social provision, but decentralized by the
occupation authorities after 1945.27 The 1940 system, itself based on Weimar precedent, was elaborated by a
1950 Social Housing Subsidy Act – one of the Federal Republic’s first laws – which established housing as a joint
competence of Bund and Länder, and developed the 1940 Act’s distinction between social, tax-subsidized and
free-funded housing into a workable subsidy system, combining state and private inputs via loans and grants.
Initially, social-rental housing was massively prioritized: in 1958, 60% of its cost was met by the state, 30% from
insurance and banks, and 10% from private sources.28 The achievements of this system were celebrated in a
1969 report of the National Association of Social Housing Enterprises, itself a rebranding of a 1938
Reichsverband: it related that 2.8 million social-rental units (one-third of the postwar stock) plus 727,000 ‘own-
account non-subsidised’ units for private sale and 716,000 built on behalf of other organizations had been
erected between 1947 and 1969 by 2,095 housing enterprises.29 During the 1950s, a normalization process was
already underway, reinforcing Christian Democrat ‘family values’ in contrast to the socialist GDR. Federal
legislative adjustment began with the 1956 Housing Construction and Family Home Act, which boosted home-
ownership support (via underwritten loans rather than grants). Emergency controls were dismantled in 1960,
and a 1967 law introduced further home-ownership subsidies. The proportion of home-ownership within new
social housing increased from 17% in 1950 to 24% in 1960, and 43% in 1975. Even more than French HLMs,
West German social housing was associated with lower-middle-income groups – a tie-up encouraged by the
1951 abolition of a fifty-year-old ban on individual ownership of apartments in blocks of flats.30

‘Wohnungen, Wohnungen und nochmals Wohnungen’: Neue Heimat

and 1950s–1970s production

Thus West Germany seemed, on the face of it, to be an exemplary case of microregion-based organization of
mass housing production. Yet this system was not all that it seemed on the surface, as it also contained,
embedded within it, a great exception: a ‘concealed colossus’, stemming from the trade-union movement,
which appropriated and preserved some elements of the housing apparatus of the hydra-headed Nazi state
(and within them, elements of the Weimar housing system) – with the active encouragement of the occupation
authorities. Between 1933 and World War II the German Workers’ Front (DAF) had gobbled up the union-
owned housing companies, including the DEWOG national enterprise, adopting from 1939 the umbrella
designation ‘Neue Heimat’ as a branding prefix for regional or local organizations. Following the decapitation
of this structure with the DAF’s disappearance in 1945, this process went into reverse, as the Western
occupation authorities returned the housing stock to independent trade unions, culminating in the 1950
establishment of a national forum of trade-union housing organizations. In the British occupation zone,
however, the process went further, with the British-sponsored establishment of ‘Neue Heimat Hamburg’ in
1950–2 as the kernel of a new national confederation of social-housing companies, overseen by the Deutsche
Gewerkschaftsbund (DGB, or German Trade Union Federation). Headed by Heinrich Plett, this grouping was
consolidated under the pre-war umbrella name, ‘Neue Heimat’. In 1954, the DGB transferred all its stock to
the new organization, run by Plett’s right-hand-man, commercial director Albert Vietor (see Fig. 8.4).31
It would be misleading to label Neue Heimat (NH) as a ‘DAF redivivus’, but its later problems of
ungovernability and unaccountability may have been exacerbated by these hybrid origins. Initially there ensued
an extraordinary trajectory of rapid growth, fuelled by near-reckless issuing of bonds by Plett. Annual production
soared from 500 in 1950 to 14,000 in 1956. In that year the title of an NH promotional book stressed its

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A B

C D

E F
Fig. 8.4 (a): 1955 view of shanty dwellings on a bomb site in Altona, Hamburg. (b): Neue Heimat (NH) organization
chart as in 1964, published in promotional brochure (WIR ). (c): NH lantern pageant, 1952. (d): Hamburg-Ochsenzoll,
NH estate of 1958–60: ceremony presided over by Bürgermeister Max Breuer in 1960 to commemorate completion of
300,000 postwar dwellings, including 3,805 NH units. (e): Mummelmannsberg, Hamburg, 7,290-unit NH-Nord
development of 1970–9, planned by Werkgemeinschaft Friert Architekten Karlsruhe; building site sign seen c. 1970.
(f): The cover of the first edition of the Neue Heimat Monatsheft, 1954, featuring the layout of NH’s Siedlung St Lorenz,
Stettiner Straße, Lübeck.

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 Stability and Continuity: West Germany and the Alpine Countries

uncompromising preoccupation with output: Wohnungen, Wohnungen, und nochmals Wohnungen (‘Housing,
housing, still more housing’).32 Some 200,000 dwellings were already complete at Plett’s death in 1963 (170,000
social-rented, 30,000 home-ownership). By 1972, further centralized under Vietor’s direction, NH owned
290,000 social-rental dwellings and industrial properties and had built 130,000 individual home-ownership
units, far outstripping even SCIC’s cumulative total of 245,000 by that date in France; the combine was
responsible for a sixth of all social housing output in West Germany. The social strata accommodated were
lower-middle-class or skilled workers, mostly at unusually high rentals: although in general even the lowest
stratas of society in West Germany had access to social housing, NH never housed the ‘poor’. It should be
emphasized that, far from being typical of West Germany’s decentralized social housing production, NH was in
most respects a great exception: a colossus not just of production and management, with twenty-seven regional
subsidiaries by 1960, but also of consultancy and commercial development. By the early 1970s, its public-service
branch companies (NH Städtebau, NH International, Terrafirma, Bewobau) extended tentacles throughout the
West German built environment and abroad; by 1980, 2% of all Germans (over 1.2 million) lived in NH
dwellings. Although it presented itself as part of the ‘workers’ movement’, Its funding came from diverse sources
– including 50% from private industry, only 10% from the trade unions themselves, and the balance from
savings institutions, banks and public authorities. Yet the very unobtrusiveness of this huge conglomerate was
also, in a way, typical of West Germany. Unlike other more voluble national umbrella organizations such as
SCIC in France or HSB in Sweden, the activity of this vast conglomerate was non-ideological, behind the
scenes – a reticence that would also, arguably, contribute to NH’s unhappy final years, highlighting the potential
incompatibility of the gemeinnützig governance formula with grand-ensemble-type mass building.33
NH was able to develop its consultancy network in land-assembly and town-planning partly because of
West Germany’s aversion towards radically interventive state planning: neither a French-style état planificateur
nor British-style strong municipalities were acceptable. The land expropriations of Ulbricht’s GDR government
provoked the federal supreme court in 1954–5 to declare compulsory purchase with existing-use compensation
as unconstitutional, and intervention was confined to the long-established Umlegung land-exchange procedure.
With some exceptions, above all the massive case of West Berlin, it was assumed that the task was not to
demolish swathes of ‘unfit’ nineteenth-century housing, as in urban Britain or America, but to restore the vast
housing losses inflicted on urban Germany in 1942–5 by Britain and America (and latterly by Red Army
bombardments). Apart from anything, mass demolitions were inhibited by the high price of urban land.34
In some cases, such as Hamburg’s Grindelberg (see below), there were bold attempts at bomb-damage
rebuilding with open, modernist layouts. More significant, from 1955, was a growing emphasis on ‘Groß[wohn]
siedlungen’, large peripheral projects resembling French grands ensembles: eventually, fourteen Großsiedlungen
of over 5,000 dwellings each would be constructed, many sponsored by social-housing companies, not co-ops.
Some were too big for single housing companies to undertake: these were coordinated by local authorities or
Land governments, via consortia or umbrella social-housing organizations (including NH, of course) and
urban development-planning competitions. Although West Germany had almost no ‘council housing’ in the
strictest sense of the term, intensely local social housing cultures could still flourish, especially in Social
Democrat strongholds such as Bremen and Hamburg. These interconnections between governmental and
gemeinnützig organizations became even denser after 1966–9, when the party first entered and then took over
the federal government, under Willy Brandt.35 Like the similar change-overs in Italy in 1963 and Britain in
1964, this replaced the conservative ethos of social market and family values with a new appetite for planning
and bureaucracy, augmenting federal power at the expense of the Länder while preserving the overall home-
ownership orientation: the owner-occupation percentage among white-collar and manual workers rose from
25% in the mid-1960s to over 40% by 1978. Unlike Italy, with its swings between different schemes and laws,
West Germany’s housing system retained its consistency throughout.36

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The big exception to all this was naturally West Berlin, more extreme in its isolation than Red Vienna, yet
still avoiding municipal housing (or significant NH activity). Instead, there was a left-wing alliance between
the Social Democrat city government and the local trade unions, channelled into social house-building via
GESOBAU (Gesellschaft für sozialen Wohnungsbau), a state-owned social housing enterprise headed by
West Berlin’s Social Democrat construction minister, Rolf Schwedler. The main opposition to this came not
from the Christian Democrats but from the radical left, agitating in alliance with some bourgeois traditionalists.
By the early 1960s, not content with the ‘clearances’ already implemented from the air in 1942–5 by Britain and
America, the Social Democrats prepared plans for a British/US-style slum-clearance drive: 1963 saw approval
of a ‘total-demolition renewal’ programme (Kahlschlagsanierung), under which 56,000 flats were to be
demolished, including 14,700 in the 188-hectare Wedding-Brunnenstraße renewal area. During the 1960s,
public and professional opinion gradually turned against such programmes, beginning with Alexander
Mitscherlich’s 1965 tract against urban alienation, and expanding in 1968’s student-led agitation. Eventually,
from 1974, the Kahlschlag programme was diluted in favour of an interventive rehabilitation programme
(Entkernung), and scrapped altogether in 1981.37
Architecturally, West Germany’s mass housing microecologies strongly reflected the diversity of the
country’s decentralized system – even allowing for the contribution of NH. There was no dominant built-
form pattern, like France’s long ‘barres’, Dutch galerijbouw, plain brick US projects or hyper-tall towers in
Hong Kong: the proportion of flats in total output peaked late by Western European standards, in 1967–78
(56%). Germany was no longer a pace-setter in housing architecture, but a supporting player. Although Ernst
May briefly headed NH’s planning department in 1954–5, he made relatively little impact and moved on to
planning consultancies in various West German cities.38 The first phase of postwar housing architecture
decisively embraced modernist open-plan layouts, epitomized in the title of Göderitz, Rainer and Hoffmann’s
famous 1957 planning tract, Die gegliederte und aufgelockerte Stadt (‘The Zoned and Opened-out City’), which
proposed a hierarchy of dispersed neighbourhoods of 1,000 dwellings minimum.39 Early showpieces stemmed
from Allied occupation initiatives, including Hamburg’s Grindelberg, originally conceived by the British
authorities as a ‘Hamburg Project’ of twelve tall slabs, of staff accommodation, then (after a delay stemming
from the concentration of occupation HQs in Frankfurt) taken over by the Hamburg Senate in 1948: the
entire scheme, totalling 2,120 dwellings in blocks of eight to fifteen storeys, with subtly varied designs, was
completed in 1956 by social company SAGA.40 Also unusually located on an inner-city bomb site, and even
more internationally-famous, was the Interbau 1957 (in the Hansaviertel), a housing/planning expo on a
landscaped site in central West Berlin. Laid out by a special company under the guidance of the municipality,
it involved thirty-five individual architects, many internationally-renowned, designing harmonized housing
groups, including a line of strongly-contrasted but similarly-scaled point-blocks, an area of eight- to ten-
storey slabs and four-storey terraced houses, combined with community buildings (churches, art gallery, etc)
(see Fig. 8.5).41
More typical were the many moderate-density suburban developments, well landscaped and containing
low-rise, staircase-access flats and isolated multi-storey punctuations – an early precedent being three groups
of flats for US occupation administrators (HICOG) in the leafy Bonn suburbs of Tannenbusch and Bad
Godesberg (1951), or the 1951 proposals of the Marshall Plan’s Economic Cooperation Administration for
fifteen smallish suburban interventions in various German cities, totalling 3,300 dwellings overall: completed
in 1963, the programme was mainly used to rehouse eastern refugees.42 Even in the West Berlin Interbau
project, low-rise flats worked out over 50% cheaper than multi-storey towers, and the predominance of
‘sectional’-plan walk-ups was even more marked on city peripheries.43 The federal government made
occasional direct interventions, as with a demonstration project in Nuremberg in 1957–8, the Parkwohnanlage
Zollhaus, where the Housing Ministry sponsored a model project by a railway workers’ housing association,

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A B

C D
Fig. 8.5 (a): Heimat-style infill housing of 1952 in Altena (Westfalen), built by the Altenaer Gemeinnützige Baugesellschaft
AG and designed by Stadtamtmann Jünger. (b): The ‘Hamburg Project’: the Grindelberg redevelopment, conceived in
1948 as British occupation staff housing and completed in 1956 by Hamburg social housing company SAGA; its Zeilenbau
blocks, up to fifteen storeys high, were designed by various individual architects (MG 2018). (c): Layout plan of the 1957
Interbau (Hansaviertel) demonstration project in West Berlin, comprising harmonized groups of towers, slabs, terraces
and community buildings, designed by thirty-five individual architects. (d): The HICOG-Siedlung Muffendorf, Godesberg,
mixed development with focal point-block, built in 1951–2 as occupation staff accommodation; designed by a team
headed by Sep Ruf, the project is almost identical to the contemporary HICOG Tannenbusch estate (MG 2015).

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E F

G
H
Fig. 8.5 (e): 1951 project map of the fifteen Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA) developments across West
Germany, including thumbnail site plans. (f, g, h): ECA-Siedlung in Bremen, built in 1952 by GEWOBAG: an early
setpiece of inner-city bomb-site reconstruction, featuring Bremen-style terraced houses designed by Werner Hebebrand,
Walter Schlempp and Günther Marschall; 1951 cartoons of ‘bad’ (individualistic) and ‘good’ (unified) alternatives, and
2018 (MG) view of estate, now ironically individualized via owner-adaptations.

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 Stability and Continuity: West Germany and the Alpine Countries

illustrating the open-planning principles of the ‘gegliederte und aufgelockerte Stadt’. It included terraced
houses, low-rise flats, slab-blocks and one seventeen-storey tower, lavishly landscaped and astronomy-themed,
with ‘planet’ street names and stylish triangular street signs.44 A representative spread of solutions from 1956–
60 was set out in a celebratory 1961 publication by Hannover’s city council, to commemorate the completion
of 100,000 dwellings since the 1948 currency reform. Although most were suburban, a few were in the inner-
urban area, including the bomb-damaged Calenberger Neustadt, where the old ‘narrow alleys and gloomy
back-courts’ were replaced by open modern developments designed by the municipal Oberbaurat.45
At the largest scale, some developments from the mid-/late 1950s anticipated the Großsiedlungen of the
1960s and 1970s. In Bremen, where SPD Land chief Richard Boljahn boldly initiated a four-year, 40,000-dwelling
programme in 1956 in close collaboration with NH, two successive schemes were planned by May and others
for GEWOBA (Gemeinnützige Wohnungsbaugesellschaft, or ‘Non-Profit Housing Enterprise’: NH’s Bremen
branch): the Großsiedlung Gartenstadt Vahr (1954–9), an unusually spaciously-landscaped example of
‘organische Stadtbaukunst’ (organic urban design) comprising four- to eleven-storey blocks and one landmark
tower; and the 10,000-dwelling Neue Vahr scheme of 1956–62, which combined an open-plan, 128-ha mixed
development with the flamboyant centrepiece (Bezugspunkt) of a twenty-two-storey tower by Alvar Aalto,
containing 189 dwellings in a fan-shaped plan.46 And in Nuremberg, the party rally site was gradually cleared
of its emergency barracks and redeveloped from 1957 with the 600-hectare Langwasser project, master-
planned by local architect Fritz Reichel. Building was largely by the municipal Wbg, the Gemeinnützige
Wohnungsbaugesellschaft der Stadt Nürnberg, which prepared the master plan and erected 4,800 out of nearly
9,200 rental flats in the area (including towers in later phases). There were also over 5,000 home-ownership
dwellings, but later stages originally earmarked for small owner-occupiers were eventually developed with
NH-Bayern apartment blocks (see Fig. 8.6).47
A decisive shift in urban planning paradigms was heralded in 1960, when the national convention of
municipalities (Deutsche Städtentag) criticized the ‘hollowing-out’ of the city and called for a restoration of
urbanity and ‘density’. In response, densities and heights certainly increased – but locations still overwhelmingly
remained on the periphery. Construction of the first Großsiedlungen proper, housing 20,000 or more
inhabitants, spanned the whole of the 1960s. These included Bielefeld’s Sennestadt (1956–69, by Hans-Bernard
Reichow, author of the famous book, Die autogerechte Stadt), the first ‘new town’-scaled development in
Germany, with 30,000 inhabitants, and two other projects, the NH-led Cologne-Chorweiler (1957–73, by
Gottfried Böhm and others) and the 7,800-dwelling, multi-agency Frankfurt-Nordweststadt (1959–72),
coordinated by the Frankfurt municipality and master-planned by Walter Schwagenscheidt and Tassilo
Sittmann, with a relatively old-fashioned, picturesque, open-plan ‘Raumstadt’ layout with profuse greenery.
Another NH-dominated development, Munich-Neuperlach (planned from 1961 by Egon Hartmann, but
completed only in 1985), ended up as the largest Großsiedlung in West Germany, with 24,600 units, its
centrepiece an octagonal ‘Wohnring’ with central park built from 1967 by NH. The shift to higher-density
cluster-planning in the 1960s Großsiedlungen was punctuated by occasional heroically-scaled utopian
proposals. Here NH took the lead, in a rare plan for inner-urban renewal on its own home territory: an NH-
Hamburg-sponsored design of 1966 by Hans Konwiarz proposed a super-high-density ‘Alster-Zentrum’
project that would replace the entire district of St Georg with a horseshoe-shaped cluster of towers stepping
up to sixty-three storeys and housing 20,000 inhabitants. What NH actually built on the ground in Hamburg
was more modest, and dogged by the usual delays. At the Steilshoop satellite township, four miles north-east
of the centre, an initial 1961 competition proposal by local architects Burmeister & Ortemann was elaborated
in 1965–6 into a U-shaped layout of open-ring-plan blocks (echoing Schumacher’s interwar style), and then
further densified by city planners in 1969 and eventually constructed in 1970–8 by NH-Nord as a 7,000-dwelling
development for 24,000 inhabitants, with brick-clad, arc-planned blocks up to eight storeys high.48 Similarly,

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C
Fig. 8.6 (a, b): Parkwohnanlage Zollhaus, Nürnberg: Housing Ministry-sponsored demonstration modernist project of
1957–8 built by a railway workers’ housing association and embellished with astronomical-themed names and street signs
(MG 2016). (c): Gartenstadt Vahr, Bremen, 1954–9: a GEWOBA (NH) development designed by Ernst May and others
(MG 2018).

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 Stability and Continuity: West Germany and the Alpine Countries

D E

F G
Fig. 8.6 (d, e): Neue Vahr, Bremen, 1956–62, also by GEWOBA; layout plan and 2018 view (MG) of centrepiece twenty-
two-storey tower by Alvar Aalto. (f): Nürnberg-Langwasser, a multi-stage redevelopment (1959–82) of the temporary
barracks accommodation on the former Reich Party Rally Grounds, master-planned by Fritz Reichel and fronted by the
municipal Wbg: this view shows Nachbarschaft U, with point-blocks designed by Franz Rechel and NH-Bayern (MG
2015). (g): Cologne-Chorweiler: the cluster-planned centre of a NH-led development of 1957–73 planned by Gottfried
Böhm and others (MG 2011).

in Stuttgart, protracted original NH-Baden-Württemberg proposals for a massive, 650m-long slab-block on a

city-edge hilltop at Asemwald, nicknamed ‘Hannibal’, were replaced by a more modest plan for three twenty-
one- to twenty-three-storey slabs (1968–73, containing 1,140 units) by Otto Jäger and Werner Müller – echoing
the 1950s scaling-down of the Sloterplas slab proposal at Amsterdam’s Osdorp (see Fig. 8.7).49
Although the boldest 1960s–1970s Großsiedlungen almost invariably involved NH in some capacity, and
were overwhelmingly for (higher) rental rather than owner-occupation, their architectural outcomes were
varied. They ranged from the dispersed layout of GEWOG’s 5,700-unit Mannheim-Vogelstang, planned from
1960 and built from 1964 to 1974 at the instigation of mayor Ludwig Ratzel, and stepping up from modest
four-storey walk-ups to a tower-ringed focal shopping megastructure, to the later, ‘urban’ terracing of NH
Baden-Württemberg’s Emmertsgrund, Heidelberg, built in 1970–8 on a dramatic hillside site to designs by
city planners advised by anti-CIAM polemicist Mitscherlich, and incorporating a hugely ambitious central
suction refuse network (abandoned in 1992): only 3,200 of the planned 12,000 dwellings were completed.
May’s later projects contributed significantly to this 1960s phase of denser peripheral Großsiedlungen,
including his last major scheme, Darmstadt-Kranichstein (1968–77). This sprawling, stepped complex, built

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A B

D
Fig. 8.7 (a): Frankfurt-Nordweststadt, a 7,800-unit joint-agency project under municipal auspices, master-planned on
open ‘Raumstadt’ lines from 1959 by Walter Schwagenscheidt and Tassilo Sittmann, and built in 1962–8: panorama of
section allocated to the local Nassauische Heimstätte organization (MG 2019). (b): Munich-Neuperlach, model of 1969
(modified 1971): a NH-dominated development of no fewer than 24,000 units, planned from 1961 by Egon Hartmann but
completed only in 1985, with an octagonal ‘Wohnring’ (from 1967, by NH) as its focus; view of 1969–71 Neue Heimat
model (MG 2019). (c, d): The Alsterzentrum project, a NH-Hamburg sponsored utopian scheme of 1966, conceived by
NH chief planner Hans Konwiarz as a horseshoe-shaped cluster of towers up to sixty-three storeys: 1966 model and Hans
Vietor at press opening of NH exhibition at St Pauli, 1967.

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 Stability and Continuity: West Germany and the Alpine Countries

E F

G H
Fig. 8.7 (e, f): Steilshoop satellite township, Hamburg, laid out by city planners and built in 1970–8 by GAGFAH/NH_
Nord as a 7,000-unit network of open-ended, curved courtyards: 1981 plan and 2018 (MG) view. (g): Asemwald, Stuttgart,
a NH-Baden-Württemberg development of three twenty-one- to twenty-three-storey slab-blocks by Otto Jäger and
Werner Müller, built in 1968–73 as a scaled-down version of original proposals for a single 650m-long slab (nicknamed
‘Hannibal’) (MG 2017). (h): Fasan I tower, Stuttgart-Fasanenhof, built in 1960–5 by GEWOG (NH); architects Josef
Lehmbrock and Wilhelm Tiedje (MG 2017).

by NH, GEWOG and the postal employees’ association, DAHEIM, contained 5,000 units in clusters of ten-
to fourteen-storey slabs, together with an eighteen-storey ‘Solitär’ single-person tower – all clearly influenced
by Toulouse-le-Mirail (see Fig. 8.8).50
The most prominent of these later, clustered Großsiedlungen was not in ‘West Germany proper’ but in West
Berlin: the Märkisches Viertel, at the north-east corner of the city, built in 1963–74 by a consortium of
municipal and trade union organizations, led and financed by the local-authority-owned GESOBAU (plus
DeBauSie and DeGeWo). The project combined large-panel prefabrication, using mainly French systems, with
a layout for some 17,000 dwellings in stepped blocks of ten to sixteen storeys, arranged in loose courtyards to
echo traditional tenement plans, but brightly-coloured to enhance urban ‘identity’.51 The multi-agency
development pattern was echoed in the thirty-three-architect design team, coordinated by Werner Düttmann,
Hans Müller and Georg Heinrichs. Other late 1960s Berlin developments rivalled this in scale – notably Britz-

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A B

C D
Fig. 8.8 (a): Mannheim-Vogelstang, 1960–74, a GEWOG (NH) complex of 5,700 units (MG 2017). (b, c): Heidelberg-
Emmertsgrund, a partly-realized NH-Baden-Württemberg project of 1970–8 on a panoramic hillside site, designed by
city planners (advised by Alexander Mitscherlich); 1971 model by NH and 2017 (MG) view. (d): Darmstadt-Kranichstein,
1968–77, the last major scheme planned by Ernst May: a cluster layout built by NH, GEWOG and the postal workers’
union DAHEIM (MG 2017).

Buckow-Rudow, with its individualistic DeGeWo towers, including the twenty-six-storey Joachim-Gottschalk-
Weg cluster of 1968–9; or the city’s tallest social housing block, the thirty-one-storey, 228-flat tower built by
the Baugenossenschaft ‘Ideal’ in 1966–9 at Fritz Erler-Allee 120, Gropiusstadt, and co-designed by Walter
Gropius himself. But it was the Märkisches Viertel that became the target of the first agitations against
modernist urbanism in Berlin, in an outburst of student-led radicalism in 1968.52 In West Berlin, the post-
1974 phasing-out of Kahlschlagsanierung was seen especially vividly in the Sanierungsgebiet Kreuzberg-Süd,
whose western extremity was redeveloped in 1975–7 by GSW with a sinuous medium-rise conglomerate,
while the remainder switched to a mixture of rehabilitation and new street-infill (see Fig. 8.9).53
The year 1973 saw the peak of West German housing production: 714,000 dwellings (22,000 of which by
NH), but by then, storm clouds were gathering, with a slide in economic growth from 6.3% annually in 1952–
66 to 1.6% in 1974–82. Despite the 1968 protests and the 1970s move away from Großsiedlungen, there was
no overall and explicit withdrawal of support for social housing in West Germany, but the early 1980s brought
a more insidious crisis, dramatized and symbolized not by political confrontation but by a 1982 upheaval
within Neue Heimat. Having expanded under Vietor from a trade-union-led house-building alliance into a
multi-tentacular development and consultancy empire, mismanagement and corruption rapidly spread. In
February 1982, Der Spiegel highlighted the chaos within the vast, unaccountable structure, and during the
1980s it underwent a slow-motion implosion, with the DGB divesting itself of NH in 1985–6, and the latter’s

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 Stability and Continuity: West Germany and the Alpine Countries

A B

C D

E
Fig. 8.9 (a): Märkisches Viertel, West Berlin, 1963–74: 17,000 units in stepped blocks of ten to sixteen storeys, many built
in large-panel prefabrication, designed by a team of thirty-three architects and commissioned by a consortium of
municipal and trade union organizations financed by the municipality and GESOBAU; an early target of anti-modernist
student protests in 1968 (MG 2017). (b): Joachim Gottschalk Weg, Britz-Buckow-Rudow, West Berlin: 2013 view of
twenty-six-storey DeGeWo cluster tower of 1968–9, designed by Manfred Joachim Hinrichs. (c): The Bremen-Tenever
Demonstration Project, built from 1968 by Nordwestdeutsche Siedlungsgesellschaft and NH-Bremen in L- and Z-plan
slab clusters designed by Gerhard G. Dittrich: only 2,600 of the planned 4,600 flats were completed by the time economic
and social problems stopped the project in 1975 (MG 2018). (d): End of the systems boom: Bonames-Niedereschbach
(Ben-Gurion Ring), Frankfurt, a 1,645-unit NH-led development of 1973–6, incorporating the ‘Elementa’ precast-concrete
‘open system’ – offshoot of a 1972 competition co-sponsored by the federal Bundesbauministerium and Stern magazine
(MG 2019). (e): Demonstration by Neue Heimat employees in Düsseldorf against NH management and DGB, 1982.

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housing stock being transferred to municipal or other companies by 1990. On 19 September 1986, the entire
conglomerate was sold to Berlin businessman Horst Schiesser for one Deutsche Mark.54 But by then, the
scandal had provoked Helmut Kohl’s Christian Democrat government to launch the first fundamental
restructuring of the social-housing sector since the 1940s, introducing market elements at an institutional
level, as opposed to the individualized ‘right to buy’ of Thatcherite Britain. A 1988 law abolished federal
subsidies for new social-rented construction and the tax-privileged status of the non-profit companies, freeing
them to operate in a profit-making manner. In the mid-1980s the non-profit companies owned 3.9 million
dwellings, or 13% of the national building stock (65% of this being socially-rented), but following the 1988
reform, the total slumped to only 1.8 million by 2001. By that later date, of course, the collapse of the GDR had
added its vast social-housing stock into the equation – a development that straddled the First and Second
Worlds, and, indeed, Parts 2 and 3 of this book – as we will see in Chapter 17.55
The next two chapters complete our overview of the varied patterns of postwar Western European housing
by focusing on two geographically, organizationally and architecturally contrasting regions: the Scandinavian/
Nordic and Mediterranean countries. Both were to some extent offshoots of the corporatist approach, but the
former developed this along more social-democratic egalitarian lines, while the latter retained many
traditional, family-based social structures and a preoccupation with the crises stemming from rural-to-urban
migration – in the process acting as a bridge to some of the book’s later chapters, such as those on Latin
America (chapter 14).

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CHAPTER 9
THE NORDIC COUNTRIES – SOCIAL VERSUS INDIVIDUAL?

Within the Western European chapters of this book, and Part 2 as a whole, the emphasis on the strong diversity
of national and local housing solutions is a constant theme. However, it is perhaps a little unexpected that
these strong tensions between common values and national-civic diversity also applied in the case of the
Nordic countries: Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Iceland. Widely portrayed as uniformly social-
democratic in character, most famously in Esping-Andersen’s The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism,1 which
defined their systems as a universalist variant on mainstream European corporatism, the five countries have
undeniably long shared a general egalitarianism and ‘Lutheran’ aversion to extravagance and ostentation, and
an avoidance of violent policy swings. But postwar Nordic mass housing also featured a significant internal
polarization of world-outlooks, with Sweden and Denmark emphasizing mainstream welfare-state collectivism
and high-subsidy generalist social housing, while Finland, Norway and Iceland prioritized self-reliance,
subsidy-selectivity and home-ownership. Over time, this dichotomy produced striking tenurial differences,
with the 1990s proportion of social-rented housing in Sweden and Denmark being over four times that of
Norway and Iceland, and that of individually-owned housing in Finland and Norway being over two-thirds
higher than Sweden. At a local level, too, strongly distinctive microecologies prevailed, for example in the
autonomy of Swedish and Danish municipalities, cooperatives and housing societies.2

Building the ‘folkhem’: housing and Social Democracy in Sweden

Within Western European mass housing, while France’s programme was uniquely prominent in the formal
grandeur of its conception, overall it was arguably that of Sweden that enjoyed the highest international
prestige, in its highly systematized, de-commodified ethos and its ideologically-charged superiority
complex, both highly integrated with the political world-outlook of the Social Democratic Party (SAP).
Convinced of its own exemplary mission, postwar Swedish housing pursued a consistent, high-profile
strategy, culminating in the renowned ‘Million Programme’ of 1965–74. The interwar years gave few clues of
these future triumphs, but Sweden’s wartime neutrality provided a unique springboard for decades of
cumulative policymaking.3 The SAP’s postwar dominance was especially remarkable as it rarely itself won
more than 50% of the vote, and yet its universal ‘folkhem’ concept exerted a compelling moral hegemony even
over its opponents: by 1952, it was considered ‘almost indecent’ in Swedish society to openly admit to any
income or class differences at all. Despite the country’s strong fault lines of political and class conflict and the
SAP’s own roots in trade unionism and working-class militancy, its dominance was grounded in stability and
collaboration. In 1975, SAP Prime Minister Olof Palme argued that Swedish social democracy was a gradualist
snail rather than a revolutionary hare – and his assassination in 1986 in many ways marked the end of the
folkhem.4
The Swedish welfare state was grounded in an active collaboration with established corporate, capitalist
interests – an ethos of ‘productivism’5 that anticipated the use of planning to aid the market in East Asian
developmentalist states such as Singapore, South Korea or Hong Kong. This extended to the local level,
where SAP municipal regimes, as in Malmö, systematically cooperated with local business elites over social

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provision – unlike earlier confrontations in places such as Red Vienna.6 Collaboration applied even within
individual developments, such as Vällingby (outside Stockholm), where the ‘limited-spoils’ quota system
allocated building contracts to private developers and cooperative or municipal housing companies
proportionally to the relative strength of the bourgeois/conservative parties and SAP in the city council.7
Although historian Yvonne Hirdman has portrayed the ‘folkhem’ as a near-totalitarian ‘iron cage’, it actually
embraced many different interest groups – capitalist, professional and voluntaristic as much as socialist – and,
in housing, provided a protective umbrella for a great diversity of microecologies to flourish.8
Spurred by a pre-war moral panic about rural backwardness (‘Lort-Sverige’, or ‘Dirty Sweden’), wartime
state intervention began early and escalated fast, in the cities as much as the countryside.9 Wide-ranging social
housing subsidies were introduced in 1940, rent control in 1942; a 1944 Riksdag resolution, proposed by the
SAP, demanded that all flats should in future be managed by public housing agencies, while leaving it open
what exactly was meant by ‘public’. The SAP-led Social Housing Commission, established in 1933, exerted an
influential effect on housing-policy formulation through to the 1960s.10 The decisive steps came in 1945–6,
when a tripartite partnership between central state, local authorities and cooperative societies was established
– a verzuiling-free equivalent of the Dutch system, with the central state overseeing regulation and finance.
Here a critical 1946 Riksdag vote specified that the government should cover 100% of costs of multi-family
housing schemes by local authorities, 95% of co-op schemes and 85% of private-built schemes, through thirty-
year 4% loans, administered from 1948 by the Royal Housing Board.11 The Board also regulated national
housing standards, in a 1942 system explained in a manual by Stockholm city architect Sigurd Westholm: the
so-called ‘Westholms bibel’, similar to the Dutch Voorschriften en Wenken, which was superseded in 1954 by a
Housing Board manual, God bostad (‘Good Housing’).12
Most contentious in the 1946 Riksdag debate was the relative role of the cooperative societies and the local
authorities. In 1945, cooperative housing had seemed impregnable, given the strong links between the HSB
national housing umbrella organization and the SAP.13 By 1946 the HSB had built 40,000 dwellings and
oversaw one-eighth of national output, administered usually on a ‘parent/daughter’ basis, with completed
blocks run by management societies.14 But the cooperative sector was subtly undermined by the 1940
foundation of Svenska Riksbyggen, an SAP-backed trade-union building cooperative, which operated outside
the authority of the HSB.15 The SAP’s left-wing factions claimed it risked splitting the movement, and backed
local authorities as more neutral agents. Accordingly, the 1946 parliamentary vote led to a radical shift towards
municipally-owned public housing associations (kommunala allmännyttiga bostadsföreningen, or ABFs)
as leaders in social housing; a national coordinating agency, SABO, was established in 1950. However, this
system was purely permissive, and allowed wide variations between cities and the development of thriving
microecologies.16
In Stockholm, the municipality decisively embraced social house-building in 1947, when it acquired a
recently-established (1944) philanthropic housing company, AB Svenska Bostäder, and used it as the vehicle
for a municipally-sponsored housing drive, managed by chief executive S. Albert Aronson. It constructed half
of all new flats in Stockholm over the following decade, collaborating with municipally-owned housing agency
AB Familjebostäder. By 1964, ABSB had accumulated an operating capital of 7 million crowns, and in 1965
posted a 4% dividend, underlining the persistent business orientation of Swedish Social Democracy.17
In Örebro, the municipal socialists were far stronger. The city’s Stiftelsen Hyresbostäder (Rental Housing
Foundation), founded in 1946 and headed by leading Social Democrat Harald Aronsson, set out to transform
it into a ‘folkhemmets mönsterstad’ (folkhem showcase-city).18 In this politicized environment, the HSB and
Riksbyggen were both actively excluded from social house-building, partly through restrictions on municipal
loans to cooperative owners from 1955. In Malmö, by contrast, the municipal housing company was far
weaker, controlling only 14% of the city’s housing stock in 1965 (31% in Örebro): founded in 1945, the Malmö

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 The Nordic Countries – Social Versus Individual?

Kommunala Bostadsbolag (MKB) commenced its first neighbourhood, the 1,600-dwelling Augustenborg, in
1948, with Svenska Riksbyggen largely controlling and designing the project in collaboration with the city
planning department. From the mid-1950s, Malmö’s municipal socialists were sidelined by HSB, and by 1965,
cooperative owner-occupied housing accounted for 30% of the city housing stock, twice the level in Stockholm
and Göteborg (see Fig. 9.1).19

A B

C D
Fig. 9.1 (a): A 1946 plaque on HSB’s Reimersholme development, Stockholm (MG 2014). (b): mid-1940s Svenska
Riksbyggen plaque, Årstavägen, Stockholm (MG 2014). (c): A 1956 neighbourhood concept plan by Sven Markelius
(ex-Stockholm Planning Director). (d): Diagram of constituent elements of suburban community by architects Ekholm &
White, 1951.

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While the cities differed in their house-building policies, they all benefited from another, equally important
municipal housing power: their control after 1946 of planning and land allocation, which allowed them,
Dutch-style, to accumulate huge land banks and to determine which agency developed them, and how.20 A
1948 law allowed municipalities to draw up detailed master plans, including large, multi-phased developments.
This system generated tensions between the cities’ planning and house-building arms. Within Stockholm city,
planning and housing fell within different city-council divisions up to 1955 (Stadsbyggnadskontor/City
Planning Office, Fastighetkontor/Estates Office), but thereafter they were combined. Before 1955 an informal,
consensual modus operandi prevailed, both between departments and between the political parties in the
city’s governing coalition: unlike the national position, the SAP did not always control Stockholm City
Council. The city’s extension strategy was shaped by its creative modernist Planning Directors, Sven Markelius
(1944–54) and Göran Sidenbladh (1955–73), with the elected Planning Commissioners in the 1940s and
1950s, Yngve Larsson and Helge Berglund.21 Sidenbladh later recalled the informal decision-making culture,
sharply divergent from stereotypes of welfare-state bureaucracy: ‘Theoretically, urban land is marked for
development, then the estates office sends a letter to the city planning office commissioning it to prepare a
master plan and site development plans. But in reality the planning office has usually already begun work.’
Larsson, he recollected, ‘was a very dynamic man. He didn’t wait for formal letters and things like that. He said,
“Prepare a plan!” And that was that!’ Berglund, too, ‘was very informal. He said, “Well, if you think this is right,
OK, do it.” There was very little in writing.’22 This pragmatic system overrode partisan politico-economic
differences, as demonstrated in the organization of Stockholm’s 1940s and 1950s satellite towns, Vällingby and
Farsta. Vällingby, commissioned in 1949–50 by an SAP administration, was largely publicly-built by Svenska
Bostäder and the municipal AB Familjebostäder, whereas Farsta, authorized in 1956 under liberal/conservative
rule, was developed mainly privately: but even here the ‘limited spoils’ system moderated differences, as with
the OPA in Amsterdam.23 Some key 1940s projects were built by innovative private developers, notably Olle
Engkvist AB, but the consistent consensus and cooperation diminished the public–private distinction.24 In
Stockholm, support for individual owner-occupation was confined to the småstuga owner-builder movement,
with a special municipal ‘småstugebyrå’ allocating sites for the small prefabricated timber cottages: a 10%
down payment was covered in kind by the owners’ self-building work – as with the postwar French Castors
– and the remainder by småstugebyrå loans.25
The småstuga had long roots in national housing traditions, but Sweden’s mainstream modern housing and
community planning, emphasizing urban density and collective planning concepts, all participated in wider
international modernist discourses. Especially important were the 1940s interactions between Sweden and
Britain, two countries of equal status in early postwar architectural idea-exchange. The assumption of Swedish
‘good taste’ in social architecture underpinned English ‘New Empiricism’ in the 1940s and 1950s.26 Within
planning, the influence was the other way around: admiration for British-American neighbourhood planning
was reflected in projects such as Årsta centrum, intended by Swedish planners to create a ‘new form of
communal life’.27 Equally attractive was the free-standing new town. Stockholm’s Stadbyggnadskontor
ingeniously adapted the 1944 Greater London Plan framework to the city’s smaller scale: the 1952 general plan
proposed not far-flung new towns but a tighter ring of satellite towns of 10,000–15,000 population, beginning
with the Riksbyggen-led Årsta, from 1940. Echoing Geddesian and Mumfordian rhetoric, Stockholm’s satellite
towns would follow a ‘Work, Housing and Centre’ framework (‘Arbete, Bostad, och Centrum’, or ‘A BC’),
allowing workers and children to walk to work and schools. A second generation of satellite ABC-towns
included Täby, planned from 1947 but not developed until the 1960s.28
Within housing design, just as in city-planning, different approaches were passionately championed. Unlike
the simplistic pre-war confrontation between the through-ventilated ‘småhus’ or ‘lamella’ and the deeper,
highly-serviced ‘tjockhus’, more diverse possibilities were now explored, including the slender, tall, ‘punkthus’

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 The Nordic Countries – Social Versus Individual?

and the English-style row-house. The 1940 City of Stockholm Housing Competition, won by a team from the
Kooperativa förbundets arkitektkontor, stimulated experimentation and debate; by the 1950s the permutations
seemed endless: ‘Höga hus eller låga? Smala hus eller tjocka?’ – or ‘rådhus’, ‘tornshus’, ‘punkthus’ (High-rise or
low-rise? Shallow or deep plan; terraces, towers, point blocks) ?29 One plan-form rarely seen in Sweden,
perhaps because of the winter cold, was Dutch-style gallery-access. Scandinavia’s favourite modernist formula
for single-person accommodation was the centrally-serviced kollektivhus: influential postwar examples
included the eight-storey complex at Blackeberg, privately built in 1952 by Engkvist.30 Like Britain, Sweden
was one of the few countries where most multi-storey social housing was in slim towers rather than the
elongated slabs prevalent elsewhere in Europe. Here Sweden was unambiguously the leader, with a wide
range of ‘punkthus’ projects completed or underway by 1950: the term punkthus was straightforwardly
translated to ‘point-block’ in England. Sweden was, equally, ahead of its neighbours: in 1946, a visiting
Danish architect wrote in Byggmästaren that Sweden was far advanced in multi-storey building: ‘for people
coming from flat Denmark with its sprawling buildings, the Swedish point blocks and rugged terrain are
a refreshing change’.31 By the late 1950s, the punkthus spawned in a variety of sub-types: a special
Byggmästaren issue in 1957 included permutations such as ‘turbine’ plans or split-level sections.32 Yet there was
still debate among modernist architects about the type’s fundamental merits and demerits: the first-generation
modernist, Fred Forbat, argued in 1959 that the clumps of towers had a disastrous effect on the skylines of
Swedish towns.33
Like the Netherlands, Sweden favoured rationalized construction rather than full-scale prefabrication:
contractor Allan Skarne, a key player in this process, later recalled (1973) that pre-war contracting conservatism
had been revolutionized by the post-1941 housing drive, as ‘a craft started to become an industry’: small
general contractors were replaced by technically-specialized firms with engineering expertise, and the Swedish
building-standards organization investigated brick and timber rationalization and modularization. Slipform
in-situ construction supported Ohlsson & Skarne’s own rationalized-traditional ‘systems’ of the late 1950s and
early 1960s: at the much-publicized Näsbydal HSB project in Täby (1958–60), eight seventeen-storey point-
blocks were built in a mixture of precast and in-situ concrete, using a crane perched on a slipform-built tower
core. The firm also devised a heavy-concrete system for a 1960–3 project of eight- and nine-storey blocks at
Bollmora, south of Stockholm, with individual small components delivered in large steel containers. Skanska
Cementgjuteriet focused on prefabrication of internal services within blocks, including prefabrication of
‘heart’ units of heating and plumbing. Municipal housing companies also became involved in system
development: Fastighets AB Göteborgs bostäder developed a low-rise system in 1957, extending it to
pentagon-shaped nine-storey towers, as at Slottsberget, near Malmö, from 1962. As a British municipal housing
delegation found in April 1963, Sweden used both ‘open’ and ‘closed’ systems, whereas Denmark’s craft-
influenced programme exclusively emphasized the former (see Fig. 9.2).34
Architecturally, Swedish housing, like England’s, exerted its greatest international effect in the first postwar
decade, when firms such as Backström & Reinius softened hard-line rectilinear functionalism through more
‘organic’ forms or landscaping and increased use of colour. A leading showpiece was the 600-dwelling
Guldheden district in Göteborg, built in 1944–6 as a demonstration project for the 1945 ‘Bo Bättre’ (‘Live
Better’) exhibition, mounted by a coalition of public institutions, with Olov Södermann as architect. The initial
section featured picturesquely-disposed seven-storey T-plan punkthus towers and low-rise walk-ups on
landscaped hillsides around a central pedestrian square.35 In Örebro, too, the municipally-led programme of
housing and (unusually) slum-clearance also had a showpiece: Hyresbostäder’s Rosta, a 5,000-dwelling project
designed by Backström & Reinius following a national competition win and completed by 1952. Lacking a
picturesquely hilly site, Rosta pursued ‘organic’ functionalism through a striking plan-form of sinuous chains
of star-shaped blocks, vertically punctuated by a single eleven-storey Kollektivhus tower.36

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A B

C D

Fig. 9.2 (a): The winning entry in the City of Stockholm Housing Competition of 1940 by the Kooperativa förbundets
arkitektkontor (pseudonym, ‘Vox Humana’): perspective of punkthus. (b): HSB’s Näsbydal project, Täby, 1958–60: eight
seventeen-storey point-blocks built in a ring by Ohlsson and Skarne, each in slipform construction with central tower core
(MG 2014). (c): ‘Bo Bättre’ (‘Live Better’) exhibition, Göteborg, 1945: catalogue front cover. (d): Norra Guldheden,
Göteborg (the demonstration project of Bo Bättre), designed by Olof Södermann: the central square (MG 2016).

The focus of architectural attention was naturally Stockholm, where the mid-1940s saw a succession of
challenges to the strict modernist Zeilenbau pattern. The most radical, and internationally-publicized, of these
was Backström & Reinius’s first major ‘star’-plan development: the Akterspegeln project at Gröndal, a private
development of 1944–6 by Olle Engkvist, comprising the same type of blocks as Rosta, arranged in brightly-
coloured honeycomb patterns rather than strung out in curved lines.37 In its bright colours and complex
geometrical layout, doubtless influenced by NYCHA’s Queensbridge Houses of 1938–9, Gröndal could not have
been more different from Engqvist’s Zeilenbau scheme at Hjorthagen a decade previously – although its overall
height was the same. That, too, changed in three influential developments, which followed Guldheden by
including picturesque towers: Reimersholme (HSB, 1942–6); Danviksklippan (1943–5, for a private consortium);
and Torsvikshöjden (1943–7, by Acker, Gate & Lindgren for private developer BEFA).38 Danviksklippan, by

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 The Nordic Countries – Social Versus Individual?

Backström & Reinius, was especially influential, in the dramatically clustered way its pyramidal-roofed towers
erupted from a rocky outcrop, with bright external colouring by artist Helga Franzén; the towers allowed a
density of 400 persons per hectare, yet buildings occupied only 8% of the site (see Fig. 9.3).39
But by 1945–6, with the Stadsbyggnadskontor embracing neighbourhood-unit planning and satellite
townships, Stockholm’s housing architecture was becoming more expansive, with individual developments
designed as neighbourhood components of larger planned communities. The pioneer was Årsta, a satellite
project conceived as ‘staden i skogen’ (‘the town in the forest’), approved in 1940 and begun in 1942: Svenska
Riksbyggen and its fiery, idealistic director, Uno Ahrén, led its design, which mixed low-rise blocks and
selective punkthus towers. Årsta’s focus was the town centre, designed in 1943 by Erik & Tore Ahlsén around
a central square, with a gallery-access block behind it: the architects argued that the collective space would ‘at
once serve the interest of individual members of the community and the striving of the democratic society’.
Similar townships sprang up along the new T-bana lines south of Stockholm, featuring punkthus and low
blocks in forested settings, with integrated township-centres. These included Västertorp, commissioned in
1949–50 and initially developed by AB Stockholmshem, including a township centre (1952–3), and
Hökarängen, planned from 1940 by Markelius’s staff as an exemplar of English-style neighbourhood planning,

A B

C D
Fig. 9.3 (a, b): Rosta, Örebro: Hyresbostäder estate completed 1952, architects Backström & Reinius; estate layout plan
and low-rise honeycomb blocks with Kollektivhus (MG 2016). (c, d): Kvarteret Akterspegeln, Gröndal, Stockholm, a
private complex built in 1944–6 by Olle Engkvist and designed by Backström & Reinius: 1945 layout and 2014 (MG) view
of ‘star’ blocks.

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E F

G
Fig. 9.3 (e, f, g): Danviksklippan, Stockholm, a dense (400pph) towered development designed by Backström & Reinius
and built in 1943–5 by a private consortium: 1945 images and 2014 (MG) external view.

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 The Nordic Countries – Social Versus Individual?

complete with green belt. Hökarängen’s first residential zone was designed by HSB and built in 1947–9 by
Familjebostäder, with quirky crafts detailing; its centre included Sweden’s first traffic-free precinct and a
punkthus by AB Stockholmshem (see Fig. 9.4).40
Stockholm’s early postwar satellite-town programme culminated in Vällingby, mainly built before 1955, but
which eventually included 18,800 dwellings by 1966, almost all on sixty-year leases on city-owned land, with
Svenska Bostäder taking the lead (building 16,250 units) along with four other societies. The layout, with six
neighbourhoods clustered around the multi-level centre and tunnelbana station, faithfully reflected the ABC-
town ideal, even though only 25% of the inhabitants found employment in the township itself. The same
block-design principles applied as in the suburban townships, the rocky subsoil dictating use of point-blocks
(by various architects, including Hjalmar Klemming, Jarl Bjuström and others) to minimize foundation spread
– a constraint equally found at the 17,000-dwelling Farsta township. Vällingby’s master plan also included

A B

C D
Fig. 9.4 (a): Årsta torg, Stockholm: the focal point of the Årsta ‘staden i skogen’, designed in 1943 by Erik and Tore Ahlsén
(MG 2014). (b): Västertorp, Stockholm, developed from 1950 by AB Stockholmshem: point-blocks with quirky ‘empiricist’
details set in rocky landscaping (MG 2014). (c, d): Vällingby centrum, Stockholm, 2014 view of commercial precinct and
1981 view from north (MG). A multi-phase development, commissioned in 1949 and mainly completed by 1955, led by
Svenska Bostäder, and acting as the focus of the canonical ‘A BC-plan’.

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F G
Fig. 9.4 (e, f): Farsta township, authorized 1956: development map and 2014 (MG) view of point-blocks.
(g): Hammarkullen, Göteborg (1968–70), built at the height of the 1965–74 Miljonprogramm by Göteborgs stads
bostadsaktiebolag with slab-blocks up to 335m long and nine storeys height, designed by architects Brolid & Wallander
(MG 2016).

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 The Nordic Countries – Social Versus Individual?

variegated low-rise buildings, including idiosyncratic circular blocks by Gunnar Jacobson, and SB’s Phase III
(Paul Hedqvist, 1963–5), with its agglomeration of stepped and star-plan blocks.41 At the linked development
of Råcksta (1952–3), innovative low-rise types were introduced earlier: there, Markelius’s city planners laid out
a central traffic-free area ringed by flats and two-storey, vernacular-style terraced houses.42
The years around 1960 saw a movement towards rather more grandiose planning devices, a partial shift
from the picturesque to the sublime exemplified in the Täby satellite town north of Stockholm, built from
1958 and dominated by two formalistic housing complexes rising out of the forest. The first was the HSB’s
Näsbydal, designed by architectural/engineering conglomerate Vattenbyggnadsbyrå (with consultant planners
Sune Lindström, Alf Bydén and Åke Arell), with a monumental ring of subtly convex-fronted towers.43 More
spectacularly, the township skyline was crowned by two huge crescent-plan blocks, or ‘storstuga’, designed for
HSB by the same team; Lindström had originally proposed a single curved strip twenty-five storeys high, to
accentuate the township centre, but following objections it was reduced in 1963 to seventeen storeys and split
in two.44 Täby, in its somewhat ‘French’ grandeur, served as a curtain-raiser for the rhetorical centrepiece of
Swedish 1960s housing: the internationally-renowned ‘Million Programme’ (Miljonprogrammet), which built
some 940,000 dwellings between 1965 and 1974 – a 3% increase in the national housing stock every year. Its
political rationale stemmed from the very success of the early postwar programme, whose high quality and
low rents raised public expectations and provoked fevered debate in both Riksdag and City Council. After
initial reluctance, the 1964 SAP conference approved a ten-year, 1-million-unit housing programme, building
on the tried-and-tested national–municipal–voluntary partnership formula, with the central state providing
long-term credit and facilitating industrialized building, and the local authorities organizing land allocation,
planning and production by social housing organizations: municipal companies built 36%, and co-ops 15%,
of the 940,000 units realized under the plan.45
By 1966, production was running at 11.4 per thousand citizens, 40% more than 1958 and among the highest
in Europe. The following year, the programme’s universalist ideals were embodied in a housing bill which
provided that ‘the whole population shall have access to healthy, spacious, well planned and suitably equipped
dwellings of good quality at affordable prices.’46 The term ‘Miljonprogramm’ was not coined until the
programme was underway, but its results were quantitatively spectacular: whereas 34% of all households had
been overcrowded in the 1940s, by 1975 that figure was slashed to 5%. In practice, the Miljonprogramm was
largely implemented at municipal, microregional level, relying on local authorities’ control both of land supply
and of the municipal housing companies. But its successes were trumpeted nationally and internationally,
with Singapore-style triumphalism: in 1974, Sven Bengtson, research chief at the National Social Insurance
Board, observed complacently that ‘housing and planning in Sweden is at an extremely advanced level
compared to the other western democracies. Discussions and disputes which take place in Sweden are already
far in advance of those which are taking place in other countries; conversely, matters which are still hotly
contested in other countries have long since been settled in Sweden.’47
While the Miljonprogramm encompassed all major cities and towns, its most emblematic development
was Järvafältet – a former military training area north-west of Stockholm, laid out in 1964 with housing for
160,000 inhabitants and a nature reserve. The southern part was tackled first, with the Rinkeby and Tensta
developments. Like Bijlmermeer in the Netherlands, they were to pioneer a new generation of housing norms,
the ‘Plan Standard 1965’, embodying the universal scope of the welfare state. The general plan of Rinkeby and
Tensta was approved in 1965 and building of Tensta began in 1966; of its 11,600 dwellings, 7,000 were built by
municipal companies and 2,000 by co-ops (HSB, SKB, SR), the balance being student flats and private houses.
In Rinkeby, envisaged as a ‘bandstadsmönster’ (linear urban showpiece), the housing formed three parallel
east–west belts, increasing from two storeys at the south to six at the north. The standardization and serial
contracting pioneered by HSB at Näsbydal and elsewhere were now expanded to a gigantic scale: public

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building authorities were tied to five-year contracts with firms such as Ohlsson-Skarne or the trade-union-
owned Byggproduktion AB.48 As in the USSR, the most economical building-type proved to be a nine-storey,
sectional-plan Zeilenbau slab containing around fifty units, but with the mounting pressure against high flats,
increasing numbers of low-rise rationalized-traditional terrace houses were included in the late 1960s and
early 1970s, in areas such as Akalla, Husby and Kista – the last parts of Järvafältet to be developed.49
Similar patterns played out in other Swedish cities, such as Göteborg, whose Hammarkullen complex of
1968–70 (developed by Göteborgs stads bostadsaktiebolag) included one 335m-long slab-block, or Malmö,
whose equivalent to the Järvafältet or Amsterdam-Southeast was Rosengård – a vast, municipally-owned zone
on the eastern periphery, planned from the mid-1950s and built in 1962–9 by a tripartite alliance between the
Malmö municipal housing company MKB, the privately-owned BGB and the cooperatively-owned HSB.50 To
support the planned expansion of the city’s tax base and industries, the aim here was to build 7,000 dwellings
for 20,000 inhabitants in ten small neighbourhoods, largely comprising three- and eight-storey blocks.
Rosengård’s implementation emphasized standardization and rolling negotiated contracts between
contractors, trade unions and the city council. Despite the principle of government oversight of mass housing,
the role of private building contractors was left sacrosanct. And the consensual support for the ‘million’ strategy
was already fragmenting, with Rosengård branded a ‘nybyggd slum’ as early as 1966, and Tensta denounced in
1970 as ‘a monument to housing need but at the same time to the incompetence of Stockholm City Council
and the building industry’.51 More comprehensive denunciations were triggered by another, more
architecturally-complex Stockholm peripheral development, Skärholmen, completed in 1968 by AB Svenska
Bostäder as an agglomeration of low-rise terraces above a strikingly planned shopping centre. The day after its
royal inauguration in September 1968, journalist Lars-Olaf Franzén thundered in Dagens Nyheter, ‘Demolish
Skärholmen!’ Yet these critiques, like those in France in the late 1950s and early 1960s, had little long-term
policy impact: social-rented housing remained stable and secure at just over 20% of the national building
stock, through from the end of the Miljonprogramm in 1974 until the decisive SAP defeat in the 1991 general
election (see Fig. 9.5).52

Denmark: modernization through quiet quality53

Swedish and Danish mass housing had much in common, including professionalized, state-backed promotion
of social equality, and emphasis on apartment housing; but they also diverged markedly, with Denmark
prioritizing cooperative production and highly-crafted construction quality. Copenhagen, Frederiksberg and
the eighty-five county boroughs all enjoyed significant housing autonomy: some, such as suburban Hvidovre,
had up to 40% of their stock as social housing.54 In Denmark, social housing was from the beginning bound
up with relatively affluent modernization processes, as part of the shift from agricultural subsistence to an
export economy. Even the German occupation had only a limited effect: in mid-1943, with Hamburg being
incinerated not far to the south, it had been possible to build a finely-landscaped, terraced social-housing and
studio complex at Utterslev for sculptors and artists, and flat-building had already recovered by 1949,
continuing at around 15,000–20,000 throughout the 1950s (60% by public agencies).55
Danish housing still combined both strong rental and owner-occupier sectors, but what changed decisively
during the war was the degree of public intervention. Whereas in 1939, 88% of construction had been by
private firms (13% with public aid), 6% by social-housing societies and 6% by public authorities, by 1951 these
percentages were 47% (36%), 47% and 6%.56 Social-housing organizations, totalling 650 nationally, were
organized on a master-society and local-branch principle, and three types were sanctioned by the Housing
Ministry: profit-sharing housing cooperatives, non-profit local housing societies and limited-profit, open-

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 The Nordic Countries – Social Versus Individual?

A B

C D
Fig. 9.5 (a): Tensta, developed from 1966 on Stockholm’s Järvafältet city extension, with 11,600 dwellings, by a range of
co-ops and municipal housing societies (MG 2014). (b, c): Rosengård, Malmö: a 7,000-unit development built in 1962–9
by municipal housing agency MKB in collaboration with HSB and the privately-owned BFB; 2016 view (MG) of
Kryddgården (Brf Arvid), and critical 1966 article in Expressen newspaper (‘New-build slum’). (d): Skärholmen, Stockholm
(1964–8), development led by AB Svenka Bostäder and architects Boijsen & Efvergren: view of AB Stockholmshem
section (MG 2014).

access associations – a system that effectively balanced national consistency with microregional scale and
diversity. Although the local ‘almene boligselskab’ public housing societies were strongly rooted in the
municipalities, direct council housing was very small scale, and the 1920 ban on individual ownership of
social flats continued in force.57
Governmental intervention in Danish housing aimed above all at high standards of planned modernity.
Regulation followed the successful precedent of the dairy industry, enhancing the independence of the
producer-cooperatives, and exploiting the deeply-ingrained crafts and apprenticeship system. The Housing
Ministry (Boligministeriet), spun out of the Home Affairs ministry in 1947, oversaw various coordinating
bodies for housing associations and building research.58 A complex but effective loan system, under the 1946

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Building Aid Law, supported approved housing-types and projects, through ‘first mortgages’ from credit
associations and ‘second mortgages’ from hypothecatory societies. This was reinforced from 1951 by state top-
up loans to social-housing projects covering 80%–97% of cost, and grants covering 15%; owner-occupier
loans and grants to low-income tenants followed in 1955.59 Unlike housing regimes promoting low cost and
low rents, the overriding stress on planned modernity compelled housing societies to incur high costs through
high standards, recovering these through high rents: average rent increases totalled 60% from 1939 to 1960.60
Equally vital was municipal planning for city-extension, a cause boosted in 1949 by powers to rezone
housing land outside authorities’ boundaries without expropriation. The peripheral-expansion strategy had
been boosted by the ineffectiveness of a 1939 slum-clearance act, undermined by the requirement to sell
cleared sites to the highest bidder: its main outcome, Kay Fisker and Svenn Eske Kristensen’s monumental,
yellow- and red-brick Dronningegården, planned around a giant garden quadrangle with alternating windows
and loggias (from 1943), was confined to higher incomes.61 In the Copenhagen region, peripheral-expansion
planning took a striking, metaphor-like form: the so-called ‘finger plan’ of 1947–8. Westward expansion would
be channelled along radiating axes, each comprising several district units of 10,000–20,000 inhabitants. The
concept was elaborated in 1961 in the Køge Bugt master plan, which focused on the south-western finger,
along the north shore of Køge Bay: ten new satellite townships, totalling 50,000 dwellings, were planned here.62
Alongside planning, the other key element of Denmark’s housing agenda of ‘modernization through quality’
was industrialized building. Here, Danish consultants carved out a special international sphere of influence,
rivalling the French (and Swedish) emphasis on output and grandiose scale with a subtler discourse of open-
system standardization. Two factors shaped this strategy: the tradition of master craftsmen and separate-
trades contracting, and the prevalence within private housing of individually-constructed, architect-designed
houses rather than English-style mass speculative building. The wartime restraints had deterred Swedish-style
building rationalization, yet in postwar Denmark, even more than Sweden, there was strong government
support for building-component standardization; 1945–7 saw an initial blizzard of initiatives, while a 1964
building act required all new housing to be modularly-planned.63 From 1950, system-building and multi-
storey flats increased in tandem, the former from 15% in 1961 to 58% in 1970, and the latter reaching 57% by
1971. An experimental five-storey reinforced-concrete and precast-concrete block was built at Charlottenlund
as early as 1948. But the ascendancy of system-built high flats was brief, and by the mid-1960s the government
was earnestly encouraging system-building for small-scale low-rise cluster developments. In 1968 the National
Federation of Non-Profit Housing Companies established the Danalea Building Corporation, tasked to
promote concrete prefabrication for low-rise flats and single-storey garden-courtyard houses.64
As in many other developed countries, the fundamental rationale for industrialized building in Denmark
was to expand production in the face of building-industry shortages – a strategy that achieved a 150% output
increase in Danish housing in 1955–65 without any increase in the labour force. Moving to precast-concrete
construction required investment in factories, helped in the early 1950s by Marshall Plan funds; a 1953
Boligministeriet circular promised enhanced support for ‘non-traditional building’. In 1961 a ‘montagekvoten’
(system-building quota) four-year target was introduced of 7,500 system-built flats in large projects, supported
by government subsidies: ‘etageboligområder’ of over 2,000 flats were encouraged.65 Yet these industrialized
developments were also to improve on traditional building quality, giving housing societies access to ‘open’
systems suitable for individual architect design using standardized components – an aspiration, merely
rhetorical elsewhere, that proved genuinely achievable in Denmark’s special circumstances of advanced
building technology. A disparity developed between the ‘domestic’ side of Danish industrialized building,
dominated by open systems and loose alliances of engineers and building companies, and its ‘external’ face,
which projected an image of branded, closed systems. Here two ‘brands’ dominated: Larsen & Nielsen and
Jespersen. Larsen & Nielsen was established in the 1930s as a civil-engineering contractor. Its first prefabrication

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factory was built in 1951 at Glostrup, outside Copenhagen, with Marshall Plan aid. Prototype early-1950s
schemes of low-rise blocks still retained in-situ walling, but after 1955 precast wall panels were used, as at the
five- to eight-storey Bellmansgade (1958–61). The firm’s mature system comprised box-frame structures using
large panels 8ft 2in. wide – the maximum allowed for transportation on Danish roads – clad in mosaic or tiles.
The ‘Jespersen system’ was a marketing brand for the prefabricated designs produced by the Modulbeton firm
(a Jespersen subsidiary), with engineer P. E. Malmstrøm; within the small world of Danish contracting and
consultancy, all firms and experts knew each other well, and collaborated with government experts such as
Marius Kjeldsen, chief architect of Boligministeriet, in integrated-construction strategies and overseas-
development campaigns. Jespersen used smaller-scale prefabricated elements than Larsen & Nielsen, highly
standardized and pre-planned for open-system design by individual housing societies. In the early 1960s it
was used in a 3,500-dwelling, government-sponsored serial programme, chiefly comprising the Ballerup Plan
(1,644 dwellings) and Gladsaxe (1,800), and supplied from the company’s Ølstykke factory, with building
heights peaking at sixteen storeys at Gladsaxe.66
Architecturally, Danish postwar housing strong emphasized highly-crafted quality, together with the
variously-interpreted, hyper-Danish ethos of ‘hygge’ (homely comfort).67 There were three overlapping
architectural phases. Dominant during the 1940s and early 1950s were suburban developments in load-
bearing brick with sweeping tiled pitched roofs, disposed freely in landscaping and combining open-courtyard
and Zeilenbau planning (‘parkbebyggelsen’). For example, Voldparken in Husum (1946–9), contained 1,075
flats in seven-storey slabs and three-storey blocks, with shops and school; it was built collaboratively by
Copenhagen municipality, the Arbejdernes Andelsboligforening and the FSB, and designed by Kay Fisker (for
AAB) and four other architects. The renowned housing architect Svenn Eske Kristensen’s Bredalsparken, built
from 1950 by DAB, combined open courtyards and a sinuous ‘slangehuset’ (snake block). One- or two-storey
developments included Søndergård Park of 1949–50 (for rental by the Gladsaxe Social Welfare Housing
Society), or Hjortekjærhusene of 1943–9, with 164 terrace and semi-detached houses rented by DAB.
Denmark’s first fully-fledged kollektivhus was DAB’s Høje Søborg (1949–51), a six-storey group designed by
Hoff & Windinge and containing 124 small flats and lavish communal facilities (see Fig. 9.6).68
The second architectural phase of postwar housing was dominated by high flats, and inaugurated by
Bellahøj, Denmark’s first large-scale multi-storey project (1,300 flats), which countered the previous feeling
that ‘punkthuse’ were ‘udansk’ (un-Danish). The Copenhagen municipality owned the area, one of its last
undeveloped sites, and, following a 1945 competition, allocated its construction in 1950 among four housing
societies, to encourage variety.69 The master plan, by competition-winners Mogens Irming and Tage Nielsen,
coordinated by City Architect F. C. Lund, envisaged twenty-nine ‘twin-tower’ blocks of nine to thirteen storeys,
their two wings joined by a fully-glazed staircase tower. The project trialled-out multi-storey system building,
some sections including Kallton hoisted shuttering and precast-concrete facing-blocks. However, most early
system schemes were low-rise terraces or Zeilenbau layouts: Svenn Eske Kristensen’s prototype Malmstrøm
‘element’ blocks at Engstrands Allé (1951–4) and Strandhavevej (1953–5), designed for the local almene
boligselskab, Hvidovrebo, both comprised two-storey gallery-access blocks with in-situ internal walls and
prefabricated facades. The 1,100-dwelling Milestedet I (1953–6), by the same team, included flats of up to
sixteen storeys, still with in-situ walling (see Fig. 9.7).70
In the 1960s, the association between prefabrication and flat-building culminated in a series of developments
along the ‘fingers’ west of Copenhagen, each featuring its own system-building plan. First was the Ballerupplan
of 1958–62, with 1,644 Modulbeton dwellings built by AAB and the local Baldersbo society, conservatively
arranged in long, four-storey sectional staircase-access blocks with window-bands and low-pitched roofs.71
Then followed the Gladsaxeplan of 1962–6, with 1,900 flats in four-, nine- and sixteen-storey blocks, the latter
in a monumental array of five slabs, by architects Agertoft and Juul-Møller, Hoff & Windinge and Alex Poulsen,

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A B

C D

E F
Fig. 9.6 (a): Housing Ministry graph of Danish housing production, subdivided by sector and built form, 1958–75.
(b): Dronningegården redevelopment, Copenhagen, a higher-income slum-clearance redevelopment from 1943, designed
by Kay Fisker and Svenn Eske Kristensen (MG 2018). (c): Voldparken, Husum, Copenhagen (1946–9), a mixture of three-
storey blocks and taller slabs designed by Kay Fisker and others, and built by the municipality, AAB and FSB (MG 2018).
(d): Bredalsparken, Hvidovre, built in 1950–9 by DAB to Svenn Eske Kristensen’s designs, including sinuous ‘snake block’
(slangehus) (MG 2018). (e): Søndergård Park, Bagsværd (1949–50), low-rise garden rental development by the Gladsaxe
Social Welfare Housing Association (MG 2018). (f): Høje Soborg collective house, Copenhagen: Denmark’s first fully-
fledged kollektivhus, built in 1949–51 by DAB with lavish facilities, to designs by Hoff & Windinge (MG 2018).

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 The Nordic Countries – Social Versus Individual?

A B C

D E F
Fig. 9.7 (a, b, c): Bellahøj, Copenhagen, Denmark’s first large-scale multi-storey development, built by four housing
societies in collaboration: 1950 layout master plan by architects Mogens Irming and Tage Nielsen, and 2018 (MG) external
view and interior of linking stair in one of the twenty-nine twin-tower blocks. (d, e): Engstrands Allé (1951–4) and
Strandhavevej (1953–5), Hvidovre: Svenn Eske Kristensen’s prototype Malmstrøm ‘element’ schemes for local society
Hvidovrebo (MG 2018). (f): Bellmansgade, Copenhagen, of 1958–61: early use of precast panel cladding by Larsen &
Nielsen (MG 2010).

and the 2,260-unit Avedøre Stationsby development of 1972–5, by the local Avedøre Boligselskab, strikingly
polarized between a four-storey ‘city wall’ and one long fifteen-storey slab around its perimeter, and two-storey
terraces at the centre. The largest and most monumental of the Køge Bugt townships, Brøndby Strand, was
developed over a longer period (1964–74). This 2,700-unit development, ranged along a beach-front ‘leisure
strip’, was divided into four sections, each executed by a housing society and containing a shopping centre and
a mix of low-rise terraces and sixteen-storey towers, all in Larsen & Nielsen open-system prefabrication and
designed in a unified scheme by architects Svend Høgsbro and Th. Dreyer. In Denmark’s second city, Århus,
the equivalent to these projects was the four- and eight-storey Gellerupplan of 1967–72; in Odense, Vollsmose
was likewise constructed from 1967.72 The most exotic offshoot of this linear pattern was the extensive 1960s
development built by the Danish government in Godthåb (later Nuuk), capital of the territory of Greenland,
as part of an infrastructural modernization programme following the ending of colonial status in 1953. Its
culmination, the 260m-long, six-storey ‘Blok P’ (1965–6) – a large building even by mainland Danish standards
– dominated the Godthåb townscape, and its 320 flats housed around 1% of the entire Greenlandic population,
in a manner not optimally suited to the Inuit fishing lifestyle (see Fig. 9.8).73

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A B C

D E
Fig. 9.8 (a, b): The ‘Ballerup Plan’ project, of 1958–62: 1,644 Modulbeton dwellings built by AAB and Baldersbo;
advertisement feature and 2010 view (MG) of eight-storey slab-block. (c): Gladsaxeplanen (1962–6): a multi-agency
programme of 1,900 flats in blocks up to sixteen storeys; architects Agertoft and Juul-Møller, Hoff & Windinge and Alex
Poulsen (MG 2010). (d, e): Avedøre Stationsby, Brøndby, 2,266 dwellings, built from 1972 for the local Avedøre Boligselskab,
including two-storey houses, four-storey ‘city wall’ and slab-block (Store Hus): perspective and 2018 (MG) view of slab-
block (architects Kooperative Byggeindustri A/S).

But by this time, the third and final phase of Danish mass-housing architecture was underway, rejecting
CIAM’s spacious rectilinearity for denser, more individualized solutions resembling low-rise high-density,
structuralist-style projects elsewhere, such as Écochard’s Casablanca or INA-Casa’s Tuscolano III in Rome –
on which see chapters 9 and 14. This ‘tæt-lave’ (high-density low-rise) tendency first emerged in avant-garde
1950s schemes such as the DAB’s Grenhusene in Hvidovre, designed by Svenn Eske Kristensen as early as
1953 (at the same time as his more mainstream ‘park’ schemes) in a metaphoric pattern of ‘branches’ and
‘leaves’, with a central pedestrian access-way flanked by partly-prefabricated single-storey courtyard-houses.
During the 1960s, low-rise high-density projects proliferated, with practices such as Fællestegnestuen
establishing specialist expertise in this area. Albertslund Syd, built in 1966–8 for two housing associations in
load-bearing crosswall rationalized-traditional brickwork with two-storey steel sheet-cladding, comprised
2,300 single-family units in patio-houses and three-storey terraced houses. Albertslund Syd remained faithful
to CIAM rectilinearity, but by the early 1970s, more complex low-rise experiments were underway, aiming at
a ‘system with a human face’. A belt of innovative projects was undertaken west of Copenhagen by the

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 The Nordic Countries – Social Versus Individual?

H
Fig. 9.8 (f): Brøndby Strand, largest of the four Køge Bugt townships, developed in 1964–74 in Larsen & Nielsen open-
system prefabrication by four housing societies to the designs of architects Svend Høgsbro and Th. Dreyer (MG 2018).
(g): Højgaard & Schultz pilot prefabricated project, Holmegårdsparken, Kokkedal, Nordsjælland, 1970–1 (architects Juul
Møller and Erik Korshagen) (cf. 14.1e/f). (h): Blok P, Godthåb (Nuuk), Greenland, 1965–6: 2011 view prior to its
demolition. Its 320 flats housed 1% of the population of Greenland (2011).

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Vridsløselille Andelsboligforening local society: these included the 570-dwelling, precast-concrete

Galgebakken, Albertslund (1972–4), whose flexible internal walling let occupants rearrange or enlarge their
dwellings; Gadekæret, Ishøj (1974–6), evoking traditional farmsteads with its precast gables; and Hyldespjældet
(1975–7), a Larsen & Nielsen low-rise development allowing huge design variety from a limited number of
precast components, externally expressed in a manic profusion of pitched roofs and gables. The culmination
of Danish ‘tæt-lave’ design was the slightly earlier (1970–5) Farum Midtpunkt, a 1,360-unit project designed
by Fællestegnestuen for two housing societies as a dense, fiendishly complex megastructural agglomeration of
stepped, interlocking three-storey linear/terraced houses on a service and parking podium, a solution
influenced by Utzon’s (private) Kingo Houses of 1957–8, and here amounting to a ‘built landscape’ in its own
right. Construction was equally idiosyncratic: modular crosswalls with timber and Cor-Ten metal cladding.
The ultra-complex design was reflected in an ultra-democratic management system, including individual
block councils (see Fig. 9.9).74

A B

C
Fig. 9.9 (a): Grenhusene, Hvidovre, 1953 pioneer of ‘tæt-lave’ (low-rise high-density) planning, by Svenn Eske Kristensen
(MG 2018). (b): Albertslund Syd, Albertslund, 1,557 dwellings in one- and three-storey blocks built from 1961 for two
housing associations, designed by Fællestegnestuen. (c): Gadekæret, Ishøj, 1974–6, farmstead-style low-rise prefabricated
complex by the Vridsløselille Andelsboligforening (VAB) local society; architects Kooperativ Byggeindustri (MG 2018).

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 The Nordic Countries – Social Versus Individual?

D E F

G H
Fig. 9.9 (d, e): Hyldespjældet, Albertslund (1975–7), VAB low-rise project in Larsen & Nielsen prefabrication, architect
Ole Asbjørn Birch (MG 2018). (f, g, h): Farum Midtpunkt, Furesø, 1,578 flats in terraced, megastructural linear rows, built
by two local societies in 1970–5 and designed by architects Fællestegnestuen; constructed in reinforced concrete with
timber and Cor-Ten steel elements (MG 2018).

Finland, Norway and Iceland: mass housing for the individual

The orientation of Danish and Swedish mass housing towards planned community gave them a strong external
profile, a status reinforced by the 1960s proliferation of externally-marketed building systems. Munch-Petersen
boasted in a 1980 building-technology overview that 150,000 dwellings were being completed annually using
Danish systems, and that ‘dansk bygge-know-how’ exerted global influence.75 In Finland, Norway and Iceland,
far less emphasis was placed on collective organization and decommodification, and state intervention took
very different forms.
In Finland, individualism was tempered by the roots of postwar mass housing in wartime disaster: over
10% of the population were refugees from the territory ceded to the USSR. Reflecting this, policy oscillated
between government intervention and private initiative for fifty years after 1945, while unflinchingly upholding
the ideal of owner-occupation; as late as the 1980s, 40% of new houses were built with state loans (down from
70% in 1945–57), and the proportion of owner-occupied houses rose from 28% in 1950 to 72% in 1988.
Although Helsinki still retained around 30,000 social rental dwellings by the 1980s, rental housing never
seemed to really ‘belong’ in Finland. Prefabrication boomed late – rising from 33% of new flats in 1967 to 70%
in 1980. The principal Finnish government support mechanism for housing, however, remained unchanged:

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the National Housing Board, or ARAVA (Asuntorakennustuotannon valtuuskunta). Established in 1949,

ARAVA allocated low-interest second-mortgage state housing loans; controlled the quality, size and cost of
state-loan housing; and coordinated with provinces and municipalities. ARAVA loans, for rent or sale, were
granted to housing organizations, not individuals, and only in areas where an overall development plan
applied, to dampen speculation – unlike systems such as the American FHA. The owner’s share was typically
20% of total expenditure, a considerable hurdle owing to high building costs, but by 1958 ARAVA was
financing two-thirds of all new urban dwellings, including much of the set-piece satellite town of Tapiola.76
Government financial and regulatory support was complemented by the planning system, which burgeoned
during the wartime emergency. The unchallenged focus was Helsinki, whose ‘Great Incorporation’ of
surrounding municipalities in 1946 vastly boosted its land supply. Early postwar ARAVA-supported suburbs
resembled interwar German modernist Siedlungen, following the precedent of the Olympic Village (1936–
40), but small point-blocks were added to the Zeilenbau-plan Maunula (1949–56), and the early-1950s
Ruskeasuo included high ‘star’ blocks. In 1947, the neighbourhood-unit principle was endorsed in an influential
book, Asemakaavaoppi (‘Town Planning’), by Prof Otto-Iivari Meurman. Finnish planning had a strong anti-
urban strand, championed by the Finnish Population and Family Welfare Foundation (Väestöliitto), a pressure
group founded in 1941: its head, Heikki von Hertzen, a militant advocate of garden cities and detached timber
cottages, published in 1946 an influential polemical book, Koti vaiko kasarmi lapsilemme? (A home or a
barracks for our children?). In peripheral districts, the preferred development model – the ‘forest city’ –
differed sharply from Sweden and Denmark in its overwhelming emphasis on unsullied nature and avoidance
of even mildly urban building-forms: visiting a group of detached courtyard-houses by Edvard Ludvig at the
Berlin Interbau project in 1958, for instance, architect Aarne Ervi anxiously warned that ‘Finns may not be
comfortable in such confined settings’ (see Fig. 9.10).77
Given Finland’s more dispersed development pattern and predominance of timber building, its cautious
shift to prefabrication necessarily took lower-density forms than Denmark’s and Sweden’s. The 1940s saw
numerous proposals for timber prefabricated cottages for refugees, as well as intensive collaboration (from
1941) between architect Alvar Aalto and the Warkaus Factory on lightweight framed, standardized dwellings.78
The ARAVA programmes spurred, in turn, the establishment of public-utility organizations as an alternative
to private-sector development, especially the Housing Foundation (Asuntosäätiö, initiated in 1951) and the
low-income condominium-orientated Home Savers’ Society (Asuntosäästäjät, 1957). Around Helsinki’s
periphery, Asuntosäästäjät built forest-city developments such as Vantaanpuisto (to the north) and Vuosaari
(east). Vantaanpuisto, built in 1964–70 and funded by mixed ARAVA and private-sector loans, comprised
low-rise dwellings and seven nine-storey towers in a two-stage master plan by Aarne Ervi, embedded in a
dense forest setting.79
The Housing Foundation was a semi-governmental body, inspired by the cooperative Riksbyggen model
and allocated a single, high-profile task, that of building Tapiola, a new, ARAVA-financed garden city west of
Helsinki. Tapiola’s initial development plan in 1945, prepared by a multi-disciplinary team headed by Meurman,
combined modernist devices such as neighbourhood units with Von Hertzen and Meurman’s low-density
preferences, limiting any apartments to four storeys. In practice, when work actually began in 1952, practical
constraints such as ARAVA pressure for more small flats compelled the Foundation to include modestly-
scaled multi-storey blocks, including nine-storey towers from 1953. After a study-visit to Riksbyggen schemes
in Sweden, it was decided full prefabrication would be too expensive for the modestly-scaled, dispersed blocks,
and that rationalized-traditional techniques were more appropriate. At Ervi’s ten-storey Mantytorni and three-
storey Mantykulmi blocks of 1954, slipform concrete-casting and limited on-site precasting were used
respectively; Viljo Revell’s sculptural, bow-fronted ‘hip-flask’ towers of 1959–61 were traditionally-built in in-
situ concrete.80 From this modest beginning, prefabricated and rationalized-traditional construction steadily

260
 The Nordic Countries – Social Versus Individual?

A B

C
Fig. 9.10 (a): Front cover of Koti vaiko kaserme lapsillemme? (‘Homes or Barracks for our Children?’), Heikki von
Hertzen’s polemical tract of 1946. (b): Maunula, Helsinki (1949–56): mainly Zeilenbau-plan low-rise development
augmented with small point-blocks (MG 2012). (c): Vantaanpuisto, near Helsinki: a ‘forest city’ built in 1964–70 by
Asuntosäästäjät (Home Savers’ Society), master-planned by Aarne Ervi (MG 2012).

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E F G
Fig. 9.10 (d, e): Tapiola, Espoo: the 1945 development plan by Meurman’s Housing Foundation team, and the Säästökontu,
Tornitaso and Nelostorni blocks (1959–61) designed by architect Viljo Revell and constructed in rationalized-traditional
concrete (MG 2012). (f): Herttoniemi, Helsinki, 1957, slipform-construction towers by architect Osmo Sipari (MG 2012).
(g): Pihlajamäki, near Helsinki (1962–5), by architect Lauri Silvennoinen, a 1,152-unit forest hilltop project of towers and
terraces in rationalized-traditional construction: it and Tapiola strongly influenced later housing projects in the Soviet
Baltic republics (cf., e.g., 10.10, 10.11) (MG 2012).

spread in Finland, for example at the architect Osmo Sipari’s Hiihtuvuori slipform towers at Herttoniemi
(1957), or the Pihlajamäki project by architect Lauri Silvennoinen, a 1,152-unit forest hilltop project of four-
storey terraces and eight-storey towers (1962–5), whose ‘artistic’ prefabrication formula included on-site
manufacture of highly-systematized reinforced-concrete components.81 Over the seven decades after World
War II, Finland’s housing-policy fluctuations – latterly a sharp revival in social housing after the 1990s owing
to a recession and collapse of private-enterprise – left a strongly polarized patrimony, including a strong
social-housing sector comprising 16% of the national housing stock, 60% of these being ARA-subsidized
rental dwellings owned by municipalities, with social housing companies playing only a very minor role.82

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 The Nordic Countries – Social Versus Individual?

This survival of a healthy social-rented sector distinguished Finland from the other two champions of Nordic
mass-housing individualism: Norway and Iceland. In both these, the twentieth century saw relentless suppression
of the private-rented sector without compensating promotion of social renting: state intervention and mass-
housing construction were both preoccupied with home ownership, although Icelandic state involvement was
intermittent, and skewed by the country’s recurrent economic instability. Norway’s housing ground-rules had
been set before the war, by a social-democratic party strongly opposed to private landlordism.83 After 1945, with
the Labour Party (Arbeiderpartiet) in control nationally, the dominance of not just owner-occupied but owner-
built housing continued, and government housing finance focused on indirect, rather than direct subsidies for
occupation. By 1996, 84% of Norwegians owned their own home (60% in detached single-family houses), while
14% of housing was owned by cooperative societies (30% in Oslo). A tripartite collaboration system between
national government, local government and private enterprise (including co-ops) prevailed. First and most
important, in 1946, was the establishment of Husbanken (the National Housing Bank). Husbanken focused on
sectors where credit was scarce, and its programmes from 1948 were subject to Housing Ministry approval: the
term ‘Husbank standard’ was widely-used. Unlike Denmark, Husbank mortgages provided basic loans for
individual-ownership and cooperative housing, covering 75%–80% of building costs. Following the Korean War
public-spending cuts, the budget for Husbank loans was halved in 1953–8: 1954’s maximum of 35,000
completions was not reached again until 1969. The second postwar enhancement consolidated social-housing
cooperatives into a national network of ‘mother’ and ‘daughter’ associations, or boligbyggelag (BBL) and
borettslag (BRL) organizations, responsible for building and management respectively. Eventually, by 1996,
there were 104 BBLs, administering 3,800 BRLs and 240,000 dwellings; individual ownership of flats was only
possible from the mid-1960s. The third aspect of this coordinated yet decentralized system involved the
municipalities, who zoned, bought and laid out development land, usually in city-extension areas, for (subsidized)
sale to BBLs. This system culminated after the 1965 election, when the Minister of Local Government and
Labour, Helge Seip, pledged an annual target of 40,000 houses per annum and compelled all local authorities to
prepare master plans. Housebuilding peaked at 43,000 completions in 1975 (35,000 Husbank-financed).84
However, BBL dominance in the social sector did not go unchallenged: during the first postwar decade, the
city of Bergen undertook a significant programme of British- or Dutch-style municipal rental housing,
sidelining its chief BBL, the Bergen og omegn boligbyggelag (BOB: Bergen Regional Building Society), and
the other main city cooperative, Vestbo – a policy influenced by the strong Communist representation in the
city council. In 1945–54, Oslo’s OBOS built 43% of all new housing, whereas in Bergen, BOB and Vestbo built
only 17% and the municipality 41%. Only following a Communist voting collapse in the 1953 municipal
election did the local Labour Party abandon this policy, under a new, reforming housing-committee chair,
Harry Hansen. Imitating the hegemonic policies in Denmark and Sweden, the existing municipal stock was
sold and exclusive reliance was placed on the associations. Yet this shift was less significant than it seemed, as
the municipality owned 80% of BOB’s capital, so the association was essentially a municipal department by
another name, not unlike Örebro’s Stiftelsen Hyresbostäder.85
Architecturally, the single-family timber-built house reigned supreme in Norway. Thus Norwegian system-
building focused on US-style demountable timber kits, which expanded from 187 dwellings completed in
1959 to 18,000 in 1979; heavy-concrete systems for flats made relatively little impact, even in their heyday of
1967–72. The ‘municipal versus co-op’ tussles were not reflected in postwar housing architecture, which
differed little between Oslo and Bergen. In Oslo, which achieved a huge boundary extension in 1948 and a city
plan (Generalplanen for Oslo) in 1950, a succession of peripheral townships was developed under the direction
of the long-standing (1948–70) city planner, Erik Rolfsen, following a Stockholm-style formula of linear
development poles along planned metro lines. Early developments featured low-rise Zeilenbau blocks in
landscape settings, notably at Lambertseter, a six-neighbourhood OBOS project designed in 1950 by the

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influential planner and social-democratic councillor Frode Rinnen and completed in 1958; at the Bøler
satellite township, the USBL cooperative built Oslo’s first multi-storey towers, three twelve-storey slipform
blocks at Bølerskogen I by architects Krag & Selmer (1956–7). More complex, agglomerated patterns prevailed
in OBOS’s 2,600-dwelling Ramsås development of 1970–4.86
Around Bergen, a more dramatic ramping-up of scale occurred. Within the city itself, BOB began in 1956
a high-density development on a wooded hillside site at Strimmelen (including three eleven-storey blocks).
Elsewhere in eastern and southern Bergensdalen, a range of low-rise houses and flats, with landmark blocks
of up to twelve storeys, was built by BOB and Vestbo between 1951 and 1961, augmented by other societies.87
Later and more monumental were the developments promoted by the ambitious neighbouring municipality
of Laksevåg, which had been seriously war-damaged and founded its own BBL, Laksevåg Boligbyggelag, in
1962. This promptly acquired a 1,000-acre land bank in Loddefjorddalen, a dramatic fjord-side site south of
the conurbation. Here the Laksevåg’s Labour Party leadership planned a massive Husbank-funded development
for middle-income social owner-occupation, using multi-storey flats to maximize dwelling yield. From 1966,
an ambitious, multi-phase development was commenced, in partnership with developer Arne Sande: it yielded
3,000 units, including nearly 1,000 flats in Dutch-style gallery-access thirteen- to fourteen-storey slabs – all
distributed to separate BRLs on completion (see Fig. 9.11).88
In Iceland, divergence from ‘Nordic welfare-state’ stereotypes was at its sharpest. Here, unlike the continuity
of ARAVA or Husbank policymaking, or the use of social housing in Sweden as a building-industry regulator,
social-housing policy was episodic and convulsive. The wartime Anglo-American occupation massively
boosted economic affluence while reinforcing the national ideology of self-reliance – culminating in the
declaration of independence from Denmark in June 1944. It also bequeathed a significant built legacy, with
nearly 6,000 prefabricated Nissan and Quonset barracks (‘braggar’ in Icelandic) within Reykjavik used for
civilian accommodation between 1944 and 1966.89 Postwar policy was also shaped by longer cultural traditions,
including an extreme antagonism to landlords, stemming from centuries of rural poverty. This translated into
an equally extreme addiction to owner-occupation and self-building – a cause embraced more fervently than
even in Norway, although generally using concrete owing to the lack of trees.90 All established parties –
including the right-wing Independence Party and the centre-left Progressive Party and Social Democratic
Party – supported owner-occupation. The home-ownership ethos was also reinforced by yearning for stability
amidst the incessant climate of emergency in mid-/late twentieth-century Iceland, with repeated governmental
coalition upheavals and nearly eighteen years of hyper-inflation, averaging 30% from 1973 to 1991, and
reaching 50% in the late 1970s, often in parallel with high income growth.91
In Reykjavik, the overall trajectory of housing construction followed the familiar pattern of postwar
acceleration, with output of 3,816 dwellings during 1946–54 doubling to 7,455 during 1955–65. But the rate of
home-ownership soared too, from 38 to 53% between 1940 and the 1950s. A key role was played by the
cooperative ‘Workers’ Housing Programme’, whose output increased from 211 during the 1930s to 2,119 during
the 1980s (14% of all new dwellings in Reykjavik), and totalling nearly 6,000 dwellings overall.92 By then,
several generations of state-assisted home-ownership schemes had followed, exploiting a 1932 law to facilitate
state help to other cooperatives, including occupational or trade-union groups like lorry drivers or carpenters,
or co-ops of neighbours or even family members. This system really came into its own in the 1950s, often in
the form of modestly-scaled building-only co-ops: a typical project might comprise a four-storey miniature
tower of three or four apartments, distributed to individual owners. This system eventually produced as many
dwellings as the Workers Housing Programme. The year 1955 also saw the first attempt to expand support to
straightforward individual owner-occupiers, through subsidies from a new State Housing Board. During the
1970s and 1980s, the SHB’s 20% building-construction loans, paid over eighteen months, rapidly escalated to
a maximum of 70%, sourced both from the government housing fund and pension fund. As in Brazil or

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 The Nordic Countries – Social Versus Individual?

A B

C D
Fig. 9.11 (a): Birkeveien, Bergen (1955): the first prefabricated scheme in the city, by architect Sverre Lied (MG 2014).
(b, c): Strimmelen, Landås, built by the local boligbyggelag (BBL), BOB, from 1956; architect Halfdan Grieg (MG 2014).
(d): Loddefjord, Bergen, a massive, 3,000-unit development built from 1966 by the Laksevåg BBL in partnership with
developer Arne Sande, including nearly 1,000 flats in thirteen- to fourteen-storey gallery-access slabs (MG 2014).

Argentina, these years of hyper-inflation, in effect, handed many owner-occupiers (individual and cooperative/
workmen’s) their dwellings free of cost – an obvious boost to the fortunes and appeal of home-ownership.93
Owing to the entrenched laissez-faire orientation of Icelandic society, planning and modernization
sometimes took unexpected forms. The Reconstruction Government of 1959–70 – the most stable in Iceland’s
history, running to three full terms under joint Independence Party–SDP leadership – pursued a strategy that
combined planned modernization, opening-up to foreign investment, and urbanization, together with a
scaling-back of state intervention and protectionism. Here the place of city-planning naturally fluctuated. In
1936 there had been an initial attempt at an outline city plan for Reykjavik but the Independence Party’s
prolonged control of the City Council from the 1940s led to the scaling-back of planning ambitions – other
than clearance of the wartime barracks. With rapid postwar population growth (from 64,000 to 82,000 in
1955–70), and the accession of the Reconstruction Government, city planning returned to the top of the
official agenda in 1960, and Danish architect/planner Peder Bredsdorff was commissioned to prepare an
urban master plan, implemented from 1965.94

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The most significant post-1940 intervention by Reykjavik City Council, however, was not in planning but
in its energetic but short-lived venture into the field of direct house-building – in other words, council
housing – between 1942 and 1948. In 1942, faced with booming rural in-migration, the council’s IP leadership
abandoned its previous policy of building temporary wooden huts and instead asked Einar Sveinsson, Iceland’s
foremost modernist architect, to prepare a scheme for blocks of four-storey flats in Hringbraut (nos. 37–47,
built in 1943–4), on a Zeilenbau layout explicitly influenced by Swedish småhus shallow plan-types, maximizing
sunlight from all sides: the blocks were only 9.5m deep. Financed by a municipal building fund, the project
was restrainedly modernist in style, with pitched roofs and Danish/Swedish-style curved balconies on the
garden facades: similar schemes followed in Skúlagata in 1944–8, for slum-clearance, and in Langahlid (now
Miklabraut) in 1945–9. The first and third projects were for home-ownership, but the second (Skúlagata) was
rental; the programme abruptly ended after state funding was refused for Langahlid on the grounds that it was
too expensive and ‘luxurious’ compared to Workers’ Dwellings projects.95
After 1948, with the cooperative sector taking the lead in Reykjavik flat-building, the city planning director
(1954–9), Gunnar H Ólafson, facilitated the first, restrained projects for multi-storey condominium blocks
(fjölbýlishús), with nine blocks commenced in the late 1950s and early 1960s in the western suburbs: by 1957
adjustments to planning regulations allowed blocks of up to thirteen storeys, but the towers went no higher
than that. The first multi-storey developments were built by the self-consciously progressive printers’ union,
which had founded Iceland’s first union building-fund and cooperative (byggingarsamvinnufélag prentara) in
1944, and had commissioned a series of cooperative developments designed by Sveinsson from 1945 onwards.
Their first full-blown multi-storey development, an eight-storey block at Kleppsvegur 2–6, was begun in 1956;
Sveinsson employed Swedish-inspired slip-form construction. When completed in 1957, this was the tallest
building in Iceland, but soon lost that distinction to a cluster of twelve- and thirteen-storey point-blocks in the
Langholt district (Sólheimar), in 1957–62, designed by Sveinsson with a complex layout featuring five flats on
each floor, again to maximize daylight and sunlight penetration.96
Thereafter, the city planners decided for several years to limit social-housing developments to three storeys
maximum – a pattern which still prevailed at the commencement of Reykjavik’s biggest social-housing
complex, Breiðholt. Constructed in three widely-separated phases (I, 1966–73; II, 1970– 85; III, 1966–80),
this was the most significant housing zone in the Bredsdorff Plan.97 Breiðholt was designed and built by a
City Council-sponsored agency, FB, which was steered (following financial problems) by a special
committee controlled jointly by the City Council and trade unions: such a large and problematic public-sector
project was seen by many as an aberration from Icelandic values of self-reliance. Under a 1965 general labour-
market agreement between government and unions, the former pledged loans for 1,250 social dwellings in
Breiðholt and in one other estate; of these, about 350 were social-rental dwellings administered by the city
social-welfare bureau, and the remaining 900 were for social ownership, allocated to members of Reykjavik-
based trade unions. Both categories of flats were intended partly for displacees from the last of the braggar to
be cleared.98 Breiðholt Phase I, planned on an elevated plateau by architect Stefan Jansson and landscapist
Regnir Vilhjálmsson, housed 4,000 in 840 conventionally-built units, grouped in U-shaped courtyards to give
shelter and segregate pedestrians from vehicles: accommodation comprised 30% villas, 15% row-houses and
55% flats.99 The prevalent three-storey height of Breiðholt I, and of other late 1960s/early 1970s developments
such as Arbær, was inspired especially by contemporary Danish projects such as Albertslund Syd. Later phases
of Breiðholt used prefabrication and formwork, and returned to higher blocks: the Fell development of
Breiðholt III (1971–3) included several dense, medium-rise linear blocks with some rental flats, largely
occupied by trade union members. However, after 1973, the rampant inflation that gripped Iceland for two
decades inhibited any consistent programmes of housing, and Breiðholt was only finally completed in 1980
(see Fig. 9.12).100

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 The Nordic Countries – Social Versus Individual?

A B C

D E F
Fig. 9.12 (a): Hringbraut 37–47, Reykjavik (1943–4): Zeilenbau layout of council flats designed by Iceland’s foremost
modernist architect, Einar Sveinsson (MG 2013). (b): Kleppsvegur 2–6, from 1956: Reykjavik’s first full-blown multi-
storey development, built for a printers’ union co-op and designed by Sveinsson in slipform construction (MG 2013).
(c, d): Sólheimar, Reykjavik (1957–62), a cluster of twelve- and thirteen-storey point-blocks designed by Sveinsson for the
printers’ cooperative (MG 2013). (e): Breiðholt I, Reykjavik, the first phase of the Bredsdorff Plan’s chief city extension
area, built both for social rental and trade union-run home-ownership; planned by architect Stefan Jansson and landscapist
Regnir Vilhjálmsson with 840 units in U-shaped courtyards (MG 2013). (f): Breiðholt III, Reykjavik (1971–3), low-rise
high-density development including linear blocks, mainly for trade union cooperative owner-occupation (MG 2013).

Overall, as this chapter has demonstrated, the Nordic countries featured a more complex mosaic of
contrasting mass-housing patterns and microregions than the simple dichotomy of Belgium and the
Netherlands – complexities that manifested themselves both in attitudes to the relative role of the state and
private citizens in housing provision, and in interpretations of supposedly universal modernist architecture.
The stereotypical picture of homogeneous Scandinavian social-democratic welfarism was far from the truth,
architecturally as well as organizationally: the almost Soviet grandeur of Malmö’s Rosengård would have been
inconceivable in the hyggelig intimacy of Copenhagen a short distance away across the Øresund. In the
countries of southern Europe – the subject of the next chapter – a yet more disparate pattern prevailed, offset
by significant commonalities of ‘traditional’ social structure and limitations on the role of the modern
corporatist state.

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CHAPTER 10
SOUTHERN EUROPE: SOCIAL HOUSING
FOR KINSHIP SOCIETIES

With this chapter, our account of First World mass housing ends on a transitional note, with the societies of
Southern Europe. Their postwar housing in some ways resembled Latin America as much as Northern Europe,
for example in their vast rural-to-urban migrations and mushrooming informal settlements, combined with
conservative, family-dominated (mostly Catholic) social systems and governments: the latter featured strong
corporatist tendencies in the Esping-Andersen sense, especially in relation to the role of the Church, but
shallower state intervention overall. The resulting social housing sector was much smaller than in Northern
Europe, and dominated by home-ownership rather than rental. Among Northern European countries, only
the rise of laissez-faire, home-owning Belgium arguably had any affinity with the mass housing of this region.
Yet this was also a disparate area, with significant divergences between ‘progressive’ states prepared to intervene
significantly in housing (Italy, Malta) and ‘conservative’, low-intervention systems (Spain, Portugal, Greece,
Turkey). Correspondingly, there were sharp output contrasts: per-capita social housing production in Italy
was over four times that of Spain, and in Malta over five times higher again.1 Architecturally, the split was
different and much sharper, between the extreme individuality and inventiveness of Italian social housing
design and the more utilitarian approaches elsewhere in the region.

The progressive South: postwar housing in Italy and Malta

The most active social housing programmes in Southern Europe stemmed from two political systems that
emphasized a strong social-policy role for the state: Italy and Malta. The latter was exceptional within the
European context, as an ex-British colony (independent from 1964) whose governmental systems included an
all-powerful Public Works Department dominating building affairs, and a Westminster-style two-party
system polarized between the conservative National Party and the left-wing, anti-British Labour Party, led by
the charismatic Dom Mintoff, who took power from 1971. But despite the political fireworks, within housing
policy there was much consensus, including an emphasis on self-built owner-occupation and sites-and-
services – a policy partly shared by Britain’s other Mediterranean island territory, Cyprus, whose initial
postwar housing efforts, including late-1940s low-rise projects by the PWD and Nicosia, Famagusta and
Limassol municipalities, were drastically curtailed by incessant political conflict and the 1974 Turkish
invasion.2 In Malta, this agenda was furthered by Labour’s 1976 establishment of a Housing Authority, tasked
with large-scale provision of serviced plots for development with two-storey home-ownership terraces.3
Alongside this, Malta saw a significant public-rental programme of some 1,200 completions per annum up to
the early 1980s, run by the PWD, which combined British-style colonial organization with the cultural
nationalism of a new generation of young Maltese architects: the late 1950s saw the establishment of a PWD
housing section headed by engineer John Gambina, including younger architects such as Joseph Spiteri and
Joseph Tonna.4
Initially, postwar Maltese housing focused on low-rise rental flats, with conventional internal staircase-
access and stone-clad modernist styling. Some were in slum-clearance areas (beginning with Il Mandragg in

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 Southern Europe: Social Housing for Kinship Societies

1955) and others on gap-sites, such as Spiteri’s stepped, four-storey Corradino Hill Flats, Paola (1959). During
the 1960s, these piecemeal developments were intermittently augmented by new, self-contained townships,
inspired by British Mk.1 New Towns. The first was Spiteri and Gambina’s 1959 design for the Tarxien New
Community (Santa Lucija), featuring Harlow-like, landscaped curving streets of low-rise terraces, and clumps
of four-/five-storey towers. Later, similar developments included San Gwann t’Ghuxa, Bormla, of 1971–2, but
the satellite-town programme was abandoned in 1969 and piecemeal building revived, so most Maltese
communities ended up with at least one small government estate on their periphery. The year 1971 also saw
construction of a very different project – Spiteri’s ornately classical King’s Gate apartment block and shopping
centre, by the main city gate of central Valletta, designed as a prestige project for the incoming Mintoff
government (see Fig. 10.1).5

B C
Fig. 10.1 (a): Corradino Flats, Paola, Malta: Public Works Department rental development of 1959, designed by Joseph
Spiteri (MG 2015). (b): S Lucija New Town (Tarxien New Community), Malta, planned satellite town laid out by PWD
engineer John Gambina, with Joseph Spiteri, from 1959 (MG 2015). (c): King’s Gate redevelopment, Valletta, Malta, a
prestige infill development of 1971 by Spiteri in a ‘contextual’ classical style, for the newly elected Dom Mintoff government
(MG 2015).

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Mass Housing

Unlike Malta’s peaceful postwar decolonization, Italy’s violent transition from fascism to democratic
government in 1943–5 left deep cultural scar tissues. These were partly overcome with the help of the Catholic
Church, acting through the Christian Democratic Party (Democrazia Cristiana), founded in 1942. Its
paternalistic, corporatist hegemony spanned three decades following the 1948 defeat of the leftist ‘frente
popolare’, and facilitated an extended economic boom. This prompted a tide of internal migration during the
1950s and 1960s, from country to city and from south to north: Milan and Turin saw 50% population increases
between 1955 and 1970. Inevitably, this fuelled the large-scale building of informal housing, in shanty towns
or more elaborate settlements like French bidonvilles. These ‘borgata’ areas or ‘coree’ were usually located just
outside city boundaries, within suburban communes.6
Although the demographics partly resembled France, the Italian social-housing response was far less
consistent. Between the wars, Italy had achieved only half of France’s per-capita production level. Unlike most
Northern European countries, the three postwar decades actually saw an overall decline in government
support and construction – in Naples, for example, 1970s social-housing output was only half that of the
1950s. In the late 1940s, the emphasis was on repairing war damage; overall, there was very little slum-
clearance in postwar Italy.7 Whereas subsidized private housing accounted for 81%–94% of annual national
output between 1951 and 1978, the percentage of social housing more than halved from its 1951–5 maximum
of 18% by 1960. Public housing was seen restrictively, as a response to specific problems or a stepping stone
for lower-income groups to home ownership, helping expand the latter’s coverage from 40% in 1951 to 60%
forty years later.8
Public support for postwar housing was channelled through two basic schemes: edilizia sovvenzionata,
state-subsidized rental housing built by public agencies (IACPs or communes); and edilizia agevolata, owner-
occupier dwellings supported by state grants and tax-relief. Edilizia sovvenzionata was supported by a
succession of gradually scaled-down financing schemes, the rental stock of each phase being sold to its
occupiers immediately following its conclusion, more than counterbalancing new building campaigns: in
1951–70, while 800,000 public housing units were added to the existing stock, 850,000 were removed by
privatization, and further privatizations followed in 1993, leaving 826,000 dwellings owned by IACPs and
200,000 by local authorities. This process could mask high cumulative output: in 1980s Trieste, for example, a
quarter of all twentieth-century rental housing had been built by the IACP, but only 11% remained in its
ownership.9 The IACPs remained the key thread of continuity within the Italian social housing system, having
been purged in 1945 of their fascist associations, and four years later earmarked as the chief vehicles for
edilizia sovvenzionata. Their work was coordinated by a national association, ANIACAP: the Milan IACP was
vastly larger than all the others, accounting for nearly 25% of all national IACP investment in 1956–63.
Alongside these local agencies, other nationwide housing systems also flourished, including postwar
reconstruction projects administered by the UNRRA, for instance at the San Basilio project in Rome (1950–
5); or the civil servants’ housing built by INCIS.10

INA-Casa: the Christian Democratic housing vision

The foundation stone of the postwar housing drive was the 1949 legislation enacted by the Christian Democrat-
led government, following completion of immediate war-damage reconstructions in 1945–7. This stipulated
that only central government could fund the IACPs – a position that prevailed until 1971 – and set out the
subsidy programme which would support social house-building for fourteen years: the ‘Plan INA-Casa’ (see
Fig. 10.2). As in many Latin countries, in Europe and America, the basis of this programme was a national
insurance organization: L’Istituto Nazionale delle Assicurazioni (INA), launched by the Legge Fanfani of

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 Southern Europe: Social Housing for Kinship Societies

A B C

D F

G H I
Fig. 10.2 Fifteen mini-images of INA-Casa housing scheme plaques: (a): Quartiere La Loggetta, Naples, 1956; (b) and
(c): Q Feltre, Milan, 1957–60 (2); (d): Q Acilia, Rome, 1958–61; (e) and (f): Borgo S Sergio, Trieste, from 1956 (2); (g): Q
Is Mirronis, Cagliari, 1953–6; (h): Q Palazzo dei Diavoli, Florence, 1950–8; (i): Coteto, Livorno, 1957–63; (j) and (k): Q San
Giuliano, Trieste, 1950–8 (2); (l): Q Casa Harrar, Milan, 1951–5; (m): Q Tiburtino, Rome, 1950–4; (n) and (o): Villaggio
Borgo Panigale, Bologna, 1951–5 (2) (all taken between 2011 and 2019 – MG).

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Mass Housing

J K L

M N O

Fig. 10.2 (Continued)

February 1949 and funded by taxation of salaries and industrial profits. The Plan INA-Casa (sometimes
dubbed the ‘Plan Fanfani’ after its originator, Christian Democrat Amintore Fanfani) was the housing arm of
INA and was administered by management (gestione) and property departments; in reaction against Fascist
dirigisme, the responsible government ministry was kept at one remove. It had two main aims, both concerned
with fostering postwar economic growth rather than providing for the poor or constructing a national welfare
community. The first aim was to build rental houses for employed workers, which could be subsequently
converted to home-ownership – a typically ‘Catholic’ vision of family-based community, resembling Belgium.
Secondly, the Plan INA-Casa aimed to boost building employment, as both an economic flywheel and a check
on social unrest. In this restricted double aim, the programme proved remarkably effective, producing 312,000
units in its two seven-year periods of operation, accounting for around 10% of Italy’s new dwellings and half
of all publicly-funded dwellings.11
Although INA-Casa itself was an enabling rather than executive body, with programme implementation
devolved mainly to the IACPs, the communes, INCIS and cooperatives, the Plan INA-Casa was also
unexpectedly centralized, not least in its national policy of using traditional building techniques and

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supporting small-scale, labour-intensive builders, which generated over 40,000 building jobs a year, in
complete contrast to the Northern European concept of labour-saving building industrialization. Alongside
these centralized aspects, INA-Casa’s collaborative relationship with the IACPs, in particular, fostered the
growth of local housing microregions – as in Naples, where the populist mayorships of businessman Achille
Lauro (1952–7, 1960–1) witnessed bursts of public housing construction: by 1960, the IACP della provincia
di Napoli had built 950 houses and 21,600 flats since 1947. Similarly, in Trieste, the IACP collaborated with
INA-Casa, UNRRA and other agencies in an industrial-development alliance, the Ente Porto Industriale
(EPIT), to develop a multi-phase peripheral township at Borgo San Sergio from 1956. Typically, between 1950
and 1963, the IACPs’ own programmes ran at 15%–30% of INA-Casa levels, and INCIS’s at only 10%. Local
collaborations might equally involve private firms, as with Fiat in Turin, which built twelve INA-Casa-financed
infill estates, totalling 1,162 flats, for its employees in 1949–53, followed in 1954–62 by a far larger (3,600-flat)
Piano Case Fiat, financed independently by the firm. Other autonomous programmes included the
construction of employee flats by public authorities, sometimes on a monumental scale, as with the massive,
eight-storey pitched-roof block built by the Provincia di Torino in the Via Peano, Turin, in 1954–6 (see
Fig. 10.3).12
Centralization also applied in planning and design, where the Gestione INA-Casa’s Ufficio Architettura
reigned supreme. Here the Plan’s Catholic social values gave the neighbourhood-unit concept (translated as
‘unità di vicinato’) different overtones from Northern Europe. The centrist government envisaged the partly
self-sufficient ‘quartiere’ as a filter between family and the wider community, and prescriptive ‘suggerimenti
norme e tipi’ (‘Suggested standards and types’; published 1949–51) nudged the architects of INA-Casa’s first
seven-year phase (1949–56) towards individualized, village-like groupings, exploiting vernacular design
features such as pitched, pantiled roofs and gables, and picturesque, densely-enclosed layouts: within Italian
urban housing, light penetration was traditionally less of a concern than facade modulation. These were
conceived in opposition both to the ‘indefinite, monotonous repetition’ of industrialized dwelling types and
to the anarchic chaos of Italian suburbia in general, where INA-Casa developments stood out as islands of
design intensity.13

A B
Fig. 10.3 (a): IACP sign at Phase I of the Pilastro development, Bologna (MG 2015). (b): Christian Democrat Labour
Minister Amintore Fanfani, founder of the INA-Casa programme (centre foreground), visits a building site in the Bologna
area, c. 1950.

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Mass Housing

D E
Fig. 10.3 (c): FIAT-Ina Casa housing complex in Via Sempione, Turin, 1950, designed and built by Fiat’s Servizio
Costruzioni e Impianti (MG 2019). (d): QT8 housing project, built in association with the Milan Triennale, 1947–54 (MG
2015). (e): Quartiere Varesina, Milan, a Zeilenbau IACP scheme of 1945–50, master-planned by Irenio Diotallevi and
Franco Marescotti (MG 2015).

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 Southern Europe: Social Housing for Kinship Societies

Within 1940s and 1950s Italian architecture, these ideas formed part of the wider ‘Neo-Realist’ movement,
which was resisted by older modernists of the interwar rationalist school, paralleling the LCC battle of ‘soft’
and ‘hard’ architects around 1950.The Neo-Realist advocacy of a ‘sense of place’ and of the spiritual needs ‘of
real people, not abstractions’ was fiercely contested by some rationalists, such as Milan architect and IACP
director Irenio Diotallevi, who complained in 1952 that ‘a Scandinavian-derived mode is prevalent, which
puts fantasy above reason’, and insisted that ‘rationality and function are not the opposite of beauty’. Others,
such as Albini, Peressuti and Gardella, accepted a compromise: a ‘humanized’ variant of pre-war rationalism,
clad in picturesque detailing. Further INA-Casa guidelines in 1957 contained recommendations for INA-
Casa’s second seven years, including a new stress on low density in peripheral areas – which proved
impracticable in practice.14
As always in Western European mass housing, diversity proved stronger than centralization, and local
experimentation in modern planning and construction continued unabated. In Milan, it elaborated on the
avant-garde modernist planning proposals of the late 1930s and 1940s, including Albini, Paganó and Gardella’s
1938 ‘Milano verde’ plan for Zeilenbau blocks in greenery adjoining the centro storico, or Diotallevi and
Marescotti’s 1940 ‘città orizzontale’ proposal for a dense carpet of single-storey patio-houses.15 The focus of
postwar Milanese rationalist experimentation was the ‘QT8’ project, built in association with the Milano
Triennale (in 1947–54) around a plan by Bottoni and others, containing four neighbourhoods and a central
services nucleus: the housing blocks combined Zeilenbau rectilinearity with curved, landscaped road-layouts.
The first phase, built in 1947–51, comprised two-storey terraces and four-storey flats, some in prototype
precast-concrete construction, commissioned by the Ministry of Public Works and technically overseen by
the Politecnico di Milano: later phases included taller slabs.16
The architectural impact of the Plan INA-Casa and its ‘centralized diversity’, was highlighted by the two
contrasting cases of Milan and Rome. In both, as in Belgium, general town-planning frameworks were lacking
(until 1953 and 1947 respectively) and moves to rectify that situation were bitterly contested, with fierce
arguments in Milan between ‘liberisti’ (property defenders) and ‘pianificatori’ (planning enthusiasts) against
the backdrop of a 30% postwar population rise. In Milan, early INA-Casa complexes, whether built by IACP
or Comune or multi-agency alliances, were unpretentiously designed by the Comune technical office with
simple low-rise Zeilenbau arrangements, sometimes interspersed with taller towers. The Quartiere
Autosufficiente Comasina (from 1953), a vast, 11,000-unit development co-financed by IACP, INA-Casa and
the Comune, incorporated four residential units and a mix of building heights (from three to thirteen storeys):
styles were both rationalist and vernacular. But the typically INA-Casa picturesque approach soon prevailed,
as at the Quartiere Harrar, begun in 1951 on an urban gap-site (by Figini, Pollini and Ponti), or the low-rise
Cesate development of 1952, with its intricate two-storey courtyard groupings by BBPR, Figini & Pollini. The
Comune’s Ca’ Granda Nord, of 1954–8 (by Vittorio Gandolfi), punctuated by vernacular, pitched-roof towers,
was hailed by the journal Casabella-Continuità as appropriate to public housing in its ‘lack of rhetoric, and its
humility’.17
In Rome, a more stylistically unified INA-Casa approach was developed, confronting the preceding legacy
of fascist grandeur, beginning at the Quartiere Tiburtinoin 1950–4 (M. Ridolfi, L. Quaroni and others),
a 770-dwelling development executed by IACP and INCIS, including terraced houses, low-rise flats and
stumpy, seven-storey towers, arranged on an insistently non-orthogonal plan, with nooks and crannies
everywhere. The picturesque tower formula was expanded in Mario Ridolfi’s Quartiere Viale Etiopia of
1951–4, a market-rental middle-class INA development that combined Neo-Realism and rationalism in its
exposed concrete frames and bevelled roofs. The most architecturally complex INA-Casa scheme, Tuscolano
(also 1950–4), was developed in three phases, totalling 3,150 dwellings, by various executive agencies,
including government ministries and INCIS. The first two phases were conventional Neo-Realist exercises,

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but the third stage (1953–4) by Adalberto Libera (INA-Casa’s project design director and one of the authors
of the ‘Suggerimenti e norme’) was more innovative: a dense network of single-storey patio houses, arranged
in groups of four, in a realization of Diotallevi and Marescotti’s 1940 ‘città orizzontale’ plan – a pattern which,
Libera argued at the 1953 CIAM IX conference, reconciled individual privacy and collective living (see
Fig. 10.4).18
The ‘centralized diversity’ of INA-Casa naturally fostered a vast range of developments and formal solutions
up and down the country, all marked out by the programme’s characteristic small, quirkishly colourful ceramic
plaques. Some followed the stereotypical INA-Casa formula of picturesque courtyards of terraces and low-rise
flats, as at Giuseppe Samonà’s Quartiere San Giuliano in Mestre (from 1951); Giuseppe Vaccaro’s Borgo
Panigale ‘village’ in Bologna (1951–5), picturesquely-planned around a new parish church; Libera’s via Pessina
in Cagliari (1950–62), with its saw-tooth frontage of four-storey towers; or Giovanni Astengo’s Falchera

A B

C D
Fig. 10.4 (a): Q Ca Granda Nord, Milan (1954–8); Comune rental project designed by Vittorio Gandolfi, hailed in
Casabella-Continuità for its ‘lack of rhetoric, and its humility’ (MG 2015). (b): Q Casa Harrar, Milan, from 1951, INA-Casa
gap-site development by Figini, Pollini and Ponti (MG 2015). (c): Q Tiburtino, Rome (1950–4), INA-Casa development
executed by IACP and INCIS (architects M. Rudolfi, L. Quaroni and others) (MG 2013). (d): Viale Etiopia, Rome (1951–4):
market-rental INA development designed by Mario Ridolfi (MG 2013)

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 Southern Europe: Social Housing for Kinship Societies

F G
Fig. 10.4 (e, f): Tuscolano, Rome (1950–4) – one of the most architecturally complex INA-Casa developments, designed
in three phases, including a low-rise high-density group of patio houses by Adalberto Libera in Stage III (1953–4): 1950
development plan and 2013 (MG) view of Area III. (g): Q San Giuliano, Mestre (1951–6), INA-Casa development designed
by Giuseppe Samonà (MG 2011).

project of 1950–1 in Turin, a ‘great laboratory project’ of neighbourhood courtyard design in torinese
vernacular brickwork.19 Others were more individualistic, such as the Ponte dei Granili ‘unità d’abitazione’ in
Naples, built in 1952–4 for dockworkers in a special INA-Casa programme, and responding to its
uncompromisingly urban dockland setting with a nine-storey slab design (by G, Cozzolino) with constructivist-
style ‘outer’ facade and a softer, balconied south side (see Fig. 10.5).20
INA-Casa’s second seven-year period saw a swing towards more ‘urban’, monumental projects. Especially
idiosyncratic was the design by Giuseppe Vaccaro and others for the Quartiere INA-Casa ‘Barca’ in Bologna,

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A B

D
Fig. 10.5 (a): Villaggio INA-Casa Borgo Panigale, Bologna (1951–5), designed by Giuseppe Vaccaro (MG 2015).
(b): Nucleo edilizio di Via Pessina, Cagliari (1950–62): an INA-Casa/IEEP joint slum redevelopment, by architect A. Libera
(MG 2015). (c, d): Falchera INA-Casa development, Turin (1950–1), designed by Giovanni Astengo – a ‘great laboratory’
of housing design in vernacular Turin brick; original plan and 2017 (MG) view.

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E F

G H
Fig. 10.5 (e): Q Palazzo dei Diavoli, Florence, INA-Casa and IACP development of 1950–8, by architect F. Bazzocchi:
2018 view of lotto 10, with its six-storey twin-towers (MG 2018). (f): Nucleo edilizio di Coteto, INA-Casa Livorno, built by
the IACP di Livorno in 1957–63, architect Massimo Dringoli and others (MG 2018). (g): Ponte dei Granili, Naples (1952–
4), an unusually monumental INA-Casa design, for a harbour location, by architect G. Cozzolino (MG 2013). (h): La
Loggetta, Naples, INA-Casa development of 1956, coordinating architect Giuliano De Luca (MG 2019).

of 1957–62, a multi-agency INA-Casa-funded CEP (‘Coordinamento di edilizia popolare’) including

IACP, INA-Casa, INCIS and UNRRA. An otherwise standard INA-Casa-style courtyard-plan development,
including nine-storey towers and three-storey cluster blocks, was given a unique centrepiece, the so-
called ‘Treno’: an enormously long, three-storey spine-block (550m, with one break for power lines), slightly
curved on plan, with open ground floor and low-pitched roof. This modern evocation of the Bologna
street-arcade tradition anticipated a long sequence of linear-plan projects in Italy, as did another, even

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more spectacular INA-Casa development, echoing Portinho and Reidy’s showpiece 1940s projects in Rio
de Janeiro (see chapter 13): the Forte Quezzi project in Genova. Projected in 1956 by a group led by Luigi
Carlo Daneri (with Eugenio Fuselli as overall plan organizer) and built two years later on a steep, wooded
site, the project accommodated 4,500 dwellings in five linear buildings, dominated by an eight-storey structure,
the so-called ‘Biscione’ (grass snake): a sinuous, 540m-long block, with open ground floor, south-facing
living spaces and access-decks at first- and fifth-floor level; in a post-completion lecture, Fuselli explained
that ‘it winds along the topographic curves like an immense and harmless snake’ – hence its nickname (see
Fig. 10.6).21
Overall, by the time of INA-Casa’s eventual abolition in 1963, this explosion of design innovation and
microregional diversity had ensured that Italy, if hardly in the front rank of ‘housing nations’ in sheer output
terms, had become a world leader in adventurous social housing architecture – a status that would be further
enhanced in the following years. Within the global history of mass housing, the balance between the relative
roles of modern state organization and modernist architecture was different in each case, with organizational
power emphasized in some cases, such as above all in Khrushchev’s USSR, and architectural creativity
predominating in others, even at the expense of some production effectiveness – as arguably applied in the
case of Italy.

A B

C D
Fig. 10.6 (a, b): Q CEP Barca, Bologna, a multi-agency 1957–62 development designed by Giuseppe Vaccaro and others:
estate plan and 2015 (MG) view of ‘Il Treno’ (550m long, excluding power-line break). (c, d): Forte Quezzi INA-Casa
complex, Genova, of 1956–8, designed by a group led by Luigi Carlo Daneri: 4,500 units in five linear blocks, including the
540m-long ‘Biscione’ (‘Grass Snake’) (MG 2016).

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E F

G
Fig. 10.6 (e): Q Feltre (INA-Casa/INCIS), Milan (1957–60); design coordinated by Gino Pollini (MG 2015). (f):
Inauguration of the first section of the Pilastro complex in Bologna, January 1967 – built under the provisions of the
1964–5 Bologna PEEP; master-planned by architects Santini, Trebbi and Gresleri. (g): Il Virgolone, Bologna (1975–7), a
700m-long curve (with power-line break) of eight-storey slabs; the designers, led by E. Masi, were inspired by a visit to the
curved blocks in Täby, Sweden (MG 2015).

Left Turn? 1960s–1970s ‘comprehensive’ planning in Italy

The year 1963 brought Italy’s first centre-left government – and a severe building crisis. In response, mass
housing’s existing organizational structure was largely jettisoned. The IACP system survived, at local and
regional level, but everything else around it changed. Instead of the old strategy of laissez-faire economic and

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employment growth, and family-based community-building, the new government unleashed a heady mix of
integrated urban planning and economic programming. With the aim of rectifying Italy’s production
shortfalls, mass housing was now re-envisaged as an element in planned national and local development, an
approach that doubtless also reflected the international prestige of the French état planificateur system.
In 1963, INA-Casa was replaced by a new ten-year plan and supervisory government agency, the Gestione
Case per i Lavoratori (GESCAL – ‘Workers’ Housing Administration’), again with an ‘enabling’ rather than
executive remit, disbursing subsidies and supervising standards. Subsidies from state and employers were slashed
and INA-Casa’s existing housing stock was simply sold off to existing tenants. Yet alongside all the new emphasis
on centralized policymaking, Italy’s ingrained housing culture of regionalism and localism was projected and
enhanced: in the previous year, Law 167/62 (February 1962) had introduced a new housing-planning mechanism,
the ‘PEEP’ (Piano per l’edilizia economica e popolare – Plan for Economic and Popular Construction), an
adaptation of the ZUP formula, which devolved housing programming to a local level and created a new
generation of housing microregions. Under PEEP, public and private initiatives were integrated within overall
housing development plans, to curb land speculation and facilitate site-assembly for large peripheral complexes;
and massive and often architecturally daring ‘grandi quartieri’ were built under the aegis of ‘167’, whose emphasis
was overwhelmingly on social housing. Yet in output terms, the outcome was more ambiguous: while there was
an increase in the contribution of co-ops and other indirect social-housing systems, targeted at the middle
classes, the proportion of strictly-defined public housing sank from 7% of the total dwelling production of 1949–
63 (under INA-Casa) to only 3% maximum under GESCAL, in 1964–71. Owing to organizational inefficiency,
only a small percentage of the earmarked funds was used, and GESCAL was phased out after eight years by a new
Housing Act, 865/71, which enhanced the PEEPs with the ‘PDZ’ (Piani di Zona) mechanism, and increased
rehab provision – all other public housing agencies than the IACPs being abolished.22
Under the 1962 legislation, local communes were allowed to decide their precise PEEP strategy, Turin being
first ‘off the block’ with a plan for peripheral grandi quartieri implemented from June 1963, despite protests from
councillors of varying political persuasions at the alleged neglect of the inner city – but by 1974, only three out
of twenty-four planned PEEPs had been completed. Similarly, in Milan, the ruling centre-left coalition passed a
four-year, 120,000-dwelling plan, mostly to be built by the city IACP. It avoided time-consuming conflicts with
private property interests by using ‘undesirable’ or remote (often extra-territorial) peripheral sites.23 The
peripheral preference was bolstered by 865/71, with its urgent demands for accelerated production. Encouraged
by the new agenda, many IACPs geared up for massive expansion: the Trieste IACP, for example, moved to a new
and flashy headquarters in the podium of its towered redevelopment at the Piazza Foraggi in 1967.24
As part of the new, French-inspired planning ethos, the mid-1960s saw growing calls for industrialized
construction. In Milan, many architects advocated a ‘fearless’ embrace of large-scale programmes, citing 1963
reports hailing the success of French systems. Architecturally, the move to system-building stimulated not
standardization and homogenization, but a further explosion of adventurous creativity, in the form of
grandiose ‘grandi quartieri’ (i.e. grands ensembles), some outdoing even France in vast horizontality, while
also pointing towards post-CIAM structuralism. The late 1960s and 1970s saw successive variations on the
linear late-modernist planning pioneered at the ‘Treno’ and the ‘Biscione’. In Bologna itself, a later grande
quartiere at the north-east city edge, at Pilastro, featured a 700m curved structure, the ‘Virgolone’, containing
552 flats – again with a gap for a power line. The first section of Pilastro, comprising clustered low-rise flats for
social-rental and home-ownership, built in 1965–6 by IACP Bologna, had developed an early reputation as a
ghetto of immigrants from the south, and the Virgolone tried to introduce higher-income groups. Developed
jointly by IACP, for rental, and several cooperatives, for home-ownership, it was built in 1975–7 as part of an
upgraded PEEP by architect F Morelli: the curved structure, built using tunnel-prefabrication, was inspired by
a visit to Täby by its designers (coordinated by E. Masi). Other developments included subdivided linear

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blocks, including the 1967–74 development at Gallaratese, Milan, a philanthropic project by the Monte
Amiata mining company, built under a ‘167’ agreement with the Comune outside the strict GESCAL funding
system, and designed by architect Carlo Aymonino as a megastructure of stepped, interpenetrating blocks,
adjoined by a smaller grouping by Aldo Rossi. More eccentric was the Vele di Scampia, Naples (1968–74), an
IACP-Napoli ‘167’ project built as part of the 65,000-inhabitant Scampia peripheral grande quartiere, approved
in 1965 for development by IACP and co-ops under the auspices of the Cassa del Mezzogiorno. The 1,192-unit
‘Vele’ (Scampia areas L and M) comprised a line of A-frame-section linear megastructures with complex
internal bridges and balconies, designed by a group led by architect Franz di Salvo, all on a 1.2 m module, and
stepping up to fourteen storeys at the ‘rear’ end – hence the nickname, ‘Sails’ (see Fig. 10.7).25
By far the most spectacular of the Italian linear projects – and the architectural culmination of the ‘167’
programme as a whole – was Rome’s Corviale, planned under a 1964 PEEP linked to commencement of slum-

A B

C D
Fig. 10.7 (a): Complesso residentiale Monte Amiata, Gallaratese, Milan (1967–74), a megastructural development built
under a Section 167 agreement with the Comune, and designed by Carlo Aymonino (MG 2015). (b, c, d): The ‘Vele di
Scampia’ (areas L and M), Naples (1968–74): an IACP Napoli ‘167’ project, with intricately megastructural blocks designed
by Franz di Salvo; original plan and 2013 (MG) views.

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E F

G H
Fig. 10.7 (e, f): Corviale, Rome, the boldest project of the ‘167’ programme: a 980m-long paired linear megastructure,
built jointly by the Rome IACP and Gescal, to designs by Mario Fiorentino (MG 2013). (g, h): Rozzol Melara, Trieste, built
in 1974–81 by Trieste’s IACP to designs by coordinating architect Carlo Celli – 648 flats in two L-shaped megastructural
slabs, forming a colossal ‘courtyard’, and with internal vehicular access to the access decks; external view and interior of
‘passeggiata alta’ in the ‘Ala Rossa’ (both MG 2018).

clearance in the historic centre. Developed as a partnership project by the Rome IACP and GESCAL, it was
eventually part-constructed between 1973 and 1982 at a cost of 100 million lire (as opposed to the predicted
17 million). Envisaged by coordinating architect Mario Fiorentino as a ‘magnet’ in Rome’s scattered periphery,
equivalent to Baroque urban interventions in the historic centre or to Quaroni’s utopian, unbuilt San Giuliano
plan for Venezia-Mestre (1958), the project was a linear megastructure nearly 1km in length (980m). It
comprised a linked chain of eleven-storey slab-blocks, grouped in parallel double lines with linking bridges
and galleries, and containing 1,200 dwellings – a surprisingly small number for such a huge structure. These
double lines were linked by entrance/staircase/lift towers, and flanked by lower parallel blocks, with one
seven-storey block shooting off diagonally to the north-east; the low-rise GESCAL housing was linearly
arranged to the east. As at Forte Quezzi, the bottom levels contained services, with public-access deck levels
immediately above, and at the sixth floor: rather than sloping inwards at the top, unusually the main slab-
blocks projected slightly above the upper access level, further exaggerating their monumentality. Even during
construction, the project became ungovernable, with multiple contractors working without coordination; by

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1998, management problems left it in a state of anarchic dereliction, but strenuous efforts at community-led
rehabilitation subsequently rescued it. Scarcely less colossal, but arranged in ‘square’ rather than linear form,
was Trieste IACP’s extraordinary Rozzol Melara development, built in 1974–81 on a peripheral PEEP site
following a protracted design process from 1968. Envisaged by coordinating architect Carlo Celli in similar
terms to Fiorentino, as a focal-point of ‘multiple-function spatial organization’ amidst suburban sprawl, the
648-flat complex comprised two L-shaped megastructural slabs framing a ‘courtyard’, with commercial and
community facilities at all levels, and exploiting the hillside site to provide vehicular ramp-access to internal
roadway decks, allowing cars and vans to trundle around inside the housing blocks themselves.26
These flamboyant Italian social housing set pieces were embedded in a vast, inchoate landscape of 1960s
and 1970s urban-peripheral development: the prevalence of historic fabric in the inner cities and the shift to
rehabilitation from around 1970 in cities such Bologna made it doubly certain there would be no British- or
US-style slum-clearance. In some cities, topography curbed grande quartiere development, above all in
Genova, where mountainous terrain allowed only one really large PEEP to be developed, at Begato: here the
IACP and Comune, working closely with local building consortium CIGE, spent the fifteen years from 1975
implementing a nine-stage master plan by Piero Gambuccini, mostly of a highly megastructural, multi-level
character.27 No such difficulties applied in Rome, where a wide development belt stretched around the flat
south-eastern and north-eastern periphery. With the concentration of civil servants in Rome, the work of
INCIS was unusually prominent, and the pioneering Villaggio Olimpico development of 1958–60 (by
L. Moretti, etc.), with its spacious, linear low-rise blocks on pilotis, was followed in 1962–6 by a large, higher-
density development just north of EUR, designed by the same team, with sweepingly-curved blocks. Rome’s
PEEP, finalized in 1964, floated numerous ambitious urbanist concepts in reaction against INA-Casa’s villagey
approach, but few survived long-term implementation: for instance, the 50-hectare Quartiere Casilino,
planned in 1964–5 by Quaroni and others as a vast, fan-shaped pattern of twenty-nine slabs, was hardly
recognizable in its eventual implementation.28
In Milan, topography was even more favourable to unrestricted 1960s outer-suburban development. The
focus on uncontentious peripheral locations ensured the IACP projects in the city’s PEEP plan were often
banished to external municipalities – at least until 1969, when the PEEP was modified to exclude the most
remote locations. Unlike INA-Casa, the ambitious programme required large-scale system-building, to
circumvent building-industry shortages, beginning with the second phase of the Quartiere CEP Gallaratese
(G2), from 1964. This was dotted with prefabricated-panel towers, like other contemporary developments
such as Baggio-Olma, Rozzano or Gratosoglio (by BBPR, 1963–71). Over the following decade, rationalistic
layouts of prefabricated towers spread across outer Milan, with many late-1970s IACP schemes designed in a
standardized manner by the Servizio Progettazione IACP, as at Ca’Granda, in 1972–7, or Moncocco, from
1978. Prefabricated construction for multi-storey towers also spread to the cooperative movement, as at the
Co-operativa di Prato Centenaro (1972–6). Other tower projects were styled more idiosyncratically, as in the
GESCAL Via Max development in Sesto San Giovanni (1972–5), featuring a scatter of objet-trouvé-style
segmental towers, or the bridge-linked towers of the Giuseppe di Vittorio cooperative in Turin (1980). The
earlier CEP in Cagliari, master-planned by P. Rossi de Paoli, was likewise dominated by slender, brick-clad
point-blocks, built in two phases, 1965–8 and 1969–73, in a conscious echo of fourteenth-century Pisan
towers in the historic centre (see Fig. 10.8).29
From the mid-1960s, a structuralist-style, late modernist shift towards dense, conglomerate layouts began,
often supported by academic research programmes. This updated the ‘167’ formula in a way which countered
peripheral sprawl with bristling complexity. In Cagliari, for instance, the pressures of 856/71 encouraged the
IACP to develop a peripheral grande quartiere, at Sant’Elia: it featured not open-plan towers but a densely-
clustered courtyard plan, designed by a university research team led by Enrico Mandolesi and completed in

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1979. Peripheral development in Milan, whether by IACP or Comune, or funded by GESCAL or other sources,
was also increasingly dominated by medium-rise, horizontally-connected slabs, somewhat ‘traditionally’
styled, for example as early as 1964–71 at the perimeter-planned Sant’Ambroglio (Comune and IACP). The
GESCAL-funded development at Fulvio Testa, of 1971–3, featured eight-storey blocks more appropriate to
inner-city interventions, while the ostentatiously ‘vernacular’ IACP Bollate scheme of 1974 sported huge
pitched roofs and gables.30 By the time of the 865/71 Law, most Italian projects had shifted to more complex,
low-rise patterns, as in Bologna’s Quartiere PEEP Casteldebole of 1975, or in Venice, where 1979–80 saw a
painstakingly ‘contextual’, picturesque PEEP on Mazzorbo, designed by Giancarlo di Carlo as part of a strategy
to reverse population decline in the outlying Venetian islands: its seventy-two units were apportioned between
IACP, Comune and co-ops.31 And on the ‘last in, first out’ principle, several of the larger, more recent complexes
were soon in a state of rampant degeneration, including not only Corviale but, even worse, the Vele di Scampia,
which became a drug-ridden ghetto stronghold of the Di Lauro mafia clan.32

A B

C D
Fig. 10.8 (a): Begato, Genova: the city’s only large PEEP, developed from 1975 to 1990 in accordance with a multi-level
megastructural master plan by Piero Gambuccini: view of Sector 9 (MG 2016). (b): Q CEP Gallaratese G2, prefabricated
towers of 1969–72, designed by Ludovico Magistretti (Ufficio tecnico MBM) (MG 2015). (c): Cagliari, CEP complex,
master-planned by P. Rossi de Paoli, and built in two phases, 1965–8 and 1969–73 (MG 2017). (d): Cooperativa di
abitazioni Giuseppe Di Vittorio, Turin (1978–80): two linked twin-towers in tunnel-form construction, designed by the
Cooperativa Polithema (architects Piero Amori et al.) (MG 2017).

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E F

Fig. 10.8 (e): Il Favero, Sant’Elia township, Cagliari: an IACP grande quartiere of 1975–9, designed by a university
research team led by Enrico Mandolesi (MG 2017). (f): IACP complex, Bollate, near Milan: balcony-access blocks with
PoMo styling (1974–80); architects Guido Canella, Daniele Brigidini and Antonio Maresca (MG 2017). (g): Mazzorbo,
Venice, joint PEEP scheme of 1979–86, shared by IACP, Comune and co-ops, and designed by Giancarlo Di Carlo in a
‘contextual’ style (MG 2011).

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The conservative South: postwar housing in Spain, Portugal, Greece and Turkey

By contrast with Italy’s intermittently energetic initiatives, and their extraordinarily variegated architecture,
other Southern European countries saw far less consistent government intervention. In Spain and Portugal,
right-wing dictatorship was offset by modernizing elements within the Catholic Church, and by the increasing
pressure from the 1950s for capitalist-led, corporatist modernization. Both countries shared one crucial
postwar phenomenon with Italy: unceasing waves of rural-to-urban migration, and consequent mushrooming
of informal settlements. Madrid received over 500,000 immigrants in the 1940s alone, and by 1948, 300,000
people were living in overcrowded or informal housing on the periphery; as late as 1965, 18,000 families were
still in shacks (chabolas) there, with correspondingly high infant mortality rates.33
Unlike Sweden and Switzerland, Spain failed to exploit its wartime neutrality to further national
development, owing to the legacy of Civil War destruction and the economic decline stemming from Franco’s
policy of state-regulated autarky: by 1950, Spain was the only Western European country not to have recovered
to at least its pre-1929 production levels. After 1952, this provoked fierce debate within the state, with Falangist
diehards opposed by modernizing, anti-communist Catholic technocrats in the ‘Opus Dei’ organization.
Backed by the United States, which saw Spain as a potential Cold War ally, the reformists triumphed by 1959,
with Franco reluctantly conceding Spanish membership of the IMF and OECD and preparation of a
modernizing ‘Stabilization Plan’ – which unleashed a fifteen-year economic boom, doubling national income
and boosting GDP by 7% annually.34
As in South America’s right-wing dictatorships, housing policy in Franco’s Spain overwhelmingly
prioritized owner-occupation, especially under the Stabilization Plan – reflecting Catholic family values and
fear of the urban working classes. The years 1960–91 saw a rise in owner-occupation, from 50% to 78%, and a
collapse in private renting, spurred by the regime’s draconian post-Civil War rent freeze and the substantial
subsidies to private builders in the 1954 and 1967 Housing Acts. The owner-occupation hegemony and half-
heartedness concerning social housing were reflected in the fragmentation of official housing institutions. In
the postwar years, two central-government agencies operated in tandem: the Instituto Nacional de la Vivienda
(INV: National Housing Institute), founded in 1939 to oversee programmes and standards and coordinate
subsidies; and the Obra Sindical del Hogar (OSH: Union Housing), an organization established in 1941 as the
construction counterpart of INV, linked, DAF-style, to the official national trade-union movement. In 1957 a
separate Ministry of Housing was created, but its head, José Luis Arrese, an ex-Falangist apparatchik, opposed
radical housing interventions. These national bodies were complemented by municipal-level institutions,
typically divided between housing policy (such as the ‘Patronato Municipal de la Vivienda’, or Municipal
Housing Department, created in both Madrid and Barcelona in 1944–5) and planning. Commissions which
administered not just urban planning but also active land assembly, expropriations and site-servicing were
established in Madrid in 1945 – headed until 1956 by Pedro Bidagor – and Barcelona in 1953. INV and OSH
were also empowered to act and build at a local level – overlap and confusion being the result.35
Early postwar policymaking featured a residually fascist, Falangist rhetoric of dynamic ‘action plans’,
combined with consistent promotion of home ownership. As a result, social-housing output was very meagre:
Spain’s entire cumulative output between 1939 and 1960 was less than half of Britain’s average annual
production, and only 15,000 dwellings of any sort were built in Barcelona between 1939 and 1952. The first
INV programme, in the early and mid-1950s, was a ‘Plan de Urgencia Social’, whose polígonos (housing
schemes) focused on the lower middle class; from 1954 there followed a limited-income owner-occupation
system, the Viviendas de Renta Limitada. In mid-1950s Madrid, responding to the huge immigrant influx,
INV and OSH commenced fifteen ‘poblados’ for poor tenants; of these, twelve were designated ‘poblados de
absorción’ (for shanty-town displacees) and three were allocated to homeless immigrants. In Barcelona,

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‘barrack’ developments of unserviced, temporary dwellings were built for immigrants from Andalucia,
Murcia, Extremadura and Galicia around 1950, such as the Viviendas del Governador en Nou Barris
(constructed in only twenty-eight days) – all eventually demolished post-Franco in the 1980s. Even these were
vastly outpaced by the spreading shanty towns, with shacks often erected in a single night.36 With the US-
encouraged move towards a more open, liberalized economy, and the introduction of government aid to
private builders in 1954 and 1957 legislation, 1955 saw the inauguration of a national ‘Plan de la Vivienda’
(calling for construction of 550,000 dwellings by 1960 to combat ‘chabolismo’); 1956, a land law allowing
assembly of bigger sites; and 1957, the creation of a new Housing Ministry. There were programmes to
encourage private-enterprise building, including small subsidized middle-class dwellings (viviendas
subvencionadas), and local initiatives, such as Madrid’s Plan de Urgencia Social (1957) for twelve ‘pobladas
dirigadas’ totalling 20,729 dwellings, to rehouse immigrants, and Barcelona’s Ley de Urgencia Social (1958),
authorizing the planning commission to lay out six polígonos, including three outside the city limits.37
Architecturally, the earliest post-1945 INV–OSH developments continued a monumental classical theme, as
at the 1948 Grupo Coronel Lopez Larraya, a nine-storey courtyard development for electrical workers in central
Madrid, or the five-storey, arcaded, balcony-access Paseo Castellana development of municipal transport
employee housing, of 1949.38 By the mid-1950s, however, polígonos stemming from the national and local
programmes of the Plan de Urgencia Social increasingly featured peripheral locations and simplified modernist
architecture, including medium-rise, brick-clad walk-up blocks and simple rectilinear layouts along streets or
in Zeilenbau groups – like the Italian estates of ten to fifteen years previously. Typical of these were Madrid’s
vast, multi-phase San Blas OSH development of 1957–9, with numerous four- to five-storey blocks and some
towers; or the 480-unit Sudoeste del Besós in Barcelona, of 1960, with many parallel slabs and right-angled
layouts. The lower-income Poblado de Absorción 1 at Gran San Blas (1955) was similar, while polygonal-plan
six-storey towers featured in Madrid’s Villaverde experimental housing zone of 1956 (see Fig. 10.9).39
INV sponsorship benefited other, ad-hoc agencies and programmes, most memorably Barcelona’s
‘Viviendas del Congreso Eucarístico’, a Church-funded project stemming from the regime’s postwar attempt
to heal the rift caused by its earlier repression of the clergy. Following a government offer to host the 35th
International Eucharistic Congress in Barcelona in 1952, numerous shanty towns were cleared in central areas
such as the Upper Diagonal. To rehouse the inhabitants, the recently-appointed (1943), populist Bishop of
Barcelona, Gregorio Modrego, proposed a large Church-supported development on a central site acquired by
the Patronato de las Viviendas del Congreso Eucarístico using INV expropriation powers. Supported by
regional financial institutions and the gobernador civil, Felipe Acedo Colunga, and with 20% of the costs
funded directly by the Church, a revolving fund was established in 1952 to support PVCE’s operations: the
owner-occupied dwellings, intended for ‘all Catholics’ rather than the slum-displacees, were supported by first
mortgages from Barcelona financial institutions and interest-free INV second loans. After a competition in
1952–3, a team led by architect Josep Maria Soteras i Mauri designed a conservative layout of street-blocks
with semi-open garden courtyards, offset by higher set pieces, such as towers of up to thirteen storeys,
accommodating 2,772 dwellings and numerous shops in fourteen street-blocks. Following a foundation-stone
laying in 1953, construction of the first two street-blocks (manzanas) began in 1954, with Bishop Modrego
‘personally supervising the works, always with the authoritarian demeanour that corresponded to the military
man he was’; the district was completed in 1961.40
Reflecting the 1959 Stabilization Plan and a new National Economic Development Plan of 1964, the early
1960s brought measures to curb the shanty towns and replace the earlier barrack developments: 1961 saw an
emergency plan for eradication of ‘chabolas’ in Madrid, including six ‘unidades vecinales de absorción’ (UVAs:
resettlement neighbourhoods), and, in Barcelona, a ‘Plan de Supresión del Barraquismo’ (PSB: Shanty-Town
Removal Plan). Under an April 1961 decree, INV built 12,000 dwellings around the capital, including three

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A B

C D

E F
Fig. 10.9 (a): ‘La Familia unida para el regimen franquista’ (‘the family united behind Franco’s rule’): propaganda poster
of 1936. The slogan reads, ‘This home exists thanks to Franco’. (b): Sant Marti, Barcelona, 1981 (MG) view showing the
juxtaposition of the 1950s ‘barracas’ of La Perona on the left, inhabited by migrant workers from southern Spain, and c.
1970 middle-income apartment housing on the right. (c): The Grupo Coronel Lopez Larraya, Madrid (1948–52), a nine-
storey OSH courtyard complex for electrical workers: architects José María Argote Echevarría and Joaquín Núñez Mera
(MG 2016). (d): Poblado de Absorción no. 1, San Blas, Madrid – part of a vast, multi-phase OSH development of 1955–9
built under the Plan de Urgencia Social, with different architects for each section (MG 2016). (e): Villaverde, Madrid,
experimental OSH-INV project of 1954–6 by architect Rafael Aburto (rationalized-traditional construction) (MG 2016).
(f): Viviendas del Congreso Eucarístico, Barcelona, a 2772-dwelling slum decanting scheme built in 1953–61 under the
aegis of Bishop Gregorio Modrego to a competition-winning design by architect José Soteras Mauri (MG 1981).

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large peripheral UVAs (1965–8). Yet despite attempts at coordination through general plans (e.g. for Madrid,
1963), the 1960s programme, like its predecessors, was slow and confused in execution. One of Barcelona’s
largest 1960s PSB developments, La Mina (2,644 dwellings), originally proposed in 1961, was only built in
1970–1 by the Patronato Municipal de la Vivienda. Many developments were still dominated by low-rise
staircase-access flats, often brick-clad in Madrid, as at the Poblado Dirigido de Almendrales of 1959–66 (with
‘zigzag’ five-storey blocks) or OSH’s multi-phase development at Moratalaz (1960–72), including towers up to
thirteen storeys high. The year 1972 saw commencement of metropolitan Barcelona’s last big complex, the
Polígono Gornal, in the suburban municipality of L’Hospitalet de Llobregat – a 6,300-unit project with lines
of sixteen-storey twin-towers and five-storey Zeilenbau blocks on open, columned ground floors. Outside
Madrid and Barcelona, the largest single INV housing complex was the Polígono San Pablo in Seville, an
11,500-dwelling shanty-town redevelopment of 1961–5, designed by Luis Recasens and Rafael Arévalo,
featuring an elaborate neighbourhood-unit plan and a mixture of tightly-grouped medium-rise courtyard
blocks, nine-storey slabs and middle-sized towers, averaging thirteen storeys. Only in the 1990, however, was
a decisive end achieved to the shanty towns (see Fig. 10.10).41
In Portugal, Salazar’s Estado Novo dictatorship enjoyed a collaborative relationship with the Church,
exemplified in the ‘Catholic’ values of its interwar family housing. Rather earlier than Spain, there was a
combination of Marshall Plan-fuelled postwar economic liberalization and rural-to-urban migration, with
consequent mushrooming of informal settlements around towns. Strategic planning was channelled through
initiatives such as the successive national Development Plans (1953–8, 1959–64, 1965–7, 1968–73); 1962 saw
creation of an embryonic welfare state through social-security reforms. Overall, the Portuguese social-housing
sector remained among the smallest in Europe; the overwhelming concentration on home-ownership
continued, accounting for 90% of all new housing completions in 1971–6.42 Completions gradually grew from
under 10,000 in 1950 to 35,000–41,000 a year in the early 1970s, but the chaos of the 1974 revolution and the
initiation of the avant-garde, participatory ‘SAAL’ programme brought a final decline, and Portugal remained
firmly near the bottom of the Western European output league table, with fewer than 100,000 dwellings in
‘bairros sociais’ by the mid-1970s.43
Portugal’s postwar social-housing provision, like Latin America’s, relied significantly on indirect systems
implemented by insurance societies.44 These catered for elite workers and the middle classes, while the poor
were only served by shanty towns: 150,000 illegal houses persisted even in the mid-1970s. The old interwar
home-ownership programme, the ‘Casas Económicas’, with payment by instalments over twenty years,
continued until 1974, achieving 60,000 completions overall. From 1945, this was augmented by a second
programme, the ‘Casas de Renda Económica’ (CRE: ‘Low-Rent Homes’), a low-rental system for salaried
employees. The CRE programme included increasing numbers of flats, limited to four storeys maximum in
deference to Salazar’s continuing dislike of them as radical ‘phalansteries’. The principal developer of CRE
social housing from 1947 to 1972 was a government-sponsored confederation of professional social security
institutions operating within Salazar’s corporatist system: the Habitações Económicas–Federação das Caixas
de Previdência (HE-FCP – sometimes reversed as FCP-HE). From 1969, a new, unified governmental agency,
the Fundo de Fomento da Habitação (FFH), supplanted it. Sometimes, as at Olivais in Lisbon (from 1955),
FCP acted as a house-building agency for government departments, notably the military. However, local
authorities played a major role in the development process through their power to expropriate land and plan
CRE developments, a task executed in Lisbon from 1959 through the Gabinete Técnico de Habitação (GTH).
The CRE programme became a ‘nursery’ for a succession of eminent modernist designers, including Nuno
Teotónio Pereira (design consultant to HE-FCP/FFH from 1948 to 1972) and Justino Morais.45
The first large-scale HE-FCP development, built from 1947, was the Bairro de Alvalade, a multi-phase CRE
project later hailed by Pereira as the FCP’s ‘launching-pad’. The 230-ha site, north-east of the city centre, was

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A B

C D
Fig. 10.10 (a): La Mina, Sant Adriá de Besós, Barcelona, one of the city’s largest PSB (barracas clearance) schemes: 2,644
flats built in 1970–1 by the Patronato Municipal de la Vivienda (architect, Juan Fernando de Mondoza) (MG 2011). (b):
Poblado Dirigido de Almendrales, Madrid (1959–66): INV complex built under the 1955 National Housing Plan, with
zigzag-plan five-storey blocks, by architect Jose A. C. Gutiérrez and others (MG 2016). (c): Barrio 1 of OSH’s Moratalaz
housing scheme, Madrid, from 1970, designed by Arturo Guerrero Aroca and Jorge Roca de Togores (MG 2016). (d):
Gornal, L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Metropolitan Barcelona’s last large mass-housing development: 2,250 flats built from
1972 by INV/ADIGSA, mostly in sixteen-storey blocks (MG 2011).

included in extensive land-appropriations by Duarte Pacheco as Mayor of Lisbon in the 1930s, and in the city
master plan (Plano Director da Cidade de Lisboa), prepared in 1938–48 by French planner Etienne de Gröer.
Developed by FCP-HE with the city council, with plans by architect Miguel Jacobetty for the GTH, Alvalade
comprised eight neighbourhood units or ‘cells’, arranged in a grid of street courtyard-blocks like contemporary
Soviet or Chinese kvartals, but featuring taller blocks of private flats and shops on the outside and three- to
four-storey terraced flats on the inside. Its architectural style evolved from a traditionalist pitched-roof
classicism in Cells 1 and 2 to more modernist styles in later phases; a modest degree of component-
prefabrication and blockwork construction was incorporated by the GTH designers.46 An overtly modernist
approach, complete with pilotis and roof gardens, was signalled by the CRE Estacas neighbourhood in Cell 8
of Alvalade in 1949–55, and outside Lisbon by the HE-FCP’s low-rise Zeilenbau-plan Ramalde residential unit
in Porto (1952–60, by Fernando Távora) (see Fig. 10.11).47

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 Southern Europe: Social Housing for Kinship Societies

By the 1950s, it was clear that the CRE programme was proving quantitatively less effective than anticipated,
contributing under 6% of national output in that decade. In response, the government significantly expanded
the programme and developed two major city-expansion plans. In Porto, efforts were concentrated on the
‘Plano de Melhoramentos’ (from 1956), while in Lisbon, the north-eastwards axis of peripheral development
already proposed in Étienne de Gröer’s Plano Director was elaborated in the 1950s by the City Urbanism
Department (Gabinete de estudos e urbanizacão – GEU). Spurred by huge housing shortages revealed in the
1950 census, the GEU laid out two extensive development areas at Chelas and Olivais, the latter totalling
nearly 11,500 dwellings (8,000 of which were CRE, built by HE-FCP in collaboration with GTH) and divided
into north and south zones. Olivais Norte, planned from 1955 by Sommer Ribeiro and Falcão e Cunha of
GEU, was the first to be developed; its landscaped, dispersed layout, with 2,500 flats in four-storey walk-up
terraces interspersed with towers up to twelve storeys, was explicitly modelled on English Mark I New Towns,
or the LCC’s Roehampton – including a group of Corbusier-style slabs for military personnel by Artur Pires
Martins and Cândida Palma de Melo (1960–4). The 8,500-unit Olivais Sul, planned from 1960 by GTH,

A B

C D
Fig. 10.11 (a, b): Bairro de Alvalade, Lisbon – a multi-phase CRE development built from 1947 by FCP-HE with the City
Council, and planned by architect Miguel Jacobetty for GTH; aerial view from west and street view of Area 1, showing
kvartal-style courtyard layout (MG 2015). (c): Bairro dos Estacas, Lisbon, in Cell 8 of Alvalade (1949–55) – a more
modernist approach, by Ruy Jervis d’Athouguia and Sebastião F. Sanchez (MG 2015). (d): Av. dos Estados Unidos da
América, Lisbon: CRE project of 1956–60, with the first multi-storey social housing in Central Lisbon, designed by Manuel
M. C. Laginha, Pedro B. F. Cid and João B. V. Esteves (MG 2015)

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Mass Housing

E F
Fig. 10.11 (e): Olivais, Lisbon, an 11,500-unit township laid out by GEU and developed over the fifteen years from 1955.
Olivais Norte, planned in 1955–7 by Sommer Ribeiro and Falcão e Cunha of GEU: 2015 (MG) view of low-rise housing of
1958–60, by Pedro Cid and Fernando Torres. (f): Olivais Sul, planned from 1960 by GTH: 2015 (MG) view of twelve-storey
towers at Lote 464, Rua da Manhiça, from 1962, by J. C. Rebelo, A. S. Gomes, A. F. Leal and N. Teotónio Pereira.

experimented with denser, medium-rise flats, interspersed with taller towers, such as the pitched-roof point-
blocks in Rua de Manhiça. Chelas, whose GTH master plan for 11,500 dwellings (70% CRE) was approved in
1964, represented a further evolution in layout, from cellular to linear, again inspired by British precedent –
here Cumbernauld New Town and the LCC Hook Plan (1963).48 The first multi-storey social-housing project
in central Lisbon was the CRE Avenida dos Estados Unidos da América (1956–60), with its array of ten-storey
Zeilenbau slabs, but by the mid-1960s, multi-storey blocks were under construction in many HE-FCP
developments across Portugal.49
In south-eastern Europe, an even more hands-off approach to lower-income housing prevailed, together
with epidemics of ‘rogue construction’. In Greece, the interwar refugee housing emergency was compounded
by wartime occupation and civil war: the 1930s modernist Alexandra Avenue project in Athens became a
hotbed of leftist agitation, and was bombarded in December 1944 by the British army during the campaign
against the ELAS communist insurgency – a clash whose bullet-marks were still visible over seventy years
later. A 1940 census estimated that 43% of households were either homeless or housed in ‘totally inadequate’
housing: 1948–50 saw a short-lived boom in direct state house-building, but afterwards the overwhelming
dominance of private provision for all income groups resumed. During the 1952–5 premiership of wartime
and civil war commander Alexandros Papagos, the housing resemblances between Greece and post-Civil War
Spain became striking, including overwhelming emphasis on home-ownership to re-embed society, and
scanty provision for social housing; urban housing in Athens was dominated by small, informally-built private
apartment-blocks (polykatoikia). The only significant state social housing programme, the Organismos
Eryatikis Katikios (Workers’ Housing Organization, or OEK), founded in 1954, was a public organization
overseen by the Ministry of Employment, focused exclusively on home-ownership building for salaried
employees and white-collar workers, and financed from the proceeds of a 1% wages tax. Headed from 1955 to
1975 by pioneering modernist architect Aris Konstantinidis, a proselytizer of vernacular-inspired architecture,

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the OEK built its own home-ownership estates as well as subsidizing interest rates and rents for schemes by
other agencies. Architecturally, its limited output included architecturally-innovative later schemes, such as
the 435-dwelling Pefki Solar Village, in Attica (1984) – an experimental project laid out in tiered terraces.50
In Turkey, a European-Asian country which experienced similar waves of rural-to-urban migration, the
overwhelming emphasis was likewise on informal private-enterprise construction; the urban middle classes
in Istanbul, Ankara and elsewhere were catered for by piecemeal speculative apartment-building, initially up
to five storeys, by unregulated builders (yapsatçılık), especially in condominiums after a 1965 law. Lower-
income citizens relied on the self-built housing settlements (geçekondu) that mushroomed on state-owned
peripheral urban land around Ankara and Istanbul from the 1940s; by the early 1960s, 60% of Ankara’s and
45% of Istanbul’s population lived in these dwellings. Government policy fluctuated between demolition and
legitimization between 1946 and 1980, but the maximum percentage of geçekondular in the urban population,
35%, was only reached in 1995.51
As in most of Southern Europe, Turkish state social housing efforts were intermittent throughout the
twentieth century, despite the corporatism of Atatürk’s hegemonic Republican People’s Party. The 1950 election
victory of the Democratic Party, under the charismatic Adnan Menderes, inaugurated a decade of modernizing
Westernization, together with import-substitution economics; industrial development was prioritized over
planned urbanization, accentuating both migration and geçekondu-building. From 1950 to 1980 there was a
virtually-unbroken speculative-housing boom, featuring significant links between central and local politicians
and the property sector. Apartment living became strongly associated with Westernization and home-owning
prosperity, especially after legislation allowed separately-owned flats from 1954. Limited state support was
given to its spread, through cheap loans to the middle classes and ‘lojman’ apartment building for government
employees and military officers. Low-interest loans from the Emlak Kredi Bank (Property Credit Bank;
founded in 1926) targeted government employees, especially in Ankara. These ‘social housing’ developments
were confined to the upper middle classes and included many single-family houses; between 1950 and 1965
the EKB built only 7,200 units, all for middle-income occupancy.52
Architecturally, from the 1960s the increasing modernist consensus among younger designers led to a
rejection of garden cities in favour of a mainstream CIAM modernism of free-standing tall blocks and open
space: there was no significant Turkish interest in later, ‘cluster’ patterns of European modernism.53 An early
project drawing on interwar modernist precedent was the EKB’s first large civil servants’ ‘lojman’ scheme,
Saracoğlu in Ankara (1944–6), comprising 434 dwellings in a three-storey rectilinear layout by Paul Bonatz. A
low-rise pattern also prevailed in the first section of the Levent development, in Istanbul; its fourth phase
featured taller blocks, as did EKB’s better-known Ataköy, a modernist satellite township on the Marmara
shoreline. Ataköy Phases 1 and 2 (1957–64), designed by EKB chief architect Ertugrul Mentese and colleagues,
were Turkey’s first large-scale modernist housing complexes, evoking mainstream CIAM functionalism with
widely-spaced lines of twelve-/thirteen-storey towers and slabs on pilotis, containing 1,500 flats; EKB’s
contemporary Yemimahalle project, in Ankara (1957–64) was similar. After a 1960 revolution overthrew the
Menderes administration, these flats’ luxurious facilities, including even servants’ quarters, came under fierce
attack from critics who argued that many small flats, rather than a few large ones, were needed. The 12,000 flats
of Ataköy phases 3–11, built between 1963 and the 1990s, including 2,500 in 1966–72, accordingly refocused
on smaller and cheaper dwellings and higher densities. The 1960s saw significant policy shifts to facilitate
cheaper housing, including five-year plans from 1963, the founding of a State Planning Agency charged with
facilitating subsidized housing construction and upgrading squatter zones, and the 1964 promulgation of
official housing standards eligible for state loans (see Fig. 10.12).54
But none of these seemed to decisively diminish the problem, so 1981 and 1984 mass housing laws
introduced by the Özal government established a new agency, the Mass Housing Development and Public

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A B

C D

Fig. 10.12 (a, b, c): Turkey’s first large-scale mass-housing neighbourhood (1957–64): Ataköy, Istanbul, designed by the
staff of Emlak Kredi Bank chief architect Ertuğrul Menteşe; 2015 views of Area 2 (seven ten-storey slabs); Area 1, block 44;
and aerial view of overall neighbourhood (MG 2016). (d): Evka I, Izmir, 1987 aerial view: part of a multi-phase geçekondu
clearance project of 1981–9 led by Izmir municipality and featuring early examples of the standard point-block types later
mass-produced by TOKİ after 2000.

Procurement Administration, headed by social democrat Yiğit Gülöksüz and charged with encouraging
cooperative social housing through low-interest credits from a ‘Mass Housing Fund’ – in furtherance of the
1982 constitution’s declaration that the state was the guarantor of the right of all Turkish citizens to decent
housing, as well as to revive the economy and boost employment. The years 1984–5 also saw new laws
devolving significant central-government competences to the largest municipalities, including planning and
expropriation powers, although their initial effect was mainly to exacerbate central–local conflicts and fuel
municipal corruption.55
Four initial years of success, with 950,000 building-credits awarded, climaxed in 1988, when the EKB was
transferred to the control of the agency; by 1990, co-ops’ share of the total housing supply had jumped from
9% to 25% since 1980.56 However, most of these co-ops were still middle class in composition, as they required
40% contributions from owners, matched by 60% ‘mass housing credit’ from the Fund. Thereafter, rampant
inflation pushed interest rates beyond the reach of ordinary citizens and prompted yet another reorganization
in 1990, when the agency assumed a name and acronym still familiar today: Toplu Konut İdaresi Başkanliği

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(TOKİ, or Mass Housing Administration).57 Those years also saw significantly expanded lojman construction,
especially around Ankara. Late EKB/early TOKİ developments extended the now-established architectural
theme of high-density towers to far-flung peripheral sites, for example at Eryaman in outer Ankara, planned
as a 40,000-unit satellite town straddling a north–south motorway, and beginning with a first neighbourhood-
unit of 4,740 flats built in 1987–92, including tower blocks of ten to fifteen storeys. A similar multi-phase
project of 1981–9 in Izmir, ‘EVKA’, was built by a municipally-led alliance of public agencies in an early
geçekondu clearance effort under the 1984 law’s expropriation powers: it combined low-rise flats, terraced
houses and point-blocks.58 The multi-storey-type plans pioneered in developments such as these, especially
the Types ‘B’ and ‘C’ point-blocks with four flats per upper floor, would form the basis of a hugely-expanded
housing drive after 2000.59
As we will see in Part 3, the years after the 1999–2001 recession, and the 1999 Marmara earthquake, would
unleash a revolution in state housing involvement, under which TOKİ would undergo massive expansion
from 2003 as a direct instrument of central-government intervention, and would build over 500,000 houses in
2003–10 alone – as against the 43,000 previously completed in 1984–2003. Here, again, Mediterranean Europe
would overlap with non-European patterns, but in a very different way from the ‘Latin American’ approach of
Portugal, Spain or late-twentieth-century Turkey itself. From this point, Turkish housing would break
decisively from the old, half-hearted ‘Southern European’ approach to mass housing, towards a more ‘Eastern
Asian’ pattern of consistent high outputs and high density.60

Conclusion: First World housing in summary

In our survey of First World mass housing in chapters 4–10, we witnessed time and again the irrepressible
actual diversity of a reputedly monolithic movement. This included strong divergences between different
regions of the developed capitalist world, especially between cases where state interventions took on a social-
democratic, planned welfare-state character and those, led by the USA, where the state focused on enabling
private-sector initiatives. But it also applied within individual regions, such as the Scandinavian/Nordic
countries, with their surprising polarization between collectivist and individualist approaches, or the
‘pillarized’ Low Countries, with their contrast between laissez-faire Belgium and the highly-planned
Netherlands. This microregional structure did not stop at the nation-state, but extended to contrasts at the
level of individual municipalities and civic leaders, such as municipalized Örebro versus cooperative Malmö
or production-orientated Glasgow versus the design-orientated London County Council. To some extent, this
highly variegated pattern was only to be expected, given the patchwork pattern of First World state organization.
Much more surprisingly, however, we will discover in the next three chapters (11–13) that a similar diversity
applied in the case of the Communist Second World, despite its even more ingrained reputation of ‘grey
uniformity’ and the authoritarian centralism enshrined within the Marxist-Leninist governmental tradition.
As the overall trajectory of their programmes was, on the whole, about ten years later than those of the First
World, they form the next logical stage in Part 2’s narrative sequence of overlapping campaigns in mass
housing’s global ‘Hundred Years’ War’.

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CHAPTER 11
THE USSR: DEVELOPED SOCIALISM AND
EXTENSIVE URBANISM

The previous seven chapters traced the First World’s postwar housing programmes, including their common
features, and their divergences – some blatant, such as the early rise and fall of US public housing, but others more
subtle. Chapters 11–13 carry the narrative onwards, encompassing a different grouping, that of the state-socialist
regimes, with their insistent emphasis on discipline and mass mobilization. Yet here, too, diversity surprisingly
prevailed. Chronologically, this ‘Second World’ differed distinctly from the First. The focus on postwar
reconstruction during Stalin’s last years, to 1953, delayed the start of industrial-scale mass housing production
until the later 1950s, but thereafter high output continued right until 1989–91, rather than petering out in the
1970s or earlier, as was generally the case in Western Europe. Architecturally, too, there was a similar time-lag,
with adoption of fully-fledged modernist architectural-planning principles delayed until the late 1950s – other
than in the exceptional case of Yugoslavia. The shift towards modernist mass construction in the mid-/late1950s
also to some extent reflected the influence of Western planning ideas, as well as organizational concepts such as
Taylorism and Fordism – another reason for the Soviet Union’s later position in the chapter sequence of Mass
Housing. The Second World also encompassed states at widely differing stages of development, ranging from
highly industrialized or agricultural economies in Central and Eastern Europe to underdeveloped economies in
Asia: only the isolated Western Hemisphere case of Cuba is dealt with elsewhere, as part of the Latin American
chapter (14). Inevitably, however, our account of the Second World begins at its heart, in the Soviet Union.
In chapter 2, we first encountered the Soviet disparity between unitary planning rhetoric and multi-headed
building reality. The state certainly dominated all aspects of life in the USSR, especially under late Stalinism’s
regime of internal confrontation, within which the MVD and the Gulag played a central role, not only in
security, but also in national development; military spending absorbed up to 20% of GNP.1 But although the
rhetoric of mobilization and coordination impressed even an informed external observer such as Simon in
1937, in reality the Soviet state was distinctly polycentric in character. Russia’s imperial centralism was echoed
in the strongly hierarchical system within which central ministries and state enterprises (vedomstva) always
held the trump cards. There were recurring efforts to enlist local initiative, whether through the municipal
soviets or through semi-private initiatives.2 But local power in housing was a pale shadow of the powerful
municipal structures in some Western countries, notably the council housing of Britain or Red Vienna: a
Soviet writer in 1932 had argued defensively that the latter was merely a ‘manoeuvre’ by the capitalists’ Social
Democratic ‘lackeys’ to depress workers’ wages while boosting their own prestige.3 In practice, Soviet housing,
and that of the Second World in general, featured as wide a range of microecologies as the West. However, this
diversity in the Soviet mass-housing world was not something openly thrust upon the observer, but something
that had to be deduced, behind the grandiose façade of party unity.
Architecturally, late Stalinist housing expressed both rationalist and representational values. In the first
area – as we will see later in this chapter – significant efforts in design standardization and prefabricated
construction were made, but the rationalistic principles of ‘zhilaia ploshchad’ (living space) and ‘ration’ per
person were inconsistent with the new dwellings being built, mostly large apartments in monumental blocks
which often ended up being shared by several families, like the subdivided bourgeois apartments of the 1920s:
overall, the ‘kommunalka’, whether in an old or new building, remained an everyday setting for much postwar

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Soviet urban life. Equally, the early 1950s’ significant steps towards more ‘efficient’, ‘rational’ apartment plans
and overlaps with Western modernism, especially in sectional planning and Zeilenbau layouts, were disguised
by the continuing socialist-realist architectural style.4

‘Quickly, cheaply and well’: Soviet housing under Khrushchev and Brezhnev

In the postwar years, the Soviet Union not only had to adjust to becoming the centre of an empire-like
structure of satellite states, all with their distinctive inflections of socialist themes, but also underwent
significant transformations in its own approach to mass housing. Yet although some of these changes were
revolutionary in character – especially the mid-1950s shift to housing-led mass social modernization – many
of the underlying currents and conflicts of Soviet state administration continued undiminished.5 These
postwar fluctuations between revolutionary ruptures and continuities were naturally personified in the values
and initiatives of the union’s post-Stalinist leaders, especially the radical Nikita S. Khrushchev (1953–64) and
the consolidatory Leonid I. Brezhnev (1964–82). Whereas socialist tyrants such as Stalin and Mao favoured
‘divide-and-rule’ politics and fragmented housing systems, the later, more ‘constitutional’ Soviet rulers to
some extent attempted to put socialist coordination rhetoric into practice.
Under Khrushchev, strenuous efforts were made to transform the USSR from a regime of forced heavy-
industrial development and capricious violence into something approximating to a ‘welfare state’: a strategy
retaining significant coercive elements but within which citizens enjoyed significant rights, including the right
of each household to a self-contained dwelling and access to home-based consumption. Khrushchev’s strong
personal concern with housing conditions, elevating it unprecedentedly to a top national political priority,
culminated in a dramatic July 1957 decree pledging to ‘liquidate the housing problem’ in ten years, and a
seven-year plan, launched in 1958, to build 15 million new urban dwellings ‘quickly, cheaply, and well’ on ‘the
principle “one family, one flat” ’. The initially spectacular success of this plan, with a doubling in annual
production to 80 million m2 between 1956 and 1959, was one of an interlocking group of late-1950s Khrushchev
policy triumphs, along with successful harvests (1956) and the launch of Sputnik (1957), which compellingly
projected the vision of an ‘alternative Soviet modernity’ and a shift from basic provision to the ‘building of
Communism’; these successes helped perpetuate the Soviet system for a further three decades. Owing to the
low starting-point of popular expectations, and his strong support of technocratic ‘experts’, Khrushchev
initially enjoyed a virtuous circle of rising policy effectiveness. So in 1959 he could promise sweeping increases
in Soviet personal living space, and the Third Party Programme of 1961 pledged the realization of Communism
within the lifetimes of ‘the present generation of Soviet people’.6
With the USSR’s extraordinary output achievements of 1957–9, the boasts about the superiority of Soviet
socialism in housing and social policy fleetingly seemed plausible – but the moment was short-lived. The
production boom depended on one-off productivity gains, and further social spending increases would have
required curbing the Soviet Union’s prodigious military budget through détente with the USA – an aspiration
blocked by escalating tensions from the May 1960 U2 spy-plane incident until the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.
Partly, Khrushchev’s diplomatic failures stemmed from his own unpredictable character, which equally
inspired domestic opposition among the apparatchiks affected by his constant interventions, especially in
Moscow.7 Having alienated the military-industrial complex through his declared intention to prioritize
consumer spending over defence, his reforms fell foul of rising expectations among the wider public. At the
December 1963 Central Committee plenum, he boasted that 108,000,000 people, over half the population,
had been rehoused in better conditions since 1954. But although 1964 propaganda still hailed his rule as a
‘Great Decade’ of progress, the deteriorating economic situation, and consequent cutbacks, had already

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provoked bloody riots at Novocherkassk in June 1962, and protests at sudden spending cuts of 45% in Moscow
housing construction in April 1964.8
Following Khrushchev’s removal in a peaceful coup in October 1964, the collective leadership which
replaced him, with Leonid Brezhnev as party chief and primus inter pares, continued essentially the same
policies but in a more consistent manner, emphasizing undramatic continuity rather than spectacular gestures.
Although efforts were still made to boost consumer standards, especially by Prime Minister Aleksei Kosygin,
the primacy of the military-industrial complex was reasserted, to support the USSR’s claimed superpower
equality with the USA – a spending burden disguised from the 1970s by burgeoning oil revenue. Although the
Ninth Five-Year Plan of 1971–5 was the first to propose higher consumer than industrial output, housing
construction remained at generally the same quantitative level as under Khrushchev: rhetorical emphasis on
higher quality was coupled with cutbacks and delays to the most ambitious projects.9
The stage was set for a period of stability that Brezhnev himself, in a 1971 party congress speech, dubbed
‘developed socialism’, but others subsequently branded ‘years of stagnation’ – although the perceived standard
of urban living, already higher in 1964 than 1953, continued rising for another decade. Brezhnev consistently
supported the cadres and local leaders who had often been upset by Khrushchev, and the power of the party
within the state was reasserted. However, the Khrushchevite veneration for experts and scientific progress
survived, and was elaborated into a cult of socialist managerial efficiency: reporting to the 1976 CPSU
Congress, Brezhnev argued that ‘managerial and, above all planning activity must be directed towards ultimate
economic results’. Although the Gulag had disappeared, this was still an authoritative state wedded to control
and surveillance, as exemplified in the ‘propiskas’ that regulated residence and work, the secrecy attached to
maps, and the paranoia inspired by overseas contacts. Yet paradoxically, given Brezhnev’s temperamental
preference for a hands-off approach, this was also a time of considerable freedom in professional areas such as
architecture, where lively debates could flourish.10

The curate’s egg: national and local housing production in the postwar Soviet Union

Although the attitudes of its individual leaders were significant, the structure of the mature Soviet state also
pervasively influenced postwar housing. The one-party Soviet Union was governed very differently from
Western countries: the CPSU was an administrative party, and so its structure paralleled and overshadowed
the state at central and local levels. In most national policy areas, it was party decision-making that was
crucial. This structure was supported by specialized cadres, whose areas of competence straddled the state–
party divide. Officially, the Soviet Union was organized on Fordist lines of huge scale and vertical integration,
with Gosplan’s central frameworks implemented locally via a pyramidal structure of ministries, enterprises
and city Soviets, and housing plans logically extrapolated from national strategies of industrial development.
But the reality was dominated by the same old conflicts between national and local, or rich and poor ministries.
Also conflicting with the managerial rhetoric were blatantly inefficient work patterns, such as ‘dolgostroi’
(large projects stretched out because of organizational or funding problems), ‘storming’ (last-minute rushes to
fulfil work targets) or ‘whitewashing’ (systematic falsification of output figures to portray work targets as
having been fulfilled). All these practices continued under Brezhnev, despite official efforts to argue for greater
probity. Local–national power struggles over implementation continued unceasingly. At a strategic level,
reinforcements of the central Gosplan system were offset by devolutionary episodes such as ‘sovnarkhoz’
economic decentralization, established after the 20th CPSU congress of 1956. Republic–Union relations
continued to be unclear: despite the ethos of ‘fraternal’ egalitarianism, the power of republican leaders was
restricted, and repeated reference back to Moscow was necessary. Mass housing’s role within this system

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highlighted its double function within not just the USSR but also the modern state in general, both feeding,
and celebrating, the latter’s infrastructural power more pervasively then more isolated, traditional
representative monuments such as parliament buildings or museums could do (see Fig. 11.1).11
At the local coal-face of construction, feuding between branches of the state over control of housing was
especially fierce. The 1937 centralization of housing policy had fuelled steady rises in the percentage of

B
Fig. 11.1 (a): The search for communism: cartoon from the Lithuanian satirical magazine, Šluota, 1961. (b): Nikita
Khrushchev addresses the Executive Committee of the International Union of Architects at their 1958 Moscow congress.

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C D

E F
Fig. 11.1 (c): Slow building construction, cartoon from the Lithuanian political-literary magazine, Švyturys, 1960: ‘Keep
holding it up, lads – the building inspectors are about to leave!’ (d): Lithuanian poster of 1976, inviting Soviet Army
reservists to apply for employment and training in state enterprises in the Lithuanian SSR: in the background, the
Karoliniškes district in Vilnius is seen under construction. (e): ‘Leningrad Builds’ street display at Nevski Prospekt 1993,
in 1981 (MG). (f): ‘Zhek’ sign (‘House of Exemplary Order’) on Block 33 of Mikrorayon Ts-7 in Tashkent, a four-storey
1967 block designed by KievZNIIEP. ‘Zhek’ was a Soviet system of inter-block competition in upkeep and tidiness (MG
2015).

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 The USSR: Developed Socialism and Extensive Urbanism

H
Fig. 11.1 (g): Block 14 of Yunusabad kv. 14, Tashkent: four-storey Series 1-UZ-500-TSP block of c. 1974 designed by
TashZNIIEP; 1980s plaque denoting construction by the ‘Glavtashkentstroi’ DSK (cf. 11.13e) (MG 2015). (h): Gosstroi
Central Lighting Engineering Laboratory, 1964 insolation calculation diagram.

housing held by the vedomstva – by as much as 78% by 1965 – despite repeated attempts to assign local soviets
the role of ‘yedinyi zakazchik’ (sole client) for housing, social services and commerce. This failure stemmed
partly from Russia’s lack of a strong local-government tradition, but also partly from the tendency of the
under-resourced soviets to give housing a low budget priority. In the city of Yaroslavl in 1948, for example, less
than 5% of the municipal budget was allocated to housing construction. Enterprises used house-building as a
‘carrot’ to attract workers to vital factories, and many were wealthy enough, or attached to sufficiently high-
status ministries, to be able to circumvent resource shortages. Overall, industrial location, rather than city
planning, was the strongest determinant of housing construction. The results were often chaotic: in 1971–2,
for example, in Yeniseisk, a fast-growing Siberian city, ‘every ministry builds its own small settlement with its
own services and heating plant’, and in Saratov, a large city on the Volga, in addition to the local soviet, there
were ‘eighty other enterprises and organizations of various ministries and departments that function as

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“clients” for the construction of housing’. In the Latvian town of Daugavpils, the municipally-built percentage
of new housing dropped from 60% to 30% after the mid-1960s, with the Lokomotiv plant, centrally controlled
by the Ministry of Transport in Moscow, able to provide flats for around 25% of its workers, but the regionally-
based, poorly-resourced ZKhV chemical fibre plant in a far weaker position. This fragmentation may also
have owed something to the long Russian tradition of the ‘sloboda’ – autonomous settlements built by minority
groups on city outskirts. Brezhnev, given his support for the military-industrial complex, was unsurprisingly
a champion of vedomstva power, and of the direct hierarchical line of command from ministers to enterprises.
Just as in the West, this was a landscape of countless mass-housing microregions – but unlike the West, a
landscape blanketed in a culture of secrecy and arbitrary decision-making.12
In some parts of the Soviet Union, the soviets did exert unusual power, especially in cities of over 1 million
population, which attracted higher levels of investment, including facilities such as Metro provision. In Moscow,
the city council, or ‘Mossoviet’, enjoyed a national as well as civic status, and provided a crucial power base for
up-and-coming politicians, with its ruling ispolkom (assembly) and prezidium (city executive), and wide powers
over housing. A 1951 conference on housing construction, held under Mossoviet auspices, for example, provided
the platform from which Khrushchev developed his industrialized philosophy of mass housing construction: in
1952 he finalized an ambitious ten-year housing plan for the capital that depended on expanding prefabricated
building. Under Brezhnev, Moscow was systematically enhanced as an ‘exemplary Soviet city’, including
numerous propaganda-driven clearances of dilapidated buildings.13 Here, of course, the party hierarchy ‘trumped’
the civil hierarchy at all points: the city’s party chief, gorkom first secretary Viktor Grishin, controlled the city as
a ‘fiefdom’ from 1967 to 1985.14 Second in civic power was Leningrad, which compensated for its lack of republic-
capital status by developing itself into a centre of scientific research and excellence, a postwar strategy charted by
party regional first secretary Frol Kozlov, and which included, in the building and planning field, the founding
of a range of Union-wide research institutes. In its range of competences, the Leningrad city Soviet, or ‘Lensoviet’,
was arguably the strongest in the country, with powers that naturally included housing, and allowed it to pioneer
the establishment in 1961 of a single-queue waiting-list system.15

Order out of chaos? Central and private-sector initiatives

The rivalry between enterprises and soviets posed a significant potential bottleneck to Khrushchev’s housing
programme and he strenuously attempted to circumvent it, relying on the building technocrats who were his
strong supporters from the early 1950s. Of these, the most important was Vladimir A. Kucherenko, who rose
to the leadership of Gosstroi USSR (the State Construction Committee) on the back of Khrushchev’s crusade
against Stalinist excesses, as well as his own achievements in managing construction of Soviet atomic weapons
laboratories. Kucherenko was a managerial and technical specialist who travelled extensively across Western
Europe, especially in 1956–7. He dispassionately exploited Soviet and foreign expertise in devising a radically
expanded housing programme based on standardization and prefabrication of four-/five-storey flats. His late
1950s initiatives showed the Soviet system at its most effective: reformist initiatives devised by experts at the
‘centre’ (i.e. at Gosstroi) were fed outwards through a vast pyramidal structure and imposed locally through a
new system of super-sized local construction trusts, each with exclusive powers to build in its area, whether
on behalf of enterprises or soviets, and tied into regional design institutes and service organizations.16
In April 1954, Khrushchev, having crushed fierce opposition within the CPSU presidium from Stalin
loyalist Molotov, whom he derided as ‘someone who didn’t know the first thing about construction, nor the
latest theories about division of labour and other progressive management techniques’, secured the formation
of a new Chief Directorate for Housing and Civil Construction in Moscow (or ‘Glavmosstroi’), headed by

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Kucherenko, which absorbed no fewer than eighty-four building trusts from twenty-one central ministries
and departments. Containing 110,000 staff from the beginning, and working through the integrated agency of
house-building combines (domostroitelnie kombinaty, or DSKs), each equipped with its own factory and
workforce, Glavmosstroi boosted Moscow housing output more than threefold within five years, and by the
mid-1960s controlled around 85% of housing production in the city. Although later years saw reverses at
the hands of the ministries, by that time Kucherenko’s (and Khrushchev’s) legacy in this area was secure, as the
Glavmosstroi formula had been propagated throughout the Soviet Union, by similarly-named spin-off
organizations, such as Glavleningradstroi or Glavtashkentstroi. These efforts in building organization and
construction were closely coordinated with state design institutes, and the central standards laid down by
Gosstroi, notably the famous SNiP (see below).17
Along with creation of executive development agencies like Glavmosstroi, another time-honoured Soviet
way of circumventing bottlenecks was to enlist citizens’ private resources to supplement state input –
something that was always done sheepishly in the Soviet context and was always vulnerable to reversal at short
notice. The revival in private building began in 1944, at the height of wartime Stalinism, when state support
for self-built single-family houses, including supply of type-plans, was introduced. However, with the shortage
of materials, many of these turned out to be glorified shanty towns, merely exacerbating existing problems
with squatting and irregular occupancy of new state housing, which were causing increasing concern to the
KGB by the later 1950s. The proportion of housing held as personal property (chestnovladel’cheskii) in the
USSR peaked in 1958, at 40%, and that proportion had hardly fallen a decade later – despite significant inroads
into the self-built areas made in the early 1960s by mass demolitions for state rental flats.18
An alternative to straightforward private building was offered by collective, or cooperative construction.
The first revival of this approach following its 1937 abolition came in 1955, when the so-called ‘people’s
construction’, or ‘narodnaya stroika’, began at the Molotov car factory in Gorkii, involving collective self-
building by a group of workers. This spread rapidly across the whole country, accounting briefly for as much
as 10% of construction in the late 1950s, but was confined to traditional construction of blocks of one or two
storeys and was thus radically out of step with Khrushchev’s industrialization campaign. In its place, from
around 1958, the full-blown cooperative system abolished twenty years previously was reconstituted, including
building and management ZhSKs, bolstered in 1962 by state aid from the Stroibank USSR, totalling up to 60%
of construction costs; building contracts, like all collective housing projects, were controlled by the local state
combines. Owners often had difficulty sourcing the remaining 40% of the cost themselves, and the projects
were frowned on as a disruption by the local soviets, who channelled them into redevelopment of low-density
individual housing areas. Thus co-op construction rose only gradually, exceeding 3,000 co-ops by 1964 and
accounting for barely 6% of all housing construction in 1966 (but 11% in Moscow by 1973).19
In 1977, the USSR Constitution declared that Soviet citizens had the ‘right to housing’, but clearly this
‘right’ differed from that in Western countries. Certainly, the mass construction of apartments by Khrushchev
and his successors significantly promoted family self-containment, especially because of the greater security
of tenure than Western countries and the ability to exchange apartments across the Soviet Union. But persistent
efforts were made to maintain collective spirit and social surveillance in the new housing areas, partly by
reviving neighbourhood volunteer brigades and block community groups – although the prioritizing of
dwelling construction over ancillary facilities often meant there were no community facilities to use. In
Central Asia, propagation of small self-contained dwellings conflicted with traditional multi-family dwelling
patterns, as in the Uzbek ‘mahallas’ destroyed for modern housing developments in Tashkent. Numerous
films and publications explored this uneasy balance between ‘private’ and ‘collective’, most famously the 1975
film Ironia sudby (‘The Irony of Fate’), about a romantic entanglement arising from a mix-up between two
identical flats and blocks in Moscow and Leningrad.20

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Unlike many Western countries, the most prestigious Soviet housing, for the most powerful groups in
society, was in many cases the most highly subsidized, and virtually free at point of use. The ‘nomenklatura’
housing built for leading politicians and cadres at national, republic or city level was financed, designed and
built by special elite construction trusts, such as Moscow’s UVDG, in high-specification blocks in favoured,
central locations, exempt from the stringent standards of zhilaia ploshchad and boasting all the communal
facilities often omitted from normal developments. The dwellings of artists, musicians and intellectuals, always
a specially favoured category in Soviet society, also enjoyed higher space allocations on the grounds of the need
to work at home. The resulting dwelling projects, although more modestly-scaled than the grandiose apartments
of the nomenklatura, were often laid out in small-scale, landscaped groups with special design features.21

Monumentality and space in postwar Soviet housing

While the organization of Soviet mass housing was more complex and anomalous than the unified colossus
portrayed in official propaganda, its built results were unambiguously astonishing, both following the
extraordinary 1956–9 output jump and also over the entire Khrushchev–Brezhnev era. As Soviet propagandists
lost no opportunity to emphasize, early 1960s output exceeded Great Britain, Sweden and Germany combined,
and when challenged that this had been achieved by building flats that were obsolete from the start, Khrushchev
responded, ‘You have to decide: do you build a thousand adequate apartments, or seven hundred very good
ones? And would a citizen rather settle for an adequate apartment now, or wait ten to fifteen years for a very
good one?’22 The rest of this chapter focuses on the built environments that stemmed from these prodigious
output achievements, including the broad concepts of city planning and the design and construction of the
standardized blocks with which these areas were populated. The same dilemmas as in the First World, between
quantity and quality, planning and disorder, density and sprawl, and modernity and tradition, also challenged
Soviet designers, but often in different forms.
In a country built around the ideal of planning, where the frameworks laid down by Gosplan and its subsidiaries
could be extrapolated into specific production targets and building plans, and all land was publicly owned and
zoned by use, one would have expected the urban development process to be exceptionally straightforward. But
in practice, the Soviet Union was bedevilled by the same disparity between planning aspirations and political
reality as elsewhere: despite the supply-side consolidation into construction trusts, there was no simple way of
enforcing the planning targets, or compelling enterprises to build in the right places or in the correct amounts. The
all-pervasive secrecy of anything relating to maps also impeded the effectiveness of zoned planning. In the Baltic
republics, for example, even senior planning officials could only briefly consult ‘Genplan’ (city-plan) maps, under
the supervision of a special detachment of security staff based in Riga. The chronic delays in approvals of successive
Genplan iterations, both in the USSR and other socialist states, meant that planners were often in effect working
‘in arrears’, following an unapproved plan version. Personal influence was often more effective than official
frameworks, as when Tallinn city planners in the mid-1970s exploited ‘inside’ defence-ministry connections to
secure relocation of an air base, freeing the site of the vast Lasnamäe development. In such a compartmented
context, free-flowing planning debates were impossible, and the influence of even prestigious projects such as
Mikhail Posokhin’s new Moscow city master plan (finally approved 1971), the 1960s south-west Moscow extension
design competition or the Leningrad general plan (approved 1966) were more restricted than those of Western set
pieces like the 1943 County of London Plan or the 1952 Generalplan för Stockholm.23
The state ownership of all development land, the wartime destruction of swathes of flimsy wooden houses,
and the egalitarian dislike of hierarchically-differentiated urban space and density all encouraged Soviet city
planners to revisit the interwar debate between centralist and dis-urbanist planning, between the argument

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for urban concentration by Lenin and Stalin and anti-urban visions such as Miliutin’s Sozgorod of 1930. Out
of this tension emerged postwar Soviet planning’s most characteristic recipe, which a sympathetic German
commentator appropriately dubbed ‘Extensive Urbanism’. The archetypal post-1957 Soviet mass housing area
combined elements of extreme vastness, almost invariably on the city peripheries, with variants on the Stalinist
themes of sublime monumentality and ‘spectacle’ planning along super-wide ‘magistrale’ boulevards. This
sparse, yet stately development pattern was shaped by the same regulations of sunlight and daylight exposure
in the West, but taken to a greater extreme – alongside the established Western influence of Neues Bauen
Zeilenbau planning, already translated to the USSR by May. Under Khrushchev, Brezhnev and successors, this
same pattern was not discarded, but loosened out into a modernist ‘gegliederte und aufgelockerte’ (‘zoned and
opened-out’) form. Extensive Urbanism culminated in the 1970s, at a time of gradually increasing density in
Soviet planning, in a proliferation of gesturally monumental open-planned groups.24
The genealogy of Soviet ‘Extensive Urbanism’ begins with late Stalinism’s preoccupation with the spectacular
effect of vast, processional boulevards and perimeter street-block plans, with styles ranging from columned
ornateness to more subtle Art Deco classicism. The early postwar years brought a new, vertical element, that
of the Moscow skyscrapers, ornately turreted and spired rivals to the American ‘capitalists’. Two of them
contained top-rank nomenklatura apartments, at Kotelnicheskaya Embankment (1948–53) and Vosstaniya
Square (1950–4). In Kiev, the rebuilt Kreschatik (1949–51) also mixed towers and lower blocks, by A. Vlasov
and others. Otherwise, the building of monumental boulevard layouts continued as before. The factory and
institutional townships developed across the USSR in the 1940s and early 1950s combined axial, ‘Baroque’
monumentality with Garden City greenery (in theory) and zoned separation of uses, together with generic
features of the Stalinist ‘Sotsgorod’: palace of culture, factory administration, hotel, stadium, market hall.
Khrushchev ended all that. In the larger cities, development shifted decisively to the city peripheries, which
provided enough land on all sides in Moscow, and in a semicircle to south, north and north-west in Leningrad.
But because these developments were almost exclusively composed of flats of four to five storeys or more, the
paradoxical result was a ‘saucer’ profile, with overall densities often lower in many central areas and higher at
the edge, which was often very sharp and well-defined – a distinctly ‘monumental’ formula contrasting
strongly with the low-rise suburbia of many Western cities.25
Extensive Urbanism drew on a variety of foreign planning set pieces toured by Soviet study delegates in the
late 1950s. Kucherenko visited Scandinavia in 1957, but far more important was a visit to Tapiola by
Khrushchev himself that year; his meeting with selected delegates was the highlight of the 1958 UIA Congress
in Moscow, which institutionalized the USSR’s new openness towards international modernist architecture
and planning.26 Above all, Extensive Urbanism echoed recent French city-planning, including both the
classical monumentality of Le Havre (appealing to Soviet architects in its combination of street-block layout,
rationalist construction and a tall, spired tower) and the Zeilenbau sublimity of proto-grands-ensembles such
as Sotteville. The ‘Franco-Soviet’ hybridity of Extensive Urbanism was reflected in Stroizdat’s publication from
1961 of a Russian-language version of L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui: Sovremennaya Arkhitektura.27
The shift from the street-block layout of the kvartal to the larger-scale, open-plan mikrorayon reflected a
range of Western modernist urban district precedents, including the Berlin Interbau and the Mk. 1 British
New Towns, with their planned arrays of neighbourhood units. The mikrorayon concept, first proposed in the
1940s, gained impetus in the following decade, when the Novye Cheryomushki area of south-west Moscow,
especially its experimental Ninth District, emerged as the USSR’s most prestigious modern neighbourhood
project. Within the Ninth District, the shift from kvartal to mikrorayon was explicit in the architecture: the
early four- or five-storey flats were laid out in street-blocks, and modestly-scaled towers of nine storeys were
added later. Overall, the high-prestige south-western sector of Moscow, with Leninsky Prospekt as its axis,
was an exemplary microcosm of the evolution of Soviet housing architecture. It had an annular form, extending

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outwards from the late Stalinist streetscape, via Cheryomushki’s transitional modernism, to the tall, free-
standing towers of Leninsky Prospekt and nearby areas such as Ramenki, ending at Troparyevo with a later,
denser layout of towers and angled slabs. The structuring of the zone around the dominant north-east–south-
west magistrales, notably Leninsky Prospekt and Prospekt Vernadskovo, gave the entire enterprise a sense of
strong, hierarchical authority (see Fig. 11.2).28
Smaller, localized versions of this formula sprang up across the length of the Soviet Union, from Vladivostok
to Vilnius, some developed over several decades. Here the orderly internal hierarchy of raions and mikrorayons
often conflicted with the townships’ disjointed relationship to the existing urban centres.29 And the
fragmentation of vedomstva-led development left many new districts without their planned services. In
Tallinn, there were fevered debates among sociologists about how to rectify the deficit, and a pioneering series
of neighbourhood centres was built in the Mustamäe district, named ‘ABC-centres’ in direct imitation of
Sweden. And in Kiev, the left (east) bank of the Dneiper boasted a vast array of Extensive Urbanist
developments, beginning with the Rusanovka Massiv (1961–74), on an entirely reclaimed site, and the
Komsomolsky Massiv (1965–75), with its spectacular, twelve-storey, semicircular centrepiece block.30 The
same approach shaped the planning of the many completely new towns built across the USSR by powerful
departmental military-industrial organizations, such as the secret cities in Kazakhstan. Here, too, the Stalinist

A B
Fig. 11.2 (a): Building productivity propaganda poster (1979) by artists E. Abezgus and S. Rayev, for ‘Plakat’ publishers:
‘Remember – a 1% overall saving in building glass makes it possible to glaze 600 nine-storey large-panel blocks’. (b): Front
cover of Zhilishchnoe Stroitelstvo (‘Housing Construction’) journal, of September 1979, depicting a typical Extensive
Urbanist ‘magistrale’ boulevard.

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C E

Fig. 11.2 (c): Vosstaniya Ploshchad, Moscow, twenty-two-storey H-plan nomenklatura apartment ‘skyscraper’ of 1950–4,
designed by architects M. Posokhin and A. Mndoyants (MG 2013). (d): Novye Cheryomushki, perspective and plan of
experimental kvartals 9 (reduced-surface) and 11–12 (large-panel prefabrication), designed by N. Osterman and others
– included in a lavish commemorative book, Moskva – Planirovka i Zastroika Goroda 1945–1957, published to coincide
with the 1958 IUA congress. (e): Leninsky Prospekt, Moscow, kvartals 32–33: seven nineteen-storey 1MG-601 towers built
in 1967, architects E. Stamo and others (MG 2013). (f): Rusanovka Massiv, Kiev, district developed in 1961–74 largely with
nine- and sixteen-storey blocks, entirely on reclaimed land, planned by V. E. Ladny and G. S. Kultshyzky; included the first
use of series 1KG-480, introduced by KievZNIIEP from 1964, and eventually the most popular standard type in the city
(MG 2019). (g): Komsomolsky Massiv, Kiev (1965–75), with spectacular, curved twelve-storey centrepiece block and
sixteen-storey towers, architects O. I. Savorov, W. I. Yeshov and S. M. Wainshtain (MG 2019).

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axis-and-kvartal approach of the early 1950s yielded gradually to spacious landscaping and mixed-height
blocks echoing Vällingby, Tapiola or Harlow, as for example at Snieckus in Lithuania, built from 1975 by
SREDMASH (the Ministry of Medium Machine Production) for staff of the Igualina nuclear power station,
and centrally designed from Leningrad by the energy design institute VNIPIET, under planners Viktor Akutin
and M. A. Belyi.31
In sharp contrast to some Western countries, especially Britain and the USA, the acute housing shortages
ruled out any large-scale inner-urban area redevelopment. Instead, central areas of cities hosted a more
verticalized variant of Extensive Urbanism, focusing, like Stalinism, on grand ‘magistrales’, and beginning of
course in Moscow, with the Kalinin Prospekt project of 1962–9 (by M. V. Posokhin and others). Its array of
tall, boldly kinked nomenklatura apartment towers looked like a textbook example of US-style tabula-rasa
urban renewal, until one looked closer, when it became clear that a disorderly clutter of little buildings still
survived between the towers. Large-scale peripheral development was the path of least resistance, with
demolitions generally confined to low-density areas of self-built houses. In Estonia, for instance, successive
grandiose rebuilding plans for the decayed Tartu inner suburb of Supilinn remained unrealized, even as the
giant new Annelinn housing zone soared on the city’s south-east edge. As Tallinn’s City Architect (1960–80),
Dmitri Bruns, recalled, ‘big complexes like Mustamäe were built on virgin land because the housing crisis was
so deep that redevelopment was out of the question’.32 The most radical Soviet reconstructions instead focused
on the rural environment, where the development of collective farms or sovnarkhoz complexes also followed
the principles of Extensive Urbanism, with freely-disposed flats and communal buildings in landscaping.33
Extensive Urbanism’s ambivalent position between high- and low-density extremes was epitomized in the
career of architect Boris Rubanenko, planner of the most ambitious of all Soviet planned cities, Togliatti, the
‘automobile city’ developed around the ‘Avtovaz’ Fiat partnership-factory. Educated pre-war in Leningrad,
where he helped design set-piece Stalinist classical projects, Rubanenko shifted after the 1950s towards
modernist planning. His 1967 designs for Togliatti, a huge enlargement of a Stalinist township originally built
by Gulag labour in 1951–3, drew not just on the usual European exemplars but also, more flamboyantly, on
Brasilia, combining insistently diagonal block alignments with large-scale prefabrication and type mass-
production, and a stately civic forum in the Avtozavodski district (1969).34 In the 1970s, as we will see later,
Rubanenko’s ideas went a stage further, in a calculated ‘return to urbanity’ (see Fig. 11.3).

SNiP and DSK: standardization and industrialization

A vast project of Fordist systematization underpinned Khrushchev’s hugely-expanded building programme,

focused on small flats designed to ensure separate household occupancy. The backdrop was a sharp increase
in housing occupancy under Stalin, with average inhabitants per room, even before wartime losses, rising
from 2.7 in 1926 to 3.9 in 1940. With the renewed mobility encouraged by postwar reconstruction, dormitory
or kommunalka life remained the rule for many, even in Moscow, which still contained 3,318 hostels in 1950,
and many kommunalkas even in the 1970s. The wartime encouragement of private self-building had left cities
like Yaroslavl infested with wooden shacks: there were even some near the Moscow Kremlin in 1953. Thus
Stalin’s luxury skyscrapers made an obvious target for Khrushchev’s attacks. Oblique criticisms of excessive
ornamentation and neglect of technical values had already begun, for example in 1943 criticisms by Ginzburg,
and Khrushchev’s 1951–4 fostering of the technocrats had laid the groundwork for a hegemonic shift from
‘architecture’ to construction.35
By 1954–5, with a general purge of Stalin traditionalists underway in Moscow, these criticisms radically
sharpened, beginning with Khrushchev’s famous architectural polemical speech of 1954. He contrasted the

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A B

C D
Fig. 11.3 (a, b): Kalinin Prospekt (Novy Arbat), Moscow (1962–9), by Mikhail Posokhin, G. Makarevich and B. Tkhor:
archetype of the tower-flanked late Soviet magistrale, with twenty-four-storey towers and twenty-six-storey slabs rearing
up above and between earlier clutter: 1981 view (MG) and postcard of 1972 painting by L. M. Korsakov (published 1982
by Sovetsky Khudozhnik press). (c): Togliatti New Town original plans: laid out from 1967 by architect-planner Boris
Rubanenko. (d): SNiP design guidelines system, 1975 version of ‘regulatory documents’ booklet (reference 1-1-74) issued
by Gosstroi. Handwritten at top, ‘Production Department’ (Philipp Meuser).

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ornate excesses of elite apartments with the inadequacies of ordinary citizens’ housing, focusing above all on
living space and the shortfalls in the sanitary norm of 9m2 per person. Henceforth, zhilaia ploshchad became
less a gauge of existing overcrowding than of the standard of new housing – and of the state’s output
achievements, which were expressed solely in aggregate terms of thousands of square metres, not of numbers
of new dwellings. As the chief rhetorical gauge of mass-housing achievement under Khrushchev, Brezhnev
and their successors, living space worked its way deep into the consciousness of ordinary Soviet citizens. It
had significant drawbacks, however, including inconsistency with Khrushchev’s overriding political concern
to maximize the number of families housed in separate apartments, and the tendency of enterprises to neglect
services and repairs.36 A precedent for Khrushchev’s drive to end multi-occupancy of new flats had been
provided by architect Viktor Vesnin, who in 1943–4 proposed a very economically laid-out apartment with
minimal circulation spaces – a concept developed as a general Soviet standard by Gosstroi, initially through a
seminal nationwide competition for standard types in 1956–7. Implicit in Khrushchev’s condemnations of
Stalinist ‘excesses’ was a strongly normative concept of standardization, which he advocated in the mid-1950s
using Fordist rhetoric, arguing that the USSR should ‘build houses like cars’.37
Advocacy of standardization was often linked to talk of ‘economy’, following the logic of mass production.
Clearly, with the exceptionally low rents of Soviet housing, it was imperative in general terms to minimize
costs. Yet within the Soviet Union’s non-commercial economy, as even senior Soviet architects admitted in
retrospect, ‘no one really knew what was the real cost’ of materials or building in general, and prices quoted
by building-combines were essentially ‘invented by someone in Moscow’. Here the USSR contrasted with the
other really stringent postwar economy regime, in the USA, where, as we saw in chapter 4, the pressure of
tangible land and construction costs prompted not radical type-standardization but fiercely parsimonious
material specifications and very deep, dense block-plans maximizing the number of flats accessible by lifts,
staircases and services. In the USSR, where Western-style land cost did not exist, and building costs were a
paper transaction extrapolated from tables in a catalogue, the ‘economy’ drive was essentially concerned with
combating building-industry shortages of traditional materials and skilled labour – as in the short-lived
‘system-building’ craze in Britain from 1962. It was supported by a Fordist-style integration of standardized
design and mass production far more radical than anything in the First World. The cornerstone of this
structure was an acronym that inspired respect, if not fear, among generations of Soviet ‘housers’: the renowned
‘SNiP’ (‘Stroitelnye normy i pravila’, ‘Building Norms and Regulations’) – a more draconian equivalent of
Western systems such as the Dutch Voorschriften en Wenken, first introduced under Khrushchev by Gosstroi
in 1954 and subsequently revised periodically. Prior to SNiP there had been many efforts to introduce standard
types, but these focused on conventionally-built blocks containing large flats. SNiP was optimized from the
beginning for the new small, self-contained one-family flats. It was integrally linked to the concept of highly
standardized flat-types, developed in three generations, each with its own SNiP iteration, spanning the years
from 1954 to the end of the USSR, with a fourth then still under development.38
Crucial to the evolution of these type-generations, and of SNiP regulations, was the ‘sectional’ planning
concept, a Soviet adaptation of ‘Scottish-style’ nineteenth-century terraced tenements, translated into
modernist form in interwar Zeilenbau layouts. In the USSR, the linkage of sectional planning to ‘cookie-
cutter’ standardized repetition became far more explicit. Already, under late Stalinism, by 1951, Khrushchev’s
Special Architectural and Construction Bureau in Moscow was planning repetitive sectional schemes of flats,
and under the post-1954 Gosstroi regime, that principle was extended on a huge scale, with architect Vitaly
Pavlovich Lagutenko playing a key role. In 1957, for example, Gosstroi’s Giprostroiindustriya design institute
produced the 1-464 series, eventually the most ubiquitous of the first-generation Khrushchevki, with its rigid
structure of narrowly-spaced crosswalls and four Vesnin-type apartments per staircase landing. But all this
mass production was constantly qualified by refinements and improvements, reflecting the wider postwar

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modernist rejection of homogeneous regimentation, and advocacy of complexity. Each generational shift
within SNiP tried to introduce greater flexibility to the system by narrowing the focus of standardization –
from the entire block as the basic element of repetition in the first generation, to the individual sectional unit,
sometimes standing as a free-standing tower, in the 1970s second generation, and finally finishing with the
individual flat in the 1980s third generation (see Fig. 11.4).39

A B

C
Fig. 11.4 (a, b): Novye Cheryomushki, kvartal 12 (prototype large-panel), 1957 images from Moskva, Planirovka i zastroika
goroda, and 2013 view of Ul Grimau 14 (Kvartal 9). (c): Diagram of the evolution of Soviet system building techniques from
1958 to 1982, by N. P. Rozanov, showing the reduction in the proportion of living to auxiliary space from 83:17 to 60:40, the
rise in average living space per person from 10 to 18m2 and the rise in apartment size from 40m2 to 65m2 (Meuser).

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Fig. 11.4 (d, e): First-generation series I-464, prototype plan (1957) and axonometric, designed by Giprostroiindustriya,
Moscow (led by N. P. Rozanov). Produced between 1958 and 1974, the I-464 was the most widespread industrialized series
in the USSR, being built by over 200 DSKs by the mid-1960s (Meuser).

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Fig. 11.4 (f): First-generation series I-335, the more problematic Leningrad cousin of the I-464, designed by a
Lengorstroyproyekt team led by L. G. Yuzbashev in a hybrid of frame and panel construction, and built from 1959 to 1974:
2017 image of the first built examples, in the 28th and 29th kvartals of Malaya Okhta (1959), constructed by Polyustrovo
DSK no. 1 of Leningrad (MG 2017). (g): A 1986 Gosstroi diagram of ZNIIEP regional adjustments of standard types,
showing specializations (e.g. LenZNIIEP for northern regions, TashZNIIEP and TbilZNIIEP for seismic areas) (Meuser).

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The unifying generational framework also featured surprising geographical variety, stemming from the
integration into the Gosstroi system of a network of regional design institutes, each working with one or more
local DSKs – a system formally introduced by an August 1963 decree of the USSR Council of Ministers. These
were hierarchically-arranged, with a central Moscow-based institution (TsNIIEPZh) at the apex, and a
network of city design institutes ‘below’. Of the latter, the Moscow (MNIITEP) institute had national status
and Leningrad (LenZNIIEP) was not far behind: many of the standard types first devised by them, and their
city DSKs, were then built across the whole USSR. Gosstroi also tasked the Moscow and Leningrad institutes
with union-wide specialisms of housing design related to the USSR’s climate zones, including a Leningrad
specialism in sub-arctic permafrost regions, in cities such as Norilsk, as well as more ad-hoc commissions,
such as LenZNIIEP housing design for the closed atomic cities in Kazakhstan; a general zonal system was
established in 1964, including institutes in Leningrad, Kiev, Novosibirsk, Tashkent and Tbilisi. Within this
structure, KievZNIIEP, for example, provided standard type-designs not just for Ukraine but for the entire
south-western USSR, as well as for geologically and seismically unstable areas in general. Some Leningrad
types were prominent in second-generation design, including the 1LG-600, popularly dubbed the ‘Ship’ for its
horizontal rhythm of loggias. In Moscow, where the Special Architectural and Construction Bureau played a
key role, some of the most famous types stemmed from MNIITEP, including Lagutenko’s K7, epitome of first-
generation standard-block design, as well as the typically third-generation Ediny Katalog of 1972 and the
‘KOPE’ hyper-flexible system. The most prestigious Moscow projects, above all Novye Cheryomushki
(designed largely by SACB) enjoyed special USSR-wide status, emblematic and yet ‘standard’ at one and the
same time. Across the Soviet Union, standardization was a field of constant struggle: with every new generation,
attempts were made to devise a new, overarching framework of classification numbering, relating to the latest
design catalogue, yet the myriad local variations of ‘standardized’ designs stubbornly re-emerged, in a
characteristically oblique Soviet version of the local microecology (see Fig. 11.5).40
If the concept of design standardization, by type and section, was one leg of the Soviet mass-production
colossus, the other was ‘industrialized’ building. In Western countries, with commercial firms providing
the contractual resources, and only intermittent governmental support for mass production, the long-term
rationale for investment in prefabricated construction was often lacking. In the USSR, the DSK system allowed
a far more uncompromising pursuit of a single genre of housing construction – precast large-panel concrete.
The starting-point of this was Khrushchev’s realization, by the early 1950s, that the Soviet building industry
was too primitive, and short of both personnel and materials-production factories, to support his crash
housing drive.41 Previously, large-panel prefabrication had had an unsteady start in the USSR: Ernst May’s
interwar proposal for panel-construction housing in Magnitogorsk, based on his Frankfurt work, was not
implemented, and instead the first Soviet precasting experiments were for expanded blockwork construction,
in a series of Moscow projects in the late Stalin years, from 1939 to the early 1950s, and in Leningrad in
1956–8. There were also fierce debates from around 1943 about the pros and cons of industrially-built small
flats. But it was only with Khrushchev’s 1957 housing target, and the nationwide spread of the powerful DSK
system thereafter, that a real drive began for massed large-panel construction, especially from 1958.42
A key external catalyst was provided by the extraordinarily fruitful links established between the Soviet
housing construction establishment and the Camus firm; here the attraction of France was its engineering
rationalism rather than its Beaux-Arts stateliness. In 1957, although few Camus large-panel developments had
been actually built – chiefly Îlot 17 in Le Havre – personal discussions between Raymond Camus and
Lagutenko rapidly expanded into a full-scale nationwide licensing agreement negotiated by Gosstroi. The first
Soviet Camus factories were built not in Moscow and Leningrad, but in central Asia, in Tashkent and Baku,
where skilled labour was especially scarce. Camus appealed to Soviet technocrats for its precision and high
standards, and because it had evolved from a hybrid frame-and-panel system to a fully load-bearing large-

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 The USSR: Developed Socialism and Extensive Urbanism

A B

C D
Fig. 11.5 (a): The first development of Camus blocks in Tashkent, built from 1959 in Chilanzar 3rd kvartal (MG 2015).
(b, c, d): Second-generation series 1LG600, pioneer of block-sectional planning, designed by LenZNIIEP (architects
N. Z. Matusevich and others) and built from 1965 to 1977, initially by the Avtovo DSK No. 3; nicknamed ‘The Ship’ because
of its horizontal balcony patterning. Drawings of section-types and regular layout plan, and 2017 view of blocks in
Ul. Nalichnaya, Vassilyevsky Island, Leningrad/St Petersburg (Meuser, MG 2017).

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Mass Housing

H
Fig. 11.5 (e, f, g, h): Sosnovaya Polyana, Leningrad (1LG600): layout plan, 1981 and 2017 external views of Ul.
Pionerstroya, and 2017 aerial view (all from south) (Meuser, MG 2017).

panel system, avoiding any repetition of the controversies that dogged Lagutenko’s own P7, an ingenious
framed design that encountered serious constructional difficulties. In Tashkent, Camus was initially applied
to four-storey sectional-plan blocks in the Chilanzar district from 1957. The Baku and Tashkent factories were
operational from 1959 and the newly-established Tashkent DSK developed its own type-plans (designated
‘TDSK’), enhancing the Camus types with small integral balconies.43
The USSR’s massed exploitation of industrialized building was, of course, an essential, practical prop to
Khrushchev’s and Brezhnev’s output drive: by 2015, some 170 million industrialized panel-dwellings had
cumulatively been built in Eastern Europe, including the Soviet Union.44 But it was also tailor-made for
propaganda, including celebration of ‘storming’ achievements such as the much-feted building of a five-storey
block in Leningrad in thirty-three days, or the model Fordist housing construction ‘flow-line’, complete with

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 The USSR: Developed Socialism and Extensive Urbanism

cranes and tracks, displayed at the 1967 Montréal Expo’s Soviet pavilion.45 Dependence on factory production-
lines could also have unexpected effects, as in a 1977 case in Tallinn, when land-formation delays at the large
Väike-Õismäe peripheral scheme left the Tallinn DSK facing potentially a year of unwanted panel production:
party and municipal officials resolved the crisis immediately through an ad-hoc decision to expropriate and
clear more than thirty houses at Lillakulla, an inner-suburban area of self-built single-family homes, and
insert nine-storey slab blocks piecemeal into the resulting gap-sites (see Fig. 11.6).46

A B

C
Fig. 11.6 (a, b, c): Third-generation Series 137 prototype block of 1972–4 at Ul. Belgradskaya 8k1, Leningrad: layout plan
showing 120cm grid, and 2017 exterior and internal corridor. Designed by LenZNIIEP Studio 16 (led by I. N. Kuskov), and
built by Leningrad DSK2 and DSK7, the 137 brought a new design flexibility, with the flat rather than the block-section
the basic unit (Meuser, MG 2017).

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D E
Fig. 11.6 (d): Series 137 production twelve-storey blocks in Industrialnyy Prospekt, Leningrad, built in 1984 (MG 2017).
(e): Lillakulla, Tallinn, emergency piecemeal redevelopment of 1977–8, showing infilled slab-blocks and surviving cottages
(MG 2011).

Taming the colossus: towards ‘complexity’ and ‘flexibility’

Although prefabricated construction accounted for the vast majority of Soviet state housing production by the
mid-1960s, care was taken to leaven these standard types and systems with significant non-standard ‘niche’
elements. Nomenklatura and intelligentsia housing was usually associated with one-off designs, individualized
in-situ construction systems and exception from the zhilaia ploshchad limits for normal housing, and the
single-family detached houses built since the Stalin era fell into the same traditionally-built category.47 A new
factor from the early 1960s was, however, a growing wave of architectural discontent against the homogeneity
of the Khrushchev programme – criticisms implicitly bound up with discontent against his rule in general and
which mirrored his own critiques of Stalinist ornamental ‘excesses’. In Moscow, Khrushchev’s 1958 demand
that all new state housing should be in five-storey blocks was only rescinded in 1962, and 1960–4 saw growing
criticism in the capital’s architectural circles of housing ‘monotony’: one case even provoked a full-page
rebuttal in Pravda.48 The early 1960s saw mounting demands for greater creativity in housing architecture, for
example at a 1963 Moscow architectural conference. By 1965, similar critiques were being voiced in the
republics, for example in Lithuania, and by 1966 designers were criticizing the ‘deadening’ effect of SNiP on
‘art’, although 1960 had already seen introduction of a 2% allowance for ‘artistic decoration’ within housing
project budgets.49
Paradoxically, in view of Brezhnev’s own reputation for greyness of personality, one of the by-products of
his regime was growing enthusiasm for innovation in housing design: ‘out’ went the extreme standardization
of the Khrushchevki and ‘in’ came increased scientific and architectural experimentation. This had a
number of linked aspects. One was a reformist architectural quest for greater flexibility within the
industrialized-building apparatus itself – a later Soviet equivalent of the contemporary Western demands
for a more flexible modernism, including ‘open systems’.50 MNIITEP and TsNIIEPZh devised a range
of second- and third-generation types that allowed the individual flat to become the basic element of design,
and permitted almost unlimited layouts of blocks and estates – including the Ediny Katalog, P44 and
KOPE – while avoiding the pitfalls of headstrong innovation exemplified by the K7. After a short time-lag,
the same second- and third-generation design tendencies duly spread to the republics. In Leningrad,
likewise, LenTSNIIEP developed flexible third-generation types, notably the Series 137, which shifted

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 The USSR: Developed Socialism and Extensive Urbanism

from the block-section principle of the 1LG-600 to design based on dwelling units. In Moscow, it was, as
before, the south-west quadrant of the periphery where the most innovative and experimental schemes were
attempted (see Fig. 11.7).51
Linked to ‘flexible systems’ was advocacy of more variegated building heights and layouts. This had a
practical underlying motive. Throughout the entire post-Khrushchev period, his successors grappled with the

B
Fig. 11.7 (a, b): Third-generation series P44, designed by MNIITEP Studios 1 and 2 in Moscow (led by Gennady P.
Badanov) and built from 1975 to 1991 by the Moscow DSK No. 1: 1977 plan of standard corner section, and 2013 views of
seventeen- to twenty-two-storey P44s in the Kon’kovo southern extension, Moscow (Meuser, MG 2013).

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Fig. 11.7 (c): Third-generation KOPE series (Moscow), 1980 nomenclature table. (d): P44 continued: twenty-two-storey
block of c. 2005 in Belyayevo (Meuser, MG 2013).

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 The USSR: Developed Socialism and Extensive Urbanism

unwelcome fact that his dramatic late-1950s output and productivity boost was clearly a one-off achievement,
and that the likely post-1964 trajectory would be at best steady. If further dramatic productivity gains seemed
off the agenda, one obvious alternative was to boost development densities. This was attempted in the
Brezhnev years, from the late 1960s, chiefly through higher blocks, certain heights (especially nine and sixteen
storeys) being especially privileged within successive type-generations, while still respecting the overall
spaciousness of Extensive Urbanism and the tendency to place tall blocks symmetrically or monumentally:
thus, there would be no New York or Hong Kong-style site-cramming. As always, Moscow led the way, with
a variety of examples in Novye Cheryomushki and a brace of multi-storey developments from 1960–1. In
a modernist echo of Stalin’s skyscrapers, some developments, led by Kalinin Prospekt, used free-standing
towers for aesthetic landmark reasons. But the growing conviction among Soviet building economists that
multi-storey building in tall towers was a very expensive way of providing zhilaia ploshchad gave a further,
massive lease of life to sectional planning, with slab blocks of nine, sixteen and even twenty-two storeys
increasingly dominating the Brezhnev grands ensembles, dotted with single-section towers, especially in the
1970s.52
The drive for more variegated building forms was also shaped by broader international shifts in urban
design away from CIAM orthodoxy, and the growing First World prominence of complex, conglomerate
building-types, as exemplified in the highly-publicized Toulouse-le-Mirail. Soviet planners sometimes
combined these with spaced-out influences from US ‘motopia’ urbanism. The late 1970s and early 1980s saw
an upsurge in organic urban forms, aided by the suitability of complex block-section types like the 1LG-600
for curved or sinuous layouts. These were in turn influenced by late-1960s higher-density medium-rise
prototypes, such as a 1968 experimental ‘ribbon’ scheme. The foremost experimental initiative was Chertanovo
Sevyernoe, a long-standing project developed from 1972 as the personal hobby horse of Moscow party chief
Viktor Grishin, to the designs of M. Posokhin and others. It combined flexibly-distributed cranked or ribbon
blocks on a podium, with towers at the junctions, all with massively-articulated reinforced-concrete detailing,
similarly to Western designs of a decade or so earlier, such as Bijlmermeer. Chertanovo Sevyernoe became
emblematic of Brezhnev’s Moscow, just as Novye Cheryomushki was of Khrushchev’s. Rubanenko, with his
contacts with Claudius-Petit and others, acted as a particular conduit for French late-modernist urbanism,
beginning with the vast spaces of Togliatti, and developing more complex agglomerations in the 1970s. These
culminated in his 1973 plan for a new city, Naberezhnye Chelny, to serve the Kamaz truck factory complex,
resembling Chertanovo Sevyernoe in combining podia, towers and meandering slabs, and mushrooming in
the 1970s from 55,000 to 375,000 inhabitants; the city was briefly renamed ‘Brezhnev’ between 1982 and 1988.
Inspired by these precedents, more everyday urban extensions adopted a similar approach, as at Biryulovo,
south of Moscow, with its Aillaud-like combination of medium-height section-blocks and star-shaped towers,
or the later Teremky-1 (1984–90), south-west of Kiev, designed by KievZNIIEP in clusters of nine- to sixteen-
storey slabs joined in ‘clover-leaf ’ groups around semi-open courtyards, using the local Series 161 type-plans
(see Fig. 11.8).53
In the hands of more avant-garde designers, some developments exceptionally echoed the low-rise high-
density strand of Western housing, such as the 700m-long residential barrier-block built in Toomas Rein’s
scheme for the Pärnu-KEK factory collective in Estonia (from 1969), echoing Siedlung Halen or Cumbernauld
town centre in its linear plan. In other cases, designers reverted towards more traditional, ‘street/kvartal’ layouts,
as in the experimental Vassilievsky Island developments in Leningrad, which projected an almost traditional
urban face, with monumental, terrace-like ranges of 1LG-600s and other blocks.54 Often, developments such
as these, like their Stalinist predecessors, were associated with housing for elite groups. A typical complex
of this kind was 3–5 Leninsky Prospekt, Kuybishev (1981), a monumental ten-storey range along the
traditional street-line, containing nomenklatura apartments for party members on the bottom eight floors,

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B
Fig. 11.8 (a, b): Chertanovo Sevyernoe, Moscow (1972–83), by M. Posokhin and others: estate plan (1981) and view
from north-east, showing precast frame buildings (MG 2013).

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 The USSR: Developed Socialism and Extensive Urbanism

C D

E F
Fig. 11.8 (c): Teremky-1, Kiev (1984–90), designed by KievZNIIEP (F. I. Borovik and others) in clover-leaf clusters of
Series 161 blocks (MG 2019). (d): Experimental Housing Complex 1, Novosmolenskaya Embankment, Leningrad
(originally planned from 1966); view of four monolithic-construction towers built in 1986–93, designers V. A. Sokhin and
others (MG 2017). (e, f): Obolon, Kiev, fifteen-storey tower (1981–3) and twenty-two-storey tower (1990), designed by M.
P. Budilovsky and others in RC frame with precast façade elements: 1983 and 2019 views (MG).

and architectural studios above – their high windows enhancing the overall impression of plasticity. It
formed a coordinated ensemble with a similar complex (1 Leninsky Prospekt, also of 1981), no less than
400m and twenty-four sections long, accommodating research engineers of an aerospace research and
design bureau.55
Complementing this 1960s–1980s drive for complex, integrated urban design solutions was a tendency
towards organic, iconic design in high towers, sometimes free-standing, as with the bulging ‘Float’ tower of
1987 in Kuybishev, or the line of four twenty-two-storey, jaggedly convex-fronted towers of 1986–93 (by

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V. A. Sokhin and others) on Leningrad’s Vassilievsky Island. In everyday contexts, late Soviet housing’s
most common landmark was the so-called ‘monolithic’ tower of poured in-situ concrete, usually between
sixteen and twenty storeys in height, built mainly in the late 1970s and 1980s. Their construction encouraged
highly sculptural, individual designs in a range of Soviet cities, from Vilnius and Dnepropetrovsk to Frunze,
and culminated in the wild planning originality of Tashkent’s Zhemchuk block (see below). In Kiev, the two
Obolon towers of fifteen and twenty-two storeys (1981 and 1990) distinctly recalled Goldberg’s Hilliard
Center in their circular plan and curved balconies. In-situ construction was especially suitable in seismic
zones, but the years around 1980 also saw some experimental construction in brick.56
This individualistic trend in late Soviet urbanism was spearheaded by a restrainedly utopian element,
always remaining within the acceptable area of apolitical intellectual debate, as in the 1960s new-town
network-concepts of the ‘NER Group’, or Petr Bronnikov’s 1970s ‘spatial unit’ speculations.57 Of these
utopian studies, the only one actually built was a project of 1961–9 by Natan Osterman and others in Novye
Cheryomushki, the Dom Novogo Byta, an echo of interwar dom-kommuna projects. The proposal
spectacularly revived the collectivist ideal, with two linked, cranked slab-blocks for 2,200 residents, joined
by a central service and canteen block. This proved too daring even for the Brezhnev era’s experimental
spirit, and debate raged about it; in the end, following the Czechoslovak crisis of 1968, the Mossoviet
converted it into a student hostel. Overall, the built outcomes of this period of limited ferment and reformism
were still permeated with the values of Extensive Urbanism, as well as the pragmatic drive for numbers,
as demonstrated in developments such as Yasyenyevo in outer south-west Moscow (from 1975, by Ya.
Belopolsky and others): this featured an uncompromisingly monumental double centrepiece axis of twenty-
three-storey slab towers in series I-700A, a new, MNIITEP-designed configuration of the city’s popular,
frame-based II-68 system of the 1970s–1980s, flanked by extensive groupings of meander blocks (see
Fig. 11.9).58

A B

Fig. 11.9 (a): Leningradskoye Shosse 64–88, Moscow (1978–81), cooperative complex designed by A. Meyerson, E.
Podolkaya, E. Kuftyreva and L. Vushnichenko (MG 2013). (b): Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev Square, Novye Cheryomushki
(Profsoyuznaya Ul.), brick-clad nomenclatura apartments under construction in 1983: designed by the architectural
collective led by Y. Belopolsky (MG 1983).

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C D

E F
Fig. 11.9 (c, d): Dom Novogo Byta, Novye Cheryomushki kvartal 10 (1961–9), planned by architect Natan Osterman and
others as a collective house, but following much controversy, eventually opened as a student hostel (MG 2013). (e): Begovaya
Ulitsa, Moscow, sixteen-storey brutalist slab block of 1978 by the same team as Lenongradskoye Shosse 64–88 (Meyerson
and others) (MG 2013). (f): Yasyenyevo, Moscow: a monumental 1980s array of twelve twenty-three-storey slab blocks in
two parallel lines: the I-700A series blocks (based on the famed II-68 series) were designed by MNIITEP (MG 2013).

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A brotherly mosaic: regionalist housing in the USSR

The USSR was a vast, multi-ethnic territory, spanning Europe and Asia. Even if the regional design-institute
system allowed technical specialisms to emerge within housing design, was there any intrinsic regional variety
in Soviet housing architecture? The historical assumption until recently has been that Soviet modernism was
intrinsically inimical to any kind of regionalism, and indeed amounted to a kind of Russian-led globalization
process, propagating standard patterns outwards from Moscow.59 Politically, there were certainly periodic
counter-trends, both during the Khrushchev years, when the sovnarkhoz system boosted regional autonomy
between 1959 and 1965, and under Brezhnev, when local leaders enjoyed unprecedented security of tenure.60
But any calls for architectural regional autonomy were indirect – for example, in the impassioned 1969 debate
concerning architectural ‘expressivity’ in Kiev. The only ‘nationality’ ever explicitly evoked was that of the
Soviet Union, as with architect Georgy Gradov’s 1963 call for the development of a ‘national style’. More
usually, the practical focus was on exploiting the climate zones to negotiate variations with Gosstroi, for
example concerning in-situ concrete construction in seismic zones, or in Tbilisi, where exemptions to SNiP
reflecting Georgia’s sub-tropical climate were secured. Exceptional in south-eastern Europe was the Moldavian
SSR, which became a hotbed of monolithic experimentation, under its newly-established DSK-1. Moldavian
and Lithuanian design institutes collaborated on monolithic design, which was also used to build slab- as well
as tower blocks, such as the diagonally-slanting 1980s ‘City Gates’ blocks and stepped large-panel blocks in the
Moldavian capital, Kishinev.61
However, none of these republics significantly departed from the overarching conception of the Soviet
Union as a modernizing state dedicated, nominally at least, to equal housing provision for citizens in all
constituent republics. Only in two areas, the Baltic states and central Asia, was there even the suggestion of a
‘colonial’ relationship. In the former, the traumatic 1940s absorption into the USSR initially required an
unusual degree of Russian housing intervention, as when Lengorstroi prepared the Stalinist plan for Kohtla-
Järve (1947–53). By the sovnarkhoz period, from 1959, a more autonomous status was possible. While explicitly
national architectural discourses were not feasible, the late 1950s passion for all things Scandinavian played a
substitute role, with frequent architectural study-visits to Finland from 1959, and a corresponding impact in
landscaping and urban design; the Baltics were sometimes seen as ‘the little Soviet West’, able to appropriate
and adapt Western architectural trends faster than the rest of the USSR. National variants of house-types
proliferated from the 1960s to the 1980s, led by republic design institutions – modelled ultimately on MNIITEP.
For instance, Tallinn’s first construction factory was completed in 1961, and a series of Estonian standard types
ensued.62
‘Scandinavian’ was an extremely broad concept – as was shown by the rather different interpretations of it
in the different Baltic states. In Lithuania, a relatively modest, highly-landscaped approach prevailed,
epitomized in the development of mikrorayon planning from Žirmūnai or the unbuilt Burbiškės (both
planned in 1962), through to Lazdynai (planned from 1962 by architects Vytautas Čekanauskas and Vytautas
Brėdikis and built in 1967–73), which incorporated diverse apartment types and heights on a picturesque,
wooded site, later enhanced in 1978–82 with landmark monolithic towers by architect Česlovas Mazūras.63
Later developments, such as Karoliniškės (1975–6), Viršuliškės (1975–7) or Justiniškės (1978–90), continued
this landscaped mikrorayon approach without any serious break, moving gradually towards denser, more
agglomerative layouts such as Pašilaičiai (1986–9), with its somewhat postmodernist details (see Fig. 11.10).
In Tallinn, by contrast, a more sharply-demarcated sequence unfolded, following the Khrushchev-inspired
declaration of a twelve-year Estonian housing target in 1957, and the formation of a local design institute,
Eestiprojekt. There were significant jumps in urban-design approach between three large projects, each
roughly corresponding to the three generations of standard house types and SNiP regulations. Mustamäe,

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planned in 1959 by T. Kallas, M. Port and V. Tippel, and built from 1962 onwards, included both five-storey
Khrushchevki, mainly 1-464, and nine-storey slabs. Väike-Õismäe from 1973 (planned by M. Port and
M. Meelak) was expressive of mature Extensive Urbanism in its bold and rather overscaled plan, arranged in
a circular layout of nine-storey slabs around a central ‘island’ of schools and kindergartens, dotted with
clustered sixteen-storey towers. Finally, the giant satellite township of Lasnamäe was started from 1977
(following a 1969 competition win by M. Port, M. Meelak and others): planned for 160,000 inhabitants around
two sunken motorways, it was only partly completed. Whereas Mustamäe pioneered the mikrorayon concept
in Tallinn, being subdivided into clearly articulated neighbourhoods, the boldly unified form of Väike-Õismäe

A B

D E
Fig. 11.10 (a): The front cover of Werner Rietdorf ’s classic 1976 overview book, Neue Wohngebiete sozialistischer Länder,
showing 1-464-LI blocks (designed in 1969 by B. Krūminis’s group in the Department of Standard Design, Vilnius Institute
of Urban Planning) in Mikrorayon 3 of Lazdynai (see below). (b, c, d, e): The Soviet Vällingby: Lazdynai, Vilnius, designed
from 1962 by Vytautas Čekanauskas and Vytautas Brėdikis and built in 1967–73 (using 1-464-LI), with monolithic towers
(by Č. Mazūras) added in 1978–82: 2013 view of Mikrorayon 3 (at same location as 11.10a), estate plan, 2012 aerial view
from TV tower and monolithic towers (MG).

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F
G
Fig. 11.10 (f, g): Karolinskes, Vilnius, built in 1975–6: external view of Mikrorayon C and entrance detail of Series 120V
block (designed by B. Krūminis and others) with project architect Genovaitė Balėnienė (MG 2013). (h): Pļavnieki, Riga,
early 1980s monolithic tower; architects, Pilsētprojekts design institute (MG 2010).

was instead framed as a ‘makrorayon’. By the mid-1980s, however, with the march of perestroika, the vast scale
of development was itself controversial, and campaigns began to ‘Stop Lasnamäe!’ For the planning of collective
farms in the Baltics, a lower-density ‘Scandinavian’ approach prevailed, reminiscent of Tapiola, but still ‘urban’
rather than ‘rural’ in character. The only collective farm to win the coveted Lenin Prize, in 1988, was Juknaičiai,
Lithuania, developed over a quarter-century (1963–89) under chairman Zigmas Dokšas, with arrays of
picturesquely-gabled blocks of flats and communal facilities (see Fig. 11.11).64
Scandinavian influence was less obvious in the Baltic adaptations of standard Soviet house-types and large-
panel systems, always within the close constraints of SNiP, including a variant on the 1-464 (the 1-464-LI)
designed in Vilnius in 1959 by Bronius Krūminis’s team at the Vilnius Institute of Urban Planning’s Department
of Standard Design, followed by further Lithuanian variants on standard types. Architectural ‘distinctiveness’
stemmed more from the monolithic towers, which formed an increasingly prominent counterpoint to the
panel housing, along with a proportion of ‘special’ housing projects; the 2% art allowance allowed abstract
relief decoration on otherwise standard V-120 blocks.65 In Latvia, the recipe of mikrorayon-modernism and
first-generation five-storey walk-ups (such as the I-316 and I-464 blocks of the first and second stages of
Āgenskalna Priedes, in 1958–62) was adapted to ‘organic’, conglomerated layouts in Riga’s large peripheral
townships of the 1960s–1980s, commissioned by the city council (gorispolkom) Department of Construction
and Architecture. These included the 60,000-inhabitant Imanta (1965–75) and Pļavnieki (1985–90), both
planned by the Pilsētprojekts design institute. At Imanta, five-storey second-generation 464 and 467 blocks
were used with nine-storey type 602s (from 1972; a Leningrad design), while 104s and 119s were built at
Pļavnieki.66 In the Baltics, as throughout the USSR, the overriding concern of architects in state design
institutes was not so much ‘art’ or ‘Scandinavian design’ as everyday project organization, often involving
typically Soviet exploitation of party or ministerial contacts, or DSK connections, to secure authorization for
plans and developments.67

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A B

C E
Fig. 11.11 (a): Mustamäe, Tallinn, developed from 1962 to 1973, planned by Eesti Projekt (EP), view of Mikrorayon 1
(MG 2011). (b, c): Väike-Õismäe, Tallinn, ‘makrorayon’ planned from 1973 by EP, architects in charge Mart Port and Malle
Meelak: high-level view of central ‘island’ from sixteen-storey tower, and photo of model on front cover of Port’s Nõukogude
Eesti arhitektuur (Soviet Estonian Architecture) – held up by the author at his home (MG 2011) (cf. Créteil-Montaigut,
5.7a). (d, e): Lasnamäe, satellite township for 160,000 planned from 1977 but only partly completed, with design by EP’s
project architects Mart Port, Malle Meelak, I. Raud and O. Zemtšugov: magistrale between Mikrorayons 2 and 3, perspective
from Port’s 1983 book and 2011 view (MG).

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G H

Fig. 11.11 (f, g): Extensive Urbanism in the countryside: 25th CPSU Congress Model State Farm at Vinni, Rakvere
district, planned by rural design institute Eesti Maaehitusprojekt (EMP), including 1960 Genplan by A. Iila, and fl ats built
in 1965–77 (designers B. Mirov, M. Noor and I. Bork) and in the 1980s (MG 2011). (h): Pļavnieki, Riga, 1985–90, monolithic
tower block planned by Pilsētprojekts design institute. (MG 2010)

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 The USSR: Developed Socialism and Extensive Urbanism

Tashkent: model Soviet city

In central Asia, a sharper focus on identity issues stemmed from two factors: the misplaced concern of the
Soviet leadership about the risk of ‘Islamic’ separatism, fuelled by occasional anti-Russian aberrations, such as
the 1969 ‘Pakhtakor Incident’ (a football riot); and the effect of the devastating 1966 Tashkent earthquake in
providing an unexpected, gigantic opportunity to reconstruct the focal city of Russian power in central Asia
into a microcosm of multi-ethnic Soviet urbanism. In Tashkent, during both the Khrushchev and Brezhnev
eras, the republican leadership grew steadily more ‘Uzbek’ in ethnic make-up. However, the key political issue
for the Soviet Uzbek leadership was not ethnicity but that far deeper Soviet fault line: division over the legacy
of Stalin. Out of that ferment, Sharaf Rashidov emerged in 1959 as Uzbek party leader, holding the post
throughout the Khrushchev and Brezhnev years until his deposition and suicide under Andropov in 1983,
following corruption allegations. Reflecting the Brezhnevite provision for relative cultural autonomy within a
strictly-regulated geopolitical framework, Rashidov’s rule in Uzbekistan was that of an ideological figurehead,
championing the Uzbek contribution to the multinational USSR while stressing the overall primacy of Soviet
identity. Even before 1966, Tashkent was becoming a focal city in the building of multinational Soviet society,
and was singled out by Khrushchev as a laboratory of building experimentation from the mid-1950s. Already
in 1938, under Stalin, the traditional Asiatic city, with its carpet of multi-family ‘mahalla’ courtyard housing,
was confronted by a modern Soviet planned city of four-storey apartments, a juxtaposition that differed from
the typical colonial dual-city pattern, in that the new Tashkent was for all Soviet citizens, not just for Russians.
The post-Stalin upsurge in informal single-family house-building prompted a 1954 decision to build an
exemplary, Gosstroi-financed planned township south-west of the old city, at Chilanzar – widely showcased
as ‘the Cheryomushki of Tashkent’, with its four-storey modernist blocks, courtyard kvartal plans and the
USSR’s first large-scale Camus development (from 1957).68
Following the 1966 earthquake, which disproportionately devastated the flimsy traditional areas of the city,
rather than Chilanzar and other Soviet districts, this vision was elaborated into something far more ambitious: a
revival of the aspiration to build an ‘ideal Soviet city’. The new Tashkent would harness the planning techniques of
Extensive Urbanism, and the constructional modernism of industrialized building, within a new and explicit
ideological framework celebrating Soviet Uzbek identity as part of the Soviet ‘friendship of peoples’. The earthquake
generated an opportunity to showcase the latter, with the immediate arrival of Brezhnev and the top leadership in
Tashkent, bringing pledges of Union-wide solidarity in reconstruction. These pledges assumed a literally concrete
form in a programme led by design institutes from other republics of the USSR (especially KievZNIIEP, with its
seismic expertise) to rebuild several zones of the city, especially south of the centre, as a joint effort totalling over
a million square metres of housing. The outcome would be a ‘gorod bratstva’ (friendship city), built to modern,
enhanced building standards to withstand any future earthquakes: by the 1970s, Tashkent was the USSR’s fourth
largest city, as well as the republic capital most thoroughly reconstructed under Soviet power.69
Uzbek cultural identity in Tashkent’s post-earthquake housing reconstruction was partly a technical matter,
just as in other republics, including development of Uzbek variants on standard Soviet themes by the local
TashZNIIEP and TashDSKs, supported by Gosstroi. The local DSKs developed Camus variants such as DSK71,
often including larger-than-usual flats to accommodate extended Uzbek families. As elsewhere in the Soviet
Union, there was a general push towards multi-storey blocks during the Rashidov era, but because of the seismic
constraints on height, these overwhelmingly took the form of nine-storey slab-blocks, with occasional landmark
towers of up to sixteen storeys. But these technical processes were complemented by an unprecedentedly explicit
pursuit of cultural identity in architectural ‘style’ and ‘decoration’ – a policy which, although divergent from
mainstream international-modernist dogma, here proved surprisingly effective and pervasive, perhaps owing to
unacknowledged survival of the Stalinist link between ornate, stately architecture and ‘identity’. In practice, this

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involved an elaborate external decoration process using two elements: colourful mosaic patterns on blocks’
gable-ends, applied to the panels on huge adhesive sheets in the DSK factories; and precast geometrical relief
façade decoration, justified by the practical aim of shade from the fierce summer sun. These decorations, almost
all designed by ethnic-Russian architects working for the Tashkent design institutes or DSKs, attempted to
convey a generalized ‘secular-Islamic’ or ‘Central Asian’ impression, in the process creating a vast and idiosyncratic
urban ensemble unique in the Soviet Union. For the foremost of these Tashkent designers, the Zharsky brothers
(Alexander, Petr and Nikolai – the latter being chief architect of the building combine DSK2 from 1972), ‘Islamic
abstraction’ was insufficient, and they designed a succession of flamboyant, figuratively-themed mosaics, with
themes varying from historical Uzbek heroes to Soviet aerospace achievements (see Fig. 11.12).70

A B

C
Fig. 11.12 (a): A 2015 display of the career of Sharaf Rashidov in the former Lenin Museum, Tashkent (MG 2015).
(b): Kvartal Ts. 17–18, Tashkent; in the foreground the Sebzor mahalla area immediately to its north-west (MG 2015).
(c): Bobur St 67 (Ul. Bogdan Khmelnitskovo): original ‘cascade’ design of 1970–4 by A. S. Kosinsky and others, subsequently
squared-off on the orders of Rashidov (MG 2015).

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 The USSR: Developed Socialism and Extensive Urbanism

D E

F
Fig. 11.12 (d, e, f): Bobur St 69, street-block designed by Kosinsky’s team using series E-101 type-plans, with giant Petr
Zharsky mosaic of 1974 on gable façade, depicting Zahir-ud-Din Muhammad Bobur, founder of the Mughal empire:
street façade, balcony view and detail of mosaic (MG 2015).

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Mass Housing

G H
Fig. 11.12 (g): Kvartal Ts. 13, Tashkent, view of technology-themed Zharsky mosaic at Labzak 28 (ul. Usmana Yusupova),
c. 1974 (MG 2015). (h): Kvartal Ts. 6, Pr. Amira Tamura 84 (1967–9), prototype of Camus-based 1T-SP series (designed by
Tashgiprogor in 1966): among the first nine-storey prefabricated blocks in the city (MG 2015).

In parallel with this ‘neo-Uzbek’ decorative programme, Tashkent’s housing designers also pioneered a
range of bold urban-design experiments, limited only by SNiP and the general constraints of Soviet urban
decorum. The most flamboyant examples were built along the Ulitsa Bogdana Khmelnitskovo by the combine
of architect Andrei S. Kosinsky. They subverted the conventions of magistrale stateliness through a variety of
individualistic blocks, one with a giant Zharsky figurative mosaic and another with a line of slabs (Block 69,
1970–4) stepping down towards the boulevard in cascaded ziggurat fashion. However, the latter were
condemned as unsightly and ‘unfinished-looking’ by Rashidov on a tour of the area and were rebuilt in
squared-off form, complete with more Zharsky mosaics. Less controversial were projects whose innovativeness
was concealed within the interior of mikrorayons, such as the Ts.27 experimental district, north-west of the
centre (1965–73) by the combine of architect Gennadi I. Korobovtsev. This included several Camus/DSK71
sectional-plan nine-storey Zeilenbau slabs, with heroically geometric side-facade relief-patterning and gable-
end Zharsky mosaics (see Fig. 11.13). The slabs were combined with two more unusual dwelling types aimed
at extended Uzbek families: two-storey ‘cottages’ facing the street, and clusters of extensible multi-storey
frame dwellings, envisaged as a ‘vertical mahalla’ to facilitate extension. Even more ambitiously, unrealized
designs of 1974–8 for Mikrorayon Ts-19 (Kalkaus), by Kosinsky, Korobovtsev and others, proposed vast wall-
like structures juxtaposed with neo-vernacular low-rise clusters. The 1980s also saw more conventional

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 The USSR: Developed Socialism and Extensive Urbanism

B C

Fig. 11.13 (a, b, c): Kvartal Ts. 27, Tashkent, planned in 1965–9 and completed in 1973; layout by Gennady I. Korobovtsev’s
team at TashZNIIEP, including nine-storey 1T-SP blocks built by DSK-2, and low-rise structures, together increasing the
density from 69 to 282 persons per hectare: original plan, detail of nine-storey façade and view of Korobovtsev and towers
(MG 2015).

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Mass Housing

D E

Fig. 11.13 (d): Yunusabad kvartal 13, nine-storey 1T-SP blocks built in the 1970s, with abstract ‘Central Asian’ façade
decoration (MG 2015). (e): Yunusabad kvartal 14, block 14 (cf. 11.1g): a series 1-UZ-500-TSP project designed by
TashZNIIEP and built c. 1974 (MG 2015).

developments of third-generation flexible blocks by Tashgiprogor and the DSKs, including rows of sixteen-
storey towers and nine-storey slabs (Series 148) at Ul. Nukusskaya, built in 1984–8 by the DSK-4 combine.
Monolithic-construction landmark projects included a curved group of towers at Khamid Alimdzhan Square
(1980–4) and the wildly eccentric ‘Zhemchuk’ of 1985–8, designed by Odetta Aidinova’s collective in a
spectacular variant of the ‘vertical mahalla’ concept: a curvaceous, sixteen-storey tower comprising a stack of
five three-storey courtyards, spanned by bridges and galleries (see Fig. 11.14).71
Elsewhere in Central Asia, many trends pioneered in Tashkent were echoed in a diluted form, including
‘neo-Islamic’ facade decoration and idiosyncratically-designed monolithic blocks, in locations varying
from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan (especially its ‘Southern Gates’ ensemble) to the atomic cities of Kazakhstan. The
unique experience of TashZNIIEP allowed it to export its expertise internationally, through consultancy
work.72

Soviet housing in the perestroika years

As we will see in chapter 12, in some Soviet satellite states, the 1970s–1980s saw significant dilution of
mainstream Soviet practices, through upsurges in private-sector production, scaling-back of panel production
and embrace of post-modern design. In the USSR itself, industrialized production continued unabated: by
1990, no fewer than 650 large-panel factories were in operation. Yet it now seemed impossible to significantly
boost housing supply, especially because of the escalation of defence spending and consequent domestic
economic stagnation (zastoi) under the post-Brezhnev leaders from 1982 to 1991, Andropov, Chernenko and
Gorbachev. With the increased popular expectations inspired by the system’s earlier successes, and the
encouragement of public debate under glasnost, the result was a storm of criticism, in all directions at once.73

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 The USSR: Developed Socialism and Extensive Urbanism

A B

C D
Fig. 11.14 (a, b, c, d): Third-generation Tashkent series 148, designed in 1975–7 by TashZNIIEP (S. Rozenblyum and
others) with specific seismic-proofing and built by the DSK Tashkent: original 1975 plans of 111-148-6SP nine-storey
towers, and 2015 views of group at Nukus Street 86–90 (built in 1984–8), including sixteen-storey towers and sectional
tenement-plan nine-storey slabs (MG 2015, Meuser).

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F G
Fig. 11.14 (e): Hamid Alimjan Ensemble (1980–4) by architect Sabir Adylov and others (MG 2015). (f, g): Zhemchuk,
Tashkent, a sixteen-storey monolithic-construction block designed by Odetta Aidinova and others (1985), comprising two
overlapping arcs of flats around a stack of double internal courtyards, in an attempt to recreate the traditional mahalla in
modern form (MG 2015).

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 The USSR: Developed Socialism and Extensive Urbanism

Despite Gorbachev’s repeated efforts, especially under the Housing 2000 scheme, to shift housing
responsibility to local soviets, in the RSFSR the vedomstva/soviet output percentage ratio was still stubbornly
stuck at 65–35 as late as 1990 – yet there were also fierce criticism that the soviets were now doing too much
urban renewal and demolishing too many houses.74 With the launch of a fourth iteration of SNiP in 1989, the
Soviet tradition of standardized, industrialized housing seemed in relatively good health, with Russian cities
ever more flexibly interpreting standard systems, as in Moscow’s ongoing KOPE, and idiosyncratic one-off
developments such as the zig-zag Leningrad towers rising fast. To be sure, some other republics were moving
away from large-scale multi-storey development – for example Armenia, following its 1988 earthquake.75 In
Ukraine, too, the new town of Slavutych, built for Chernobyl displacees from 1986 as another multi-republic
‘fraternal’ exercise, comprised blocks no higher than six storeys on a spacious, axial layout.76 But it still seemed
astonishing when a drastic reversal in housing tenure and, in some places, production followed the collapse of
the USSR in 1991 – as we will see in Part 3. While Russia itself was less drastically affected by the production
collapses of that time, the downfall of the socialist command system was especially acutely felt in the USSR’s
dependent territories in Europe – the countries that form the subject of the next chapter.77

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CHAPTER 12
A QUARRELSOME FAMILY: THE EUROPEAN
SOCIALIST STATES

Although the USSR was not a conventional colonial state, the fortunes of war brought it after 1945 an external
‘empire’ of dependent countries, which form the subject of the next two chapters. These were concentrated in
Eastern Europe, but, during the Cold War, were augmented elsewhere in the world – in North Korea, North
Vietnam, Cuba, Angola. Contrary to the stereotype of Communist uniformity, this Second World grouping
experienced political and ideological splits of a ferocity unknown in the West, including the estrangements
from the USSR of Yugoslavia, Romania, Albania and, most significantly, Communist China. In this chapter we
focus on Eastern Europe. Here, each country’s domestic policymaking, including mass housing, was shaped by
a combination of values, including leadership style and political organization, and socio-political contexts,
including the strength of the pre-Communist middle classes and the extent of previous liberalization. Within
mass housing, this resulted in a great diversity of socialist tenures and architectural solutions – a diversity of
local microecologies obscured by socialist rhetoric of unity and discipline, and by the secrecy and capriciousness
of the system. Alongside enterprises and municipalities, other tenures were prominent, including housing
associations, cooperatives, Yugoslav ‘self-managing communities’ – and straightforward private building.
Other features united all the socialist countries, including the unofficial targeting of the cheapest and best
public housing on the most privileged elite groups.1

The satellite bloc: dissidence and decomposition

The core of the European socialist system was the group of states that remained under Soviet domination
from World War II until 1989: the German Democratic Republic, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and
Bulgaria. These shared the system’s typical organizational features: central planning, oral decision-making,
secrecy and concern with propaganda, as well as more specific Soviet themes such as the preoccupation with
large-panel concrete perefabrication (less prevalent in independent socialist countries such as Yugoslavia).
Their environments, including mass housing, were both an outcome and a source of state power and a focus
of socialist international propoaganda, as in the interlinking of Budapest’s new Havanna development with
the 1978 World Federation of Democratic Students Congress in Cuba. These nations also shared a susceptibility
to popular unrest against Soviet hegemony, with mass housing output drives often playing a palliative role
following unsuccessful uprisings or liberalizations, as in post-1956 Hungary; in the 1970s–1980s, the
combination of external detente with internal repression and a population explosion led to pressures for
increased housing production, and a simplification of creative processes. The GDR had an especially
complicated position, in view of its wartime defeat and partitioned capital, and its unique constitutional
arrangement – not a one-party state but a multi-party ‘socialist democracy’ dominated by the German Socialist
Unity Party (SED). Here national cultural organizations were slightly more distanced from the party than in a
normal Communist state, but the parallel pillars of party and state moved closer after 1968. In all the satellite
states, transitions within the top Soviet leadership – especially the death of Stalin and the overthrow of
Khrushchev – had oblique effects, with reformist efforts often skewed by popular uprisings and geopolitical

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 A Quarrelsome Family: The European Socialist States

complications. In the GDR, for example, the rule of Walter Ulbricht shifted in character several times, before
he was replaced altogether in 1971 by the more ‘enlightened’ and collegiate Erich Honecker; while in Poland,
Władysław Gomułka, who took over the Polish United Workers Party following the ‘Poznań June’ strikes and
riots of 1956, mutated from liberal to conservative – as did the post-1956 Kádár regime in Hungary.2
Throughout the region, the characteristic Soviet organizational tensions between central and local, sectoral
and territorial, played out variously. In Central Europe, long-established municipal power and authority was
whittled away by the onward march of ‘democratic centralism’, as in the curbing of the housing powers of
Budapest City Council. In the GDR, although local authorities retained significant planning and housing
authority, especially in the cities targeted for planned growth from the 1950s onwards, a 1963 strategy of
economic decentralization to those cities was reversed under Honecker in 1970. Czechoslovakia was a special
case, with the gradual deepening of the confederal Czech–Slovak division, especially after 1968, resulting in
the capital-city aggrandizement of Bratislava by large-scale housing construction. Demographically, while
some cities, especially in Poland, featured a high population growth rate, others were the opposite; the rural–
urban balance was equally diverse, with several countries witnessing high rural to urban migration. In more
rural countries, such as Bulgaria, there was little prior history of Communism, and single-storey village-type
housing was prominent, whereas the GDR and Czechoslovakia featured an entrenched urban proletariat.
Despite these disparities, all the satellite states at least paid lip-service to the common ethos of state coordination
and socio-economic universalism, avoiding strong gaps between private and public life. As with Khrushchev’s
social ideals of around 1960, the satellite regimes increasingly shifted in the 1960s and 1970s towards an
egalitarian, socialist version of consumerism.3
How, then, was mass housing organized within this heterogeneous bloc? Overall, as in the USSR, a
pyramidal hierarchy and command-planning prevailed. But in housing tenure, there was a great variety of
national and local microecologies. The importance of enterprise housing varied widely: municipal authorities
were strong, and enterprises weak, in Poland and Czechoslovakia, while in Bulgaria, ‘local national committees’
organized the building and distribution of housing from 1958, with management by local housing-services
enterprises increasing during the 1970s spike in state housing output. The resulting relationships in any one
place could be confusing: for instance in Varna, Bulgaria’s third-largest city, the municipal authority set up in
1948 a public development enterprise, TPK Varna, which attempted with varying success to coordinate with
local investor ‘Capital Construction’, several cooperatives, city design office TPO Varna and national project
authority Glavprojekt – all under the leaky umbrella of the city’s Genplan. In Hungary, although the early
postwar years saw a sharp power-shift to enterprise bodies, reducing municipalities to ministry central-plan
executants, the city building organizations later recovered significant power: in some cases, as in the heavy-
industrial centre of Miskolc, they built both for their own tenants and for nominees of local enterprises.4
Latterly, many countries shifted sharply away from any direct state production – Hungary and Bulgaria in the
1970s and Czechoslovakia and Poland in the 1980s – with the aim of mobilizing private citizens’ savings. The
two overwhelming beneficiaries of this shift were the cooperatives, and outright private building. In Poland,
the shift to co-ops began early, under Gomułka from 1956, reaching 22% of total output by 1961–5 and more
after a 1971 party decree. These cooperatives were subject to fluctuating levels of state regulation: during an
initial halcyon period of relative autonomy in 1956–61, the central government’s social-housing agency, the
Construction Directorate of Workers’ Estates (DBOR), exercised general oversight of construction and land-
allocation, as well as continuing to build itself, but after 1961 the co-ops essentially became local executants in
state-driven plans, in which capacity they built on an increasingly grand scale, quantitatively and architecturally.5
In the GDR, too, socialist cooperatives got underway early and strongly, in a form astonishingly similar to
their West German equivalents – showing the resilience of local housing traditions even during geo-political
schisms such as the Cold War. Following the nationalization and dismantling of the pre-war Gemeinnützig

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system, the 1953 uprisings showed the SED leadership the urgency of resuscitating it in some form. Accordingly,
1954 saw the creation of the Arbeiterwohnungsbaugenossenschaft (AWG – workers’ housing cooperative)
system, a hybrid of co-op and enterprise housing, confined to workers in an individual organization. This was
followed by a less restrictive system (GWB) from 1957, whose individual AWGs resembled Polish cooperatives.
A typical AWG was the ‘Einheit’ Association in Karl-Marx-Stadt (Chemnitz), formed by employees of the local
socialist enterprises VEB ‘Modul’, VEB Motorenwerk Ifa, VEB Buchungsmaschinenwerk and VEB Bau-Union
and officially registered with the Stadtrat (city council) in 1954. Its first thirty-six dwellings, in a conservatively-
styled three-storey tenement at Wilhelm-Raabe-Straße 10, were completed in 1955: far from simply receiving
state handouts, each ‘Genossenschafter’ contributed 500–700 hours’ labour and a significant deposit. Rural
modernization and collectivization, under the LPG (Agricultural Production Community) system, gradually
implemented from 1952 to the 1970s, also employed a cooperative system, coordinated by agricultural
engineers sent from Berlin. In Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria, the shift to co-ops came slightly later, in
Czechoslovakia in 1958–9 with a 40% state subsidy, and in Bulgaria from the mid-1960s, as part of a radical
expansion of the state sector from 20% of all new housing in 1961–5 to 50% in 1977 (see Fig. 12.1).6
As in the USSR, outright private-enterprise building was surprisingly prominent in many countries, aided
by long-term state loans. In some places, such as Poland, the subsidized private sector was dominated by
individual village houses, but elsewhere it was integrated with urban flat-building. Hungary strongly
emphasized the latter during the post-1956 ‘goulash communism’ of the liberal János Kádár regime. Following
an impassioned ‘Family House Debate’ of 1960–1 between advocates of family houses and flats, a mixed-
tenure policy gathered pace after 1969. Private building boomed across Hungary, both in pyramid-roofed
detached suburban houses and also in 1970s modernist flat complexes, such as Budapest’s Havanna (1978),
30% of whose flats were owner-occupied from the start. Bulgaria was a more extreme case. Rural private
property was overwhelmingly dominant – unlike Russia’s landless peasants – and local authorities built for
both rental and sale, especially following an early 1950s law allowing citizens to buy new state housing, and
1954–7 decrees supporting individual housing construction with finance from the Bulgarian Investment
Bank. Following the 1970s state production boom, the 1980s saw privatization and boosts to private-enterprise
construction. In Yugoslavia, as we will see later, a similar policy unfolded from the 1960s; by the 1980s, the
private sector already accounted for 80% of the housing stocks of both Sofia and Belgrade.7
Of course, with the totalitarian character of these societies, to some extent everything constructed was a
kind of ‘state housing’. Arguably more important than tenure details was the overall level of state-sponsored
production. Here, there were surprising differences in the peaks and troughs. Compared to the USSR, the
postwar start was generally slow, owing to the disruptive initial acclimatization to socialism, including
abandonment of previous social-housing systems, such as the Hungarian OTI social-insurance bureau, and
the initial reliance in some countries, such as Czechoslovakia, on expropriation of bourgeois houses for
distribution to intelligentsia, security services and nomenklatura; Czechoslovakia was the only socialist
country whose housing conditions actually deteriorated up to 1961. Very often, new building during the 1940s
and 1950s prioritized small-scale nomenklatura rental projects. In most cases, the only significant continuity
from prewar housing systems was that of rent controls. In Poland, where, despite high population growth, the
1950–5 plan gave the ‘non-productive’ housing sector a reduced priority and output initially was low:
centralized agencies such as DBOR and ZOR led from the mid-1940s in new building, and in reconstruction
in war-damaged cities such as Gdańsk; output significantly increased in the ‘co-op years’ from the 1960s, while
the modernizing post-1970 regime of Edward Gierek switched emphasis from crude output to experimental,
research-led production, in the ‘PR-5’ programme, whose post-1974 implementation was brutally cut short by
mounting economic crises. In Hungary, the 1956 uprising caused huge disruption, but there were determined
attempts afterwards to win the loyalty of better-off workers via a fifteen-year housing programme from 1961.8

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A B

C D
Fig. 12.1 (a, b): SED General Secretary Erich Honecker visits the Grosskopf family in Berlin-Marzahn to officially
inaugurate the ‘one-millionth dwelling’ (according to government propaganda), completed under the 1971 SED 8th Party
Congress housing programme, 6 July 1978 (cf. 12.4c, e). (c): The first thirty-six dwellings built by WG Einheit, at Wilhem-
Raabe-Str. 10, Karl Marx Stadt, completed in 1955 (MG 2016). (d): The neo-classical Socialist Realist Weberwiese tower,
south of the Stalinallee, East Berlin, by architect Hermann Henselmann; opened in 1952 by Erich Honecker (then head of
the FDJ communist youth league) (MG 2010).

Several countries shared a late production peak in the 1970s and 1980s, exemplified by Bulgaria and the
GDR. In the former, Eastern Europe’s lowest state-housing production (9% of all completions in 1960) was
dramatically boosted to 49% by the late 1970s. In 1972–3, its veteran Communist leader, Todor Zhivkov,
projected a fifteen-year, 1.6 million-unit housing programme to ‘radically solve’ the housing problem by mass
building of state rental and sale units through municipal People’s Councils and cooperatives; output peaked in
1977. In the GDR, by contrast, the housing programme increased almost to the end of socialist rule in 1989,
with a 1980s per-capita maximum far above the other satellite states. This trajectory contrasted both with

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other socialist countries and with West Germany, with its huge early postwar output in the 1950s. Whereas in
1949–55, GDR housing received only 0.1%–0.3% of total public investment, that figure rose to 3% by 1968.
The 1953 unrest prompted stuttering efforts to energize production, including a 1953 construction law
concentrating production in fifteen urban centres and a revival of cooperative building soon after, together
with 1958 legislation paving the way for the 1963 formation of Wohnungsbaukombinate (WBKs – house-
building combines), modelled on Soviet DSKs. From the late 1950s, cooperative, public municipally-rented
(volkseigene) and private building existed in a continually changing balance.9
But it was only in the 1970s, under the leadership of Erich Honecker, that the GDR housing drive was truly
revolutionized. At the 1971 8th SED Party Congress, Honecker announced a ‘state house-building programme’
aimed at solving the housing problem by 1990 using industrialized construction, under the slogan ‘Jedem seine
eigene Wohnung’ (‘to each their own dwelling’) – a pledge converted into a specific programme in 1973 and
elaborated in a special national building conference in 1975. Reflecting the Brezhnev era’s veneration of
experimental, flexible solutions within the planned economy, this ‘complex housing construction’ programme
required the state planning commission to set central housing targets for agency-execution by local governments
(‘Volkseigene’ housing) and cooperatives on sites centrally allocated by the Bezirke, or administrative provinces.
In Karl-Marx-Stadt, for example, the AWG ‘Einheit’ enthusiastically leapt on the industrialized-building
bandwagon: its 2,600-unit ‘Fritz Heckert’ project, with IW73 and IW77 blocks of up to eleven storeys, was built
by the city Wohnungsbaukombinat ‘Wilhelm Pieck’ in 1974–8. The real achievements of this programme were,
however, obscured by the highly-choreographed spectacle-events and propaganda ‘statistics’ with which they
were publicly trumpeted. Honecker opened the supposed ‘two-millionth dwelling’ and laid the foundation stone
for the ‘three-millionth’ on the same day in February 1984 – although the real total of completions was far lower,
and by the early 1980s the GDR’s economic problems were looming ever larger in the background, as the country’s
foreign debt soared, especially after the famous 1983 West German loan negotiated with Franz Josef Strauß.10
Elsewhere in the region, the post-1975 years had already seen the onset of delayed recession, bringing
cutbacks in housing investments, sharp falls in output and accelerating privatization. In Hungary, the lavish
1971 subsidy and allocation policies were partly withdrawn in 1983, and by 1989 only a small state-owned
sector (23%) remained. In Bulgaria, a massive 1985 banking scandal over Sofia housing allocations largely
discredited mass housing, and in Czechoslovakia, the crisis of the planned economy from the mid-1970s hit
output. For a few years, East Germany defied the trend, but after 1989, the entire region rapidly shed all its
remaining links with socialist housing provision.11
Architecturally, the satellite states echoed Soviet patterns more directly than the US–Western European
relationship, albeit with considerable diversity of interpretation, reflecting the ideology of ‘socialist competition’
while echoing the official rhetoric of unified planning, design and building. This system was celebrated in
Werner Rietdorf ’s lavishly-illustrated 1975 overview book, which singled out Hungary as ‘exemplary’ in design
consistency.12 Although the Soviet fixation with living space was indirectly reflected in these countries, with
housing size generally expressed in square metres per dwelling rather than per inhabitant, the overall strategy
of building relatively small flats for very low rents, often as part of wider enterprise building programmes,
resembled the Soviet Union,13 as did the swing from Stalinist to post-Stalinist policies following Khrushchev’s
December 1954 speech to the All-Union Conference of Builders. It was generally accepted that standardization
and industrialized building by DSK-style combines was the only viable way of getting the quantities of new
living space required: any policy labelled ‘industrial’ naturally benefited from the Soviet reverence for the
industrial proletariat. Also similar was the planning emphasis on what was termed ‘extensive Stadtentwicklung’
(extensive urbanism) in the GDR, and avoidance of large-scale demolitions and redevelopments.14
The far shorter hegemony of Stalinism in these countries guaranteed a subtly different chronology, within
which CIAM modernism was less problematic overall. In Czechoslovakia, Germany and Hungary, ‘Neues

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Bauen’ architecture had deep interwar roots, and in all three countries, especially Czechoslovakia and Hungary,
1945–8 saw an initial blossoming of modernist experiments under a liberal left-wing umbrella, in type-design,
neighbourhood unit planning and Existenzminimum dwelling design. The small individual mass-housing
apartment was partly an outcome of early socialist Modern Movement ideals: in Czechoslovakia the state
design bureau Stavoprojekt pursued ‘typification’, and the collective-house complex at Litvinov (1946–7, by
Václav Hilský and Evžen Linhart), with its two cranked slab-towers linked by a lower services block, set a
modernist precedent for later Soviet designs such as Osterman’s DNB of 1961–9.15
Overall, the dominance of Socialist Realism was brief, and dogged by persistent controversy. In East Berlin,
where a modernist Zeilenbau project was commenced in Friedrichshain in the late 1940s, 1950 saw a sharp
volte-face following an explicit intervention by Ulbricht, who sharply criticized Bauhaus modernism. Equally
decisive was that year’s visit by a GDR architectural delegation to Moscow. Despite opposition from some
participants, such as Richard Paulick, who privately mocked the Moscow skyscrapers for their ‘fool’s cap’ of
ornamentation and criticized Socialist Realism as redolent of the Nazi ideals of Paul Schultze-Naumburg, the
stigma of war guilt forbade any explicit criticism of Soviet architecture, and on their return, all fell into line
behind the ‘Sixteen Principles’ of Socialist Realist planning and building. Modernist plans for gallery-access
slabs lining the Stalinallee were scrapped and replaced by a stately Schinkelesque classicism, and the areas to
north and south were developed in Socialist Realist style in 1952–3, including a small, classical tower block at
the Weberweise and towered pavilions at Strausberger Platz – the latter designed with advice from eminent
Soviet architect Alexander Vasilievich Vlasov.16 Only in 1951 was full-blown Socialist Realism firmly
established in Hungary and Czechoslovakia (‘Sorela’), while in Poland, where it was inaugurated by a 1949
resolution of the National Council of Party Architects, its foremost housing set piece was Kraków’s planned
industrial satellite township of Nowa Huta, whose stately, classical axes were planned from 1949 and built
from the early 1950s.17
But with the demise of Stalin in 1953, the unquestioned ascendancy of Socialist Realism in the satellite
countries was short indeed, and German, Polish and Czechoslovak housing architects began looking to
Scandinavia and Britain for new-town and community planning, while embracing the cause of industrialized
building and assiduously visiting prefabricated developments in Sweden, Denmark and France. By 1955,
Walter Ulbricht began reflecting Khrushchev’s denunciation of Socialist Realist ornamentation, in a speech
arguing that architecture must be available to the ‘whole people’; and the same year saw an unprecedented
pan-German, modernist urban design competition for the Fennpfuhl housing-development area of East
Berlin. That particular experiment in ‘reunification’ was not repeated, and the East German modernist
movement focused instead on industrialized building, which dominated the next stages of the Stalinallee
(now renamed Karl Marx Allee).18 Reflecting the political thaw following Gomułka’s takeover in the ‘Polish
October’, 1956 saw a decisive modernist revival in Poland, for example at Nowa Huta, where a mainstream
modernist apartment block was built in 1955–9 by Janusz and Marta Ingarden following a Scandinavian visit
(and dubbed ‘The Swedish House’), or in Wrocław’s Osiedle PKWN, a DBOR project inaugurated in 1954 with
simplified Socialist Realist low-rise blocks in experimental prefabricated construction, but by 1959–61 shifting
to explicitly modernist RC-framed designs.19 The period up to 1964 was the Polish heyday of mainstream
international modernism, including pioneering experiments in user-adaptable apartments in Wrocław’s Nowy
Targ, although industrialized building was not fully embraced in Poland until 1964. In 1956, too, the first
modernist neighbourhood units emerged in Czechoslovakia, notably Februárka in Bratislava, built in the
wake of the hybrid ‘500 bytov’ (‘500 Flats’) project, with its modernist styling and conventional layout.20
In Bulgaria, although the continuing dominance of single-storey housing meant that the turn to modernism
was of subsidiary importance, the first modern low-rise Zeilenbau layouts appeared in Sofia in 1956–9,
including the 9 September estate.21 In Hungary, the turmoil of 1956 obstructed any straightforward architectural

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‘thaw’, although modernist architects such as Máté Major laid the ground for later ascendancy. Only from
around 1958 did fully-fledged modernism emerge in Hungarian housing, above all in Budapest’s Óbuda
experimental development, a domestic echo of the Interbau as an intended prototype for modernist community
planning, housing architecture and interior furniture and fittings.22 In the event, with the 1960s turn towards
industrialized building, the Óbuda development instead mainly influenced the planning of elite infill
developments, a building sub-type where a conservative street-block pattern had hitherto prevailed, as in the
modernist tenement-style block at Egressy út 1/d, Budapest, built in 1960 to house Ministry of Interior secret-
police staff and designed by Károylné Misky of the State General Design Office.23 Not just in Hungary, but
across all the satellite states, the late 1950s were the heyday of socialist design offices, before their gradual
1960s displacement by production-led industrialized building. In Czechoslovakia, for example, Stavoprojekt
developed a long tradition of modernist experimentation, including the Bat’a programme. In East Germany,
the Bauakademie introduced a highly integrated system, interlinking project offices and production agencies.
Design offices focused especially on devising standard types, as in the GDR, whose preoccupation with
‘Typung’ contrasted starkly with the West German concern with ‘Normung’. However, by the early 1960s, all
this experimentation was superseded by an overriding drive for output, for example under the Institute for
Standardization in Hungary, founded in 1961.24
In Eastern Europe, modern housing layouts naturally echoed the Soviet formula of Extensive Urbanism,
albeit on a smaller scale, along with Scandinavian and British neighbourhood-unit planning and French
grands ensembles. Following the Soviet model of hierarchical comprehensiveness, each mikrorayon formed a
building-block within an all-embracing socialist urban concept, complete with all necessary community
facilities and the ‘spectacular’ features of grand magistrales; indeed, in Czechoslovakia, a ‘komplexa bytova
vystabva’ was officially defined as a development of over 300 flats, provided with all ancillary facilities; the
GDR term, ‘Komplexe Planung’, had similar connotations. This approach was linked integrally to industrialized
building. In any country, the first really large-scale urban development was often also its first large industrialized
project: for example, Kelenföld in Hungary or Hoyerswerda in the GDR. The latter anticipated a succession of
East German Großsiedlungen, such as Erfurt-Nord, Karl Marx Stadt-Heckertgebiet, Rostock-Lichtenhagen or
Berlin-Marzahn. Correspondingly, there was some reluctance to demolish existing housing stock – unlike the
vast slum-clearance projects of Britain and the USA. In Warsaw, following the sixteen-storey Zeilenbau slabs
of the Osiedle Za Żelazną Bramą of 1965–70, the later Ursynów development switched to a tower-dominated
formula, whereas, as we will see, the Przymorze area of Gdańsk featured the more idiosyncratic element of the
long, curved ‘Falowiec’. And in Bulgaria, Sofia’s pioneering Hipodroma multi-storey project of 1959–60 was
followed by a succession of large, modernist developments, climaxing in the 1970s (see Fig. 12.2).25
A further increase in scale, from grand ensemble to new town, usually resulted from the involvement of a
large-scale enterprise. These ‘new towns’ were mostly semi-autonomous satellites dwarfing existing settlements,
as exemplified in the 1957 plan for Hoyerswerda, built to serve the ‘Schwarze Pumpe’ lignite-mine Kombinat;
this fully established GDR modernist mikrorayon-based open planning. The massive expansion of Schwedt
from 1958 by the petro-chemical VEB Erdölverarbeitungswerk with a satellite development, completely
separate from the old town, was based on full-scale ‘extensive Stadtentwicklung’. The culmination of East
German satellite-town-building was Halle-Neustadt, where an autonomous ‘Chemiearbeiterstadt’ for 90,000
inhabitants was constructed from 1964, monumentally planned around a main magistrale lined by Plattenbau
slabs – beginning with the ten-storey, 5,233-unit Wohnkomplex I of 1964–8 – and punctuated by clumps of
landmark towers, some of decidedly sculptural monolithic construction. In all these cases – Hoyerswerda,
Schwedt, Halle – Richard Paulick played a key urban-design role. Of the municipally-led (rather than
enterprise-led) satellite town developments, the only one matching the scale of Halle-Neustadt was Bratislava’s
Petržalka (1973–80): at 49,829 units, the largest prefabricated housing project in Central Europe and originally

348
 A Quarrelsome Family: The European Socialist States

A B

C D

E
Fig. 12.2 (a): Sídliště Petřiny, Prague, ‘Sorela’ (Socialist Realist) urban plan of 1954 by Josef Kubín; the complex was
eventually built from 1959 in large-panel construction. (b): Osiedle PKWN Wrocław, DBOR project inaugurated in 1954
with experimental prefabricated construction (MG 2018). (c): Osiedle Za Żelazna Brama, Warsaw (1965–70), one of
Poland’s first fully-fledged Zeilenbau neighbourhoods (MG 1983). (d, e): Zhk Hipodroma, Sofia (1959–60): Bulgaria’s first
tower-block project (MG 2017).

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conceived as a counterweight to the old city centre across the Danube. Laid out by the Stavoprojekt-Bratislava
institute following an international urban-design competition in 1967, Petržalka was planned with three
residential sectors and sub-units, around a ‘skeleton’ of tall, angled, section-planned barrier blocks, echoing
Rubanenko’s 1967 designs for Togliatti. Inspired by Moscow’s Kalinin Prospekt landmark towers, stately
magistrale planning also sometimes extended into city centres, in developments like Dresden’s pedestrianized
Prager Strasse (first stage 1965–70 – including a 250m-long, 614-unit slab-block), or East Berlin’s Leninallee/
Leninplatz and Fischerinsel (see Fig. 12.3).26

The diversity of socialist standardization

In Eastern Europe as in the Soviet Union, the drive for industrialized building was strongly integrated into the
drive for Extensive Urbanism. In principle, interstate coordination was stronger than in the West, at least from
1957, when a meeting of CMEA (Comecon) representatives in East Berlin fixed a common policy of prefabrication
and information-exchange using standardized card-indexes: East Germany naturally occupied a leading place,
given the pioneering work of Hans Schmidt’s Institute for Type-Design at the Bauakademie. But what was largely
absent was a direct equivalent to the massive, early Soviet prefabrication boom during the Khrushchev years,
especially in 1957–60. In Czechoslovakia, to be sure, the Bat’a experiments in Zlín since 1920 were followed by
intense 1950s debates about prefabrication, and standardization experiments by the Type Institute of Bratislava
and Prague’s Building Research Institute (founded 1954); from 1956, the first experimental ‘panelák’ blocks
appeared in Prague, Bratislava and elsewhere. The 1960s saw very large-scale panelák building, alongside, and the
IPR Prague more idiosyncratic projects such as an eleven-storey aluminium-panel-clad slab of higher-rental
service flats at the Invalidovna experimental estate in Prague (1964), by architect Josef Polák with the VÚVA
Research Institute. In East Germany, prefabricated experiments began early, building on the wartime precedent of
architect Ernst Neufert’s hypothetical projects for linear ‘factory production’ of apartment blocks. These focused
initially on both large-panel prefabrication proper, at Berlin-Johannisthal in 1953, and large blockwork construction,
at Dresden in 1955. However, large-scale production got seriously underway only with the founding of the first
Baukombinaten and the 1957 commencement of Hoyerswerda, trumpeted as ‘the first industrially built town in
the GDR’. As elsewhere, the 1960s and 1970s saw debates in the Bauakademie and elsewhere about the merits of
closed versus open systems, or about a ‘Baukastensystem’, or ‘building component system’. But it was only during
Honecker’s prodigious 1970s–1980s building drive that exploitation of industrialized building became all-
pervasive, with both municipal ‘volkseigene’ departments and co-ops like Einheit in Karl Marx-Stadt, switching
wholesale into ‘Plattenbau’, constructed by local Baukombinate. The technical kernel of Honecker’s campaign was
an East German variant on the Soviet quest for unified systems, as exemplified by Moscow’s Yediny Katalog: the
WBS (Wohnbauserie) 70. Authorized by a special 1970 SED Central Committee building conference, the WBS70
concept simplified the range of types that had proliferated since Hoyerswerda into a single ‘family’ (see Fig. 12.4).27
Elsewhere, the shift to industrialized building was more belated than in the USSR, the most extreme
example being Bulgaria, with its semi-rural housing traditions: the first precast elements were only produced
in 1954 (for four-storey blocks) and large-panel construction was modestly introduced in 1959, in Sofia’s
Tolstoy project. Only 8,000 large-panel dwellings had been built by 1964, and even in the early 1970s, the
prefabricated share was only around 40%; other construction methods such as reinforced-concrete frame
remained dominant. By the 1970s, over thirty DSKs had been set up with Soviet help; the first two, in Sofia,
were producing around 5,000 dwellings a year.28 Hungary, with its strong emphasis on single-family owner-
occupation, was slightly quicker off the mark, beginning prefabricated construction only in 1961 but thereafter
rapidly accelerating: four DSKs and concrete factories were established in the 1960s, including three built with

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 A Quarrelsome Family: The European Socialist States

B C

Fig. 12.3 (a, b, c): Hoyerswerda, a massive town-extension scheme from 1957 by the ‘Schwarze Pumpe’ lignite mine
kombinat: original layout plan and 2013 (MG) images of early development in District 3, and 1970s slab-block.

Soviet help by 1965, and one built as a joint venture with Larsen & Nielsen in 1968: the first major prefabricated
development, Kelenföld, used a Camus-based Soviet system.29
As in the Soviet Union, no sooner was industrialized building fully established, in the mid-1960s, then a
growing architectural clamour began against its repetitiveness, together with demands for more ‘urban’
development patterns, greater flexibility and openness in systems and increased provision for decoration. As
editor of the journal Deutsche Architektur in 1962–4, architect Bruno Flierl fostered a controversial debate in its
pages, including attacks against ‘monotony’. This debate was only temporarily suppressed by Flierl’s removal
from the editorship, and the 1960s also witnessed mounting complaints by Czech and Slovak designers against

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Mass Housing

D E

Fig. 12.3 (d, e, f): Petrzalka satellite township, Bratislava, planned from 1967 by Stavoproject-Bratislava and developed
in 1973–8: overall plan (with Bratislava’s Altstadt at top), detail plan and 2010 (MG) view of Haje II district. (g): Prager
Straße, Dresden, 1963 perspective by project design team member Hans Konrad.

352
 A Quarrelsome Family: The European Socialist States

A B

C D
Fig. 12.4 (a, b): Invalidovna, Prague, 1959 layout plan by Jiři Novotný’s team in the Prague State Planning Institute, and
view of experimental aluminium-panel-clad block, conceived in 1964 by architect Josef Polák with the VÚVA research
institute (MG 2016). (c): Erich Honecker meets building workers on his 1978 Marzahn visit (cf. 12.1a, b). (d): Series WBS
70 (designed in 1969–72 by Wilfried Stallknecht and Achim Felz), the very first block built, at Neubrandenburg-Ost III,
from 1973 (MG 2017).

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Mass Housing

E F

G H
Fig. 12.4 (e): Marzahn, East Berlin: the nearest staircase unit of the left-hand block (Luise Zeitz Str. 129) contained the
claimed ‘one-millionth’ dwelling of the 1971 housing programme, opened by Honecker in 1978 (MG 2017). (f): Zhk
Nadezhda II, Tolstoy 2, Sofia: Bulgaria’s first large-precast-panel project, 1959 (MG 2017). (g): Kelenföld, Budapest,
commenced in 1965: designed by the TTI design institute and built by House Building Combine No. 1 using Camus-
derived prefabrication. In the foreground are eleven-storey slabs designed by Tibor Csordás and István Árkai (MG 2015).
(h): József Attila Street, Budafok, experimental sliding-formwork housing by Tibor Tenke (of the Institute for Design
Development and Type Design, created in 1961) with Jószef Thoma (1966–8) (MG 2019).

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industrialized building and the ‘lack of theory’ underpinning mass housing. These criticisms provoked diverse
architectural responses, often more exaggerated than in the Soviet Union, and commonly stressing more ‘urban’
and dense forms and more flexible, structuralist-style planning. In Budapest, for example, the Type Design
Institute (TTI) research architect Tibor Tenke laid out an influential complex at Újpalota (1970–5) as a linear
arrangement of two colliding planes, with a landmark tower at the intersection, built in sliding-form construction
and crowned by a water reservoir; Tenke had previously designed an experimental sliding-formwork project at
Budafok in 1966–8. Several utopian initiatives proposed much more extreme solutions, whether megastructural,
as in the vast linear ‘Strip’ development advocated in Budapest by Elemér Zalotay, or Oskar Hansen’s projects in
Poland, which combined innovative high-density forms with attempted participatory social input. Here, too,
the realizations brought disappointment – Zalotay’s Strip project was cancelled and a much smaller, standard
linear slab was built at Óbuda, while Hansen’s Juliusz Słowacki complex in Lublin (1963–6), a cooperative with
a linear continuous system, and Przyczółek Grochowski, Warsaw (1963–73, with Zofia Garlińska-Hansen),
were both built in a simplified form. An extreme example of the protracted delays typical of socialist building
set pieces was Wrocław’s inner-urban Plac Grunwaldzki, a decked cluster of dramatically sculptural towers by
architect Jadwiga Grabowska-Hawrylak for the Piast Cooperative, initially conceived following a 1952 design
competition but only eventually built in simplified form in 1970–3, after a convoluted succession of alternative
variations and building-permit negotiations. Even bolder geometrically ‘sculptured’ high towers were built in
1970–8 by a group of designers in Katowice’s General Building Design Studio – Henryk Buszko, Aleksander
Franta and Tadeusz Szewczyk – at the Osiedle Walentego Rożdzieńskiego. Its seven intersecting-star-plan
twenty-seven-storey towers were jointly commissioned by three separate agencies: the Katowice Housing Co-
operative (KSM), the Metallurgical and Mining Cooperative (HGSM), and the Polish State Railways (PKP); the
same design team built another sculptural tower development, but with circular ‘maize’ plans in the Créteil and
Bertrand Goldberg manner, at Katowice’s Osiedle Tysiąclecia, in the 1980s (see Fig. 12.5).30
Even if Zalotay’s ‘Strip’ proposal in Budapest was unrealized, from the mid-1960s Polish designers actually
built something not far from it in scale: the ‘Falowiec’ (Wave) projects – eleven- or twelve-storey slab-blocks
of typical Soviet-style ‘second generation’ undulating sectional layout, but unusually featuring balcony rather
than stair/corridor access, and, more importantly, of immense length. The main group of Falowiec blocks was
in the northern suburbs of Gdańsk, in the Przymorze development, built on a 180ha site by a single ‘housing
cooperative’, the PSM Przymorze – an extreme example of the ‘parastatal’ character of Polish co-ops, which, in
its active building years of 1959–82, accumulated a building stock of 15,248 flats and a staff of over 500. The
Falowiec sector (Duży Przymorze) began in 1964 as an experimental project exempt from cost restraints,
following an urban-design competition whose joint winner, architect Stanisław Różański, acted as project
design leader within the Gdańsk city design collective (Miastoprojekt) for the entire Przymorze development.
It employed a modified panel system devised by the local city DSK, the Gdańsk City Building Enterprise
(GPBM), alongside conventional five-storey sectional-plan walk-ups and smallish tower blocks. The years
1966–7 saw construction of the first two Falowiec blocks of four ‘sections’ each, at ul. Piastowska; the
culmination was an immense ‘kolos’ (colossus) of sixteen sections and over 800m length at ul. Obrónców
Wybrzeża 4–10 (1970–3) – not far off the linear scale of Corviale in Rome or, for that matter, the Karl Marx
Hof. Later Falowiec developments of slightly different design were also built in Poznań. In Hungary, the same
years saw a different permutation of the ‘wave’ formula in the country’s foremost heavy-industry centre,
Miskolc: the Diósgyőr development, built by the city municipality both for its own tenants and for coalminers
and other union-nominated employees, and completed in 1971–2. Designed by the Miskolc-based design
bureau ÉSZAKTERV (North Hungarian Design Enterprise) for construction by the city házgyár (housing
factory) using the Larsen & Nielsen system, the project included two eleven-storey serpentine blocks, each
comprising numerous short, section-planned slabs on a stepped alignment.31

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Mass Housing

A B

C D
Fig. 12.5 (a): A 1974 diagram in Deutsche Architektur (H1, 1974, p. 8) of the potential layout combinations using series
WBS70. (b, c): Budapest’s Újpalota development of 1970–5, layout plan and 2019 (MG) street view, including the focal-
point Víztoronyház (‘Water Tower’) sliding-form tower block (designed by Tibor Tenke), with its nineteen residential
floors crowned by a 600m³ water tank. (d): Plac Grunwaldzki, Wrocław, built in 1970–3 by Piast Cooperative (architect
Jadwiga Grabowska-Hawrylak) (MG 2018).

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 A Quarrelsome Family: The European Socialist States

E F

G
Fig. 12.5 (e): Katowice’s Osiedle Walentego Rożdzieńskiego (1970–8) by Henryk Buszko, Aleksander Franta and Tadeusz
Szewczyk (2015). (f, g): Gdańsk’s Falowiec (Wave) blocks, Przymorze, built in 1966–71 by PSM, to designs by Gdańsk’s
Miastoprjekt: 1970s layout plan and 1983 photo (MG).

In response to the growing critiques of ‘monotony’, another expedient was more decorative design. A
Czechoslovak building law of 1965 had already reserved 5% of all building costs for ‘artwork’, but now things
went much further. The results verged on postmodernism, as in protracted developments such as Prague’s
Jihozápadní Město (South-West City, 1968–89) or Nový Barrandov (1977–88), Bratislava’s Dlhé diely (finished
only in 1995), or similar Hungarian projects such as Káposztásmegyer (1984–90) – all featuring courtyard-type
plans and decorative features; several Polish cities also moved in the same direction from the late 1970s onwards
(see Fig. 12.6).32 One Hungarian architectural combine went further, designing medium-rise blocks in the
southern city of Pécs featuring gable walls covered with vernacular motifs evoking ‘Hungarian tradition’ –
provoking a furious response from CIAM modernists such as Mate Major, who now constituted the
establishment within Hungarian housing architecture.33 This so-called Tulip Debate of 1975–6 finished with
the abrupt termination of the experiment, but by the 1980s a general swing against multi-storey blocks was
underway, especially in Bulgaria: there, in 1986–7, responding to press criticisms, Zhivkov authorized a scaling-
down of new state housing to five storeys maximum in towns and three in villages.34
In historic urban settings, a calculatedly contextual approach became widespread, with some roots in
Stalinist Socialist Realism. In the reconstruction of war-damaged Gdańsk, for instance, the late 1940s saw a
decision to ‘restore’ the old town, following a report by leading Polish conservationist Jan Zachwatowicz,
but to use the rebuilt structures for workers’ housing. The result, built from 1949 onwards with modern

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A B

C D
Fig. 12.6 (a, b): Díosgyőr, Miskolc: ‘wave’ blocks in municipal housing scheme, completed in 1971–2, to designs by
ESZAKTERV (MG 2019). (c): The dramatic ‘twin-towered’ centrepiece of Jižní město (South City) phase 1, Prague – a
28,000-dwelling satellite town conceived by the Prague Capital City Construction enterprise (VHMP – výstabva hlavního
města Prahy) following a 1966–8 urban-design competition won by Jan Krasný. The area was built in 1971–81 by construction
combine Montované stavby in the VVÚ and Larsen & Nielsen prefabrication systems (housing architects J. Lasovský, J.
Zelený and V. Rothbauerová) (MG 1990). (d): Káposztásmegyer first stage, Budapest (1984–90): ‘national romantic’
postmodernist design, based on detailed layout plan of 1980 by István Zoltai, Zoltán Füzesséry and Fekete Antal (MG 2017).

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E F
Fig. 12.6 (e): Stalinist kvartals in heritage dress: 1983 panorama of the rebuilt old town (Główne Miasto) of Gdańsk,
constructed for rental to skilled workers from 1949 onwards by ZOR (Workers’ Estates Combine) and DBOR (Construction
Directorate of Workers’ Estates) in accordance with the 1948 Zachwatowicz Plan, showing un-rebuilt land and modernist
tower blocks beyond (MG 1983). (f): Nowy Targ, Wrocław; ‘conditional reconstruction’ of square by DBOR on existing
footprint from 1956, designed by Miastoprojekt Wrocław (MG 2018).

apartment-plans and hollow street-block layouts, was, in effect, a Stalinist kvartal composed of restored
structures. Following the general post-Stalinist switch to modernist architecture and planning, diverse Polish
approaches to housing reconstruction of war-devastated ex-German cities were devised: at Wrocław’s Nowy
Targ, a complex succession of plans and proposals culminated in a ‘conditional reconstruction’ (1956–7)
employing modernist blocks of similar scale to the previous buildings, laid out in a combination of street,
courtyard and open-plan layouts.35
The pursuit of contextual urban housing solutions reflected the relative rarity of massed area demolitions
in the satellite states, but in East Germany, a 1982 Politburo decision that new construction should be
increasingly located in the inner-city presupposed a shift both to rehabilitation and to increased demolition:
redevelopment replacements would comprise 18% of annual output by the 1980s. Little came of this, and gap-
site development still prevailed over demolition. An influential GDR competition of 1982–3, ‘Variable
Prefabrication Solutions for Inner-Urban Sites’, proposed WBS70 adaptations for old-town infills. One
exemplary implementation was in Neubrandenburg, whose municipal Baukombinat launched in 1984 the
Behmenstraße ‘Complex Reconstruction and Renewal’ project – a coordinated group of gap-site infills,
designed by the staff of City Architect Dr Iris Grund, using modified WBS70 with ground-floor shops and
‘special design elements’. Contextual WBS70 variants were designed for specific Altstadt locations, exploiting
the open-system approach of late ‘Soviet’ housing types: for example the WB85 Erfurt, for the Leninstraße site
(completed 1985); the special gabled Plattenbau blocks designed for the Nikolaiviertel ‘tourist Altstadt’ in
inner Berlin (1983–7); or Rostock’s Wokrenter Straße and Breite Straße schemes of 1983–7. The ‘contextual’
craze also spread to peripheral locations, such as Rostock-Schmarl, where the AWG Schifffahrt-Hafen Rostock
dockworkers’ cooperative built a modified WBS70 development of 6,550 flats in 1976–84, alluding indirectly
to the Hanseatic Backsteingotik heritage in an obliquely modernist way, with red tiled cladding and stepped-
down block ends (architect, Peter Baumbach). The GDR’s claimed ‘two-millionth dwelling’, opened in February
1984, was actually a rehabilitated tenement flat in the Arkonastraße renovation scheme, carried out by the
Berlin Transport Enterprise.36 However, the 1980s also saw mounting protests at demolitions, for example in
Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg – protests which fuelled the wider unpopularity of the socialist regime (see Fig. 12.7).

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Socialist outliers: European divergences from the Soviet model

While the satellite-bloc countries followed similar policies and architectural patterns, reflecting Soviet
precedents in one way or another, in Albania, Romania and Yugoslavia different patterns prevailed. Furthest
removed from stereotypical Soviet mass-building for the industrial proletariat was Albania, where Enver
Hoxha’s maverick regime echoed China by emphasizing rural development, controlling rural-to-urban
migration and rusticating urban youths in 1967; even in 1990 the urban population percentage was only 34%,
and only 185,000 dwellings were constructed in 1945–70, including 25,000 in Tirana. While urban housing
was generally built by People’s Councils and allocated via workplace trade unions, housing built by individuals,
especially in rural areas, accounted for one-third of output, and rural ‘new towns’ were little more than villages.

A B

C D
Fig. 12.7 (a): Concept drawing by Dr Horst Hellbach showing potential applications of WBS70/85 series to pitched-roof
infill blocks in historic East German towns. (b): Title page of Werner Rietdorf ’s 1989 book Stadterneuerung, showing the
Baugebiet Domplatz in Halle/Saale (1985–90); designed by Wolf-Rüdiger Thäder of the Halle city architect’s office, in
collaboration with Peter Weeck and Christine Gabriel of Wohnungsbaukombinat Halle, using special block series IW 64-P
Halle-A77 and IW 84-P Halle-IB. (c, d): Neubrandenburg, Behmenstraße ‘complex reconstruction and renewal’ infill
project, designed by the staff of City Architect Dr Iris Grund using modified WBS70 blocks, from 1984: layout plan and
2017 (MG) view.

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E F

G
Fig. 12.7 (e, f): Nikolaiviertel, East Berlin, 2017 (MG) street view and layout plan: designed from 1980 by a design
collective from BMK Ingenieur-Hochbau Berlin, headed by Günther Stahn and Kurt Stark, and completed by 1987.
(g): Rostock-Schmarl, a 1976–84 complex in modified WBS70, commissioned by AWG Schifffahrt-Hafen Rostock
(architect Peter Baumbach); 1990 (MG) view showing use of stepped blocks and red-brown tiling to create an oblique
modernist evocation of ‘Backsteingotik’.

The primitive state of the Albanian building industry prevented industrialized building and standardization:
there was only limited prefabrication, and most blocks were built of cement-faced brick, including three- to
four-storey low-rise flats, and blocks of five- to six- storeys (without lifts, for economy’s sake) in the main
centres of Tirana and Durrës. Building output was boosted by ‘voluntary’ labour brigades, instituted in 1968
and resembling the Cuban system; they reputedly built 12,000 dwellings in five years.37

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Far more significant within socialist mass housing were the two diametrically-opposed cases of Romania
and Yugoslavia – opposed because in the former, the overall trajectory after 1970 was towards ever-greater
state centralization and ‘systematization’, whereas in the latter, housing policy reflected a national ethos of
decentralization and reorganization, amounting eventually to near anarchy. In the 1940s, Romania, like
Bulgaria, was an agrarian society with little ‘Communist proletariat’. In response, tight Stalinist control was
established from 1947 by Communist leader (1944–65) Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dei, combined after 1960 with
rapid forced urbanization and agricultural land-nationalization, along with tentative consumerism, symbolized
by the 1969 introduction of the Dacia 1300 car. But this was combined with estrangement from Moscow,
beginning in 1952 when Gheorghiu purged the ‘Muscovite’ wing of the Romanian Workers’ Party, and
deepening during the Khrushchev thaw, which he combated with socialist nationalism, announcing in 1964
the ‘Romanian Road to Communism’. After his death in 1965, Nicolae Ceauşescu gradually emerged as
‘conducator’, promoting an ideology of ‘National Communism’; a short-lived liberalization in the mid-/late
1960s ended following Ceauşescu’s visit to North Korea in 1971.38
In both the organization and architecture of mass housing, Romania underwent a succession of fluctuations
that set it apart from every other socialist regime. Prior to the Communist takeover, much social housing had
been built by Latin American-style occupational social-insurance and pension societies, such as IGAF (General
Assurance Institute for Public Employees), but under the new regime, State expenditure focused overwhelmingly
on industry, with housing a relatively low priority. In the immediate postwar years, there was strong emphasis
on private housing (with state output only overtaking private in 1969), accommodating population growth
chiefly by legal or illegal nationalization and demolition of large private houses to build apartment blocks:
construction of new housing was chaotically distributed among numerous government-owned agencies, a
situation strongly criticized in a 1956 report. Although new housing construction in Bucharest was initially
largely confined to gap-sites, production gradually rose from 1959 onwards.39 The balance of esteem between
state and private building fluctuated sharply, and a confusing diversity of agencies were involved, drawing on
resources overseen centrally from 1952 to 1989 by the State Planning Committee. In 1966, during the
interregnum following Gheorghiu’s death, the Central Committee authorized mortgage funding for building
for sale, and further private-building laws followed in 1968–71, alongside sales of existing rental apartments.
After 1986, however, mounting regime alarm at the growth of speculation prompted the sudden abandonment
of the system, and, by 1989, a growing threat of renationalization. By the late 1980s, unlike neighbouring
Hungary, private building had dropped to almost nil, both in cities and the countryside, where a massive
programme of remodelling villages with apartment blocks was underway. During the 1980s, public rental
production was extrapolated from the planned national programme overseen by the SPC, disaggregated by
county and municipality and allocated to local building combines to construct, with the people’s councils
(municipalities) acting as arbiters between the competing demands of the various investor and construction
enterprises, as well as overseeing housing management: sections of new estates were reserved for groups such
as skilled university graduates or army officers. Living-space standards (suprafaţa locuibilă) were calculated by
rooms per person, rather than Soviet-style, by floor area. The chief exception to these standards – building for
the nomenklatura – was carried out by a separate development agency, the Gospodăria de Partid.40
Architecturally, Romania was unusual in its addiction to hybrid forms of modernism, influenced both by
Stalinist urbanism and by more general concepts of urban monumentality. The pre-Communist 1940s saw a
brief dalliance with CIAM Zeilenbau planning, as at the IGAF’s Ansambul Ferentari (1945–9). The subsequent
ascendancy of Socialist Realism had some continuity with these predecessors, and itself only abated from
around 1958; a distinctive Romanian counter-reaction against modern urbanism was already underway by
1966, and by the 1970s and 1980s, new forms of dense housing development anticipated postmodernist
urbanism.

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During the 1950s, the slow pace of apartment-building had first begun to quicken around 1952, and
accelerated further from 1957, initially with a Soviet kvartal system and mostly three- to five-storey blocks:
equally prominent was the building of individual private houses, using type plans drawn up by the Ministry
of Construction. Following Khrushchev’s 1954 anti-Stalinist speech, the Economics Directorate of the Central
Committee had commissioned an extensive study by twenty-three architectural, engineering and economics
specialists in 1957, following which a modernist formula of mikrorayon planning was approved by the CC in
November 1958 and finally announced in a speech by Gheorghiu, which belatedly condemned Socialist
Realism as wasteful. After the PMR Third Congress in 1960, large mikrorayon-planned peripheral estates
began to mushroom, including Bucharest’s Balta Albă (1961–8) and Drumul Taberei, both combining
Zeilenbau slabs and towers: especially prominent was the isolated line of six twelve-storey towers at Floreasca
(1963). Within Romanian socialist urbanism, however, a liking for the monumentality of grand magistrales
and squares still remained unusually prominent – perhaps stemming partly from residual Stalinism and partly
from Francophile cultural affinities continued from the interwar years: Rietdorf ’s 1975 book highlighted this
as especially characteristic of Romania. Even at the height of straightforward modernism in Romania, in the
late 1950s and early 1960s, building for effect along great boulevards was ubiquitous, often as Haussmannesque
interventions within the city-centre fabric, leaving incongruously truncated smaller structures behind or in
between. Early examples included Bucharest’s grandly symmetrical Piaţa Gării de Nord, or the 1959–60 Piaţa
Palatului, with its ten-storey apartment street-blocks and focal eighteen-storey tower. The Griviţa Street
project of 1958–65 featured arrays of seven- and eight-storey sectional-plan street-blocks, and taller towers,
stretching several kilometres north-westwards from the Gara de Nord (see Fig. 12.8).41
The years from the mid-1960s saw a general urban shift to multi-storey buildings of over five storeys,
together with a programme of type-plans and system-building, strongly emphasizing sectional planning on
the Soviet pattern (secţiune-tip), with some specific variations reflecting older Romanian traditions, such as
the almost universal provision externally of individual balconies, and internally of small cold pantries for
winter food-preservation. It was, however, in its overall urbanistic form that Romanian multi-storey building
diverged most significantly from its socialist neighbours. Just as the Soviet concept of Extensive Urbanism
combined elements of architecture and city planning, its Romanian counterpart, ‘systematization’
(sistematizare), did much the same – but with very different built results. The expression ‘sistematizare’ had
been freely used by Romanian planners since the early twentieth and even the nineteenth century, and
certainly in the 1935 Bucharest General Plan, as a general term for methodical spatial organization: Stalinist
boulevard monumentality was referred to as ‘sistematizării de magistrale’. But following a 1966 speech by
Ceauşescu, in which he called for greater economy in land use, and housing diversification to avoid monotony,
the word began to take on much more specific architectural overtones. Drawing on densification concepts
originally devised by technical planners on economic grounds in the 1960s, and experimentally introduced in
modernist projects such as Drumul Taberei, this new interpretation was codified by architect Gustav Gusti in
1969 and elaborated further in 1971 by Ceauşescu, who was by then revealing strongly-held and idiosyncratic
architectural proclivities (see Fig. 12.9).42
Just as Gheorghiu had denounced Socialist Realism as wasteful in 1958, so Ceauşescu’s new critique also
focused on waste – only here of land rather than building resources. He condemned Soviet-style Extensive
Urbanism as spatially profligate and architecturally monotonous. At a 1971 conference of the Romanian Union
of Architects, he argued that its ‘blocks are randomly dispersed, rather than flanking well-defined streets and
boulevards in a clear urban line’. Indeed, ‘the preservation of large areas of unused land between blocks of flats
is not just detrimental to the architectural image of a neighbourhood, but, by reducing the density of construction,
makes it impossible to satisfy living-space needs through optimum housing conditions’.43 Reflecting these
critiques, national planners drew up a systematization programme in 1972, and a general systematization law

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A B

C D

E F
Fig. 12.8 (a): Newly completed low-rise tenement-plan rental blocks in Lushnje, Albania (1986) (MG). (b): Early
postwar Zeilenbau development in Romania, at the IGAF’s Ansambul Ferentari, Bucharest (1945–9) (MG 2019). (c, d, e,
f): Calea Grivitei reconstruction scheme in Bucharest (1958–65): plan in Radu Laurian (ed.) Urbanismul, 1965 (juxtaposed
with boulevard plans from Paris, Versailles, Rome, Moscow and Leningrad); 1982 view of Calea Grivitei at 1 Mai, and 2019
front and rear views of completed scheme near Basarab Station (MG 2019).

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followed in 1974, synthesizing all previous acts. The overall economic and social aim of Ceauşescu’s new concept
of systematization was eminently socialist in general principle: to equalize the differences between centre and
periphery. But the specific form it took was radical to the point of eccentricity. This was to be a total national
strategy of urban concentration, including the banning of urban peripheral sprawl and consolidation of rural
villages, selecting some for modern planned development and others for abandonment and, even, demolition.
Previously, Bucharest’s tight planning controls had contrasted with relatively liberal diversity elsewhere, but all
this now disappeared. The contrast with Soviet planning was justified by Ceauşescu on the grounds that ‘for the
Soviets, the land issue does not matter; but for countries where the land issue matters, they fight for every square
metre’. Also diametrically opposed to Soviet practice was Ceauşescu’s quirkish suppression of state-sponsored
conservation and heritage academia, as an obstacle to systematization – at the same time as Romanian housing
design took on an increasingly conservative tone.A 1975 ‘streets law’ led to an ‘operaţie de îndesire’ (‘densification’),
and the boulevard-systematization policy was reinforced by policies between 1976 and 1980 aiming to ‘placare’
(plate) any remaining open-sided boulevards with traditional urban street-line blocks; open-plan modernist
layouts were sometimes infilled with additional blocks, as in the case of the Şoseaua Mihai Bravu, originally
replanned in 1964 as a vast modernist axis lined with towers and slabs, but subsequently ‘plated’ down the

A B

C D
Fig. 12.9 (a): Cartierul Drumul Taberei, Bucharest, a multi-phase neighbourhood of 1955–70 planned by architect Dinu
Hariton and others; housing by Ionela Trişcu, Irina Vereş and Silvia Stratu: original plan of mikrorayon 8, 1961–7, with
widely-spaced slab blocks. (b, c): Drumul Taberei, Mikrorayon 3, original slab-block and towers inserted under post-1974
densification programme (MG 2019). (d): Modernist precursors of the boulevard ‘plating’ of the Ceauşescu years,
published in Laurian’s Urbanismul, 1965.

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E F

Fig. 12.9 (e): Damage from the 1977 earthquake to blocks in Bulevardul Iuniu Maniu, Cartierul Militari, Bucharest.
(f): A 1982 rear view of ‘plating’ operation in progress in Turda Street, Bucharest, showing service access road, new blocks
lining boulevard on left, and demolition of rear structures on right (MG). (g): Bulevardul Victoria Socialismului, Bucharest,
map by Alexandru Panaitescu of post-1982 demolitions and new, axial extensions.

middle after 1980 with a new façade, jammed up against the towers and almost blocking them from view. As
Ceauşescu disliked straight slabs, new developments increasingly included street-blocks incorporating curved,
segmental or diagonal elements, including massively chamfered junctions oddly reminiscent of Ildefons Cerdà’s
1855 Eixample plan in Barcelona (see Fig. 12.10). Following the March 1977 earthquake, demolitions also
spread to the central areas of Bucharest, including undamaged parts – a programme that ultimately led on to

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the colossal Bulevardul Victoria Socialismului east–west axis project, Ceauşescu’s answer to the Champs-
Elysées, for which clearances commenced in 1982.44
As in the later case of Kim Jong-Il in North Korea (see chapter 13), personal visits and on-the-spot directives
by Ceauşescu played a decisive, and capricious, role in individual cities’ policymaking, forcing any opponents
into behind-the-scenes stratagems. In the town of Târgu-Jiu, for example, a 1975 visit by the ‘conducator’ set in
motion a process of massive enlargement and densification, including construction of 17,000 apartments along
40m-wide magistrale boulevards – a proposal successfully watered down by local architects on ‘artistic’ grounds,
by stressing its deleterious effects on historic buildings and a famous 1930s sculptural group by Constantin
Brâncuşi. Overwhelmingly, Ceauşescu’s systematization aimed to consolidate the urban fabric, providing sharp,
monumental outer edges at the junction of city and countryside; in 1985, he proclaimed that within five years,
90%–95% of the inhabitants of Bucharest would live in apartments, and efforts increased to clear away ‘wasteful’
low-density parts of the capital and substitute taller representative blocks. This densification campaign was
strongly hybrid in architectural character, clearly paralleling postmodern housing trends in countries such as
Hungary and Czechoslovakia, but its continuing links with monumental Stalinism were also unmistakable.45

The ‘Ongoing Revolution’: self-management and monumentality in Yugoslavia

Like Romania, Yugoslav housing policy was dominated by a determination to equalize disparities across the
country – but otherwise the two could hardly have been more different.46 Tito’s Yugoslavia combined assertive

A B

C D
Fig. 12.10 (a, b, c, d): Soseaua Mihai Bravu, Bucharest: 1964 redevelopment proposal for modernist vast magistrale;
map by A. Panaitescu of development as completed, and 2019 (MG) views of rear of west side from the south and south-
east, showing a line of 1980s blocks inserted down the middle of the planned magistrale (in green on the map).

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external self-projection, as a redoubt of geo-political non-alignment, with multinational internal structure

and a pervasive organizational discourse of decentralization. Correspondingly, its architectural programmes
were among the most spectacularly individualistic in Europe, until curtailed by the onset of economic crisis
in 1982, with inflation reaching 30% in that year and 132% four years later.47
Postwar Yugoslavia experienced thirty-five years of relative strength and prosperity, framed by crisis and
impoverishment. The initial postwar crisis was worse than in other socialist countries owing to Tito’s 1948 break
with Stalin, which provoked Yugoslavia’s expulsion from the Soviet bloc and the severance of credit from the
USSR. Only once the Soviet blockade had been overcome, partly through US aid, could the heyday years begin.
As in capitalist Southern Europe, there was huge rural-to-urban migration: Belgrade’s population inflated from
320,000 in 1940 to 620,000 in 1961, with over 10,000 informal houses within the city by 1965. Politically and
architecturally, however, Yugoslavia differed radically from its neighbours, not only in its multi-ethnic character,
but also in the idiosyncratic interpretation of socialism favoured by Tito, and developed by party ideologues in
1949–50. They interpreted the Marxist-Leninist concept of the ‘withering away of the state’ as a prescription for
radical social devolution to ever-more complex participatory structures, together with constant constitutional
reorganization: the ‘Revolucija koja teče’ (‘Ongoing Revolution’). Yet this decentralized, individualistic system,
arguably only rivalled by Switzerland’s in the power that it devolved to local microregions, also incorporated
highly centralized elements – above all the figure of Tito himself, who provided an ‘imaginary point of
identification and unification’. As with the role played by Neue Heimat in West Germany’s decentralized housing
system, central enterprises were also surprisingly prominent in Tito’s Yugoslavia, with organizations such as the
Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) or Jugoturbina able to act autonomously within the self-management system.48
Yugoslavia’s postwar housing history fell into three successive phases of increasingly radical devolution and
complexity. In the first phase, up to 1952, when the country was battling against the Soviet economic embargo,
and housing output averaged only around 5,000 per annum, the system was at its closest to the Soviet satellite
bloc countries. But even then, the first moves towards decentralization were underway, following a 1950 law
on workers’ self-management. From 1953–4, in the second postwar phase, the municipalities assumed a
central role. They gained access to ‘communal housing funds’ which they could use to build themselves, or
promote developments by other bodies. From 1955–7, centralized budget allocation was removed and
municipal ‘social funds’ were established, financed by mandatory 4% contributions from work organizations,
and tasked with building rental housing. At the next level downwards in devolution, the residential community
(stambena zajednica) became a fundamental self-management unit from 1956, bridging the gap between
household and community in a more participatory way than the Soviet mikrorayon.49
The third phase of Yugoslav mass housing (1963–72) went further still towards both ‘market socialism’ and
decentralization, ringing the changes by winding down the communal housing authorities and further
devolving responsibility for housing to ‘self-managed enterprises’ drawing mainly on commercial funding,
including co-ops as well as enterprise-employee housing.50 A 1964 Belgrade municipal resolution, and national
legislation the following year, allowed individuals to buy rather than rent their dwellings, with employer loans.
Paradoxically, although all existing rental dwellings had been nationalized in 1958, over the following two
decades the private percentage of new housing output would rise from 54% to 64%. In practice, however, the
municipal authorities, such as Belgrade’s City Directorate of Construction and Reconstruction (DIRGB),
continued developing large schemes of council housing (stambena uprava) until the late 1960s. The new
system strongly favoured skilled workers and professionals within successful enterprises, as opposed to the
low-status industrial proletariat. Within the new system, a housing development would first be laid out by
municipal planners, then allocated to a development cooperative, organized like any other self-managed
enterprise. This would then contract with a construction enterprise to build the scheme and sell complete
blocks or apartments to workers’ cooperatives, which would distribute them to staff by immediate sale or by

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ten-year ‘tied’ rentals leading to ownership. Unlike the Soviet satellite states, where they were an active vehicle
of decentralization, co-ops in Yugoslavia atrophied after this point, from 15% of output pre-1960 to 1.5% by
1979, partly because of local associations with corruption, but equally because Yugoslav housing decentralization
became far more radical in character. In 1972, yet another constitutional reorganization devolved public
decision-making to the ‘self-managing community of interest’ (samoupravne interesne zajednice: SIZ), a
category that included not only enterprises but a bewildering variety of community groups.51
Within this huge and amorphous sector, the boundaries between rental and home-ownership were rather
confused. Enterprise housing for elite government and enterprise officials tended to be for rental, but often
with only token rents amounting to a gift, as did most housing built by the JNA for its officers and staff;
the same, conversely, applied to the housing for socially-disadvantaged sectors built with support from the
National Solidarity Fund. But there was an inexorable shift in emphasis towards home-ownership, partly at
the expense of the co-op sector, and including significant urban developments of industrialized panel-
construction apartments as well as single-family houses, for example in late-1960s Zagreb, built by enterprises
such as Jugomont and Kongrap. By the 1980s, socially-rented housing accounted for less than 20% of the total
Yugoslav stock, normally employment-related, although the percentage was higher in some areas, for example
33% in Slovenia. All sectors alike involved fiendishly complicated relationships, and numbers, of SIZ
stakeholders: by 1986, over 600,000 people played executive roles in SIZ decision-making.52
The complexity and fluctuations of the decentralized housing system were reflected in an exceptionally
variegated architectural landscape. This irrepressible individualism resembled Western housing architecture
more than the fiercely standardized recipes of the USSR and its satellites – unsurprisingly, given the direct
exposure of Yugoslav architects to Western travel and architectural ideas (especially after Yugoslavia hosted a
CIAM conference in 1956) and the impact of self-management in breaking down centralized socialist design
institutes. Also more ‘Western’ in character were the official living space allocations per person (16m² – not far
below West Germany’s 20m², and way above the Soviet standard of 9m2). The first Yugoslav article attacking
Socialist Realism appeared as early as June 1950, and explicitly modernist projects had already been built
before then, such as the Poljud workers’ housing constructed in 1947–9 by the Vicko Krstulović Shipyard in
Split: stone-faced, monopitch-roofed Zeilenbau blocks.53 Following Tito’s much-publicized 1953 visit to
London, where he met LCC Architect Robert Matthew and inspected models of the Roehampton point-
blocks, Yugoslavia launched dramatically back into modernism in Belgrade’s Zvezdara Hill project, a cluster of
slender, tile-clad reinforced-concrete-frame towers built in 1953–5, styled in a somewhat ‘INA-Casa’ manner
with winged roofs. Modernist concepts of flexible interior design and furnishing also made rapid headway,
beginning with a 1956 Ljubljana exhibition, ‘Apartments for our Circumstances’. During the 1960s and 1970s,
idiosyncratically-styled reinforced-concrete towers of ever greater scale sprouted in Yugoslav cities. Some
were designs of extreme panache, such as the Rudo (Eastern Gate) project in Belgrade, a spectacular group of
three sail-like twenty-eight-storey spires arranged in a radiating triangular grouping, almost like a gigantic
Expo pavilion – designed by architect Vera Ćirković and others as the third phase of the DIRGB’s 1967–76
Konjarnik rental council-housing neighbourhood, and built by construction company Rad in a combination
of RC frame and rigid walls. Some developments reflected Western ‘cluster’ trends in an extreme form, with
tall blocks integrated into a medium-rise base, as in several Novi Beograd neighbourhoods (see below), or the
JNA-sponsored Banjica development in south Belgrade (1971–8), designed by architects Branislav Karadžić,
Slobodan Drinkanjović and Aleksandar Stjepanović. Here, in response to the army’s pressure for densification,
the final design comprised a fantastically complex megastructure in reinforced concrete and brick with
sculpturally-modelled towers erupting from it. Yugoslav architecture also had its share of extreme utopian
concepts, notably Vjenceslav Richter’s 1964 book Sinturbanizam, proposing a complete self-managed socialist
city arranged in ziggurat-like megastructures for 10,000 inhabitants each (see Fig. 12.11).54

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B C
Fig. 12.11 (a): Vicko Krstulović Shipyard workers housing, Poljud, Split (1947–9), designers Dinko Vesanović
and Zlatibor Lukšić of the ‘Projektant’ studio: low-rise, stone-faced modernist blocks with ‘vernacular’ pitched roofs
(MG 2018). (b): Marshal Tito seen with LCC Architect Robert Matthew in 1953, inspecting a model of a point-block on
the LCC’s Roehampton development. (c): Zvezdara Hill, Belgrade (1953–5): six sliding-panel-construction point-blocks
with red tiling and INA-Casa-like styling; architect Ivan Antić (MG 2014).

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D E

G H
Fig. 12.11 (d, e): The Rudo complex in Konjarnik, Belgrade: three twenty-eight-storey spire-like blocks, built by DIRBG,
completed in 1976 and designed by architect Vera Ćirković and others (MG 2014). (f, g, h): Banjica, Belgrade, a JNA-
sponsored development (1971–8, following a competition), designed by architects Branislav Karadžić, Slobodan
Drinkanjović and Aleksandar Stjepanović: aerial view of ruggedly-profiled towers and megastructural base with upper
pedestrian level (MG 2014).

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Yugoslav housing designers also developed a distinctively complex tradition of prefabrication, orientated
towards not mass-production but flexibility and open systems, incorporating in-situ concrete and metal
cladding rather than just large-panel concrete, and stressing integrated scientific research – an infrastructure
of expertise supported by the JNA and the Institute for Materials Research (IMS). From 1957, federal pressure
grew for industrialized construction; in that year the IMS developed a pioneering system using both column
and slab elements, as did other Yugoslav systems such as Jugomont or Žeželj (also designed by IMS).This
domestic work built up an expertise that IMS exported widely to both socialist and non-aligned countries,
including Cuba, Georgia and Angola. The flexibility of Žeželj was demonstrated in the integrated way it was
exploited in the design of the Čerak Vinogradi development by architects Darko and Milenja Marušić – a joint
project by Belgrade municipality and the JNA, built from 1979–89 on a complex, curvaceous courtyard plan.55

Novi Beograd: epicentre of decentralism

The Yugoslav planning and housing world was overshadowed by the prestige of Novi Beograd (New Belgrade),
Yugoslavia’s equivalent to Brasilia. This unifying new project, however, was built next to the existing city of
Belgrade. First planned in 1948 on stately, monumental lines following an initial conceptual design of 1944 by
chief ministry architect Nikola Dobrović, but stalled until 1956 owing to the Soviet schism, Novi Beograd was
the personal brainchild of Tito, who promoted it as a symbol of the unique Yugoslav recipe of socialism, both
organizationally, in its embodiment of the balance between centralism and self-management, and
architecturally, in its emphasis on bold, highly variegated solutions.56
Organizationally, a range of special central governmental enterprises oversaw its development – beginning
in 1948 with the Directorate for the Construction of New Belgrade. The Belgrade Urban Planning Institute
(UZB), headed from 1958 by Alexandar ‒Dorđević, oversaw urban design at both macro and micro scales: its
municipal master plan of 1962 ensured each housing neighbourhood played its role in enhancing Novi
Beograd’s nationally-symbolic role. Much of the construction was overseen by the Belgrade Land Development
Public Agency (from 1966) and the New Belgrade Development Directorate (founded in 1956; merged in
1971 with BLDPA). The combined BLDPA constructed 95,000 apartments in Novi Beograd in 1971–81;
completed apartments were administered by the city’s municipal housing management arm, the Belgrade City
Community of Housing. Other developments were built by consortia of enterprises within the ‘socialist
market’ and allocated to employees through priority lists. Also hugely involved was Novi Beograd’s premier
developer: the JNA. It worked through a bewildering range of agencies, including the Building Facilities
Construction Directorate of the State Secretariat for National Defence (Blocks 23 and 61–4), the JNA
Directorate of Housing Construction (Block 19) and the Architectural Department of the Belgrade Garrison
(Block 21). Working in tandem with the UZB and other municipal/national bodies, the JNA played a self-
consciously ‘progressive’ and experimental role in Novi Beograd’s development.57
On the construction side, the project was the jumping-off point for many of Yugoslavia’s principal state and
industry construction agencies. In some respects, Novi Beograd’s development machinery resembled the
traditional enterprise–employee housing model, catering as it did mainly for the elite, professional, military/
governmental strata of Yugoslav socialist society. It was once the individual developments were completed that
the principles of socialist self-management came fully into force, with neighbourhood ‘rejoni’ in charge of
management and allocation. Despite Novi Beograd’s elite character, its governance system was also signifi cantly
participatory, not least because of the allocation to the Belgrade City Community of Housing of a percentage
of all completed units in JNA-sponsored developments, to prevent the army from ‘draining the resources from
housing’. Initially, the public sector was overwhelmingly dominant in Novi Beograd, with 88% of all dwellings

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being ‘publicly owned’ rental apartments as late as 1981, but that proportion was constantly diminishing,
owing to the ongoing conversion of rentals to owner-occupation.58
In its layout, Novi Beograd, like Brasilia, combined Ville Radieuse open orthogonality and functional
segregation with strong elements of stately symmetry, together with a dash of Doxiadis’s ‘motor age’ grid-
planning. Laid out on a north-west–south-east axis flanking the main Belgrade–Zagreb motorway, its
constituent elements were ‘blocks’ (blokovi), each ‘blok’ being larger and more elongated than a Brasilia
superquadra but with a similar population density of around 300 persons per hectare. Responding to the soft,
sandy ground conditions, perimeter-planning and deep-piled construction prevailed. Its predominant
apartment-types, as appropriate to its elite residents, were relatively large, with advanced open planning and
equipment, including heating and waste disposal: in 1981, the average size of Novi Beograd apartments was
58m2, 10% larger than the city average. In line with the participatory and experimental aspirations of Yugoslav
socialism, public competitions were the favoured vehicle for the urban design of Novi Beograd – a system
supervised by UZB under the overarching authority of the 1962 Regulation Plan.59 Unlike Brasilia’s consistency,
Novi Beograd’s successive phases were exaggeratedly evolutionary in character.
In the earliest sections, including Blocks 7, 8 and 9 (Tošin Bunar, 1949–55) and Blocks 1 and 2 (Fontana,
1958–9), a relatively plain, conventional international modernism of neighbourhood planning prevailed, with
medium-rise, section-planned apartment blocks and modest punctuating towers. From the late 1950s, UZB
encouraged an increasingly radical, intense urbanism through successive competitions, each of which set a
volumetric template for detailed development. These began with Block 21, a JNA-funded project designed by
three architectural teams following a 1961 competition, and built in 1962–6, using two contrasting building
types: sixteen-storey towers of rental flats and a ‘meander’ block of 800 medium-rise condominiums in a
quadruple U-plan, totalling 980m in length. The years from 1966 onwards saw ever more complex, dense
solutions in successive ‘blok’ projects in Novi Beograd’s central zone, featuring common elements such as
Brasilia-like open, columned ground floors with shops, cafes and community facilities. Most used the IMS’s
lightweight prestressed-frame Žeželj system, designed by Branko Žeželj to minimize building-weight on Novi
Beograd’s sandy ground and maximize architectural flexibility (see Fig. 12.12).60
Block 23, another JNA-funded development, designed following an all-Yugoslav competition of 1968 by
prize-winners Božidar Janković, Branislav Karadžić and Aleksandar Stjepanović (all of IMS) and completed
by 1976, developed the rental-tower and condominium ‘meander’ formula of Block 21 in a more architecturally
sculptural manner. Built by GP Ratko Mitrović in sliding formwork, Block 23 included four taller, more
ruggedly-profiled towers, reflecting UZB pressure for skyline variety, together with ten-storey strip blocks in
an emphatically-modelled concrete style with a ferociously busy roofline, and communal facilities in the ‘block
core’. The planners resisted JNA attempts to densify the scheme by adding extra storeys. The highly-
experimental Block 28, intended as ‘market-rate’ higher-income housing with a significant percentage of
owner-occupied flats at the outset (34%), was built in 1970–4 by the JINGRAP enterprise consortium to
designs by a 1967 competition-winning team of Ljubljana architects. The architectural expression was
conditioned by the prefabricated construction, with middling-height towers and very long slabs, the tallest of
which were enhanced with recessed balconies and curved precast window-surrounds like television screens.
In 1971–7 the culmination, height-wise, of New Belgrade was built: the spectacular, 140m-high Block 33,
designed by Mihajlo Mitrović with twin office and residential towers (thirty-two and twenty-eight storeys),
linked by a bridge and crowned by a ‘space-age’ circular observation pavilion. The flamboyantly ‘iconic’ design
was proposed by the architect as a ‘Western Gate’ to match Rudo in the East, and accepted only after much
controversy. By then, the nearby Block 30 (1975–96) was signalling a more modest urban scale, a trend that
continued, as in some other Eastern European countries, into fully-fledged postmodernism, in the prefabricated
Block 19A (1975) or the brick-clad ‘New Urbanist’ Block 24 (1984–9) (see Fig. 12.13).61

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A B

C D

E F
Fig. 12.12 (a, b): Cerak Vinogradi, a joint project by Belgrade Municipality and the JNA (1979–89), designed by
architects Darko and Milenja Marušić – a complex courtyard-plan using the Žeželj ‘open system’ (MG 2014). (c, d): Novi
Beograd, planned from 1948 and built from 1956: a 1968 map showing constituent districts and ‘bloks’; street perspective
from a promotional booklet of 1961. (e): Novi Beograd Blok 21, a JNA-funded project designed by three architectural
teams following a 1961 competition and built in 1962–6, including towers and a ‘meander’ block (MG 2014). (f): Novi
Beograd Blok 23, a JNA complex designed by Božidar Janković, Branislav Karadžić and Aleksandar Stjepanović of IMS
and opened in 1976: a ‘brutalist’ reinterpretation of the Blok 21 tower/meander formula (MG 1982).

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A B

C D
Fig. 12.13 (a, b, c): Novi Beograd Blok 33, a spectacular, thirty-two-storey, twin-tower ‘Western Gate’ to the city, designed
by architect Mihajlo Mitrović and built in 1971–8: exterior views of 1982 and 2014 (MG). (d): 2014 view from top of Blok
33 towards the north, across Bloks 1–11.

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In 1971, with Novi Beograd’s population topping 90,000, its most grandiose phase commenced to the
south-west, again under joint patronage of the JNA and the Directorate for the Construction of Belgrade:
Blocks 61–64, comprising two parallel arrays of no fewer than forty stepped, clustered blocks of three to
twenty storeys, outdoing both Soviet Extensive Urbanism and Western Brutalist set pieces in scale, filling four
complete blokovi and containing 3,228 apartments, all built by state contractor GP Rad. The initial urban-
design concept was by architect-planner Josip Svoboda, who claimed, quirkishly, to have been inspired by the
traditional urban morphology of the Stradun, Dubrovnik’s main pedestrian street; the young project architects,
Darko and Milenija Marušić, fleshed out this concept with an appropriately complex, agglomerative plan-
form, allowing for one-, two- or three-room apartments and great internal flexibility, permitted by the ‘open’
IMS Žeželj system and fully implemented in the first two blocks (61 and 62). Subsequently, the drive for speed
led Rad to impose a ‘closed’ French system, Balency, but in their general form, the completed blocks 61–4
represented a remarkably faithful realization of Svoboda’s original concept; for many years, they were
commonly referred to as the ‘sails of Belgrade’. Immediately adjacent, a contrasting development, almost as
utopian in scale, was built at the same time: Blocks 44, 45 and 70, an innovative development of the enterprise–
employee housing model by the Directorate for the Construction of Belgrade, with completed units taken over
by the Belgrade City Community of Housing and ‘sold’ on to various workers’ organizations, for purchase by
their employees with special loans. Comprising 4,800 dwellings for a planned 15,720 inhabitants, and built by
development company INPROS, the project sprang from a 1965 competition win by a group of young UZB
urban designers; its architectural design was shared by four different teams. Blocks 45 and 70 contained no
fewer than eighty-nine brick-clad, reinforced-concrete towers, stepping up in height from eight to seventeen
storeys, and forty-two U-shaped groups of stepped ‘semi-atrium’ buildings of three and five storeys, terraced
downwards towards the river and the sun; while Block 44, a central strip in between 45 and 70, contained
panel-constructed, seven-storey slab-blocks and mini-towers – all with lavish local service ‘supply points’. Like
elite Soviet developments, each point block was to contain five artists’ studios: even today, after all the 1990s
vicissitudes, this area retains its original prosperous, cultural-elite character (see Fig. 12.14).62

Late socialist cluster-developments across the Yugoslav republics

The grandiosity of Novi Beograd vividly symbolized the pride and prestige of Tito’s Yugoslavia, the self-styled
leader of the ‘non-aligned’ world. Yet the polycentric, microregional character, and federal constitution, of
Yugoslavia ensured that Belgrade was far from the only focus of housing innovation. In the Croatian capital,
Zagreb, following Vladimir Antolić’s 1947 General Plan, the People’s Committee president (mayor) from
1953–63, Većeslav Holjevac, seized on the self-management and cooperative housing-fund systems as a vehicle
for vigorous urban expansion, through a project for a parallel ‘Novi Zagreb’ of 250,000 inhabitants, largely
hosted by the eager municipality of Remetinec, south of the city. A Concept Plan developed by the Institute of
Urban Planning and piggy-backed on to the Zagreb Fair (planned from 1955) proposed a conventional
modernist rectilinear grid of neighbourhoods dotted with Zeilenbau slabs, and Novi Zagreb’s first completed
estates, Naselje februarskih žrtava (February Martyrs’ Housing Scheme), of 1955–62, and Zapruđe (1962–9)
duly followed this mainstream CIAM pattern, while using it as a vehicle for the development of the innovative
Jugomont JU-61 system: developed by architect Bogdan Budimirov and colleagues, this combined concrete
crosswall load-bearing structure with lightweight cladding in aluminium sheets and glazing panels.63
Some later Zagreb developments built by the city’s Industrogradnja development agency (founded in 1946)
rivalled the scale and complexity of Novi Beograd’s mature ‘Brutalist’ phase: for example, the three seismically-
reinforced towers of 1963–8 at Vrbik, designed by the Centar 51 design collective (Berislav Šerbetić, Vjenceslav

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A B

C D
Fig. 12.14 (a, b, c): Novi Beograd Blok 61–64, a joint JNA and Directorate for Construction of Belgrade project,
commenced in 1971: design model, 2014 aerial view and 2014 ground view including project architects Darko and Milenja
Marušić (MG). (d): Novi Beograd, aerial view of Blok 45 and 70 from the south (MG 2014).

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E F
Fig. 12.14 (e): Naselje februarskih žrtava development, Novi Zagreb (1955–62), including Jugomont-JU61 blocks designed
by Bogdan Budimirov and colleagues (MG 2019). (f): Zapruđe, Novi Zagreb (1962–9), with JU-61 blocks (MG 2019).

Richter, Olga Korenik and Ljubo Iveta) and dramatically reinforced with sloping supports following the 1963
Skopje earthquake; or the two gigantic twenty-/twenty-one-storey ‘Mamutica’ (‘Mammoth’) slabs at Travno
Block B-6 (1973–6), by architects Đuro Mirković and Nevenka Postružnik, with Miroslav Kollenz as urban
planner. The polygonally-clustered Dugave (from 1977, by architects Ivan Čižmek, Tomislav Odak, Tomislav
Bilić and Zdenko Vazdar), with its agglomerated seven-storey slabs and twelve-storey towers, corresponded in
some ways to later, lower-scale Belgrade projects such as Čerak Vinogradi. But overall, the leading Croatian
rival to Novi Beograd was ‘Split 3’ – an extravagantly ambitious strategy for a ‘third city’ of 14,000 flats and
50,000 inhabitants, conceived by another of Yugoslavia’s technocratic development czars, engineer Josip
Vojanović, head of the Split Development Enterprise (PIS) in the shipyard city. Following a 1968–9 competition,
Slovenian architects Vladimir Mušić and Marjan Bežan developed a vast, conglomerate scheme around two
intersecting axes, combining the multi-phase grandeur of socialist urbanism with up-to-date American
concepts of urban identity, imagery and street life. Mušić’s architectural education combined the place-
sensitive, Sittesque modernism of his Ljubljana teacher, Eduard Ravnikar, with early 1960s study at the Harvard
Graduate School of Design, where he encountered the theories of Kevin Lynch and Doxiadis. Conceived in
opposition to strict functional zoning, Split 3’s housing comprised slabs arranged in a complex, scenographic
manner, with parallel high- and medium-rise blocks flanking pedestrian streets and squares. Individual
neighbourhoods were designed by innovative younger Croatian architects such as Dinko Kovačić
(neighbourhoods S-3/4 and 3/3, 1970–6), Frano Gotovac (S-3/1, 1971–3, a Metabolist-style megastructure-
slab nicknamed ‘Krstarica’, or ‘Cruiser’) and Ivo Radić (S-3/2, 1972–9, reminiscent of Glück’s Alterlaa in scale
but with a rippling south façade of shuttered loggias), and were built by various Split construction combines
for PIS and the JNA. The proto-postmodern character of Split 3 impressed Western anti-modernist critics
such as Jane Jacobs or Peter Blake, who argued ambiguously in 1977 that ‘the buildings are as modern as
anything Le Corbusier designed at his very best. But its spaces are those of old Zagreb, and of all the other
towns from Florence to Walt Disney’s Magic Kingdom, that were scaled to people and their preferred patterns
of living.’ More conventionally modernist were the two enormously long eleven-storey slabs of Gotovac’s
slightly earlier ‘Kineski zid’ (‘Great Wall of China’) development in Split’s Spinut shipyard zone, built in
1969–71 for the JNA’s Military Construction Directorate (Vojno-građevinska direkcija) (see Fig. 12.15).64

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A B

C D
Fig. 12.15 (a): The three seismically-reinforced Industrogradnja ‘rocket’ towers at Vrbik, Zagreb (1963–8, designed by
Centar 51) (MG 2019). (b): Travno Block B-6 (Mamutica), Novi Zagreb (1973–6): twenty- and twenty-one-storey
Industrogradnja slabs by Đure Mirković and Nevenka Postružnik (MG 2019). (c): Dugave, Novi Zagreb (1977–82;
architects Ivan Čižmek, Tomislav Odak, Tomislav Bilić and Zdenko Vazdar): courtyard interior (MG 2019). (d): Split 3,
14,000-unit city extension master-planned by Slovenian architects Vladimir Mušić and Marjan Bežan after a 1968–9
competition: 2018 view of Block S-3/1, ‘Krstarica’ (Cruiser), of 1970–3, a 292-unit megastructural slab designed by Frano
Gotovać (of ‘Konstruktor’ Split) for PIS Split (MG 2018).
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E F

G
Fig. 12.15 (e): Split 3.2, designed by Ivo Radić (of ‘Lavčevič’ Split) for PIS Split (1972–9), with rippling south facade of
continuous shuttered loggias (MG 2018). (f): Split 3, S 3.3 (1971–7), designed by Dinko Kovačić (of ‘Lavčević’ Split) for PIS
Split: sculptural concrete/brick ‘city façade’ to the sea (MG 2018). (g): The eleven-storey slabs of the JNA’s ‘Kineski Zid’
(Great Wall of China) complex in Split’s shipyard zone (1969–71), designed by Frano Gotovać (MG 2018).

By the 1970s, the Split 3 formula of picturesquely agglomerative urban image-making was increasingly
prevalent within Slovenian, and Yugoslav, urban architecture overall – even if few projects approached the
utopian character of the linear, inner-city concept by Kenzo Tange for post-1963 earthquake Skopje as a
megastructural city wall.65 In Ljubljana, Ravnikar’s dogged critiques of CIAM modernism had presaged his
frenetically inventive Ferantov vrt project of 1964–75 – a pioneering attempt to adapt the ‘stambena zajednica’
concept to old-town interventions, here through a jaggedly contextual agglomeration of blocks up to thirteen
storeys, responding to sunken Roman remains and adjacent old buildings with expressionistic layerings of
brick and concrete. From the late 1960s, Mušić extended this approach to new, peripheral neighbourhoods,
designed under the aegis of UISRS (the Planning Institute of Slovenia), including Bežigrad BS-7 (Ruski Car),

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built by IMOS in 1967–72 and anticipating Split-3 in its rugged slabs lining a pedestrian street; and Maribor-
South, a complex conglomeration of medium-rise, mansard-roofed blocks built in 1974–90 by the Maribor
Housing Community and the Maribor Planning Institute. Similar, intensely-agglomerated Ljubljana
neighbourhoods by other architects included Bežigrad BS-3 (Nove Stožice, 1971–81), by Mitja Jernejec and
Ilija Arnautović, with a ‘hyper-urban’, megastructural interlacing of medium-rise blocks and access-ways,
punctuated by asymmetrically-spired towers. In Kosovo, Pristina’s 1970s Kurrizi development followed a
similar conglomerate pattern. Low-rise single-family houses in the outer suburbs were simpler, with a few
innovative exceptions, such as Murgle, Ljubljana (1965–82), a multi-phase development of 795 houses
designed by France and Marta Ivanšek for a group of middle-class cooperatives, arranged in patio-groups or
rows, using timber prefabrication in phase 1 and traditional masonry construction later (see Fig. 12.16).66
The sheer vitality of Yugoslav housing only highlighted the catastrophe of its eventual decline and fall. The
first onslaught was straightforwardly economic: the late 1970s homeownership construction boom fuelled
rapidly-mounting costs, stemming partly from the complexity of the SIZ system, and overloaded the banks
that financed it. This stoked a steep rise in inflation, already standing at 10% since the 1965 price liberalization.
The attempted remedy, a 1982 ‘economic stabilization’ plan, rapidly undermined Yugoslavia’s complex housing
system, by rendering worthless earlier long-term loans (commanding fixed rates of under 10%); by 1986 a
peak of 132% inflation was reached, effectively draining away the lending capital from enterprises’ housing
funds. Following the outbreak of civil war in 1991 and the 1992 UN embargo, the entire system collapsed:
46% of the public housing stock was passed to sitting tenants within two years, and the linchpin role of
the JNA in the housing system evaporated following the first army onslaughts in Slovenia and Croatia. An
upsurge in so-called ‘wild habitation’ followed, building on earlier informal settlements such as Belgrade’s
Kaluđerica.67
By then, not just Yugoslavia’s status as one of the ‘great powers’ of mass-housing architecture, but Yugoslavia
itself, as a state dedicated to self-management utopianism, was irretrievably lost. But by that time, too, the

A B
Fig. 12.16 (a, b): Slovenian contextualism: Eduard Ravnikar’s wildly complex Ferantov vrt infill redevelopment project,
Ljubljana, of 1964–75 (MG 2018).

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C D

E F
Fig. 12.16 (c): Bežigrad BS-7 Ruski Car neighbourhood, Ljubljana, designed by Mušić for UISRS and built by IMOS in
1967–72 (MG 2018). (d): Murgle, Ljubljana (1965–82): multi-phase low-rise co-op complex by France and Marta Ivanšek
(MG 2018). (e): Bežigrad BS-3 Nove Stožice neighbourhood (1971–81) by Mitja Jernejec and Ilija Arnautović (MG 2018).
(f): ŠS4 Siska neighbourhood, Ljubljana (1964–72), architect Ilija Arnautović: Ljubljana’s first self-contained urban housing
unit (MG 2018).

entire European mass-housing structure of the Second World – other than in Russia itself – was in a state of
rapid disintegration. The story was very different in that other global giant of state socialism, Communist
China. There, as we will see in the next chapter, the place of mass housing under the rule of Mao Zedong
(1949–76) was far less prominent and organized than in the post-Stalin USSR, whereas under the period of
economic liberalization that followed Mao’s death, the move towards more market-orientated housing patterns
would lead to a sharp boom in urbanization and housing construction.

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CHAPTER 13
SOCIALIST EASTERN ASIA: MASS HOUSING AND
THE SINO-SOVIET SPLIT

Among the political and ideological confrontations of the Cold War, Eastern Asia was arguably an even fierier
hot spot than Europe, as there was no single border between the blocs, and the region hosted the two principal
proxy wars of the age – the Korean War of 1950–3, and the Vietnam War of 1945–75. Reflecting the polycentric
character of socialist architectural globalization, the Communist Asian states were also fundamentally split
between Chinese and Soviet influences, combining these with strong local idiosyncrasies. Other than in the
special case of North Korea, nothing within Communist Eastern Asia matched the cohesion and drive of the
Soviet housing drive of Khrushchev and his successors – and the resultant housing systems and architectures
were correspondingly diverse.1

Danwei: fragmentation and austerity in Chinese socialist housing

Maoist China spawned one of the world’s most distinctive public housing systems, grounded in the People’s
Republic’s authoritarian yet decentralized governmental culture. This diverged sharply from the post-1953
Soviet bloc in its under-emphasis of housing relative to heavy industry, and, more generally, in its addiction
to constant, radical policy changes, combining successively more chaotic mass-mobilization drives with
radical swings between rural and urban demographics – a strong contrast to the relative consistency of Soviet
social policy after Stalin. Underdevelopment, impoverishment and spectacular inefficiency were the inevitable
outcomes: at Mao’s death in 1976, China had one of the world’s lowest per-capita incomes.2 The resulting
housing environment comprised a host of cellular, walled compounds: the so-called ‘danwei’, an expression
whose English equivalent is simply ‘unit’, but which in Communist China formed the building-block of urban
life. Partly, it stemmed from the long-standing Chinese Confucian tradition of government responsibility to
house officials and workers.3 The interwar years had seen systematic workforce-housing provision by
employers such as the Bank of China, or municipally-built model villages, for example in Nanjing in 1937 as
part of a drive against ‘penghu’ shanty towns.4 The danwei itself was a specific invention of Mao’s Communists
and was shaped by the Civil War exigencies of military resource-allocation, austerity and autarky, and the aim
of manipulating ordinary people as a ‘blank sheet’. The potential inefficiency of a system driven by
uncoordinated ‘units’ was clear from the start and was condemned in a 1943 speech by Mao, yet by the 1950s,
it was entrenched, leaving the ‘public sector’ fragmented into a vast number of ‘xiao jinhu’ (small coffers).5
The initial dependence of Mao’s China on Stalin’s USSR following the 1949 revolution ensured that Soviet
influences would shape the new system, including the five-year-plan system (from 1953), the paramountcy of
central enterprises, and the Taylorist/Fordist authority of factory bosses. Yet there were strong differences,
crucially in Soviet workers’ more autonomous, mobile status: in the USSR there was a chronic labour shortage,
rather than a surplus as in China, which consequently experienced exceptionally low household mobility.
Unlike Soviet cities’ competing, overlapping jurisdictions of central and local authorities, in China strict vertical
sectoral chains of command prevailed, directly linking central government ministries with provincial and local
departments and individual enterprises. Each large danwei would, for instance, have a finance department,

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coordinating with the local branch of the Ministry of Finance, and a planning section, coordinating with the
State Planning Commission.6 Horizontal relationships were weak, allowing little coordination of programmes
such as housing development, as cities and local authorities were seen merely as vehicles for centrally-directed
production – the opposite to the strong city councils of Great Britain. Yet individual cities could evolve in
distinctive ways, and some, such as Shanghai and Tianjin, developed considerable housing-policy autonomy.
The full idiosyncrasies of Maoist housing policies took time to emerge. The first seven to eight years of
Communist rule saw massive rural-to-urban migration: to curb this the propiska-like ‘hukou’ system was
introduced in 1951–5.7 Initially, there was a strictly Stalinist emphasis on development of heavy industry, and
conversion of cities of consumption to cities of production: to the central planners, housing was a non-
productive consumption activity to be downplayed.8 As in 1920s Russia, nationalization of existing housing at
first spread gradually; often, single-family courtyard houses were subdivided among many families.9
In the first decade of Communist rule, the role of the danwei as the cornerstone of Chinese urban
development was institutionalized: by 1978, 95% of Chinese citizens belonged to one.10 These were essentially
units of employment, each with its own housing, community facilities and administration: a ministry or a
research institute might have danwei status as much as a factory. There were many subcategories, both
functional and hierarchical. Functionally, there were shiye (non-production), xingzheng (administration) and
qiye (production) units – the latter being vastly predominant. More fundamental was the hierarchy of
governance: the most prestigious and well resourced were zhongyang danwei (under a central ministry, many
in Beijing); below these were difang danwei (under regional-/local-government patronage) and jiceng danwei
(basic, low-status).11 Vertical stratification generated a radically non-hierarchical spatial pattern and a flattened
density structure, with activities scattered across cities by the building choices of individual units, and
countless new walls and gates proliferating even as old city walls were demolished – a hotchpotch of factories
and living spaces remote from any ideals of socialist urban order, and rivalling the bibeteenth-century
capitalist city in anarchic chaos, while prioritizing and facilitating ideological surveillance within each unit.12
Housing was central to the danwei shequ (community) – although in a low-key manner, unlike its explicit
political showcasing in societies ranging from Red Vienna to Lee Kuan Yew’s Singapore. Every danwei, in
effect, was its own housing microregion. All categories and grades of rental tenants enjoyed near-absolute
security of tenure, and in return contributed a 5% pay deduction to finance future housing development; elites
and cadres had their own special housing supplies, as in the USSR. Low-status residents often worked in
small-scale jiceng danwei unable to build for themselves, and lived in old, private housing, concentrated in the
now-neglected city centres. As the regime became increasingly confident in the early 1950s, a more systematic
onslaught against private landlords began, pressurizing them into handing over their properties to municipal
housing bureaux. This strategy worked efficiently in some cities, especially Shanghai, whose municipality
became generally dominant within public housing. Correspondingly, a boom began in danwei house-building:
problems stemming from its fragmented character included hoarding of materials and financial resources,
and shoddy construction owing to poor enforcement of building ordinances. But all this was soon
overshadowed by geo-politics: in 1958–9, the growing ideological tensions with the USSR, following the 1957
anti-rightist movement, ushered in fifteen years of wild fluctuations in policy and production levels; the
repeated calls from Mao for autarchic austerity and thrift had obvious implications for housing and building.13
In the planning and architecture of housing, the early post-revolutionary years saw a strong dependence on
Soviet precedent and specialist advisers, especially in northern Chinese cities. In urban planning, there was a
combination of industrialization and stately Stalinist boulevard building; in housing, there was an ad-hoc
amalgamation of the walled danwei pattern and Soviet 1950s neighbourhood planning. The Soviet Stalinist
kvartal became the ‘dajiefang’, containing four-/six-storey walk-ups around a central court with collective
facilities, for instance at Baiwanzhuang, Beijing (1956), designed directly by Soviet architects for the Ministry

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of Metallurgical Industry, including three-storey tenements and two-storey terraces with ‘Chinese’ detailing.
Normally, these were planned on a perimeter layout, ringed by monumental blocks along the street line – for
example at Beijing’s Hepingli. An alternative term for kvartal-style layouts was ‘dayuan lou’ (‘big courtyard’),
but this included a range of layout patterns in northern cities, including right-angled zigzag groups, or parallel
lines of blocks. Above the kvartal in the 1950s planning hierarchy was the xincun, or ‘village’, an area of around
8,000–20,000 inhabitants which might accommodate a group of schemes for smaller danwei. The Shanghai
Municipal Government’s pilot project of Caoyang Xincun – the first large-scale housing project in post-
revolutionary China – comprised two-storey plastered brick buildings (later heightened to three storeys after
1960) in a high-density garden city layout, designed by American-trained planner Professor Wong Dingzeng:
the 1,002 units in the first ‘village’, built in 1950–2, were mainly of a semi-communal dormitory plan, and
community facilities were progressively added to the estate. In 1956, a new expression, xiaoqu (neighbourhood),
was introduced for this development size: this was associated with a Khrushchev-inspired architectural shift
from ‘formalist’ monumentality towards Soviet-style microrayons and modernist flats in Zeilenbau layouts
(but still retaining outer gates and walls). The very similar Western neighbourhood-unit concept was, however,
vigorously criticized by leading 1950s–1960s architects such as Yang Tingbao as ‘capitalist’ (see Fig. 13.1).14

A B
Fig. 13.1 (a): Designers and commune cadres discuss planning of Xiangfang People’s Commune, Ha’erbin, 1960. (b):
Baiwangzhuang estate, Beijing, built in 1956 by the Ministry of Metallurgical Industry using a Soviet kvartal (dayuan) plan
and Socialist Realist ‘Chinese’ detailing (MG 2016).

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D E
Fig. 13.1 (c, d, e): The first phase of Caoyang Xincun, Shanghai Municipality’s pioneering prohect of 1950–2, designed
by Wong Dingzheng: cellular layout plan, and present-day aerial view and street view (showing blocks as heightened after
1960) (MG 2018).

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 Socialist Eastern Asia: Mass Housing and the Sino-Soviet Split

F G
Fig. 13.1 (f): Jianshan neighbourhood, Tianjin (1953–5), dayuan layout of Socialist Realist tenement blocks, under
demolition in 2016 (MG 2016). (g): Sanlihe Neighbourhood 1, Beijing, a dayuan complex built from 1953 for senior cadres
of the National Plan Commission and the National Development and Reform Commission (MG 2016).

Architecturally, as in Soviet cities of the 1920s and 1930s, much immediate post-revolution housing
comprised tongzhilou (two- or three-storey dormitory blocks with central corridors lined by single rooms) or
peifang (single-storey collective housing). These early blocks, incongruously small-scale in juxtaposition with
the vast avenues that often adjoined them, were mostly redeveloped with higher blocks from the late 1970s –
as part of China’s exaggerated development cycle of building and renewal. Until then, pre-revolutionary
apartment blocks such as Shanghai’s nineteen-storey Broadway Mansions of 1930–4 (by Palmer & Turner)
towered above the newcomers. Higher-status projects conservatively reflected Soviet patterns, including
sectional staircase-access layouts. The Maoist rhetoric of thrift generated incessant debate about building
standardization, with type-designs in place in many cities by 1952, albeit based around occupation-rate
assumptions twice those in the USSR. A typical mid-1950s urban danwei in dayuan form might include
parallel two-, three- or four-storey pitched-roof blocks, aligned north–south to maximize winter sunlight
(traditional in China – the ‘honglieshi’ layout) or in right-angled groupings along roads, with sectional plans
of two to three flats per floor on each staircase – as at Jianshan, Tianjin (1953–5) or Shanghai’s Caoyang
Xincun. To circumvent poor ventilation in central-corridor tongzhilou dormitories, the later 1950s saw
increasing attempts to popularize balcony-access arrangements.15
The strong hierarchy of danwei was vividly expressed in their built form. The high standards of space and
design commanded by central-government zhongyang danwei were exemplified in Sanlihe Neighbourhood 1
in Beijing, designed from 1953 for employees of the Guojiajiwei (National Plan Commission) and the
Guojiafagaiwei (National Development and Reform Commission). It comprises right-angled arrangements of
three-storey walk-ups, forming U-shaped courtyards. The mainstream rental blocks, allocated to senior
cadres, have sectional staircase-access plans with only two flats on each floor, and are built of brick with
concrete floors and pitched roofs and token ‘Chinese’ details to confer some sense of local identity.16
At the next layer down, that of difang danwei, there was considerable variety, as highlighted in a 2017
survey by Hunan University Architecture Department of surviving examples in Changsha, capital of Mao’s
home province. A generally high status applied to staff accommodation in academic institutions, such as the
Changsha Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, newly founded in 1952, where the Shengli, Gantang and
Gaoping villages (1954–5) combined staircase and gallery-access three- to four-storey blocks of two-room
flats in classical-cum-Chinese architectural styles. Similar in status was the cadre accommodation of provincial

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Mass Housing

institutions such as the Water Conservancy and Hydropower Institute of Hunan Province, which built in
1956–8 a group of parallel three-storey red-brick blocks with arcaded galleries. Especially high-quality
accommodation was provided for Soviet specialists, including two-storey red-brick gallery-access flats built
in 1953 by Hunan University at its picturesquely-wooded Jianshecun site. Lower-grade difang danwei were
more modest and haphazard, as in the area south of Kaifu Temple Road, where an extensive industrial area
mushroomed after 1949, criss-crossed by railways and mingling warehouses and light industry with three
provincial lorry transport depots, the Xiang Yun (internal transport), Wan Yun (external transport) and
Shang Yun (commercial). These three danwei, together with a small tea factory (Cha Chang), were shoehorned
into complicated, interlocking plots segregated by a maze of walls and gates, and each including its own staff-
housing blocks: surviving cadre-housing for Wan Yun included a substantial three-storey late 1950s block
faced in high-quality black brick with internal stairs and access corridors (see Fig. 13.2).17
Architecturally, the years from 1955, just before the Sino-Soviet split, echoed Khrushchev’s campaign
against Stalinist ornamentation, with attacks against the ‘waste’ of apartment buildings topped with ‘big roofs’
(dawuding), and condemnation of heritage traditionalists such as Liang Sicheng. Unlike the USSR, China’s
standardization drive did not involve wholesale large-panel prefabrication – understandably, given the urban
labour surplus. Instead, traditional brick construction prevailed, together with low-technology alternatives,
including concrete ‘block masonry’, suitable for manufacture by brick production machines, as seen in the
Hongmagou residential area in Beijing. The Minhang Road satellite township outside Shanghai, from 1959,
with its thirteen Zeilenbau blocks of four to six storeys, did include some panel prefabrication; but repeated
attempts at more thoroughgoing industrialization of building all ended in failure.18

A B
Fig. 13.2 (a, b): The housing danwei of the Water Conservancy and Hydropower Institute of Hunan Province danwei,
Changsha: three-storey balcony-access blocks of 1956–8 (MG 2017).

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 Socialist Eastern Asia: Mass Housing and the Sino-Soviet Split

C D

E
Fig. 13.2 (c, d, e): Map of transport and light industrial danwei developed after 1949 south of Kaifu Temple Road,
Changsha, showing housing complexes of 3 lorry transport danwei (Xiang Yun, Wan Yun and Shang Yun); and exterior and
flat interior of late 1950s cadre block built for Wan Yun (MG 2018).

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Mass Housing

F G
Fig. 13.2 (f, g): The Zhengyuan Power Accessories Factory’s housing danwei, Changsha: tongzhilou housing blocks of c.
1960 and axially-placed Mao statue (MG 2018).

From the Great Leap Forward to the Cultural Revolution: austerity and anarchy

From 1958, the Maoist state entered another of its frequent, self-inflicted convulsions, the ‘Great Leap Forward’,
a combination of accelerated industrialization with enforced return of migrants to rural areas, leaving chaos
and mass famine in its wake – the latter costing a staggering 30–55 million lives. For public housing production,
the consequences were catastrophic: just as Khrushchev was positioning housing at the centre of the Soviet
system and applying all his political influence to boost its production, Mao was heading in the opposite
direction, shifting state construction investment away from it. The impact of this shift, and of the post-1959
Soviet economic blockade, fed through to housing in successive Maoist ‘ultra-leftist economy drives’, with
results such as the experimental rammed-earth blocks (gandalei) first pioneered in Daqing coalfield and then
generalized nationwide, with much praise of ‘the spirit of Daqing’: from 1959, each province or city could
organize its own standard designs, based on a 4m2 per person space allocation. The early 1960s saw numerous
organizational swings for and against municipal housing involvement, including ineffective attempts in 1962
to chip away at danwei dominance by letting municipalities use civic taxation to build housing themselves.19
In built-form terms, the low-rise danwei pattern still prevailed, as at Shanghai’s Fangualong development
of twenty-seven five-storey Zeilenbau staircase-access blocks (1963), or the exactly contemporary, but more
architecturally conservative, dormitory accommodation of the Zhengyuan Power Accessories Factory,
Changsha, comprising two three-storey tongzhilou blocks, residually classical externally and containing
twenty-five single rooms flanking a central corridor on each floor; the blocks lined a stately avenue, axially
aligned with the factory gates across Shumuling Road and dominated by a central statue of Mao.20 A more
innovative building pattern, for the first time involving multi-storey blocks, was also afoot in these years,
stemming from one of the most ideologically-colourful strands of the Great Leap Forward – the People’s
Communes, a movement shaped by interwar Soviet precedent, and first unleashed in 1958 in rural areas,
spreading rapidly to 190 cities by July 1960. Usually housing employees of several danwei, these emphasized
the social-condenser role of public canteens, which were hailed in 1959 by the CPC Central Committee as

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‘bastions of socialism’, with those who failed to use them labelled ‘right deviationists’. Most were simply
redesignations of existing housing areas, but in several places there were projects for purpose-built, higher-
density urban communes, including China’s first multi-storey blocks of public housing. A key example was
the Fusujing Commune Mansion, Beijing – a double-L-plan, eight-storey block, proudly planted in 1958–9
amidst a traditional neighbourhood of single-storey ‘hutong’ courtyard-dwellings, and housing over 350
families, many connected to the security services, in a central-corridor layout with many additional services
(central heating, hot water, basement canteen). Construction of this rather conservatively monumental block
involved plastered brick and reinforced concrete (see Fig. 13.3).21

A B

C
Fig. 13.3 (a): Fangualong, Shanghai: twenty-seven five-storey staircase-access Zeilenbau blocks, built in 1963 (MG
2018). (b, c): Fusujing Commune Mansion, Beijing: a double L-plan eight-storey block of 1958–9, largely occupied initially
by security service personnel, and boldly planted in the middle of a hutong area: general view of exterior and surrounding
hutong, and upper-floor room (MG 2017).

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Mass Housing

D E

F G
Fig. 13.3 (d): Building Materials Machinery Factory of Hunan Province, Changsha, gallery-access blocks of 1968–9
(MG 2017). (e, f): Yanshancun academic housing, Hunan University: two-storey staircase access blocks and inscription,
‘Anti-Revisionism, August 1970’ (MG 2017). (g): Lorry-drivers’ tongzhilou hostel (with single-room lodgings) built in the
late 1960s by the Xiang Yun transport danwei, Changsha (cf. 12.2c): the faded painted frieze inscription reads ‘Long Live
The Invincible Theory of Mao Zedong!’ (MG 2017).

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 Socialist Eastern Asia: Mass Housing and the Sino-Soviet Split

The mid-1960s brought further turmoil to Chinese housing production – even as the Khrushchev/Brezhnev
programme was powering ahead in the USSR. By 1965, with a fresh austerity drive underway, Mao challenged
architects to begin ‘building the country through thrift and hard work’, via a spartan ‘housing design revolution’
and a new programme of ‘jianyilou’, or ‘simple buildings’: three-storey blocks of unserviced rooms (without
kitchen or WC), with internal corridor or balcony-access. Construction usually comprised gandalei, a method
ceaselessly promoted by central state agencies: in 1967, the state construction commission instructed Beijing
municipality to abandon its city plan and refocus housing exclusively on ad-hoc rammed-earth construction.
But by then, the next, most catastrophic phase of Chinese Maoist history – the Proletarian Cultural Revolution
– was underway. This iconoclastic up-ending of the existing Communist system, and of any remaining
Confucian collective order, further undermined the status of housing relative to industry and slashed its share
of public investment to only 4%. Many danwei of all classes became dilapidated and neglected, but the worst
casualty was the remaining private sector: 1967 saw the final abolition of urban private landlords and pressure
on owner-occupiers to surrender their dwellings to the municipal housing offices.22
Spatially, the Cultural Revolution accentuated the fragmentation of the Maoist city through its calculated
abandonment of planning, causing haphazard industrial plants and shack dwellings to spring up everywhere.
Yet despite the prevailing chaos, some danwei contrived to continue building relatively high-quality flats, as
with the staff accommodation of the Building Materials Machinery Factory of Hunan Province, Chayunpo
Road, Changsha, constructed in 1968–9 using three-storey gallery-access Zeilenbau blocks in red brick, with
two-room flats and communal toilets on each floor; or the accommodation provided for Hunan University
academic staff in 1969–70 at the Yanshancun site, almost identical to the adjacent 1953 Jianshecun Soviet
specialists’ flats: the 1969–70 scheme included a storage cellar with stone inscription, ‘Anti-Revisionism,
August 1970’. The pattern of occupancy of these blocks is not clear, and multi-family arrangements seem likely
given the prevailing collectivist ethos.23 More typical was a tongzhilou drivers’ dormitory block built by the
Xiang transport danwei in Changsha in the late 1960s – three storeys high, in poor-quality red brick, with
twenty single rooms on each floor flanking a central corridor, and crowned by prominent slogans, still visible
in 2017 (‘Long Live the Invincible Thought of Mao Zedong’ and ‘Long Live the Victory of Chairman Mao’s
Proletarian Revolutionary Line’).24
In the early 1970s, with the worst excesses of the Cultural Revolution abating, calls began for a return to
order, including densification to curb the anarchic sprawl. As part of this, redevelopment of low-density post-
1949 dormitories and pre-revolution housing began, tentatively using high blocks along major boulevards in
the style of Novy Arbat, with projecting ground-floor shops. The first completed multi-storey development,
Beijing’s Qiansanmen, was planned from 1975 and completed in 1978, and comprised reinforced-concrete
slabs and towers of around sixteen storeys. Departing from the self-contained danwei formula, these blocks
were built by the Beijing municipality and distributed post-construction to various enterprises.25 In Shanghai,
an equivalent council-housing development, Xuhui Xincun, was built in 1975–7 alongside the Caoxi Bei Lu
boulevard. Designed by the Shanghai Municipal Institute of Civil Architectural Design, it comprises six
fourteen-storey balcony-access slab-blocks and three seventeen-storey corridor-access towers; at 60m², the
flats (heightened by one floor in the 1990s) were clearly built for elite occupancy. The shift to taller, more
substantially-built blocks was hastened in 1976 by the Tianshan earthquake, which prompted extensive
remedial works, including external reinforcement frames, in cities like Tianjin. Overall, however, there were
still very few multi-storey housing blocks in 1970s China – only 177 had been built by 1979 (see Fig. 13.4).26
The big shift, as in most other areas, came with Deng Xiaoping’s inauguration of the reform era in 1978.
This brought a decisive break with the old Maoist disruptions and policy fluctuations, and a return to rapid
urbanization: the urban population rose from 120 million to 182 million between 1978 and 1986. A huge,
government-encouraged boom in housing construction ensued, and the housing percentage of construction

393
Mass Housing

A B

C D
Fig. 13.4 (a): Xuanwumen Xidajie 101–117, Beijing: four sixteen-storey towers for senior cadres, containing six flats on
each upper floor and rear access lift/staircase: part of the pioneering Qiansanmen Area multi-storey development of
1975–8, a Romanian-style, four-mile-long boulevard ‘plating’ operation (MG 2017). (b, c, d): Xuhui Xincun, Shanghai,
1975–7: an elite municipal rental development of fourteen- to seventeen-storey towers and slabs designed by the Shanghai
Municipal Institute of Civil Architectural Design (MG 2018).

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 Socialist Eastern Asia: Mass Housing and the Sino-Soviet Split

E F

G
Fig. 13.4 (e): Quyang, Shanghai, designed by the Shanghai Urban Planning and Design Institute and built in 1979–89
for a miscellany of elite danwei; visited by Deng Xiaoping in 1983 as an exemplary project: the two twenty-five-storey
nomenklatura towers (1986–8) vied for the title of the city’s highest with Yandan (MG 2014). (f): Yandan tower, Shanghai,
a twenty-five-storey block built in 1984–5 by Shanghai No. 4 Construction Group on a central gap-site (MG 2018). (g):
Staircase-access housing at Mutulong, Shenzhen (1984), under demolition in 2017 (MG).

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Mass Housing

investment soared from 4% in 1970 to 25% in 1981; by 1986, over half of all post-1949 urban housing output
had been built in the previous eight years.27
A central facilitating role was played by the newly-created Ministry of Construction, which was reinforced
in 1982–6, and helped organize a new system of city building trusts to support public housing construction,
for example in Tianjin in 1983. It was only in 1982 that state ownership of all urban land was formally
confirmed, and the percentage of public housing reached its all-time maximum, accommodating 80% of all
urban residents. But even now the role of the central state was ambiguous: China’s emergence as a fully-
fledged developmental state only came later.28 Despite further ineffective calls for centralization under
municipal auspices, the dominance of the danwei continued, their overall share of new housing actually rising
throughout the 1980s. Even in ‘municipal’ Shanghai, 55% of public housing construction capital in 1980 was
raised by danwei: their hold over existing stocks varied more dramatically between cities, with Shanghai
municipality boasting an especially effective centralized allocation system. In Tianjin and Shanghai, the most
active danwei were still those belonging to central ministries or central government. Much new Shanghai
housing by the 1980s comprised peripheral schemes built by municipal construction bureaux, a key example
being the Quyang development, built in 1979–89 for a variety of elite groups, including National People’s
Congress deputies and post-office, transport and steelworks danwei managers, and visited in 1983 by Deng
Xiaoping as an exemplary project. Designed by the Shanghai Urban Planning and Design Institute, it
comprised six compounds housing 30,000 inhabitants mainly in five-storey slabs and twelve-storey towers. At
the same time, the city had also launched a massive programme of twenty-three urban renewal areas, where
semi-informal housing was replaced by five- to eight-storey blocks. Architecturally, under the influence of
Hong Kong, the medium-height slab-blocks of the 1970s were followed by slender towers in the 1980s: at
Quyang Road 500–510, two twenty-five-storey nomenklatura towers of 1986–8 vied for the height crown with
the foreign-financed, twenty-five-storey Yan Dan tower, built by Shanghai No. 4 Construction Group in 1984–
5, but heights had reached thirty-three storeys by 1990. By 1998, at the end of the danwei era, a clump of
thirty-two-storey towers was routinely added to the Quyang estate, at 270 Yuntian Road, by the city
commodity-testing and inspection bureau for its employees. In the ‘Special Economic Zone’ of Shenzhen, the
1980s saw especially vigorous municipal danwei-building, again mainly in low-rise parallel blocks, but here
some 50% of urban development was informal in character.29
During this Indian summer of the danwei system, the hierarchy of privilege was further reinforced, with
higher-level cadres commanding both the best accommodation and the lowest rents, and the privileged
zhongyang danwei looking down on the others as ‘little citizens’ (xiaoshi min).30 During the early 1980s, many
danwei accumulated massive cash resources, and self-financed danwei spending accounted for 60%–70% of
all housing investment in Chinese cities. With the proliferation of haphazard multi-storey outcrops, efforts
began to re-establish order, whether by vesting municipal construction or planning bureaux with land-
allocation powers or imposing residential planning frameworks on large urban districts. Any danwei
embarking on development faced fiendishly complicated systems of housing authorization and organization,
Beijing especially being a battlefield of central and municipal groups, with local neighbourhood committees
very much the disempowered bottom of the heap. In some cities, competition for land in sought-after locations
led to rival redevelopment projects by competing enterprises, leaving the municipal planning bureaux with
unenviable choices, and forcing industrial enterprises to bargain with nearby danwei or even pay them a
‘tribute’ of apartment-allocations in exchange for acquiescence with proposed developments: building on the
city periphery increasingly seemed an easier alternative.31
In a harbinger of the future, 1979 saw the first tentative experiments in outright privatization of housing,
in Nanning and Xian.32 This was followed in 1983 by an experimental policy of ‘three one-third’, which divided
the purchase price of new owner-occupied dwellings between buyer, employer and city government – an

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arrangement which everyone found was too expensive.33 Reflecting Deng Xiaoping’s injunction to ‘cross the
river by feeling the stones’, the late 1980s saw an incremental succession of national housing reform plans,
aiming at a ‘planned commodity economy’ (1984), and the founding of numerous urban-development
agencies and cooperatives, beginning in 1986 with employees of the Shanghai Toy Export Company. In the
1990s, with many danwei providing accommodation merely by purchasing new commercial housing and
selling it to staff at a discount, a full-blown privatization drive ensued, coupled with 1991 attempts to set up a
national housing provident fund (gongdijing) modelled on Singapore’s. From 1995, there followed the
ambitious nationwide ‘Anju’ scheme for subsidized sale of 2 million units, but the actual success of this ‘on the
ground’, as always in China, was difficult to gauge. A huge upsurge in urban redevelopment resulted in
demolition of 1.5 million urban houses in 1992–4; 150 urban redevelopment schemes were underway in
Beijing alone by 1999. Only following the Asian financial crisis, in 1998–2000, did a decisive, national
programme of mass sales to individual occupiers finally materialize. This definitively brought the danwei era
to an end, leaving the residue of public-sector housing to municipal authorities to manage, in a pyrrhic victory
over the enterprises.34

‘Soviet’ Asia: mass housing in Mongolia and North Vietnam

While in China, the main obstacles to Soviet-style housing progress were internally-inflicted, in most of
socialist Eastern Asia the inhibiting forces were external, stemming from wars and enforced divisions. Only
in the Mongolian People’s Republic, which in many ways functioned as an extension of the USSR, was a stable
approach possible. The capital, Ulan Bator, was developed in accordance with a Genplan on strictly Soviet
lines. A first, Stalinist iteration in 1954 envisaged grand boulevards in squares; a second, in 1961, preserved
the general East–West linear arrangement, but with a range of modern rayons and mikrorayons of varying
sizes, including tall blocks as civic-design landmarks: a variety of building kombinats was established for the
purpose.35 Rayon 3 and 4, completed in 1980, was particularly celebrated, as it was a ‘fraternal gift’ from the
USSR to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Mongolian People’s Republic in 1924. It
featured concentrated groups of twelve-storey towers along its boulevards, to ‘provide a dynamic spatial
composition of building lines, streets and neighbourhoods’. Other rayons included a variety of housing
patterns, including zigzag perimeter plans (Rayon 1), nine-storey slabs (5) and large-scale five-storey Zeilenbau
(15) (see Fig. 13.5).36
More typical of the Soviet satellite grouping in Asia were North Vietnam (the Democratic Republic of
Vietnam, DRV) and North Korea (the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, DPRK), both shaped by the
Cold War’s two bitterest proxy conflicts. In North Vietnam, the almost continuous wars from 1945 to 1975,
culminating in defeat of South Vietnam and foundation of a unified Socialist Republic of Vietnam, prompted
̣ and the 1974–80 reconstruction
two successive urban rebuilding phases, the 1954–63 rehabilitation (khôi phu c)
(xây du’̣ng lai).
̣ Under khôi phuc, ̣ the emphasis was on replacing shanty towns with new flats, initially in a
formal, Stalinist manner, but from 1958 grouped in ‘khu tâp̣ thê’ (KTT) developments – a Vietnamese hybrid
of Soviet mikrorayons and Chinese danwei, featuring four- to five- storey Zeilenbau blocks in free-standing
estates near factories, rather than unit compounds. Around thirty KTTs were built in Hanoi alone in the
following thirty years. One of the capital’s first examples, Kim Liên, was one of the first to experiment with
prefabricated construction, and was built in two phases in 1960–70, the first, comprising five large blocks,
with significant ‘fraternal’ input from North Korea and the USSR. As often with exported building-systems,
Soviet building standards proved unsuitable for the humid Vietnamese climate, and the autonomous dwelling-
units proved too inflexible for housing demand, with many units rapidly doubled up by the municipal letting

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A B

C D
Fig. 13.5 (a, b, c, d): Ulan Bator general plan and view of development zone, both from 1983 textbook on Mongolian
town-planning; and 1990 street views (MG) of completed and uncompleted sectors of Raion 3.

authorities with multiple families. Externally, the result was rampant ‘xây chen’ (‘squeezed-in construction’),
with informal infills, roof additions and balcony extensions.37
Following the 1960s bombing devastation, especially of Hanoi and Haiphong, and DRV leader Ho Chi
Minh’s pledge that ‘when we achieve the final victory, we shall build them back even more spacious, larger and
more beautiful’, a fresh burst of rebuilding began. Demonstrating the polycentric character of socialist mutual
aid, missions from several countries aided KTT developments and the planned ‘xây du’̣ng lai’̣ of entire cities:
by 1974, over 500 experts were already working in North Vietnam. For example, the industrial city of Vinh,
south of Hanoi, underwent a seven-year reconstruction in 1974–80 masterminded by the East German
government, which founded an Institute of Urban Design in the city: it attempted to liquidate any informal
housing and segregate housing and industry through a proper Genplan, approved by the DRV Ministry of
Construction in 1975. A 1974 plan for a large housing estate at Quang Trung as a centrepiece of ‘modern
socialist architecture’ was partly executed: twenty-two out of a planned thirty-six five-storey Zeilenbau blocks
were built, all with markedly Bauhaus styling and gallery-access, and allocated largely to party cadres and
privileged workers. Reflecting Vietnamese ambivalence towards apartments, after the East Germans left in
1980 many amenities broke down, the flats became multiple-occupied and the areas around were swamped by
shanty towns.38

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Building at ‘Pyongyang speed’: housing in Juche Korea

A more disciplined pattern prevailed in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. As in pre-Great Leap China,
the years after the ‘Fatherland Liberation War’ saw furious urbanization, from 18% in 1953 to 41% in 1960,
including reconstruction of the capital, Pyongyang, and the building of 150 ‘new towns’; from 1955 to 1962 the
reconstruction of Hamhung was assigned to a work-brigade from East Germany, headed by the architect son of
Prime Minister Otto Grotewohl. The first post-Korean War residential developments in Pyongyang, completed
in 1954, reflected Soviet Stalinist precedent, with Moscow-trained architects designing monumental blocks in
‘national architecture’, destined for elite employees of state enterprises, all within the framework of a 1952
genplan by Kim Joeng Hui: these contrasted strongly with the prevailing barracks and shanty dwellings.39
Unlike North Vietnam or China, North Korea fervently embraced the Soviet shibboleths of standardization
and prefabrication. Only three months after the Soviet 1957 mass-housing decree, the Central Committee of
the Korean Workers Party boosted prefabrication targets by 50%. Following the 1958 IUA congress, whose
conclusions were promoted in the DPRK by Bauhaus-trained members of the East German Hamhung brigade,
kvartals were replaced by mikrorayons (‘soguyeok’ in Korean). These were built in Soviet-style separate
residential zones, sometimes aggregated in districts (jutaek guyeok) rather than integrated with industry as in
China’s danwei. From 1958, reflecting Kim Il Sung’s consolidation of power, housing construction became
integrated into the Chollima mass-mobilization ideology, which enlisted ‘volunteer’ brigades of students,
housewives and soldiers in competitive, Stakhanovite-like construction blitzes of so-called ‘Pyongyang speed’.
For construction by unskilled work-squads, simplified and standardized designs were imperative. During the
war, in 1952, a competition for standard types was held, and subsequently a Central Standard Design Institute
was established. Its researches focused on two housing types, the Soviet-style staircase-access sektsya, and
blocks with covered-in galleries (oerangsik). A further complication stemmed from the long-standing Korean
preference for underfloor piped heating from wood-burning furnaces (the ‘ondol’ system): neglected under
the Japanese, its fortunes revived following a 1955 endorsement by Kim Il Sung, but it proved difficult to
combine with sectional planning, owing to the positioning requirements of kitchens and living rooms. Here
again, the contribution of the East German Hamhung Arbeitsgruppe proved decisive, in devising a plan for a
‘single-corridor’ (i.e covered gallery-access) block, with communal toilets, that would allow repetitive building
systems and a high degree of surveillance. North Korea’s mikrorayons were internally structured by the caste-
like ‘Songbun’ system, reflecting perceived loyalty to the regime through a small-scale block-organization
system, the ‘people’s unit’ (inminban) of twenty-five to thirty-five dwellings.40
Later, in 1961–7, demands for increased densities prompted a second phase of mikrorayon planning, using
blocks of eight to twelve storeys rather than five-storey Zeilenbau.41 These new standard types revived sectional
planning, together with compact tower plans, and the ondol was rapidly replaced by central heating after
1967. There was a constant concern to promote a Korean socialist indigenization of modern architecture,
especially after 1955 with the spread of the Juche movement, a home-grown Marxist-Leninist ideology
emphasizing political-economic autarky: in 1958, Kim Il Sung declared that ‘the housing that we are building
must be socialist in character but national in form . . . This means the efficient, the cosy, the beautiful and the
solid.’ Unlike China’s housing chaos, North Korea claimed, at least, to have followed the Soviet pattern of
consistent high output; propaganda completion figures totalled 771,500 in 1954–60 and 800,000 in 1961–70,
with an all-time one-year maximum in 1962 of 200,000.42 This was achieved not only through ‘Pyongyang
speed’, with one flat supposedly completed every fourteen minutes, but also through industrial processes, with
completions using mechanized techniques rising from 32% in 1957 to 73% in 1962. Fully-fledged large-panel
prefabrication was achieved more slowly, partly due to the ondol problem: the number of precast components
required for a two-room flat fell from 127 in 1956 to between thirty and thirty-five in 1958.43

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Architecturally, the most significant shift occurred after 1970, when urban intensification prompted a
move to towers of over twenty storeys.44 This change was officially attributed to Kim Il Sung’s son, Kim Jong-Il,
who involved himself closely in urban-design issues, rather like Ceauşescu in Romania. A 1995 booklet
claimed that ‘the Dear Leader, His Excellency Kim Jong-Il, proposed the construction of the modern high-
storeyed apartment blocks that may be faultless even in the far future, and guided its realization in detail. His
tender guidance and efforts permeated everything – suites of hundreds of thousands of dwelling houses,
designing, building, operation.’ With his ‘on-the-spot guidance’, ‘the Korean people started to construct the
tower-style dwelling houses, overcoming the destructive manoeuvres of the opponents at home and abroad.
In 20 to 30 years, they built apartment houses of 20, 25, 30 and 40 storeys.’45
Overall, North Korean urban design was a more rhetorically exaggerated version of Soviet Extensive
Urbanism, including exceptionally wide boulevards lined with scenographically-massed towers and slabs:
‘giant high and super-high apartment houses, like folding screens, clusters and towers’, all much higher than
Soviet norms. This arterial magistrale principle was initially trialled in a low-rise mikrorayon of 1959–62,
Botongbeol in Pyongyang. Usually, significant housing development ‘completions’ coincided with major
national festivities, while building progress was sanctified by ideologically-charged ceremonies: for example
the hoisting of a red flag atop a thirty-storey tower under construction at Tongil Street Phase I in 1990, to
‘mirror the unbreakable faith and spirits of the anti-Japanese revolutionary fighters that are being carried
forward by our people’. Unlike Ceauşescu’s boulevard ‘plates’ in Romania, Kim Jong-Il insisted on a three-
dimensional effect, studiously avoiding uniform lines of street-frontages and combining grandeur with
asymmetry in individual groupings. The blocks were stepped and curved in accordance with simple metaphors
such as ‘waves’ or ‘staircases’ in an idiosyncratic Juche echo of postmodernism. To permit these strongly-
profiled shapes, monolithic rather than prefabricated panel construction was used. Cement and steel works
rather than prefabrication factories played the key supporting role, as with the No. 8 Steelworks that supplied
Tongil Street No. 4 Unit in 1991: control-room operator Li Un-Hui rhapsodized that ‘although I am far off
from the construction site of Tongil Street, my heart is always with it’.46
These principles were incrementally developed in ever more ambitious projects. In section 1 of the
Changgwang Street development, north of Haebang Hill, containing very large flats (150m2) for elite party
officials completed in 1980, the Dear Leader’s ‘new way of city building’ was fully implemented for the first
time, including slender, widely spaced towers of up to thirty storeys height. Section 2, to the south, was
completed in 1985, and other 1980s schemes included Munsu Street and the second stage of Chollima
Street. The grand culmination of Juche housing urbanism was the 25,000-dwelling Kwangbok (Liberation)
Street project of the late 1980s: its ‘official completion’ fell in 1989, coincident with the 1989 World Festival
of Youth and Students in Pyongyang, but this was largely confined to street-frontage blocks, with construction
of towers behind these still visibly in progress a year later: as in all Communist states, offi cial completions
figures must be treated with caution. This six-kilometre boulevard was over 100 metres wide and lined
both with housing blocks and socialist public monuments such as the Mangyongdae Children’s Palace or the
State Circus.47 Its housing included fourteen-storey slab-blocks (acting as a visual ‘base’), punctuated by
towers of up to forty-two storeys, with plan-forms including cylindrical, triangular, dumbbell, L, semi-circular
and linked hexagon clusters. Accommodation comprised three- to five-room flats of 110m² average size
(the largest being 180m²), combined with shops and public facilities on the ground floor. The flats were
intended for elite occupancy at nominal rents, by groups including ‘public people, scientists, sportsmen
and artists’, as well as displacees from redeveloped early 1950s inner-urban housing. Naturally, ‘Pyongyang
speed’ was exploited in the construction of Kwangbok Street, using ‘servicemen of the People’s Army
and workers from construction enterprises’, along with ‘working people and young men from the city’ (see
Fig. 13.6).48

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B C

D E
Fig. 13.6 (a): A 1967 diagram of ondol underfloor heating system as adapted for North Korean modern flats. (b, c, d, e):
Pyongyang’s Kwangbok (‘Liberation’) Street complex, officially completed in 1989 (but still in fact under construction in
1990): a six-kilometre vastly-wide magistrale lined with 25,000 flats in fourteen-storey slabs and towers up to forty-two
storeys: 1990 view (MG) and 2008 views (Nicolas Moulin).

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Mass Housing

F G
Fig. 13.6 (f, g): Pyongyang, Tongil (Reunification) Street, commenced in 1989 and officially completed in 1993: views
under construction in 1991 with mobile art propaganda team, and 1992 view of completed section, including ‘staircase’
blocks.

Following Kwangbok Street, linear ensemble-planning continued in a further, 50,000-unit programme,

climaxing in 1992. Its centrepiece was the Tongil (Reunification) Street area, where a claimed total of 36,000
dwellings flanked a four-kilometre-long, 120m-wide magistrale. Construction commenced in 1989 and the
development was officially completed in 1993, commemorating the 40th anniversary of the ‘victory’ in the
‘Fatherland Liberation War’. Following Kim Jong-Il’s concept that ‘each has a different shape and is unique in
every way’, its ‘gigantic’ blocks included twenty-five- to thirty-storey ‘staircases’ stepped down on one side, like
a taller version of Chertanovo Severnoe, and higher towers (up to forty storeys) in an undulating layout ‘to
add rhythm and variety’, including one 340m slab like a ‘folding screen’. Whereas mass housing production
was now winding down elsewhere in the former Soviet bloc, building in North Korea continued along the
same lines in areas such as Puksae, throughout Kim Jong-Il’s own years of leadership – albeit impeded by the
DPRK’s increasing economic and famine difficulties. A strongly urbanizing principle also applied in rural
areas, where over 1 million low-rise flats were built in planned villages, eradicating old-style thatched
housing.49

Conclusion: Second World housing in summary

Chapters 11–13 reviewed the housing programmes of the state-socialist Second World, programmes that
stretched from East Berlin to Pyongyang, and emphasized the sometimes concealed diversity, conflict and
fragmentation of these microecologies. But Second World mass housing also shared significant common
aspects, notably its later heyday than in the West, lasting up to around 1990 (which has allowed it to be
logically slotted into our overall narrative immediately following the First World), its overwhelming

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organizational reliance on state agencies and its architectural assumption of the need for urban planning on a
vast scale. Equally characteristic was its far more explicit interconnection with propaganda rhetoric.
Consequently, practices ‘on the ground’ were often sharply at variance from the official language of discipline
and order, including elements of strong local diversity in both organization and architecture.
The postwar global narrative of mass housing resumes on a significant scale in chapter 16, with the vigorous
programmes of developmental-capitalist Eastern Asia – programmes that first got strongly underway in the
1960s, and in many areas continued uninterruptedly beyond the 1980s. But first, in chapters 14 and 15, the
focus of attention shifts for the moment towards the more chronologically diffuse, disparate ‘Third World’ of
developing states, beginning with its most developed extreme in Latin America – an area within which one
socialist showpiece, communist Cuba, played a highly prominent and controversial role, even as almost all
other Latin American governments defined themselves in explicit opposition to the ‘Communist threat’, and
in at times uneasy alignment with the United States.

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CHAPTER 14
LATIN AMERICA: CHAMELEON CONTINENT

Chapters 14 and 15 are dedicated to the postwar mass housing experiences of Sauvy’s ‘tiers monde’ – a vast
swathe of developing states that fell neither into the category of developed capitalism (chapters 4–10 and 16)
nor of Communist state socialism (chapters 11–13) – and whose housing programmes generally fell outside
Part 2’s narrative framework of overlapping campaigns from the First to the Second World and on to
developmental-capitalist Eastern Asia.1 Sauvy argued that these states often lacked both nation-building
credibility and politico-economic resources, and were thus vulnerable both to internal instability and external
manipulation, whether from ex-colonial powers or the more nebulous force of ‘Americanization’. Far more
significant than these common features, however, were the enormous differences, with the often highly
organized states of Latin America having little in common with sub-Saharan Africa.2 Indeed, Latin America
as a whole was arguably an exception to Sauvy’s rather leaky, generalized picture of Third World weakness and
disorganization: chapter 14, in some ways, forms a stand-alone narrative, paralleling trends in Southern
Europe as much as the Third World.
It was Latin America that constituted the most long-standing exemption to the ‘Third World’ stereotype of
weakness and disorganization. Its long-established nation-states and relatively well-developed, resource-rich
mid-twentieth-century economies allowed development of ambitious postwar economic strategies of ‘desarro
llismo’/‘desenvolvimento’ (developmentalism) – and large-scale mass housing programmes. US external
influence was pervasively exerted through a succession of support programmes, initially under Franklin D.
Roosevelt’s 1933 ‘Good Neighbor’ policy, and continuing after the watershed of the 1959 Cuban revolution
with John F. Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress (1961), and assistance to a growing wave of military dictatorships,
including Brazil from 1964, and Argentina and Chile in the 1970s. The late 1960s and 1970s saw an atrophying
of the impetus of developmentalism, amid stagnant economies and hyper-inflation.3
In the housing field, the USA, abetted by international organizations, strongly promoted its favoured
agenda of government-supported home-ownership and aided self-help in Latin America,4 but many
governments took only limited notice: in 1961, the UN’s Bureau of Social Affairs complained that several
countries were building public housing (including home-ownership multi-storey apartment blocks) in open
defiance of its advice.5 The common background to these debates was the unstoppable tide of rural-to-urban
migration from the mid-1940s, and the consequent mushrooming of informal housing. Only infrequently did
governments build for these poorest citizens: far more common was regime clientelism, with housing units
passed straight to army officers, police or civil servants. Some Latin American housing programmes distinctly
resembled Southern European organizational patterns, including state-regulated social-insurance companies
and pension institutes, and Catholic ‘family values’ often contended for dominance with secular corporatism,
notably under Juan Perón in Argentina.6
Architecturally, too, the shanty town, under its various names,7 provided a constant backdrop of low-rise
disorder, alongside the middle classes’ proliferating single-family homes. Yet the region also saw some of the
earliest large-scale realizations of modernist housing ideas. Latin American modernism placed less emphasis
on social problem-solving than Western Europe, and more on the architecture of spectacle, reflecting the
flamboyant 1930s efforts of Costa and Niemeyer to build a ‘Brazilian modernism’, and the Beaux-Arts tendency
towards the grand gesture. Some pioneering younger modernists, such as Mario Pani (Mexico) or Carlos Raúl

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Villanueva (Venezuela), inventively adapted CIAM neighbourhood-planning concepts to Latin American

conditions, under Spanish or Portuguese names such as ‘supermanzana’, ‘monoblock’ or ‘superquadra’ – as
exemplified in the housing-led 1950s modernization of Caracas and the creation of Brasília.8 In construction,
there was a strong contrast to the European and Soviet tendency to use prefabricated construction to
circumvent labour shortages. In Latin America, with its limitless workforce supply and recurrent unemployment
crises, the task was to create rather than save labour. The wave of military coups from the 1960s provoked a
transition from diverse, multi-agency programmes to unambiguously home-ownership-orientated strategies,
coupled with draconian repression of shanty towns, and varying architecturally from complex late modernism
(Argentina) to utilitarian simplification (Brazil).
Chronologically, the long-lasting, cumulative programmes of the First and Second Worlds were only
erratically echoed in Latin America, whose far more convulsive narratives often revolved around the landmark
years of significant coups-d’etat, often resulting in significantly higher or lower housing output: 1948 in
Venezuela, 1964 in Brazil, 1973 in Chile, 1976 in Argentina – and of course 1959 in Cuba. In Latin America,
the microecologies of mass housing were often chronological as much as geographic, defined by the rise and
fall of particular regimes or charismatic leaders.

Mass housing and the politics of charismatic leadership, 1945–64

Postwar North and South American housing had a striking point of interaction in the hybrid political and
housing system constructed in Puerto Rico by Luis Muñoz Marín. During his sixteen-year term (1949–65) as
first elected governor, he steered the territory in 1952 into ‘associated free State’ (ELA) status, with significant
domestic autonomy.9 Muñoz Marín’s Puerto Rico, and his Partido Popular Democratico, founded in 1938,
combined New Deal values with Latin American cultural characteristics, including populist political support
(especially from rural peasants, or ‘jibaros’), charismatic personal leadership and an eclectic agenda of social
and economic reconstruction, summed up by the slogan ‘Pan, Tierra y Libertad’ (‘Bread, Land and Freedom’).10
Like all Latin America, Puerto Rico saw explosive urban population growth through rural-to-urban migration
in the 1940s – in San Juan, by 50%. Shanty towns (‘arrabales’) mushroomed earlier than in many other Latin
American capitals, housing around half of the urban population by 1950. By US standards, Puerto Rico was
extremely underdeveloped and impoverished. Accordingly, Muñoz Marín’s housing policy exploited financial
support from mainstream US housing legislation, while striking out in a subtly different overall direction.
Although home-ownership was central to his project, there was less emphasis on FHA-supported suburbanization
– as was highlighted in Muñoz Marín’s successful opposition to a Levitt-style 1948 initiative by developer John
Darlington Long.11 Instead, a distinctive twin-track housing programme emerged. The informal housing
tradition was elaborated into a ‘Mutual Aid and Self-Help’ sites and services home-ownership programme,
including supply of materials and building of standard small timber or concrete dwellings, as pioneered in the
Ponce project (1939 onwards). Paralleling this, a programme of large-scale public rental housing projects
(‘caseríos’) was commenced, integrated with the clearance of shanty towns to exploit both Title I and Title III of
the 1949 Housing Act, and steered by a US-style housing authority – the Autoridad sobre Hogares de Puerto Rico
(AHPR – Puerto Rico Housing Authority), reconstituted in 1957 as the Corporación de Renovación Urbana y
Vivienda (CRUV – Urban and Housing Renewal Corporation); it worked with local urban housing authorities,
including one for San Juan itself. Eventually, by the 1980s, the AHPR/CRUV and associates had completed over
58,000 rental units, many with federal assistance – by far the highest US total outside New York City.12
Architecturally, the Puerto Rican activities of prestigious modernist figures such as the CIAM president
and Harvard Graduate School chief, Jose Luis Sert, were unconnected with the public housing programme.

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Mass Housing

Instead, reflecting the parent US legislation, the caserío programme was modest in approach, emphasizing
low-rise flats in peripheral developments, as in the three-storey zigzag blocks of the Caserío San Antonio
(1948–50) by the municipal Housing Authority of San Juan, or a combination of these with small detached
houses, as in the AHPR’s first major project, Las Casas, in San Juan, from 1941. This early phase culminated in
the Caserío Luis Llorens Torres, a multi-phase development of 2,610 flats in 140 three- and four-storey
Zeilenbau blocks, opened in 1953 on the first anniversary of ELA status; and the 1,150-dwelling Caserío
Nemesio Canales (1956), self-contained behind a perimeter ring road. To differentiate his programme from
the racial and income divisions of the United States, Muñoz Marín pressed the AHPR to build public housing
near to luxury private developments, arguing that ‘the long-term beneficiaries will be the people of Puerto
Rico’, and in 1954 instructed the government Urban Development Division to discontinue the term ‘caserío’
for public housing, instead using the term ‘vivienda’ (or the more middle-class expression, ‘urbanización’). In
the Anglophone and Francophone Caribbean, just as in Puerto Rico, social housing provision fluctuated
between aided self-help and isolated state mass-housing campaigns, as with the 1,700 HLM units built in
Martinique in 1958–68 by the Paris-based Societé Immobilière Antilles-Guyane (SIAG), including apartment
slab-blocks in the Floréal project (architects Candilis-Josic-Woods) (see Fig. 14.1).13
Through its small size and US connections, Muñoz Marín’s Puerto Rico represented an extreme of
coordination and continuity within Latin America. Elsewhere, there was wide diversity in the ways each
country responded to the US home-ownership agenda – for example in the balance between public rental and
social home-ownership and between unified national institutions and more dispersed frameworks, or the
architectural balance between apartments and single-family houses. Typically, governments worked through
a central housing bank or credit institution rather than an ‘Anglo-style’ housing authority – as in Colombia,
where the Instituto de Crédito Territorial, a government-supported autonomous foundation established
in 1939, sponsored nearly 500,000 houses in its over fifty years of existence, some rented but most for middle-
class home-ownership.14 The ICT programme, intended to strengthen the building industry, prospered under
both conservatives and liberals, and benefited in the 1960s from Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress. A typical
project was Bogotá’s vast Ciudad Kennedy, a sea of two-storey row-houses, but 1950–5 also saw construction
of a thirteen-storey slab-block in Bogotá (the Ciudad Antonio Nariño, initially for rental but later sold to its
occupants), followed in 1963–7 by fifteen-storey slabs at the Colseguros project.15 Also popular was a
combination of housing-bank and housing-authority approaches, as for example in Chile. There, the
expansionist early postwar presidencies of Carlos Ibáñez and Jorge Alessandri (1952–64) saw much public-
sector home-ownership housing construction for ‘empleados y obreros’: the development of Santiago
combined peripheral new developments (called ‘poblaciones’ in Chile) and central redevelopment of the
conventillo slums. Coordinating the overall programme, and building directly itself, was the Caja de Habitación,
a national housing bank established in 1936 and transformed by Ibáñez in 1952 into a national housing
authority, ‘CORVI’, (Corporación para la Vivienda), overseen by the Public Works Ministry.
CORVI was armed with more subsidies and powers, especially a 5% tax on private companies’ profits, and
targeted middle-income and skilled workers for home-ownership apartment blocks supported by low-interest
loans from 1959 under the SINAP (National Savings and Loans) system. Early public-housing projects
comprised modestly-scaled modernist layouts, as with the four-storey Población Huemul II and III (1943–5),
or the emblematic four- to six-storey, Zeilenbau-plan Unidad Vecinal Portales (1955–68) by the Caja de
Previsión de Empleados Particulares (EMPART – Private Employees’ Providential Fund) and CORVI, with
slender pilotis and access decks. More monumental were CORVI’s two boldly-modelled, split-level fifteen-
storey slabs of the Remodelación Republica (1965–7). After 1964, the Christian Democrat Frei government
proposed a CORVI housing programme of 360,000 units, but economic storm clouds were by then gathering
on the horizon.16

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 Latin America: Chameleon Continent

Fig. 14.1 (a): Diagram in Arquitetura México (April 1949) of relations between modernist dwelling types and numbers
of family members in Mexico. (b): The pioneering Ponce sites and services project, Puerto Rico, from 1939, seen in 1941.

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Mass Housing

C D

E F

G H
Fig. 14.1 (c): A 1946 poster by the Autoridad sobre Hogares de Puerto Rico. (d): Caserío San Antonio, San Juan (1948–
50), three-storey zigzag flats built by the Municipal Housing Authority of San Juan (MG 2015). (e): Caserío Lluis Lloréns
Torres, San Juan, AHPR project of 2,610 low-rise flats in cranked Zeilenbau layout, opened in 1953; George McClintock
chief architect (MG 2015). (f): Unidad Vecinal Portales, Santiago: EMPART-CORVI project of 1955–68, designed by
architects Bresciani, Valdés, Castillo, Huidobro. (g, h): Remodelación Republica, Santiago (1965–7), designed by Vicente
Bruna and others: two split-level fifteen-storey CORVI blocks.

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 Latin America: Chameleon Continent

In the early postwar years, the Latin American charismatic-leader phenomenon was exemplified above all
by the 1946–55 hegemony of Juan Perón in Argentina. Here, unremitting migration from the declining rural
areas to the cities not only fuelled shanty towns (a new phenomenon in Argentina, where they were referred
to as ‘villas de emergencia’) but also built up a huge multi-class support for ‘perónismo’, appealing not only to
workers and trade unions but also to the army and small industrialists.17 Perón’s demagogic agenda was
grounded in appeals to national community and income redistribution, including the universal right to a
home: ‘Una vivienda sana para cada familia, y cada familia en su vivienda’ (‘A healthy home for each family,
and each family in its own home’). For him the key requirement was to take decisive action, of any kind, and
to promote that action through aggressive, polarizing rhetoric. He declared that ‘la mejor politica es hacer
obra’ (‘The best policy is to get on with things’).18
Within housing, Perón’s first obvious target was rents and evictions, with tight 1943 restrictions maintained
for over a decade. The late 1940s were a time of short-lived optimism about economic growth. Here the
housing track-record of the Comisión Nacional de Casas Baratas now seemed woefully inadequate, having
built only 5,000 dwellings in thirty years since its 1915 foundation, culminating in the six-storey Casa Colectiva
Martin Rodríguez of 1943 – an Art Deco-style courtyard complex not unlike Puerto Rico’s Falansterio.
Following the 1943 revolution, CNCB was absorbed by government, initially within a new Administración
Nacional de Vivienda. In 1947, under Perón’s first five-year plan, the ANV was made responsible for the Banco
Hipotecario Nacional (BHN), which became an executive as well as a financing authority.19
The BHN proved an effective policy instrument, and within a decade had built 10,171 dwellings through
‘acción directa’, while disbursing over 300,000 loans for individual homes to skilled working-class and middle-
class groups, especially public-sector employees.20 The acción directa programme expressed Peronism’s multi-
headed character, facing right and left at once. The previous legal prohibition of ownership of flats meant that
the only pre-1939 alternative to single-family housing had been state-built rental blocks or elite, private-rented
apartments.21 The 1930s and 1940s had seen incessant debates about the merits of home-ownership and rental,
but for the Perón regime, encouragement of home-ownership was paramount. Accordingly, in 1948, the legal
obstacles were tackled by a ‘Ley de Propiedad Horizontal’ (Horizontal Property Act), which brought in a new
legal concept of the ‘co-proprietário’. From now on, apartment blocks were incorporated in the home-ownership
policy mainstream. Architecturally, Peronist housing policy had no consistent expression. Already, at the 1935
Argentinian Urbanism Congress, housing architects had polarized between right-wing family-house champions
and leftist apartment advocates. Now followed efforts to develop an Argentinian variant of CIAM neighbourhood
planning, including the ‘monoblock’, a Zeilenbau-style slab layout, grouped to form ‘supermanzanas’ of around
10 hectares.22 Within Buenos Aires itself, the municipality (MCBA) enjoyed great power and autonomy in
housing matters, with a substantial public rental housing stock of 15,000 units by 1930, including many flats: it
now continued to build directly, with BHN support, both individual homes for sale and rental apartments.
Within the capital, the parallelism of Peronist housing culminated in two contemporary schemes of 1946–9.
The 1,068-flat Barrio Los Perales was a low-rental modernist development of forty-five flat-roofed, three-storey
Zeilenbau slabs with municipal community facilities, designed by the Grupo Austral modernist architects,
appointed by Mayor Siri and his Public Works chief, Guillermo Borda. At the same time, municipal conservatives
and Catholic nationalists, with Eva Perón as their figurehead, and acting through the Fundación Eva Perón and
the Ministry of Public Works (MOP), began building suburbs of low-income home-ownership cottages – their
set piece being the Barrio Juan Perón, at Saavedra, a garden-suburb of picturesque, ‘Californian’ or ‘chalet
argentino’ houses, with a parish church as its focal-point. Here, the right to buy was attributed to the generosity
of ‘la señora Evita’. Yet Evita also formally opened Los Perales, in September 1949, hailing her husband’s concern
for the ‘working-men of the fatherland’.23 From the early 1950s, Borda and Siri having resigned from MCBA,
the initiative in modernist flat-building passed to BHN, although an eleven-storey slab, the Monoblock General

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Belgrano, was completed by the municipality in 1952 in an abortive planning scheme for Bajo Belgrano
district.24 In 1953–4 two significant BHN developments were built, both incorporating multi-storey slabs in
landscaped greenery: Curapaligüe and Alvear.25 Alongside these efforts, the cooperative organization El Hogar
Obrero (EHO – ‘The Workers’ Home’) developed innovative schemes of apartments (casas colectivas) for
salaried groups, culminating in the Edificio Nicolas Repetto (1954–5), whose twenty-two-storey central block,
with convex facades, soared from a two-storey street podium – the first multi-storey block for both working-
and middle-class occupation, under the 1948 Ley de Propiedad Horizontal (see Fig. 14.2).26
In Mexico, unlike the repeated programme-unification efforts in Peronist Argentina, there was little
pretence at national coordination, leaving mass housing to regional initiatives, above all around Mexico City.
There, the postwar years saw the familiar combination of economic boom and rural-to-urban migration.
Mexico City’s population increased by 4%–6% each year until 1980, partly through informal land invasions

A B

C D
Fig. 14.2 (a): Casa Colectiva Martín Rodríguez, Buenos Aires (1943): Art Deco-style courtyard complex by the Comisión
Nacional de Casas Baratas, designed by the CNCB architectural office (MG 2017). (b): Barrio Los Perales, Buenos Aires
(1946–9): 1,068-unit low-rental MCBA project designed by architects Grupo Austral (MG 2017). (c): Barrio Juan Perón,
Buenos Aires (1946–9), Catholic nationalist home-ownership project by the Fundación Eva Perón and the Ministry of
Public Works (MG 2017). (d): Monoblock General Belgrano, Buenos Aires, completed in 1952 by MCBA as part of an
abortive district planning scheme (MG 2017).

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 Latin America: Chameleon Continent

E F

Fig. 14.2 (e): Curapaligüe, Buenos Aires (1953–4): landscaped BHN development of 676 flats in multi-storey slabs,
designed by architect Fariña Rice (MG 2017). (f): Barrio Alvear III, Buenos Aires (1953–4): another, more conservatively
styled BHN project, designed by BHN architects (MG 2017). (g): Edificio Nicolas Repetto, Buenos Aires: twenty-two-
storey slab on a two-storey podium, built by the El Hogar Obrero (EHO) co-op for middle-class and working-class
households in 1954–5; designed by Wladimiro Acosta and Fermín Bereterbide (MG 2017).

and self-help construction on public ejido land in settlements such as Nezahualcoyotl. State housing
construction targeted not renters but modest middle-class and state-employee owner-occupiers.27 Politically,
ongoing PRM/PRI rule dampened down any leadership cults, but a decisively reformist post-war role in
housing was played by Miguel Alemán Valdés during his 1946–52 presidency. Building on the populist
initiatives of Lázaro Cárdenas (1936–40), his strategy was one of rapid industrialization, with private enterprise
as the motor and government-sponsored public works as the lubricant. His power base resembled that of

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Perón and Vargas, albeit expressed more quirkishly – as in his famous 1946 pledge that ‘every Mexican will
have a Cadillac, a cigar, and a ticket for a bull-fight’.28
As part of Alemán’s strategy, a restricted yet innovative public housing campaign was launched to help reduce
private-enterprise labour costs and stimulate the building industry. This included developments of multi-storey
flats for federal employees, drawing on personal funds deposited in the Directorate of Civil Pensions (DPC), a
body created in 1925, which otherwise predominantly supported detached housing. This programme was very
limited in scale, averaging only 9,500 apartments annually between 1945 and 1970. But even this dwarfed
previous efforts: the only initiative remotely resembling public housing had been 700 dwellings built in 1933–46
by the Departamento del Distrito Federal.29 Various national arm’s-length institutions participated in support,
notably the venerable Banco Nacional Hipotecario Urbano y de Obras Públicas (BNHUOP, or National Urban
Mortgage and Public Works Bank, founded in 1933 – latterly renamed BANOBRAS) and the Mexican Social
Security Institute (IMSS, from 1943), an umbrella organization for Mexican social insurance, including housing.
A similar condominial law to Argentina’s was passed in 1954 – the Ley sobre el Régimen de Propiedad.30
Architecturally, Mexico matched Argentina and Brazil in its creative adaptations of standard CIAM planning
formulae – a course boosted by the 1938 arrival of Hannes Meyer, whose 1942 reports for the Colonia Obrera de las
Lamas de Becerra proposed Zeilenbau layouts and a linear hierarchy of neighbourhoods (manzanas). Mexican
architects responded with initiatives such as theoretician Félix Sánchez’s 1952 proposal for ‘conjuntos combinados’
(combined estates) and a ‘unidad vecinal’ for 5,000–6,000, based on supermanzanas. The architectural driving force
of Mexican modernist housing was Mario Pani. Overcoming political opposition within the PRI, his ICA partnership
(Inginieros Civiles Asociados) developed new block-types and layouts with DPC and BNHUOP. His low-rise
Unidad Vecinal No. 9 (Modelo), the first modernist ‘multifamiliar’ in Mexico, was built for BNHUOP in 1947–9.
Much more ambitious was his Centro Urbano Presidente Miguel Alemán of 1946–9, a 5,400-dwelling development
of rental ‘viviendas burocráticas’ – housing for Federal District employees – initiated by DPC on behalf of the federal
government, supported by public-sector trade unions and financed by BNHUOP: an unwieldy multi-agency
arrangement typical of Mexico. Originally, the DPC had planned only 200 single-family dwellings here, but Pani
persuaded them to use thirteen-storey blocks instead, arguing it would allow four times as many dwellings on only
a quarter of the ground. The complex’s zigzag layout, inspired by Le Corbusier’s Ville Radieuse and his ‘redent’
concept, contained 1,080 duplex flats, accessible from broad access-galleries (see Fig. 14.3). Pani and contemporaries
developed these ideas further in projects sponsored by the DPC (notably the Centro Urbano Presidente Juárez, in
1950–2, with its angled slabs) and IMSS. The latter undertook ambitious complexes of flats and social facilities
during the 1950s, the first modernist example being Unidad Santa Fé, a layout of one- and two-storey linear
courtyard blocks and medium-rise Zeilenbau slabs, opened in 1957. The high-density Conjunto Habitacional
Unidad Independencia, a 2,500-unit IMSS rental development of four-storey flats and three-storey houses in
reinforced-concrete offset by rubble walling and forest landscaping, by architects Alejandro Prieto and José María
Gutiérrez, was built in 1959–60 for municipal employees of varying incomes, under the patronage of President
Adolfo López Mateos, as a showcase of IMSS’s social-community-building ideals.31
The unchallenged culmination of Pani’s projects was the Conjunto Nonoalco-Tlatelolco (officially, the ‘Conjunto
Urbano Presidente Adolfo López Mateos’), a vast development of 11,960 units, planned from 1956 and built from
1964 by a mixture of public institutes, including DPC, BNHUOP and the Public Works Department. Sited on
derelict railway yards, the project was intended to regenerate this redundant industrial district by importing large
numbers of public-salaried residents, including railway employees. Latin American mass-housing set pieces
tended to favour slabs rather than towers, but Nonoalco-Tlatelolco was an exception, featuring fourteen towers of
twenty-four to twenty-five storeys, together with thirteen fifteen-storey slabs and seventy lower blocks. It comprised
three supermanzanas, carefully landscaped around the focal ‘Plaza de las Tres Culturas’, which incorporated a
historic sixteenth-century convent and an Aztec archaeological site (see Fig. 14.4).32

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C D
Fig. 14.3 (a): Unrealized slab-block project by Mario Pani for BNHUOP’s Unidad Modelo (1948). (b, c, d): Complexo
Urbano Presidente Alemán, Mexico City (1946–9), a development of ‘viviendas burocráticas’ in thirteen-storey zigzag
blocks, designed by Pani for DPC and BNHUOP: 1949 opening by Alemán, and 2010 (MG) views of exterior and upper
access balcony.

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 B

A C

D E
Fig. 14.4 (a): Conjunto Habitacional Unidad Independencia, Mexico City (1959–60). IMSS rental development for
municipal employees designed by Alejandro Prieto and José Maria Gutiérrez (MG 2010). (b, c, d, e): Conjunto Urbano
Presidente Adolfo Lopéz Mateos (Conjunto Nonoalco-Tlatelolco), a multi-agency development planned from 1956 by
Pani and built by 1964: 1968 perspective and aerial view; 2010 high-level view including the ‘Plaza de las Tres Culturas’
archaeological site; and 2010 view of the Chihuahua slab-block showing 1985 earthquake displacement (MG 2010).

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Housing as social security: pre-1964 Brazil

The undoubted focus of Latin American mass-housing efforts, but at the same time one of the most polycentric
organizationally, was the housing drive in Brazil. Here the later Vargas years (interspersed by Eurico Dutra’s
presidency in 1945–51) saw the familiar pattern of accelerated rural-to-urban migration combined with
growing economic crises of inflation and industrial relations – crises which provoked Vargas’s suicide in 1954,
and were unsuccessfully tackled in successive stabilization programmes, culminating in a military takeover in
1964. Several governments tried to build their way out of the crisis by aggressive developmental strategies,
above all during the 1956–61 presidency of Juscelino Kubitschek, whose world-renowned new capital city
project, Brasília, strained the country’s fragile social-housing mechanisms to breaking point.33 In the early
postwar years, Brazilian social policies were as opportunistic as Perón’s. Left-sounding rhetoric in areas such
as tenancy laws was combined with a growing battle against the Communist Party and the trade unions.34 But
the very disunity of early postwar Brazilian housing allowed space for bold architectural and planning
diversity.
The core of the pre-1964 social-housing system remained the employment-structured Institutos de
Aposentadoria e Pensões (social security and pension funds, or IAPs), established under the Estado Nôvo in
1937. As part of its social-security activities, each IAP pursued its own housing programme, building
exclusively for its contributors, financed by a 3% wage levy. All IAP dwellings were for rental rather than
owner-occupation – not for social equity’s sake but to preserve the developments as gilt-edged assets belonging
to each IAP and its members. As we saw in chapter 2, the first of the three pillars of the 1937 system (Plan A)
provided for subsidized but high-rent housing. This accounted for 60% of the 174,000 dwellings eventually
financed by the IAP system before its abolition in 1964. The various institutes produced strikingly different
building policies. The IAPI, for industrial workers, focused on Rio de Janeiro and helped proselytize CIAM
housing modernism in Brazil. The IAPC (for commercial staff ) built large 1950s suburban developments in
Rio, while the IAPB (bank employees) constructed highly-serviced apartment-blocks in city centres (usually
called ‘Edifício dos Bancários’). Other IAPs built on a far lesser scale: the IAPM (harbour-workers) built a
single large scheme, the Vila Portuária Presidente Dutra (1950), a cluster of five- to nine-storey slabs on a steep
site in Rio.35
Even by 1945, the drawbacks of this fragmented system were obvious and Vargas began hatching plans for
a unified ‘grande envergadura’ (‘all-inclusive strategy’) coordinated by a new national Social Services Institute
of Brazil. Faced with fierce resistance from the IAPs and other technocratic interest-groups, the centralization
was deferred, and instead, in 1946, Dutra established the largely ineffective Fundação da Casa Popular, funded
by a 1% tax on house purchases. Influenced by Catholic social thinking, the FCP focused on small single-
family houses, mainly rejecting large apartment-blocks: of its paltry 19,000 output over eighteen years, 14,000
were detached homes. However, its policies proved vulnerable to political pressures, as at the Conjunto
Residencial para os Ex-Combatentes, Benfica RJ, a war veterans’ project built in 1956–7 following a rash
Kubitschek pledge in an off-the-cuff speech in an Italian war cemetery, but eventually, following letting
difficulties, filled by tenants unconnected to the army (see Fig. 14.5).36
Overall, the pre-1964 system – unlike for instance the Italian IACPs, French HLMs or British council
housing – was not a system dominated by place-specific housing microregions. However, it could also
accommodate local niche players, such as the Church-sponsored ‘Cruzada São Sebastião’ in Rio, established by
Dom Hélder Câmara, secretary-general of the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil, as part of an idealistic,
impractical bid to clear all favelas within ten years. Its sole housing project at Leblon, RJ, opened in 1965,
comprised 945 dwellings in nine eight-storey Zeilenbau blocks, with extensive community facilities. Also
confined to Rio was Brazil’s most high-flown, utopian housing programme, that of the Departamento de

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B C
Fig. 14.5 (a): Undated IAPI membership advertisement for industrial workers, promoting benefits including the ‘casa
própria’. (b, c): Conjunto Residencial de Benfica, an FCP scheme of ten H blocks for World War II veterans, containing 320
flats: 1957 opening ceremony (slogan: ‘The best tribute to the lost soldiers is to help their living comrades’) and
commemorative plaque.

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E
Fig. 14.5 (d): Carmen Portinho and project architect Francisco Bolonha with model of the partly-built DHP Vila Isabel
project, of 1948. (e): The IAPC’s Jardim de Alá project, Rio de Janeiro: a 1952 proposal for four Zeilenbau slabs to house
journalists: three were eventually built, by 1958.

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Habitação Popular da Prefeitura do Distrito Federal (Capital Prefecture Social Housing Department).
Established in 1946, the DHP provided low-rent accommodation for federal employees during the years until
the capital’s transfer to Brasília. In a socialistic mirror-image of Estado Nôvo rhetoric, the DHP’s idealistic
director (1948–60), Carmen Portinho, saw its housing in nation-building terms, as ‘a public-utility social
service whose main task is the total re-education of the Brazilian worker’. She returned from a 1945 visit to
Britain fired with enthusiasm for social-democratic housing, endorsing Engels’s opposition to home-
ownership, while distancing herself from Communism. But all these programmes – IAP, FCP, DHP – were
small-scale and orientated towards better-off occupants. Thus they failed to address the favela crisis and were
correspondingly vulnerable to being picked off – beginning with the DHP, which was unceremoniously
abolished in 1962 after the transfer of the Federal capital to Brasília.37
The institutional diversity of early postwar Brazilian housing was echoed in its architecture, which varied
from straightforward CIAM slabs with a ‘Brazilian slant’ to extravagantly sculptural forms. Alongside the
organic flamboyance of Niemeyer and others, the IAPs helped proselytize standard CIAM Zeilenbau
modernism, as in the IAPI’s Via Guiomar, Santo André, SP (1942), or the four- to five-storey Conjunto
Residencial da Mooca, SP (1946). The IAPB’s concentrated complexes rapidly shot up in height: the three
twelve-storey slabs of the Conjunto Nove de Julho, SP (1945), were followed by the daring double-T-plan
seventeen-/twenty-three-storey block of the Conjunto São Sebastião, Niteroi (1950), designed by IAPB
engineers for a very steep site and anticipating numerous private-enterprise towers built in Rio and São Paulo
from the 1950s; the IAPC’s three parallel sixteen-storey slabs at Jardim de Alá, RJ (completed in 1958), were
built especially for journalists. More significant for the future, given Brazil’s plentiful land supply, was a lower
block-type, designed on an ‘H’ plan with central service link, arranged either singly or in a ladder-like row.
Early examples included the IAPTEC’s Conjunto da Mooca, SP (1947) or FCP’s Conjunto Tiradentes, São
Bernardo do Campo, SP (1950), including ten four-storey H-blocks: later ladder/H developments included the
FCP’s Benfica scheme of 1956–7 and IAPC’s 2,100-unit Irajá project (RJ, 1957–9). This plan-form would be
mass-produced from the 1960s by other building agencies – although the copious building labour meant there
was no European-style pressure for industrialized building.38
The work of DHP provided an obvious outlet for avant-garde innovation, inspired partly by Le Corbusier’s
1929 project for Rio, whose snaking ‘viaduct of apartments’ was reputedly inspired by a realization, flying
above the city, of its intrinsically linear essence. Also influential was the Marseille Unité d’habitation, with its
duplex flats. But even as the Unité was still under construction, the DHP’s design team, led by Affonso Eduardo
Reidy, was working on a project that would briefly rival it in global influence, Pedregulho (1946–58). Its
tenants, all prefectural employees, would enjoy the full gamut of community-building facilities: a total vision
of habitation and civic education which updated the ideals of Red Vienna, and seized global architectural
attention with its sinuous, 250m-long housing block and Burle Marx landscaping. But its fiendishly complex
design took twelve years to complete, including sixty-four public competitions for various aspects. More
generally, as often with housing agencies controlled by architectural avant-gardists, DHP’s design reputation
was bought at the cost of inability to complete actual dwellings in any numbers. None of its other projects were
finished: a second serpentine project, the Conjunto Gávea (1952), was only 40% completed, and a 1951 project
for the Conjunto de Catacomba, with two serpentine blocks, was abandoned altogether. The most immediate
influence of Pedregulho was within Rio itself, at the FCP’s Conjunto Deodoro (1952–4), where Reidy (who
was also an FCP technical panel member) secured abandonment of planned single-family housing, and
substitution of a high-density layout with two even longer serpentine blocks (one of 450m) and twenty-four
four-storey blocks, all on piloti – a solution unique in the FCP’s normally rather conservative output. These
dramatic Brazilian projects embedded the serpentine plan-type within the international collective
consciousness of mass-housing architects, to re-emerge subsequently in Italy and Poland (see Fig. 14.6).39

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A B

C D
Fig. 14.6 (a): Revista Municipal de Engenharia of 1948, cover featuring DHP projects. (b, c, d): The DHP’s Pedregulho
project of 1946–58, designed by DHP’s architectural team (led by Affonso Eduardo Reidy) for occupation by prefectural
employees: two 1984 (MG) external views and 2005 view with school (R. Williams).

The final, appropriately disruptive act of pre-1964 Brazilian housing was the great adventure of the
construction of Brasília, the culmination of Kubitschek’s 1955 campaign pledge of ‘50 anos em 5’ (fifty years’
national modernization in five). The project was launched in September 1956 with the creation of the Novacap
executive agency and a legally binding target of April 1960 for transfer of the capital. Although Oscar
Niemeyer’s public monuments grabbed the architectural headlines, social housing played a vital supporting
role in this fantastically compressed construction project, by accommodating the army of administrators and
officials that would have to be installed by the transfer date. Lucio Costa’s overall conception of Brasília, with
its hierarchy of roads, neighbourhood units and grand perpendicular axis, owed much to earlier Brazilian new
industrial city-plans, such as Volta Redonda (1941) or Cidade dos Motores (1943). But for the basic housing

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G F

H
Fig. 14.6 (e, f, g): DHP Gavea project, model of 1952, and 2005 exteriors (R. Williams). (h): Conjunto Deodoro (1952–
4), a high-density complex built for FCP (replacing the original proposal for individual houses): two serpentine blocks,
one no less than 450m long, designed by project architect Flávio Marinho Rego.

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unit, the ‘superquadra’, Costa drew on both general CIAM concepts and on Brazilian IAP precedents. The
Brasília superquadra, designed to accommodate 3,000–4,000 inhabitants on a site measuring 280m by 280m,
embodied three basic planning principles: rectilinear disposition of six-storey slabs on pilotis in flowing
greenery and permeable space; strict separation of pedestrians and vehicles; and egalitarian grid-planning
along the residential axes. Superquadras would be grouped in units of four into neighbourhood units (áreas
de vizinhança). Behind all this was an attempt to combine developmental capitalism with social and national
solidarity, combating ‘the hateful differentiation of social classes’. Brasília was a project not of socialism but of
modernizing nationalism (see Fig. 14.7).40

A B

C
Fig. 14.7 (a): ‘50 anos em 5’: Niemeyer (left) and Kubitschek at the Brasilia site in the late 1950s. (b): Superquadra (SQ)
concept drawing by Lucio Costa, c. 1956. (c): IAPETC sign in SQ 107 Sul, c. 1958.

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Fig. 14.7 (d): Map of SQ 107-8 Sul and 307-8 Sul: built in 1958–61 by IAPI, IAPETC, IAPB and the Banco de Brasil.
IAPB’s SQ 108 Sul was inaugurated by ‘JK’ himself. (e): SQ 108 Sul (Bloco E) almost completed, c. 1960, with itinerant
workers.

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 Latin America: Chameleon Continent

To execute the initial residential development, in the Asa Sul (South Axis), Kubitschek pressured the IAPs, the
Banco do Brasil and the Caixa Econômica do Rio de Janeiro into participating. They would simply divide up the
area into development packages, each comprising two superquadras. Enjoying complete planning autonomy,
within Costa’s overall guiding principles, each institution built several of the packages in proportion to its size and
resources, renting them out to the appropriate category of tenants on completion. The first complete neighbourhood-
unit to be completed, comprising SQS 107, 108, 307 and 308, was built in 1958–61 by IAPI, IAPETC, IAPB and the
Banco do Brasil. The first individual superquadra to be completed, SQS 108, was inaugurated by ‘JK’ himself; built
by IAPB, it comprised eleven type B1 and B2 six-storey blocks, including especially large flats up to 134m² for
rental to senior Novacap and IAPB officials, accessed by galleries shielded from the sun by decorative pierced
screens. The blocks were set in lavish Burle Marx landscaping. The diversity of agencies allowed each superquadra
to be subtly different in character: for example, 109 (Sul), another IAPB design, included very long blocks of up to
180m, while SQS 114, built by the Banco do Brasil, featured Brasília’s first underground garages. Lower-paid
functionaries received rental accommodation in the so-called Conjuntos JK: simpler, three-storey row apartments
without open ground floors, located outside the main plan area (see Fig. 14.8).41

Fig. 14.8 (a, b): Seven-storey balcony access blocks of 1956–60 by IAPETC; SQ 107 Sul designed by Niemeyer: 1984
general exterior and 2019 view of Block K (MG 1984/R. Williams 2019)

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C D

E
Fig. 14.8 (c): Commemorative plaque of the March 1960 opening of the IAPETC project in SQ 107 Sul (R. Williams
2019). (d, e): Panoramic 1984 view and 2019 detail of IAPI’s SQ105 Sul, designed by IAPI architectural staff (MG 1984/R.
Williams 2019).

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F G

H
Fig. 14.8 (f, g, h): IAPC’s SQ 106 Sul (1959–60), designed by Niemeyer: 2019 views of Blocks F and B, and 1984 detail
of screen to upper-floor access balcony in Block A (R. Williams 2019/MG 1984).

The building of Brasília’s first housing was a huge effort, and inevitably siphoned resources and attention
from the mainstream IAP programs, depressing their output further. By the early 1960s, the IAP system was
no longer generating enough rental income to support continued production. The left-wing administration of
João Goulart, battling vainly against waves of inflation and balance-of-payments crises, cast around for
alternatives, including USAID support from Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress.42 By 1964, with inflation
touching 25%, it was clear that a new, federally-coordinated system was the only answer to the paralysis in
Brazilian housing; and it was at precisely that moment that the housing debate was dramatically overtaken by
a reversion to military government.
Although the 1960s witnessed a more general spread of authoritarianism, some countries had ventured
significantly down this path already – notably Venezuela, whose oil-rich 1950s regime framed mass
housing and spectacular modernism as elements within a warlike strategy of ‘national action’. Th e late 1940s
saw an explosion of self-help barrios on invaded state-owned land around Caracas, and during the 1950s,
the city’s population soared by 60%; by 1961, 21% of caraqueños lived in informal housing. In 1948,

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following several years of stuttering socialist democracy and land reforms, a military junta, the Unión Militar
Patriótica, seized power, and its leader, Marcos Pérez Jiménez, became president in 1952. Unlike Perón and
Vargas, Pérez Jiménez’s brutal regime made no pretence of following left-wing redistributive policies within
Venezuela’s unequal society. The focus of its ‘new national ideal’ was breakneck ISI ( import substitution
industrialization) and populist, state-sponsored construction of rapid and showy urban complexes, arguing
that ‘we progress by building’: by 1957 the Ministry of Public Works absorbed no less than one-third of all
government expenditure. Foremost among these complexes was one of Latin America’s most dramatic mass
housing projects, the Unidad Residencial 2 de Diciembre in 1954–8, a huge, multi-phase development clustered
on the hills immediately east of Caracas city centre. A centrepiece of Pérez Jiménez’s ‘battle against the shanty
town’, its aim was to bulldoze the district’s barrios, rehousing the inhabitants in social home-ownership flats
built by the long-standing Banco Obrero, whose progressive social ethos was appropriated by the regime for
its own populist purposes, and to promote the embourgeoizement of the shanty-dwellers.43
Overall, between 1928 and 1958, the Banco Obrero built 41,000 public housing units, mostly for low-cost sale
(through a 5% mortgage supplement over standard rents) – but the climax came after 1951,with the four-year
Plan Nacional de Vivienda and a 500% increase in site expropriations. The architectural coordinator of this crash
housing drive, and Venezuela’s equivalent to Pani, was Carlos Raúl Villanueva, a Paris-trained architect who had
worked as an assistant to Le Corbusier in the 1920s and brought back home a Beaux-Arts love of logic coupled
with grand architectural gestures. In 1951, Villanueva became head of the BO’s newly-created Taller de
Arquitectura, which radically expanded BO housing design in a series of ‘superblock’ projects, beginning with the
low-rise, 7,800-dwelling Reurbanización El Silencio slum-clearance scheme of 1941–5, including commercial
facilities, and carrying on to echo the Unité d’habitation in the 6,000-flat El Paraíso project of 1952–4.44
The 2 de Diciembre (or Cerro Piloto) project – whose name reflected the Venezuelan custom of inaugurating
prestige public-building projects on that specific day of the year – was commenced in December 1954. It was
planned by Villanueva to house 60,000 inhabitants, including two civic commercial centres, twenty-five
commercial blocks and five schools. As completed in 1958, it contained 9,176 dwellings in thirty-eight slab-
blocks and numerous medium-rise groups; the first phase included thirteen fifteen-storey blocks and fifty-two
four-storey walk-ups. Scattered across undulating hillsides, the blocks were simply constructed in reinforced-
concrete frame with terracotta infill painted in bright colours. They contained eight different flat-types, from one
to four bedrooms, accessed by elevators stopping at every third floor.45 Ironically, the project’s completion
coincided with the overthrow of the Pérez Jiménez regime on 23 January 1958, and over 4,000 families of
squatters invaded it in the immediate aftermath, bringing their rural lifestyles with them. ‘23 Enero’ duly became
the new name of the complex – a change which did nothing to check its steep cycle of decline, as it joined La
Muette as one of the earliest ‘dystopian’ modern housing projects. The blocks’ proudly free-standing isolation,
low ground coverage and leisure esplanades facilitated a tidal wave of low-rise barrio infill, so that instead of the
planned 60,000, more than 100,000 soon lived there. Faced with a comprehensive loss of mortgage income from
the complex, the BO withdrew from maintenance and management, precipitating its final assimilation into the
social and economic fabric of the shanty towns, to which it had originally been seen as a riposte (see Fig. 14.9).46

1960s Cold-War housing politics in Latin America

The remainder of this chapter traces the Latin American narrative from the early 1960s to the mid-1980s,
years dominated by authoritarianism and revolutionary agitation – a climate which helped further differentiate
many countries’ policies from the ‘mainstream’ housing strategies of the First and Second Worlds. The
catastrophic convulsions of those decades were symbolized by two disasters at the same location, the Conjunto

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Nonoalco-Tlatelolco in Mexico City: the 2 October 1968 massacre of 300 student protesters in the Plaza Tres
Culturas by the army, during repression before the Olympic Games, and the 19 September 1985 earthquake,
in which several blocks collapsed owing to inadequate foundations: nine multi-storey buildings were later
demolished as unsalvageable.47 Most of these decades’ upheavals were right-wing in character – including the
establishment of dictatorships in Brazil, in 1964, Argentina and Mexico in 1966 and Chile in 1973. But these
were partly a reaction to the great left-wing exception to this rule, the Cuban Revolution of 1959, and were
thus intrinsically interconnected with the wider geo-political narrative of the Cold War.

A B

C
Fig. 14.9 (a): Venezuelan dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez seen with Caracas slab-block model at the inauguration of the
Exposición Banco Obrero, November 1953. (b, c, d, e, f): The Banco Obrero’s Unidad Residencial 2 de Diciembre (later
23 de Enero), Caracas (1954–8), by architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva: 9,176 dwellings in thirty-eight slab-blocks up to
fifteen storeys. They were overrun by squatters on completion.

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D E

G
Fig. 14.9 (b, c, d, e, f): Continued. (g): The aftermath of the partial collapse of the Nuevo León slab-block at Nonoalco-
Tlatelolco in the 1985 earthquake. Almomento Mexico.

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The proliferation of authoritarian regimes brought an increasingly confrontational attitude towards the
boom in informal housing, a boom which often actually followed rather than preceded the postwar efforts in
public housing.48 Along with an upsurge in shanty-town clearances went a range of populist housing
programmes, more coordinated and more ideological than their predecessors. The outcomes were, however,
highly diverse, ranging from Argentina’s massively monumental public housing projects to the post-1973
Chilean combination of massive clearances and subsidized home-ownership construction. In general, early
successes yielded by the 1980s to financial crises and inflation – reflecting regimes’ crushing foreign debts.
Most organized public housing programmes ground to a halt during the 1980s – by which time the US-backed
alternative formula of aided self-help was being assiduously promoted by international development agencies.
Fidel Castro’s Cuba was significant not just in its effect on other countries, but for its own unique place
within both Latin America and the socialist bloc: within the latter it stood out through its emphasis on state
building for home-ownership, while within the former it was distinguished by its adaptations of the Soviet
industrialized-housing ethos to Latin American conditions. Although the socialist character of the Cuban
revolution was not officially proclaimed until April 1961, it was already clear that a radical break in housing
policy was inevitable. Between 1945 and 1958, 99% of the 141,000 housing completions had been privately-
built, many funded by an FHA-like organization, the Insured Mortgages Promotion Department. Early post-
revolutionary steps included a 50% rent reduction, restrictions on evictions and an action plan for demolition
of thirty-five shanty towns, involving displacement of 20,000 inhabitants and the building of 4,700 new
dwellings. The 1960 Urban Reform Law transformed half of urban tenants into home-owners at a stroke,
converting their rents to five- to twenty-year mortgages at no extra cost, while curbing land speculation.
Whereas in 1958, 32% of dwellings were owner-occupied, by 1962, 41% were owned outright and 59% were
owned through ‘socialist mortgages’. Most new dwellings were state-built: over 70% between 1959 and 1961.
Numerous state housing organizations were established, including in 1959 the national lottery-funded
National Institute of Savings and Housing (INAV) and, in 1960–1, rural and urban housing directorates
within the Ministry of Public Works (MINOP), tasked with shanty-town redevelopment and new building for
sale. Initially, in 1960, INAV experimented with self-help, but the following year, the emphasis shifted to large-
scale clearance and ‘industrialized’ building, with a strategy of building 100,000 dwellings annually.49
But how was this crash drive to be achieved? The first step was mobilization propaganda: Fidel Castro
visited the College of Architects in January 1959 and called for a group of young architects to devise technical
solutions to housing problems. Also in the time-honoured Communist tradition, an exemplary scheme played
a central role: INAV’s prestigious Habana del Este development (1959–61), whose Neighbourhood No. 1
comprised 1,300 dwellings in eleven-storey towers, cranked-plan slabs and low-rise blocks, planned on
mikrorayon lines. In successive projects, a Cuban version of the familiar Soviet hierarchy of scale was refined,
comprising district (36,000), micro-district (6,000–7,000) and primary-school grouping (2,000).50 Visiting the
completed project, Castro turned its exemplary character into an argument for greater austerity, contending
that it was ‘not feasible to meet the housing needs of the entire population with such high-cost structures as
the East Havana Project’ (see Fig. 14.10).51
One inevitable, Soviet-inspired solution was industrialized prefabrication. Following Hurricane Flora
(1963), the USSR sent over a complete casting factory. Constructed at Santiago de Cuba and operational from
1965, this was first used to construct Santiago’s Distrito José Martí (1965–7). From this, MINOP’s Technical
Directorate developed numerous ‘Cuban’ precast systems. In-situ experiments for taller blocks included a
seventeen-storey scheme at Malecón, Havana, in 1967, comprising twin slabs linked by a service tower. By
1971, prefabrication accounted for 25% of housing construction, and the number of precasting factories
mushroomed from three in 1959 to ninety-three in 1975. Even high-prestige projects, such as the Distrito
Plaza de la Revolución (1972), with its five- and twenty-storey blocks, were also system-built. But as the US

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A B

C D

E
Fig. 14.10 (a, b, c, d): Neighbourhood 1 of INAU’s Habana del Este development of 1959–61, a 1,300-unit mikrorayon
of mixed block types: original plans and 2018 exteriors (Sali Horsey, 2018). (e): A 1986 sketch of microbrigade-built
housing projects of 1968 at Alamar, using the IMS system.

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economic embargo began to bite, resource shortages steadily undermined this imposing structure. Between
1967 and 1970, annual output dropped from 10,000 to only 4,000. In furious debates, some advocated a return
to ‘autoconstrucción’, but in 1970 a socialist alternative was devised, the ‘microbrigade’, a team of several dozen
workforce employees who would collectively self-build dwellings for their own enterprise’s requirements
(60%) as well as for the general waiting list (40%). By 1974, microbrigades had built 25,600 dwellings, and by
1984, accounted for two-thirds of the post-revolutionary housing stock.52
Cuba’s dramatic policy fluctuations not only provoked wider US interventions such as the Alliance for
Progress, but also helped define, by reaction, policies in the rest of Latin America – even if there were also
unexpected commonalities, such as the stress on social home-ownership. In Puerto Rico, for example, Muñoz
Marín, before his 1965 retirement as governor, explicitly articulated the idea of a housing ‘ladder’, with aided
self-help as its base, and public rental housing as a first ‘rung’, leading to single-family home-ownership at the
top; this muñocista staging-point conception of public housing was perpetuated by his successor, Roberto
Sánchez Vilella.53 The 1960s saw a rebalancing in the funding of housing away from the Puerto Rican government
towards the federal government and private institutions, but the overall output of ‘social interest’ housing was
maintained. Here aided self-help played an ever more prominent role: cumulative totals by 1973 comprised
66,926 public-rental housing units, but 37,557 self-help owner-occupation units. The 1970s saw the creation of
a new government Departamento de la Vivienda, which swallowed up ARUV and CRUV. But by then Puerto
Rico’s relatively brief flirtation with large-scale mass housing (as in CRUV’s four fifteen-storey towers at the
Residencial Torres de Berwind, completed in 1973) was already over, with criticisms of vandalism at Lloréns
Torres from as early as 1955, and attacks on caseríos in El Mundo from 1962 as ‘a social error’ and ‘a giant
glorified shanty town’.54 Elsewhere in the Caribbean, the Puerto Rico precedent was exploited in the US-backed
campaigns in favour of aided self-help, as in Barbados, where 1940s–1950s rebuilding and relocation of sub-
standard detached wooden houses was significantly expanded after the destruction caused by Hurricane Juliet
in 1964. The (1930s) Housing Board was transformed into a British-style Housing Authority in 1956; by 1960,
it managed 2,768 public rental houses and had awarded loans for 11,255 more (20% of all new construction).55
Across 1960s–1970s Latin America, the more stable regimes favoured aided self-help and social owner-
occupation. In post-1958 Venezuela, the Acción Democrática leftist government responded to the unpopularity
of the Jiménez Pérez projects, as well as Caracas’s high land prices, by facilitating home-ownership, and
providing services for barrios, via a USAID-funded programme; by 1974–5, about 80% had acquired basic
services. Exploiting USAID subsidy, as well as massive oil revenues, the Betancourt administration in 1961
transformed the BO’s social home-ownership programme into something more like the individualized US
FHA system, tying it into a state-based savings and loan system, and ending its links with giant apartment
projects. Eventually, public discontent at the unevenness of slum-regeneration forced a further reversal under
the post-1974 Carlos Andrés Pérez government: the BO, now renamed INAVI (National Institute for Housing),
was tasked with reviving conventional public housing, for home-ownership rather than rental. Yet by the late
1970s, despite all INAVI’s efforts, a quarter of caraqueños could not afford even the cheapest public housing.56
In Mexico, the orientation towards social owner-occupation, especially for salaried state employees, was
strengthened by the 1970–6 administration of Luis Echeverría Álvarez. It created two new government institutes
to consolidate the existing agencies: the Instituto de Fondo Nacional de la Vivienda para los Trabajadores
(INFONAVIT, or National Workers’ Housing Fund Institute, 1972, for the private sector), and the jaw-dropping
‘Fondo de la Vivienda del Instituto de Seguridad y Servicios Sociales de los Trabajadores al Servicio del Estado’
(FOVISSSTE, or Housing Fund of the Civil Service Social Security Institute, 1974, for the public sector –
probably the longest institutional title in the history of mass housing). A separate institute, FOVIMI, catered for
the all-important armed forces. These boosted the social-ownership stock from 57,244 completions by 1973 to
over 250,000 by 1987, over 80,000 being built in Mexico City alone by INFONAVIT, FOVISSSTE and FOVIMI

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Mass Housing

in the 1970s. Social-homeownership developments were located mainly on the plentiful land north of the
Federal District, targeting displacees from shanty towns, whose share of the capital’s population had risen to
47% by 1970. In practice, their high rents excluded all but middle-class families, and lower-income citizens still
relied on auto-construction on ejido land. In the Federal District, state-sponsored home-ownership output
between 1947 and 1988 fluctuated around 12%–18% of all housing construction, rising to 45% in the 1980s.
This overwhelmingly comprised low-rise houses and flats, but grander modernist set pieces included
FOVISSSTE’s Integración Latinoamericana of 1974, a 1,460-unit development of ten- to fifteen-storey blocks.57
In several countries, self-help programmes followed restricted mainstream mass-housing efforts. In Peru,
the relatively limited programme of the Junta Nacional de la Vivienda, including the Residencial San Felipe in
Lima (1962–9), with its orthodox modernist mixture of towers and slabs, was followed by the highly
unorthodox PREVI (Proyecto Experimental de Vivienda, or Experimental Housing Project), an initiative
launched in 1965 by architect-president Fernando Belaúnde Terry’s 1963–8 government. This UN-supported
barrio regeneration campaign, coordinated by British architect Peter Land, comprised a ‘collage’ housing zoo
of twenty-six micro-projects, some by eminent Metabolist or Brutalist architects, for low-rise high-density
urban renewal: however, its quantitative impact was minimal, as the first 500 dwellings were completed only
in 1974.58 In Uruguay, the early 1970s saw the start of the massive Malvín Norte project in Montevideo, with
its serried rows of short, sectional-planned eleven-storey slab-blocks, along with the foundation of the
influential Federation of Self-Help Cooperatives.59

Order and progress? Post-1964 housing in Brazil, Argentina and Chile

In the mid-1960s and 1970s, three leading ‘mass-housing nations’ within South America – Brazil, Argentina
and Chile – turned towards long-term authoritarian military rule. Was this merely a logical extension of our
metaphor of mass housing as ‘warfare’? Perhaps – yet in a striking demonstration of the frequent disconnection
between politics and built form, these shifts had strongly divergent architectural outcomes.
The first to fall under military domination was Brazil, where the March 1964 coup, led by Chief of Staff
Humberto de Alencar Castelo Branco, unlocked massive credits from the World Bank, the IMF and US
multinational companies, which saw the regime as a bulwark against Communism. This allowed Castelo
Branco to indulge his passion for technocratic development, under the 1964 Government Economic Action
Plan (PAEG), within which industrial growth would be supported by mass-housing development. In Brazil,
unlike Pinochet’s Chile, there was no question of scaling back state interventionism under military rule –
quite the opposite. Within five months, a comprehensive housing law had been passed, which reorganized
social housing provision along strictly hierarchical, nationally-coordinated lines, aiming to bolster regime
legitimacy by enlisting workers’ support through mass property ownership and expanded building
employment. In parallel with this, hostile sections of the working class were repressed and the favelas
underwent violent clearances, climaxing in 1970–3.60
The new system, which replaced the FCP and the IAPs, was strictly pyramidal. At its apex was a general
governmental housing strategy, the Sistema Financieiro de Habitação (SFH, or Housing Finance System), to
which was linked a central federal implementation agency, rather misleadingly called the Banco Nacional de
Habitação (BNH, National Housing Bank). The BNH, although not itself a ‘bank’ as such, played a central
coordinating role, just as first proposed by Vargas in the 1940s. It controlled two new state financing-systems
for housing: the Guaranteed Employment Fund (FGTS), a compulsory social insurance fund financed by an
8% tax on salaries, instituted in 1966, and focused on low-income housing; and the Brazilian Savings and
Loan System (SBPE), a middle-income funding agency inspired by the FHA, but focusing on cooperatives.

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The declared aims of the SFH strategy were, firstly, to eradicate favelas; secondly, to encourage private-
enterprise building on serviced sites; thirdly, to encourage co-ops and home-ownership; and fourthly, to build
rural housing. But the reality diverged radically from this order of priority. The FGTS, which became the
BNH’s main funding stream by the mid-1970s, was channelled by BNH into mass building activity through
the medium of local public-sector municipal joint-stock housing enterprises, the Companhias Habitacionais,
or COHABs. Unlike the canny, rental-orientated IAPs, their agenda was a politically-motivated dash for mass
homeownership: BNH’s first president, Sandra Cavalcanti, argued that ‘home-ownership turns the worker
into a conservative, who defends property rights’. Also contrasting to the IAPs was the new system’s more
place-specific character: each COHAB formed the basis of a local housing microregion. The former IAP
dwelling stocks were immediately sold off to their occupants. BNH-funded construction dwarfed that of the
previous agencies: in its twenty-two years of existence, it financed 4.3 million dwellings (25% of all housing
construction in Brazil), of which 2.4 million were FGTS and 1.9 million SBPE. Of the FGTS’s contribution,
65% was built by COHABs, 11% by co-ops and the balance by other agencies. BNH funding overwhelmingly
benefited middle-income residents and key workers in expansion industries; as usual in Latin America, efforts
to target the lowest-paid workers failed almost completely – these continued to rely on favelas.61
Quantitatively, the local housing tier of the SFH seemed remarkably successful, especially by comparison with
the floundering IAPs. Much the largest COHAB was that of the city of São Paulo, which built over 90,000 dwellings
(75% flats) in its first fourteen years’ existence from 1965 to 1979. Most were in far-flung eastern or south-eastern
suburbs, where 1977 saw construction of Brazil’s largest public housing development, Itaquera, a multi-phase
estate comprising nearly 32,000 dwellings – only 1% occupied by former favela-dwellers. In 1983, COHAB-SP
output reached an all-time annual maximum of 22,600: by comparison, its Rio equivalent, COHAB-GB, had by
1975 completed thirty-five projects, totalling 49,000 units. Yet even the impressive achievement of COHAB-SP
was overwhelmed by the swelling demand, with favela formation inexorably pressing on the housing system from
below; and COHAB-SP itself was notorious for corruption and inefficiency, with one newly-completed project of
over 1,000 flats left empty for three years. With the gradual return of regional and national party politics, there was
also, by the 1970s–1980s, much political and pork-barrel cronyism in the regional targeting of BNH funds. By the
early 1980s, the system was devoured by hyperinflation and other economic troubles. The BNH had sufficient
resources to absorb up to 40%–50% inflation, but with 200% inflation after 1982, its finances buckled under the
stress. Even by 1973, many SFH mortgage-holders were in financial difficulty, and by 1982 the figure had reached
60%. Drastic cuts to COHAB funding, and building programmes, inevitably followed, and 300,000 dwellings were
left commercially worthless. Eventually, in 1986, the BNH was scrapped and its activities taken over by the Caixa
Econômica Federal – although the SFH, FGTS and SBPE all survived the meltdown.62
Architecturally, the new system’s output successes required a rigid systematization, under which a few
typologies were picked for mass reproduction. Unlike the socialist bloc, this systematization had nothing to
do with industrialized construction, as BNH was concerned with creating employment for unskilled workers
in traditional building. Given the plentiful sites in the western hinterland of Rio or the Zona Leste of São
Paulo, there was no pressure for high blocks, but the BNH’s initial stress on single-family housing was soon
condemned as wasteful.63 Instead, social-housing construction by the BNH and the COHABs focused on
massed building of detached, low-rise blocks of flats (‘linear pavilions’), exploiting above all the ‘H’ or ‘ladder’
plans pioneered by the pre-1964 organizations. Early examples included the Conjunto Dom Pedro I (1971)
and the Conjunto Zaire Dona (1970), both in Rio. The programme culminated in COHAB-SP’s giant Santa
Etelvina project on the far eastern edge of São Paolo: built from 1984 in nine sections, this comprised 26,671
flats, mostly in standard H-blocks of thirty apartments each, constructed in conventional in-situ concrete by
COHAB-SP following standard BNH typologies and site layouts, in contracts awarded via public tenders from
construction companies.64 Among architects, the cry of ‘monotony’ soon went up, and in reaction, the ‘H’ or

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ladder pattern was creatively adapted in several more complex schemes, most notably in CECAP’s Conjunto
Habitacional Zezinho Magalhães Prado (Cumbica), near São Paulo (1967–81), a 10,560-unit, eight-
neighbourhood development of ladder-plan, prefabricated blocks (see Fig. 14.11).65
A different relationship between authoritarian politics and housing built-form unfolded to the south in
Argentina, where the late 1960s and 1970s witnessed a more chaotic sequence of dictatorships between 1966

A B

C D
Fig. 14.11 (a): Brazil’s first military leader following the 1964 coup, Marshal Humberto de Alencar Castelo Branco, (on
right) seen with fellow-generals in that year. (b): Aerial view of COHAB SP’s Zona Leste de São Paulo: 26,671 flats built
from 1984, many in medium-rise H-plan blocks. (c): COHAB SP’s Conjunto Habitacional Presidente Castelo Branco,
Carapicuiba SP: 14,320 dwellings built in 1972–88, largely in H or ladder blocks. (d): EHO’s Conjunto Villa del Parque,
Buenos Aires (1967–8), designed by engineers Franzetti and Justo (MG 2017).

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E F

G
Fig. 14.11 (e, f, g): Conjunto Urbano Alfedo Palacios (Catalinas Sur), MCBA rental units of 1962–6, including twenty-
eight twin- and single-tower blocks, designed by Susta, Kocourek and Garrone: plan, exterior view and kitchen in Block 11
(MG 2017).

and 1973, a Peronist semi-democratic interlude in 1973–6 and finally the March 1976 onset of an extreme
authoritarianism, portentously named the ‘Proceso de Reorganización Nacional’ (‘National Reorganization
Process’ – usually known simply as ‘El Proceso’). This dictatorship comprised three successive juntas, led by
generals Videla, Viola and Galtieri, and only collapsed in 1982 after the failed invasion of the Falkland Islands.
The economic context was different from Brazil, owing to the continued legacy of Argentina’s early twentieth-
century prosperity – with only 9% in poverty even in 1976, and far fewer porteños housed in shanty towns.
But the overall downward economic trajectory of the ‘estado desarrollista’ in the 1970s was similar. In response,
the Argentinian juntas were torn between neo-conservatives and free-spending, corporatist generals, with
ever greater cuts in public social spending the outcome.66

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The juntas had two main housing aims: firstly, to build new accommodation for their own clientes, including
state employees and military and police personnel; and secondly, to aggressively clear the villas miserias, as
hotbeds of Peronist and socialist discontent as well as a blot on national pride in the run-up to the 1978 World
Cup. Government housing policy was overseen from 1965 by the Ministry of Housing and Environmental
Regulation, in conjunction with the National Mortgage Bank (BHN).67 To tackle informal settlements,
especially on the Buenos Aires periphery, a 1964 law established a central-government Plan de Erradicacción
de Villas de Emergencia (PEVE: Shanty-Town Clearance Plan), which authorized drastic clearances.68 It was
succeeded in 1974 by the Plan Alborada, which purported to shift the emphasis to rehabilitation, but the most
swingeing demolitions, including eviction of around 200,000 inhabitants, actually happened between 1976
and 1980, when the shanty-town population plummeted from 214,000 to 37,000.69 As in Brazil, the newly-
constructed developments mostly proved too expensive for those evicted and were occupied by middle-
income groups, the displacees being left to fend for themselves. More general housing programmes during
these unstable years included a 1968 Plan Federal de la Vivienda and a 1969 Plan Viviendas Económicas
Argentinas, both focused on the building of grandes conjuntos, and the longer-lasting FONAVI (Fondo
Nacional de la Vivienda, or National Housing Fund), instituted in 1970 to build low-income housing, promote
home-ownership and accommodate slum-displacees. Other non-governmental agencies, such as EHO,
continued intermittently in operation, responding adventitiously to crises.70
In the capital, special arrangements naturally applied, centred on the city council (MCBA). The number of
social-housing units climbed from 15,091 in 1950 to 40,132 in 1980 – around 7% built by EHO and the rest
by the public sector.71 Owing to Buenos Aires’ dominance in national housing politics, like Paris or London,
there was constant interaction between civic and national programmes, with international inputs too,
including aid from the Inter-American Development Bank (BID).72 Following a 1961 Plan Municipal de la
Vivienda for 17,500 social units, a new Comisión Municipal de la Vivienda (CMV de la CBA) was formed in
1967, by central government decree, chiefly to build large-scale schemes on the periphery, while others were
built by the central-government Secretaría de Vivienda y Ordenamiento Ambiental (SVOA – Secretariat for
Housing and Environment). The years of El Proceso (1976–82) saw the culmination of this Buenos Aires
programme of ‘grandes conjuntos habitacionales’, many appropriately named after past military heroes; by its
end over 70% of porteños lived in apartments.73
Architecturally, unlike Brazil, this phase broke from orthodox free-space CIAM modernism, as exemplified in
slightly earlier developments such as the four sixteen-storey ‘monoblocks’ and lower slabs of EHO’s Conjunto Villa
del Parque of 1967–8, or MCBA’s Catalinas Sur rental project of 1962–6, with its twenty-eight tower blocks, in
double and single configuration, and row-houses.74 Some more conventional modernist developments were still
built, such as EHO’s 1973 Edificio Rochdale, with its twenty-two-storey slab and commercial podium fronting
Avenida de los Andes. But most grandes conjuntos of the late 1960s–early 1980s followed a late-modernist pattern
of dense conglomerates, including deck blocks, bridges and organic cluster groupings. Although some European
countries had presaged this approach, its late flowering in Argentina was unusually flamboyant, and most key
projects were designed by two avant-garde young partnerships: MSGSSV and Estudio STAFF.75 The first cluster
set piece was a spectacular municipal-employee project, the Conjunto Habitacional Rioja, built in 1969–73 by the
Banco de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires for its workers, and designed by MSGSSV as seven nineteen-storey towers,
rising from a megastructural podium of storage vaults and linked by two-storey ‘puentes’ to create ‘a horizontal
and vertical circulation system’, constructed in reinforced-concrete frame with red-brick infill. Flora Manteola
recalled that ‘we worked within the theory of Team 10, adapted to our country and our possibilities: we believed
that isolated buildings do not create a city, and the idea of cluster was crucial from the social viewpoint’.76
The first real grande conjunto of public housing was a municipally-designed CMV scheme, the Conjunto
Urbano General de División Manuel Nicolás Savio – first instalment of the Parque Almirante Brown (PAB), a

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vast, BID/MCBA-funded, 300ha development area on a marshy flood-plain south-east of the capital, displacing
45,000 shanty dwellings, and built in stages from 1968. General Savio Phases I and II, destined for lower
middle-class and skilled working-class displacees from public works, comprised 6,440 flats chiefly in slabs up
to seventeen storeys high, joined in a kinked ‘central nerve’ with unified precast-concrete facades. The
residential blocks were raised up above a ground floor of parking and services, for flood-protection purposes,
and linked by commercial decks and bridges – echoing slightly earlier European projects such as Toulouse-le-
Mirail or Bijlmermeer. Adjoining these, Y-plan twenty-three-storey towers were built later (completed 1983)
for military and security-services personnel and civil servants. The occupancy was ‘consorcial’ – a kind of
cooperative in which the originally middle-class and lower middle-class inhabitants, mainly public employees
and redevelopment-displacees, paid a government-subsidized monthly charge, halfway in character between
mortgage and rental. At General Savio, each tower, and each slab-block sectional staircase-unit, was
commissioned by a separate consorcio, working within the overall plan; each unit had a separate contractor,
leading to a confusing diversity of precast and in-situ internal construction (see Fig. 14.12).77
Slightly later, a series of more extravagantly-designed cluster developments was built, by central rather than
municipal agencies, and linked to villa de emergencia redevelopment, each being constructed in sections by
consortia of private-enterprise builders selected by public tender. They featured individual ‘nodes’ of jutting
towers in distinctive shapes, with the utopianist idea of combating alienation and encouraging identification.
These began with the Conjunto Habitacional Ciutadela I and II, initiated under the Onganía dictatorship in
the late 1960s as a PEVE scheme to clear several villas emergencia before the World Cup, and duly completed
in 1977 under Videla: the site was designed by Estudio STAFF in tower-clusters of 200 dwellings, conveying a
somewhat castle-like appearance. Two major SVOA developments, the Complejo Habitacional Soldati and the
Conjunto Comandante Luis Piedrabuena, were constructed afterwards, also on an ‘erradicación villas
emergencia’ ticket.78 Soldati, planned from 1971 and completed in 1977, was built by SVOA as a BHN-funded
PEVE scheme. The 3,200-unit development was designed by Estudio STAFF and built by a consortium of
three contractors, ‘Constructora Conjunto Soldati SA’, using rationalized-traditional in-situ-concrete

A B

Fig. 14.12 (a, b): Conjunto Habitacional Rioja (1969–73), employee housing of the Banco de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires:
towered megastructural design by architects MSGSSV, complete with two-storey ‘puentes’ to create a ‘horizontal and
vertical circulation system’ (MG 2017).

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Mass Housing

C D

E F

G H
Fig. 14.12 (c, d, e, f): The CMV’s vast Conjunto Urbano General Nicolás Savio (Lugano): 6,440 flats built from 1968 for
lower middle-income public-works displacees, designed by the CMV technical office; 1969 layout and perspectives, and
2017 (MG) street views showing elevated circulation level and later Y-plan towers (1983) for security services and
municipal employees. (g, h): Complejo Habitacional Soldati, a 3,200-unit SVOA development built in 1971–7 as a BHN-
funded PEVE shanty-town eradication scheme, designed by Estudio STAFF as a network of clusters joined by block-
topped ‘nudos’ (MG 2017).

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construction with little prefabrication. The same design approach was used as at Ciutadela, but on a larger
scale, with rectangular ‘quadrangulos’ joined by ‘nudos’ topped with distinctive rooftop blocks; each cluster
constituted a ‘conjunto edificio-vecinal medio’, differentiated by painting in ‘colores vivos’.79 This time, amidst
the chaos of the Proceso, the consorcial tenure structure proved disastrously unsuccessful, with many residents
refusing to pay their dues, collective administration mechanisms proving ineffective, dilapidation rampant
and the original inhabitants displaced by semi-squatters.80
Piedrabuena, built in 1974–80 by SVOA under the Plan Alborada with FONAVI funding, and designed by
MSGSSV, eventually comprised 2,100 consortium-built dwellings, after wild fluctuations of building targets
under successive governments and coups. Letting was on a patronage basis, its first allocated inhabitants being
military and police personnel – many of whom never moved in. Architecturally, Piedrabuena was arranged in
curved chains of slab-blocks, joined by the ‘núcleos verticales’ of octagonal staircase towers to create a veritable
‘ladder-building’.81 The outcome here, too, was rapid degeneration, with original inhabitants rapidly replaced
by ‘anti-social elements’. MSGSSV’s principle of geometrical neighbourhood configurations was repeated
elsewhere, including a low-rise megastructural project of 1971 for aluminium workers at Puerto Madryn,
using octagonal enclosures to shelter inhabitants from the Patagonian winds; and an abortive project of 1974–
5 for a 60,000-unit government ‘megaproyecto’ at Chacras de Saavedra in outer Buenos Aires, with seven vast,
octagonal walled precincts interspersed with clusters of towers (see Fig. 14.13).82
In neighbouring Chile, the violent 1973 coup followed years of increasingly radicalized politics, but its effects
within housing policy and architecture were different from the outcomes in Argentina. During the Christian
Democrat Frei administration of 1964–70, an unrealistic 360,000 target for CORVI new completions had been
abandoned as unaffordable both by the state and the occupants, but was replaced by an equally grandiose sites-
and-services strategy, Operación Sitio, under which millions of serviced plots (750,000 in Santiago alone)
would be provided for low-income families. Shortfalls in this programme, in turn, led to an upsurge in land
invasions and rural land redistributions, reflecting the overheated political climate. Ringing the changes, the
radical socialist Unidad Popular government of 1970–3, led by Salvador Allende, revived the building of
completely new houses, channelling private building contracts through state funding agencies and securing the
1972 gift-construction of a Soviet panel factory, which built over 150 blocks up to four storeys high in Santiago,
Valparaíso and elsewhere. Following the 1973 coup, the Pinochet military regime ended all this, shifting
decisively towards neo-conservativism and rejecting direct state house-building. State subsidies were channelled
towards social owner-occupation, coupled with draconian squatter clearances and land-subdivision curbs.83
The iron continuity of Pinochet’s regime contrasted with Argentina: large-scale building of social home-
ownership schemes in Santiago continued for the rest of the century.84 This allowed it to evade for a while the more
general downturn that afflicted Latin American social housing from the 1980s, especially after such landmark
disasters as the Tlatelolco earthquake collapse or the disintegration of the BNH amid Brazilian hyperinflation. In
country after country, the accumulation of crushing foreign debt, corruption and demands for structural reforms
led to a rolling-back of corporatist authoritarianism, a winding-down of large-scale public housing and an upsurge
in self-help policies – prodded by external pressure from the World Bank and other agencies.85
In this inimical context, subsequent efforts were made to revive public-housing construction by popular or
left-leaning regimes, such as the 2004 Programa Federal launched by President Nestor Kirchner in Argentina
with the aim of building 120,000 dwellings in two years, or the 2009 Minha Casa Minha Vida (‘My Home, My
Life’) programme in Brazil, which started with high hopes of renewal but descended into disillusionment – as
we will see in Part 3.86 Kirchner’s programme not only failed to curb the mushrooming of the villas miseria but
provoked riots and declaration of a state of emergency in Soldati, Piedrabuena and elsewhere, while even in
Puerto Rico, 1993 saw the deployment of the National Guard in massive raids on caseríos by new governor
Pedro Rosselló.87 By then, many of the grandes conjuntos of South America seemed to have arrived at the

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B
A

Fig. 14.13 (a, b, c): Conjunto Urbano Comandante Luis Piedrabuena: 2,100 units built in 1974–80 by SVO under the
Plan Alborada for shanty-town eradication and designed by MSGSSV in chains of slabs joined by ‘núcleos verticales’; 1977
plan and 2017 views, including decked junction at the estate centre (MG 2017).

same unhappy destination as the projects of the USA, but several decades later, and by a very different route.
This highlighted yet again the hybrid character of Latin American mass housing, which straddled both the
First and Third Worlds (and the Second, in the case of Cuba), and combined organized, state-led modernity
with vast rural-to-urban migration and shanty-town urbanization. In the next chapter, we engage more
directly with the heartland of the ‘Third World’, focusing on the very different, and mostly much less favourable,
circumstances of the ex-colonial territories of Africa and Asia.

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CHAPTER 15
ECHOES OF EMPIRE: POSTWAR HOUSING IN THE
MIDDLE EAST, SOUTH ASIA AND AFRICA

In all the preceding chapters of this book, and in the chapter immediately following, postwar mass housing
was almost invariably a prominent offshoot of highly-organized and at the very least reasonably well-resourced
states, whose wide-ranging powers and urgent political agendas provided an umbrella beneath which diverse
housing microecologies could flourish. The situation in most of the territories that form the subject of chapter
15 was very different. In these formerly colonial-dominated regions, especially in southern Asia, the Middle
East and Africa, postwar mass housing mostly followed an erratic course. There were some resemblances to
Latin America, in the population migrations and informal settlements, or the plentiful availability of unskilled
labour and consequent irrelevance of discourses of industrialized building. But there were also huge differences,
for example in the prevalence of racial inequality in Africa. The overall chronological framework of mass
housing in the ‘Third World’ in some ways resembled the Western pattern, with production peaks contained
within the 1940s–1970s period, but this concealed massive variations: large-scale rural-to-urban population
movements in most of Africa began in the 1960s, twenty years after Latin America, and the housing
chronologies of individual regions or countries were conditioned by the timing of their decolonization
processes, with India leading the way in the late 1940s. Thus, just as in chapter 14, this chapter also forms its
own self-contained narrative(s), paralleling Part 2’s mainstream narrative of the First and Second Worlds by
spanning the entire postwar period.
In most of these countries, mass public housing was focused in an especially exaggerated way on elite and
middle-class groups, and home-ownership was emphasized as the normative tenure.1 Within some newly-
independent postwar nations, the institutional and fiscal weakness of the state and of the peripheral-capitalist
economy, coupled with the lack of shared national sentiment and the frequency of civil strife or military
coups, prevented any consistent social programmes, while elsewhere, as in Latin America, developmental
policies and state investment strategies were often channelled into abortive import-substitution strategies.
And in a handful of very special cases, such as Kuwait or Israel, the process of decolonization (or, in the case
of South Africa, resistance to decolonization) spawned strong, disciplined states, with radical planning and
housing programmes displaying significant similarities to First World patterns. Architecturally, an element of
hybridity and interaction between Western and non-Western patterns was pervasive, often including active
feedback-loops: patterns trialled in the colonies, such as green belts or executive development boards, were
later ‘repatriated’. In many developing countries, modernism lacked the urgent social reconstruction impulse
that powered it in the ‘First’ and ‘Second’ Worlds: instead, it often served as a ‘visible politics’ intended to
trumpet regime legitimacy. Modernism’s impact was diluted by the general cultural preference for low-rise
dwellings, and lack of dense urban apartment traditions, in much of the Global South – unlike the combination
of strong states and high-rise collective housing in the north.2
Unlike the pervasive US influence within Latin America, in the territories covered in this chapter the strongest
external force was often the former colonial European powers, whose growing welfare-state egalitarianism at
home sat uneasily with the inequality of the colonial and postcolonial relationship.3 The two strongest traditions
of postcolonial mass housing support were those of France and Great Britain. The French system was strongly
unified and developmentally-orientated, and strongly influenced by the French state through direct spin-
offs from SCET and SCIC.4 In 1957, SCET was invited to begin working in Tunisia and Morocco, and in

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sub-Saharan Africa, where Gaston Defferre’s reformist Loi-cadre of 1956 inaugurated decolonization, an early
start was made by SCET’s technical assistance department in 1957 in the Ivory Coast; in 1959, the SCET-Coop
was created by Léon-Paul Leroy, director-general of SCET/SCIC, supported by a range of French financing
organizations.5The British system of postcolonial housing support was more diffuse, reflecting the wartime
dissolution of the concepts of trusteeship and the dual mandate, and their replacement by the emancipatory
‘development’ model, enshrined in the 1940 Colonial Development and Welfare Act (CDW Act) and pioneered
in the West Indies. There was growing overlap with welfare-state values: in 1953, the Colonial Office argued that
‘housing is now generally recognized as a problem of government’. Some decolonization conflicts provoked
coercive remedies, such as the 1952–6 repression of the Mau Mau insurgency in Kenya or the 1948–56 Malayan
‘Emergency’, with its fortified villages. (cf. Fig. 16.1a) Even in sub-Saharan Africa, however, development-aid
consultants such as G. A. Atkinson (colonial housing adviser from 1948) or Otto Koenigsberger of the
Architectural Association Department of Tropical Architecture encouraged a postwar shift away from segregated
pass laws and temporary hostels towards acceptance of permanent urban habitation by indigenous workers.6
The new international developmental-aid discourse was generally hostile to state housing, and favoured self-
help solutions. By the early 1950s, it was fronted by figures such as UN consultant Charles Abrams, US
international housing aid chief Jacob Crane, Ernest Weissmann, head of the UN Housing, Building and
Planning Branch from 1951, or the freelance architect John F. C. Turner; and by the 1970s, it was increasingly
backed up financially by the World Bank.7 Despite its resemblance to the Castor formula, the aided self-help
movement was chiefly a creation of the ‘Anglosphere’, and, as we will see in the next two chapters, it was resisted
by some leaders of newly-independent states, who preferred to use public housing to express developmental
modernity and Westphalian-style national autonomy in a more politically gestural way. In a link to the Second
World, it was also rivalled, during the Khrushchev and Brezhnev years, by a parallel international structure of
socialist ‘mutual assistance’, which combined the rhetoric of fraternal solidarity with dirigiste practices.8

The Middle East and North Africa: decolonization and development

Within the post-war Middle East and North Africa, the strong state paradigm was intertwined with
decolonization.9 Here, as we will see later, the most extreme example was Israel, for highly specific reasons, not
least the hostility between it and most other states in the region. Fuelled by oil wealth, however, a wide range
of Middle Eastern countries set themselves up as development states, supported by social programmes that
sometimes included significant mass housing construction, usually in single-family houses. The clearest-cut
case was Kuwait, which, even prior to its 1961 independence from Britain, began benefiting from massive oil
revenues. It developed an interventionist strategy of intensive housing consumption, grounded in US-style
state-subsidized single-family suburbanization. A radical land-acquisition policy, introduced in 1951 by the
reformist Emir, Sheikh Abdulla Al-Salem Al-Sabah, underpinned this strategy. All inner-urban land was
compulsorily purchased for commercial development and expatriate housing, and the Kuwaiti residents were
relocated to state-owned land in the suburbs. There they were accommodated both through individual self-
build subsidies and through housing constructed by the Government Property Authority and the Housing
Board (founded in 1956 and 1958 respectively). This programme was influenced by a pioneering garden-city
plan of 1946 by the Kuwait Oil Company, and systematized in a 1952 master plan for eight satellite
neighbourhoods by English consultant architects Minoprio, Spencely and McFarlane. A 1963 four-year plan
authorized 6,000 family dwellings, funded by loans from the State Trust Bank (founded in 1960), and by the
late 1960s, the state-built private detached house was part of the collective Kuwaiti consciousness. Responding
to further population growth and development land shortages, a 1970 report by Colin Buchanan recommended

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higher densities, and the newly-established National Housing Authority (1974) commissioned several
apartment projects. Architect Arthur Erickson designed a high-density project in the urban core, at
Al-Sawaber, with stepped-back megastructural blocks containing 900 units: only 524 were eventually built, in
1977–81. The flats were smaller than the NHA’s single-family homes, became rapidly stigmatized and were
partly-abandoned following the 1990–1 Gulf War. The only other constructed NHA apartment scheme, the
564-unit Sabah-al-Salem (1977–84), was designed by a socialist consultancy of Polish architects, led by
Krzysztof Wisniowski, as a four-storey grid of semi-autonomous stacked ‘villas’ and courtyards, and also fell
foul of conflicting cultural expectations (see Fig. 15.1).10

C D
Fig. 15.1 (a): Type design for extensible house, Barbados (1945), by the Office of the Adviser on Town Planning
and Housing. (b, c): Al-Sawaber housing project, Kuwait: stepped-back megastructural blocks commissioned by the
National Housing Authority from architect Arthur Erickson (1977–81) (Asseel Al-Ragam, 2013). (d, e, f): The Libyan
National Housing Corporation’s ‘Industrialised Building Project’, Misrata, near Tripoli (1974–81), designed by RMJM:
1974 plan and 1977 construction images.

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Mass Housing

E F
Fig. 15.1 (d, e, f): Continued.

Some Middle Eastern countries’ development programmes benefited from the US ‘Part IV’ programme
introduced by Truman in 1949, countering Soviet influence with support that rocketed from $1.3m in 1951 to
$73m in 1956. In Iran, following the deposition of leader Mohammad Mosaddegh and the establishment of
personal rule by Mohammad Reza Shah in a 1953 coup, successive development plans provided for significant
housing development for government officials and the middle classes – again, following a largely horizontal
pattern. A State Construction Bank (Bank-e Sakhtemani) was formed in 1953, and a national Housing
Organization (HO) launched in 1955 a seven-year programme largely for civil servants. The HO’s first large
project was Tehran’s Kuy-e Kan (1958–64), designed with lines of four-storey Zeilenbau blocks by members of
the Association of Iranian Architects (inspired by a 1952 European tour) and built using prefabricated panel
and steel-frame structure in a joint venture between SCB and English contractor Reema. Most 1950s public
housing comprised suburban single-family houses, notably in Tehran’s vast, gridded Narmak project, but
following the Shah’s modernizing ‘White Revolution’ in 1963, the existing agencies were reorganized. Under
the aegis of a new Ministry of Construction and Housing, large, subsidized middle-class apartment
developments were commenced. One of the first, Behjat-Abad (1965–8), comprised fourteen fourteen-storey
blocks, while the early-1970s Shahrak-e-Ekbatan project had fourteen blocks of six to thirteen storeys arranged
in a honeycomb pattern and containing 8,000 dwellings. Modular blocks were built from 1965 with private
family areas protected from external view: the chief apartment design challenge in an Islamic country was to
prevent overlooking. The crisis that eventually toppled the Shah’s regime in the late 1970s was exacerbated by
the lack of a well-developed social housing sector and the consequent proliferation of shanty towns. A
somewhat similar development trajectory applied in Iraq, where 1950s low-rise social housing was followed
in the 1960s–1970s by a turn to multi-storey patterns.11

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 Echoes of Empire: Postwar Housing in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa

The chief rival to developmental capitalism in the Middle East was the burgeoning movement of Arab
socialism, inaugurated in 1952 by the accession of General Abdul Nasser to power in Egypt. He unleashed a
fifteen-year state-led development boom, including sweeping nationalizations and a large-scale public housing
programme, only ending with the Six-Day War in 1967. After 1952, prompted by the proliferation of squatting in
the main cities, a wide-ranging housing programme began, centrally masterminded by the Popular Housing and
Construction Company (PHCC), established in 1954 with significant encouragement from the reformist
architect mayor of Cairo, Mahmoud Riad. The results were uneven: only 28,000 units were built by 1958, but the
PHCC, municipalities and cooperatives together achieved a cumulative total of 150,000 units by the mid-1960s.
During the 1960s, responsibility for construction was transferred to the governorates (provincial administrations),
who also owned the land. Large 1950s and 1960s schemes on the Cairo periphery, mainly in standardized four-
and five-storey walk-up Zeilenbau layouts, included Ain el Sura and the Workers’ City, Helwan; the Gamal Abdel
Nasser Estate of 1965–7 contained 1,200 dwellings in five-storey staircase-access slabs, built by two firms for
home-purchase. The post-1967 crisis led to the halting of the public housing programme and privatization of
much existing stock, and under Anwar Sadat, from 1978, a new strategy was introduced, focused on the building
of new towns. Under the Minister of Housing and New Communities, Hassibulla el-Kafrawi, large-scale
production of standard blocks was championed to combat shanty towns in the Nile Valley.12
Egypt’s policies were echoed in countries like Libya, where a National Housing Programme drawn up by the
Idris government in 1965 was expanded following Colonel Gaddafi’s 1969 revolution, inspired by Nasserite pan-
Arabism and socialism. The year 1969 saw the foundation of the National Housing Corporation (NHC), which
planned a project of some 3,000 flats and numerous single-family houses at Misrata, outside Tripoli. Entrusted to
Scottish architect Sir Robert Matthew and designed to reflect the ‘Libyan way of life’ through a design for privacy,
this ‘Industrialized Building Project’ was revised in 1973 and subsequently constructed through a contract with
Danish firm Høygaard & Schultz. Gaddafi’s 1977 radicalization of the revolution into a ‘Socialist People’s Libyan
Arab Jamahariya’ and his sacking of key NHC personnel significantly undermined the programme, but by 1995
public rental units nevertheless comprised as much as 23% of housing in Tripoli and 35% in Benghazi.13
In the north-western Maghreb zone of North Africa, modern housing programmes were intermingled with
French decolonization, and French development agencies were significantly involved, together with avant-
garde architectural groupings such as the collective ATBAT, founded by Le Corbusier and others in 1945. In the
protectorate of Morocco, the 1960 Agadir earthquake provoked urgent reconstruction, including building of
the exceptionally long, Corbusier-style decked and ramped five-storey Block A for displaced citizens, by Louis
Rioux and Henri Tastemain. Otherwise, an orderly decolonization process unfolded, supported by $1.1m in
Marshall Plan aid, which allowed French colonial planners to respond to the spike in rural-to-urban migration
and periurban bidonvilles: by 1952, recent rural migrants comprised 75% of Casablanca’s population. Appointed
director of the colonial Service de l’urbanisme in 1946, architect Michel Écochard, leader of the Moroccan
CIAM branch, GAMMA, exercised draconian powers of planning reconstruction. He projected vast urban
extensions to rehouse 1.5 million Moroccans by 1953, and executed a rural reclamation project in the Gharb
Valley, involving resettlement of 700,000 in eighty-one new agro-industrial centres. In most mass housing
programmes, architectural avant-gardism and production output were mutually exclusive – but not here.
Écochard’s urban-extension programme was trialled in the Carrières Centrales project, built in 1951–2 by his
housing counterparts, the Service de l’habitat, to house 57,000 inhabitants adjoining one of Morocco’s largest
bidonvilles – where a major nationalist riot took place in December 1952, during construction. Intended for
local protectorate employees, rather than resettled bidonville-dwellers, the project broke from the conventional
CIAM modernism of rectilinear space and towers, towards a low, agglomerative carpet-pattern of internalized
houses with integral patio courtyards. This combined rationalist ‘woven grid’ (trame) planning with evocations
of the informality of ‘Arab kasbah tradition’ and, even, the bidonvilles – all at a high density of 350 persons per

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hectare. This ‘cité horizontale’ was punctuated by experimental five-storey blocks of vertically-stacked patio
houses, designed by Georges Candilis (the ‘cité verticale’). In a clear case of reverse-influence of colonial
architecture on ‘home’ housing, the patio-house pattern was repeatedly reproduced not just across Morocco,
having been incorporated in the 1951 Casablanca master plan, but further in North Africa and the Middle East,
and 1950s–1960s Western housing architecture during the 1950s and 1960s, as ‘low-rise high-density’. The work
of Écochard and GAMMA also fuelled the many early 1950s architectural initiatives of cluster planning,
including three ‘habitat grids’ proposed at the 1953 CIAM congress at Aix-en-Provence (see Fig. 15.2).14

A B

C D
Fig. 15.2 (a): Early 1960s map of Arab housing areas on the outskirts of Casablanca by the government Public Works
Section, including the location of bidonvilles. (b, c): The Carrières Centrales project, Casablanca, built in 1951–3 by the
government Service de l’habitat to designs by Michel Écochard’s planning staff: early 1950s aerial view showing new
housing below and existing bidonvilles above, and original layout plan of cluster of four houses. (d): Architect Fernand
Pouillon’s Diar-el-Mahçoul cité double project, Algiers, of 1953–4, incorporating paired European and Arab sections in a
courtyard setting: 1950s image.

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 Echoes of Empire: Postwar Housing in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa

E F
Fig. 15.2 (e): Diar-es-Saada, Algiers, also by Pouillon (1953–4), with courtyard and tall focal tower: image from 1964
banknote. (f): Les Dunes, Algiers, built from 1958 by ‘chemin de grue’ under a plan masterminded by SCET-Coop,
including one block 350m long.

In Tunisia, where French-style HBM organizations had been established as early as 1919, the post-
independence regime of Habib Bourguiba (president 1956–87) took a different, more aggressively modernizing
line towards the local mud-brick bidonvilles (‘gourbivilles’), embarking in 1957 on an ambitious national
programme of ‘dégourbification’ – a campaign that, predictably, had only limited impact. In 1973–4, new
organizations were established to support social housing construction – the Caisse nationale d’épargne
logement and the Société nationale immobilière – with largely low-rise built outcomes, including the one- to
two-storey Ibn Khaldun slum-relocation scheme of 1974.15
The most troubled Francophone housing hot spot in the Maghreb was Algeria, where growing pro-
independence radicalism coincided with soaring rural-to-urban migration. The 1950s and early 1960s saw
public housing’s involvement in the so-called ‘bataille du logement’, as part of the ultimately vain attempts to
bolster French rule in the lead-up to independence in 1962, initially under reformist mayor Jacques Chevallier
(from 1953) and then, after 1958, under General de Gaulle’s Fifth Republic. Previously, Algeria had hosted an
early offshoot of the self-help Castors movement: the two-storey, 350-house Cité des Castors d’Oran, built in
1952 for expatriate workers in the Arsenal. But although Algiers had inspired utopian replanning proposals by
Le Corbusier between 1931 and 1942 (his ‘Plan Obus’), its modernist replanning only seriously began in 1953,
when Chevallier engaged architect Fernand Pouillon to design successive modernist HLM estates
incorporating paired European and Arab sections – the so-called ‘cités doubles’. Pouillon’s projects included
Diar-el-Mahçoul and Diar-es-Saada, of 1953–4 (loosely-arrayed courtyards with a focal tower), and Climat de
France, of 1954–7 (a stepped, hillside courtyard group with monumentally colonnaded interior). A succession
of plans by organizations such as the Societé d’Équipement de la Région d’Alger (Algiers Regional Infrastructure
Society), in 1956, facilitated large-scale housing proposals that significantly influenced MRU thinking and
anticipated the grands ensembles back in the ‘métropole’. These began with the planned development of the
Plateau d’Annassers from 1957, with 26,000 dwellings and 130,000 inhabitants, masterminded by SCET-
Coop as planner. From 1958, De Gaulle boosted the level of French commitment to this ‘battle for housing’
through the ‘Plan de Constantine’, which focused on housing for Arab citizens and in three years built 9,500
dwellings. The resemblance to metropolitan French housing, especially the grands ensembles, was now very
close: the vast, system-built eleven- and twelve-storey blocks (one 350m long) of the ‘Les Dunes’ project at El-
Harrach, built in 1958 by ‘chemin de grue’, uncannily resembled the slightly earlier Cité des 4000 at La

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Courneuve. Numerous simplified ‘cités de transit’ were also built around 1959. By then, however, the Algerian
independence war was in full swing, and the French reformers’ unaffordable dream of a shared citizenship was
dead: housing projects such as the Oran Castors witnessed some of the worst clashes of the 1962 French
withdrawal, which resolved the immediate housing problem by suddenly leaving 100,000 dwellings vacant;
only in 1977 did a fresh programme of grand ensemble development (ZHUN) falteringly begin.16

Israel: creating a ‘new geography’ through public housing

Although mass housing was central to the postwar reconstruction strategies of many countries, only in a
handful of cases – such as Singapore, Hong Kong and Israel – was its role an existential, life-or-death one. Of
these, Israel was arguably the most unusual, as a hybrid of disciplined European socialism with both
decolonization and neo-colonialism, within which immigrants were a high- rather than low-status group,
providing the foundation upon which the ‘imagined community’ of Diaspora Jewry could be transformed into
a sovereign nation-state. In response to the genocidal onslaught facing European Jews, and the consequent
floods of immigration in the late 1940s, definitions of national identity in Palestine and Israel shifted radically.
Interwar ‘Yishuv’ Zionism mutated between 1937 and 1948 into a nationalism of warrior settlers, combining
an authoritative state with democratic discourse. The founding prime minister, David Ben Gurion, and his
party, Mapai (the dominant element in the ‘Labour’ alignment that ruled Israel until 1977) epitomized this
Weltanschauung of ‘siege’ collectivism, later echoed by Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew.17 Rooted in the disciplined
socialism of Eastern Europe, it placed the state at the centre of a new national myth (‘Mamlachtiyut’). As in
Singapore, colonial administrative traditions and emergency governance powers provided an important
foundation: prior to 1965, under British-devised emergency regulations, government agencies could build
what they wanted without need for permission from anyone.
Within this framework, with its burning concern to extend control over land, a strong housing policy
naturally played a key role: as an instrument of Jewish habitation by establishing ‘facts on the ground’; as a
melting pot to integrate immigrants; and as a nation-building symbol of ‘housing the common citizen’. In
1955, government minister Golda Myerson (later Golda Meir), argued that immigrant housing had created ‘a
new geography’ in Israel and had written ‘a new, proud chapter in our nation’s history of glory, suffering and
war for a life of truth and justice’. David Tanne, director of the ministry’s Housing Division, concurred that
‘housing Israel is not an exclusively economic, technical planning problem. It is primarily one of colonization
and social absorption.’ And the state was at the heart of that effort: ‘the history of immigrant housing is actually
a history of public housing in Israel’. Interwar social-housing efforts, reflecting the voluntaristic culture of
Yishuv Zionism, had been organized through the Jewish trade union umbrella movement, Histadrut, or
through kibbutzim, while the Jewish Agency played a more prominent role during the 1940s. Immediately
following the 1948 war, the radical influx of immigrants overwhelmed these ad-hoc systems, and the empty
houses left behind by the mass expulsion of Arabs provided only short-term relief.18
Given the disciplined ethos of the new state, there could be no question of leaving immigrants to fend for
themselves in shanty towns. According to historian Yael Allweil, the initial governmental response to the
immigrant challenge fell into three phases: first, a 1948–9 phase emphasizing occupation of vacated Arab
houses and agricultural land, and building of core self-help one-room ‘blockon’ dwellings; second, a short,
sharp turf war of 1949–51 between the government and world Jewry, represented by the Jewish Agency, over
control of immigrant rehousing, in which the government prevailed by providing over 44,000 temporary
shelter units in transit camps (maabara); and third, from 1951, the start of a strategic, permanent housing
programme, coupled with dispersal of the largely non-European immigrants (Mizrahi) into government-

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 Echoes of Empire: Postwar Housing in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa

planned ‘development towns’ spread across the country, at first mainly using expanded ‘blockon’ house types
of two storeys. In this third phase, the government’s freedom of action was enhanced by another emergency
colonial legacy, the overwhelming public ownership of land, covering 93% of the state territory, and overseen
by a government agency, the Israel Land Administration. The techniques and values of British regional
planning, another important colonial legacy, allowed chief planner Arieh Sharon to develop a national Master
Plan (1949–51) to help project Jewish settlement to the extremities of the new state territory. Its centrepiece,
the development towns programme, was inspired by the Mark I British New Towns, as well as interwar Soviet
industrial cities and Greek emergency resettlement towns, and replaced the agricultural kibbutz as the chief
instrument of land colonization. By 1964, over forty development towns had been established – many in far-
flung locations that later provoked charges of unsuitability and failure.19
A more central concern to the leaders of the new state was to safeguard housing production within the
chaotically evolving government structure. Given Israel’s small size and precarious status, it was assumed that
any solution to the immigrant housing crisis must be national rather than local in organization. The first
permanent organizational housing initiative came in 1949, in the first phase of government intervention,
when the government, the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Fund jointly established an arm’s-length
agency, Amidar, to oversee the management and building of publicly-funded housing, as well as dwellings
abandoned by the expelled indigenous Arab population. Amidar promptly began building numbers of low-
rise single-family immigrant homes, such as a 1,200-unit development of single-storey, two-room houses at
Rosh Ha’ayin in 1949–53, replacing an emergency tented camp. But at the same time, the Histadrut’s Hevrat
Shikun Housing Company (from 1954, renamed Shikun Ovdim, or ‘Workers’ Housing’) and many other semi-
public housing companies continued in operation. In Tel Aviv, with its complex land-ownership pattern, a
bewildering variety of hybrid public–private agencies was active, under the coordination of the City Engineer
and (pre-1948) the British Mandate authorities. Built outcomes included the Zeilenbau-plan Yad Eliahu
(‘Memorial to the Sons’) estate, built in 1945–50 for discharged soldiers, including exiled members of the
right-wing Etzer militia; or the similar Dafna (1945–8) for municipal employees and veterans. But as the
government retained ultimate ownership of all new public housing, it soon became clear that Amidar lacked
sufficient authority to unify housing production, although it dominated much public housing management
(see Fig. 15.3).20
Fortuitously, the central government structure included a housing department, and this was duly expanded
in November 1949 into a Housing Division within the Ministry of Labour, under minister Golda Myerson.
Under the third, permanent phase of government housing intervention, the Division rapidly mushroomed
into a central power-house agency in direct charge of everything relating to the planning, building and
ownership of public housing – an almost unique example of a central government ministry acting as a direct
executive authority over public housing without intermediaries. Between 1949 and 1955 the Housing Division
built over 30,000 units and the housing companies around the same, while 73% of all new permanent housing
enjoyed state financial support. This arrangement continued throughout the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s
period of statist Mapai dominance, punctuated by a double restructuring in 1961, which left the organization
as a fully-fledged Ministry of Housing.21
Throughout this period, the task of the Housing Division/Ministry remained unaltered: to help shape what
Myerson had dubbed the ‘new geography’ of Israel, some 40% of public housing output being concentrated in
remote areas and development towns away from the existing core. This was done chiefly through massed
building of permanent dwellings, designed by the Planning and Engineering Department and supervised by
the Execution Department, with a range of experienced contractors covering projects, including Rassco and
Solel Boneh (the contracting arm of Histadrut): 1950–62 duly saw a sharp decline in the proportion of
temporary housing within the overall national housing stock. Owing to the existential urgency of the

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A B

C D

E
Fig. 15.3 (a): A 1950s public exhibition of new Ministry of Housing designs, Israel.b, c): Yad Eliahu (‘Memorial to the
Sons’), Tel Aviv (1945–50): a hybrid public–private development for discharged soldiers, prepared by City Engineer Yacov
Shipman on a Zeilenbau plan: early 1950s aerial view, 2017 MG view. (d): Dafna estate, Tel Aviv, another low-rise Zeilenbau
example, built in 1945–8 for municipal employees and veterans (MG 2017). (e): Beersheva development town, Lt Gen Yitzhak
Sade Street, of 1957: four-storey Ministry project of housing blocks linked by staircase-towers and bridges (MG 2017).

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 Echoes of Empire: Postwar Housing in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa

immigrant crisis, the programme received resources far in excess of most developed countries, initially
absorbing some 30%–40% of the state development budget. Government contributions were paid as capital
grants, not loans, and additional subventions even covered many rental and maintenance costs – to the point
where some rents became purely symbolic. The programme faced steep rises in general building costs, by
322% between 1950 and 1955, a vast sum partly covered by German reparations and US aid, which boosted
the state’s finances from the mid-1950s. But it was also offset by another policy, paralleled in other countries
ranging from Singapore to Australia: that of selling recently-built dwellings to their occupants, aiming to
‘reroot’ immigrants in the ‘land of Israel’ through home-ownership while feeding back significant sums into
future housing construction, through overlapping waves of building and selling. As late as the 1970s, the
public sector still remained dominant within Israeli housing: Arab citizens of Israel, by contrast, were expected
to make their own housing arrangements, via the informal sector in existing settlements.22
Architecturally, despite the collectivist ethos of Israeli nationalism, the first generation of permanent schemes
(shikunim) continued the Garden City pattern favoured by the Yishuv pioneers since Patrick Geddes’s 1909 Tel
Aviv plan – whether in the small, detached ‘blokonim’ prevalent around 1949, or the two-storey terraces and
apartment blocks of the late 1940s and 1950s. Examples of the latter included the Histadrut’s Bizaron estate of
1949, built on Jewish National Fund land in Tel Aviv, or the detached two-storey blocks of Be’ersheva
neighbourhood A (1951–3), each containing four one-room flats: Be’ersheva was the most successful of the
development towns, the brainchild of long-standing Mayor David Tuviyahu, ex-chairman of the Negev branch
of Solel Boneh. The second phase of Israeli ‘shikun’ design, in the mid- and late 1950s, shifted decisively to a
mainstream CIAM modernist pattern of low-rise staircase-access blocks, as already anticipated in projects such
as Yad Eliahu, but now arranged explicitly in neighbourhood-unit (shchuna) form – for example at the Ministry’s
development at Ramat Aviv, master-planned from 1953 by Y. Perlstein and completed in the early 1960s.23
Almost immediately, more avant-garde designers within and outside the Ministry, inspired by Team 10
thinking, began to advocate denser, clustered planning, trialling these ideas in two experimental projects
planned in 1957–9 and built from 1960. In the development town of Kiryat Gat, a plan led by Ministry architect
Artur Glikson envisaged an ‘Integrative Habitation Unit’, with ‘urbanist’ nodes clustered around pedestrian
and vehicular cross-axes and a landmark tower.24 Similarly, in Be’ersheva, Shchuna E was designed as a ‘shikun
ledugma’ (model estate) by a joint team from consultants Tichnun (Planning) Ltd and the Ministry, aiming to
create ‘distinctly urban values’ through sharply contrasting house-types, ranging from a ‘quarter-kilometre’
five-storey slab-block with Corbusier-style pilotis and ramps (completed in 1962, by Avraham Yaski and
Amnon Alexandroni) to a densely gridded carpet of low-rise high-density patio houses (by Dani Havkin) (see
Fig. 15.4).25 Although Shchuna B of Be’ersheva (1967–76, by Arieh and Eldar Sharon) continued with carpet
planning and dense four-storey courtyard layouts, and Ram Karmi’s Negev Centre of 1969–71 echoed
Cumbernauld Town Centre in its stepped megastructure, the reality of most everyday Ministry shikunim of
the 1960s was the mainstream CIAM rectilinear formula of staircase-access blocks – as for example in
Be’ersheva’s Shchuna D (1964–8).26 However, planning frameworks in Jerusalem following the Israeli takeover
of the whole city in the 1967 Six-Day War reflected the ‘facts on the ground’ agenda in a very distinctive way.
Mayor Teddy Kollek’s master plan heavily promoted the ‘stone image’ of ‘old Jerusalem’ in all new developments,
including the many Jewish extension shikunim built in the occupied Arab parts of the city – notably French
Hill, with its dense network of low blocks and towers, or Ram Karmi’s Gilo Cluster 6, completed 1970.27
By the 1970s and 1980s, with mass immigration seemingly a thing of the past, the consensus that
undermined the Mapai era broke up, as the right-wing Herut/Likud grouping became more prominent, and
the assumption that public housing should lead all development disappeared. The percentage of Ministry-
built housing in national output plunged, with housing stock sales continuing even as new construction
diminished. By 1977, as in many Western countries, the emphasis was shifting towards rehabilitation of public

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A B

C D
Fig. 15.4 (a): Ramat Aviv, Einstein St 69–73, Ministry of Housing development master-planned from 1953 by Y. Perlstein:
gallery-access model shikun of 1959 designed by Ministry architects (MG 2017). (b, c): Kiryat Gat development town, No.
6 Experimental Habitational Unit, planned 1957–9 and built from 1960, architect in charge Artur Glikson: cover of
Ministry brochure of c. 1960 and 2017 view (MG) of pedestrian spine. (d, e, f): Beersheva, Shchuna (Neighbourhood) E,
model shikun built from 1960 to designs by Ministry architects and Tichnun (Planning) Ltd, aimed at creating ‘distinctly
urban values’: early 1960s layout plan, and 2017 (MG) views of long slab-block and low-rise high-density zone.

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 Echoes of Empire: Postwar Housing in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa

E F

G H

Fig. 15.4 (d, e, f): Continued. (g): Beersheva, Negev Centre (1969–71) by architect Ram Karmi: Cumbernauld-style
megastructure, including social housing (MG 2017). (h): Beersheva, Shchuna D (1964–8), a run-of-the-mill 1960s shikun
design by Ministry architects, with preponderance of staircase-access flats (MG 2017).

housing, with the start of ‘Project Renewal’, and public housing funding cuts in the 1970s and 1980s. In the
years 1989–94, the shock of an unexpected surge in immigration from the former Soviet Union radically
disturbed this pattern, and the government housing and planning apparatus responded with a bold emergency
strategy to accommodate the influx, headed by the swashbuckling and charismatic Likud housing minister
and ex-general, Ariel Sharon. His emergency housing drive relied largely on the private sector to physically
build the 103,000 dwellings that were said to be required – many located in low-demand remote development
towns such as Nazareth Illit or Carmiel (see Fig. 15.5). By the late 1990s, the impact of this immigration spike
had disappeared, and within Likud policymaking the emphasis shifted to the more gradual challenge of
infiltrating Jewish settler communities into the occupied West Bank. Methods for doing this were private-led,
stepping up from individual occupations by settler extremists, aiming to grab hilltops with Sharon’s covert
encouragement, to eventual large-scale developments of settler towns like Ma’ale Adumim (commenced in
1975 and largely complete in 1991) by private-sector builders: but massive Department of Housing financial
support indirectly underpinned everything.28

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Mass Housing

A B

C D
Fig. 15.5 (a): French Hill (Giv’at Shapira), Jerusalem, from 1970, built as part of the extension of Jewish settlement
beyond the ‘Green Line’ into East Jerusalem; faced in ‘traditional’ Jerusalem stone for ideological legitimation (MG 2017).
(b, c): Talpiyot East, Dov Gruner St, cluster development built by Shikun Ovdim in 1977 (MG 2013). (d): Talpiyot East,
early 1990s Amigur/Jewish Agency development, sponsored by the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, Baltimore;
part of Ariel Sharon’s drive to accommodate Russian immigrants (MG 2013).

Among the immediately adjacent Arab states, the country whose housing situation was most
significantly affected by the successive Arab-Israeli conflicts was Jordan, which had to cope with huge,
mushrooming refugee camps: only in the 1980s did a National Housing Corporation build home-ownership
schemes of up to 3,500 dwellings for middle-income employees, including both apartments and single-
family houses.29

India and South Asia: building on colonial bureaucracy

Unlike most of the Middle East, in southern Asia the postwar years saw an escalating rural-to-urban migration
crisis – compounded by intense refugee pressures – with mushrooming informal settlements the inevitable

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 Echoes of Empire: Postwar Housing in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa

result. In response, governments fell back on the bureaucratic and political traditions established under British
colonialism, especially in India itself. There the post-independence Congress Party government, headed from
1947 to 1964 by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and subsequently by Indira Gandhi (1966–77 and 1980–4),
initially favoured a socialist statist system, including five-year plans (from 1951), top-down development,
minimal regional power delegation and a multi-layered bureaucracy. Its key tasks were defined by Nehru
rather differently from contemporary Stalinist socialism, as ‘food, clothing and shelter’, and thus a significant
expenditure on social housing was assumed from the start, gradually declining over time – from 7% of the
total government budget in 1947 to only 1% by 1972. The public agencies responsible for building work,
including social housing, evolved out of the British colonial system: an engineer-led Public Works Department
(PWD ) undertook most government building work, in a hierarchical arrangement with a Delhi-based
Central PWD (CPWD) responsible for national projects, and separate state and local PWDs. Autonomous
government enterprises also built their own housing, including the state railways (276,000 dwellings, 1947–
51), the post office, municipal corporations, and the City Improvement Trusts that (by 1947) existed in Bombay,
Calcutta, Lahore and Delhi: in the years 1956–61, for example, ministries and state corporations planned to
build 753,000 dwellings. The result was highly polycentric, not unlike the USSR’s enterprise housing; the
housing developments were, significantly, named ‘colonies’ in English, ‘nagar’ in Hindi. Also making an
autonomous contribution were over 100 new towns, set up between 1949 and 1981 chiefly by state governments,
some mainly for refugees and others for planned industrial growth.30 The most ambitious, Chandigarh, was
begun on a superblock-cum-garden city plan developed by Albert Mayer and Albert Nowicki in 1949–50 in a
combination of modernist functionalism and Camillo Sitte-style street-picture compositions, but later
expanded by Le Corbusier into a more orthodox CIAM-style grid layout. Reflecting India’s strong social
stratification, Chandigarh’s residential areas contained low-rise detached and row-houses for thirteen grades
of government officials, designed in a brick modernist style, mainly by Pierre Jeanneret, chief architect to 1965,
with ‘jalis’ (decorative screens) referencing tradition; construction soon shifted to a systematized, rectilinear
approach, dictated by state PWD Chief Engineer P. L. Varma, and including some low-rise flats.31
Social housing colonies in India were chiefly a provincial state responsibility, and by the early 1970s large
numbers were being built by state housing boards. The main mechanisms by which the national government
influenced housing were legislation and prescriptive targets in the five-year plans. Immediately post-
independence, however, the Ministry of Rehabilitation intervened far more directly, building huge numbers of
urban refugee-housing units: 323,000 in five years, grouped in low-rise ‘plotted’ developments. The CPWD
also built many colonies for the post-independence army of civil servants and public employees.32 Immediately
following independence, more ambitious plans were vainly projected: Otto Koenigsberger was appointed
Federal Director of Housing, charged with establishing a government precasting factory in Delhi and planning
a sequence of new towns, but he had resigned by 1951 and nothing came of the prefabrication proposal, not
least because of India’s plentiful availability of labour. Subsequent attempts at federal-level housing coordination
included the 1947 establishment of a national building research organization within the Ministry of Works.
Other 1950s and 1960s federal enabling initiatives included the 1950 foundation of the Housing and Urban
Development Corporation (HUDCO), a funding agency to support state housing boards and improvement
trusts; the Slum Improvement and Clearance Areas Act of 1956; and the establishment of income-related
categories of housing programmes: Economically Weaker Section (EWS, for the poorest, in 1952), Low
Income Group (LIG, 1954) and Middle Income Group (MIG, 1959). The most radical federal intervention
occurred during Indira Gandhi’s 1975–77 emergency rule: the 1976 Urban Land (Ceiling and Requisition)
Act, intended to facilitate public-agency land-acquisition by capping individual urban landholdings at between
500m2 and 2,000m2. But in an illustration of the limitations of legislative action in India, despite its draconian
character, the ULCAR proved ineffective and was eventually repealed in 1999.33

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Capital colonies: post-independence Delhi

While many Indian cities undertook post-independence mass housing programmes, it was in Delhi and in
Bombay (Mumbai) that by far the most concerted efforts were made. These were motivated by two very different
contexts: in Delhi, a combination of organizational and emergency demographic pressures, and in Bombay, a
narrowly-constrained port location not unlike Singapore and Hong Kong. In Delhi, the overwhelming post-
independence pressure stemmed from the 1947 influx of refugees, when the city’s population soared from 0.7
to 1.7 million – a much less welcome influx from that so methodically accommodated in Israel. Nevertheless,
the new Ministry of Rehabilitation, working with the CPWD, Municipal Committee and Delhi Improvement
Trust, planned and developed a total of thirty-six ‘rehabilitation colonies’ on New Delhi’s periphery.34 At the
same time, the CPWD was busy building colonies for central-government civil servants.
In 1950, with the worst of the refugee emergency over, Nehru decided the capital required a more
coordinated planning and administrative regime. Following the recommendations of the Home Committee,
the DIT had been busy since 1937 developing 10,000 acres of land in areas such as Karol Bagh and Shahti
North, as well as clearances in areas such as Ajmeri Gate (from 1937). In 1950, Nehru set up the Birli Committee,
which recommended the establishment of two new authorities, both achieved in 1957: the Delhi Development
Authority, responsible for planning; and the Delhi Municipal Corporation, whose chief housing-related task
was slum-clearance.35 An overall planning strategy was contained in the Delhi Master Plan, prepared with
Ford Foundation help, published in 1959 and made statutory in 1962.36 From 1966, the DDA itself began
building housing, a shift reinforced in 1970, when the emphasis on ‘enabling’ plotted development was replaced
by direct construction of ‘group housing’ (in collective blocks) and construction by cooperatives on DDA-
allocated sites; by 1983, the Authority had acquired 45,000 acres overall.37 The DDA’s role culminated in the
Emergency years, when Indira Gandhi’s son Sanjay mandated it, in addition to its LIG/MIG work, to erase all
‘slums’ from Delhi in furtherance of civic beautification, and 300,000 families were rehoused in resettlement
colonies or sites-and-services plots. By 1986, the DDA’s own programme had built 125,000 units, mostly for
the low-income streams, but the affordability problem still remained, with its cheapest houses still too
expensive for LIG: some 50% of EWS/MIG/MIG units were rental and most others were occupied on a ten-
to fifteen-year instalment leasehold-purchase system. Delhi house-building by the late 1960s was divided five
equal ways, between plotted government development, sites-and-services, DDA group housing, government
employee housing and the private enterprise sector.38
Architecturally, unlike Bombay, and most mass-housing hot spots in this book, New Delhi’s plentiful land
supply ensured the garden-city model long prevailed – a conservative postcolonial equivalent to Soviet
Extensive Urbanism. The four-storey civil-service rental-apartment colony built in 1939–45 by wealthy
contractor and local politician Sir Sobha Singh at Sujan Singh Park, designed by architect Walter Sykes George,
was for years an aberration, with its gallery-access, modernist servants quarters and garages in Zeilenbau blocks
and more formal, classical, T-shaped main pavilions.39 The first CPWD colonies for middle-income civil
servants, such as Bapa and Kaka Nagar, or Lodi Colony (also designed by George), were smaller-scaled,
comprising two-storey blocks in an interwar-modernist flat-roofed style, with apartments usually of two rooms
and kitchen, and outside sleeping balcony.40 At Laxmibai Nagar, the CPWD built a 1,421-unit neighbourhood-
unit of two-storey civil-service flats, including a school and market: the tall, balcony-flanked stair towers and
shaded balconies accentuated the rakish Art Deco styling. The refugee rehabilitation colonies, planned by
government agencies’ chief architects, were more diverse in their low-rise architecture: colonies such as Lajpat
Nagar, Malviya Nagar or Tilak Nagar typically featured plotted sites of 60m2–70m2 (see Fig. 15.6).41
In the 1970s, very few mainstream DDA blocks, especially EWS/MIG, exceeded four storeys, owing partly
to the extra cost of lifts. Change had been signalled in the 1959–62 master plan, which proposed blocks up to

456
 Echoes of Empire: Postwar Housing in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa

A B

C D
Fig. 15.6 (a): Ajmeri Gate Improvement Scheme, Delhi: prototype DIT slum-clearance project, from 1937 (MG 2015).
(b): Sujan Singh Park, New Delhi, a pioneering civil servants’ rental colony, built in 1939–45 by contractor/politician Sir
Sabha Singh to designs by Walter Sykes George, with classical main pavilions and gallery-access servants’ blocks (pictured
here; photo 2017 by Gaurav Sharma). (c): Lodi Colony, New Delhi (1942), CPWD British civil service colony, designed by
William Henry Medd, containing mainly two-room apartments with sleeping balcony (MG 2015). (d): Laxmibai Nagar,
New Delhi, post-independence CPWD-designed 1950s neighbourhood unit of two-storey gazetted and non-gazetted
civil servants’ flats (MG 2015).

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Mass Housing

eight storeys in the central area – although the potential housing yield was curbed by Delhi Municipal
Corporation’s restriction of building-footprints to a maximum of one-third of site area. Reflecting India’s
association of higher blocks with higher incomes, the first tentative multi-storey public housing, during the
1960s, formed part of the CPWD’s building programme for elite government employees and was designed by
Habib Rahman, CPWD’s senior architect (1953–70) and chief architect (1970–4). Examples included the
Curzon Road hostels (1967), with separate rear servants’ dormitories, and the slightly earlier Section 13 of the
R. K. Puram Colony (completed in 1965). R. K. Puram was a vast expanse of two-storey civil-service
accommodation, but Section 13 broke from this sedate pattern by including eight-storey towers – still at an
overall density of only 75ppa. With the plentiful availability of building labour, simple reinforced-concrete-
frame with brick infill was used, with hints of Indian traditional style (encouraged by Nehru) being provided
by abstract-patterned concrete jaalis and ornamental reinforced-concrete balconies: the blocks’ luxury
character was emphasized by the inclusion of lifts and servants’ rooms (see Fig. 15.7).42
More complex architectural patterns, although no greater heights, were attempted in some cooperative
schemes developed following the 1970 policy shift towards ‘group housing’. Typically, these combined Western
medium-rise high-density complexity with evocations of Indian tradition. Noteworthy examples included
Ranjit Sabikhi’s Yamuna Apartments of 1973–80, built on a DDA-allocated site for a Tamil community housing
society, and featuring four intricate balcony-access blocks fanning out from a central spine; the Tara Group
Housing of 1975–8, by Charles Correa and Jasbir Sawney, a dense, brick four-storey conglomerate for
parliamentary employees; and the Sheikh Sarai colony by Raj Rewal, a low-rise (three-storey), high-density,
550-dwelling project of reinforced-concrete-frame construction with roughcast brick infill, built in 1982
for DDA on a self-financing basis.43 With the increase in low-rise DDA flat-building in the 1970s and
1980s, the Garden City colony model gradually disappeared from Delhi public housing – but the process took
a long time.

Bombay/Mumbai and MHADA: pressure-cooker building

Unlike Delhi’s vast spaces and dirigiste planning mechanisms, Bombay’s housing programme was more
constrained spatially – owing to the extreme crowding in the peninsular city, with its many cotton mills and
industrial sites – and more autonomously municipal-cum-provincial in its organization. Since the establishment
of the Bombay Improvement Trust (BIT) in 1898, local public agencies had stamped their mark on the
housing scene, usually through building four-storey tenements. In 1933, the BIT was amalgamated with the
municipality, and in 1949 the Bombay government founded the Bombay Housing Board to build houses for
industrial workers. From 1952 to 1969, the state housing board also developed EWS tenements. Finally, in
1976, during the Emergency, the state government set up a consolidated agency, the Maharashtra Housing and
Area Development Authority (MHADA), covering the entire state – including of course Bombay itself, where
the Bombay Housing Board was absorbed. MHADA was modelled on the low-income housing section of the
DDA: planning functions were covered by a new Bombay Metropolitan Region Development Authority
(BMRDA, later renamed MMRDA), which took charge of the vastly ambitious project, first mooted in 1964
by Charles Correa and others, to circumvent Bombay’s land shortages by building a new city, New Bombay
(Navi Mumbai), on the east side of the Thane Creek. Successive slum-clearance programmes completed the
picture, beginning in 1967 and overseen from 1973 by the Slum Improvement Board and from 1985 by the
Slum Upgradation Programme. The inevitable World Bank-financed 1980s turn to sites-and-services provided
85,000 serviced sites in 1985–94.44 In its first five years, MHADA’s own housing programme had an uncertain
start, with fewer than 3,000 completions annually, but it eventually built in Bombay/Mumbai a total of 205,000

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 Echoes of Empire: Postwar Housing in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa

A B

C D
Fig. 15.7 (a): Lajpat Nagar, New Delhi, house I-100: a rare surviving original house from one of the early post-
independence ‘refugee rehabilitation colonies’, built in 1947–55, with plotted sites of 60m2–70m2 (MG 2015). (b): The
CPWD’s Curzon Road civil service apartment complex, New Delhi (1967), designed by CPWD (under chief architect
Habib Rahman): the multi-storey slabs contained the officials’ flats, while servants’ quarters were in low barrack blocks at
the rear (MG 2015). (c): R. K. Puram Sector 1, New Delhi, CPWD low-rise flats containing mainly two- and three-room
civil servants’ flats, built from the late 1950s (MG 2015). (d, e): R. K. Puram Sector 13 (Multi-Storey), CPWD eight-storey
towers for civil servants designed by Rahman’s staff and completed in 1965: external view and upper-floor staircase-hall
(with jaali screen) of Type VI Y-plan block (MG 2015).

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E F

G H

Fig. 15.7 (d, e): Continued. (f): Yamuna Apartments, New Delhi (1973–80), designed by Ranjit Sabikhi on a
DDA-allocated site, for a Tamil community housing association (MG 2015). (g): Tara Group Housing, New Delhi
(1975–8), designed by Charles Correa and Jasbir Sawney as housing for parliamentary employees (MG 2015). (h): Sheikh
Serai Colony, New Delhi (1982), designed by Raj Rewal and built for DDA as a self-financing development (MG 2015).

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 Echoes of Empire: Postwar Housing in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa

dwellings by 2009, mostly for rental: 85% were intended for EWS, LIG and slum-related schemes.45 As in
Delhi, other agencies played a significant role, including employee housing by the port trusts, Indian Railways
and the Reserve Bank, while some slum upgradation was executed through cooperative societies founded by
inhabitants in negotiation with MHADA.46
Architecturally, New Delhi’s stately garden city pattern would have been impractical here, and Bombay’s
greater density had already prompted pre-war higher-income experiments with cooperative apartment blocks.
For lower-income groups, the ‘chawl’ pattern of internal corridor-access tenements, pioneered at Chandanwadi
Chawls in 1904 or BDD’s Worli Chawls in 1923–5, no longer seemed hygienic, and more spacious patterns
were experimented with; the expense of lifts continued to be a substantial deterrent (see Fig. 15.8).47 Typical
of the BHB’s early post-independence output was the Tilak Nagar colony, built in 1948–54 for subsidized
rental to textile and other industrial workers: its three-storey U-shaped balcony-access chawls contained one-
room-and-kitchen dwellings with communal WCs. Eventually, the predominant pattern in Bombay public
housing was that of balcony-access tenement blocks of three to five storeys. Later schemes included the
Housing Board’s Kannamwar Nagar of 1970–4, with four- to five-storey blocks around an oval maidan in an
evocation of garden-city planning, while the Bombay Port Trust’s 1970s Wadala Colony featured four-storey
staircase-access tenement blocks of 49m² flats.48
In Navi Mumbai, where the initial on-the-ground development work was devolved to the City and
Industrial Development Company (CIDCO), established in 1970, the lesser density pressures and higher-
income aspirations allowed a slightly more experimental approach to housing development – inspired partly
by a pioneering stepped-section private project by Charles Correa (from 1970). The first housing area
commenced by CIDCO, Vashi Section I (1971–2), included an innovative experiment in LIG housing using
large-panel prefabrication. Designed by architect Shirish Patel, it comprised architecturally unremarkable
five-storey sectional-plan tenement blocks, built by contractor Shah Construction using a tracked-crane
assembly system, but after only six buildings had been completed, the order was rescinded, nullifying the
programme’s economic basis (see Fig. 15.9).49
Elsewhere in South Asia, uncontrolled rural-to-urban migration and refugee crises were tackled using
similar policies, but often without the organizational infrastructure available in Indian cities: many projects
were swamped by excess demand. In post-partition Pakistan, a Housing and Settlements Directorate (HSD)
rehoused refugees. In East Pakistan/Bangladesh, the largest state housing project was the satellite town of
Mirpur, near Dhaka, planned as a satellite town combining semi-detached ‘core houses’ and plotted sites for
some 150,000 inhabitants; eventually, a mere 3,180 one-roomed, unserviced houses were built, and HSD’s
allocations were taken over by middlemen for overcrowded, illegal subletting.50 In Ceylon (Sri Lanka), the
more peaceful post-1947 conditions made possible a more organized housing programme, similar to India’s,
with the Ministry of Housing and Construction supervising a middle-class home-ownership condominium
scheme and the Department of National Housing, working with state banks, building new LIG and MIG
rental units. Built outcomes included four-storey flats in Colombo for middle-grade civil servants; slum-
clearance flats, mostly of four storeys (with one eight-storey block entered via a fourth-floor ramp, to obviate
lifts); and mainstream rental flats, such as MIG Zeilenbau slabs at Naralapita or five-storey LIG at Maligawatte.
In 1973, the DNH began a large-scale aided self-help programme.51

Sub-Saharan Africa: colonialism’s last stand

In sub-Saharan Africa, the colonizers’ continuing influence was stronger than in India, as the weakness of the
postcolonial states, both in government and in the private-sector economy, allowed continued external

461
Mass Housing

A B

C D

E F
Fig. 15.8 (a): MHADA Headquarters, Bandra, Mumbai (MG 2014). (b): Western Railway Colony, Ville Parle, Mumbai,
balcony-access chawls of 1952 (MG 2014). (c): Tilak Nagar Colony, Mumbai, a three-storey U-plan complex built in 1948
by the Bombay Housing Board for rental to textile workers (MG 2014). (d): Sahakar Nagar No 1, Mumbai, HIG colony
built in 1954 by BHB: date plaque (Building 9, Flat 103, Sector 108, 1954) (MG 2014). (e, f): Sahakar Nagar Rd No 4
(1961), BHB chawls, external view and balcony (MG 2014).

462
 Echoes of Empire: Postwar Housing in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa

A B

C D
Fig. 15.9 (a): Kannamwar Nagar, Mumbai (1970–4), BHB colony planned around an oval maidan (MG 2014). (b): The
Bombay Port Trust’s Wadala Colony, 1970s staircase-access tenement blocks (MG 2014). (c): Vashi Sector 1, Navi Mumbai,
five-storey staircase-access flats built by CIDCO in 1971–2; architect Shirash Patel and contractor Shah Ltd, using the
‘UCOPAN universal concrete panel system’ (MG 2014). (d): Mirpur zone, Dhaka, East Pakistan, Housing and Settlements
department part-plan of ‘satellite town’, plotted out for ‘core houses’ for 150,000, of which only 3,180 units were built as
planned.

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influence via the public sector and overseas aid system. Initially, colonial restrictions on rural-to-urban
migration continued, supporting a privileged urban sector and a growing middle class to replace the
expatriates – a system that generated extensive programmes of subsidized public-sector middle-income
housing, to replace old-style employers’ housing. From the 1960s, the lifting of restrictions on labour
movement, and the shift of emphasis in employment creation, both led to a sudden boom in the informal
sector and broke down the sharp urban–rural divide. Previously, urban residence in sub-Saharan Africa
had been widely perceived as temporary, with a concomitantly greater willingness to rent (unlike Latin
America’s universal desire for home-ownership). The explosion of informal urbanism provoked diverse
responses, ranging from repressive clearance programmes in settler societies to more laissez-faire solutions
in non-settler nations. Significant public housing programmes in postwar sub-Saharan Africa were
normally confined to the most highly-urbanized countries, such as Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Ghana – or
South Africa. Owing to the scattered distribution of these programmes, it is not possible here to talk of any
generalized pattern of mass-housing microecologies in the entire region. Architecturally, most low-income
mass housing was low-density and only one- or two-storeyed, with tall apartment blocks confined to the
better-off.52
In the Belgian territory of the Congo, for example, a postwar economic boom attracted many European
immigrants. In the capital, Léopoldville (Kinshasa), new apartments for European civil servants included eight
seven-storey blocks, each of twenty-eight flats, built by architect P. Copaye at a main junction in 1951–2 in
‘chromatic’ Zeilenbau; the colonial Congolese government also created ‘fonds d’avance’ to subsidize the
building of detached houses, inspired by Belgian home-ownership ideological precedent. For African
inhabitants of the Congo, the newly-created Office des cités africaines (OCA) built 40,000 dwellings in 1952–
60, during a ten-year national development programme, which involved a government-directed shift of
African housing from private employers to the state. Most of these developments were rural and built in
village-scale groups of one- and two-storey parallel blocks; they would house ‘évolués’ (Europeanized
Africans), while the ‘non-évolués’ would stay in their bidonvilles. In Léopoldville, where the African
population had tripled in the 1940s, reaching 180,000 by 1948, largely housed in a sprawl of bidonvilles,
development was concentrated in satellite towns for ‘évolués’ and Europeans, the first comprising five
neighbourhoods of modern Zeilenbau civil servants’ flats, as well as self-build houses reflecting Belgian
Catholic ‘family’ ideology. In the 1950s, the national transport corporation, Otranco, built OCA-style cités for
its African employees and ‘logements’ for European workers. The African cités included ineffective attempts at
prefabricated systems, including the 45ha Cité Nicolas Cito, whose radiating pentagonal plan clustered public
services at the centre.53
In Lusophone Africa, expectation of ongoing colonial rule prolonged postwar house-building efforts. In
1944, the Portuguese government created a Gabinete de Urbanização Colonial (Colonial Urbanization Office),
and in the Angolan capital, Luanda, a 1942 outline plan and 1962 master plan proposed a ring of satellites and
ambitious redevelopments of shanty towns (musseques), including new settlements on paired European-
African lines, like Chevallier’s in Algiers. The Prenda neighbourhood plan of 1961, developed by a multi-
disciplinary team under F. S. de Carvalho, envisaged a network of neighbourhoods: No. 1 (for 1,150 dwellings
on 30 hectares) included tall blocks of twelve and sixteen storeys, in a modernist rectilinear layout. Despite the
high hopes, the huge rural-to-urban influx triumphed here too, and the tall blocks of Neighbourhood 1 were
soon swamped by fresh musseques.54
As we will see shortly, an alternative formula of development-aid from the old colonizers also flourished in
Africa from the late 1950s: the Soviet-orchestrated system of ‘mutual economic assistance’. By the later 1970s,
however, this, too, was on the retreat and a general move towards aided self-help was underway – a policy shift
that in some countries, such as Ethiopia, took on a surprisingly authoritarian character.55

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‘Progressive’ housing decolonization in Francophone Africa

The strongly-coordinated character of Francophone colonial housing policy was established early on, with the
1926 establishment of OHE (Economic Housing Office) to promote low-income colonial housing; a French
equivalent to Britain’s Colonial Development and Welfare, FIDES (the Fund for Economic and Social
Development) was set up in 1946. After World War II, and especially after Gaston Defferre’s 1956 Loi-cadre
inaugurated full-scale decolonization, an active social-housing policy emerged in key Francophone African
territories. The first beneficiary of late-colonial French housing intervention was Senegal, where 1949 saw
establishment of SICAP, an agency charged with social housing construction for middle-income groups in
Dakar. Following independence in 1960, a new OHLM for low-cost housing was funded by a 2% salary tax
and state subsidies. The programme was directed in detail by French planners and architects, and in 1963,
Senegal’s first president, Léopold Senghor, appointed Écochard as ‘general consultant for habitat’. The results
were patchy, with around 12,000 dwellings built by SICAP and OHLM combined, especially in Dakar (e.g.
the ninety-eight-dwelling Cité Asecna of 1955–8, near the airport).56
But by that date, in Côte d’Ivoire, a far more ambitious housing policy was also underway. Côte d’Ivoire, like
Senegal, was a member of the 1958 Communauté française and gained independence in 1960. A Gaullist-style
presidential republic, it was ruled for its first thirty-six years by the charismatic Félix Houphouët-Boigny. His
strategy of smallholder-led agricultural expansion, aided by low export taxes, made it an economic powerhouse
of West Africa, with a growth rate of over 7% per annum and social policies unparalleled in the region, fuelled
by key values of French republicanism. This ‘Ivorian miracle’ was aided by an extensive infrastructure of
French technical support: unlike the Algerian exodus, the number of French technicians rose from 30,000 in
1958 to 60,000 in 1980. However, the economy deteriorated sharply from the 1980s, with falling global coffee
and cocoa prices. Houphouët-Boigny’s housing policies reflected this heady climate: uniquely in ‘black Africa’,
he set out to eradicate all shanty towns (referred to as both ‘bidonvilles’ and ‘taudis’) and relocate their
inhabitants to high-quality, low-rent ‘habitats modernes’, especially in the capital, Abidjan: rent controls were
introduced in 1970. In 1965, Houphouët-Boigny pledged at the Congress of the Democratic Party of Côte
d’Ivoire (PDCDI) to eliminate all ‘taudis’ in ten years, to guarantee ‘chaque citoyen, un toit’ (a roof over each
citizen’s head). The results were impressive: in Abidjan, between 1951 and 1976, 90,000 people were displaced
by demolitions, and construction climaxed in the 1970s, when 40,000 low-cost public housing units were built
in the capital. Yet not even this could keep pace with Abidjan’s mushrooming growth, with population doubling
every seven years between 1945 and 1985 (see Fig. 15.10).57
Supporting Houphouët-Boigny’s ‘dash for output’ was ‘la présence française’ in the form of the French
development agencies, which backed up the republican ideal of (in CDC’s words) ‘a pro-active public policy
of housing for all’: for them, Côte d’Ivoire was an invaluable ‘test-bench for mass construction’ in France as
much as the colonies. SCET began working in Côte d’Ivoire after 1958, when Jean Millet, the country’s
expatriate Minister of Public Works, introduced SCET director-general Léon-Paul Leroy to Houphouët-
Boigny: the latter declared that ‘we still need France, even though we’re now independent’, and the French
pledged to ‘help get started’ with Abidjan’s reconstruction. SCET-Coop played the role of development
springboard, and by 1973 the country accounted for 12% of the agency’s turnover, with thirty-two French
expert technicians working in its local office. To implement the house-building programmes, SCET and
SCET-Coop spawned a welter of sociétiés immobilières (property enterprises) on the French arm’s-length
model. This began with SCET’s 1959 creation of SUCCI, a national planning and construction agency,
56%-owned by CCCE and CDC. In 1965, SUCCI was swallowed up by a new SCET-coordinated super-
agency, SICOGI (Société ivoirienne de construction et de gestion immobilière: Ivorian Housing Construction
and Management Society), forming ‘une véritable petite SCIC’. SICOGI, majority-owned by the Ivorian state,

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A B

C D
Fig. 15.10 (a): Typical late 1950s development designed and built by the Office des cités africaines (OCA) in the Belgian
Congo as part of the ten-year developmental investment programme in the last decade of colonial rule. (b): Type FA 34
individual patio dwelling designed in 1958 by the OCA architectural and planning service for African ‘évolués’ in
Elisabethville. (c): Late 1950s OCA ‘évolué’ settlement in Stanleyville. (d): The Ivorian president, Félix Houphouet-Boigny,
and his wife, seen with Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion on a visit to Israel in the early 1960s.

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E F

G
Fig. 15.10 (e): Le Grand Bloc (‘Les 220 logements’), Adjamé, Abidjan, courtyard-plan prestige apartment project built
by SUCCI in 1960–1 for location-vente (purchase by instalments). (f, g): Yopougon, Abidjan, low-rise high-density
courtyard houses built by SICOGI in the 1970s.

grew rapidly, its workforce mushrooming to over a thousand in 1979. Confusingly, a second national société
immobilière, SOGEFIHA (Société de gestion financière de l’habitation: Housing Financial Management
Society), was then established in 1963, specializing in construction for state employees. SICOGI was
consistently preeminent in output, peaking at 5,000 dwellings annually by the mid-1970s: by then it had
housed 10% of Abidjan’s population. Per capita, its programme was four times larger than its nearest equivalent
in Anglophone Africa, the National Housing Corporation in Kenya – which, by then, was the other main sub-
Saharan country enjoying consistent export-led prosperity. Tenurially, the Ivorian societies built
overwhelmingly for rental (location-simple), with a minority, typically 20%, for purchase by instalments
(location-vente).58
The built outcomes of this (for Africa) huge programme were very different from the monumental grands
ensembles of the ‘métropole’ or even Algiers – although a planning framework of peripheral ‘zones d’habitation’
was presaged in Abidjan’s 1948–51 development plan (the ‘plan Bodoni’). Within the low-rental public sector
(logements économiques), a high proportion comprised single-storey row-houses, often planned around
communal courtyards of between six and ten dwellings, in an echo of traditional semi-collective patterns. Of
SICOGI’s 1983 dwelling stock of 23,755 units, 78% were single-storeyed. As often, in Africa, high densities,
high-rise and ostentatious modernism were the preserve of the better-off. The public-housing flagship was
located on a dramatically free-standing site in the new suburb of Adjamé, planned by SCET-Coop. This

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location-vente development, the so-called ‘220 logements’ project of 1960–1, a five-storey rectangular open
courtyard, was built by SUCCI and financed by CDC (two-thirds) and CCCE (one-third). Later, a visual
punctuation was provided by twelve-storey towers providing high-prestige rental ‘logements de haut standing’.
Especially important was Yopougon, located in the far west of the capital. Here, ultimately, 40% of Abidjan’s
logements économiques and over 50% of SICOGI’s output were located. This was a 1970s grand ensemble,
but following a Moroccan rather than metropolitan precedent. A low-rise high-density formula of single-
storey courtyard dwellings predominated, alongside conventional row houses, many built by SOGEFIHA in
Siporex blockwork, as part of Côte d’Ivoire’s restrained dalliance with system-building. Although originally
targeted at skilled, state-employed workers rather than ‘the poor’, rentals at Yopougon were low, and fixed at 1%
of construction cost. The rent for a two-room dwelling averaged 9,000F, plus 50,000F entry deposit, compared
to a 12,500F average for SICOGI/SOGEFIHA houses of that size. Most dwellings in Yopougon were of three
or four rooms, as five-to-ten-person families were the norm.59
The ‘belle époque’ of Yopougon, and of Ivorian social housing altogether, was celebrated in Marguerite
Abouet and Clément Oubrerie’s famous cartoon series, ‘Aya de Yopougon’, set in 1978. But by then, the country’s
fortunes, following the price of cocoa and coffee, were on the slide, as underlying productivity deficiencies
were exposed. As early as 1975, CCCE terminated its subsidies for new house-building, just as the World
Bank’s support of sites-and-services expanded. In the same year, subsidies to SOGEFIHA ended and by 1979
both it and SICOGI had stopped building; SOGEFIHA was subsequently liquidated altogether. Like some of
its First World equivalents, Houphouët-Boigny’s mass housing was stymied not just by financial cutbacks but
also by environmental degradation in the 1980s, here due to subsequent migrant waves and rampant subletting.
Once criticized as too expensive and elitist, the multi-tenant courtyards of the logements économiques now
became overcrowded and squalid – a slide downwards that ended in the 2011 civil war.60

Divide and rule? Segregation and mass housing in ‘British’ Africa

In Anglophone sub-Saharan Africa, the English tradition of spatial segregation via planning-led garden-city
‘locations’ continued after World War II, as did local authorities’ prominence: parts of ‘British Africa’ proved to
be surprising strongholds of ‘council housing’. But this tradition now diverged into two contrasting streams of
ideology and practice. The first was the dominant theme of decolonization, nudged forward from London by
the official CDW apparatus of guided developmentalism, imported to West Africa by Max Fry and others in
the mid-1940s and matured under the guidance of the Overseas Development Ministry’s Africa chief, Andrew
Cohen.61 Here, G. A. Atkinson’s efforts were central, including the 1955 launch of a Building Research Station-
supported African international committee on housing in Accra, or the early promotion of aided self-help,
which, he argued in 1955, was especially suited to Africa, owing to its low incomes.62 Here the building of
public housing was usually reserved for privileged groups and comprised low-rise individual houses or flats
– modest efforts that were swamped by rural-to-urban migration in the 1960s and 1970s, and were replaced
by informal housing or sites-and-services interventions. The second, very different outcome of the British
planned spatial segregation tradition unfolded in apartheid South Africa, and, partly, in UDI Rhodesia (1965–
80). Here, the aim was to reinforce rather than dissolve colonial and state power, with modernist mass housing
and planning supporting an elaborate policy of racial segregation designed to stem the flow of migration –
although the built outcomes, the ‘Bantu locations’, were far from modernist in style, being planned on simplified
garden city lines, with very small detached houses.
There were, of course, overlaps: in most countries, segregation of African workers into rental housing
provided by employers, local authorities or governments continued even after independence. In Zambia, for

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example, in 1980 as much as 60% of formal urban housing was rented. But paralleling this was a shift towards
low-cost home-ownership. Reflecting the liberalization of late colonial government and loosening of the pass
laws to allow development of a settled African urban population, efforts began to facilitate distinctively African
urban housing patterns by relaxing building regulations and developing hybrid building-patterns – with aided
self-help one logical ultimate outcome of all this.63 A crucial case was 1940s Zanzibar, where efforts by Chief
Secretary Eric Dutton (1945–58) to enforce slum resettlement into segregated ‘model neighbourhoods’ were
blocked by African resistance.64 As in Côte d’Ivoire, the only countries that could develop bolder public
housing initiatives were those that enjoyed commodity-led prosperity booms – but these upswings always
proved transitory.
The most emblematic of these was Ghana (Gold Coast), whose post-independence leader, Kwame
Nkrumah, like Nasser in the Arab world, cast himself as father-figure of a distinctively African socialism,
based on import-substitution industrialization. Ghana’s interventive economic modernization approach had
been anticipated by interwar governor Gordon Guggisberg, beginning with a ten-year development
programme in 1921–31, and the country’s allodial (community-based) land-ownership system prevented
significant squatter problems from developing, while allowing large-scale state land acquisition. In the capital,
Accra, home-ownership was low by African standards, at 16%, while state-owned land accounted for 67% of
the total, and the city’s population soared from 62,000 in 1931 to 288,000 in 1957 and 564,000 in 1970;
eventually Ghana’s 2001 urbanization level, 36%, was second only to Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire (39%).65
After independence in 1954, Ghana enjoyed a significant economic surplus, and Nkrumah prioritized new
public housing over aided self-help, which he distrusted as a colonialist ruse to maintain Ghana’s dependence
– despite Atkinson’s pleas that self-help home-ownership would ‘promote social harmony, in family and
society’. Overall, housing (including slum clearance) received 6.5% of state spending allocations in 1957–66.
Nkrumah’s preferred instrument for developmental modernization was the state-owned corporation. Three
were of central importance to housing: the Tema Development Corporation, established in 1952 on the model
of a British new-town corporation to develop a new port city east of Accra; the Gold Coast Housing
Corporation, founded in 1955–6 (and renamed the ‘State Housing Corporation’ in 1965) as an overarching
housing authority; and the Ghana National Construction Corporation (later the State Construction
Corporation), which acted as monopoly designer-contractor for public projects. ‘Council housing’ was less
prominent in Ghana, and the GCHC/SHC received 80% of all government housing funds between 1955 and
1981; but partly owing to excessively high standards and costs it only succeeded in building 23,000 dwellings,
its all-time maximum being 2,000 in 1974; the TDC built almost as much, 16,779 in 1952–75. Accordingly,
alongside this output, significant grant-aid help was given to self-built housing, chiefly for rental rather than
owner-occupation, in continuation of a programme that had been running since 1945, alongside government-
built rental houses for police, military and public servants. However, by the mid-1960s, the Ghanaian economy
was already in trouble, with falling cocoa prices, and after the overthrow of Nkrumah’s Convention People’s
Party (CPP) in 1966, a highly unstable governmental regime depressed output: in 1972, the National
Redemption Council, led by Colonel T. K. Acheampong, briefly set up a well-budgeted ‘Low-Cost Housing
Project’, which succeeded in building some 6,000 dwellings in three years (albeit only 25% of a larger target),
but this ‘blip’ faded again under the regime of Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings (from 1979). By the early 1980s
the NHC was producing only 200 dwellings annually, and the development of Tema New Town had largely
stalled.66
Architecturally, Ghana’s shift from communal to nuclear-family life was reflected in a straightforward
evolution from semi-collective house-groups to more self-contained single-family dwellings – with apartments
ruled out for low-income occupancy.67 Almost all postwar public housing was therefore single-storeyed, in
conjunction with innovative hybrid building systems using local materials. In the Ashanti capital, Kumasi,

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engineer Alfred ‘Bunny’ Alcock pioneered a system of concrete-stabilized earth blocks (‘landcrete’), which was
employed alongside cement-block construction in developments of self-built rental houses at Asawasi (1,313
houses) and Suntreso (1,200) in 1949–56. The 1950s saw a frenzy of experiments in industrial or hybrid
building techniques, following a 1952 report by Arthur Lewis on building-industry modernization.68 The only
significant dalliance with Western building systems was an involvement with the Dutch Schokbeton, which
shipped 143 single-storey houses to Ghana in 1952 and established a joint company, African Concrete
Products, in 1956. Several dozen further Schokbeton houses were built in Accra, Kumasi and Takoradi,
alongside Swedish timber-prefabricated houses: but they proved a costly fiasco, at $7,000 each, leading to the
commissioning of a United Nations consultancy report by Abrams, Beaudoin and Koenigsberger that
recommended a shift in state support to aided self-help (see Fig. 15.11).69
The most innovative housing development in Ghana in both planning and architecture was the new town
of Tema, developed from 1955 on a 64-square-mile site. An initial plan by Alcock envisaged Mk. I New Town-
style neighbourhood units, along with a detached village development of basic dwellings in Tema Manhean by
Fry and Drew. In 1959, reflecting the progress of decolonization from Britain, Tema’s planning was reallocated
to Doxiadis, who proposed instead an open grid of twenty-four communities, enveloping the Alcock
neighbourhoods. By 1966, TDC had completed 10,700 dwellings in five neighbourhoods, of which 6,355 were
rental public housing and – the remainder home-ownership, again mostly single-storeyed; post-Nkrumah, the
emphasis in Tema shifted away from direct provision altogether. Ghana also benefited from significant Soviet
mutual-assistance projects, arranged on a barter-trading basis in exchange for agricultural produce: these
included a $5.5 million concrete precasting factory, built in 1963; proposed large-panel developments for
33,000 inhabitants in Accra and Tema, co-organized by Gosstroi and the GNCC and using modified I-464
series flats designed in Moscow, were cancelled after Nkrumah’s fall in 1966.70
Elsewhere in ‘British’ Africa, more modest programmes prevailed. In Nigeria, independent from 1960, the
preceding years had seen well-intentioned but small-scale state interventions. Although a Lagos Executive
Development Board had been founded in 1928, the first housing schemes there only began after 1951,
including Surulere (rental, 1955) and Yula (for sale), plus scattered rehousing schemes on Lagos Island; in
1951–72 the LEDB only built 7,000 dwellings, largely for civil servants. Abundance of land and lack of flat-
living tradition dictated that low-income housing largely comprised cottages, with multi-storey blocks
reserved for the middle classes: the only high-rise publicly-built housing, the five twelve-storey Burbeach
Towers, were for civil servants only. Only once Nigeria’s oil boom was underway, in 1972, was the scope of
public housing broadened to the general population, when LEDB and the Western Nigeria Housing Company
merged into a unitary State Development and Property Company. Its peak output years were 1979–83, but
although 50,000 dwellings were planned, only 16,000 had been completed by 1987, mostly for owner-
occupation; most Lagos citizens continued to live in informal rental housing, and the trend of policy was
towards sites-and-services.71
In East Africa, the wartime shift from ‘trusteeship’ to ‘development’ models had prompted rapid abandonment
of the old segregated system of temporary urban residence and dormitory accommodation for ‘bachelor’
African males, and a 1940s–1950s move by local and central authorities to provide ‘African family
accommodation’. In Kenya, where settler rule was most intransigent, and where the Mau Mau rebellion had
flared in 1952–60, Nairobi City Council had already built rental housing for African staff between the wars
(designed by the City Engineer); 1945–6 saw the first City Council scheme for family accommodation, at
Ziwani, where terraces of small stone-built houses, averaging 19m² in area, were laid out in garden-suburb
fashion around a village green, with community amenities. By the late 1950s, family accommodation was also
built in low-rise flats, as at Ofafa Maringo (1958 – two storeys, again stone-built) or Kariokor (four storeys,
concrete-framed). The East Africa Railway also experimented with three-storey gallery-access modernist

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 Echoes of Empire: Postwar Housing in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa

A B

C D

E F
Fig. 15.11 (a): Asawasi neighbourhood (Block X), Kumasi, one-room labourers’ lines (1949–56), constructed of
landcrete with lean-cement roof tiles: designer Alfred Alcock (MG 2015). (b): South Suntreso, Kumasi, a mid-1950s self-
built blockwork house H.10 (originally rental, later home-ownership): external view including the owner, Mrs Felicia
Apenteng (right), with Prof. Ola Uduku (MG 2015). (c): North Suntreso, Kumasi (Pine Avenue and Owusu Street),
Schokbeton houses built c. 1956 (MG 2015). (d): North Suntreso, Kumasi, Swedish Timber houses built c. 1956 (MG
2015). (e): Tema New Town, Manhean Village: low-rise village development of grouped ‘compound’ plan houses (1951–9),
designed by consultants Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew (MG 2015). (f): Mombasa, gallery-access ‘junior flats’ built by the
East African Railway for its workers in the late 1950s.

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‘junior flats’ for its workers in Mombasa in the late 1950s. By 1955, nearly 20,000 units had been built in
African locations in Nairobi, of which 31% were City Council-built flats. In 1953, as part of the colonial
government’s political concessions to the demands of the Kenyan African Union (KAU), a Central Housing
Board was set up, with CDW support, to coordinate financial aid for African rental, home-ownership and
tenant-purchase housing.72
With the achievement of Kenyan independence under President Jomo Kenyatta in 1963, the CHB was
expanded and renamed the National Housing Corporation, while 1967 saw the establishment of a Housing
Finance Company of Kenya (HFCK) to support owner-occupation. Like Nkrumah in Ghana, Kenyatta
opposed aided self-help and instead favoured aggressive squatter redevelopments – most famously in 1970 in
Nairobi City Council’s bulldozing of nearly 7,000 dwellings in the Eastleigh district. NHC-sponsored housing
construction reached an annual maximum of 2,000, and by 1976 the City Council had built 20,700 units,
including 16,600 rental, 2,900 tenant-purchase and 1,200 sites-and-services: the most publicized example of
the latter was the Dandora project of 1976 onwards, but the programme eventually mutated into a vehicle for
ultra-high-density informal building of private rental tenements. In the socialist Tanzania of Julius Nyerere,
where urban land was nationalized in the 1960s, a similar NHC was established earlier, in 1963, but only 5,700
dwellings had been built by 1969, 70% of these for slum replacement in Dar es Salaam. In the 1980s, with
annual production down to only 100 units, and sites-and-services programmes in full flow under World Bank
pressure, the NHC was wound up by the government. The real focus of the Nyerere government’s interventions
was rural: the ‘ujumaa’ village-relocation and social engineering programme of 1973–7.73 Conversely, in the
overwhelmingly rural society of Uganda, the chief role of public housing was one of urbanization, through
garden-city settlements, as previously recommended by Ernst May in his 1945 report on Kampala: here the
usual pattern of isolated modernist blocks for expatriates or government elites continued, while African
housing was built in low-density townships, such as Jinja (1949–54) or Nakuru (1949–62).74 In British Southern
Africa, the tradition of employer-provided hostel accommodation still persisted, but some governments off set
this by large-scale low-rise family housing construction, for instance in Northern Rhodesia, where the PWD
built 17,133 dwellings, mostly small and rudimentary, between 1948 and 1954, at low densities of 7.5 dwellings
per acre. Others resorted early to aided self-help, especially Malawi, where a Temporary Housing Area sites-
and-services programme, for rental rather than owner-occupation, was started in 1955 and accelerated after
1957 by the Malawi Housing Corporation: only after 1977 did the Banda government redevelop these
temporary areas with permanent housing.75
The most politically infamous territory in ‘British’ Southern Africa was Southern Rhodesia, whose white
settler elite broke from colonial rule in 1965 under ‘UDI’ and were only brought to heel with majority rule in
1979–80. Here, however, postwar housing policies did not significantly diverge from the developmental norms
of decolonization: there was no turn to full-scale residential apartheid. In 1955, the colonial government had
proposed a five-year, 3,000-unit urban home-ownership programme, in houses built both by the local
authorities and by aided self-help, aiming to ‘establish a body of industrialized Africans’. In the capital, Salisbury
(Harare), the drive for ‘cheap native housing’ for large families was especially vigorous from the early 1950s,
and a range of home-ownership schemes was developed, under which Africans could acquire leasehold land
and houses in designated urban areas – beginning with the single-storey detached and semi-detached houses
of the Highfield estate (previously low-rental only, and subsequently a redoubt of the ‘armed struggle’).76
Under UDI, this policy continued and evolved into a freehold-dominated exercise, encompassing the building
of entire dormitory towns for Africans, at a time when the pressures of the insurgency war were driving
increasing numbers of refugees to Salisbury: the largest was Chinungwiza, built from 1974. In 1988, post-
independence, Harare’s ‘African’ housing comprised nearly 100,000 dwellings, of which 60,000 were freehold.
However, by 1979, a wholesale shift to sites-and-services was already dwarfing all else here too.77

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South Africa: segregated housing in a siege society

The hesitant departures from decolonization housing norms attempted by the short-lived racialist regime in
Rhodesia contrasted starkly with the position in South Africa, where the post-1948 apartheid years saw not
the dismantling but the radical reinforcement of a half-century-old policy of segregationist urban planning
and state housing. South Africa’s ‘dominion’ status ensured that, unlike the rest of Africa, it would not be
subject to decolonization pressures, and its gold-fuelled postwar economic expansion and self-reliant economy,
and its ever more impassioned racial discourse, encouraged the National Party government in its uniquely
extreme strategy of reproducing labour power while controlling African population movement. The wartime
1940s migration upsurge had produced a powerful impetus of fear among both Afrikaner and English elites,
at a time when mechanization of agriculture was provoking widespread eviction of black families from ‘white’
rural areas.78
The resulting ‘native housing’ policy was curiously similar in some ways to Soviet mass housing, in its
mixture of strong controls on internal migration and provision of hostel barrack accommodation, its relative
distrust of home-ownership and encouragement of rental, and its large-scale construction of small dwellings
of a fiercely cost-controlled, standardized kind in far-flung peripheral locations: the average sizes of
Khrushchevki (39–54m2) resembled that of the most common postwar ‘Bantu dwelling’, the NE 51/9
(46.5m2).79 But the differences were, of course, as significant as the similarities, above all in the dominance of
the discourse of race rather than class, especially among Afrikaners. There, ideas that had been mainstream in
the imperialist era, such as fear of miscegenation (‘rasvermenging’), further intensified – even as they
disappeared elsewhere. Here rural-to-urban migration became not just a matter of potential socio-economic
disruption or class conflict, but an existential threat to ‘ons eie’ (‘our own’). The wartime land-invasions of
squatters and ‘pondokkies’ around white urban areas took on an added overtone of menace: in the city of
Pretoria, whereas the white population was double that of the black in 1921, by 1962 the two were equal.80
In the fevered climate of postwar South Africa, two modernities, political and architectural, entered a
short-lived alliance. Politically, postwar Afrikaner nationalism, spearheaded by Hendrik Verwoerd (prime
minister from 1958 to 1966), became infused by an ethos of technocratic modernization, aiming to exploit
scientific progress to entrench white dominance and Afrikaner hegemony. Architecturally, a new generation
of postwar modernists helped yoke the scientific organizing ethos of the Modern Movement to the apartheid
cause, along with romanticized concepts of vernacular architecture which might underpin the idea of separate
‘Bantu culture’. Both modernities had significant internal divisions: apartheid South Africa might have been a
racist state but it was not a totalitarian one. Politically and organizationally, there was a debilitating and divisive
split between central government, dominated by the Afrikaner political and civil-service elite and the
Broederbond secret association, and local government, which retained the strong powers over housing and
planning characteristic of the ‘British’ system. Within the Afrikaner elite, too, there were increasing divisions
between racial traditionalists, who favoured banishment of the ‘Bantu’ at any cost, and a new generation of
Afrikaner capitalists, who balked at the policy’s economic implications.81
Although some key elements of apartheid were trialled earlier, the decisive shift followed the 1948 National
Party general election victory. A British developmental-style formula for the African rural areas, set out by the
1946 Tomlinson Commission, was abandoned, and a system of racial subdivision of urban areas was
introduced by the 1950 Group Areas Act (updated in 1957 and 1966). Here, a leading role was played by the
colonial-era Native Affairs Department, which was taken over by Verwoerd in 1950, reorientated to the new
agenda and reinforced by enhanced ‘influx control’ through the ‘pass laws’; in 1960, the NAD was renamed the
Department of Bantu Administration and Development. Where most Global South countries were content if
they managed even to reduce rural-to-urban migration, apartheid South Africa set out to actually reverse the

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flow, through a two-stage displacement process. Firstly, within urban areas, long-standing racially-mixed
districts and first-generation early-twentieth-century African locations (generally juxtaposed with ‘white’
areas) were both to be broken up and displaced to planned townships on the far urban periphery, separated
from the ‘white’ areas by wide buffer zones: unlike the Rhodesian policy of African freehold expansion, this
process converted into renters many urban Africans who had owned their dwellings freehold. Low-income
urban whites displaced by these redevelopments – an important National Party constituency – would be
housed in separate developments within the existing urban fabric, while better-off whites enjoyed an extensive
system of FHA-style state mortgage subsidies. The second, ultimate step was to banish the ‘Bantu’ still further
away, to ‘self-governing’ rural ‘homelands’ in the interior, as enshrined in the Promotion of Bantu Self-
Government Act of 1959, where they would be housed in planned townships or in informal housing.82
The first phase lasted from the 1940s to the 1960s, climaxing in the latter decade, when the apartheid
machine was at its most confident, following the crushing of early African resistance in the Sharpeville
massacre (1960) and the Rivonia trials (1964). In Pretoria, the first full-scale African township, Atteridgeville,
was begun west of the city as early as 1940, and ‘Bantu’ from the inner mixed areas were resettled there up until
1953; in the early 1960s, earlier freehold black settlements such as Lady Selburne were cleared and their
population moved to a much larger township, Mamelodi, east of the city. In Cape Town, the 1966 clearance of
the racially-mixed District 6 saw 60,000 Africans and ‘coloureds’ banished to the Cape Flats, to the planned
township of Khayelitsha, while displaced whites moved to smaller developments such as the three-storey
tenement-style blocks of De Waal Drive. The detailed implementation of this first stage of displacement was,
however, still the responsibility of the local authorities, in both their planning and housing capacities – a
dystopian echo of the British council-housing system. Thus, for example, the 1960 development of the
50,000-inhabitant Eldorado Park location outside Johannesburg was the responsibility of Johannesburg City
Council, as both developer and landlord, and the township of Kwa Thema Springs, opened in 1961, was
planned and built by the municipality of Springs. The vast cost and administrative complexity of this process
led to escalating central–local disputes, for example in East London, where the council, having reluctantly
designated group areas in 1953–7, then dragged its heels over the clearance of the early twentieth-century
Duncan Village freehold African location, provoking denunciations by Verwoerd of this ‘wait-and-see council’.
The ultimate destination of the displacees, the new township of Mdantsane in the nearby ‘homeland’ of Ciskei,
was planned by the East London City Engineer’s department and built in 1966, largely as a rental development.
A similar controversy occurred in Durban, where government proposals to clear the mixed Cato Manor area
triggered bitter disputes over who would foot the huge bill for relocation of 63,000 African and ‘coloured’
inhabitants to townships – a process reluctantly implemented by the council after 1962.83
The relocation process, despite its often acrimonious and chaotic political background, was greatly assisted
by the design professions of South Africa, through an idiosyncratic South African variant of the century-long
alliance between modernism and the state that dominates the overall narrative of this book. Here the architects
worked in uneasy collaboration with Verwoerd’s NAD, whose Urban Areas Housing Section assumed
responsibility for ‘Bantu’ housing design on the recommendation of the National Housing and Planning
Commission (NHPC) and its Broederbond members. The architects’ stance stemmed from the internal
dynamics of South African modernism, as it emerged from a ferment of architectural theorizing in the late
1930s and 1940s, including an incongruous Marxist-cum-regionalist analysis of the ‘Bantu housing problem’
pioneered by the avant-garde Transvaal Architecture Group, based at the University of Witwatersrand and led
successively by Rex D. Martienssen and Norman Hanson. Internationally, the planning discourses of
international modernism, with their strong rhetoric of medical and social hygiene, and utopianist advocacy of
new settlements, chimed in easily with apartheid doctrines of enforced segregation and clearance. In 1943, for
example, Gropius had argued that a ‘transfer of idle labour’. . . ‘from a sore spot in the old city to a sound new

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city’. . . ‘will relieve the sick body of the old city’, while in South Africa, architect Roy Kantorowitch argued in
1938 that the breakdown of old ‘Bantu’ social structures had created a ‘fluid medium’ that could be moulded in
new ways, to restore social stability. The late 1940s saw a growing confluence, with Hanson playing an
intermediary role as official architectural representative on the NHPC (1948–63), the National Building
Research Institute (NBRI) and other key bodies. It was left to slightly younger official architects, such as D. C.
Calderwood, head of the architecture division of the NBRI, or P. H. Connell, to put these ideas into practice,
through successive NBRI-sponsored research investigations in the late 1940s and early 1950s into planning,
design and construction of low-cost ‘Bantu housing’ (see Fig. 15.12).84
What basic built form should this programme take? South Africa’s plentiful land supply ensured that,
unlike other hot spots of public housing provision, such as Western Europe or Eastern Asia, there was no
pressure to build in high-density or multi-storey form – thus removing an additional source of friction with
those already facing forcible eviction from their homes and loss of their property. As Hanson later recalled, the
NBRI’s comparative research into high- and low-density approaches had resulted in a decision to concentrate
on construction of small, detached family houses with basic self-contained amenities, coupled with continued
hostel accommodation for single workers. This he justified as reflecting ‘the preferences of the Bantu’, and
(more implausibly) as imposing ‘less authoritarian limits on freedom of expression in modifying the Bantu’s
house’; it might even inspire ‘pride in ownership’ – although obviously one of the policy’s key elements was
suppression of African urban freehold tenure!85
As several hundred thousand of these small houses were to be built – 250,000 by the mid-1960s – a central
concern of Verwoerd and the NAD was to slash costs, ultimately to a target of £250 per dwelling.86 Here again,
the modernist architectural research discourse came to their aid. Calderwood’s team at the NBRI refi ned a
family of plan-types for small ‘urban Bantu houses’, the NE51 series, of which the four-roomed NE51/6 and
the NE51/9 were in practice the most widely built. The plans were publicized in a range of NBRI technical
manuals on ‘Bantu housing’ between 1951 and 1954. The small, detached houses were arranged in a regularized,
compressed version of the garden-city formula, with curved, symmetrical street-layouts lined with plots of
around 3,000ft2–3,500ft2, giving a middling net residential density of around 60ppa, with single workers’
hostels and rudimentary community facilities also incorporated.87 Larger townships echoed the British Mk. I
New Town formula of neighbourhood units and green belts, in a modified form that emphasized segregation
and surveillance through buffer zones and camp-like perimeter fencing. The same formula had been trialled
in several privately-organized postwar new towns, such as the South African Iron and Steel Industrial
Corporation’s Vanderbijl Park, built after 1941 for a 200,000 population on a 240,000-acre site west of
Vereeniging. Many suburban public housing developments for low-income whites echoed the same approach
in a more spacious form: for example Cape Town’s Naruna Park, with its detached, single-storey brick houses.88
In the USSR, the economic massed building of millions of small flats was achieved by rigorous
standardization coupled with massed factory prefabrication of large concrete panels (cf. chapter 10). In South
Africa, systematization and regimentation was just as important, but in this low-density environment of
countless small cottages there was no question of industrialized building, and construction remained faithful
to traditional, small-scale brick or concrete blockwork. Instead, the cost reductions were achieved by a much
simpler expedient: the on-site use of ‘Bantu labour’, a policy whose potential conflict with the official ban on
employing Africans in skilled work was circumvented by the task-system, under which the construction of
each house was divided into up to twenty individual, simple stages, suitable for semi-skilled labour.89 Thus,
although this policy at first glance seemed similar to the ‘apport-travail’ voluntarism of the French Castors –
and Hanson argued that the ‘raw material’ of the stark township layouts could eventually become ‘softened and
modified by personal effort’ – the new system was fully compatible with apartheid regulations and was duly
sanctioned under the Native Housing Workers Act of 1951.90

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Alongside this dominant technocratic strain within township planning and design, South African
architectural modernism also participated in the 1940s international discourse of regionalism, in its own
idiosyncratic way, shaped by the preoccupation of Afrikaner theorists such as W. M. W. Eiselen with ‘volkekunde’
– a relic of early twentieth-century European concepts of Blut und Boden. The result was an incongruous mix
of strong vernacular passions about both ‘traditional Afrikaner architecture’ and ‘native Bantu traditions’. This
allowed commentators to justify township planning as a reflection of ‘native’ preferences for ‘separate huts’, or
enclosed ‘kraal’ layouts of circular ‘rondawels’.91

A B

C D
Fig. 15.12 (a): Map of the Pretoria–Witwatersrand–Vereeniging (Gauteng) region, c. 1965, with ‘urban Bantu townships’
hatched in black. (b): Forced removals of ‘Bantu’ population in the Pretoria area (1953–67). (c): Johannesburg City Council
officials with a detailed map of ‘native townships’ south-west of the city (consolidated in 1963 under the name ‘Soweto’, or
‘South-Western Native Township’), c. 1953: systematized garden-suburb layouts reminiscent of the LCC’s Becontree.
(d): Atteridgeville, west of Pretoria: the city’s first full-scale African township, built in 1940 and used for resettlement up
to 1953.

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E F

G H
Fig. 15.12 (e): Layout plan of the Witbank ‘Bantu location’, east of Pretoria, in 1951, showing the garden suburb layout
and low density of 5.3 dwellings per acre. (f): Type-plan of the four-roomed NE (Non-European) 51/9, the most
prolifically-built of the small houses in the ‘Bantu townships’, designed by D. C. Calderwood’s team at the National Building
Research Institute (1951). (g, h): C. Tod Welch’s Urban Bantu Townships, published by the NBRI in 1963: front cover
showing township layout, and inside illustration of ‘resident customisation’ of (rental) houses.

By the 1970s, with the ‘Bantu homelands’ fleetingly labelled independent states, the second-phase strategy
of returning ‘natives’ to separate rural existence was underway, and almost all urban peripheral township
development ceased: in Pretoria, for example, black population displacement was now channelled exclusively
into the adjacent homeland of Bophuthatswana. A significant exception was Cape Town’s Khayelitsha (‘New
Home’), planned from 1983 in four ‘villages’ of 30,000 inhabitants each, as a relocation-point for ‘legal’ non-
white residents of the Cape Peninsula’s informal settlements and existing townships.92 But the vast costs of the
relocation policy, and the consequences of the loss of black labour from urban areas, were by now insupportable:
like the USSR, apartheid South Africa was chiefly brought down by its own internal costs and inefficiencies.
Following the 1978 Soweto uprising, a steady retrenchment began.93 From the early 1980s, ‘native’ rental
housing stock was transferred to ownership tenure, first leasehold and then freehold, in a vain attempt to

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appease discontent, and the National Housing Commission switched support from state housing to sites-and-
services housing for sale. The shift to self-help continued into the post-apartheid era, with over a million
dwellings provided by the ANC administration by 2004, through sites-and-services projects and squatter
upgrades.94

Conclusion

In this chapter, the housing of late-colonial and decolonized countries was seen in all its episodic fragmentation:
some were energetic and some ineffective, some were associated with emancipatory politics and others with
authoritarianism. As a rule, the relatively pervasive, even spread of mass-housing microecologies typical of
developed countries was not a feature of these places. The position was very different in the territories that
form the subject of chapter 16: a grouping of states in Eastern Asia that applied even greater energy and
discipline than the traditional ‘First’ and ‘Second’ Worlds in the cause of planned, capitalist ‘developmentalism’
– a strategy within which modernist mass housing naturally played a central role. With these cases, we return
to Mass Housing’s broad narrative framework of overlapping episodes or campaigns, a narrative within which
First World mass housing continued into the 1970s and Second World housing until around 1990 – by which
time many of the Eastern Asian building campaigns, as we will see in the next chapter, were first reaching their
maximum levels of activity.

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CHAPTER 16
FROM THIRD WORLD TO FIRST WORLD: MASS HOUSING
IN CAPITALIST EASTERN ASIA

With Eastern Asia, our Part 2 overview of postwar housing returns to its mainstream narrative of overlapping
campaigns, as the focus passes to yet another furiously modernizing region. Here, although significant
groundwork was done in the 1950s and 1960s, its main developmental driving force only really made itself felt
from the 1970s and 1980s onwards, after that of the First and Second worlds had largely exhausted itself. Here,
although the legacy of colonialism provided a challenging starting-point not found in Europe or America, the
deficit was made up by a governing ethos even more driving and disciplined in character.
The Cold War’s confrontations shaped the political and social structures of Eastern Asia’s capitalist states as
strongly as in Europe, but with different effects. Many were strong regimes with considerable infrastructural
powers of coordination and organization. But they avoided both of the First World’s favoured social and
economic strategies – Western European welfare-state socialism and North American laissez-faire capitalism
– in favour of a developmental or productivist capitalism, involving strong state intervention, state–industry
links, public–private alliances and Fordist-style vertical integration, dedicated to economic growth rather than
social welfare in its own right.1 Within this strategy, mass apartment housing in planned neighbourhoods
played a distinctive role, helping underpin growth and build a stable, normative society of self-reliant, highly-
educated, home-owning citizens.2 Paradoxically, it was these countries, rather than the Asian Communist
states, with their split between Soviet and Chinese systems, that emerged as the most dramatic powerhouses
of housing production.
Before discussing these power-house states, however, it should first be borne in mind that, within some
non-socialist Eastern Asian states, more typically ‘Third World’ processes of relatively ineffective state
intervention prevailed during the postwar decades. In Indonesia, for example, the dictatorial post-independence
regime (from 1945) initially attempted to introduce a planned economy, linked after 1966 to five-year
national development plans (Repelita): the first five years, 1969–74, assigned housing a low priority,
focusing on kampong (shanty town) improvement and resettlement initiatives and World Bank-financed
sites-and-services programmes. After the 1974 foundation of a National Housing Authority, the government
expanded public housing production beyond resettlement, while still focusing significantly on civil
servants. Developments were overseen mainly by the Ministry of Public Building, but most comprised
single-family houses, with only a handful of large estates of flats. In neighbouring Malaya – very much an
intermediate case between colonial and developmental approaches – a similar low-rise pattern prevailed,
including the vast programme of new resettlement villages laid out by the Town Planning Department during
the Communist insurgency in the early 1950s.3 In urban areas, there was a focus on housing of public
employees, as part of civil-service remuneration provisions established under British colonial rule prior to
independence in 1957. This was slowly expanded after the formation of Malaysia in 1963, and took in low-cost
housing after 1976. The 1946 establishment of a Housing Trust allowed a modest public output – around
1,500 dwellings a year in the early 1950s. But after the consolidation of Malaysia following Singapore’s
expulsion in 1965, more concentrated attempts to boost production began, under successive five-year
plans (from 1966–70). These encouraged state governments to expand slum redevelopment and low-cost
housing, aiming to redistribute resources to native rural Malays (bumiputera) and stabilize the multiracial

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population. Responding to the claimed Malay preference for ground-level dwellings, the proportion of
tall flats was small. Under the 1971–5 plan, the public sector was to build a third of total output, in a
combination of state government programmes and federal government building for civil servants and security
personnel. Public housing production targets were consistently high – for example, in 1976–80, 220,000
(including 57,000 by state governments) out of a planned 482,000 total – but the figures achieved were always
much lower.4
In ‘non-developmental’ East Asian states, conflicts between local and international agendas were sometimes
acute. In Thailand, the governing elite, untrammelled by colonialism but conditioned by a hierarchical,
Theravada Buddhist-influenced ethos of bureaucracy, persevered with a centralized and politically high-
profile regime of public housing production, ignoring persistent pressure from international bodies to
switch to aided self-help. The years 1940–2 saw the establishment of a Housing Division and Housing Bureau
within the Department of Public Welfare (DPW); in 1950 these were charged, respectively, with construction
and management of public housing. This relatively unusual formula of direct building by a government
ministry was pursued despite mounting opposition from the United Nations from 1951–2, including a
warning visit from housing aid chief Jacob Crane. The result of the DPW programme, however, was limited,
amounting to only 9,000 dwellings between 1942 and 1970. The same applied to slum-clearance. Here,
provoked by the mushrooming of Bangkok’s shanty towns, the late 1950s saw growing demands for renewal
of the capital’s chaotic structure, including a 1958 plan by Litchfield, Whitty, Browne & Associates,
which proposed the building of 625,000 low-income dwellings. But little was achieved in practice. In 1960,
another new government organization, the Office of Community Improvements (OCI), was put in charge of
slum-clearance, a step largely motivated by embarrassment over the highlighting of slums near the Royal
Palace, but the OCI merely demolished slums without undertaking any compensatory house-building. As
subsequently in Hong Kong, the ineffectual multi-headed structure attracted repeated calls for unification
during the 1960s.5
Traditional Thai low-income houses were single-storeyed and timber-built, and this principle was followed
in the DPW’s initial experimental project, at Huay Kwang, comprising timber rental dwellings built in 1958.
A similar pattern initially predominated at the follow-up project, Din Daeng, with 1,215 low-rise houses
built in 1962. Thereafter, in a sharp policy change aimed at raising density, it was decided to build low-rise
(five-storey) rental flats there in later phases; these were completed from 1964 onwards, including an
experimental scheme of 1968, designed in collaboration with the Netherlands’s Bouwcentrum, Dutch
galerijbouw being chosen because it was allegedly cheaper than staircase access. Five-storey flats were also
added in the later stages of Huay Kwang: the two developments contained 3,970 flats altogether. In January
1964, Prime Minister Thuon Kittikachorn officially opened the first four blocks at Din Daeng, but by then
tenant opposition, based chiefly on the traditional Thai preference for ground-level living, was already
becoming evident. Despite those doubts, in 1965–8 UN-sponsored aided self-help projects, for example in
the Bonkai area, met with dogged obstruction from Bangkok municipality and the national government. The
pace of new construction increased after 1973, when the National Executive Council established a unitary
National Housing Authority (NHA), charged, just like the Hong Kong Housing Authority, with ‘solving the
housing problem’ within ten years, through a mixture of new estates and slum upgrading. The built outcomes
were very different, however, from those in Hong Kong. The NHA completed 37,000 dwellings in seven years
– creditable compared to the previous arrangement, but well below the 170,000 target initially set in the ten-
year plan. The years 1978–82 saw a brief ascendancy of sites-and-services policies, which failed to make any
decisive impact and contradicted the government’s preference for higher-profile direct building. Finally, in
1985, most public funding was withdrawn from the NHA, rendering it powerless, and the initiative passed to
private construction.6

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Towards the ‘developmental state’: postwar housing in Japan

In contrast to Thailand, where there were many governmental housing initiatives but few built results, mass
housing in the most dynamic Eastern-Asian capitalist states was dominated by a different kind of government
intervention, sometimes authoritarian in character and always orientated towards rapid economic growth.
These strong ‘development states’ set out to use planned modernity, especially government-supported mass
housing, as a foundation for accelerated development, creating highly distinctive micro-regions of mass
housing that were grounded in the ideal of a ‘property-based welfare society’ while retaining the strong
contribution by family and kinship to social welfare. They focused on clearance of squatter settlements for
development, provision of cheap housing for low-income citizens to minimize labour costs, and encouragement
of home-ownership among lower-middle-income groups to embed them fully in society. In the process, they
exploited both the international ideas of architectural and planning modernism and the national legacies of
colonialism – of which the most vital to large-scale housing development was the colonial system of state
land-ownership, which ensured strong executive control over land supply.7 Of the so-called ‘Asian Tiger’
economies, Taiwan and South Korea drew indirectly on the Japanese legacy, while Hong Kong and Singapore
were shaped by British colonialism: the two latter generated arguably the most daring public housing
programmes in the world.
Japan itself, however, not only bequeathed a significant colonial legacy in Eastern Asia, but also itself
undertook a major housing drive. This was a programme very different from the aggressive dynamism of
states such as Singapore or South Korea, as postwar Japan had no enthusiasm for radical state intervention.
Like West Germany, the legacy of wartime and authoritarian trauma, and subsequent occupation,
ensured postwar Japanese housing would adopt a relatively laissez-faire production system, focusing
state intervention on indirect financial subsidies aimed at fostering a dominant home-ownership sector. Nor
was there an extensive colonial planning discourse to draw on: Japanese colonialism had been highly
compressed, corresponding to all the Western phases telescoped together, with less scope for extended
interplay between ‘home’ and colonial practice in such areas as city planning or economic development. The
ambitious city planning schemes of Manchuria found few echoes at ‘home’, even after the 1923 Kanto
Earthquake.8 The only significant mechanism to emerge between the wars was the so-called ‘kukaku-seri’, or
‘readjustment’, a Japanese adaptation of pre-World War I German ‘Umlegung’. This was used in attempts to
simplify the maze-like courtyard-planned Japanese urban fabric, most notably by leading planner Hideoki
Ishikawa, in 1920s–early 1930s Nagoya and in a largely unexecuted 1944 plan for postwar reconstruction of
Tokyo. Only on greenfield sites was a separately planned, use-zoned pattern feasible: the ‘danchi’, or ‘estate’ – a
term first applied to industrial estates, in Japan and Korea, but after World War II increasingly associated with
mass housing.9
Interwar Japanese urban housing (cf. chapter 2) had been dominated by private renting, usually in
lightweight timber structures, detached or in rows, as in the two-storey terraced ‘nagaya’ in Tokyo, Kobe and
Osaka, usually owned by small landlords – a pattern that continued in the breakneck post-earthquake
reconstructions after 1923, replacing 350,000 destroyed or badly-damaged houses.10 The only interwar
programme of modernist social-housing flats had been small-scale: the famous Zaidan-hojin Dojunkai, a
government-backed philanthropic corporation established in 1924–5 to build collective housing complexes in
Tokyo, but whose total output by 1934 was a mere 5,653 dwellings in sixteen projects, largely comprising
reinforced-concrete blocks, mainly three-storey but interspersed with five and six storeys in two schemes.
Despite their architectural indebtedness to European modernism, most Dojunkai developments had intricate
layouts tailored to the higgledy-piggledy low-rise Japanese urban morphology.11 Although few in number, the
Dojunkai projects had provided a new model of durable urban housing for Japan. A slightly different pattern

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of reinforced-concrete apartments was pioneered in the ‘colonial’ context of Korea: multi-storey staff quarters
constructed by Japanese occupation authorities or companies in the 1930s, including the Yurim Building of
1932 in Seoul (see below).
With the onset of war, a more interventive government approach was demanded, and a national Housing
Authority (Jutaku Eidan, or JE) was established in 1941 to build low-cost, spartan ‘people’s homes’ (kokumin
jutaku), comprising two rooms with toilet – almost all of which were then promptly destroyed in the
devastating area bombing of 1944–5. Yet again, the timber construction of Japanese housing allowed
rapid rebuilding: by early September 1945 the government had already authorized a building programme of
300,000 temporary wooden houses, by private builders, local authorities and JE – although the latter was
abolished in 1947 as an agency of the old regime. The postwar occupation made little impact on housing
policymaking, other than the negative impact of the need to build 20,000 dependents’ houses for the occupation
forces, all to much more expensive standards than those applicable to Japanese citizens. There was one
significant exception: a ruling that ‘area reduction’ (‘genbu seido’), a key feature of kukaku-seri, was
unconstitutional. This effectively ruled out any large-scale urban replanning initiatives based on Ishikawa’s
interwar innovations. In reaction, Japanese government housing policy, led from 1948 by the Ministry
of Construction, settled into a low-key, utilitarian pattern of ‘minkan jinki’ (hands-off ) and ‘kosu shoji’
(maximum output).12
Overall, mass housing in postwar Japan was an object of administrative efficiency rather than burning
political controversy, nationally and locally. Housing targets were set administratively, by negotiation
between the Ministry of Construction and the prefectures and municipalities, with no conflicts between
private and public, or pork-barrel patronage patterns. As in West Germany, government financial support was
tenure-neutral.13 Postwar policymaking was strongly biased from the start towards promotion of home-
ownership, which rose to an all-time maximum of 71% in 1958, with the collapse in private rental housing,
before falling back to 59% in 1975. To support this, 1950 saw the foundation of a Government Housing Loan
Corporation (GHLC), with powers to grant mortgages for house purchase or construction – there being no
private mortgage infrastructure in Japan. Alongside this, rental building by local authorities, including
prefectures and city councils, boomed in the immediate postwar years, building 274,000 dwellings in 1945–50
(10% of the total). A 1951 Public Housing Law guaranteed them central-government subsidies for low-rental
building. But it was only following the 1955 foundation of the Liberal Democratic Party, which played a
continuity-role similar to the SAP in Sweden (here centre-right rather than centre-left), that Japan’s mature
postwar housing policy really took shape. The LDP ascendancy from 1955 to 2009 was the archetypal case
of the Asian developmental state, complete with strong government-fostered economic growth policies
and welfare provisions supporting that goal. Yet unlike some others, mass housing was not at the centre of
this strategy.14
In housing policy, the LDP era was signalled by the 1955 formation of a new coordinating and executive
body, the Japan Housing Corporation (Nihon Jutaku Kodan – NJK). It was charged with building for middle-
and lower-middle-income families, initially rental-only, with rents above public housing levels; its operations
were mainly financed by life-insurance societies and banks. The NJK operated mainly on urban peripheries,
where it could build on a grand-ensemble scale. Its developments were denoted, significantly, by the old prewar
name ‘danchi’, which rapidly entered wider public discourse, NJK tenants being nicknamed ‘danchi zoku’ (‘the
danchi tribe’). Its overall share of construction, although as much as 8% in large cities, was still small overall:
around 4%, compared to 8% by local authorities (many built by NJK on an agency basis), 8% for state employees
and 15% for GHLC-supported mortgages. Other dwellings were purely privately-built, including many
private-company housing schemes, increasingly also now called ‘danchi’, and equating in some ways to Chinese
danwei. By the mid-1960s, with the national proportion of owner-occupation diminishing, public and political

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 From Third World to First World: Mass Housing in Capitalist Eastern Asia

opinion was turning against large-scale rental danchi, which were branded ‘tokai, toi, semai’ (too expensive,
too far away, too small); employers increasingly encouraged cheap home-ownership loans, and the housing
needs of the poorest were now widely seen as solved. In 1965–66, a significant change occurred. Much local
authority production was devolved to GHLC-subsidized ‘local housing supply corporations’, while a 1966 law
instituted five-year Ministry of Construction plans for state-subsidized programmes, prefecturally-coordinated
and categorized strictly by income. The system combined centralized, Ministry-led planning with allocation
negotiations between public agencies. Some prefectures now provided both sites and subsidies for municipal
or NJK housing, but in many areas, especially Kanto (Greater Tokyo), municipalities provided the land and
prefectures built public rental housing on it. By the 1970s, individual danchi were often complex mosaics of
NJK and public housing.15
Architecturally, the postwar scaling-up of height in Japanese housing was slower than in many other places,
partly owing to the country’s seismic vulnerability, which required ground-floor shear reinforcement in large
apartment blocks, and partly because of the cultural preference for lightly-built, easily-replaceable houses. The
first postwar danchi comprised low-rise, especially four-storey, staircase-access blocks of modestly-sized flats.
From the mid-1950s, the NJK concentrated especially on so-called ‘2DK’ flats (two-bedroom with dining-
kitchen), relinquishing the Japanese tradition of mat-floored multi-purpose rooms by separating eating and
sleeping, and using ‘Western’ furniture. Bathrooms did not, however, become general until around 1970. More
experimentally, three-winged ‘star’ blocks, like the Gröndal pattern but with open-plan central staircases, were
built in early NJK rental danchi from 1956, to provide vertical accents. The average size of NJK units steadily
increased from 462ft.² in 1955 to 645ft.² in 1973. Pioneering early rental danchi included Kanaoka, in Sakai
City, Osaka (1956 – the first NJK development), Akebono, Fukuoka City (also 1956), Tamadaira, Tokyo (1958)
and Akabane, Tokyo (1962–6). At Nogeyama, Yokohama (1957), a similar development of small towers and
star blocks was the first NJK project built for sale. By the early 1960s some NJK rental low-rise danchi
had reached considerable size: the Soka Matsubara project in Saitama prefecture (1962), a 5,900-flat, 49ha
project of two- to four- storey staircase-access Zeilenbau blocks mostly aligned east–west, was hailed as the
‘largest housing complex in Asia’, as well as Japan’s first fully pedestrian/vehicular segregated development –
but Japan would soon be outstripped by many other countries, in area, height and number of dwellings alike
(see Fig. 16.1).16
All the more striking was the sharp, vertical break represented by another first-generation NJK development,
completed in 1958: the Harumi apartment complex, a ten-storey slab for middle-class rental and sale, on
reclaimed land in Tokyo Bay, designed by Kunio Maekawa as a stack of 168 split-level apartments arranged in
three-storey layers. Masato Otaka’s original plan for a truly Metabolist megastructural amalgam of different
uses was not carried out, but the completed building helped acclimatize Japanese social-housing decision-
makers to multi-storey slab-blocks, especially with the lifting of Tokyo height restrictions in the 1960s.
Significantly, access at Harumi was by an enclosed gallery, every three floors, with staircases at intervals; and,
rapidly, gallery-access became the preferred method of dwelling access in Japanese multi-storey blocks,
allowing one lift tower to serve up to fifty flats per floor. The so-called ‘double-corridor’ plan, comprising two
gallery-access slabs placed back-to-back, with linking blocks, was also used for buildings of this height, up to
ten to eleven storeys, in a vertical translation of the traditional nagaya terrace.17 Overall, although some efforts
were made to industrialize parts of the building process, seismic conditions compelled general adherence to
in-situ construction, especially reinforced ground floors.
By the mid-1960s, criticisms were increasingly voiced against the repetitive, parallel layouts and uniform
heights of the early danchi. Instead, cluster or conglomerate patterns proliferated, often echoing Metabolist or
structuralist ideas in diluted form, including higher slabs linked in enclosed groupings. The giant
Takashimadaira development of 1969–72, north-west of Tokyo, planned originally with five-storey blocks,

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A B

C D
Fig. 16.1 (a): Standard layout of Chinese resettlement village in Malaya, laid out by the government Town Planning
Department during the early 1950s Communist uprising. (b): Tamadaira, Tokyo, low-rise NJK rental danchi of 1958 (MG
2014). (c, d, e, f): Akabane-dai, Tokyo, NJK rental danchi (1962–8): estate plan, 2014 (MG) exterior, staircase and plan of
‘star’ block.

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E F

G H
Fig. 16.1 (c, d, e, f): Akabane-dai, Tokyo, NJK rental danchi (1962–8): estate plan, 2014 (MG) exterior, staircase and
plan of ‘star’ block. (g): Soka Matsubara NJK rental danchi, Saitama prefecture, built from 1962: 5,900 flats in two- to four-
storey blocks with vehicle–pedestrian segregation (MG 2014). (h): Harumi apartments, Tokyo Bay, completed in 1958: a
ten-storey slab-block of split-level, gallery-access NJK rental/ownership flats, designed by Kunio Maekawa (MG 1985).

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eventually included 10,170 rental/sale flats in eleven-, twelve and fourteen-storey balcony-access and double-
corridor slab-blocks, all heavily-landscaped. At Misato, in north-east Tokyo, another 10,000-flat, early 1970s
development was built entirely in single-aspect slab-blocks of five to eleven storeys. Although these generally
resembled Western European deck-access housing, by the late 1970s and 1980s a significant divergence was
opening up, as the NJK ploughed on with multi-storey slabs, sometimes in barrier-block or 45° undulating
plan-forms: examples included Kawaguchishibazono (1978), in Saitama prefecture, a 2,500-dwelling rental
development with an undulating 500m barrier-block along a railway, or the Hikarigaoka Park Town project,
Tokyo (completed 1983), built on the ex-US Army Grand Heights site, as a dense grouping of right-angled
slabs for rental and sale – one of Japan’s first high-density redevelopments including community facilities.
Sometimes, the NJK combined standard danchi slabs with much taller towers, as at Mukagawa in Osaka
(1979–86), comprising 5,643 flats in slabs and towers of eleven to twenty-five storeys, or, nearby and most
spectacularly, the Ashiya-Hama scheme of 1978–82 on the Kobe–Osaka waterfront, a joint development of
NJK and prefectural rental and home-ownership flats in towers of nineteen to twenty-four storeys, with a
thirty-one-storey tower as a centrepiece, and an integrated commercial centre. Externally encased in a strong
modular anti-seismic framework, the blocks are mainly twin-corridor-planned, although with internal
courtyards rather than light-wells (see Fig. 16.2).18

A B

C D
Fig. 16.2 (a, b, c): Takashimadaira NJK danchi (1969–72): over 10,000 rental and ownership flats in gallery-access
and double-corridor slabs up to fourteen storeys: external view, gallery and ground floor with seismic bracing (MG 2014).
(d, e): Kawaguchi Shibazono, Saitama Prefecture (1978): NJK barrier-block complex backing on to railway lines: plan and
general view (MG 2014).

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E F
Fig. 16.2(f): Ashiya Hama, Osaka: a joint prefectural and NJK rental and ownership project of 1978–82 in towers up to
thirty-one storeys, with anti-seismic exo-skeleton bracing (MG 1985).

By the 1980s, these large danchi were increasingly left behind by the spreading affluence of Japanese society.
The urban middle classes forsook the ‘danchi tribe’ for a more individualized, small-scale apartment-type,
bedded organically into the fragmented pattern of Japanese cities and better suited to employer home-loans.
This was the ‘manshon’, a block of flats owned either privately or as a condominium, and accessed via ‘single-
corridor’ gallery-access.19 The first examples were built around 1964, and by 1993 some 2.6 million manshon
apartments had been completed, corresponding to 10% of the total housing stock in big cities. Also common
among employer-subsidized schemes were modern versions of the low-rise nagaya, mass-built by large firms
using NJK-promoted panel systems. Japan’s postwar home-ownership society, however, did not prove
altogether stable, and its erosion, stemming from housing-market imbalances and demographic shifts, was
dramatically accelerated by the downfall of the 1980s ‘bubble economy’.20

Housing the ‘Asian Tigers’

While Japan was unique in Asia until the early 1960s in comprehensively embracing Western modernity, a
status celebrated in the 1964 Olympics, thereafter the gospel of developmental growth rapidly spread elsewhere,
chiefly through the ‘Four Asian Tigers’: Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. All maintained
exceptionally high growth, usually over 7% annually, until the 1997 Asian financial crisis, and each formed,
overall, a strongly distinctive housing microregion. State-sponsored mass housing played a key role in Hong
Kong and Singapore, but a more ambiguous role in South Korea and Taiwan. In all cases, policies were very
different from the bottom-up development gospel proselytized by the World Bank, the UN and other agencies
– not least in their prioritizing of mass housing over aided self-help, and their uncompromising suppression
of informal housing.21 The results inspired not embarrassment but pride, especially in Singapore, where high-
modernist state dirigisme helped build a new, multi-ethnic national identity and fuelled a distinctive national
superiority complex. This worldview was encapsulated in a 1979 overview volume, Housing Asia’s Millions,
co-authored by Singaporean and Philippine planners Stephen Yeh and Aprodicio Laquian. It strongly endorsed
state interventionism, condemning laissez-faire, self-help policies and praising governments that ‘recognized
the need’ to take charge of the ‘struggle to provide shelter for the masses’ – with Singapore, of course, given

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pride of place. They identified the key ingredients of success as high public spending – up to 6% of GNP –
and strong government powers over land supply, preferably via outright ownership: ‘Given new policies,
programmes, and governmental structures, the prospects for public housing in south-east Asia are very
bright.’22
Of the four Asian Tigers, Taiwan and South Korea shared common historical links to Japanese colonialism,
yet diverged strongly from each other. In both, a postwar military-led administration inherited a colonial
version of kukaku-seri and the beginnings of danchi planning, but in Taiwan, the Kuomintang (KMT) regime,
which maintained continuous martial law from 1949 to 1987, encouraged a distinctly laissez-faire housing
system, with few attempts to disturb the fragmented urban land-ownership pattern. Public housing was largely
confined to patronage-building, especially for the military.23 From 1957 to 1975, the KMT government
exploited the USAID (US Agency for International Development) scheme to build 125,000 low-cost home-
ownership dwellings for civil servants and army officers, some of shoddy informal construction but others
consolidated in substantial ‘military dependents’ communities’: the largest, Taipei’s Nanjichang Community,
was built in three phases in 1962–71 on a former military airfield site, and contained 1,264 flats in a range of
layouts, including perimeter courtyard plans and ladder-plan parallel blocks linked by sculptural concrete
spiral stair-towers: the courtyard blocks reflected the anti-Communist KMT’s promotion of religion, by
incorporating numerous small Buddhist-Taoist temples at lower levels. A small programme of some 10,000
slum-clearance flats was implemented, but public rental units by 1975 amounted to only 0.6% of the national
housing stock.24
From the 1970s, Taiwan’s geopolitical setbacks, including expulsion from the United Nations in 1975,
prompted concerted governmental efforts to bolster political legitimacy and economic confidence, under the
mildly reformist administration of Chiang Kai-shek’s son, Chiang Ching-kuo (prime minister 1972–8,
president 1978–88). These efforts included a six-year Economic Development Plan, inaugurated in 1975,
which in turn spawned a Public Housing Plan (1976–82) for the building of 100,000 public housing units,
chiefly for middle-class owner-occupation: within Taipei this was mainly organized by the city-government
housing department. By 1981, actual completions totalled 72,532: the shortfall stemmed from the high
cost and unobtainability of urban building land, together with seismic height restrictions. The main source
of land-supply in Taipei was the armed forces, which had inherited vast tracts from the Japanese colonial
system: the military were paid for sites by the city government, at 70% of market costs, and this income
was recycled into house-purchase subsidies for officers, who took up some 10% of homeownership units
and 43% of rental units. Straightforward public rental housing comprised only 3% of the total housing
supply. A prominent example of Taipei City Council’s public housing programme on military land was
Da’an (Great Peace), a 1,400-flat cooperative development of blocks up to eighteen storeys, styled with
postmodernist ornateness with red-brick cladding and ‘traditional’ gables by architect Y. C. Lee, and completed
in 1985, mainly for military, political and middle-class professional occupants. Squatters were expelled from
the site before construction, but not rehoused by the city – in contrast to Hong Kong (see below). Architect
Haigo Shen designed two highly contrasting developments for Taipei City Council as part of the 1976
programme, including Cheng-Kuang of 1981–4, with 2,000 units in linked towers around a central axis, and
the megastructural Xining development of 1979–82, a low-income rental and owner-occupation scheme
featuring two slabs linked by bridges above a ground-floor market. Some public housing developments were
still directly allocated to military officers, notably on the airfield site south-west of Nanjichang, where the
Chung-Cheng and Youth Park area was developed with multiple phases of medium-height flats throughout
the late 1970s and 1980s. Even these restricted interventions, however, ended after the late-1990s Asian
financial crisis, when neoliberal housing policies encouraged gentrification and commercialization of these
sites (see Fig. 16.3).25

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A B

C D
Fig. 16.3 (a, b): Nanjichang, Taipei (1962–71): a ‘military dependency’ complex of 1,264 flats built with USAID help,
with ladder plan (1st development) and perimeter courtyard plan (2nd development) – the latter including numerous
small internal temples (MG 2019). (c): Da’an complex, Taipei, a 1,400-unit city council-supported cooperative development
of blocks up to eighteen storeys, completed in 1985, to the postmodern designs of architect Y. C. Lee (MG 2019).
(d): Cheng-Kuang, Taipei, city council project of 1981–4 by architect Haigo Shen (MG 2019).

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E F
Fig. 16.3 (e, f): Xining, Taipei, city council rental and ownership complex of 1979–82 by Haigo Shen: a megastructure
of two parallel slabs above a ground-floor market (MG 2019).

‘Housing Gangnam-style’: South Korea’s tanji revolution

In South Korea, the prewar colonial background was similar, but the postwar built outcome differed sharply
from Taiwan’s laissez-faire liberalism. Here, developmental nationalism became bound up with the massed
building of modernist apartments in serried Zeilenbau slabs. Behind this lay the searing experience of the
1950–3 Korean War, and the menacing proximity of the North Korean border, less than fifty miles from the
capital, Seoul. With US sponsorship, Asian developmentalism took on a militantly anti-Communist slant,
infused with a dash of Confucian discipline. Political and economic elites coordinated state planning in
pursuit of a productivist ethos of social provision, encouraged by a US administration that had, in 1955,
founded the International Cooperation Administration (ICA) to subsidize and intervene in newly-developing
countries.26
Interwar colonial Korea had imported many Japanese innovations, including the concept of the ‘tanji’ (i.e.
danchi) as a separate planned development. As in Japan, the tanji was associated with planned industry
(kongop tanji), but after World War II it became focused on housing (chutaek tanji), with a standardized
definition of 300 apartments and five storeys minimum. The postwar Korean tanji developed very differently
from the Japanese danchi, ultimately blossoming into one of the most authentic expressions of Korean urban
modernity. Foreign modernist concepts fuelled the mix, such as the 1929 Clarence Perry neighbourhood unit,
repeatedly cited in Korean housing discourse. Common to South Korea and Japan was the mechanism of site
readjustment (i.e. kukaku-seri) as a building-block of planning – although Korea developed it much more
radically. Also Japanese-inspired was the ‘Choson Chutaek Yongdan’ (Korean Housing Authority), founded in
1941, which built 5,000 small emergency detached houses by 1944: these ‘munhwa chutaek’ mingled Japanese

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and Korean traditions, including timber-framing and pantiles. But already, in central Seoul, a potential multi-
storey alternative had been highlighted by the first reinforced concrete apartment block in the country, the
Yurim Building, of 1932. This triangular-planned five-storey block, anticipating postwar double-corridor
plans in its central, top-lit, galleried central courtyard, housed colonial civil servants in a Korean/Japanese
equivalent to Delhi’s Sujan Singh Park.27
After 1945 a rapid urbanization took hold, interrupted catastrophically by the Korean War, with Seoul’s
population slumping from 1.6 million to 650,000 in 1950–1, before recovering to 1.6 million in 1957, 5 million
in 1969 and 10.6 million in 1990; the low-rise slum housing prevalent in the early 1950s was largely replaced
by ‘panjapip’ (emergency shanty towns) during the war.28 During the First Republic, led from 1948 to 1960 by
Syngman Rhee, tentative state interventions began, with successive housing plans in 1946, 1954 and 1955, and
with the CCY continuing in operation throughout the 1950s, unlike its Japanese counterpart.29 Soon after the
Korean War, in 1957, government policy shifted decisively towards home-ownership, although the difference
between private rental and owner-occupation was blurred by ‘chonsei’, the customary payment by tenants of a
lump-sum deposit of 50%–80% of a home’s value rather than rent. For house owners, this system largely
substituted for Western-style mortgages.30 At this stage, South Korea was still overwhelmingly dominated by
low-rise houses: the first complex referred to as an apartment complex (apatu tanji) was the Changan
Apartments of 1957–8, built by CCY with funds from the US ICA on land supplied by Seoul City Council,
which acted as the programme’s local patron. Comprising 152 flats in three five-storey slabs, the project used
reinforced-concrete techniques developed by an ICA-sponsored research agency, with plans by a German firm
and overseas engineers. At the opening ceremony, President Syngman Rhee hailed its exemplary modernity,
including unprecedented facilities such as internal toilets. More typical of CCY output were single-storey
individual houses modelled on American suburbia, as at Bulkwang in 1950: although priced initially for the
working class, they were largely occupied by middle-class owners.31
It was under the eighteen-year dictatorship of President Park Chung-Hee from 1961 to 1979, especially its
highly-centralized last seven years, officially dubbed ‘The Renewal’ (Yusin), that the interrelationship between
the modernist apatu-tanji and Korean developmentalism fully blossomed, shaping a system that continued,
near-unaltered, during the ensuing authoritarian rule of Chun Doo-Hwan (1980–8) and the subsequent
democratic era. Park’s rule, following his May 1961 coup, combined authoritarianism and anti-corruption
rhetoric with an all-consuming economic modernization drive, transforming South Korea from an agrarian
to an urban industrial society within one generation. This strategy, pursued through a hierarchical executive
structure and a succession of five-year Economic Development Plans, directed from 1962 by an all-powerful
Economic Planning Board, had an additional aim: to outstrip North Korea, if necessary by selectively co-
opting socialist-style planning mechanisms. The technocratic public bureaucracy that ran this programme
until the late 1970s had strongly meritocratic aspects, including competitive entrance examinations and
promotion systems, combined with Confucian collectivism. At first, a policy of import-substitution
industrialization was pursued, but after its ineffectiveness became clear, emphasis shifted in 1964 to production
for export. As in some socialist systems, industrialization was initially prioritized over housing, which was
largely left to private builders, with only selective public intervention. Under Park’s regime, the CCY was
relaunched in 1962 as the Taehan Chutaek Kongsa (TCK, National Housing Agency), and immediately
embarked on a new apatu-tanji at Map’o, a modernist development whose innovative architecture we will
return to shortly. At its opening in 1964, Park stressed the link between planned apartment-building and his
Korean ‘lifestyle revolution’, arguing that ‘Korea has freed itself from the feudal lifestyle, which its culture
handed down from antiquity. I’m sure that today, the adoption of a collective lifestyle . . . will help improve the
conditions of life and the culture of the people. I hope that the completion of the Map’o Apartments, furnished
with all modern facilities, will become a turning point in bringing about the lifestyle revolution.’32

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Even within the limited public housing activity of the 1960s, the TCK’s apatu-tanji programme played an
initially small role, especially compared to the strenuous efforts of Seoul’s city council from 1966 under Mayor
Kim Hyeon-Uk, a close confidant of Park’s, whose driving approach to urban renewal earned him the nickname
‘Bulldozer Kim’. His aim, unlike later Korean policymakers, was not to build for the middle classes, but, like
Hong Kong Resettlement, to target squatter settlements directly, relocating their low-income inhabitants into
new owner-occupied municipal housing, or ‘Citizen Housing’ (shimin chutaek). ‘Bulldozer Kim’ was obviously
inspired by the slum-clearance redevelopments of New York, which he had admired on a 1965 study visit. The
organizational foundation of this programme was none other than the Japanese colonial kukaku-seri land-
readjustment system, here radically strengthened, unlike postwar Japan, as a weapon against informal housing:
aided self-help was emphatically not on the agenda in Park’s Korea. The Korean system was based on 1934
legislation and a 1937 ‘Land-Readjustment Scheme’ initiated by the Japanese Government-General. Whereas
in Japan, the pooling process of kukaku-seri required collaboration between private owners, in Korea the 1934
regulations stipulated administration by the government. Like Title 1 projects in the United States, the system
encouraged complex land swaps between local authorities and developers. To reinforce it, Park’s regime
introduced in 1962 an Urban Planning Act and Land Expropriation Act, which gave local and central
government strong powers of compulsory purchase and population-decanting as part of regional replanning
schemes, and in 1967 passed a Housing and Home Loan Bank Act to facilitate low-income home-ownership.
In the Seoul area, massive squatter clearances began in 1966, a city master plan was approved in 1967 and the
central government planned a new town of 200,000 inhabitants at Guangju, outside the city limits, alongside
Kim’s municipal suburban programme of Citizen Housing.33
In this programme, the language of war was pervasive. Kim devised a ‘battle-plan’ for construction of
90,000 flats in three years, starting in 1968: standardized six-storey walk-up slabs, with staircase-access plans
and reinforced-concrete construction with brick infill – construction of the latter being partly left to the
residents themselves. Blocks were perched dramatically and somewhat haphazardly on hillsides, like a smaller-
scale version of the famous Caracas slabs – a location policy whose nakedly political motive he freely admitted
in 1969: ‘If they are not built in high areas, President Park Chung Hee will not catch sight of them!’ Kim
maintained a close personal oversight on the Citizen Housing programme, touring construction sites wearing
a helmet emblazoned with the slogan ‘Assault!’ Kim saw fast construction as all-important, arguing that ‘I am
on a hundred-metre track – speed is my weapon. I have no time to be concerned about encouragement or
criticism. Arriving last gets you nowhere.’34 But the ‘assault’ suffered a disastrous reverse in April 1970: one of
the Citizen Housing blocks, at Wawoo, in the Mapo district, collapsed without warning, owing to contractual
embezzlement and faulty foundations, and the Citizen Housing programme was immediately terminated: by
then 447 blocks, containing 18,417 flats, had been completed, of which around sixty were later found to have
structural faults. Thereafter the government’s emphasis shifted dramatically away from building directly for
the poor to a ‘filtering-up’ framework of building for the lower-middle classes. Demolition of the Citizen
apartments began as early as 1975, and by 2015 few remained. The new town solution also fell from grace, with
the Guangju project hit from 1971 by escalating public opposition: 60% of the displacees there returned to
squatting in Seoul (see Fig. 16.4).35
If public-sector construction of slum-clearance flats was ruled out, what alternatives were available? One
formula, of ‘minimum’ dwellings in low-rise groups, had already been proposed by a Ministry of Construction-
sponsored research body under planning consultant Oswald Nagler: the Housing, Urban and Regional
Planning Institute, or HURPI, established in 1965. Inspired by the LCC’s Hook study, Nagler’s team devised
multi-function plan types incorporating ondol heating, with a minimum of 10m² per four-person household,
but the proposal was vetoed by ‘Bulldozer Kim’ as too small-scale and ‘humble’ in character. At the other
extreme, another alternative mass-housing prototype, heavily influenced by 1950s/60s megastructural theories,

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A B

C D
Fig. 16.4 (a, b): Yurim Building, Seoul: pioneer of reinforced-concrete apartment construction in Korea, built in 1932
for Japanese colonial officials (MG 2012). (c): President Park Chung-Hee (centre) and Mayor Kim Hyeon-Uk (right)
officiate at the opening of the megastructural Seun complex in 1966. (d): The aftermath of the April 1970 collapse of a
newly-completed six-storey Citizen Housing block at Wawoo, with thirty-three fatalities.

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E F

G H
Fig. 16.4 (e, f): Geumhwa Apartments, Chunghyeon-dong 4, Seodaemun, Seoul, built in 1968: one of the last surviving
Citizen Housing blocks, seen in 2012 (MG). (g, h): The vast, linear, megastructural Seun complex, built in 1966–8 on a
wartime-cleared strip of land in central Seoul, and designed by architect Kim Swoo-Geun (Caroline Engel, 2014).

especially Kenzo Tange’s 1960 Metabolist plan for Tokyo Bay, was actually built in 1966–8: the Seun Complex,
a vast, linear redevelopment project of tiered reinforced-concrete blocks up to nine storeys high, with the top
four floors occupied by apartments, designed by the young avant-garde architect Kim Swoo-Geun. This first
large-scale megastructure in Asia occupied a wide, north–south strip of land in central Seoul, cleared by the
Japanese as part of wartime defence measures and later occupied by postwar shanty-dwellers. Seun was
conceived by Seoul City Council as a municipal development in partnership with private investors, with
middle-income apartments and communal property bundled together. However, the initial phases proved
difficult, and its residential elements were eventually built as a cooperative. Originally envisaged as a showpiece
of Park’s ‘lifestyle revolution’, the first stage of Seun was inaugurated by Park and Kim in 1966. Eventually,
however, the complex suffered escalating deterioration and residualization. But it was significant for the future,
in building up public acceptance of frequent, radical, high-density renewal in South Korean cities.36

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By comparison with a boldly utopian vision such as this, the TCK’s six-storey, 1,092-dwelling Map’o project
seemed distinctly conservative, with its mixture of staircase-access slabs and balcony-access Y-shaped blocks.37
Designed by architect Kim Joong-up, who had worked in Le Corbusier’s atelier in 1955–6, Map’o was South
Korea’s first planned neighbourhood apatu-tanji, complete with internal street network and community
facilities – hence the grand opening by President Park. Its combination of corridor- or gallery-access and
staircase-access strongly influenced later tanji. Internally, although it was the first to abandon traditional
Korean multifunction domestic spaces in favour of Japanese modernist-style living-dining-kitchens, this was
cautiously combined with ondol heating, after plans for higher, ten-storey blocks with lifts and central heating
had been scaled back; the success of ondol heating at Map’o ensured its continuation during the 1960s and
early 1970s until central heating became more generalized, especially in high blocks over eleven storeys
(kochung konmul). Even as late as 1970, flats were a very minor part of the South Korean housing scene,
totalling only 1.8% of the national housing stock, and in 1971, seven years after Park’s proclamation of the
‘lifestyle revolution’ at Map’o, sociologist Lee Hyo-Jae could argue that Koreans intrinsically distrusted
apartments, as unsuited to their modus vivendi. But that situation was about to change radically. Although in
1970, even in Seoul, apatu-tanji of five storeys or more only accounted for 4% of the housing stock, ten years
later that had risen to 19%, soaring to 35% in 1990 and 51% by 2000.38
The decisive change came in the early 1970s, when policy shifted towards government-supported building
of large-scale apatu-tanji, through an alliance with a new, characteristically Korean type of private enterprise:
the chaebols – large-scale, family-controlled conglomerates enjoying strong state support and featuring a
highly-developed, civil service-like internal bureaucratic structure, stemming partly from the industrial
pattern of prewar Japan. The chaebols first emerged in the early-1970s Yusin years, supporting the post-1972
industrial expansion charted in the Third Economic Development Plan. Alongside others, such as Samsung,
Hanshin or Hanyang, the most prominent was Hyundai, originally founded in 1947, which had boomed in the
1960s as a US Army support-works contractor in Vietnam, and now, following American withdrawal from
Vietnam, rapidly shifted its activities homewards, to support Park’s own ‘Great Leap Forward’ in the 1960s.
Having already built Map’o Apartments for TCK, Hyundai now expanded not just into heavy industries such
as shipbuilding, but also into large-scale urban development, founding in 1976 a subsidiary, Hyondae Sanop
Kaebal, to build tanji complexes. Chaebol apartment-building sharply increased after the oil price shock of
1979, which exposed their over-commitment in the heavy-industry and chemical sectors.39
The chaebols’ impact on mass housing was complex but pervasive. During the mainly laissez-faire 1960s,
housing was still seen as a key economic regulator, and that role grew in the 1970s, a time of escalating public
and private apatu-tanji development. The decisive legislative step came in 1972, with the passing of an
Accelerated Housing Construction Law, tailored to mass apatu-tanji construction. This authorized designation
of ‘apartment zones’ with a plot ratio of three and no maximum height limit. Lower-than-market price levels
were stipulated for flats in subsidized blocks of over twenty dwellings – which, in turn, bolstered the appeal of
chonsei rental. In 1972 a ten-year housing construction plan was initiated, which proposed to build 2.5 million
apartments by 1981. This was proportionally as ambitious as the ten-year housing programme unleashed that
year by Governor Murray MacLehose in Hong Kong (see below), but was to be achieved by different means,
largely emphasizing the private market, including housing banks, a housing lottery and borrowing from
overseas sources, especially USAID. The resulting flats were largely designated for direct sale or very short-
term rental contracts convertible into home ownership after one to five years. As in the case of Toronto, the
most radical state interventions were in city planning, aiming to prevent Wawoo-style collapses or
environmental degradation. The dependence of this system on massive, non-place-specific corporations
meant that it could not generate place-specific housing microregions in the manner, say, of IACP Italy or
‘Housing Authority’ America.40

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Reflecting the strong commitment to this new system by the Yusin state, the 1972 campaign was
accompanied by numerous rhetorical slogans, such as ‘One household, one home!’ or ‘Operation Housing –
180 Days’ (referring to the first four tanji of Chamshil – see below). Unlike contemporary Singapore, the
swathes of informal housing were not initially defined as a threat, requiring surgical clearance: instead, in a
nod to aided self-help, in the 1970s many low-rise squatter areas were improved and legalized. But the
ineffectiveness of this policy, when faced with rising land prices, became clear by the early 1980s, and aided
self-help was replaced by hapdong (cooperative) programmes of demolition and multi-storey flat construction,
which would successfully replace 17,500 slum houses by 37,500 new units in the mid-1980s. Thereafter, unlike
the tailing-off of Japanese danchi construction, the Korean programme shifted overwhelmingly to large apatu-
tanji: 70% of new 1970s flats in the 1970s were in tanji of over 2,000 dwellings, rising to 90% in the 1980s. The
pioneer of these new, large, high-class tanji was Tongbu Ichon-dong, completed in 1971, a 3,260-flat TCK
development funded by government and IDA loans, and including 750 small social-housing flats, 1,310 flats
for civil servants, 500 for foreign residents and 700 large flats for the middle classes, ranging hugely in size
from 45m2 to 240m2, and all with central heating rather than ondol.41
It was south of the Han River, in the vast Gangnam development zone, that this new philosophy of planned
corporate apatu-tanji development really took root in the 1970s. The plan for Gangnam emerged gradually
from the late 1960s, beginning with proposals for relatively low-rise development by architect B. J. Park in
1966 (a circular layout) and by the HURPI office in 1967 for a linear-planned zone of 500m² neighbourhood
blocks flanking a central axis. From 1972, it became established that the area would be exclusively developed
with apatu-tanji: it was officially designated the ‘Yeongdong Apartment District’. Eventually, in 1976–7, a
definitive development template was finalized by planner-engineers Kim Ikjin and Kang Kunhee. It envisaged
a superblock system influenced both by Clarence Perry and by Brasilia, with a rectangular grid of boulevards,
each superblock containing ‘slabs in a park’ and community facilities in the block centre. The key to
implementation of this unified pattern was an updated land-readjustment procedure, and Gangnam was the
first place where this was significantly implemented, having first been proposed there in conjunction with a
highway project in 1968. The development of Gangnam was strategically directed by the Seoul Metropolitan
Government, led from 1974–8 by Mayor Koo Ja-Chun, which stipulated use of higher blocks to increase the
proportion of planned open space, and secured central-government approval for designation of 800ha of
Gangnam as an ‘apartment district’ in 1976.42
The TCK was initially envisaged as the prime developer, working with contractors from the government-
approved ‘Korean Housing Association’ consortium, but private developers were brought in later, when its
resources proved inadequate and USAID warned of financial overstretch. From 1977, beginning with a section
developed by Woosung, private firms were allocated chunks of Gangnam to develop autonomously, with
scope for detail variation. Overall, most Gangnam developments were associated with middle-class growth
and the self-contained nuclear family, but their marketing pitch and built forms were diverse. The initial focus
of planning and building was the first really large sector, Chamshil. This comprised five separate tanji for
100,000 inhabitants in eighty-two blocks, planned by Professor Park Byeong-Joo in 1970, built in 1975–6 and
marketed as ‘Chamshil nyu’taun’ (‘New Town’). The first four tanji there, comprising 11,821 dwellings, were
built in 1975 by TCK in a much-publicized ‘180-Day Housing Operation’, allegedly involving hundreds of
thousands of workers, in an echo of DPRK techniques. These comprised basic, staircase-access flats in
standardized five-storey blocks up to 300m long, using prefabricated concrete elements for the first time.
Internally, the flats still incorporated ondol heating or coal fires, and combined rental flats for displaced slum-
residents with larger flats for sale, whereas the 5th tanji, built later by TCK, in 1978, was more ambitious, with
fifteen-storey balcony-access slabs containing over 7,000 centrally-heated middle-class dwellings of 25m2–
90m2.43

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At Panpo (1973–4), the TCK showed its versatility by building a home-ownership tanji for the relatively
wealthy, subsidized by the IDA on a site laid out by mixed public–private initiative. It comprised 4,053 flats of
55m2–190m2 in 114 five-storey staircase-access blocks, with communal central heating from a gas-fired plant
rather than individual ondol installations. When the apartments went on sale, a vast queue formed, leading the
authorities to stipulate lottery distribution for post-1977 developments. Panpo’s success was decisive in
establishing large-scale tanji as a prestigious rather than second-rate building form. However, as the emphasis
of development in Gangnam shifted from the TCK to the chaebols, it was the multi-storey slab pattern of
Chamshil 5th tanji that became the mainstream pattern for middle-class projects, incorporating either
sectional staircase layouts for large flats, or gallery-access for small flats, and invariably equipped with central
heating rather than ondol, requiring water tanks on the roofs. Building standards now allowed a maximum
height of fifteen storeys, with additional firefighting provisions obligatory for higher blocks. Seminal in setting
the scene for massed slab arrays was Hyundai’s Apkujong project, built in 1976–9 on a site initially formed by
TCK and sold to the private sector. Its forty staircase-/lift-access slab blocks, twelve to fifteen storeys in height
and aligned east–west, contained 3,070 flats of 80m2–240m2, with full facilities including central heating and
bathroom, and provision for a maid. The blocks’ external brick cladding was presented as a luxury symbol.
Allocation of these flats proved extremely controversial, with claims that they were used by the Park
government not just to attract influential expatriates back to Korea, but also to corruptly reward Yusin cronies;
Hyundai’s president was accused of using Apkujong apartment allocations to bribe government officials (see
Fig. 16.5).44
The Hyundai scandal did not diminish the appeal of the new-style elite tanji – quite the reverse. Overall,
public housing’s share of new apartment construction sharply dropped during and following the Yusin years,
from 95% in 1967–70 to 45% in 1980, 25% in 1990 and only 13% in 1998. Even that diminishing proportion
was at no stage targeted at the ‘poor’, but largely comprised building for sale: the Korean definition of public
housing was very wide, embracing both TCK-built flats and smaller dwellings, under 60m2, built by other
agencies. In 1977, in an amendment to the 1972 Accelerated Housing Construction Law, a new regime of state-
financed middle-class developments, the ‘Punyang’ system, was launched, which endured for twenty-one years
and fuelled a huge expansion in apatu-tanji construction. It provided for new flats at a fixed, below-market
price, supported through loans from the Housing Bank and a newly-founded National Housing Fund (1981)
– whose main reserve sources were National Housing Bonds and deposits to the Housing Subscription Scheme
(founded in 1978). State housing finance was channelled to producers (not consumers) solely via these indirect
mechanisms, rather than through any direct government subsidies – although the price-fixing had an obvious
effect on consumption. The flats were allocated by lottery, with priority determined by length of subscription
to the Housing Bank. This system was tailored to a society with low levels of bank credit: its initial focus was
flats built by TCK, 30% of whose costs were indirectly covered by the state, through free land or cheap capital,
while the remaining 70% came from individual buyers, via up-front cash payments rather than extended
mortgages. In 1978, the scheme was extended to smaller private-sector apartments, resulting in an explosive
housing boom and an all-time peak in the ratio of housing investment to GNP: 6.8% in 1978. From now on,
unlike its increasingly uncertain position in Japan, home-ownership predominated in Korea, especially after
the property boom that followed the 1979–80 recession.45
Unlike the high proportion of state-owned land in Hong Kong and Singapore, in South Korea private
ownership was dominant, accounting for 75% of all land. Yet after 1980, when a further Accelerated Housing
Construction Law was passed, most large developments were in practice controlled by the public sector, via two
enabling schemes,‘Public Purchase and Development’ and ‘Housing Lot Development’, both involving compulsory
purchase-powers exercised by public agencies such as TCK, the Land Development Corporation (TKK) and the
Seoul City Development Agency. The 1980s in South Korea were widely seen as a deregulatory ‘Olympic decade’,

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A B

C D
Fig. 16.5 (a): Chamshil 5th Development: fifteen-storey balcony-access apatu-tanji built by TCK in 1978 as middle-class
flats for owner-occupation (within the Chamshil nyu’taun master plan of 1970 by Prof. Park Byeong-Joo) (MG 2014). (b):
Panpo, Seoul (1973–4): five-storey TCK home-ownership scheme of 73m2 flats for home-ownership by better-off wealthy
occupants: it helped establish the apatu-tanji as a prestigious rather than stigmatized pattern (MG 2014). (c, d): Hanyang
Apartments, Apkujong, a middle-class owner-occupation project built by Hyundai in 1976–9 on a site prepared by TCK,
comprising forty Zeilenbau blocks of twelve to fifteen storeys: allocation of the flats provoked a major corruption scandal.
View of Block 42 (thirteen storeys) from flat 1201 and interior of flat 1201. (MG 2012).

when previous building-restrictions were relaxed – but the effect of this relaxation was to allow denser and
higher blocks, creating a bull market in apartment-building. Symbolic of this boom were the athletes’ villages
constructed for the Asian Games in 1986 (1,100 apartments) and the Olympics in 1988 (5,540 apartments), the
latter planned in a fan-shaped arc around a commercial centre, by architect Woo Kyu Sung – both developments
being subsequently sold to wealthy owners, including many architects. The proportion of new dwellings in multi-
storey apartments (over five storeys) soared from 21% in 1975 to 67% in 1990. The land-cost savings of tall flats
were enhanced by large firms’ productivity gains through standardized designs and industrialized building; 1985
saw the first statutory minimum dwelling sizes stipulated by the Ministry of Construction.46
Until the late 1980s, TCK or municipal rental dwellings hardly differed from home-ownership flats, as most
could be bought by their occupants after only two to five years, other than a small minority of employee rental
housing. As a result, of the public rental housing units built in Seoul between 1982 and 2000, over 60% had

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F G
Fig. 16.5 (e, f): Hyundai Apartments, Apkujong: thirty-eight slab blocks of twelve to fifteen storeys (with flats of
90m2–240m2) built in 1975–82 on a TCK-prepared site; exterior and interior of Block 80, Flat 1404 (MG 2012). (g): Ilsan
New Town (1988–93): Gangson-Ro low-rise area. Ilsan was a centrepiece of President Roh Tae-Woo’s ‘Two Million Units
Construction Plan’ (MG 2012).

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already been sold by 2000.47 The years around 1990, however, saw the first ‘permanent’ public rental housing,
totalling around 10% of total output in Seoul in 1988–92. This new programme formed part of another of the
successive revolutionary transformations of South Korean housing: the so-called ‘2 Million Housing Units
Construction Plan’ pledged in 1989 by the newly-elected president, Roh Tae Woo – an initiative that marked
a decisive shift in the affiliation of the apatu-tanji system, from authoritarianism to democracy. The backdrop
to this was the unpalatable fact that, despite all the efforts and initiatives, national housing construction levels
remained stubbornly low, with only 4.1 million dwellings built over the entire period of 1962–87, and land
prices soaring by as much as 32% annually in the late 1980s. Roh, styling himself a ‘house-building president’,
as opposed to Park, the ‘road-building president’, promised to build 2 million dwellings, roughly as many as
already existed in Seoul. Some 250,000 of these should be ‘permanent rental housing’ targeted at the poor, with
rents at only 30% of market levels, and 85% of construction costs covered indirectly by the state. The remaining
1.75 million would be conventional public housing for middle-class home-ownership, alongside short-term
‘five-year rentals’ built by TCK for private enterprise with NHF loans.48
The programme was resoundingly successful, and exceeded its own output targets by a third, providing 2.8
million units in 1988–92, although the Permanent Public Housing programme fell slightly below target, at
190,000. All this came at a massive cost, some 6.5% of GNP, and in 1992 the programme was suspended owing
to these costs, along with shortages of potential tenants; it was replaced under the 1993–8 Kim Young Sam
administration by a ‘long-term public rental housing’ programme with fifty-year tenancies and 50% of costs
covered by the occupants. All in all, the two administrations built 5.9 million units between 1988 and 1997,
nearly half as much again as the entire 1962–87 total; 74% of these were apartments. The success of the post-
1988 programme stemmed from supply-side enhancements, especially strengthened compulsory-purchase
powers, easier builder-loans from the National Housing Fund and HSS loans for home purchasers, and the
formation of municipally-led Urban Development Corporations to boost housing construction. By 2003, over
a million households had subscription savings accounts with the Housing Bank, giving them access to
apartments at controlled prices of 30%–50% of market levels.49
The developments resulting from these massive output drives were almost all apatu-tanji, provoking
growing criticism from architects and urbanists that the serried slabs were like ‘barracks’ (1985). These tanji
fell into two distinct categories. The first was a massive expansion of the new towns programme on the urban
periphery. It began in 1989–90 with two developments, at Bundang, south of Seoul (420,000 population), and
Ilsan, north-west of the capital (300,000). Their chief aim was to boost apartment production for a middle
class increasingly excluded from the Gangnam developments by rampant price rises. Exploiting the 1980
Housing Site Development Promotion Act, which supercharged the old Japanese land-readjustment legacy
with fearsome powers of expropriation at below-market values for housing and infrastructure construction,
the TKK pushed through the development of Bundang within seven years, funded by pre-sale land debentures
rather than direct government subsidies: it totalled 97,000 dwellings, of which 87,700 were apartments. In a
logical division of labour, the public sector managed land formation and infrastructure, while private
developers built the housing areas, which were structured in a loose grid of boulevard-bounded housing
superblocks. These, in turn, were set within an overarching framework of ‘linear community corridors’,
influenced by the HURPI Gangnam plan of 1967. Bundang’s plan emerged from a turnkey-based competition
between development companies, and was piloted in the Sibum Danzi pilot project of 7,769 apartments by
four chaebol developers: Hyundai, Samsung/Hanshin, Hanyang and Woosung. This included both ten- to
eleven-storey slabs and sixteen- to thirty-storey ‘super-high’ towers (cho’kochung konmul). During the 1980s
and 1990s, the percentage of new apartments in blocks over twenty storeys rocketed from 1% to 90%.50
The second new category of post-1980s tanji comprised urban redevelopments, again involving higher
blocks but packed into more confined sites. This phase, which followed the short-lived self-help programme

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of the 1970s and 1980s, was organized using cooperatives – with mixed results. The 1983–8 Hapdong
programme of joint redevelopments, on sites designated and formed by local municipalities, used high blocks
to allow two-for-one replacement of low-income informal dwellings by large middle-class apartments. Driven
by a mounting sense of injustice to the ‘poor’, the Roh government cancelled the Hapdong programme in 1989
and replaced it with the Permanent Public Housing scheme. Yet although the 1990s witnessed a wave of
demolition of squatter housing and its replacement by more diverse tanji, the squeezing-out of low-income
residents continued. In an echo of the municipal efforts of ‘Bulldozer Kim’, the Seoul City Development Agency
and other local housing authorities now took the lead in urban redevelopment, alongside the TCK’s work in
the new towns. This rebuilding programme was aided by 1993 legislation which eased the permissive standard
for redevelopment, allowing buildings only twenty to thirty years old to be considered ripe for replacement.
Redevelopments soared from 12% of new development in the Seoul region in 1993 to 38% in 1995. In the
Map’o-gu district, for example, a mixture of traditional hanok courtyard-houses and upgraded shanty dwellings
was tackled by a 1992 occupiers’ renovation syndicate, which engaged Samsung as developer and proposed
construction of eleven blocks of twenty-one to twenty-three storeys, containing 1,210 dwellings. In 1995, the
syndicate received permission to demolish, and by 1997 the new buildings were under construction, in a
Zeilenbau layout with short transverse blocks. Yet only a minority of the old residents ever returned: the large
new flats were much larger and found middle-class purchasers. The real driving force here was not cooperative
organization but the alliance of state agencies and developer chaebols.51

Hong Kong and Singapore: a study in sibling rivalry

In the mini-states of Hong Kong and Singapore, the postwar legacy of British colonialism was far more direct.
In the most extreme cases anywhere of emergency-driven ‘warlike’ mass housing, both territories embarked
on vigorous government-led public housing programmes, stamped indelibly, but in strongly contrasting ways,
with the Anglophone tradition of directly-built housing by ‘authority’. Owing to their city-state scale, each
territory constituted a single housing microregion, combining (in First World terms) the high coordination
typical of small nation-states such as Denmark or the Netherlands with the local interventionism of large
cities such as New York City or ‘Red’ Vienna. These decades were dominated in Singapore by the People’s
Action Party, or PAP, under Lee Kuan Yew, which took power in 1959 and in 1965 led Singapore to independence.
In Hong Kong, British colonial rule continued until 1997, the most forcefully reforming governor being Sir
Murray MacLehose (1971–82). Unsurprisingly, given their common colonial background, policymakers in the
two territories were usually well aware of developments in the other, the result being a strong sense of rivalry.52
Both territories were originally British colonial city-state ports in enclave locations: a peninsula and
archipelago in the case of Hong Kong, and an island closely abutting the Malayan mainland in the case of
Singapore. During the later twentieth century, like earlier mass-housing hot spots, such as 1920s Red Vienna,
both were geopolitically isolated siege societies confronted with ferocious demographic and political pressures.
In both, the postwar decades saw rapid population rises, in Hong Kong from 1.7 million in 1947 to 3.1 million
in 1960 and 7.1 million in 2011, and in Singapore from 0.9 million to 1.6 million and 5.2 million in the same
years. And in both, mass housing became a foundation for decolonization strategies, shifting from emergency
expedients to settled long-term policies. In Singapore, hesitant moves towards self-rule began after 1945, with
the 1953–4 Rendel Commission charting a staged strategy of devolved administration from 1955 and full
internal self-rule from 1959. The government was headed until 1959 by the moderate left-wing administrations
of David Marshall (1955–6) and Lim Yew Hock (1956–9), and thereafter by Lee Kuan Yew’s PAP. This
devolution settlement was overshadowed by the threat of Communist destabilization and the uncertain

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relationship with Malaya – a time of turbulence from which the territory emerged in 1965 as a separate city-
state. The idiosyncratic character of the ‘welfare state’ in Singapore was bound up with the ambiguous position
of the PAP, which initially gained devolved power in 1959 largely through Communist-supported, anti-
colonial agitation that undermined Lim’s moderate left-wing rule, thereafter shifting rightwards towards a
combination of capitalist economics with systematized, technocratic social provision and militant anti-
Communism. The avowedly socialist and anti-colonialist origins of the PAP influenced its highly politicized
slant on public housing, publicly disparaging pre-1959 policies and achievements while pragmatically building
on them. In this, it paralleled the political, nation-building character of social-democratic European welfare-
state ideology to a limited extent.53
In Hong Kong, too, the political balance reached a tipping-point, but in the late 1960s and early 1970s,
when a more socially interventive government policy became necessary to anchor an unstable and disaffected
society – albeit one that remained far more wedded to laissez-faire liberalism than Singapore. Here the lack of
an independence option, owing to the impending reversion of most of its territory to China in 1997,
necessitated its remaining a British colony until then. This, in turn, ensured that any reform would be a matter
not for politicians but for its administrative, civil-service elite. Especially in the late 1940s and early 1960s,
Hong Kong was swamped by successive waves of refugee immigrants from the Communist mainland:
although over 60% larger in area than Singapore (423 square miles as against 270), it had far less developable
land and its population grew by around a million persons per decade until the late 1980s. And the 1960s saw
further challenges to the territory’s viability, with mounting crises of water shortage solved only by dependence
on supplies from the mainland, and two successive summers of rioting and unrest in 1966–7 – the first
provoked by social discontent, the second by Communist agitators reflecting the Cultural Revolution.54
In the relationship of both programmes to welfare-state ideology, there were some strong strategic
similarities between Hong Kong and Singapore. Both aimed to stabilize a society of people in transit and to
foster a sense of community or even ‘national’ identity within a capitalist context. In both territories, unlike
Europe, the legitimacy of market capitalism was never seriously challenged, and in recent years both were
labelled the two most ‘free economies in the world’ by the Heritage Foundation. Yet these were unusual free
markets, depending on selective yet massive social provision, including planning on a scale the USSR would
have been proud of. As part of this, both governments, late-colonial Hong Kong and postcolonial Singapore,
chose to develop huge, centrally-administered public housing programmes to rehouse their vast refugee
populations and anchor their societies: by the 1980s even Hong Kong was devoting over 20% of GDP to public
spending, including welfare provisions. The chief difference, in politico-social terms, was the framing of the
policies: forcibly ideological in Singapore, more ‘neutral’ in Hong Kong.
The late 1950s and 1960s saw a sudden divergence between Hong Kong and Singapore housing
administration, the former pursuing a quiet, gradual decolonization, but the latter plunging into a sudden and
chaotic ‘Malayanization’ in the late 1950s, which transformed the colony’s long-standing housing-planning
agency, the Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT), from a source of pride to an ancien-regime lame duck, purged
of key personnel almost overnight in 1958–9; from 1950 onwards, foreign influences on Singapore housing
practice stemmed increasingly from Australia and from United Nations agencies.55 This strong contrast in
administrative ethos was not reflected in more explicitly ‘British’ housing policies in Hong Kong. Both
territories established a central housing authority (in Singapore in 1959–60, and in Hong Kong in 1973) – a
formula very different from council housing. Conversely, both strongly echoed Britain in their dual formula
of radical urban redevelopment and planned new towns and population overspill. The two variables
determining the exact recipe in either case were land supply and the governance and economic system.
Singapore, with its lesser land shortage and authoritarian government style, evolved a programme that
combined British-style strong urban and new-town planning with an ‘un-British’ reliance on social home

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ownership, physically evenly-spread across its territory in a redistributive strategy described by Lee as a ‘Robin
Hood adventure’.56 Hong Kong, with its looser government and ultra-free-market economy, and its severe land
and demographic situation (offset by Crown ownership of all land), developed Britain’s system of extreme
fluctuations in housing policy, and its tower-block architecture, to a dramatic extreme of height.
In both territories, there were strong tensions between emergency and long-term policies, and between
social renting and social home-ownership. In the first case, Hong Kong saw a linear progression of policy, from
initial dominance by emergency resettlement to the gradual establishment of a long-term permanent housing
strategy integrated with planning; while Singapore experienced a more idiosyncratic, politically-structured
fluctuation from planning to emergency housing and back to planning again. And in the second case,
Singapore, imitated by Hong Kong, began ambitious programmes of purpose-built social home-ownership
developments – a programme that became overwhelmingly dominant in Singapore but was more circumscribed
by private developers’ pressures in Hong Kong.

Shek Kip Mei and Bukit Ho Swee: from resettlement to home-ownership

The early/mid-1950s saw the two territories further apart than they would ever be again, with most efforts in
Singapore devoted to lavishly-coordinated but low-output efforts, but Hong Kong launching a crash
programme of emergency accommodation for squatter resettlement. Singapore was almost unique among
British colonies and ex-colonies in having developed by the 1950s a strong housing-planning strategy, presided
over by the Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT). Its original mission of slum-redevelopment reflected the
nineteenth-century improvement formula common in British industrial cities and some colonial centres.57
But this system was broadened out post-1945 into a system of integrated housing and regional planning. The
1950s saw the development of an Abercrombie-style master plan for the territory (conceived in 1951 and
finally approved in 1958), including a network of new towns, beginning with Queenstown (from 1953), and
attempts to boost general-needs low-income housing output. Architecturally, the SIT built a mixture of low-
rise flats and terrace-houses, moderately modernist in style and reminiscent of late 1940s British mixed
developments, including isolated towers of up to fourteen storeys. But its relatively small-scale programme
became paralyzed by political disruption during the 1955–9 transition to self-rule.58 Overall, congestion in
Singapore was lower than in post-1949 Hong Hong, so the political impetus to build seemed less; it was always
assumed that all new public housing should comprise self-contained flats, with toilet and cooking facilities
and preferably of several rooms.
By 1958, however, although the cumulative production of the SIT had reached 23,000 flats, and nearly 10% of
the housing stock was government-owned (virtually unprecedented within any European colonial territory), a
consensus was reached within the devolved Labour Front governments of Marshall and Lim Yew Hock – prodded
by SIT chief J. M. Fraser – that a step-change in administration would be needed to galvanize output under self-
rule from 1959.59 In 1956, a government report advocated a radical stepping-up of squatter resettlement (inspired
by Hong Kong’s recent achievements – see below), and in 1958–9 Lim’s Labour Front government passed
legislation to establish a Housing and Development Board (HDB) to oversee housing efforts and mastermind
concerted redevelopment of the squatter settlements, for which slab-blocks of ‘emergency’ one-room flats were
designed by Fraser’s staff.60 But all this was overtaken by the mounting political chaos of the late 1950s, and by
the anti-colonial, anti-expatriate agitation fanned by the left wing of the PAP and its firebrand municipal leader,
Ong Eng Guan. Fraser left the SIT – to head the Housing Authority in Hong Kong – and as a result, the public
housing and planning drive, far from stepping up, fell into abeyance, and it seemed unlikely in 1959 that the new
PAP administration would make much difference. A decade later, the picture would look very different.61

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During the 1950s, in fact, it was not Singapore that successfully unleashed a large-scale programme of
public housing, but Hong Kong. The pressures of overcrowding and refugee influx here provoked policies and
solutions very different from the careful debates and modest designs in Singapore. The years after 1945,
especially following the revolution refugee influx, had seen an upsurge in debates within Hong Kong about the
need for a low-cost housing programme to ameliorate overcrowding and shortages among lower-income
groups. Several relatively small-scale responses began with government financial aid, notably the Hong Kong
Housing Society (from 1951–2: a philanthropic organization emphasizing Octavia Hill management) and the
Hong Kong Housing Authority (from 1954, a municipally-directed agency under the aegis of the Urban
Council, building for households earning over $400 a month).62
But these restricted, SIT-style programmes, and their justifications of housing need, were sidelined by the
dramatic emergence and growth of a very different movement: the ‘Resettlement’ programme, driven by hard-
headed anxiety over the spread of squatter settlements over potential development land, and the disruption
caused by fires in these shanty towns. Catalyzed by an especially destructive fire at Shek Kip Mei in December
1953, existing modest resettlement programmes of low-rise, lightweight structures were jettisoned in 1954 for
a programme of six- to seven-storey reinforced-concrete blocks, intended to rehouse squatters and clear
development land, and built by a military-style, engineer-led Resettlement Department, with minimal
housing-management input. The earliest (‘Mark I’) Resettlement blocks were extreme examples of utilitarian
tenements, simplified from PWD designs for police housing at Hollywood Road and Canton Road. They
resembled interwar or nineteenth- century London labourers’ blocks or Calcutta chawls, but at a far higher
density – nearly 4,000 persons per acre, rather than the 200ppa maximum of new postwar London
developments. The seven-storey blocks, built of in-situ concrete, were arranged in ‘H’ plans with continuous
external balconies and back-to-back unserviced single rooms: WCs and water taps were located in the cross-
bars of the H-blocks (see Fig. 16.6).63
Initially, during 1954, this policy was merely an ad-hoc emergency expedient. But very soon an underlying
political motivation coalesced as the Resettlement programme expanded, exploiting the refugee disruptions
to reshape the laissez-faire colony through public initiative: the late 1954 Tai Hang Tung fire presaged the
crucial shift from fire-rehousing to proactive clearance. And by the late 1950s, such a momentum had
developed that over 10,000 dwellings were being completed annually, reaching a maximum of 23,000 in 1965.
Even this could not keep pace with the floods of refugees, and squatter numbers actually doubled in the
decade to 1964. Output-driven programmes of low-rent basic housing are always vulnerable to drops in public
support and jumps in expectations – and by the mid-1960s an upsurge in general social disaffection in Hong
Kong had converted the Resettlement estates into hotbeds of disorder and agitation. Among housing and
architectural professionals, a consensus grew that a more coordinated strategy was needed. Two successive
government committee reports, in 1958 and 1963, argued forcefully for a long-term ten-year strategy of low-
income housing, driven by a single unified government department and firmly linked into a colony-wide
development plan incorporating a network of new towns in the New Territories.64
For the moment, this was premature, and any significant shift in the general Hong Kong consensus against
long-term planning and public spending (championed especially by John Cowperthwaite, Financial Secretary
from 1961 to 1971) had to wait until the shock of the 1967–8 riots and the arrival of a new, reformist governor
in 1971. During the 1960s, alongside the vast Resettlement output and a new ‘Government Low-Cost Housing’
programme (from 1961) of resettlement-type blocks for slightly higher-income groups, the Housing
Authority’s developments cautiously expanded in ambition under Fraser and his chief architect, Donald Liao,
initially in slabs of up to twenty storeys (e.g. Choi Hung in 1963–5), but then extending to tall ‘twin tower’
blocks of up to twenty-five storeys (as at Wah Fu in 1965–71), with yawning, galleried internal courts: HKHA
standard units were roughly the same size as the smallest SIT flats. Reformist agitation now looked to Singapore

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 From Third World to First World: Mass Housing in Capitalist Eastern Asia

A B

C D
Fig. 16.6 (a): Bukit Ho Swee, Singapore: propaganda notice for 2011 National Day, featuring former leader Lee Kuan
Yew at centre (MG 2011). (b): Early multi-storey blocks designed by Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT) at Kallang
Airport Estate; commenced by SIT in 1956–9 and extended by the Housing and Development Board (HDB) in 1961–2
(MG 2011). (c): Queenstown satellite township, the first blocks (45–49) completed by HDB on the estate in 1960, including
both two- and seven-storey buildings (designed by SIT architects) (MG 2011). (d): Squatter settlement in Ko Chiu Rd, Lei
Yue Mun, Kowloon, seen in 1983 (MG 1983).

as an exemplar of coordination and planning – as evinced in Fraser’s impassioned evidence to the two housing
inquiry committees (see Figs 16.7 and 16.8).65
But by the later 1960s, it was not Fraser’s earlier work at the SIT that was attracting wider attention in Hong
Kong and elsewhere, but the unexpectedly dramatic progress of Singapore’s new HDB. In later years, the ‘First
Decade of Housing’ under the PAP became exalted into a nation-building foundation narrative, its cathartic
moment the sudden production breakthrough following Singapore’s equivalent of Shek Kip Mei, the Bukit Ho
Swee fire of May 1961. The reality, however, was rather more uncertainty-ridden and reliant on ad-hoc
improvisation. Yet the overall effect was similar to Hong Kong: a fire emergency spurring a wider reshaping of

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E F
Fig. 16.6 (e): Shek Kip Mei Resettlement Estate, Kowloon, the first development of Mk. I blocks, built from 1954,
designed by Public Works Department (PWD) architects George Norton and C. R. J. Donnithorne, and containing
unserviced single rooms: model of the preserved last survivor (Mei Ho House) (MG 2013). (f): Kwun Tong Resettlement
Estate in 1983: unconverted Mk. 1 blocks swampted by hawkers; replaced by Tsui Ping Estate (cf. 15.12h) (MG 1983).

the built environment. Between 1959 and 1963, and especially between the 1961 walk-out by the PAP’s left
wing (the Barisan Sosialis) and the 1963 security crackdown that ended that rebellion, the PAP government
was fighting for survival, and public housing, as a key self-rule responsibility, was one of the few ways open for
it to win decisive public support: there were even suggestions that the fire (unlike Shek Kip Mei) was deliberately
started to kick-start squatter clearances. Significantly, housing was the first area in which Lee broke with his
party’s left wing: on inheriting the newly-established HDB, he sidelined Ong Eng Guan, the PAP’s new minister
for housing and planning, and in 1960 appointed businessman Lim Kim San as first head of the Board, which
began operation on 1 February.66
Pragmatically, Lim Kim San made few radical changes to the SIT’s policies and practices – although for
propaganda purposes the SIT was henceforth portrayed as an ineffective dinosaur and the HDB as a PAP-
devised remedy. What had changed was the implementation of those existing practices: with the shift of the
PAP from ‘poacher’ to ‘gamekeeper’, a steely but pragmatic drive for output now dominated. The SIT’s low-rise
developments were terminated and its new slab-blocks of emergency one-room flats were mass-produced by
HDB at Tiong Bahru/Bukit Ho Swee, Queenstown and elsewhere, alongside slabs of larger-size ‘permanent’
flats, to allow a virtuous circle of kampong decanting and redevelopment – early-1960s Singapore had
proportionately as many squatters as Hong Kong (300,000 as compared with 550,000), but these were mostly
farmers, not refugees. Following a purge of expatriate SIT staff by Ong in 1959 – creating a different, more
Asian feel to HDB staffing by comparison with Hong Kong – this building policy of no-holds-barred

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A B C

E
Fig. 16.7 (a, b): Kwai Shing West (Government Low-Cost Housing) Estate (1969–76), exterior of Block 9 and central
access corridor (MG 2013): part of a nineteen-block estate for 75,000, planned by the PWD Architectural Office (Colin
Bramwell, chief architect) with blocks up to twenty-four storeys and space allowance of 35ft2 per adult, on three levels
connected by ‘vertical mass-transportation’ lifts. (c): Sai Wan (Cadogan Street) Estate, Hong Kong Island: the HKHA’s third
completed development (1957–9), designed by government architect Stanley Feltham with gallery-access blocks perched
on a steep site (MG 2014). (d, e): Choi Hung (‘Rainbow’) Estate, Kowloon (1960–4): plaque commemorating 1963 official
opening, and general view (MG 2011, 2017). Designed by Palmer & Turner for HKHA on rectilinear layout with multi-
coloured wall panels.

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G H
Fig. 16.7 (f, g): Ping Shek, Kowloon: estate name-board (MG 1983) and general exterior (MG 2017). An HKHA rental
estate of 1969–73, with single-tower variant by Palmer & Turner on Donald Liao’s slightly earlier hollow-block design
(scaled down from original plans for fifty-storey blocks) (cf. 15.8). (h): Donald Liao, former Secretary for Housing (and
HKHA chief architect), seen in 2010 at the Jockey Club Sha Tin Clubhouse, with the towers of Sha Tin New Town arrayed
behind (MG 2010).

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A B

C D

E
Fig. 16.8 (a, b, c, d, e): Wah Fu Estate: model in the permanent exhibition at the Housing Department headquarters at
Ho Man Tin; 1983 exterior (before external painting); 2019 exterior; tower interior; interior of Flat 1531, Wah Kin House
(in Phase 1, completed in 1967) (all MG). Built in 1965–71, a pioneering HKHA satellite township planned by architect
Donald Liao on a spectacular peninsula site, including a new ‘twin tower’ block type with internal galleried courts.

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F G
Fig. 16.8 (f, g): Oi Man, Kowloon: estate plan and internal galleries in 2011. A 6,200-unit, self-contained complex with
twelve twin-towers and slabs, opened in 1974–5 and visited by Queen Elizabeth in 1975 (MG 2011).

consolidation was capably implemented by the new HDB chief architect, Teh Cheang Wan, and output soared,
with 54,000 flats completed in five years and annual resettlement reaching 6,500: eventually, aided by mounting
compensation levels, 230,000 squatter families would be rehoused by 1985 (see Fig. 16.9).67
The mid-1960s saw two especially important changes in HDB policy, both inflating themes initially
conceived by SIT. Firstly, the Master Plan new-town programme was expanded into an island-wide
development strategy, beginning with the commencement of Toa Payoh in 1965 (initially mainly obe- and
two-room flats). Then followed the 1970s plans for Woodlands and Ang Mo Kio, in the north, both on high-
density ‘Mk. 1 New Town’ lines, with neighbourhood units and 200 dwellings per hectare maximum, compared
with 500 at Toa Payoh: the Master Plan was repeatedly revised, most notably in 1967 (as the ‘Concept Plan’).68
The second new element of PAP housing strategy also started adventitiously, in 1964: the beginning of a
programme of mass social home-ownership. First trialled by the SIT in experimental schemes (notably at St
Michael’s Estate in 1958–9), this policy was now actively developed as part of the PAP’s bid to counter ethnic
tensions during the brief union with Malaysia (1963–5) – the first ‘Home Ownership for the People’ scheme
being a group of sixteen-storey slabs in Queenstown area 3. Underlining the ad-hoc character of early HDB
policymaking, the scheme made little progress until it was decided to open up the Central Provident Fund, a
compulsory pension-saving scheme introduced by Marshall in 1955, as a financial source for home-ownership
flat-purchase. From then, the scheme grew so rapidly as to displace mainstream rental housing as the main
production focus, and by 1979 over 61% of publicly-built housing was owner-occupied under ninety-nine-
year leases. The policy became HDB’s paramount contribution to the embedding of Singaporean society: by
1987, 585,000 public flats housed 85% of the total population. Of course, mass social home-ownership was
hardly a unique Singaporean discovery: by 1964, it was already the principal social-housing strategy of
countries ranging from Iceland and Israel to Cuba. What was unique to Singapore was the association of social
home-ownership with massed building of high-density tower blocks, a policy which became a very effective
agent of social stabilization – even if, in the long run, it also arguably encouraged over-consumption in housing
and created a growing ‘affordability problem’. In contrast to, say, the pre-1965 LCC, with its incongruous
combination of large-scale public-authority structure and self-indulgent design individualism, within the
HDB the disciplining force of high density and high output was taken as read. The role of architects, planners
and landscapists was central to the HDB programme: large interdisciplinary teams were built up to supervise
the HDB housing drive, controlled by Teh Cheang Wan and his successor as chief architect, Liu Thai-Ker.69

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C D
Fig. 16.9 (a, b, c): Bukit Ho Swee, redevelopment housing following the May 1961 fire: Phase 3 (1962–4), including
exterior and balcony of the sixteen-storey Block 22 (MG 2011). A total of 11,426 new flats, designed and built by HDB
(chief architect Teh Cheang Wan) replaced 2,600 destroyed squatter dwellings. (d): Outram Park (Precinct South I),
redevelopment of prison site with twelve high blocks, including four diagonally-aligned fifteen-storey slabs: part of HDB’s
first urban renewal project, opened by Lee Kuan Yew in 1970, demolished in 2003 and replaced in turn by Pinnacle@
Duxton (cf. 17.2c, d) (MG 1985).

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E F
Fig. 16.9 (e): Selegie Estate, designed by SIT/HDB architects and completed in 1963 as an early step in city-centre
redevelopment, including eighteen-storey focal tower and lower blocks (MG 2011). (f): Queenstown Neighbourhood 3,
Commonwealth Estate: the prototype Home Ownership for the People development, designed and built by HDB in 1962–
4; three sixteen-storey gallery-access Zeilenbau slabs of three-room flats (blocks 81–3) (MG 2012).

Following the frenetic efforts of the 1960s, the 1970s were generally years of consolidation in Singapore,
with resettlement clearances and new completions edging steadily upwards. In Hong Kong, the position was
startlingly different: these were the years of a second housing revolution, transforming the old Resettlement-
dominated programme into something resembling Singapore’s comprehensive strategy, complete with unified
housing administration, permanent self-contained dwellings, new towns and home-ownership scheme. But
the crisis of political legitimacy following the 1966–7 anti-government and Communist riots led to a rather
low-key political projection of that programme by the late-colonial governing class, in terms of general civic
integration.70 The 1966–7 riots had housing implications not unlike the Ronan Point collapse in England in
1968: in their wake, the previous public housing programme suddenly appeared obsolete and primitive in the
face of rising expectations. Whereas in England the reaction was to scale down public housing in size and
numbers, Hong Kong’s response, charted by a new, reformist governor, Sir Murray MacLehose (1971–82), was
very different, owing to the combined pressure of the refugee influx and the latent sovereignty issue. In a secret
dispatch of 1974 to the Foreign Secretary in London, he argued that Hong Kong’s government must at all costs
not ‘make a mess of things’ – which could provoke an early Chinese takeover – but should instead use the
decade or so ‘breathing space’ before the ‘shadow’ of the 1997 sovereignty issue began looming, in order to ‘get
a move on’ and make HK a ‘model city’: this could buy time till the current ‘harsh and idiosyncratic’ conditions
in China abated, hopefully allowing an eventual normalized transition to Chinese sovereignty under ‘special

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conditions’ that would ‘safeguard the way of life of the population and the British and other foreign interests
in the Colony’.71
As part of his ‘model city’ strategy, MacLehose launched in 1972 a vastly more ‘comprehensive’ ten-year
housing programme, coordinated by an expanded Hong Kong Housing Authority (formed in 1973). This
ambitious strategy, long advocated in ‘progressive’ official circles but repeatedly shelved as smacking of
excessive big government, now suddenly took on a top priority. It began with stepped-up rental housing
production, both in new towns – generally much larger in population than Singapore’s – and redevelopment
of resettlement estates, and was extended almost immediately to include a social Home Ownership Scheme
(for households with monthly incomes of $3,500–$5,000) similar to Singapore’s. This aimed to help stabilize
Hong Kong society and create a sense of community empowerment – building on reforms such as the earlier
creation of ombudsman-like City District Officers (1968). Although expatriate British staff members generally
dominated both technical and administrative fields until the early 1990s, Chinese professionals gradually
assumed greater control, with the HKHA’s chief architect/CEO Donald Liao leading the way from the late
1960s: unlike the engineer-dominated resettlement programme, architects and planners played a central
coordinating role in design, as in Singapore. Despite the consolidating efforts of the 1987 Long-Term Housing
Strategy, planning in Hong Kong remained more fragmented than in the PAP’s disciplined Singapore, with a
looser master plan and implementation split between various agencies (see Fig. 16.10).72

Race to the Top: HDB and HKHA architecture

In Castells’ judgement, ‘the two housing policies [HK and Singapore] were right in line with the Anglo-Saxon
town planning tradition of creating social harmony through the manipulation of space’.73 Architecturally,
however, the two programmes could not have been more different from the British precedents. Higher density
and higher blocks would clearly be necessary in both redevelopments and new towns, but once resettlement’s
utilitarian early slab-blocks had been left behind, the two programmes developed along divergent architectural
lines. Some British precedents were generally adopted in both places, as in the nomenclature of ‘estates’ and
individual blocks, although Hong Kong adopted individual block names (in Cantonese) whereas Singapore
favoured large gable-wall numbers. Also distinctly ‘British’ was the avoidance of large-scale prefabrication,
although selective precast elements were increasingly incorporated.
It was topography, above all, that determined the contrasting built-forms of flat Singapore and mountainous
Hong Kong – although the need to reserve the latter’s ‘best’ housing sites for private developers further
constrained public housing’s land supply, requiring most sites to undergo costly formation works. In Singapore,
the basic unit of estate planning was the individual flat-type. Housing was laid out in a site-specific manner by
HDB’s architectural teams. Initially dominant in Singapore, owing to its more favourable land supply than
Hong Kong’s, were straightforwardly modernist in-situ-concrete slab-blocks of small but self-contained flats,
usually of ten to eleven storeys and either with central corridors (emergency flats) or galleries on one side
(permanent ‘improved’ flats): flat sizes remained invariably larger than Hong Kong’s. But by the 1970s,
Singapore’s new towns were moving towards a rather denser, lower formula of eleven- to thirteen-storey
blocks, tightly arranged in enclosed groupings to exclude sunlight, while maximizing the access permeability
of the blocks to enhance air penetration – a tropical mirror of the typical English deck-access formula of the
1960s. The basic development unit became the ‘precinct’ of up to 1,000 flats, instead of the ‘neighbourhood’ of
up to 6,000.74 As part of this design development process, Singapore also continued its emphasis on gallery-
access decks, combined with open ground floors (officially dubbed ‘void decks’), all now increasingly seen in
social-engineering terms by the PAP government as settings for inter-ethnic community-building. Often

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A B

C D
Fig. 16.10 (a): The reformist Governor of Hong Kong (1971–2), Sir Murray MacLehose, seen in 1972 inspecting the
devastation caused by the Sau Mau Ping mud-slide in Kowloon (immediately right of MacLehose is Ian Lightbody,
Secretary for Housing). (b): The HKHA’s Sun Chui Estate Phase 2, Sha Tin New Town: view of building site in November
1983 (MG) showing HD-designed twin tower and slab-blocks in semi-mechanized construction by contractor Hsin
Chong. (c): Tai Hing Estate, Tuen Mun Area 6, HKHA rental complex built in 1973–6 immediately post-merger, with
massive, cruciform thirty-storey towers originally designed under Colin Bramwell of the PWD Architectural Office (MG
2013). (d): The philanthropic Hong Kong Housing Society’s Cho Yiu Chuen development in Kwai Chung (1975–9),
designed by architects Palmer & Turner, including a centrepiece thirty-eight-storey tower containing 592 flats (MG 2013).

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E F

G
Fig. 16.10 (e): Sui Wo Court, Sha Tin Area 42A: a 1978–82 HKHA Home Ownership Scheme complex designed by
architects Palmer & Turner with ‘windmill’-plan towers of varied heights, seen newly-completed (cf. 3.2f) (MG 1983).
(f, g): Siu Hong Court, Tuen Mun Area 51: the largest of the HKHA’s HOS developments, designed by the Housing
Department Construction Branch (chief housing architect Derek Messling) with ‘flexi-block’ towers of varying heights
to ‘avoid monotony’; 2013 exterior and plaque commemorating 1985 opening by Chief Secretary Philip Haddon-Cave
(MG 2013).

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these new town precincts included taller blocks, up to around twenty-five storeys, as landmarks. From the
1980s, most developments also incorporated highly individualized postmodernist decoration to emphasize
neighbourhood ‘identity’. Overall, although both territories built at densities undreamt of in earlier Western
modernism, the intensely agglomerated complexities of movements such as ‘structuralism’ were avoided, and
individual buildings were relatively clearly articulated (see Fig. 16.11).75

A B

C
Fig. 16.11 (a): Ang Mo Kio Avenue 2, Block 259, completed in 1981: a ninety-six-flat tower designed and built by HDB
in Ang Mo Kio New Town (planned from 1973) as part of a programme of landmark blocks on seven estates to foster local
identity (MG 2011). (b): People’s Park, thirty-one-storey combined megastructure (with twenty-five-storey slab on
commercial base) built in 1967–73 by the HDB’s new Urban Renewal Department; architects, Design Partnership (William
Lim, Tay Kheng Soon and Koh Seow Chuan) (MG 2011). (c): Rowell Court, inner-city redevelopment designed and
completed in 1982 by HDB following selective demolition formula, retaining many shophouses and inserting strongly-
modelled twenty-five-storey modernist towers (MG 2011).

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D E

F G

H
Fig. 16.11 (d, e, f): Potong Pasir development, designed by HDB and constructed from 1982: panoramic view of sloping
blocks up to seventeen storeys high, and details of ground-floor void deck in Block 104 (MG 2011). (g): The HDB architects’
shift to postmodernism: Sin Ming Court, Bishan New Town, built in 1985–8; panoramic view from Block 453 (MG 2011).
(h): Jurong West Neighbourhood 8, Street 81, designed and built by HDB and completed in 1995: view of precinct
courtyard (MG 2011).

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In Hong Kong, the switch from Resettlement blocks to permanent, self-contained flats left unchanged the
general tendency towards small dwellings, but boosted the minimum sizes, with flats of one room, kitchenette
and toilet now the smallest. Also intact was the Hong Kong British tradition of standard block types, and a
relatively straightforward modernist aesthetic retained throughout. Unlike the linear blocks and precinct
layouts of Singapore, Hong Kong took up the typical British 1950s fashion for slender point-blocks and
expanded it to a huge scale, establishing forty-one storeys (the tallest permissible without expensive fire refuge
floors) by the late 1980s as a norm for most blocks, whether in new towns or in redevelopments of earlier
public housing or squatter settlements in the existing urban cores – proposals for fifty-storey towers at the
HKHA Ping Shek Estate, by Commissioner of Housing J. R. Firth, having been turned down in 1967.76 Leaving
behind more idiosyncratic early tower or ‘short-slab’ plan-types (such as Liao’s Twin Tower Block of the 1960s),
HKHA block types rapidly evolved towards highly articulated tripod or cruciform-plan models, as the
optimum way to accommodate large numbers of well-ventilated small flats per floor around central lift/stair
cores, a key innovative role also being played by private designers Palmer & Turner, who had shaped the
pioneering Sui Wo Court HOS towers of 1978–82, exploiting variegated wing heights to create a picturesque
skyline, and the massive Hing Man development of 1979–83 – the first cluster towers to break the forty-storey
barrier; from the 1990s, these all featured gated security modelled on private blocks. The most prolifically-
built of these standard blocks was the ‘Harmony’, a type intended for both rental and HOS use, and designed
by Housing Department architects John Ng, John Lambon and others, under chief housing architect Derek
Messling, in variants allowing different permutations of flat numbers and sizes, with up to twenty flats per
floor. Although pressure from local architects led in 2005 to the adoption of Singapore-style ‘site-specific
design’, the component elements of the blocks were still recognizably derived from the Harmony series, now
over a quarter of a century old (see Fig. 16.12).77

First cousin: Macau

Whatever their differences, both Hong Kong and Singapore shared a governmental willingness to intervene
radically in housing – unlike Portugal’s Chinese colony, Macau, where a more low-key approach prevailed. This
reflected the far weaker position of the Macau government, especially after its virtual capitulation to Maoist
rioters in 1966–7, following which effective control was surrendered to pro-China business leaders and trade
unions. Although the first block of low-rise public housing had been built by the colonial authorities in 1928, in
the Toi San area following a fire, and over 700 public rental dwellings had been completed by 1949, output
remained low until the early 1980s, reflecting the much smaller refugee influxes than Hong Kong’s and which
were concentrated in the industrial north of the territory. Between 1970 and 1984, 804 public rental flats were
constructed, the largest development being the 340-unit Conjunto Habitacional Dona Julieta Nobre de
Carvalho, including seven- and eleven-storey balcony-access slab-blocks completed between 1972 and 1975.
Slightly incongruously, a prominent philanthropic role was played by Macau’s wealthy gambling industry, led
by the sole casino concessionary-holder, the Sociedade de Turismo e Diversões de Macau (STDM: Macau
Tourism and Entertainment Corporation), founded by entrepreneur Stanley Ho in 1962. It built several
squatter-resettlement schemes in redevelopment areas, including five-storey gallery-access blocks in Av.
Conselheiro Borja (1962–4); a harbour-side pair of six-storey Zeilenbau blocks at Fai Chi Kei (1977–84); and a
1982–5 redevelopment in the Av. Tamagnini Barbosa, including a twenty-five-storey tower and eleven-storey
corridor-access slabs. The architect for all three projects, Manuel Vicente, was an eminent and prolific Macau-
based Portuguese designer, who also headed the government planning department, the Gabinete de Urbanização,
in 1962–6: Macau avoided any British-style system of public architectural-planning offices (see Fig. 16.13).78

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A B

C D
Fig. 16.12 (a, b): Hing Man Estate, Chai Wan, Hong Kong (1979–83): precipitously-sited rental estate by Palmer &
Turner, the first HKHA development to break the forty-storey barrier, seen newly-completed externally and at thirty-
ninth-floor level (MG 1983). (c, d): Hin Keng, Sha Tin (1981–6), one of the first estates to use the new ‘Trident’ Y-planned
type: miniature plastic block model by HD project architect Bob Pritchard and view of Trident-2 thirty-five-storey variant
(MG 2013).

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E F

G H
Fig. 16.12 (e, f): Model and plan of standard forty-one-storey ‘Harmony 1’ cruciform tower in the HD’s permanent
exhibition at Ho Man Tin (MG 2013). (g): The first completed Harmony blocks, including ‘chromatic’ external decoration:
Tin Shui Wai New Town, Area 5 Phase 4 (Tin Yau Court, in foreground: Harmony 1 cruciform blocks) and Area 5 Phase 2
(Tin Yiu Estate, in background: Harmony 2 Y-plan blocks), designed by HD Construction Branch and both opened in
1992 (MG 2019). (h): Harmony 2 block at Tsui Ping South Estate, opened in 1989 (MG 2015).

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A B

C D
Fig. 16.13 (a): The Conjunto Habitacional Dona Julieta Nobre de Carvalho, Macau: public rental housing built by the
colonial government in 1972–5 (MG 2017). (b, c): Av. Conselheiro Borja, Macau, STDM slum-clearance squatter
resettlement scheme of 1962–4, designed by architect Manuel Vicente: 1983 exterior view and 2017 view of access gallery
(MG 1983, 2017). (d): Avenida Tamagnini Barbosa, Macau, twenty-five-storey Y-plan towers built in 1985–7 under the
Habitacão Económica home-ownership slum-clearance programme, adapted by Vicente and Bravo from the HKHA
‘Trident’ (MG 2017).

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In the 1980s, Macau social housing was significantly enhanced, by legislation in 1980 and the creation of a
Gabinete Coordinador de Habitacão in 1984 (Housing Coordination Office: from 1990, the Instituto de
Habitacão de Macau). Atate-subsidized programmes were launched, some of considerable scale, including an
Habitacão Económica middle-income home-ownership programme (from 1980), a system of joint private–
public development involving government land concessions in exchange for social dwelling allocations
(contratos de desenvolvimento para a habitacão, or CDH, from 1984); and a 10,000-unit public rental
programme (from 1989). The Habitacão Económica programme generated 28,000 flats in the following thirty-
five years, including significant projects such as the group of three twenty-five-storey Y-plan towers built in
1985–7 on a pocket redevelopment site in the Av. Tamagnini Barbosa, ingeniously adapted by Manuel Vicente
and Vicente Bravo from the ‘Trident’ type plan of the HKHA; or the Bairro Tamagnini Barbosa (San Seng Si
Fa Un) – an array of sixteen towers built in the early 1990s on the site of Macao’s original 1928 social-housing
complex.79

Conclusion

With the programmes of these Eastern Asian developmental states, our account returns full circle, back
towards the disciplined modernity of the First and Second Worlds. The role of planning and housing in these
societies was of just as vital, existential significance as the mass housing drives that stemmed from the political
and military confrontations of mid-twentieth-century Europe and America. But their strong integration with
developmental capitalism, and their successful integration with nation-building strategies – especially in
Singapore, where 85% of the population lived in HDB-built flats by the 1990s – also powerfully carries our
story onwards into its concluding section, in Part 3, which draws together the threads of global mass housing
developments since the end of the Cold War.

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PART 3
1989 TO THE PRESENT: RETRENCHMENT AND RENEWAL

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CHAPTER 17
RESILIENCE AND RENEWAL: MASS HOUSING INTO
THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

Introduction

The chapters of Part 2, despite their bewildering diversity of individual circumstances and built patterns, were
fundamentally structured by the overarching postwar geo-political constraints of the Cold War and
decolonization – even if Sauvy’s neat structure of ‘three worlds’ was an oversimplification – and by the narrative
momentum of the overlapping campaigns of mass-housing construction, from the First to the Second World
and finally to the hybrid case of Eastern Asia, with the ‘Third World’ standing somewhat outside the sequence.
From the 1990s, following the disintegration of centralized state socialism and the onset of the ‘neoliberal turn’
in developed countries, the pack was reshuffled: with the ending of the long-running twentieth-century
confrontation between bourgeois societies and statist regimes of all kinds, the previous strong ideological
polarizations disappeared and a new tripartite division between social housing systems emerged.1
Firstly, there were ‘mature’ mass housing systems embracing much of the former First and Second Worlds,
whose chief task was to manage the extensive organizational and architectural legacy of mass housing, mostly
without further expansion and often involving radical slimming-down by demolitions – in many cases against
a background of mounting ‘affordability crises’ for middle- and low-income housing, fuelled by decades of
government support for home-ownership. Secondly, there were the systems of the present-day ‘Global South’,
showing significant continuity with their ‘Third World’ predecessors in the dominance of informal housing
and the continuing international encouragement of aided self-help solutions: chapter 17 reviews these two
new groupings. Thirdly, there was the system reviewed in Chapter 18: a direct heir to the capitalist developmental
programmes of Chapter 16, and still dominated by Eastern Asia, including now the great cities of booming
China, but now spreading elsewhere, for example to Turkey.2 This system seemed to revive aspects of the mid-
twentieth-century European ‘strong state’ – but without its driving utopian idealism.
This short final review of developments in the early twenty-first century focuses on prominent examples of
each tendency, setting them in a wider context. Architecturally, the old formula of local inflections of
international mass-housing modernism fragmented into a more complex pattern. Some places, such as Hong
Kong, remained faithful to orthodox high-rise modernism, albeit at far greater heights and densities than in
the ‘classic’ modernist era. Some, such as Singapore or mainland China, framed the same building-types in a
more decorative modernism-cum-postmodernism. Others again, especially in the former First World, shifted
to a new ‘iconic modernism’ of metaphoric, ‘gestural’ forms.

The aftermath: mass housing at bay in the former First and Second Worlds

By the early twenty-first century, states across Europe and America were very largely swept up in a frenzy of
government-supported home-ownership promotion and (especially in Anglophone countries) house-price
speculation – with increasingly distorting effects on their wider economies. Against this background, however,
there were radical differences in attitudes towards their social housing legacy, with a wide divergence between

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‘constructive’ and ‘destructive’ solutions. The most radical exponent of the latter was the United States. Here,
although the reputational decline of public housing lasted much longer than its fleeting heyday, the continued
building of elderly and specialized units paradoxically meant that the overall public housing stock peaked late,
at 1.4 million units in 1991. After that, large-scale demolitions escalated, especially in inner-city projects,
totalling 220,000 units by 2010. The cutting edge of this strategy was the HOPE VI federal-aided programme,
conceived in 1992 under the Bush administration following the report of a National Commission on Severely
Distressed Public Housing. HOPE VI was radically extended by Bill Clinton’s HUD Secretary, Henry Cisneros,
especially through a 1998 Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act, which shifted the emphasis of public
housing away from the ‘poor’ towards ‘responsible’ low-income tenants. This policy shift was accompanied by
financial reorganizations, especially an expansion of voucher-led demand-side subsidies for the poorest.3
The most radical phase of HOPE VI was a demolition programme in 1996–2003, stemming from a
congressionally-mandated ‘viability test’ instituted in 1996 for projects of over 300 dwellings and 10% vacancies
– later extended to smaller projects by the 1998 Act. This accounted by 2003 for 57,000 demolitions, whereas
the main programme had removed around 100,000 by that date. Some major cities, such as Chicago, focused
on demolition of high-rise blocks, while others went further: Atlanta was the first city to eliminate all its family
public housing units, diverting all the occupants into voucher schemes. One result was a radical divergence
between New York City and the rest of the country: the NYCHA’s minimization of vacancies, and its multi-
income tenancy patterns, protected it from the viability test and allowed almost everything to be retained,
despite problems of increased crime in its projects from the 1980s. Given the high densities of all NYCHA
programmes, this also, incidentally, undermined the argument of Bauer in 1957 and Jacobs from 1961 that the
social problems of high-rise public housing stemmed from ‘barracks-like’ architecture.4
US housing historians have argued that the HOPE VI programme should be seen within the wider context
of US urban poverty, and have debated whether it was merely one phase in a process of repeatedly ‘purging
the poorest’ in a cycle of ‘higher and better uses’, or whether, more specifically, it was a ‘culturally anomalous
interregnum’ now being superseded by ‘a reversion to the usual American reliance on private markets’. At any
rate, it undeniably formed part of a widening housing polarization, with the public housing demolitions in
some places being matched by private-market gentrification and commodification in others: in 2016, it was
argued that ‘real-estate is attacking housing’. Overall, this prodigious destruction and waste of US public-
housing investment deterred any emulation elsewhere, even in Canada, where the city-led redevelopment of
Toronto’s Regent Park (from 2005) was approached cautiously and over many years. What it certainly did not
mean, of course, was the US government’s withdrawal from housing intervention, as spectacularly
demonstrated in the post-2008 nationalization of ‘Fannie Mae’, ‘Freddie Mac’ and the loan-securitization
market in general (see Fig. 17.1).5
In Western Europe, the swing against public housing had been later and less aggressive: the 1970s were a
general tipping-point, when high inflation curbed public investment and boosted home ownership, just as
rising expectations fomented dissatisfaction with the small size of many postwar flats. In some cases,
governments responded by raising rents and restricting mass housing to lower income groups. In two of the
previous leaders, France and Britain, hot spots of stigmatization and residualization emerged, fuelled in France
by racial tensions and riots, and in Britain by the government-enforced ‘right to buy’ privatization from 1980
– a direct assault from which French HLMs were protected by their arm’s-length status.6 In Britain, where half
a century of public-housing decline was framed by the tower-block catastrophes of Ronan Point in 1968 and
Grenfell Tower in 2017, the process was exaggerated by the national tradition of polemic about housing types,
especially high-density patterns, and by the mass public addiction to house-price speculation. By 2020,
attempts to revive council house-building in Britain had met with only localized success, despite the pledge by
former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to build 100,000 council houses annually and the growth of local

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A B

C D
Fig. 17.1 (a): The fluctuations in public discourse about mass housing in Britain: Louis Hellman cartoon, ‘History of a
Modern Listed Building’, Architects’ Journal, 5 August 1992. (b): Douglass Homes, Detroit: six fourteen-storey blocks built
by the Detroit Housing Commission in 1952–5: 2013–14 photograph prior to demolition of the last four blocks as part
of the HOPE VI programme. (c): Portsmouth’s Portsdown Hill Estate under demolition, in 1988 (cf. 4.3f) (MG).
(d): Hoyerswerda: 1970s slab-block under demolition in 2013 (MG).

discourses of community nostalgia about vanishing towers.7 Whether in low-demand areas in Northern
England, where towers were often the first to be demolished, or in the high-pressure land market of London,
where property-driven ‘regeneration’ targeted mass housing for ‘social cleansing’, the prospects of everyday
modernist housing seemed gloomy – a plight highlighted by the overwrought adulation heaped on celebrity
heritage set pieces such as Alison and Peter Smithson’s Robin Hood Gardens. In France, too, isolated examples
of avant-garde design were picked out for heritage valorization and protection, such as the dramatically-
stacked concrete EDF Towers at Ivry-sur-Seine (1963–7) by the Atelier de Montrouge, respectfully renovated
in 2013–16 by architect Paul Chemetov.8
Elsewhere in Western Europe, the fate of the mass-housing legacy varied from spectacular degradation,
as at the Vele di Scampia in Naples, whose surviving blocks became the scene of a 2004–5 Mafia blood feud
that killed hundreds of people, to determined attempts at continuity in support in several Scandinavian

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countries – most uncomplicatedly in Finland, with its thriving ARAVA system and unbroken modernist
architectural narrative, or in Denmark, where the social housing stock benefited from consistent support from
the National Housing Fund, but more uncertainly in Sweden, where ethnically-mixed Miljonprogramm
projects such as Tensta experienced civil unrest.9 The Netherlands, scene of the freak ‘Bijlmerramp’ disaster
of 1992 – where an El Al cargo jumbo jet crashed into Amsterdam’s troubled Bijlmermeer deck-access
complex – likewise successfully protected its social housing sector from free-market reforms. Although there
were significant demolition of postwar housing in areas such as Amsterdam’s Westelijke Tuinsteden, these
respected the original Modern Movement architectural legacy – unlike the gaudy ‘thermal recladding’ schemes
normal in Britain or France.10 The excesses of iconic signature architecture, or, conversely, the involvement of
anti-modern New Urbanist ideas in regenerating dense European cities such as Berlin, Vienna or Copenhagen,
were both moderated by continued civic power and initiative in housing and planning. Here, as in other
public-housing matters, Vienna was now the unrivalled leader. Its old Gemeindebau tradition had, by 2000,
diversified into various publicly-supported programmes, some directly built as before (now by the WIGEBA
agency) but most organized indirectly via social-housing companies as ‘geförderter Wohnbau’ (subsidized
housing).11 Projects included both gap-sites and peripheral extensions, such as Aspern-Seestadt, a 240ha site
master planned for 10,500 dwellings in 2007 by Swedish architect Johannes Tovatt, and scheduled for
completion in 2028. A key component of the programme was the ‘Wohnbauinitiative’ (WBI) of 2011, a
negotiated consortium project focused especially on Aspern and steered through by Michael Ludwig, chief
city councillor for housing (Stadtrat für Wohnen) from 2007.12
A few Western countries previously outside the mainstream of old-style public housing now embarked on
ambitious social housing programmes – above all Spain, where rural-to-urban migration continued in the
1980s, 1990s and 2000s, leading to localized but persistent outbreaks of ‘chabolismo’ (shanty towns).13 In
response, a significant range of social housing initiatives was launched, especially around Madrid, where an
already existing (since 1982) IACP-like corporation, the Empresa Municipal de la Vivienda y Suelo (EMVS,
or Municipal Housing and Land Department), was massively boosted after 2000 with significant government
financial aid from the Ministry of Housing and the municipality of Madrid. Although direct slum-clearance
schemes were trialled, these were limited in scale. The overwhelming emphasis, under the municipality’s
2000–11 Municipal Housing Plan, was on higher-income groups, as previously normal in Spain: roughly
three-quarters of flats were for sale and the remainder for rental.14
The EMVS programme, whose annual output peaked at 2,200 in 2008, concentrated not on direct shanty-
town redevelopment but on Madrid’s extensive peripheral sites: it aimed to break from the city’s stodgy tradition
of six-storey brick apartment blocks towards a ‘laboratorio de ideas’, using open competitions to attract high-
quality private architects and create ‘some of the best social-housing architecture in Europe’.15 The results
expressed the metaphor-laden individualism of post-2000 iconic modernism. In the township of Ensanche de
Vallecas, for example, a grouping of social-housing towers by Nido Arquitectos used fragmented, high-density
forms to create ‘a dialogue between two systems, the group and the individual’. The Carabanchel barrio,
comprising 11,350 flats (65% social housing), included such elements as Parcela 313 (2006–8), by BDU and
Morphosis, which featured ‘a morphing of landscape and village topographies’ with dense lattice-plans covered
by vegetation.16 These projects retained Madrid’s normal urban street-scale, but two projects in the northern
suburb of Sanchinarro by Dutch architects MVRDV – ‘Mirador’ and ‘Celosía’, completed in 2005 and 2009
respectively – imported the iconic flamboyance of contemporary Dutch architecture. The Mirador featured a
spectacular slab configuration pierced with a central rectangular aperture, containing 165 dwellings stacked in
miniature ‘neighbourhoods’.17 Across Spain, similar initiatives flared as part of publicly-supported pork-barrel
regeneration schemes in regional capitals. In Valencia, a provincial capital determined to propel itself from the
second to the first tier of Spanish cities, the post-2003 years witnessed an ambitious urban-regeneration strategy,

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whose centrepiece was ‘Sociópolis’, an arts and sciences ‘urban quarter’, promoted by regional minister Rafael
Blasco through the Instituto Valenciano de la Vivienda (IVVSA) and located on the extreme urban periphery.
The project’s 2,800-unit residential component comprised an iconic modernist assortment of individualistic
towers by Vicente Guallart and María Díaz, mostly social housing but with 20% of dwellings sold on the market
to ensure its viability: this was not accommodation for the ‘poor’ in any form (Fig. 17.2).18

A B

C D
Fig. 17.2 (a): The tower block reinterpreted as ‘icon’: Mirador building, Madrid, a 2001–5 EMVS development designed
by architects MVRDV and Blanca Lleó as a twenty-two-storey slab with central gap, containing 165 apartments: ‘a
collection of mini-neighbourhoods stacked vertically’ (MVRDV) (MG 2010). (b): Demolition of late 1950s five-storey
experimental large-panel Khrushchevki underway in Ulitsa Grimau, Novye Cheryomushki kvartal 11, in 2013: the site
was later redeveloped with a nineteen-storey tower (MG 2013). (c, d): New Hind Mill site, Mumbai: 5,200 flats in twenty-
four-storey dumb-bell towers (2007–11): part of MHADA’s programme of redevelopment of obsolete textile mills under
Development Control Regulation 58 of 1991 (MG 2014).

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In the former state-socialist countries, the post-1989 reaction was equivalent to the Western ‘1968’ and
contemporary neoliberalism rolled into one. Although the broader social mix of mass housing under socialism
had prevented general residualization, the years of large-scale state production were over and rapid privatization
followed: the percentage of public housing in Vilnius, for example, plummeted from 82% to 1.4% between 1991
and 2001.19 Although significant social-housing enclaves survived into the twenty-first century, notably in
Slovakia, others, such as the housing associations of Poland or the social housing of the Czech Republic, fell by
the wayside.20 Although dilapidation spread in some housing complexes, especially in collective internal spaces,
there were relatively few Western-style mass demolition campaigns – with the significant exception of the former
GDR. There the sudden reunification of 1989–90 stimulated a wave of emigration to the West, followed from the
late 1990s by systematic demolition or radical reconstruction of low-demand peripheral projects – a movement
whose core funding mechanism was ‘Stadtumbau-Ost’ (2002–17), a programme not dissimilar in many ways to
HOPE VI in the USA, but planned more cautiously so as to preserve the special orderliness of Extensive Urbanism.
In Halle-Neustadt, despite a 55% drop in population, the main Magistrale, the landmark Schiebenhochhäuser,
and the key housing districts (areas 1–4) were all preserved as part of a strategy of ‘geordneter Rückzug’, directed
by the city planning office around 2010.21 Owing to the surprising similarity of the co-op and housing-association
systems in East and West Germany, much of the surviving GDR housing stock was unproblematically transferred
to the Western social housing system and targeted for comprehensive modernization.22
A sharp split now opened up between Russia and the rest of the former Second World. In Russia, privatization
of existing stock proceeded slowly – partly because of a widespread popular distrust of mortgage housing
finance as constituting ‘debt bondage’ – and large-scale mass housing construction was continued by privatized
ex-state building combines and development firms, often still using standard mass construction but hiding
this beneath decorative postmodern exteriors.23 The existing socialist housing patrimony survived in an
unglamorous but socially-mixed condition, often with the shell of blocks remaining municipally-owned but
the flats themselves privatized. The Moscow-based Polish architectural writer Kuba Snopek boldly argued
that the everyday character of projects such as Belyayevo offered unexpected community heritage benefits –
unlike the Western preoccupation with elite works such as Robin Hood Gardens.24 However, there were
increasing efforts, especially in Moscow, to address the dilapidated condition of the five-storey Khrushchevki.
From 1999, some 1,700 blocks were replaced by private developments at up to three times the existing density,
with 30% of the new flats reserved for the displacees, and 2017 saw the commencement of an even larger
programme by the dynamic mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, for redevelopment of some 7,900 blocks. Although
Sobyanin cited the ‘many people still living uncomfortably in ancient housing’, the underlying motivation of
this project was probably to stimulate a property market severely depressed by the 2015–16 economic crisis.25
In the former Soviet socialist bloc, the only country that still faithfully adhered to the old policies was North
Korea, where the escalating economic and humanitarian crisis from the 1990s failed to shake the regime’s
addiction to mass-housing spectacle. The years 2008–12 saw a further 100,000-unit construction programme,
with soldiers used to maintain ‘Pyongyang speed’ as part of the ‘Songun’ (military-first) ethos.26

Residual mass housing in the Global South

Outside the relatively stable housing regimes of the developed world, a far more fluid situation prevailed.
Some countries shifted towards the ‘Eastern Asian’ developmental formula of state-supported building and
structured economic growth, as we will see in chapter 18.
Within Latin America, aided self-help was still often combined with selective state intervention. In
Brazil, the years of democratization following the abolition of the BNH in 1986 had seen an extended

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hiatus in government policymaking, filled by ad-hoc projects for ‘urbanização de favelas’ and ‘autogeridos’.
A revival of government housing activity around 1999–2000 preceded dramatic interventions from 2003 by
the new government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, including the creation of a Ministero das Cidades and the
2008 publication of a Plano Nacional de Habitação (‘PlanHab’). This set an expansive target of 35 million new
dwellings by 2023 (only 8% of which would be for favela redevelopment), while government housing
investment rose from R$8 billion in 2003 to R$42 billion in 2008. The fresh blow of the 2008 global financial
crisis was countered by an unprecedentedly ambitious national initiative, the Programa Minha Casa Minha
Vida (PMCMV: ‘My Home, My Life Programme’). Like INA-Casa in Italy sixty years beforehand, PMCMV
was conceived chiefly as a countercyclical economic stimulus strategy. It originated within the Ministry of
Finance as a plan for the subsidized building of 1 million owner-occupied dwellings in two years – 40% for
lower-income and 60% for lower-middle-income groups – with R$26 billion of allocated funds. Echoing
former BNH practices, it followed an individual home-ownership financing formula and a line-of-least-
resistance location and planning policy, with developments overwhelmingly in urban peripheral locations and
comprising repetitive layouts of single-storey detached houses and low-rise flats similar to the BNH ‘H’-
blocks. The initial plan of 2009–10 met its 1 million/two-year target, but the massively expanded targets for
the two follow-up phases, totalling 5.8 million units, proved too ambitious, and only 2.3 million had been
completed by 2017; the shortfall stemmed partly from regional disparities, with the populous south-eastern
states experiencing severe land-supply problems.27
In India, likewise, in later decades MHADA continued to play a central role in housing provision in
Bombay/Mumbai, working from 1995 with a new Slum Redevelopment Authority, which decanted slum-
dwellers to distant locations developed at medium height and ultra-high densities: for instance Vasi Naka
Colony, Shastri Nagar, built from 2002 with parallel eight-storey tenement blocks set only 5m apart and
housing 25,000 slum-dwellers from all over the city. The first use of full-blown multi-storey tower buildings in
public housing only began after 2000, as part of a contentious programme of redevelopment of obsolete mill
sites.28 Following much debate over the 1991 Development Control Regulation 58, which assigned a third of
all redundant mill sites to MHADA for social housing, a much smaller housing share was eventually finalized,
resulting in pressure to use unprecedentedly tall blocks. Some of these formed self-contained developments,
as with the 2007–11 New Hind Mill redevelopment, comprising 5,200 small flats in linked dumbbell-plan
towers of twenty-four storeys, while others were paired with taller blocks of luxury private flats, as at the 2006
Avighna Park project (on the site of New Islam Mills), with its seven twenty-three-storey ‘rehabilitation’ towers
beside three sixty-four-storey elite blocks.29
Increasingly, however, national and regional mass housing microregions like these existed against the
background of a new housing globalism, as the international-development aid apparatus ratcheted up its
advocacy of the half-century-old formula of bottom-up urbanism and informal home-ownership, now
underpinned by neoliberalism. While protesting its faithfulness to bottom-up, community-led principles, this
new ethos was in many ways the opposite of the local diversity of modernist mass housing in its reliance on
international discourses and agencies. Initiatives by the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements, such
as the UN-Habitat II conference in Istanbul in 1996 and the 2001 Human Settlements programme, revived
and appropriated the age-old rhetoric of the ‘war on the slums’ as a justification for self-help on a global scale:
UN-Habitat’s The Challenge of Slums argued in 2003 that the ‘attack on the slum problem’ must now extend to
every corner of what activist writer Mike Davis labelled the ‘Planet of Slums’.30 However, twentieth-century-
style mass housing was far from dead, especially in Eastern Asia – as the next chapter will demonstrate.

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CHAPTER 18
RACE TO THE TOP: THE NEW ASIAN
DEVELOPMENTALISM

During the early twenty-first century, the ‘developmental-state’ formula of mass housing, whose initial
emergence we traced in chapter 16, began to spread outside its original redoubts, in a continuation and
extension of the twentieth-century global narrative. Its underlying emphasis on private-enterprise market
forces, and on the political need for the state to facilitate their working, differed fundamentally from Western
welfare-state or folkhem ideals, not least in its frequent association with political authoritarianism and its
explicit ranking of political above social ideals – an clear departure from the mid-twentieth-century ‘myth of
the benevolent state’.1 Just as in Hong Kong and Singapore, its new converts were also uncompromisingly
hostile to the informal housing settlements of earlier waves of rural-to-urban migrants and were determined
to liquidate these through surgical redevelopment – a striking reversal of the previously-assumed inexorable
progression from ‘failed’ public housing to ‘emancipatory’ aided self-help.2

TOKi and AKP Turkey

The spread of developmental-state housing policies was exemplified by the case of Turkey, whose government
housing strategy shifted radically in the early 2000s under the hegemony of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Islamist
AKP party. Previous governments’ preference for aided self-help and Southern European-style limited mass
housing was rejected in favour of a dynamic campaign to eradicate geçekondu housing and boost the private
property market, through redevelopments with state-built home-ownership flats. This campaign was
dramatized through a stirring rhetoric of emergency: in words that could equally have been uttered by Lee
Kuan Yew, Erdoğan boasted in 2009 that Turkey had been ‘transformed into a great construction site’ by the
AKP’s ‘social state’, which embraced ‘all segments of society’ by combating ‘unplanned and haphazard
urbanization’: those ‘that previously had been on the margins . . . are being reunited with the city’.3 Although
many of its key mechanisms antedated Erdoğan’s accession to power, AKP Turkey became an exemplary
developmental state, with an economic growth rate accelerating from 6% in 2007 to 9% in 2010–11 – a rate
more typical of Eastern Asia – and population rising by 1.3% annually. It imported into the Middle East and
south-eastern Europe a system of state-regulated modernization previously perfected by the Asian Tigers,
leapfrogging the latter’s early, industrial-development stages, on to a system founded on land and property
commodification.4
Mass housing naturally formed a key plank of the AKP’s transformation, and here the linchpin was none
other than TOKİ, whose previous incarnation as an effective enabler of cooperative housing (cf. chapter 10)
had been ended by the 2001 banking crisis, and was now belittled by the AKP in terms reminiscent of the anti-
SIT rhetoric in Singapore. Erdoğan argued that in 2003 ‘we initiated the reorganization of TOKİ. At that time,
despite having been founded in 1984, the institution had remained dormant. We assigned it a new role and
mission in the transformation process of Turkey.’ Its resources and activities rapidly expanded. Between 2002
and 2007, its assets soared from $980 million to $9.4 billion, and in 2003 it received a huge land-bank of
66,000,000m² of state-owned ‘treasury’ land free of cost. By 2009 TOKİ had built 354,600 dwellings under the

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2003 Emergency Action Plan for Housing and Urban Development and by 2015, total completions had
reached 649,500 – with plans for a further 425,000 by 2023.5 Placed from 2004 under the direct oversight of
the Prime Minister’s office (Başbakanlik) and headed until 2010 by Erdoğan Bayraktar, a close ally of R. T.
Erdoğan, TOKİ became a privileged state agency of centralized modernization, bolstered by interlinked laws
on land expropriation, urban renewal (in coordination with local authorities) and earthquake protection. The
latter, already catapulted to prominence by the devastating 1999 earthquake, in which 16,000 died, now
became a catch-all justification for any kind of housing ‘regeneration’ involving demolition of old structures.
By 2016, TOKİ accounted for nearly 10% of Turkey’s 750,000 total annual output, and its director, Mehmet
Ergün Turan, argued that nearly 6 million houses needed to be demolished and ‘renewed’.6
TOKİ’s redevelopment programme supported the AKP’s most distinctive housing policy – its relentless
determination to demolish as many as possible of Turkey’s informally-built geçekondu housing areas, contrary
to the previous generation’s policy of tolerance and tenure-regulation. Once looked on with public affection as
the outcome of praiseworthy individual self-improvement, the geçekondus, now mainly comprising small,
multi-generational self-built apartment blocks rather than single-family houses, were branded not just seismic
death traps, but also hotbeds of crime and sedition – rather as urban ‘slums’ had been pilloried by nineteenth-
century European reformers. As Bayraktar argued in 2007, ‘it is well known that the source of the health issues,
illiteracy, drug use, terrorism and disloyalty towards the state lies in geçekondu areas. Turkey must get rid of
these illegal and earthquake-susceptible buildings at all costs.’ In the New Turkey, as in Lee’s New Singapore in
the 1960s, informal housing seemed an apocalyptic, existential menace: ‘our greatest problem after terrorism
is illegal construction’.7
Exploiting the fact that two-thirds of geçekondu land was state-owned, redevelopment was generally
carried forward under the urban renewal programme (kentsel dönüşüm). The latter was a collaborative effort
between TOKİ and the municipalities, especially Istanbul’s powerful Kiptaş development agency, exploiting
sweeping planning and expropriation powers granted in 2003–5: 163,000 geçekondu dwellings in eighty
separate areas were demolished between 2003 and 2009, from one end of Turkey to the other. Kentsel dönüşüm
included not just geçekondu redevelopment but also general earthquake upgrading (depremodaklı) and an
idiosyncratic ‘urban conservation’ involving demolition of dilapidated historic districts and their replacement
by facsimiles (e.g at Tarlabaşı). However, direct geçekondu redevelopment only made up 10% of new TOKİ
construction, which was dominated by home-ownership construction, accounting in turn for 10% of Turkey’s
total housing production. This mainstream programme was financed by low-interest ten-year loans covering
60%–90% of dwelling cost, the rest being financed by down payments. Some two-thirds of the programme
was for middle-income groups, especially civil servants and white-collar workers, and one-third was for lower
incomes and the poor. Owing to the huge demand, a lottery system was used for allocation, and the resulting
units, worth three or four times the value of a typical geçekondu dwelling, could then in turn be commodified
by selling on the lower-income mortgages as an asset. This programme was cross-subsidized by commercially-
profitable ‘revenue-sharing’ schemes with private firms, including non-housing infrastructure and overseas
consultancies administered through quasi-private subsidiaries. In keeping with AKP’s Islamist agenda, TOKİ’s
projects prominently included Islamic community facilities, schools and mosques. Architecturally, the
leitmotiv was standardization: TOKİ’s design office fixed a range of twenty plan-types, sub-classified by size
and climate context: for urban use, the overwhelming emphasis was on point-blocks based on the 1980s–1990s
TOKİ plan-types, especially types B and C, of eleven to seventeen storeys and two and three bedrooms.8
One of the most emblematic of TOKİ’s mainstream housing developments was the ‘giant satellite’
development of Kayabaşi Konutları (Kayabaşi Estate), a 15,700-unit development, including 6,180 for lower-
income groups, which formed the first phase of the north-west Istanbul zone of Kayaşehir. Kayabaşi was
planned from 2005 and largely built in 2008–11. Intended both for regular general-needs purchases as well as

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contributing to the battle against ‘geçekondulaşma ve çarpik kentleşme’ (‘geçekondus and irregular
urbanization’), Kayabaşi was a joint project between TOKİ, the central government Treasury and the local
Küçükçekmece municipality to develop an area of 11,000,000m², of which 35% was allocated to private
developers and the rest to TOKİ. The first flats went on sale in 2009 at a minimum cost of €64,000 – a price
clearly targeting the middle classes, given that the annual guaranteed minimum wage was only €400. Only
6.5% of the Kayabaşi units were for the lowest income groups, and many of those subsequently gave up their
houses and excessively costly mortgages and returned to geçekondu life. Planned around a giant shopping
centre, with integrated mosque (Hüseyin Camii, 2012) and commemorative TOKİ clock tower (2010), the
area was arranged in sub-neighbourhoods, or bölge. Each comprised a clump of standard type B, B1 and C
point-blocks – a simplified Ville Radieuse formula expanded from the 1980s–1990s patterns described in
chapter 9. Administered by the Emlak Yönetim agency, roughly half the flats were sublet and half occupied by
their owners. Later sections of Kayaşehir included the four- to six-storey ‘New Urbanist’ street-blocks of
Kayabaşi-Paşaçayiri, completed in 2017, and the more gestural ‘city-park’ development of Kuzey Yakası by
TOKİ subsidiary Emlak Konut, with its fluid mix of street-blocks and towers up to thirty storeys (2015–18).
In Ankara, TOKİ and TOBAŞ developed an equally ambitious showpiece, the North Ankara City Entrance
Project, and in Izmir, where most TOKİ projects were on municipally-owned peripheral sites, the leading
development was Uzundere, planned from 2007, with its fifty-nine fifteen-storey towers (see Fig. 18.1).9
For the small sites often involved in geçekondu redevelopments, a surprisingly similar pattern of closely-
packed point-blocks also prevailed – as, for example, at the contentious Başibüyük redevelopment in Maltepe,
east of Istanbul. This scenic hillside site, originally developed in the 1970s with low-rise geçekondu and later
densified with informally-built flats for 14,000 inhabitants, was by 2008 seen as a ‘prime real-estate location’
and the AKP municipal administration approved a plan for staged TOKİ redevelopment. This would follow
the time-honoured pattern, as in Singapore’s Bukit Ho Swee, of cramming a vacant gap-site with tall blocks
– in this case, a first phase of six towers of twelve storeys and basement – to start a cycle of decanting and
redevelopment. There was significant resident resistance to clearance, culminating in a riot in February 2008
and a permanent police presence on the site. The first blocks proved difficult to sell, and some were eventually
allocated to the police personnel themselves, but before long, as in Singapore, the flats’ status as tradable assets
shifted the inhabitants towards a favourable view of the project.10

Developmental Eastern Asia into the twenty-first century

Within the development-state ‘heartland’ of eastern Asia, some countries remained faithful to a private-
enterprise-dominated development pattern – including Taiwan, whose successive speculative housing booms
ensured that, by 2005, public-rental units constituted less than 0.08% of the total housing stock.11 In reaction to
this, Taipei City Council initiated in 2010 a significant rental drive, expanding in 2016–18 to a 20,000-unit
phase, hailed by Mayor Ko Wen-je as an expression of ‘housing justice, urban aesthetics and technical advance’.
Frequently delayed by site-acquisition and planning controversies, the resulting projects were scattered and
individualistic, as for example at the 507-unit Jiangkang (‘Healthy’) Public Rental Project, Songshan, a brightly-
coloured group of four fifteen-storey towers built by the City Council’s Urban Development Department in
2015–17.12 In Thailand, the private sector equally dominated multi-storey apartment-building from the 1990s,
a focal example being Muo-Thong Thani (1989–93), an instant city of 250,000 inhabitants outside Bangkok,
centred on two dozen twenty-nine-storey apartment towers.13 In Japan, the bursting of the ‘bubble economy’ in
1991 led to further curbs on social housing; the NJK was immediately privatized, along with the Government
Housing Loan Corporation, and then, in 2004, was transformed into the Urban Renaissance Agency – a hybrid

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A B

C D
Fig. 18.1 (a): Kayabaşi Konutları, a 15,700-unit subsidized home-ownership scheme developed by TOKİ north-west of
Istanbul; planned from 2005 and built in multiple stages from 2008: TOKİ marketing centre at Kayabaşi-Paşaçayiri
(completed 2017) (MG 2017). (b, c): Kayabaşi Etap 1, aerial view and ground view of 4. Bolge, showing standard types B,
B1 and C point-blocks (MG 2017). (d): Kayabaşi Etap 1, commemorative clock tower of 2010, with inscription: ‘By order
of our Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, this urban regeneration project, sited on the western axis of Istanbul in
2009, containing 65,000 apartments, was presented to the service of our people. Erdoğan Bayraktar, President of TOKİ,
2010’ (MG 2017).

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E F

G H
Fig. 18.1. (e): The Başibüyük geçekondu redevelopment at Maltepe, east of Istanbul, a hugely contentious TOKİ scheme
built from 2008 with six twelve-storey standard type B1 towers (MG 2017). (f): Jiankang Public Rental Project, Songshan,
Taipei, an isolated development of four fifteen-storey towers by the City Council’s Urban Development Department
(2015–17) and designed by Bio-Architecture Formosanus (MG 2019). (g): Clearances of informal housing underway in
the Bukahyeon-dong district of Seoul in 2012: view from Geumhwa Apartments (MG 2012). (h): Edificio do Lago, Macau
(2009–12): the government Infrastructure Development Department’s largest subsidized owner-occupation scheme, with
six towers up to forty-eight storeys high (MG 2019).

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corporation tasked with urban renewal, not building for lower-income families. Although the URA still owned
670,000 units by 2007, more individual privatizations were underway, and the overwhelming majority of public
rental housing was now controlled by prefecture-based public housing corporations.14
In South Korea, the 1997 Asian financial crisis also provoked a public-sector retrenchment into a fallback
role, including a range of short-term public rental programmes as a safety net for low- and middle-income
households. The publicly-supported share of total construction dropped from 32% in 2000 to 18% in 2002,
before rebounding.15 The financial crisis severely undermined the viability of public–private partnership
redevelopments. At the Nangok redevelopment in Seoul, for example, a 2,500-unit scheme was abandoned in
1997 by the private developer engaged by the residents, whereupon the latter persuaded the TCK to step in
and finish the development: the completed 3,322-unit project, including 512 public rental flats, was completed
in 2006. Many post-2000 redevelopments involved ‘iconic’ towers for a much higher income group than the
displaced residents, coupled with dramatic increases in building heights and plot ratios. In Chamshil’s tanji
1–4, the five-storey blocks, with their 0.82 plot ratio, were replaced in 2006–8 by much taller towers with a
2.75 ratio. By 2011, the scaling-back in public support for housing had even led to the re-emergence of small
squatter ‘vinyl house’ settlements for slum displacees, housing nearly 50,000 inhabitants nationally.16
Elsewhere in Eastern Asia, especially in the ‘Tiger’ micro-states, the trend was in the other direction. In
Macau, the previously low-key public housing programme overseen by the Instituto de Habitação was
significantly expanded by the post-1999 autonomous government, which restructured the public works
department in 2000 as the Gabinete para o desenvolvimento de infra-estructuras (GDI: Infrastructure
Development Department). This began an escalating succession of multi-storey projects, for rental (Habitação
social) and subsidized owner-occupation (Habitação económica). Although lacking the serial character of
Hong Kong public housing, their scale was unprecedented in Macau: rental schemes included the 737-flat,
twenty-nine–storey Habitação Social de Fai Chi Kei (2010–15) by LBA Architects, while the grandest owner-
occupation project was the 2,703-unit Edifício do Lago in Taipa (2009–12), featuring a Hong Kong-style
cluster of six forty-eight-storey towers.17
In Singapore and Hong Kong, the public housing programmes were now half a century old, spanning
several generations of administrators, politicians and designers. In Singapore, although a further generation
of new towns, such as Punggol, was developed after the turn of the century, the chief emphasis was increasingly
on redevelopment of earlier flatted estates with much higher blocks, especially in the early public housing
areas, now ‘heartlands’ of PAP support; the dominance of CPF-financed HDB home-ownership still prevailed.
The entrenched stability of PAP rule was celebrated in the spectacular set piece of the ‘Pinnacle@Duxton’
project, a chain of seven fifty-storey towers (on a parking podium) crowned by spectacular ‘sky gardens’, built
in 2005–9 at the instigation of Lee Kuan Yew: his son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, delivered his National
Day Message on Sunday, 8 August 2010 from the 51st floor of the development, pledging, ‘Our goal is for all
Singaporeans to enjoy the fruits of growth’ (see Fig. 18.2).18
In Hong Kong, more turbulent times followed the 1997 return of the territory to China and the subsequent
outbreak of the Asian financial crisis, which severely undermined the local property market and development
industry, putting the Home Ownership Scheme into a highly exposed position. The situation was exacerbated
by the repercussions of a significantly boosted public housing construction programme, for both rental and
home-ownership, launched under Hong Kong’s last governor, Chris Patten, in 1994 in an attempt to curb high
property prices and bolster the colonial regime’s political legitimacy in its final decade, but enthusiastically
embraced by the new, incoming administration of Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa (1997–2005). Following
building-industry overstretch and consequent corruption pressures, a scandal focused on the ‘short piling’ of
several public housing developments broke in 1999–2000: two nearly-completed Concord forty-one-storey
HOS towers in Sha Tin had to be demolished, Housing Authority chairman Rosanna Wong was forced to

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A B

C D
Fig. 18.2 (a): The Toa Payoh Housing Hub: 2012 view of the HDB’s home-ownership centre (MG 2012). (b): Ang Mo
Kio New Town, Neighbourhood 7, Block 714, notices promoting the 2011 National Day and illustrating the Pinnacle@
Duxton HDB complex (MG 2011). (c, d): The Pinnacle@Duxton (2005–9), a flagship HDB home-ownership project of
seven linked fifty-storey towers and ‘sky gardens’ built on the site of the Outram Park flats, at the instigation of fomer leader
Lee Kuan Yew (cf. 15.9d) (MG 2011).

resign and the HOS was suspended in a 2003 review of Housing Authority operations in favour of a narrower
focus on public rental housing and redevelopment of earlier estates – an outcome not dissimilar to South
Korea. The HOS was only restored a decade later, following a fresh upsurge in property prices and consequent
‘affordability crisis’, but by then, with the relative democratization of Hong Kong and the escalating conflicts
over sovereignty, political bidding wars over public housing output had begun to emerge: the increasingly
beleaguered administration of Chief Executive Carrie Lam (from 2017) saw an upsurge in controversies over
land supply, with proposals for large-scale land reclamation and for the part-redevelopment of the elite Fanling
Golf Course with public housing towers.19
Architecturally, the reduced 2003–13 production level allowed the emphasis on very tall standard blocks,
and the prolonged ascendancy of the Harmony and Concord, to be modified in a new programme of ‘site-

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specific’ public rental development, beginning with the award-winning 6,700-unit Upper Ngau Tau Kok
redevelopment of 2002–9, planned by project architect John Ng with a highly variegated array of blocks up to
forty-three storeys high, shaped by a new sensitivity to microclimate and landscaping – but still comprising
the same basic dwelling units as the Harmony. In neither Hong Kong nor Singapore was there any significant
sign of the slide towards rejection and stigmatization typical of the West (at any rate, since the 1960s
resettlement problems in Hong Kong). Partly this may have stemmed from the developmental, rather than
social, framing of mass housing in both territories, linking it to connotations of self-betterment. By 2011, both
ranked among the world’s wealthiest economies, with a per-capita GDP of £22,474 in Hong Kong and £29,562
in Singapore, and a total GDP of £159 billion in Hong Kong (£0.83 billion in 1960) and £153 billion in
Singapore (£0.41 billion in 1960).20 But the upsurge of civil unrest in Hong Kong in 2019, within which the
‘affordability crisis’ and the role of public housing rapidly became a political football between protestors and
pro-Beijing groups, showed that the link between mass housing and ‘existential crises’ had the potential to
flare up again, anywhere and at any time (see Fig. 18.3).21

Building for the ‘Mass Line’: social housing in twenty-first-century China

The dominant position in this new boom period of developmental public housing was played not by Hong
Kong but by dramatically-modernizing mainland China, with its vast new wave of rural-to-urban migration
following the mid-1980s agricultural modernization.22 However, there were huge disparities and uncertainties
in the scale and effectiveness of public housing provision between cities and regions. As we saw in chapter 13,
the 1990s’ privatizing reforms to the old danwei housing system had reflected the obsolescence of the scattered
Maoist urban industrial fabric. Following a transitional phase under which many danwei stopped direct
building and instead bought already-constructed private-enterprise flats, the old system was completely
abandoned after 1998. Enterprises were stripped of their housing budgets, and a three-tiered system was
instituted, comprising government-subsidized public rental housing for lower-income groups, government-
supported ‘economic and comfortable’ housing for lower-middle incomes, and fully commercial housing for
the remainder: classification of social housing in income brackets, as in India, was a new phenomenon in
‘Communist’ China. By 2002, 60% of existing urban public housing had been sold, and between 1998 and
2006, only 1% of total output was new low-income public rental housing. Repeated government efforts to
dampen down soaring property prices between 2000 and 2010 proved ineffective. Instead of the old gated
danwei, with their all-embracing collectivist life, new gated private enclaves of privatized emancipation and
anonymity flourished, although these were set in urban-design schemes dominated by vast, broad boulevards,
strikingly similar to their socialist predecessors. Increasingly, too, a shanty-town problem emerged,
concentrated in so-called ‘urban villages’, which became targeted for redevelopment by hybrid public–private
projects, as in Turkey, exploiting central and local government’s chief weapon – tight control over land supply.
The shift away from the old system was especially marked in hot-spot cities. In Beijing, the years 1998–05 saw
sharp house-price increases and shortfalls in ‘affordable’ housing, while direct municipal output totalled only
400 dwellings in 2003: in many places, construction was confined to isolated showpieces, as in Xian in 2001,
or even completely ‘sham’ low-income projects, such as the notorious Century Garden project in industrial
Zinzhou, whose 1,571 dwellings were siphoned off by local officials, many of whom sold them for large profits
before completion. Many genuine social-housing developments combined multiple phases of ‘economic’
home-ownership housing for different income groupings: in the Jiangsu provincial city of Wuxi, for instance,
the Wuxing Homeland (Jia Yuan) project, built by the (municipal) Wuxi Economically Applicable Housing
Management Enterprise in 2001–6 and designed by the Wuxi Civil Design Institute, contained an initial phase

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Fig. 18.3 (a): The world’s most expensive small public park: the landscaped site of the former Blocks E and F, Sha Tin
Area 14b Phase 2 (Yu Chui Court): two brand-new forty-one-storey Concord HOS towers demolished during the HKHA’s
1999–2000 ‘short-piling’ scandal (MG 2010). (b): The HKHA’s battle against illegal subletting and other ‘tenancy abuses’:
advertisement on a 249M KMB bus, Tsing Yi, in 2018 (MG).

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C D

E F G

Fig. 18.3. (c, d, e): Public rental housing as a pump-priming device: Kai Tak Sites 1a and 1b, 13,000 rental flats in fifteen
site-specific blocks on the former airport site; views of Kai Ching Estate under construction in 2012 and post-completion
in 2018 (both MG), showing modular precast construction. (f): The transition to site-specific HKHA design in the 2000s,
as seen in the redevelopment of the former quarry at Choi Wan Road, Kowloon Bay, with public rental housing: on the
right, Choi Ying Estate, completed in 2008, with 3,995 flats in standard New Harmony 1 towers; on the left, Choi Fook
Estate, completed in 2010, with 3,400 flats in (Harmony-based) ‘non-standard’ blocks (MG 2013). (g): Heritage display at
the former Shek Kip Mei resettlement estate, newly-redeveloped with site-specific towers (2014) (MG).

of six-storey walk-ups for city-centre redevelopment displacees, and more elaborate later phases of higher-
income ‘economic’ flats in towers and slabs of up to twenty-six storeys (2008–9). All the while, house prices
continued skyrocketing, especially in Beijing and Shanghai: in March 2010, prices were 16% higher than a
year earlier.23
Fuelled by scandals like Century Garden and by the fear that the unending flow of rural migrants was
building up a powder-keg of discontent, a comprehensive reform was launched in 2008, overseen by a
revamped Ministry of Housing and Urban–Rural Development. The aspiration, laid out in a blizzard of central

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government decrees, was to allocate up to 1% of GDP to ‘guaranteed’ social housing, targeted at the poorest
10%–15% of the urban population.24 In 2011 there was a further ramping-up of central dirigiste rhetoric,
when an executive meeting chaired by Premier Wen Jiabao mandated provincial governments to build a 36
million-unit, CNY 1.3 trillion programme of guaranteed housing, of which 10 million were to be commenced
in 2011 alone – a 72% rise over 2010. MHURD statistics duly trumpeted that 86% of the 10 million units had
been started during that year – but the true picture on the ground was very different, with numerous market-
rate developments being falsely badged as public rental housing to inflate the statistics.25
This disparity between central rhetoric and local reality stemmed partly from the old Communist
preoccupations of secrecy and propaganda, but also from immediate financial pressures. The central
government provided virtually none of the subsidy promised in the 2011 plan: only CNY 0.1 trillion out of the
1.3 trillion required. Nor could local authorities draw as easily as in the West on property taxes or other direct
income of their own. Thus a complex system of internal cross-subsidization was necessary, based on local
authorities’ mortgaging of their housing assets against bank loans. These assets sometimes included completed
estates, but more usually exploited their land-supply powers through commercialization of land value in
advance of development. This process, known as ‘land finance’ (tudi churanjin), involved local authorities
acquiring farmland at existing-use values, boosting its notional value through their own land-use planning
decisions and then remortgaging the land to boost their coffers. In the process, displaced low-income farmers
could be rehoused in the same new urban developments. Sometimes this process was accomplished through
so-called finance-and-construction enterprises (FCEs), which could draw on other private-sector funds.26
Overseas investors were also involved, to secure additional funds and professional expertise – as in the
Singapore tie-up with Tianjin’s ambitious 350,000-dwelling Eco-City project of 2007: in general, ever since
Deng Xiaoping’s famous visit to Singapore in 1978, that country’s policymakers and training programmes had
exerted a significant effect on Chinese policy.27
The growth of land finance was exponential, soaring from 9% to 70% of total local-authority income in
China between 1999 and 2013. This process was aided by copious ‘guanxi’, to allow developers to get hold of
land in the first place: the corollary of this was a constant drip-feed of corruption scandals and doubts as to
how many social-housing completions were genuine. In 2011 the Ministry admitted that only 30% of social
housing ‘completions’ were actually new dwellings at all.28 The growing central- and local-government
addiction to land speculation led to inefficiencies such as land hoarding and over-marketization. Local
authorities became dependent on land sales, even as central government became dependent on local-
authority-led development to prop up national economic growth. Social problems more familiar with the
West began to rear their heads in the early 2010s, including ‘new ghettos’ in public rental housing estates built
to rehouse farmers who had sold their land under duress. Architecturally, the outcomes of the first low-
income housing revival around 2008 were often quite modestly-scaled, especially compared with contemporary
private towers: in Changsha, for example, the Feng Yuan public rental complex in the Boyang district (2006–
8) comprised six-storey, brick-faced staircase-access blocks; a subsidized owner-occupation ‘economic’
development, built by the Tianxin District Housing Bureau (also in 2006–8) in slabs up to eleven storeys high,
adjoined it. The 2011 social-housing programme saw a significant scaling-up, towards patterns reminiscent of
1980s Hong Kong, dominated by blocks of thirty storeys or more. In Wuxi, for instance, the Liangnan Yuan
social housing complex was built by the Taihu-Binhu district office of the Wuxi Municipal People’s Government
in 2011–12 for displacees from nearby demolition zones: the ‘affordable’ home-ownership flats were contained
in towers up to thirty-one storeys high (see Fig. 18.4).29
The organizational problems that undermined the vast quantitative promises of China’s 2011 programme
– on paper, the world’s biggest-ever scheme of public housing – were highlighted by the complex and
controversial experience of the one city that made a really determined attempt to escape the trap of empty

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A B C
Fig. 18.4 (a): A 2017 view of the now-closed Changsha Zinc Factory danwei, Yin Pen Road North, Changsha, and its
1970s tenement blocks under redevelopment, with new private towers rearing up behind (MG 2017). (b): Wuxing Jia Yuan
(Homeland), a two-stage municipal home-ownership redevelopment scheme built in 2001–9 by Wuxi Economically
Applicable Housing Management Enterprise and designed by Wuxi Civil Design Institute: 2018 view of Phase 1 (six-storey
walk-ups) (MG 2018). (c): Liangnan Yuan ‘affordable’ home-ownership complex, Wuxi, built in 2011–12 in towers up to
thirty-one storeys by the Taihu Street office of Binhu District, Wuxi Municipal People’s Government, for clearance-site
displacees (MG 2018).

rhetoric – the southwest capital of Chongqing, which in 2010 was promoted to a ‘national’ city-region
(zhixiashi), alongside Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin – that is, a city-region with direct national status and
provincial status in its own right. Chongqing’s contribution to the 2011 public rental housing drive was wholly
disproportionate: by the end of 2011, its housing starts amounted to no less than 10% of the national total.30
Even more than Lee Kuan Yew’s Singapore, Erdoğan’s Turkey or Khrushchev’s Russia, the public housing
drive in Chongqing was tied to the political ambitions of one key leader: Bo Xilai, the Communist Party
Secretary in Chongqing from 2007 to 2012. Previously, Bo had served in 1992–2003 as mayor of the north-
eastern city of Dalian, where he had pushed through a massive CNY 11 billion redevelopment programme,
removing obsolete urban industries and rehousing 450,000 slum dwellers, despite having only CNY 2 billion
immediately available at the outset – the gap being filled by a trial-run of land-finance. In Chongqing, Bo built
on this achievement through a reputation-boosting strategy, intended to underpin a planned power bid at the
18th National Party Congress in 2012. The strategy was framed by rhetorical concepts, including ‘the five
Chongqings’ (livability, harmony, afforestation, safety, health) and four key policy areas: welfare, double-digit
GDP growth (to be secured by importing 910,000 rural labourers), fighting organized crime (the so-called
‘Smash the Black’ campaign), and promotion of egalitarian, neo-Maoist ‘red’ values of the ‘mass line’. Exploiting
the large-scale population displacement stemming from the Three Gorges Dam project, Bo’s aspiration was to
double Chongqing’s population to 20,000,000. Questioning Deng Xiaoping’s ‘ironclad principle’ of rapid
national development, and presenting himself as a champion of social equality, Bo argued that ‘if development
cannot improve the people’s livelihood, then it is not the “ironclad principle”, but is, rather,“without principle”’.31
A massive programme of public rental housing was one of the central elements of Bo’s strategy, as it
supported three of his four key policy areas: welfare, immigration/GDP growth and the ‘mass line’. As early as
2010, Bo’s chief economic strategist, Deputy Mayor (from 2001) Huang Qifan, charted out an unprecedented

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670,000-unit, $156 million four-year programme of public rental housing for lower income households. And
by the time of Bo’s spectacular downfall in 2012 – ostensibly because of alleged corruption and complicity in
the murder of a British businessman, but more probably because he had alienated the central leadership with
his aggressive populism – that aim was well on the way to fulfilment, with 113,000 dwellings completed by
November 2012 and 468,000 under construction (see Fig. 18.5).32

B C
Fig. 18.5 (a, b, c): Cheng Nan Jia Yuan, a 32,000-unit development of eighty-five blocks of twenty-three to thirty-two
storeys built in 2011–12 by the Chongqing City Construction Investment Corporation for the Chongqing Public Rental
Housing Authority, and occupied largely by high-rental tenants: overall view, ground-level hawkers, and interior of one-
bedroom flat in twenty-four-storey slab-block (MG 2015).

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Fig. 18.5 (d, e): Exhibition of Chongqing public rental housing in the Cheng Nan Jia Yuan estate centre: relief model
and map of city public housing projects as at 2014 (MG 2015).

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Bo’s strategy for realizing this drive was, however, far from straightforwardly ‘red’ in character. Instead, like
TOKİ and the HDB, it involved a close alliance of public and market forces to form a ‘third hand’ – a phrase
coined by Huang. Its organizational base was an array of municipally-owned investment firms, the so-called
‘Big Eight’, whose activities were jump-started by the city’s carefully-husbanded 200 km2 land bank. The latter’s
appreciation via ‘tudi churangin’ in turn fuelled a ‘third finance’ system, under which the resulting gains
would be recycled into housing development rather than siphoned off for profit, while keeping the actual cost
of land acquisition to only a third of commercial developments. Chongqing’s land-finance resources soared
from CNY 0.2 billion in 2002 to 90 billion in 2012, and by 2015, income from land leasing was three times
higher than from direct land taxation. This process was enhanced by the ability of the two chief FCE
development organizations to coerce market capital firms to support their operations: here the Smash the
Black campaign played a contentious role by allegedly persecuting businessmen who refused to sell their land
for public housing. Overall, the first phase of the programme cost CNY 140 billion, of which 60 billion was
covered by central government support and 80 billion came from elsewhere, including bank loans against the
security of future land-value appreciation. Implicit coercion also characterized the acquisition of land from
peasant smallholders, via a ‘dipiao’ system of land-certificate commodification and exchange linked to
peasants’ ‘hukou’ residence regulation status. This displacement of peasants into the urban area freed up over
100 km2 of existing agricultural land for developmental rezoning, contributing half of the city’s overall land-
bank – a vast amount by comparison with anything available in Hong Kong or even Singapore. The resulting
public rental housing developments were largely allocated to these impoverished displacees, or ‘nongmingong’:
rural arrivals were running at about 800,000 a year at this time. Up to 40% of public rental housing lettings in
2010–11 were linked to hukou exchanges, the rentals being very low – as little as CNY 9 per m2 (compared to
57 in Shanghai): applicants would be allowed to buy the apartments after five years’ renting.33
The first tranche of public housing, containing 113,000 flats, was built in 2010–12 by the newly-established
Chongqing Public Rental Housing Authority – a body whose massive size and political salience echoed
Singapore and Hong Kong precedent, as opposed to the old, low-key scattered danwei.34 First to be commenced,
and let to tenants, was the 17,700-unit flagship Minxin Jia Yuan (‘People’s Hearts Garden’ – a suitably ‘red’
name), north of the central business district. This comprised fifty-four point-blocks of twenty to thirty-three
storeys, rather like a Hong Kong HOS scheme in its arrays of slender towers containing smallish flats, mainly
one- or two-bedroomed.35 For firefighting access reasons, a 100m, thirty-four-storey height-limit generally
applied, reflecting national norms. Some early developments included tall slab-blocks, such as the 32,000-unit
Cheng Nan Jia Yuan, built by the Chongqing Construction Investment Co. Ltd. in 2010–12, including twenty-
four-storey slabs and towers, with twelve flats per upper floor. Responding to a public preference for brightly-
coloured exteriors, many tall blocks were simply painted on the outside for economy’s sake, with drainage
pipework contained in internal ducts, rather than externally as in Hong Kong.36 Contrasting with the tinted-
glass and decorative trimmings of private projects, the multi-coloured public rental housing complexes,
mushrooming on the city periphery, were a textbook case of ‘spectacular’ mass-housing construction – even
if many initially sat empty for years, owing to discontinuities in letting processes. Of the public rental flats
completed in 2012, 29% were one-bedroomed and 46% two-bedroomed, and rents were set at 20%–25% of
commercial levels. Reflecting the copious building-labour availability, construction was straightforward in-
situ concrete, with little precasting. Contractors included former danwei enterprises, some still with unwieldy
and incongruous socialist names such as the China Railway 17th Bureau Group 4th Engineering Co. Ltd.,
builders of the 11,000-unit Si Yuan project (2011–13). Overall, construction costs averaged 50%–60% of
equivalent commercial housing (see Fig. 18.6).37
Problems, however, soon mounted. Echoing earlier Western and Soviet experience, there were claims that
the developments had been rushed up without facilities.38 Coercion of the farmers into dipiao exchanges,

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B C
Fig. 18.6 (a, b, c): The first completed and let project in the Chongqing public rental programme: Minxin Jia Yuan
(‘People’s Hearts Garden’), a 2010–11 complex of 17,700 flats in fifty-four point-blocks of twenty to thirty-three storeys:
view from Flat 18.8 of Min Xin Lu 555 Hao, interior of flat rented by displaced farmer and 2011 image of tenants moving
in, from the exhibition at Cheng Nan Jia Yuan (MG 2015).

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D E

F G

Fig. 18.6 (d): Kang Zhuang Mei Di – another early Chongqing rental project of 2010–11 (MG 2015). (e): ‘Ghost cities’
and erratic public housing allocation: Xi Peng, Chongqing, completed in 2012 but still unlet and empty in February 2015
(MG 2015). (f, g): Tao Jia, Chongqing, completed in 2014 and pictured unoccupied with only security guards resident in
February 2015, immediately preceding a full-scale intake of tenants the following month (MG 2015).

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coupled with levels of corruption unknown in Singapore or other productivist-welfare Asian states, led to
escalating difficulties, including poor initial tenant uptake, management difficulties in the multi-storey blocks,
and shifts in apartment occupancy to middle-income occupants following movement of disillusioned farmers
back to the countryside. Some developments, such as Cheng Nan Jia Yuan, attracted higher-income occupants
from the start, being located near middle-class villa areas. Bo’s increasing anxiety about the impending 2012
party congress caused mounting programme disruption as he attempted to telescope the programme from ten
to three years. Following his downfall, a torrent of accusations of fraud and mismanagement duly erupted,
including claims of wholesale inflation of output figures, and wildly excessive borrowing, amounting to CNY
363 billion. Prior to Bo’s fall, in 2012, he had indignantly protested that ‘if a new capitalist class emerges, then
we’ll really have taken the wrong route. Only if the cake is sliced well does everyone have the enthusiasm so
the cake can grow bigger!’ And Huang had complained of the criticisms of poor building quality in public
housing that ‘it is just like using a magnifying glass to check the quality of the skin of a beautiful lady’.39 Now,
however, it was claimed that the programme was just a thinly-disguised speculative bubble. Yet, with all the
starts already committed, it continued apace even after Bo’s downfall, operating within an overall ceiling of
40,000,000m2 allocated by the State Council in Beijing, in line with the old socialist conventions of zhilaia
ploshchad (living space). To encourage residential stability and reduce the programme’s costs, a new, Singapore-
inspired scheme, ‘Common Property Rights in Public Housing’, allowed up to 50% tradeable part-ownership
of a public-rental flat. By 2016, Huang (by now elevated to mayor) was echoing Xi Jinping’s new, austere
national-political ethos by emphasizing the cautiousness of the programme, claiming that it had avoided the
property-market boom–bust pattern through thriftiness. Municipal development officials highlighted the
city’s lesser dependence on land revenue, compared to notorious examples such as Ordos, where land income
accounted for 78% of municipal revenue.40
Overall, the mainland Chinese programme promised to take the Asian developmental model of mass
housing, and the continuing global story of mass housing in general, into completely new territory, through
an unprecedented expansion in both scale and driving force. At last, it seemed, the old heartlands of mass
housing would be resoundingly outstripped, by a programme that still remained faithful to a recognizably
modernist ‘mass’ world-outlook. Yet as the vicissitudes of even the showpiece programme in Chongqing
showed, it was difficult to judge how real those achievements actually were. Even in Beijing itself, one 2018
report estimated the cumulative total of public rental housing in the city at no more than 120,000 flats in
seventy-six separate projects – only slightly more than the total number of claimed completions in just the
first phase of Chongqing’s public housing programme in 2010–12.41 Thus, even in the midst of the much-
trumpeted ‘rise of China’, we have to leave our epic narrative of mass housing’s ‘Hundred Years’ War’, for the
time being, on a surprisingly uncertain note!

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CHAPTER 19
CONCLUSION: GLOBAL AND NATIONAL,
IDEALISM AND REALPOLITIK

This book began with a paradoxical premise: that on the one hand, mass housing was clearly a vast movement,
imprinted with a strong sense of narrative force and of transnational unifying aspects, yet that at the same
time, any sense of ‘grand narrative’ was offset by its tremendous geographical diversity, national and local,
both in the organization and politics of housing and in its architectural form. As the book unfolded, so too
that dual structure evolved: the narrative gradually widened from an initial, linear pattern into a vast mosaic
of regional variety in Part 2, before converging again finally in Part 3. The complexity of the book’s dual
chronological-geographical structure, and of the many microregional narratives within it, were offset by the
subtly chronological undertones of the overlapping episodes and campaigns of Part 2, especially some of
the key chapters dealing with the First and Second Worlds. These helped maintain a sense of momentum, as
the story progressed from the early peak of US public housing around 1950 towards the 1950s–1970s Western
European welfare-state decades, the Soviet bloc’s slightly later production peaks and finally the housing boom
in developmental Eastern Asia, a boom that has continued uninterruptedly into the period covered by Part 3.
As emphasized in the Introduction, the very wide scope of Mass Housing also raised a range of other
methodological challenges, the responses to which – at the risk of repetition – we now need to briefly revisit
and review. In reaction to the task of defining and clearly demarcating its proper subject matter, a hierarchical
approach was adopted in the book, under which programmes including both state support and modernist
architecture were prioritized, and those involving only one of the two were dealt with more selectively. This
latter grey area included, for example, programmes of high modernist blocks with only indirect state
involvement, as in the vast apartment-tower construction in Greater Toronto, mainly privately-built but
massively supported by state tax subsidy and planning regulation. Conversely, it also included the ‘Bantu
locations’ of apartheid South Africa, exemplifying dirigiste state modernity in their organization and political
base, but following an architecturally pre-modernist garden-city pattern of small individual houses. Ultimately
readers will have to decide for themselves how successfully this challenge of definition and consistency has
been addressed!
Methodologically speaking, the book’s global scope emphasized breadth rather than depth, and was chiefly
grounded in a survey of secondary literature, whose intrinsic variability led to significant asymmetries of
coverage. Its chronological-cum-geographical overview approach – echoing that of my 2013 international
history of architectural preservation, The Conservation Movement – gave considerable prominence to key hot
spots of housing production or design, such as New York City, Hong Kong or Khrushchev’s USSR. However,
it avoided in-depth case studies and ‘granular-level’ coverage, not least because the case-study approach has
already been comprehensively employed in Florian Urban’s 2011 book, Tower and Slab, as well as in Frédéric
Dufaux and Annie Fourcaut’s Le monde des grands ensembles (2004).1 In some ways, this new book should be
seen not as a final, definitive work, but as a global overview prospectus of the potential for further in-depth
research by others on a transnational basis. One of its chief aims, in fact, has been to demonstrate the feasibility
of a more connected-up alternative to the predominant ‘national silo-mentality’ within housing history.
Although the nation-state was undoubtedly the most important organizational element within the global
story of mass housing, the consequent tendency to confine historical accounts to individual nation-states has

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 Conclusion: Global and National, Idealism and Realpolitik

led to strong, unconscious biases or imbalances in comparative interpretation. The potential for transnational
communication among historians of mass housing is hardly encouraged by the often wildly divergent national
preoccupations, and so in this book, an emphasis on the importance of national narratives has been combined
with efforts to relate these narratives to one another, in order to identify key transnational themes.
Concerning the most fundamental of these themes – the question of why mass housing was built at all – there
were extreme and persistent disparities between rhetoric and reality. Almost invariably, contemporary arguments
for government-supported mass housing trumpeted lofty social ideals of housing need, while at the same time,
in practice, giving priority to pragmatic political considerations, especially during existential crises of state
legitimacy. The infrequent cases of housing policy genuinely driven by burning messianic idealism, such as that
of David Gibson in Glasgow, were exceptions that only emphasized the general rule. As a result, the targeting of
mass housing almost invariably emphasized politically vital supporters or groups, rather than the poorest or
most objectively needy. First posed historically by Mark Swenarton about post-1919 early council housing in
Britain, this state-legitimacy and citizenship-mobilization argument, with its strong links to the rhetoric of
warfare and national survival, has recurred time and time again throughout our story – perhaps most dramatically
in 1970s–1980s Hong Kong, where Governor MacLehose forced through the territory’s development into a
‘model city’ as a vital defence against the threat of early take-over by communist China.2 From our narrative, one
could even derive a rule of thumb: the greater the political urgency, and the more wholehearted the engagement
of organized state forces, the more quantitatively forceful might be the resulting housing drive.
As a result of the interplay of these forces, there were huge disparities between different countries’
organizational effectiveness. At one extreme were the weak state-structures of many ‘Third World’ countries,
too deficient in resources to be able to mobilize mass housing campaigns, even in response to legitimacy
challenges. However, relatively well-resourced states might also choose to avoid high-production solutions for
other reasons, as for instance in many Mediterranean countries, with their emphasis on family-based rather
than state social provision. Within some powerful states, above all the USA, local cultural prejudices
encouraged unpredictable or generally low public housing production. The other extreme, that of high
production effectiveness, was exemplified in the postwar programmes of some Western European countries
and the Soviet socialist bloc. These combined a high degree of state-led mobilization with universalist formulae
of social provision – which, together, guaranteed mass housing a strong political centrality. In many later
twentieth-century Eastern Asian countries, equally high-production housing regimes emerged that were
driven not by ideals of welfare-state universalism but by developmental strategies, under such slogans as Park
Chung-Hee’s ‘lifestyle revolution’ in South Korea. In Hong Kong and Singapore, of course, this developmental
agenda was further accentuated by the perceived emergency threats to state legitimacy. Among authoritarian
states in general, the intense politicization of ‘homes for the people’ was often bound up with blatantly
propagandist strategies, sometimes featuring exaggerated production claims but also sometimes, as in
Khrushchev’s USSR, anchored in very real output achievements. The same propagandist ethos applied, more
subtly, in democratic systems, for example in the heady rhetoric of the ‘folkhem’ or the ‘miljonprogramm’ in
Sweden, the giant gesture of Brasilia – which successively headquartered both democracy and authoritarianism
– or the very different superblocks of Caracas, which underwent an opposite associative process, from
spectacle-obsessed dictatorship to uncertain democracy.
Mass Housing also foregrounded the vast microregional diversity in the organizational implementation of
programmes, especially in the various types of state intervention. Overwhelmingly, in developed parts of the
world it was the traditional nation-state that remained dominant, whether in legislative or organizational
matters. But within some federal regimes, key responsibilities were devolved to provincial level, in the hands of
powerful organizations such as the Housing Commission of Victoria; or they were coordinated by city housing
authorities, in cases such as New York City, Red Vienna, the London County Council, or, for that matter, almost

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any large provincial city in Britain; the Hong Kong Housing Authority and Singapore’s HDB were also, in some
ways, city authorities. Elsewhere, mass housing organization was often highly decentralized, including
surprising cases such as Maoist China. In the tenurial patterns of housing, the variations were just as wide. All
sorts of potential solutions were available, ranging from public rental to full owner-occupation (with various
forms of cooperatives and social companies in between), and from central state bureaucracies and local state
organizations to third sector organizations, public-utility societies and subsidized private firms. On the whole,
both the Anglophone and state socialist countries tended to favour direct systems of public rental housing.
Elsewhere, arm’s-length indirect systems were more prevalent, and these showed greater resilience in the long
term against hostile central-state interference of the kind seen in post-1970s Thatcherite Britain.
Despite the global reach of mass housing, explicitly international organizations and discourses were
generally far less influential than national or local structures, and their role was in many places largely confined
to hortatory initiatives, such as Catherine Bauer’s interwar proselytizing in Europe and the United States, or
the system-building promotion craze of the 1960s in Western Europe. Only with the rise of aided self-help as
an officially sanctioned alternative to mass housing did relatively well-financed international institutions
begin to impact significantly on our area – and in a manner detrimental to, rather than supportive of, mass
housing production.
The same story of national and local diversity applied in the arena of housing architecture. Both the text
and the images of this book highlighted the highly varied ways in which the architecture of mass housing
interacted with political and organizational discussions and structures, and, in particular, how it related to
canonical or ‘advanced’ modernist architectural trends. In both cases, the relationship was highly oblique.
In the first case, political/organizational structures were usually reflected not in the stylistic details of the
architecture, but in more basic spatial aspects, including density and building heights – with dense Hong
Kong and Singapore, for example, being strikingly different from low-scaled Japan and Maoist China – or in
the degree of planned coordination, in which even neighbouring Belgium and the Netherlands sharply
contrasted with each other. Yet some countries’ mass housing undeniably showed unusually adventurous
architectural tendencies overall – Yugoslavia or Italy, for instance – often in reflection of relatively decentralized
regimes within which designers were given unusual freedom or respect. In other cases, contrasts between
design-conscious and more ‘utilitarian’ housing architecture were internalized within individual states, as
with the polarization within Britain between the architect-dominated LCC and New Towns, and the more
output-orientated cities, such as Glasgow or Liverpool.
In the second case, the successive shifts from mid-twentieth-century modernisms (whether ‘open CIAM’
or ‘densely-clustered’) to the postmodernism of the 1980s and 1990s and finally back since around 2000 to a
new, more image-dominated ‘iconic’ modernism were only reflected in a simplified form in the mass housing
architecture of those decades. Some places, such as Hong Kong, avoided those stylistic-cum-ideological
gyrations altogether and remained faithful to a relatively mainstream modernism. Equally, other countries
and cities pursued design principles which were not so much aesthetically utilitarian as consciously divergent
from the norms of even middle-of-the road architectural modernism – such as Ceauşescu’s Romania, with its
rejection of Soviet Extensive Urbanism for a monumental approach that looked both backwards, to Stalinism,
and perhaps also forwards, to postmodernism.3 The massive brick ‘alphabet towers’ of the NYCHA, with their
often bizarrely jumbled project layouts, also equally fell into the same category of carefully-designed
idiosyncrasy.
Overall, whether in politics or in architecture, this book has tended to avoid explicit theoretical-cum-
ideological frameworks, instead preferring an issue-by-issue approach, offsetting the overall narrative of mass
housing with local variations and micro-histories. In that sense, the book parallels contemporary efforts in
other disciplines, such as in ancient history, where reductive, unitary explanations such as ‘Romanization’

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have fallen from favour, and the ancient Mediterranean has been reinterpreted as a dynamically interconnected
network of microregions and microecologies, interacting in a vast and complex narrative. Substitute Vienna,
New York or Hong Kong for Carthage and Syracuse, and the parallel is obvious!4 Although housing’s role in
supporting the interests of the ruling power was prominently stressed throughout the book, overarching
theories of social control and power, as seen for example in the writings of Michel Foucault and Pierre
Bourdieu, were not explicitly mentioned or emphasized. Instead, this theme was addressed on a case-by-case
basis. Equally, within architecture, the book’s emphasis on more prosaic, everyday characteristics, and its
relative lack of emphasis on avant-garde discourses and styles, led to a relative avoidance of elite catchphrases,
such as Brutalism, Critical Regionalism or New Empiricism.
Finally – what of the future? As was stressed in the Introduction, this book is a historical narrative, not a
housing policy study, and so makes no judgements about the future suitability of any of the patterns it has
traced. However, the still ongoing Chongqing mass housing saga, in its combination of authoritarian
developmentalism and its spectacular, politicized character, undeniably underlined the continuing dominance
of political expediency and local governmental cultures in shaping mass housing and its hot spots along
unpredictable lines – characteristics that seem likely to carry on for the foreseeable future, especially in the
global emergency conditions created by the COVID-19 pandemic.
As we saw many times in the preceding pages, social-housing advocacy, especially within the West, has
typically been framed in Enlightenment terms of universal rights and ideals, such as ‘the welfare state’, ‘solving
the housing problem’, ‘fighting homelessness’, ‘housing adequacy and affordability’, the ‘disgrace of the slums’
and so forth – whereas this book has repeatedly demonstrated the uncomfortable and continuing reality that
the real driving forces of mass-housing construction have often been locally-specific political processes and
emergency pressures.
Today, just as much as previously, governments continue to offer mass housing aid mainly to those whose
support or acquiescence they need, rather than those in the worst need. And the parallel pressure within the
international habitat establishment for aided self-help, as against supposedly coercive mass housing – now
bolstered by the rhetoric of sustainability – can also be interpreted as a kind of institutional self-interest. Since
the downfall of state socialism and the decline of the postwar Western welfare state, mass-housing systems
have largely been bound up with capitalist developmentalism, as well as with external factors such as
demographic pressures, and that alignment may well survive in the future, even despite the massive state
interventions in emergency economic and social support in many countries across the world in 2020. We can,
therefore, appropriately finish with the question posed by historians Mark Swenarton, Tom Avermaete and
Dirk van den Heuvel in 2015: ‘Will this be the story of the twenty-first century: welfare-state building without
the welfare state?’5

553
NOTES

In this book, to reduce the number of endnotes to manageable proportions, references are where possible consolidated on
a paragraph basis, with endnote numbers mostly placed at paragraph ends.

Introduction

1. James C. Scott, Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition have Failed, New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press, 1998, 21, 89, 109, 126–7. See also Marshall Berman, All that is Solid Melts into Air,
London: Verso, 1983, 305–8 (left-wing interpretation); Roger Scruton, The Aesthetics of Architecture, London:
Methuen, 1979, 250 (right-wing). Thomas Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge, 1883 (Basingstoke: Macmillian ,
1975, 113); L. P. Hartley, The Go-Between, 1953 (New York: New York Review Books, 2002, 1).
2. S. N. Eisenstadt, ‘Multiple modernities’, Daedalus 129, no. 1 (Winter 2000): 1–29; Richard Evans, In Defence of History,
London: Granta, 1997 (2001 edition), 291. Microecologies and microregions in ancient history: Peregrine Horden
and Nicholas Purcell, The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History, Oxford: Blackwell, 2, 64, 78–80
(microregions and ‘la trame du monde’), 464, 523, 548–9.Early development of conservation as a ‘First Heritage
International’: see Astrid Swenson, The Rise of Heritage, Preserving the Past in France, Germany and England
1789–1914, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, 329–336; Miles Glendinning, The Conservation Movement,
London: Routledge, 2013.
3. Jean Bodin, Les six livres de la Republique, Paris: Jacques du Puys, 1577; Peter Wagner, Modernity as Experience and
Interpretation, Cambridge: Polity, 2008, 41–3.
4. K. Polanyi, The Great Transformation, Boston: Beacon Press, 1957; Mark Swenarton, Tom Avermaete and Dirk van
den Heuvel (eds), Architecture and the Welfare State, London: Routledge, 2015, 7, 11.
5. See, for example, F. Engels, Der Ursprung der Familie, des Privateigenthums und des Staats, Hattingen: Swiss Popular
Press, 1884, 58–9; M. Weber, Politik als Beruf, Lecture to the Free Students’ Union, Munich, 1919. Anthony Giddens,
Central Problems in Social Theory, London: Macmillan International Higher Education, 1979, 69.
6. T. Bennett and P. Joyce (eds), Material Powers: Cultural Studies, History and the Material Turn, London: Routledge, 2010;
C. Tilley, W. Keane, S. Küchler, M. Rowlands and P. Spyer (eds), Handbook of Material Culture, London: Sage, 2013.
7. Peter Wagner, Progress, a Reconstruction, Cambridge: Polity, 2016, 37.
8. E. D. Simon et al., Moscow in the Making, London: Longmans, 1937, 155.
9. Blair Ruble, Leningrad, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990, 1.
10. C. Tilly, The Formation of National States in Western Europe, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975, 42;
K. Jaggers, ‘War and the three faces of power’, Comparative Political Studies 25, no. 1 (April 1992): 27–9; Wagner,
Modernity as Experience, 41–3; B. D. Porter, War and the Rise of the State, New York: Free Press, 1994.
11. G. Esping-Andersen, The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990, 7–8;
T. von Ghyczy, B. von Oettinger and C. Bassford, Clausewitz on Strategy, Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2002, 100; Scott, Seeing
like a State, 89–99.
12. P. Marcuse, ‘Housing policy and the myth of the Benevolent State’, Social Policy 8, no. 4 (1978): 21–6.
13. S. Giedion, Building in France, Building in Ferro-Concrete, trans. J. Berry, Los Angeles: Getty, 1995, 152, 164–7.
14. Swenarton et al., Architecture and the Welfare State, 11–20.
15. Alfred Sauvy, ‘Trois mondes, une planète’, L’Observateur, 14 August 1952, 14.

554
 Notes

16. Eisenstadt, ‘Multiple modernities’, 2; Greg Castillo, Cold War on the Home Front, Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 2010; Etienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein, Race, Nation, Class, New York: Verso, 1991;
Y. Allweil, ‘Nation-Building in Israel’, in K. Kılınç and M. Gharipour, Social Housing in the Middle East, Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 2019, 144.
17. L. Campbell and J. Hall, The World of States, London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015, 5, 79–80; Wagner, Progress, a
Reconstruction, 104–12; Esping-Andersen, Three Worlds, 6; D. Diamond and M. Lea, ‘The decline of special circuits in
developed-country housing finance’, Housing Policy Debate 3, no. 3 (1992): 747–76. B. Greve (ed.), The Routledge
Handbook of the Welfare State, Abingdon: Routledge, 2019.
18. Marcuse, ‘Housing policy’.
19. G. Levi, ‘On microhistory’, in P. Burke (ed.), New Perspectives in Historical Writing, Polity, Cambridge: Polity, 1991,
97–119.
20. Swenarton et al., Architecture and the Welfare State, 10.
21. N. Kwak, A World of Homeowners, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015.
22. Wagner, Progress, a Reconstruction, 4, 18–19, 33, 109; Swenarton et al., Architecture and the Welfare State, 16, 20.

Chapter 1 Pre-1914: The Long Mobilization

1. Karl Polyani, The Great Transformation, Boston: Beacon Press, 1957; M. Swenarton, T. Avermaete and D. van den
Heuvel (eds), Architecture and the Welfare State, Abingdon: Routledge, 2015, 6–7.
2. G. Meen, K. Gibb and C. Leishman, Housing Economics: A Comparative Approach, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016,
115.
3. D. Handlin, The American Home, Boston: Little Brown & Co., 1980, 316–17.
4. Alan Mayne, Slums: The History of a Global Injustice, London: Reaktion, 2017; J. S. Curl, The Life and Work of Henry
Roberts, London: Phillimore, 1983, 75; K. Siena, Rotten Bodies: Class and Contagion in Eighteenth-Century Britain,
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2019.
5. For example, the originally residential ‘chambers’ of the London ‘Inns of Court’: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/
rchme/london/vol2/, 43–63.
6. Curl, Roberts, 15.
7. J. and O. Cox, Naval Hospitals of Port Royal, Jamaica, Kingston: UOT, 1999; A. Brodie and J. Croom, English Prisons,
Swindon: English Heritage, 2002.
8. Curl, Roberts, 88.
9. James Douet, British Barracks, London: English Heritage, 1988, 145–6.
10. J. N. Tarn, Five Per Cent Philanthropy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973, 42.
11. N. Bullock and J. Read, The Movement for Housing Reform in Germany and France, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1985, 49.
12. M. B. Smith, Property of Communists, De Kalb: North Illinois University Press, 2010, 6; C. Hannemann, Die Platte,
Braunschweig: Vieweg, 1996, 19.
13. S. T. McCloy, ‘Some 18th-century housing projects in France’, Social Forces, 1 January 1937, 528–9.
14. B. Poivreau, Le logement social en Seine Saint-Denis, Paris: ADAGP, 2003, 8; Anne Power, Hovels to High-Rise,
Routledge, London: Routledge, 1993, 29; Bullock and Read, The Movement, 313–15.
15. Curl, Roberts, 59, 158–60 (Familistère de Guise, 1859–77); Bullock and Read, The Movement, 318–30, 451.
16. Pouvreau, Le logement, 11–14; Anti-tenements, Linda E. Smeins, Building an American Identity, Walnut Creek, CA:
Alta Mira, 1999, 141.
17. Curl, Roberts, 160; A. Voinea, ‘A suitable model for the Romanian lifestyle’, Society of Architectural Historians, 2017
Conference, Glasgow.

555
Notes

18. E. C. Cromley, Alone Together: A History of New York’s Early Apartments, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990,
15, 38, 52–61; A. Jackson, A Place Called Home: A History of Low-Cost Housing in Manhattan, Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 1976, 4, 12.
19. Eric Mumford, Designing the Modern City, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018.
20. M. Glendinning, R. McInnes and A. MacKechnie, A History of Scottish Architecture, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press, 1996, 314–5
21. M. Horsey, Tenements and Towers, Edinburgh: HMSO, 1990, 10.
22. Meen, Gibb and Leishman, Housing Economics, 145.
23. Susan Beattie, A Revolution in London Housing: LCC Housing Architects and their Work, 1893–1914, London: GLC,
1980, 17–54.
24. D. Englander, Landlord and Tenant in Urban Britain, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983, 38, 43, 215–16;
M. Daunton, House and Home in the Victorian City, London: Hodder, 1983, 295.
25. Murray Fraser, John Bull’s Other Homes: State Housing and British Policy in Ireland, Liverpool: Liverpool University
Press, 1996, 27–52, 77–135; F. Aalen, ‘The British Isles’s first major housing programme’, Planning History Bulletin 7,
no. 3 (1985): 32–9; Power, Hovels to High-Rise, 319–23; F. Aalen, in C. G. Pooley (ed.), Housing Strategies in Europe,
Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1992, 138–46; Enda McKay, ‘The housing of the rural labourer 1883–1916’,
Saothar 17 (1992): 27–38.
26. S. E. Harris, Communism on Tomorrow Street, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013, 32; Bullock and
Read, The Movement, 474.
27. Bullock and Read, The Movement, 525, Pooley, Housing Strategies, 198–204.
28. R.-H. Guerrand, Une Europe en Construction, Paris: La Découverte, 1992, 73–4; P. van den Eeckhout, ‘Brussels’, in
M. Daunton (ed.), Housing the Workers, Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1990, 92–4 (seven five-storey blocks)
29. Power, Hovels to High-Rise, 34–9; Poivreau, Le logement, 11–22; CDC: la Caisse des dépôts et consignations.
30. Poivreau, Le logement, 11.
31. Bullock and Read, The Movement, 400.
32. Poivreau, Le logement, 9; Bullock and Read, The Movement, 400; Power, Hovels to High-Rise, 34
33. M. Harloe, The People’s Home? Oxford: Blackwell, 1995, 48–59; Bullock and Read, The Movement, 172–83;
A. Sutcliffe, Towards the Planned City, Oxford: Blackwell, 1981.
34. Michael Alfred Kanther, Victor Aimé Huber: Sozialreformer und Wegbereiter der sozialen Wohnungswirtschaft, Berlin:
n.p., 2000.
35. Bullock and Read, The Movement, 102–7, 179–83; Sutcliffe, Planned City, 32.
36. Bullock and Read, The Movement, 209–44, 256–63; Harloe, The People’s Home?, 115; Pooley, Housing Strategies, 244–55.
37. For example, the Rangierbahnhof-Siedlung in Nuremberg, built in 1907–13 by a ‘Baugenossenschaft’ of Bavarian
State Railway workers as a picturesque ‘neo-Altstadt’ cluster of 205 linked family houses, designed by German
Bestelmeyer.
38. Bullock and Read, The Movement, 116–53; W. Sonne, Urbanität und Dichte im Städtebau, Berlin: Dom, 2014, 54–67.
39. Harris, Communism, 50–1; F. Urban, The New Tenement: Residences in the Inner City since 1970, Abingdon: Routledge,
2018, 35–6; F. Urban, ‘Germany, country of tenants’, Built Environment 41, no. 2: 185.
40. Kobanya ut, Pest, in 1908 for the MÁVAG (State Railways Machine Factory): A Ferkai, Housing Estates, Budapest:
Budapest City Hall, 2005; Gábor Gyáni, ‘Budapest’, in M. J. Daunton (ed.), Housing the Workers, Leicester: Leicester
University Press, 1990, 149–81.
41. Pooley, Housing Strategies, 53–62; Power, Hovels to High-Rise, 235–59. AAB: Arbejdernes Andels Boligforening; AKB:
Arbejdernes Kooperative Byggeselskab. Danish turn-of century tenements featured Scottish-style ‘sectional’ plans, but
with the additional feature of a second, service staircase at the rear.
42. Johan-Ditlef Martens, Norwegian Housing, Oslo: Norsk Arkitekturforlag, 1993; R. Anderson, Russia, London:
Reaktion, 2015, 66–7.

556
 Notes

43. M. Grandi and A. Pracchi, Milano, guida all’architettura moderna, Milan: Zanichelli, 1980, 112.
44. Grandi and Pracchi, Milano, 112–20; T. Dore, A. Nicara and M. V. Rindoi (eds) L’Archivio storico iconografico IACP, Rome:
IACP, 2010; Paola di Biagi, La città publica, Turin: Allemandi, 2008, 6; A. Boesi, E. Antonini and D. Longo, Edilizia sociali
ad alta Densità, Milan: Mondadori, 2013, 69; Flavia Castro, Edilizia popolare a Trieste, Trieste: UNT, 1984.
45. A five-storey sectional-planned complex of small flats with communal facilities: R. Anderson, Modern Achitectures in
History: Russia, London: Reaktion, 2015, 67–8. A 1913 gallery-access council scheme in Bratislava’s Mestská ulica:
H. Moravčíková (ed.), Atlas Sidlisk, Bratislava: Slovart, 2011, 10–11.
46. Harloe, The People’s Home? 55–61; M. J. Daunton, ‘American cities’, in M. J. Daunton (ed.), Housing the Workers, Leicester:
Leicester University Press, 1990, 249–80; M. Daunton, ‘Cities of Homes and Cities of Tenements’, Journal of Urban History
(May 1988): 303–11; R. Plunz, A History of Housing in New York City, New York: Columbia University Press, 1990.
47. J. F. Bauman, R. Biles, K. M. Szylvian (eds), From Tenements to the Taylor Homes, Union Park: Pennsylvania State
University Press, 2000, 25; Smeins, Building an American Identity, 155; Gwendolyn Wright, Building the Dream: A
Social History of Housing in America, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1981, 101–37; R. Fairbanks, ‘Housing, Community and
the Poor’, Planning History Bulletin (1985): 28–30.
48. Cromley, Alone Together, 11–61, 173; Bauman et al., From Tenements, 2, 25; Daunton, ‘American cities’, 249–80;
Sutcliffe, Planned City, 89ff.; Plunz, History, 49, 92; Jackson, A Place Called Home, 78ff.; G. Daly, ‘The British roots of
American public housing’, Journal of Urban History 15, no. 4 (August 1989): 405.
49. Plunz, History, 41–9, 91–103; Jackson, A Place Called Home, 199; Wright, Building the Dream, 119.
50. J. C. Weaver, ‘The North American apartment building’, Planning Perspectives 2 (1987): 27–52; Cromley, Alone
Together, 62, 102, 172–85; Plunz, History, 74–9; D. Handlin, The American Home, Boston: Little Brown & Co, 1980,
383; Wright, Building the Dream, 136–42.
51. R. Home, Of Planting and Planning: The Making of British Colonial Cities, London: Spon, 1997, 42–8, 94–113, 119–38;
R. Harris, ‘The world’s first slum improvement programme’, Planning Perspectives 35, no. 2 (2020): 321–44; Prashant
Kidambi, The Making of an Indian Metropolis, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007; Carl Nightingale, Segregation, Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2012, 210–25; N. Coetzer, Building Apartheid, Farnham: Ashgate, 2013, 117.
52. Mayne, Slums, 133; Coetzer, Building Apartheid, 182–8. Ambe Njoh, ‘Urban Planning as a tool of power and social
control in colonial Africa’, Planning Perspectives 24, no 3 (2009): 310ff.; Home, Of Planting and Planning, 79–99; Alan
Mabin, ‘Origins of Segregatory Urban Planning in South Africa’, Planning History 13, no 3 (1991): 8–16; D. M. Smith,
The Apartheid City and Beyond, London: Routledge, 2002, 16, 74, 94; H. Judin (ed.), Blank, Architecture, Apartheid and
After, Rotterdam: NaI, 1998.
53. Daunton, Housing the Workers, 275; H. Kalman, A History of Canadian Architecture, vol. 2, Toronto: Oxford University
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55. P. Troy, Accommodating Australians, Annandale, NSW: Federation Press, 2012, 20–8; P. Troy, ‘The evolution of
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56. Renate Howe, New Houses for Old, Melbourne: Ministry of Housing and Construction, 1988, 4–10.
57. Ben Schrader, We Call it Home, Auckland: Reed Press, 2005, 16–30; Caroline Miller, ‘Its Most Ambitious Town-
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58. S. Purdy and N. Kwak, ‘New Perspectives on Public Housing Histories in the Americas’, Journal of Urban History
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59. Renee Dunowicz (ed.), 90 años de vivienda social en la ciudad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires: n.p., 2000, 13, 26–9.
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60. Guerrand, Europe en Construction, 126–9; R. Banik-Schweitzer, ‘Vienna’, in M. J. Daunton (ed.), Housing the Workers,
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61. Sonne, Urbanität und Dichte, 54–67.
62. A. Ferkai, Housing Estates, Budapest: Office of the Mayor, 2005, 18–21.
63. Pooley, Housing Strategies, 169–85; Harloe, The People’s Home? 29; Guerrand, Europe en Construction, 83–5.
64. D. Betts, ‘Planned Industrial Settlement in the Netherlands 1813–1920’, Planning History Bulletin 8, no. 2 (1986):
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65. Paulen et al., Atlas Sociale Woningbouw; Stieber, Housing Design, 110–17.
66. Stieber, Housing Design, 140–1.
67. Cromley, Alone Together, 102.
68. Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell, The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History, Oxford: Blackwell, 549.

Chapter 2 1914–1945: The Maturing of Mass Housing in the Age of Emergencies

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15. Blau, Red Vienna, 215–18, 384–7; information from Monika Platzer; F. Urban, The New Tenement: Residences in the
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19. Rent control: Daunton, Councillors and Tenants, 2–15; J. Willis, ‘Short History of Rent Control Laws’, Cornell Law
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22. Horsey, Tenements and Towers, 12–21.
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28. N. Stieber, Housing Design and Society in Amsterdam, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998, 92–154; T. Heijdra,
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Domestic Architecture, Abingdon: Routledge, 2007, 267; A. Neitzke and G. Wolf, Bauen für das Leben, Neues Wohnen
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51. Quiring et al., Ernst May, 156–90; S. Kotkin, Magnetic Modernism, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995, 34,
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65. Tjockhus versus lamella: Andersson, Stockholm’s Annual Rings, 123–6; Backström and Ålund, Fyrtiotalets svenska
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68. H. P. Oberlander and E. Newbrun, Houser: The Life and Work of Catherine Bauer, Vancouver: UBC, 1999, 64–135.
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71. L. Lawhon, ‘The Neighbourhood Unit’, Journal of Planning History 8, no. 11 (2009); T. Adams, The Design of
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72. Bloom, Public Housing that Worked, 27–8, 49; Bauman, Public Housing, Race and Renewal, 42–3. Baltimore:
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Abell Foundation, The Dismantling of Baltimore’s Public Housing, Boston: Abell Foundation, 2007. L. Vale, From the
Puritans to the Projects: Public Housing and Public Neighbors, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000, 15,
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73. Radford, Modern Housing in America, 182.
74. Oberlander and Newbrun, Houser, 139–84; Plunz, Housing in New York City, 233–46, 274; A. Jackson, A Place Called
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and Renewal, 45–55; G. Daly, ‘The British roots of American public housing’, Journal of Urban History 15, no. 4
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75. J. Abel and F. Severud, Apartment Houses, New York: Reinhold, 1947, 36; Plunz, Housing in New York City, 238–43;
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76. AIA, Significance of the Work of the NYCHA; City of Liverpool Housing, Multi-storey Housing in the USA, Liverpool:
n.p., 1954; Plunz, Housing in New York City, 253–7.
77. J. Hancock, ‘The apartment house in urban America’, in A. D. King (ed.), Buildings and Society, London: Routledge,
1980, 151–89; ‘Castle Village’, Architectural Forum (November 1939): 340–6; D. A. Lewis, ‘The organisation and
equipment of American buildings’, RIBA Journal, 24 November 1928, 54–112, and 8 December 1928, 103–12;

562
 Notes

National Register of Historic Places, Alden Park, 1980; G. B. Ford, Building Height, Bulk and Form, Howard City
Planning Studies II, Cambridge, MA: Howard University Press, 1933, 33.
78. G. H. Edgell, The American Architecture of Today, New York: Scribner’s, 1928; J. C. Weaver, ‘The North American
apartment building’, Planning Perspectives 2 (1987): 41.
79. H. Kalman, A History of Canadian Architecture, vol. 2, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1994, 659; J. Bacher,
‘W. C. Clark and the Politics of Canadian Housing Policy, 1935–52’, Urban History Review 17, no. 1 (June 1988): 4–15;
N. Byrtus. andM. McClelland, East–West: A Guide to Where People Live in Downtown Toronto, Toronto: Coach House,
2000, 8–9, 32–3.
80. D. Hayward, ‘The reluctant landlords: a history of public housing in Australia’, Urban Policy and Research 14, no. 1
(1996): 12; Renate Howe, New Houses for Old: Fifty Years of Public Housing in Victoria, 1938–1988, Melbourne:
Ministry of Housing and Construction, 1988, 4–43; H. Volke, ‘The Politics of State Rental Housing in New South
Wales 1900–1939’, PhD thesis, University of Sydney, 2006, 25–80; P. Troy, Accommodating Australians, Annandale
NSW: Federal Press, 2012, 20–44; M. S. Zanardo, ‘Shaping Affordable Housing’, PhD thesis, University of Sydney, 2018,
19, 99–105, 264–5, 315.
81. C. Firth, State Housing in New Zealand, Wellington: Ministry of Works, 1949; Bill McKay and Andrea Stevens, Beyond
the State, Auckland: Penguin, 2014; Robin Skinner, At Home in New Zealand, Wellington: Bridget Williams Books,
2000; Ben Schrader, We Call It Home: A History of Social Housing in New Zealand, Wellington: Reed Books, 2005; A.
Leach, Frederick H. Newman: Lectures on Architecture, Ghent: A & S, 2003, 11–12.
82. C. Sambricio (ed.), Ciudad y vivienda en América Latina 1930–1960, Madrid: Lampreuve, 2012; Sean Purdy and Nancy
Kwak, ‘New Perspectives on Public Housing Histories in the Americas’, Journal of Urban History (March 2007): 357–74.
83. J. Lozada and C. Galindos, La Vivienda de Interés Social en Puerto Rico, San Juan: Departamento de Vivienda, 2003.
84. Falansterio: Volume 21, The Block, Rotterdam: Stichting Archis, 2009, 124; J. I. Fusté, ‘Colonial laboratories, irreparable
subjects’, Social Identities 16, no. 1 (January 2010): 41–59; Z. Z. Dinzey-Flores, ‘Temporary housing, permanent
communities: public housing policy and design in Puerto Rico’, Journal of Urban History 33, no. 3 (March 2007):
467–92; J. L. L. Pollock and M. Schwegmann, Espacios Ambivalentes, San Juan: Ediciones Callejón, 2012, 128–55.
85. R. Harris, ‘The silence of the expert: aided self-help housing, 1939–1954’, Habitat International 22, no.2 (June 1988): 166.
86. R. Dunowicz (ed.), 90 años de vivienda social en la ciudad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires: Programa de
Mantenimiento Habitacional, UBA, 2010, 12–13, 30–67; S. Armada, ‘Paradigms of collective housing in Buenos Aires’,
DOCOMOMO Journal 51, no. 2 (2014): 48–53; A. Aboy, ‘The right to a home: public housing in post-World War II
Buenos Aires, Journal of Urban History 3 (2007): 493–518. www.lateja2.wordpress.com.
87. A. Gilbert, In Search of a Home: Rental and Shared Housing in Latin America, London: UCL, 1993, 21, 32; F. Violich,
Cities of Latin America, New York: Reinhold, 1944, 90, 133–5; E. de A. Alanís, Vivienda Colectiva de la Modernidad en
México, Mexico City: UNAM, 2008, 98–117, 168–208.
88. A. Tellez (ed.), Vivienda Multifamiliar en Santiago, 1930–1970, Santiago: PUC, 2009; Violich, Cities of Latin America,
138–9.
89. N. Bonduki, Os pioneiros de habitacão social, vol. 1, São Paolo: UNESP, 2012, 2–58, 138–96; N. G. Bonduki, ‘Origens da
habitacão social no Brasil’, Análise Social 29 (1994): 711–32; G. Shidlo, Social Policy in a Non-Democratic Regime: The
Case of Public Housing in Brazil, Boulder, CO: Westview, 1990, 7–47; Violich, Cities of Latin America, 141–3; Alanís,
Vivienda Colectiva de la Modernidad, 17; E. Pinheiro, ‘New urban forms: the crescents of Bath and Le Corbusier’s plan
for Rio de Janeiro’, Planning Perspectives 27, no. 1 (2012): 121–7; D. Antonucci et al., ‘Verticalizacão, habitacão social e
multifunctionidade: edifícios dos IAPs em São Paulo’, III Fórum de Pesquisa, FAU Mackenzie I, São Paulo, 2007.
90. Bonduki, Os pioneiros da habitacão social, vol. 1, 143–5, 169; vol. 2, 16, 38, 60, 80.
91. L. Junhua, P. G. Rowe and Z. Jie, Modern Urban Housing in China, 1840–2000, Munich: Prestel, 2001, 15–100;
M. Pompili, Dojunkai Apartments: Tokyo 1924–1934, Rome: Editrice Librerie Dedalo, 2001; Yanchen Sun, Carola
Hein and Kun Song, ‘Planning of public housing in modern Tianjin’, Planning Perspectives 34, no. 3 (June 2019):
439–62; S. Tewari and D. Beynon, ‘Tokyo’s Dojunkai experiment’, Planning Perspectives 31, no. 3 (2016): 469–83.
92. P. Amis and P. Lloyd (eds), Housing Africa’s Urban Poor, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990, 37, 76;
A. O. Ilesanmi, ‘The legacy and challenge of public housing provision in Lagos, Nigeria’, Rozenberg Quarterly (2009):
9–11; B. Toulier, J. Lagae and M. Gemoets, Kinshasa, architecture et paysage urbains, Paris: Somogy, 2010, 17–18.

563
Notes

Spanish-controlled northern Morocco: A. Muchada, ‘Between modernisation and identity’, Planning Perspectives 34,
no 4 (2019): 601–20.
93. Jyoti Hosagrahar, Indigenous Modernities, Abingdon: Routledge, 2005, 157–71.
94. J. Foster, ‘The wilds and the township’, JSAH (March 2012): 42–59; A. Mabin, ‘Origins of segregatory urban planning
in South Africa’, Planning History 13, no. 3 (1991) 8–16; N. Coetzer, Building Apartheid: On Architecture and Order
in Imperial Cape Town, Abingdon: Routledge, 2013, 95–117, 128–73, 191–220.
95. Uyttenhove, ‘From grand ensemble to architectural heritage’, 3–4.
96. Smith, Property of Communists, 8–34.
97. Guerrand, Une Europe en construction, 212–13.
98. Hiort, Housing in Denmark, 14, 20; Nagel, ‘Communalism or Cooperativism?’, 71. Major 1940s Danish developments
included Ved Volden (KAB) and the Bispevænget (AKD).
99. Ferkai, Housing Estates, 42–7; information from Monika Platzer; L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui 303 (February 1996);
B. Vayssière, ‘Le logement: une histoire française’, n.p.p.: n.p., 76; Architectural Review (January 1993): 70–3.
100. Gesetz über die Gemeinnützigkeit im Wohnungswesen, 29 February 1940. The planners’ work was later repackaged in
1957 as the modernist book, Die Gegliederte und aufgelockerte Stadt. T. Harlander and G. Fehl (eds), Hitlers soziale
Wohnungsbau 1940–1945, Hamburg: Christians Verlag, 1986.
101. Bloom, Public Housing that Worked, 14 (quotation by Fiorello LaGuardia, 1944), 43 (‘thoroughbred’), 57, 93–107;
Bauman et al., Tenements to the Taylor Homes, 135; Bauman, Public Housing, Race and Renewal, 69–83; H. Casson,
Homes by the Million, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1945, 4–27; B. D. Porter, War and the Rise of the State, New York:
Free Press, 1994, 23.
102. A. R. Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983,
22–3.
103. Bauman, Public Housing, Race and Renewal, 53–5; National Association of Home Builders, What Public Housing
Did to England: A Report for Americans, Washington, DC: National Association of Home Builders, 1946; Vale,
Puritans to the Projects, 233–42.
104. Robin Skinner, ‘Investigations into an Authorship: Reassessing the Dixon Street Flats Archive’, Interstices 9 (2008):
60–73; Symonds Street and Lower Greys Avenue, Auckland (1945–7); Schrader, We Call It Home, 104–5, 170–1;
Firth, State Housing, 4–67; Leach, Frederick H. Newman, 2–12; P. Shaw, New Zealand Architecture, Auckland: Hodder
& Stoughton, 1991, 142–3; J. Gatley and P. Walker, Vertical Living, Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2014, 1–10,
49, 187.
105. Howe, New Houses for Old, 28–64; Volke, ‘State Rental Housing in New South Wales’, 39–59; Troy, Accommodating
Australians, 22–48.
106. Rent controls, see, e.g., Bonduki, ‘Origens da habitação social’, 720.
107. Bonduki, Os pioneiros da habitacão social, vol. 1, 143–5, 169; vol. 2, 16, 38, 60, 80. Venezuela: Gilbert, In Search of a
Home, 98–119.
108. R. Harris, ‘From miser to spendthrift’, Journal of Urban History 33, no. 3 (2007): 443–50; R. Home, Of Planting and
Planning: The Making of British Colonial Cities, London: Spon, 1997, 181–4; A. Byerley, ‘Displacements in the name
of redevelopment’, Planning Perspectives 28, no. 4 (2013): 547–70; G. A. Myers, ‘Designing power: forms and
purposes of colonial model neighbourhoods in British Africa’, Habitat International 27 (2003): 193–204.

Chapter 3 Postwar Mass Housing: An Introductory Overview

1. M. Swenarton, T. Avermaete and D. van den Heuvel, Architecture and the Welfare State, Abingdon: Routledge, 2014,
7. S. N. Eisenstadt, ‘Multiple modernities’, Daedalus 129, no. 1 (Winter 2000): 14–24; C. S. Lewis, That Hideous
Strength, London: Bodley Head, 1945, quoted in James C. Scott, Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve
the Human Condition have Failed, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998, 93.

564
 Notes

2. T. Avermaete, S. Karakayali and M. van Osten, Colonial Modern, London: Black Dog, 2010; I. Woloch, The Postwar
Moment: Progressive Forces in Britain, France and the United States after World War II, New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 2019; N. Lamoureux and I. Shapiro, The Bretton Woods Agreements, New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 2019.
3. William Safire, ‘The Cold War’s Hot Kitchen’, New York Times, 24 July 2009.
4. Alfred Sauvy, ‘Trois mondes, une planète’, L’Observateur, 14 August 1952, 14.
5. N. Kwak, A World of Homeowners, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015; Swenarton et al., Architecture and the
Welfare State, 7–8.
6. R. D. McKenzie, R. E. Park and E. W. Burgess, The City, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967; F. R. Ammon,
Bulldozer: Demolition and Clearance of the Postwar Landscape, New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press,
2016
7. Swenarton et al., Architecture and the Welfare State, 6–14.
8. S.-M. Shih, The Lure of the Modern, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001, 3–4.
9. Kwak, A World of Homeowners, 234–6.
10. D. Drakakis-Smith, High Society: Housing Provision in Metropolitan Hong Kong, Hong Kong: Centre of Asian Stidies,
University of Hong Kong, 1979, 1–22.
11. Swenarton et al., Architecture and the Welfare State, 16.
12. A. Moravánszky and J. Hopfengärtner (eds), Rehumanising Architecture, Basel: Birkhäuser, 2017, 23–39; S. Giedion,
‘Die Humanisierung der Stadt’, Werk 11 (1952): 34–5; A. Aalto, ‘The Humanizing of Architecture’, Technology Review
1 (November 1940): 14; J. Hudnut, The Three Lamps of Modern Architecture, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1952;
M. Vellinga, ‘The end of cities: Erwin Gutkind and the inevitability of decentralisation and dispersal’, Planning
Perspectives 34, no 4 (2019): 621–41.
13. See, e.g., Le Corbusier, The Marseilles Block, London: Harvill, 1953; Architectural Design (December 1949):
295–6, 309.
14. S. Kadleigh, High Paddington, a Town for 8,000 People, London: Architect and Building News, 1952; F. Bergtold, Die
Turmstadt, Vorschlag für eine Stadt von übermorgen, Berlin: Schneider, 1965; Der Spiegel, 2 April 1949; R. Banham,
Megastructure: Urban Futures of the Recent Past, London: Thames and Hudson, 1976; H. Hertzberger, Architecture and
Structuralism: The Ordering of Space, Rotterdam, 2014; M Risselada and D van den Heuvel (eds.), Team 10 – in Search
of a Utopia of the Present, Rotterdam: n.p., 2005; L. Hilberseimer, Entfaltung einer Planungsidee, Berlin: Ullstein, 1963;
K. Lynch, The Image of the City, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1960.
15. Gauthier Bolle, Charles-Gustave Stoskopf, Architecte: les Trente Glorieuses et la reinvention des traditions, Rennes:
Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2017, 14, 283–9.

Chapter 4 Housing by Authority: Postwar State Interventions in The ‘Anglosphere’

1. Alan Mayne, Slums: The History of a Global Injustice, London: Reaktion, 2017, 103–7; Francesca Ammon, Bulldozer,
Demolition and Clearance of the Postwar Landscape, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016.
2. M. A. Brown, ‘Integration by Design: Bertrand Goldberg, Stanley Tigerman, and Public Housing Architecture in
Postwar Chicago’, JSAH 76, no.2 (June 2017): 218.
3. B. M. Kelly, Expanding the American Dream, Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1993, 24; R. Plunz, A History of Housing in New
York City, New York: Columbia University Press, 1990, 258, 275; L. J. Vale, From the Puritans to the Projects,
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000, 233.
4. D. Bowly, The Poorhouse, Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1978; M. Harloe, The People’s Home? Oxford:
Blackwell, 1995, 276–8.
5. M. Kelly, Expanding the American Dream, Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1993, 63–4, 192–9; Vale, Puritans to the Projects,
233; A Jackson, A Place Called Home, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1976, 226–31.

565
Notes

6. R. K. Brown, Public Housing in Action: The Record of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 1959, 85;
Homer Hoyt, According to Hoyt, Washington, DC: Hoyt Associates, 1966, 156 (‘Communism can never win in a
nation of home-owners’); H. P. Oberlander and E. Newbrun, Houser: The Life and Work of Catherine Bauer,
Vancouver: UBC Press, 1999, 252. D. Parson, Making a Better World: Public Housing, the Red Scare, and the Direction
of Modern Los Angeles, Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 2005, 31–43.
7. D. B. Hunt, ‘Rethinking the retrenchment narrative in US housing policy history’, Journal of Urban History 32, no 6
(September 2006): 938–9; J. F. Bauman, R. Biles and K. M. Szylvian (eds), From Tenements to the Taylor Homes,
University Park: Pennsylvania University Press, 2000, 171; G. Wright, Building the Dream: A Social History of Housing
in America, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1981, 255–60; Plunz, Housing in New York City, 258; New York City Housing
Authority (NYCHA), Housing, January 1946 to July 1949, New York: NYCHA, 1949.
8. At the opening of the 354ppa East River Houses in 1941, FHA chief Strauss chided Mayor LaGuardia to ‘beware
lest you overload house buildings’ in such ‘a welfare project as this’: Jackson, A Place Called Home, 234–5;
Architectural Forum, January 1950; Architectural Record, September 1950, 123, 142–6; Architectural Forum,
August 1961, 107–11.
9. The Builder, 27 August 1954, 347, and 12 November 1954, 791; ‘An American looks at British housing’, The Builder, 19
September 1947, 316–17; D. B. Hunt, ‘Rethinking the retrenchment narrative in US public housing policy history’,
Journal of Urban History 32, no. 6 (September 2006): 937–50.
10. Kelly, American Dream, 49, 168–72, 186–92; Plunz, Housing in New York City, 258; J. Kalish, ‘Little houses make
suburban history’, Malta Times, 7 April 1997, 15.
11. Bauman et al., From Tenements to the Taylor Homes, 201–26; Vale, Puritans to Projects, 341; A. R. Hirsch, Making the
Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983, 14.
12. Wright, Building the Dream, 258–60; D. Harris, Little White Houses, Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 2013;
Vale, Puritans to the Projects, 233.
13. Parson, Making a Better World, 31, 41–3; NYCHA, 19th Annual Report, New York: NYCHA, 1952.
14. J. Bauman, Public Housing, Race and Renewal: Urban Public Housing in Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 1987,
93; Jackson, A Place Called Home, 225–30.
15. N. D. Bloom, Public Housing that Worked: New York in the 20th Century, Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press,
2008, 170; E. J. Tighe and E. J. Mueller, The Affordable Housing Reader, Abingdon: Routledge, 2013, 239.
16. Parson, Making a Better World, 55–64; NYCHA, 19th Annual Report.
17. Bauman et al., Tenements to the Taylor Homes, 159; Harloe, The People’s Home? 276–8.
18. Ammon, Bulldozer, 5, 12.
19. ULI, ‘A Proposal for Rebuilding Blighted City Areas’, n.p.p.: n.p., 1942; A. A. Bellamy, ‘Housing in large cities in the
USA’, Town Planning Review 29 (1958–9: 179–97; A. A. Bellamy, ‘High Flats in the USA’, Housing Review, January/
February 1958, 12–18; Plunz, Housing in New York City, 253–7; Jackson, A Place Called Home, 232; The Builder, 21
November 1947, 572–3; New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, The Significance of the Work of the
New York City Housing Authority, New York: AIA, 1949; Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto, 122; ‘Lake Meadows,
Chicago’, Architectural Design, October 1955, 304–7; City of Liverpool Housing, Multi-storey Housing in the USA:
Report of City of Liverpool Housing Deputation, March 1954, Liverpool: City of Liverpool Housing, 1954, 16–21, 40,
58: Parkchester’s 340ppa was described by Liverpool municipal delegation as ‘rather frightening’ and ‘alien’ in its
‘terrifically high density’, but Fresh Meadows’s 60ppa was praised.
20. Bellamy, ‘Housing in large cities in the USA’, 81; R. A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York,
New York: A A Knopf, 1974, 777–8; Wright, Building the Dream, 237, 243–7; Planning History Bulletin 9, no. 1 (1987):
34; Bauman, Public Housing, Race and Renewal, 137–9.
21. H. Ballon and R. Jackson (eds), Robert Moses and the Modern City, New York: Norton, 2007, 119–25.
22. Harloe, The People’s Home? 276–8; Vale, Puritans to the Projects, 265–79.
23. Wright, Building the Dream, 239; Bellamy, ‘Housing in large cities in the USA’, 189–91.
24. F. Urban, Tower and Slab: Histories of Global Mass Housing, London: Routledge, 2015, 25–9; Pat Tindale, ‘USA
industrialised building’, Architect and Building News, 3 February 1965, 205–6, A. D. Wallis, Wheel Estate: The Rise and

566
 Notes

Decline of Mobile Homes, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991, 106–9; Jackson, A Place Called Home, 277;
‘Operation Breakthrough’, Progressive Architecture, April 1970, 120–35. The first European-style large-panel multi-
storey project was not built until 1971: a non-government-aided twenty-storey apartment tower in Yonkers, NY,
using the French Tracoba system.
25. Progressive Architecture, October 1960, 160; J. H. Abel and F. Severud, Apartment Houses, New York: Reinhold, 1947,
36; Architectural Forum, August 1961, 107–11.
26. Bellamy, ‘High flats in the USA’, 15–16; Bellamy, ‘Housing in large cities in the USA’, 194–6.
27. Bloom, Public Housing that Worked, 141; Architectural Record, September 1950, 132–5 (on Fordham Hill
Apartments).
28. Bauman et al., Tenements to the Taylor Homes, 147; Urban, Tower and Slab, 21–36; D. T. Rodgers, Atlantic Crossings,
Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1998, 418, 478–85; Supreme Court case: Berman v. Parker, 348 U.S. 26 (1954);
Bauman, Public Housing, Race and Renewal, 130–3. To a visiting European observer like Bellamy in 1957, the climate
of negativity was already striking: Bellamy, ‘Housing in large cities in the USA’, 182; Wright, Building the Dream, 239;
G. Radford, Modern Housing in America, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996; Vale, Puritans to the Projects,
260–80.
29. Bloom, Public Housing that Worked, 5: ‘From model housing to welfare housing for the poor, and then back again.’
30. Urban, Tower and Slab, 32.
31. Jackson, A Place Called Home, 254; three public-rental (federal, state, city-funded) and four middle-income (federal,
state and city Title I, Mitchell-Lama, limited dividend) programmes, along with redevelopments, co-ops and urban
renewal schemes.
32. AIA, Significance of the Work of the NYCHA; Bloom, Public Housing that Worked, 1–7. The selling of bonds followed a
1938 amendment to the New York State Constitution. M. Berman, All That is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of
Modernity, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982, 305–7.
33. Bloom, Public Housing that Worked, 152–60; State of New York, Temporary State Housing Rent Commission,
High-Rent Housing and Rent Control in New York City, New York: State of New York, 1958, 9. In Manhattan, public
housing accounted for 28% of 1945–56 new housing construction, compared to 3% nationally; by 1967, NYCHA had
directly built 110,000 apartments.
34. NYCHA, 19th Annual Report; Caro, Power Broker, 471; Ballon and Jackson, Robert Moses, 122; Jackson, A Place called
Home, 243–53; N. D. Bloom and M. G. Lasner (eds), Affordable Housing in New York, Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 2016, 99–103.
35. Bloom, Public Housing that Worked, 117–22, 134.
36. Metropolis, August–September 2004.
37. Plunz, Housing in New York City, 281–5; Jackson, A Place called Home, 226–30; Bloom, Public Housing that Worked,
113–22; Berman, All That is Solid Melts into Air, 305–7; Caro, Power Broker, 699–743, 768–81.
38. NYCHA, Housing, January 1948–July 1949; Bloom, Public Housing that Worked, 43, 113, 117, 132–4, 154; Bellamy,
‘Housing in large cities’; N. White and E. Willensky, AIA Guide to New York City, 5th ed., Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2010, 641; NYCHA, 19th Annual Report, New York: 1952, 14.
39. Bloom, Public Housing that Worked, 158.
40. NYCHA, Baruch Houses playground dedication ceremony programme, 19 August 1953; NYCHA, Annual Report,
1950, 25.
41. White and Willensky, AIA Guide, 764; AIA, Significance of the Work of the NYCHA, 21–37; NYCHA, Housing, January
1946–July 1949; Bloom, Public Housing that Worked, 135; Plunz, Housing in New York City, 268–72; Bloom and
Lasner, Affordable Housing, 99–103, 117–34; NYCHA, Baruch Houses programme; City of Liverpool Housing,
Multi-storey Housing in the USA, 16–21.
42. The NYCHA argued in 1949 that ‘families within our income limits are well satisfied with the multi-story buildings’:
NYCHA, Housing, January 1946–July 1949. In Manhattan, ‘traditional’ tenemental densities were around 400ppa.
43. AIA, Significance of the Work of the NYCHA, 99.

567
Notes

44. NYCHA, 19th Annual Report, 15–19.

45. Plunz, Housing in New York City, 284–5; cf. H Jessor’s private Starrett City, Brooklyn, completed in 1976 (6,000
dwellings).
46. White and Willensky, AIA Guide, 796–876.
47. The Builder, 21 November 1947, 572–3; Bloom and Lasner, Affordable Housing, 151–5.
48. Plunz, Housing in New York City, 253–7; Ballon and Jackson, Robert Moses, 119; Jackson, A Place Called Home,
234–43. In 1960, only 47 out of Metropolitan Life’s 22,405 tenants were black.
49. Plunz, Housing in New York City, 281; Architectural Record, September 1950, 132–5.
50. Ballon and Jackson, Robert Moses, 102–24, 134; Jackson, A Place Called Home, 245–8.
51. Jackson, A Place Called Home, 248; Plunz, Housing in New York City, 245–50, 281; Architectural Forum, August 1961,
107–11.
52. Progressive Architecture, February 1966, 132–9; Chatham Square, 1964–5: N White and Willensky, AIA Guide, 87;
Ballon and Jackson, Robert Moses, 250; Plunz, Housing in New York City, 273, 281, 291, 308–12; Jackson, A Place
called Home, 254. The scheme was approved in 1955 as Title II of the New York State Limited-Profit Housing
Companies Law, sponsored by State Senator McNeill Mitchell and Assemblyman Alfred Lama; rent levels, at around
$20 a month, were twice public housing’s. William C. Thompson, Jr, Affordable No More: New York City’s Looming
Crisis in Mitchell-Lama and Limited Dividend Housing, New York: City of New York Office of the Comptroller, 2004,
3–12.
53. G. Blair, The Trumps: Three Generations that Built an Empire, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001, 209.
54. Ballon and Jackson, Robert Moses, 251–307; Caro, Power Broker, 802–5, 1044–51; Bloom and Lasner, Affordable
Housing, 176–85; D. Scott-Brown and R. Venturi, ‘Co-op City: learning to like it’, Progressive Architecture, February
1970, 64–73; White and Willensky, AIA Guide, 890–1.
55. Plunz, Housing in New York City, 216–18.
56. Scott-Brown and Venturi, ‘Co-op City’.
57. Bloom, Public Housing that Worked, 158–60, 202–7; Bloom and Lasner, Affordable Housing, 194–7, 198–205, 207–9.
58. Bloom and Lasner, Affordable Housing, 215–39; Architecture Plus, November 1973; Plunz, Housing in New York,
290–312; White and Willensky, AIA Guide, 168, 536–8, 839; F. Urban, The New Tenement, Abingdon: Routledge,
37–42.
59. Plunz, Housing in New York City, 290–307; Architecture Plus, November 1973; White and Willensky, AIA Guide,
952–4.
60. JSAH 74, no. 3 (September 2015): 388–9.
61. Vale, Puritans to the Projects, 248–60, 281ff.; Parson, Making a Better World, 22, 31–43, 53–64.
62. Robert Fairbanks, The War on Slums in the Southwest, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2014; G. Dorigo and
H. Ruter, Public Housing in Phoenix, 1940–1970, Mesa, AZ: Ecoplan Associates, 2012, 15–20.
63. N. D. Bloom, F. Umbach and L. Vale (eds), Public Housing Myths, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2015, 35–6.
64. Alexander von Hoffman, ‘Why they built Pruitt-Igoe’, in Bauman et al., Tenements to the Taylor Homes, 180–205;
Bloom, Public Housing that Worked, 150; C. Freidrichs (director), The Pruitt-Igoe Myth, First Run Features, 2011,
DVD.
65. JSAH 74, no. 3 (September 2015): 388–9.
66. M. E. Hayward and C. Belfoure, The Baltimore Rowhouse, New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999, 173; Abell
Foundation, The Dismantling of Baltimore’s Public Housing, Baltimore, MD: Abell Foundation, 2007.
67. D. Bowly, The Poorhouse, Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale: 1978, 111–135. Chicago’s
public-housing stock totalled 39,637 in 1976.
68. J. F. Bauman, ‘Public housing, isolation and the urban underclass’, Journal of Urban History (May 1991): 264–92.
69. Bauman, Public Housing, Race and Renewal, 53–6, 130–3, 142–65.

568
 Notes

70. Bauman, Public Housing, Race and Renewal, 101–7, 129, 175.
71. L. Vale, Purging the Poorest: Public Housing and the Politics of Twice-Cleared Communities, Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2013, 168–237; Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto, 11–17, 41–59, 224–9; Bowly, The Poorhouse, 46,
60–4, 71–7, 84.
72. S. A. Venkatesh, American Project: The Rise and Fall of a Modern Ghetto, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
2000, 20, 65–8; JSAH, June 2017, 221–2. The Taylor Homes’ gallery-access plan-form was adopted in 1959 by CHA to
meet the federal cost ceiling of $17,000 per apartment.
73. JSAH, June 2017, 222–9; N. Glazer and P. Moynihan, Beyond the Melting Pot, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1963;
Bowly, The Poorhouse, 130–2, 186.
74. Bowly, The Poorhouse, 94–104.
75. ‘Lake Meadows, Chicago’, Architectural Design, October 1955, 304–7; Bellamy, ‘High Flats in the USA’, 12–18. The
eminent-domain powers were authorized in the 1947 Illinois State Blighted Areas Redevelopment and Relocation Acts.
76. Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto, 269–70.
77. Bowly, The Poorhouse, 96–104, 111–12, 184–8; JSAH, June 2017, 235.
78. Planning History Bulletin 9, no. 1 (1987): 34; Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto, 274–5; Vale, Purging the Poorest, 237;
Vale, Puritans to the Projects, 307–34, 341.
79. C. E. Connerly, ‘Explanations for the eclipse of US public housing development’, Housing Studies 7, no. 2 (1992):
83–95.
80. Planning History Bulletin 9, no 1 (1984): 35; Bauman, Public Housing, Race and Renewal; Tighe and Mueller, The
Affordable Housing Reader, 239–56.
81. Parson, Making a Better World, 55–63; Bloom, Public Housing that Worked, 156–60.
82. Wallis, Wheel Estate, 211, 255; Jackson, A Place Called Home, 277; Bauman et al., Tenements to the Taylor Homes, 147;
Wright, Building the Dream, 239; G. Radford, Modern Housing in America, University of Chicago Press, 1996; Vale,
Puritans to the Projects, 260–80.
83. J. Sewell, Houses and Homes: Housing for Canadians, Toronto: Lorimer, 1994, 121; J. Sewell, The Shape of the City:
Toronto Struggles with Modern Planning, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993, 70–1; Albert Rose, Regent Park:
A Study in Slum Clearance, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1958, 218–19.
84. Greg Suttor, Rental Paths from Postwar to Present: Canada Compared, Toronto: Cities Centre, University of Toronto,
2009, iii, 8–19; T. J. Colton, Big Daddy: Frederick Gardiner and the Building of Metropolitan Toronto, Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1980, 72.
85. Suttor, Rental Paths, 8–19, 20, 34–9, 64–73.
86. Sewell, Houses and Homes, 9, 121.
87. J. Bacher, ‘W. C. Clark and the Politics of Canadian Housing Policy 1935–52’, Urban History Review 17, no. 1 (1988):
4–15.
88. House of Commons, Debates, 1946, 3753; K. Brushett, ‘Where will the people go? Toronto’s Emergency Housing
Program’, Journal of Urban History 33, no. 3 (2007): 375–9; Sewell, Houses and Homes, 7–9.
89. Sewell, Houses and Homes, 132ff.; Suttor, Rental Paths, 27; B. W. Carroll, ‘Postwar trends in Canadian housing policy’,
Urban History Review 18, no. 1 (June 1989): 64–74; Brushett, ‘Where will the people go?’ 379ff.
90. Rose, Regent Park, 11–15; Sewell, Houses and Homes, 121; Suttor, Rental Paths, 9–19;
91. M. Chabat and G. Duhaime, ‘Land-use planning and participation: the case of Inuit public housing’, Habitat
International 22, no. 4 (1998): 429–47.
92. Colton, Big Daddy, 80–1.
93. Colton, Big Daddy, 72, 80, 101–20, 144–63; Ontario Housing, June 1962.
94. Rose, Regent Park, 11–15, 38–40; Sewell, The Shape of the City, 70–1; Colton, Big Daddy, 101–20, 144–63.
M. McClelland and G. Stewart (eds), Concrete Toronto, Toronto: Coach House, 2007, 212–17; J. Sewell, The Shape
of the Suburbs: Understanding Toronto’s Sprawl, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009, 8–37.

569
Notes

95. Colton, Big Daddy, 72–120, 144–63; McClelland and Stewart, Concrete Toronto, 45, 214; ERA Architects and
University of Toronto, Mayor’s Tower Renewal: Opportunities Book, Toronto: City of Toronto, 2008, 10–22, 44–7;
ERA Architects, Planning Alliance and University of Toronto, Tower Neighbourhood Renewal in the Greater Golden
Horseshoe, Toronto: Ministry of Infrastructure, 2010.
96. Sewell, The Shape of the City, 113–25; Township of North York Planning Board, District 10 Plan, 1965.
97. Township of North York Planning Board, District 12a Draft Plan, 1965, 21–5.
98. S. H. Pickett, ‘Beyond redevelopment – what?’ Ontario Housing, June 1962, N. Byrtus, M. Fram and M. McClelland,
East/West: A Guide to Where People Live in Downtown Toronto, Toronto: Coach House, 2000, 44–50; Rose, Regent
Park, 46–60, 76–115, 186–94.
99. Colton, Big Daddy, 101–20, 144–63.
100. Byrtus et al., East/West.
101. Ministry of Public Building and Works, UK Mission to Canada, June 1963, London: HMSO, 1963. Flemingdon Park:
Royal Architectural Institute of Canada Journal, October 1961, 52–65.
102. McClelland and Stewart, Concrete Toronto, 218–20, 222–9; Suttor, Rental Paths, 29–34; ERA Architects, Mayor’s
Tower Renewal; ERA Architects, Tower Neighbourhood Renewal.
103. Ontario Housing, June 1962; Byrtus et al., East/West; Sewell, The Shape of the City, 126–185.
104. McClelland and Stewart, Concrete Toronto, 45; Byrtus et al, East-West; Sewell, The Shape of the City, 163–86.
105. Sewell, The Shape of the City, 163–86.
106. G. Y. Masson ‘Housing in Windsor’, Ontario Housing, June 1962, 6–7; ERA Architects, Mayor’s Tower Renewal; ERA
Architects, Tower Neighbourhood Renewal.
107. http://www.chjm.ca/fr/index.php/a-propos-de-nous/histoire-de-la-chjm; P. Apparicio and A. M. Séguin, ‘Measuring
the accessibility of . . . public housing in Montreal’, Urban Studies 43, no. 1 (January 2006): 187–211.
108. Moshe Safdie, For Everyone a Garden, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1974; Architectural Design, December 1964,
620–6; Architectural Review, August 1967, 143–50.
109. Suttor, Rental Paths, iii, 8–19.
110. G. Suttor, ‘Offset mirrors: institutional paths in Canadian and Australian social housing’, International Journal of
Housing Policy, September 2011, 255–83.
111. Renate Howe, New Houses for Old: Fifty Years of Public Housing in Victoria, Melbourne: Ministry of Housing, 1988,
226.
112. Patrick Troy, Accommodating Australians: Commonwealth Government Involvement in Housing, Annandale, NSW:
Federal Press, 2012.
113. Andrew Leach, Frederick H. Newman, Lectures on Architecture, Ghent: A &S, 2003, 11–12 (introduction by Attlee); J.
Gatley and P. Walker, Vertical Living, Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2014, 1–9; R. Skinner, ‘Further
investigation into an authorship: reassessing the Dixon Street Flats Archive’, Interstices 9 (2008): 60–73.
114. Cedric Firth, State Housing in New Zealand, Wellington: Ministry of Works, 1949, 67.
115. J. G. Martin, ‘New Zealand’s new housing policy’, The Builder, 31 August 1951, 295; Leach, Frederick H. Newman.
116. Gatley and Walker, Vertical Living, 49.
117. B. Schrader, We Call it Home: A History of State Housing in New Zealand, Auckland: Reed, 2005, 107–23; Firth, State
Housing in New Zealand, 34; Leach, Frederick H. Newman, 19; N. McKay and A. Stevens, Beyond the State: New
Zealand State Houses, from Modest to Modern, Auckland: Penguin, 2014.
118. New Zealand Institute of Architects, Block Architectural Guides, Itinerary 43, Auckland: New Zealand Institute of
Architects, 2012; J. Gatley, Athfield Architects, Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2013.
119. Suttor, ‘Offset mirrors’, 262; David Hayward, ‘The reluctant landlords?’ Urban Policy and Research 14, no 1 (1996)
5–35.
120. Troy, Accommodating Australians, 85–92.

570
 Notes

121. Hayward, ‘The reluctant landlords?’ Howe, New Houses for Old, 97–100.
122. Troy, Accommodating Australians, 109; Suttor, ‘Offset mirrors’, 265.
123. Troy, Accommodating Australians, 135;
124. Housing Commission of Victoria, 32nd Annual Report 1969–70, Melbourne: HCV, 1970, 14; Suttor, ‘Offset mirrors’,
265; Howe, New Houses for Old, 70–2, 80–1, 102–5.
125. Troy, Accommodating Australians, 130–9, 145.
126. Howe, New Houses for Old, 66–7, 70–3, 86–91, 100–5.
127. Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works, Melbourne Metropolitan Planning Scheme, Melbourne: Melbourne
and Metropolitan Board of Works, 1954; Howe, New Houses for Old, 21, 42, 137–44.
128. Moonee Valley Postwar Thematic Precincts Heritage Study, 2014, 33–4; Howe, New Houses for Old, 144–7.
129. R. Howe, D. Nichols and G. Davison, Trendyville, Melbourne: Monash University Publishing, 2014, 2–20.
130. The urban renewal programme stemmed from a 1965 report by planning consultants Perrott and Partners; Gaskin
was HCV deputy director (director from 1966): Howe, New Houses for Old, 144, 196–8.
131. Howe et al., Trendyville, 20–2; Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works, Melbourne Metropolitan Planning
Scheme.
132. Peter Mills, ‘Refabricating the Towers’, PhD thesis, Monash University, 2010; Howe, New Houses for Old, 148–52.
133. A. L. Kidson, ‘House building in Australia: work of the Housing Commission of Victoria’, The Builder, 25 December
1953, 991–3; A. Bechervaise, ‘History of the Concrete House Project’, BA Architectural History thesis, University of
Melbourne, 1970; Howe, New Houses for Old, 128–36, 187–98, 208, 226. Interbuild, January 1964, 37–9; Interbuild,
August 1965, 302.
134. Howe et al., Trendyville, 22; F. Wilkes, plaque on site; Howe, New Houses for Old, 146–51
135. Howe, New Houses for Old, 155–6, 231–3.
136. J. Gregory and J. Campbell, New South Wales Public Housing Design: A Short History, Liverpool, NSW: New South
Wales Department of Housing, 1996; New South Wales Department of Housing, Celebrating 60 Years of Homes for
the People, Sydney: New South Wales Department of Housing, 2002, 13–21; New South Wales Department of
Housing, History, Services, Initiatives, Sydney: New South Wales Department of Housing, 1995.
137. Building, Lighting, Engineering, 24 March 1954, 19–22.
138. Construction Review, November 1976, 18–33.
139. Gregory and Campbell, New South Wales Public Housing Design.
140. Troy, Accommodating Australians, 151–63; Howe, New Houses for Old, 165–80, 261–2.
141. Troy, Accommodating Australians, 201–3.

Chapter 5 Council Powers: Postwar Public Housing in Britain and Ireland

1. J. Fourastié, Les trente glorieuses: ou, la Révolution invisible de 1946 à 1975, Paris: Fayard, 1979.
2. M. B. Smith, Property of Communists, De Kalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2010, 149.
3. 1950 British percentages of owner-occupied, local-authority and private-rental housing were 28, 19 and 53; 1971
percentages were 50, 31 and 19. M. Harloe, The People’s Home? Oxford: Blackwell, 1995, 293; P. Balchin (ed.),
Housing Policy in Europe, London: Routledge, 1996, 21. C. E. B. Brett, Housing a Divided Community, Dublin: IPA,
1986, 121.
4. Nick Hayes, Consensus and Controversy, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1966.
5. R. H. Guerrand, Une Europe en Construction, Paris: La Découverte, 1992, 179–82.
6. S. Muthesius and M. Glendinning, Towers for the Welfare State, Edinburgh: SCCS, 2017, 13–14; M. Glendinning and
S. Muthesius, Tower Block, New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1994, 403.

571
Notes

7. G. Meen, K. Gibb, Housing Economics: A Comparative Approach, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, 146; interviews
with R. E. Nicoll, 1987, and Tom Watson, 1983; United Nations, The Housing Situation in European Countries, New
York: United Nations, 1963 (Scotland 79%, USSR 66%, GDR 51%, West Germany, Denmark and USA all 2%,
Belgium only 0.3%); Glendinning and Muthesius, Tower Block, 177–9; M. Horsey, Tenements and Towers,
Edinburgh: HMSO, 1990, 12.
8. T. Begg, Fifty Special Years: A Study in Scottish Housing, London: Melland, 1987.
9. Glendinning and Muthesius, Tower Block, 14–16; MHLG/CHAC, Homes for Today and Tomorrow, London: MHLG/
CHAC, 1961.
10. A. Sutcliffe, Multi-Storey Living, London: Croom Helm, 1974, ix.
11. M. Glendinning, Modern Architect: The Life and Times of Robert Matthew, London: RIBA, 2008, 121–5. Christopher
Tunnard, Gardens in the Modern Landscape, London: Architectural Press, 1938, 150–1.
12. Ministry of Housing and Local Government, Flats and Houses 1958, London: MHLG, 1958.
13. Muthesius and Glendinning, Towers for the Welfare State, 136–7.
14. Glendinning and Muthesius, Tower Block, 139–45.
15. Architect and Building News, 12 December 1962, 871; Architectural Review, January 1967, 21; Glendinning and
Muthesius, Tower Block, 134–44; Muthesius and Glendinning, Towers for the Welfare State, 79, 195.
16. Glendinning and Muthesius, Tower Block, 146–7.
17. Muthesius and Glendinning, Towers for the Welfare State, 14–15.
18. Glendinning, Modern Architect, 112–14, 125.
19. Interview with Eric Smythe, 1987.
20. Glendinning and Muthesius, Tower Block, 392; Housing Review, 1960, 155.
21. ‘Indicative costs’ in Scotland, ‘yardsticks’ in England.
22. Interview with G. Bowie, 1987; Newcastle-upon-Tyne council minutes, 5 January 1966, 785.
23. P. Dunleavy, The Politics of Mass Housing in Britain, Oxford: Clarendon, 1981, 16; Glendinning and Muthesius, Tower
Block, 200–1.
24. Interviews with G. Bowie and P. Lord, 1987; National Archives of Scotland (NAS), file DD6-2154, Rendle to Fraser, 20
June 1958.
25. Liverpool Echo, 8 November 1963, 14. Interviews with W. Bor and H. Lambert, 1987–8. Liverpool Corporation
Housing Committee minutes, 24 January 1963, 17 October 1963, 536.
26. Dunleavy, Politics of Mass Housing, 64.
27. G. W. Jones, Borough Politics, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1969, 313–14.
28. Interview with E. Smythe, 1987; Municipal Engineering, 8 October 1971, 1880–1; Edmonton Borough Council House
Building Committee, 10 November 1959, 11 June 1963, 14 April 1964; Enfield Borough Council Housing Committee,
14 July 1965, 22 March 1968.
29. Glendinning and Muthesius, Tower Block, 232–4.
30. Interview with M. Richardson, 1989; Report of the Committee on Housing in Greater London (Milner Holland Report),
London: HMSO, 1965.
31. NAS, file DD6-1326, 5 March 1957 meeting; interviews with K. Campbell and E. Denington, 1987, and
M. Richardson, 1989.
32. Architects Journal, 27 May 1964; LCC/GLC Housing Committee Presented Papers (PP), 24 April 1962, 9 October
1970; LCC Council PP, 13 March 1964; council report, 1264.
33. Architects’ Journal, 8 June 1950, 5 January 1961; The Builder, 15 October 1954, 627; LCC Housing Committee PP,
1 December 1954.
34. LCC Housing Committee PP, 10 July 1963; Shoreditch Borough Council minutes, 22 March 1965.
35. Interview with G. Powell, 1987; Minutes of the Court of Common Council, 26 July 1956.

572
 Notes

36. Interviews with R. Mellish, D. Milefanti and J. Dickson Mabon, 1987–8; K. Young and P. Garside, Metropolitan
London, London: Arnold, 1982, 321; Barking Borough Council Housing Committee minutes, 27 April 1966, 29 June
1966, 7 December 1966.
37. RIBA Journal, July 1965, 350–7; Architect and Building News, 8 November 1967; interviews with E. E. Hollamby and S.
Fagan, 1987; Lambeth Borough Council Building Committee minutes, 20 April 1966.
38. Interviews with W. Solman, F. Dixon-Ward, C. Sawyer and R. Mellish, 1987–8; L. Esher, A Broken Wave: The
Rebuilding of England, 1940–80, London: Viking, 1981, 159; Architects Journal, 27 May 1970, 1288–91; Architectural
Review, January 1967, 22–3.
39. RIBA Journal, May 1964, 205; Architects Journal, 1 August 1973, 265–80; Arena 81 (March 1966): 135–41.
40. Housing Review, 6, no. 2 (1957): 50; Yearbook of the National Housing and Town Planning Council, 1960, 47–8.
41. Architects Journal, 9 March 1961, 351; Architect and Building News, 3 June 1959, 23 October 1968, 29.
42. Interview with H. Lambert, 1988; Esher, A Broken Wave, 194–216.
43. Letter from A. G. Sheppard Fidler to M. Glendinning, 1988; A. Sutcliffe and R. Smith, Birmingham, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1974, 440–1; Architects Journal, 26 February 1964, 450, 11 March 1964, 566.
44. Interview with W. Reed and A. C. Harvey, 1988; National Building Agency, Housing Productivity in Birmingham,
London: NBA, 1969; Building, 17 May 1968, 103; Dunleavy, Politics of Mass Housing, 292–302.
45. T. D. Smith, Dan Smith: An Autobiography, London: Oriel, 1970, 62; interview with T. Dan Smith, 1988; Journal of
the Town Planning Institute, July–August 1960,7; Newcastle-upon-Tyne Council minutes, 16 March 1960, 1006;
C. F. Wood, T. Dan Smith, Voice of the North, Newcastle: Northern Writers, 2010; Glendinning and Muthesius, Tower
Block, 312–15. M. Drage, ‘Byker – surprising the colleagues for 35 years’, in E. Harwood and A. Powers (eds),
Housing the Twentieth Century Nation: Twentieth Century Architecture 9, London: Twentieth Century Society, 2008,
147–62.
46. Architect and Building News, 5 June 1963, 506; Architects Journal, 2 October 1963, 687; Housing, January 1966, 225–9;
Department of the Environment, file HLG 11-154, 11 July 1963 brief; interview with R. Mellish, 1988; Chris
Matthews, Homes and Places: A History of Nottingham’s Council Houses, Nottingham: Nottingham City Homes, 2015.
47. Glasgow Corporation, First Quinquennial Review, Glasgow: Glasgow Corporation, 1960, 24, 132.
48. Muthesius and Glendinning, Towers for the Welfare State, 231–3.
49. Convener’s Address, 1962 Housing Inspection: Glendinning and Muthesius, Tower Block, 220.
50. A 1957 planning report recommended 40,000 new dwellings in Glasgow and 60,000 overspill houses by 1980, but by
1972 the figures were 48,000 and 25,000: Muthesius and Glendinning, Towers for the Welfare State, 236
51. Glendinning and Muthesius, Tower Block, 240; City of Aberdeen Council minutes, 2 March 1959.
52. The Courier, 7 and 9 February 1980, 14 March 1980, 20 June 1980.
53. Muthesius and Glendinning, Towers for the Welfare State, 252.
54. M. Glendinning, Rebuilding Scotland, East Lothian: Tuckwell Press, 1997, 168–9.
55. M. Boléat, The Housing Situation and Housing Policy in Jersey, St Helier: States of Jersey, 1990; Glendinning and
Muthesius, Tower Block, 328; Jersey Evening Post, 15 January 1963, 19 November 1964, 24 May 1971.
56. Balchin, Housing Policy in Europe, 164–5.
57. Ellen Rowley (ed.), More than Concrete Blocks: Dublin’s Twentieth-Century Buildings and their Stories, Vol. 1, 1900–40,
Dublin: Four Courts Press/Dublin City Council, 2016, 41.
58. Rowley, More than Concrete Blocks: Dublin’s Twentieth-Century Buildings and their Stories, Vol. 2, 1940–73, Dublin:
Four Courts Press, 2018, 70–9, 218–27, 295–307. D. O’Connor, ‘Public Housing 1839–1989’, in J. Graby (ed.), 150 Years
of Architecture in Ireland, Dublin: Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland, 1989, 85–7.
59. Rowley, More than Concrete Blocks, Vol. 2, 298–307. O’Connor, ‘Public Housing 1839–1989’, 85.
60. Building, 22 September 1967, 99.
61. Blaney, October 1966 speech: Ellen Rowley, ‘1966 – a memorable year for Irish architecture?’, lecture to IASH,
University of Edinburgh, 22 November 2016; Susan Mitchell, ‘The Conservation and Regeneration of Local-Authority

573
Notes

Housing in Inner-city Dublin’, MSc dissertation, University of Edinburgh, 2011, 33–4; O’Connor, ‘Public Housing
1839–1989’, 85–7.
62. R. Lawrence, The Government of Northern Ireland, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965, 77–90.
63. Brett, Housing a Divided Community, 28–31; J. A. Oliver, Working at Stormont, Belfast: Northern Ireland Institute of
Public Administration, 1978, 72; E. L. Bird, RIBA Journal, November 1949, 9–16; Glendinning and Muthesius, Tower
Block, 286–8.
64. Department of the Environment for Northern Ireland (DOENI), file 2347-56, minutes of September 1956, February
1958, February 1959.
65. Brett, Housing a Divided Community, 21.
66. Green summary: DOENI file 3556-1959; Green to Holden, 26 November 1958; and minute of 2 December
1960; interview with J. A. Oliver, 1989. Glendinning and Muthesius, Tower Block, 403. The proportion of
public rental housing in the NI housing stock soared from 21% to 37% in 1961–81: Brett, Housing a Divided
Community, 121.
67. Government of Northern Ireland/Robert Matthew, Belfast Regional Survey and Plan: Interim Report on Housing Sites
in the Belfast Area, Belfast: HMSO, 1961; Government of Northern Ireland/Robert Matthew, Belfast Regional Survey
and Plan 1962, Cd 451, Belfast: HMSO, 1963; Glendinning, Modern Architect, 325–35; Luke de Courcey Gregan, ‘An
Age of Reports: Technocracy, Planning and the Transformation of Northern Ireland in the 1960s’, undergraduate
history thesis, Columbia University, New York, April 2019.
68. Team Spirit (John Laing Ltd), January 1967; interview with P. E. Nixon, 1988.
69. P. Arthur, Government and Politics in Northern Ireland, Harlow: Longman, 1980, 79, 101; interviews with P. E. Nixon
and J. A. Oliver, 1988–9; Belfast Telegraph, 24 May 1968; Northern Ireland Housing Trust, Annual Report for 1965–6,
Belfast: NIHT, 1966, 14; Belfast Corporation Housing Committee minutes, 9 June 1965.
70. Brett, Housing a Divided Community, 2–12, 40, 93–4, 154–62; Glendinning and Muthesius, Tower Block, 314–15.

Chapter 6 France: The ‘Trente Glorieuses’ of Mass Housing

1. J. Fourastié, Les trente glorieuses: ou, la Révolution invisible de 1946 à 1975, Paris: Fayard, 1979; A. Kopp, F. Boucher
and D. Pauly, L’architecture de la réconstruction en France, Paris: n.p., 1993; Direction des archives de France,
Réconstructions et Modernisation, Paris: Direction des archives de France, 1991.
2. Emmanuel Bellanger, ‘Les maires et leurs logements sociaux’, Histoire urbaine 23, no. 3 (2008): 103. Bloch-Lainé was
writing in 1984.
3. K. Cupers, The Social Project: Housing Postwar France, Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 2014, 29–31, 88.
4. ‘Secteur aidé’ private housing – 36% of postwar total: A. Fourcaut and D. Voldman, ‘La Caisse des depôts et le
logement’, Histoire urbaine 23, no. 3 (2008): 7–14.
5. Sabine Effosse, L’invention du logement aidé en France, Paris: Comité pour l’histoire économique et financière de la
France, 2003, vii.
6. F. Dufoux and A. Fourcaut (eds), Le monde des grands ensembles, Paris: Créaphis, 2004; Bellanger, ‘Les maires’,
95–107.
7. Angélique Hairay, Postwar Reconstructions in France, MSc dissertation, Edinburgh College of Art, 2016, 5–9;
Françoise Rouxel, ‘Brest en baraques 1945–1975’, ArMen 62 (October 1994): 12.
8. DOCOMOMO-France, Fiche Le Havre, ISAI de la place de l’Hôtel de Ville, Paris, 2004; T. Avermaete, ‘Reconstructing
Convention’, OASE 92 (2014): 42–55; J. L. Bonillo, Architectures de la Reconstruction à Marseille, Exposition ABD
Gaston Defferre, 2007. See also C.-G. Stoskopf ’s Place de l’Homme-de-Fer ISAI project, Strasbourg, 1952–6, including
fifteen-storey landmark tower: Gauthier Bolle, Charles-Gustave Stoskopf, Architecte: les Trente Glorieuses et la
reinvention des traditions, Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2017, 165–75.
9. F. Urban, Tower and Slab: Histories of Global Mass Housing, London: Routledge, 2015, 42–51.

574
 Notes

10. A. Power, Hovels to High-Rise, London: Routledge, 1993, 47–51; Rosemary Wakeman, Modernising the
Provincial City: Toulouse 1945–1975, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1997, 79–82. The 1954 census
showed 42% had no running water, 73% no WC; Effosse, ‘L’invention du logement’, vii; A. Fourcaut and
P. Harismendy, Grands ensembles, intentions et pratiques, St Brieuc: Ville de St Brieuc, 2011, 205–9 (‘véritable
socialisme’).
11. HLM: M. Wynn (ed.), Housing in Europe, London: Croom Helm, 1984, 5–19.
12. N. Bullock, ‘Le 4CV et la maison ideale’, AMC Le Moniteur Architecture 163, no. 9 (2006): 106–7. OCIL: L’office central
interprofessionel de logement, founded 1954.
13. Rental programmes: Power, Hovels to High-Rise, 48, 54–5; J. S. Fuerst, Public Housing in Europe and America, London:
Wiley, 1974, 37–50; M. Harloe, The People’s Home? Oxford: Blackwell, 1995, 326.
14. B. Poivreau, Le logement social en Seine Saint-Denis, Paris: ADAGP, 2003, 34–5; Harloe, The People’s Home? 326;
A. Fourcaut, ‘Les banlieues populaires ont aussi une histoire’, Revue Projet, 1 July 2007 (http://www.revue-projet.com/
articles/2007–4–les-banlieues-populaires-ont-aussi-une-histoire/). M. Swenarton, T. Avermaete and D. van den
Heuvel (eds), Architecture and the Welfare State, Abingdon: Routledge, 2015, 231.
15. G. Le Goullon, ‘Les Banquiers-Bâtisseurs’, Histoire Urbaine 3, no. 23 (2008): 81–94; T. Avermaete et al., Colonial
Modern, London: Black Dog, 2010, 196; M. Maiga, ‘Politique du logement et offre d’habitat adapté dans
l’agglomération Lyonnaise’, PhD thesis, Université Lumière Lyon II, Lyon, 2000 (section 27021); J. Bruno, J. Morelli
and C. Bron, Ensembles et residences de la periode 1945–1975 sur le territoire de Toulon, Toulon: Direction régionale
des affaires culturelles, 2008.
16. Castors: Fourcaut and Harismendy, Grands ensembles, 7–22; Pouvreau, Le logement social, 29. Logecos: Le Goullon,
‘Les Banquiers-Bâtisseurs’, 81–94; Bruno et al., Ensembles et residences; Richard Klein, ‘The Cité de l’Étoile, Bobigny’,
DOCOMOMO Journal 54, no. 1 (2016): 22–7; Bullock, ‘Le 4CV’, 105–7; Wakeman, Provincial City, 79–83; Cupers,
Social Project, xvi–xviii, 25–7.
17. Bolle, Stoskopf, 91–3; Cupers, Social Project, 32–41; Bellanger, ‘Les maires’, 107; Fourcault and Voldman, ‘La Caisse’,
7–20, 71–80.
18. Fourcault and Voldman, ‘La Caisse’, 71–80; Le Goullon, ‘Les Banquiers-Bâtisseurs’, 88–94; Bolle, Stoskopf, 91–5.
19. Cupers, Social Project, 7–8; Z. Hakimi, Alger, politiques urbaines, St-Denis: Bouchène, 2011.
20. Architectural Review, January 1993, 70–3.
21. C. Canteux, ‘Quand la SCIC filmait ses grands ensembles’, Histore urbaine 3 (2008): 109–18; B. Vayssière, ‘Le logement
– une histoire française’, L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui 303 (February 1996): 76; Wakeman, Provincial
City, 59.
22. G. Le Gallon, ‘La politique des grands ensembles’, in Fourcaut and Harismendy, Grands ensembles, 5–14, 73–90;
N. Bullock, ‘Developing prototypes for France’s mass housing programme’, Planning Perspectives 22, no. 1 (2007):
15–28; T. Avermaete,’Komplizen einer modern Gesellschaft’, Arch+, June 2011, 30–6.
23. Histoire Urbaine 3 (2008): 119, 164–6.
24. Cupers, Social Project, 63–89.
25. Ł. Stanek, ‘Who needs “Needs”? French postwar architecture and its critics’, in Swenarton et al., Architecture and the
Welfare State, 112–30; Urban, Tower and Slab, 51–7, 52–3.
26. Fourcaut and Harismendy, Grands ensembles, 209; Sandra Parvu, Grands Ensembles en Situation, Geneva: Metis, 2010,
37–62, 76–86; Cupers, Social Project, 28, 95–131, 166–74; Urban, Tower and Slab, 52–3.
27. Histoire Urbaine 3 (2008): 85–103.
28. A. Fourcaut (ed.), Banlieue Rouge 1920–1960, Paris: Autrement, 1992. Power, Hovels to High-Rise, 46–7.
29. Ivry: Bellanger, ‘Les maires’, 104–7; Poivreau, Logement social, 33.
30. Urban, Tower and Slab, 39–53.
31. Bruno Vayssière, Reconstruction, Déconstruction. Le ‘hard French’ ou l’ architecture française des Trente Glorieuses,
Paris: Picard, 1988.

575
Notes

32. Power, Hovels to High-Rise, 45, 49; Nantes, Liverpool City Council, The Construction of Dwellings by Industrial
Methods, Liverpool: Liverpool City Council, 1962, 16; Architectural Review, November 1955, 327–9; Parvu, Grands
Ensembles en Situation, 37–62.
33. T. Avermaete, ‘From Knoxville to Bidonville: ATBAT and the Architecture of the French Welfare State’, in Swenarton
et al., Architecture and the Welfare State, 218–35.
34. Vayssière, Reconstruction, Déconstruction.
35. Musée Malraux, Le Havre, Perret, le poétique du béton, Le Havre: Musée Malraux, 2002; Bernard Champigneulle,
Perret, Paris: Arts et Métiers Graphiques, 1959; R. Jensen, High Density Living, London: Leonard Hill, 1966, 99;
UNESCO, Le Havre: la ville reconstruite par Auguste Perret, Paris: UNESCO, 2005, http://whc.unesco.org/fr/list/1181/
DOCOMOMO-France; Fiches ISAI de la place de l’Hôtel de Ville and Porte Océane, Paris, 2004.
36. Le Courrier Picard, 6 February 1949; Histoire d’une ville, Amiens, Amiens: CRDP, 2013, 137–8; Anne Duménil and
P. Nivet (eds), Les reconstructions de Picardie, Amiens: Encrage, 2003, 195; Joseph Quémard, La Cellule d’Habitation,
Rennes: ENSAB, 2015.
37. P. Uyttenhove, Architektura & Urbanizmus 46 (2012): 160–79; Architects’ Journal, 9 August 1934, 195–201; Wakeman,
Provincial City, 96–102; A. Rapoport, ‘Housing Densities in France’, Town Planning Review 57 (1969): 341–54; Cupers,
Social Project, 6, 12–14.
38. Fourcaut and Harismendy, Grands ensembles, 73–90; Poivreau, Le logement social, 33; Edmond Preteceille, La
production des grands ensembles, Paris: Martin, 1973, 9ff.
39. Poivreau, Le logement social, 44–5; R. A. Jensen, ‘Postwar Flat Development in France’, Prefabrication, November 1956,
38–9; Centre de Recherche d’Urbanisme, L’Urbanisation Française, Paris: CRU, 1970; C. Terranova, ‘Irredentist
urbanism’, DOCOMOMO-International, 2004 Conference Proceedings, New York, 2004, 235–41; Cupers, Social Project,
6–14.
40. Bullock, ‘Developing prototypes’, 5–28.
41. Avermaete, ‘Komplizen’, 30–6; Terranova, ‘Irredentist urbanism’, 235–41; Fourcaut and Harismendy, Grands ensembles,
205–16; L’ Architecture d’Aujourd’hui 74 (November 1957).
42. Leroy, Belges and Rotterdam: Bolle, Stoskopf, 93–4, 197.
43. Bolle, Stoskopf, 179–88: the Cité Beauregard, Poissy, was dubbed ‘Simca-ville’ and comprised 2,142 flats, incorporating
three landmark towers; the Cité du Parc, Vernouillet, comprised 810 flats in a country-house park, including Logéco
low-rise and fourteen-storey ‘executive’ tower.
44. Power, Hovels to High-Rise, 47; H. Veillard-Bron, ‘French Suburbs’, Urban History Conference, Stockholm, 2006. Simca
and multi-agency development: Bolle, Stoskopf, 179–88, 192–8.
45. Histoire Urbaine 3 (2008): 10–22; Wynn (ed), Housing in Europe, 15–19; Power, Hovels to High-Rise, 49.
46. Half of all ZUPs straddled commune boundaries: Veillard-Bron, ‘French Suburbs’.
47. Parvu, Grands Ensembles en Situation, 65–75.
48. SONACOTRAL: Poivreau, Le logement social, 40–1.
49. Avermaete et al., Colonial Modern, 118–19; Fourcaut and Harismendy, Grands ensembles, 12; Power, Hovels to
High-Rise, 40, 51; Poivreau, Le logement social, 46–7.
50. Wakeman, Provincial City, 96–102; C. Callais and T. Jeanmonod, Bordeaux, patrimoine mondiale, vol. 2, La Crèche:
Geste, 2014, 361–5.
51. Cupers, Social Project, xxi–xxiii.
52. Revue de l’Habitat Social, 93, February 1984, 18; Hakimi, Alger; Avermaete et al., Colonial Modern, 133–5.
53. Frédéric Dufaux and Annie Fourcaut, Le monde des grands ensembles, Paris: Créaphis, 2004, 8, 32–4, 45–71; Urban,
Tower and Slab, 42–5; Cupers, Social Project, 43–53.
54. Guide d’Architecture Moderne à Paris, Paris: Siris, 1991; Parvu, Grands Ensembles en Situation; Le Goullon, ‘Les
Banquiers-Bâtisseurs’, 81–9; Cupers, Social Project, 137–45.

576
 Notes

55. Power, Hovels to High-Rise, 49.

56. R.-H. Guerrand, Une Europe en Construction, Paris: La Découverte, 1992, 196–9; Vayssière, ‘Le logement’, 84–5.
57. Centre de Recherche, L’Urbanisation française; Parvu, Grands Ensembles en Situation, 106–33; Power, Hovels to
High-Rise, 50; Cupers, Social Project, 43–52
58. Richard Klein, Les immeubles de grande hauteur en France: un héritage moderne 1945–1975, Paris: Éditions Hermann,
2020. Avermaete, ‘Komplizen’, 30–6; Poivreau, Le logement social, 37, Haut-du-Lièvre: L’Architecture Française 223–4
(1961): 76–8.
59. ‘New Housing in the Paris Suburbs’, Architectural Review, November 1961, 318ff.; Rapoport, ‘Housing Densities’,
341–54; Ian Nairn, Nairn’s Paris, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968, 91–2.
60. F. Choay, Histoire Urbaine 3 (2008): 115; Urban, Tower and Slab, 45–53.
61. Christine Rochefort novels: Avermaete, ‘Komplizen’, 30–6; Urban, Tower and Slab, 51–3. ‘Sarcellite’: L’Aurore, 2 July
1962; Le Figaro, 15 January 1965; Histoire Urbaine 3 (2008): 115.
62. Poivreau, Le logement social, 38–9.
63. E. Aillaud, ‘Town Planning Without Monotony’, L’Oeil, June 1963, 36–41; La Grande Borne: La Pierre d’Angle 44
(March 2007); Nairn, Nairn’s Paris, 93.
64. Poivreau, Le logement social, 33–5; Fourcaut, Banlieue Rouge; Avermaete, ‘Knoxville to Bidonville’, 231.
65. Parvu, Grands Ensembles en Situation, 64–77.
66. L.-E. Friquart and A. Noé-Dufour, Les quartiers de Toulouse: Le Mirail, le projet Candilis, Toulouse: Accord, 2006;
Avermaete et al., Colonial Modern, 149.
67. Rapid degeneration: Wakeman, Provincial City, 125–33.
68. Cupers, Social Project, 166–74.
69. Power, Hovels to High-Rise, 44–51; Vayssière, ‘Le logement’, 82–3, 90–3; Poivreau, Le logement social, 29; Fourcaut and
Harismendy, Grands ensembles, 73–90, 135–8; Bullock, ‘Developing prototypes’, 5–28; Lods, Poivreau, Le logement
social, 25–7, 44–5.
70. Y. Delemontey, ‘Perret face à l’industrialisation de la construction: La Reconstruction du Havre (1945–1959)’ Faces 57
(2004): 219–24; DOCOMOMO-France, Fiches Ilôt 17 système Camus, ISAI de la place de l’Hôtel de Ville, Front de
Mer sud and Porte Océane, Paris, 2004.
71. First completed block: 71–85 rue Augustin Normand (Ilôt N17 Coopérative de Reconstruction François 1er):
UNESCO, Le Havre, http://whc.unesco.org/fr/list/1181/.
72. Vayssière, ‘Le logement’, 82–3; Power, Hovels to High-Rise, 49.
73. Cupers, Social Project, 41; DOCOMOMO-France, Front de Mer sud; Fuerst, Public Housing, 44; Harloe, The People’s
Home? 323.
74. Histoire Urbaine 3 (2008): 161–8.
75. R. Carvais and A. Guillermes (eds), Édifice et artifice, Paris: Picard, 2010, 791–800. Y. Delemontey, ‘Raymond Camus et
l’avènement de la prefabrication lourde en France’, Centraliens 625 (April–May 2013): 57–62.
76. SERPEC: Société d’Études et de Réalisation de procédés économiques de construction.
77. W. Brian Newsome, French Urban Planning 1940–1968, Bern: Peter Lang, 2009, 79; R. Camus, ‘Camus throughout the
world’, in CCA, Housing from the Factory, London: CCA, 1962, 9–16; Avermaete, ‘Komplizen’, 30–6. Maisons-Alfort:
Liverpool City Council, Construction of Dwellings, 16; L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui (September 1960): 91–2;
L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui 104 (1962): 96–8.
78. Architectural Design, April 1963, 178; L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui 109 (1963): 96–8; http://astudejaoublie.blogspot.
co.uk/2012/09/meaux-la-pierre-collinet-part2.html?m=1.
79. Cupers, Social Project, 18–22.
80. ‘Camus throughout the world’; P. Meuser, Die Ästhetik der Platte, Berlin: DOM, 2015, 130–4; The Builder, 31 May
1963, 1107–8. Influential SCIC delegation to USSR, 1958: Bolle, Stoskopf, 96–8.

577
Notes

81. Histoire urbaine 3 (2008): 167–8; Dufaux and Fourcaut, Le monde des grands ensembles, 91–3.
82. Bolle, Stoskopf, 179–88. Giulia Marino, ‘The controversial history of the “Steel and Glass” ’, DOCOMOMO Journal 54,
no. 1 (2016): 28–35; GEAI: Groupement pour l’étude d’une architecture industrialisé.
83. Pompidou: Prime Minister 1962–8, President 1969–74.
84. Vayssière, ‘Le Logement’, 90–3; Poivreau, Le logement social, 46–8; Cupers, Social Project, xxii–xxv, 129–43, 183–8,
224–5, 280–304; Richard Klein, ‘What is the legacy of the architectures of change?’, in N. Koselj and A. Tostões (eds),
Metamorphosis: The Continuity of Change, Ljubljana: DOCOMOMO-Slovenia, 2018, 203–7; N. Bullock, ‘May 1968’,
lecture at Edinburgh College of Art, 1 May 2018; G. Monnier, L’architecture moderne en France, vol. 3, Paris: Picard,
2000, 18–32. Créteil: Bolle, Stoskopf, 207–10: cf. ‘Rudo’ in Belgrade (see chapter 11); Isabelle Rey, ‘A Créteil, les Choux
tiennent le coup’, Les Echos, 5 November 1998.
85. Guerrand, Europe en Construction, 202–3; Harloe, The People’s Home? (Nora); Dufaux and Fourcaut, Le monde des
grands ensembles, 8; Guide de l’Architecture Moderne, 260–71; Building Design, 4 November 1983, 2 (on Kroll at
Alençon); Kupers, Social Project, 304ff.; Poivreau, Le logement social, 41–54, 48–54; P. Panerai, Formes urbaines, de
l’îlot à la barre, Paris: Parenthèses, 1997.
86. Rapoport, ‘Housing densities’; Fourcaut and Harismendy, Grands ensembles, 105–20; L. Downie Jr, The New Towns of
Paris, 1972, http://aliciapatterson.org/stories/new-towns-paris-reorganizing-suburbs; Vayssière, ‘Le logement’, 90–3.
87. Histoire Urbaine 3 (2008): chapter 2; Power, Hovels to High-Rise, 48, 54–5; Le Monde, 1 October 2002, Économie
section, 1–3; Poivreau, Le logement social, 58–60; Bolle, Stoskopf, 95.

Chapter 7 The Low Countries: Pillars of Modern Mass Housing

1. Gøsta Esping-Anderson, The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990.
2. In this book, in the interests of brevity, the Flemish form is used for Belgian national initiatives and institutions, and
the French for colonial matters.
3. K. van Herck and T. Avermaete (eds), Wonen en Welvaart: Woningbouw en Wooncultuur in Vlaanderen, Rotterdam:
101 Uitgeving, 2016, 272–8; Belgium–Netherlands comparison: H. Heynen, ‘Belgium and the Netherlands’, Home
Cultures 7 (2010): 159–77.
4. Els de Vos, ‘Living with high-rise modernity’, Home Cultures 7, no. 2 (2010): 137; Van Herck and Avermaete, Wonen in
Welvaart, 4, 68, 110–27, 275; Michael Ryckewaert, Building the Economic Backbone of the Belgian Welfare State,
Rotterdam: 00 Uitgeverij, 2011; info from Karina Van Herck; Eric Buyst, An Economic History of Residential Building
in Belgium, Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1992, 218. CVP: Christelijke Volkspartij (Christian Democrats); BSP:
Belgische Socialistische Partij; H. Heynen and J. Gosseye, ‘The Welfare State in Flanders’, in M. Swenarton, T.
Avermaete and D. van den Heuvel (eds), Architecture and the Welfare State, Abingdon: Routledge, 2015, 51–68.
5. Renaat Braem and F. Strauven, Het Lelijkste Land Ter Wereld, Brussels: ASP, 2010/1968; S. Sterken and E. Weyns,
‘Urban planning and Christian urbanism’, in A. Moravánszky and J. Hopfengärtner (eds), Rehumanizing Architecture,
Basel: Birkhäuser, 2017, 243–252.
6. Van Buyst, Economic History, 226–7; Van Herck and Avermaete, Wonen in Welvaart, 54, 67–78; info on different subsidy
schemes, K. Van Herck, 2019. Heynen, ‘Belgium and the Netherlands’, 167, 173–4; Heynen and Gosseye, ‘Welfare State in
Flanders’, 53. The NMGW was renamed in 1956 the Nationaal Maatschappij voor de Huisvesting, NMH.
7. Van Herck and Avermaete, Wonen in Welvaart, 95–110, 147–64.
8. Van Herck and Avermaete, Wonen in Welvaart, 135, 203–16, 231–48; Belgian modernism (general): A. van Loo,
M. Dubois, N. Langerman and N. Poulain, Repertorium van de architectuur in België, Antwerp: Fonds Mercator, 2003;
Klein Heide, https://inventaris.onroerenderfgoed.be/erfgoedobjecten/120667.
9. M. Cohen, ‘Willy Van Der Meeren’s Ieder Zijn Huis’, Docomomo Journal 54, no. 1 (2016): 66–71.
10. Angleur: L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, 1954, 65; architects C. Carlier, H. Lhoest and J. Mozin of Groupe Egau;
nine-storey slab, ‘Koning Albertbuilding’; Parkwijk Casablanca, https://inventaris.onroerenderfgoed.be/
erfgoedobjecten/302101.

578
 Notes

11. K. Absillis and K. Jacobs, Van Hugo Klaus tot hoelahoep, Vlaanderen in Beweging 1950–1960, Antwerp: Garant, 2007,
497–507.
12. https://inventaris.onroerenderfgoed.be/erfgoedobjecten/122126.
13. L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, 1954, 66–9; Van Herck and Avermaete, Wonen in Welvaart, 10–11; G. Segers, 60 jaar
Luchtbal. Van polderlandschap tot moderne stadswijk, Antwerp: n.p., 1985, 31–2, 54–60; https://inventaris.
onroerenderfgoed.be/erfgoedobjecten/302578; K. Van Herck, ‘Wooneenheid Kiel’, in J. Braeken (ed.), Renaat Braem
1910–2001. Architect, part 2, Brussels: Relicta Monografieën, 2010, 89–102; Els De Vos, ‘Living with high-rise
modernity’, Home Cultures 2 (2010): 142–3. C. Grafe and B. Decroos (eds), Linkeroever, Sprong over de Schelde,
Antwerp: VAI, 2017.
14. L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, 1954, 62–5.
15. Absillis and Jacobs, Van Hugo Klaus, 50. Cité Modèle, Van Herck and Avermaete, Wonen in Welvaart, 178–93; La
Maison 5 (May 1968): 236–7.
16. K. Van Herck, ‘Woonwijk Kruiskenslei’, in Braeken, Renaat Braem, 182–98.
17. Absillis and Jacobs, Van Hugo Klaus, 50.
18. Local HVM was the Samenwerkende Maatschappij voor Goedkope Woningen en Woonvertekken van Leuven
(SMGWW): K Van Herck, ‘Sint-Maartensdal’, in Braeken, Renaat Braem, 148–57.
19. Catholic: KVP, Katholieke Volkspartij; Protestant: CHU, Christelijke-Historische Unie/ARP Anti-Revolutionnaire
Partij; Liberal: VVP, Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie. M. Martin and C. Wagenaar, ‘Building a New
Community’, in Moravánszky and Hopfengärtner, Rehumanizing Architecture, 147.
20. Heynen, ‘Belgium and the Netherlands’, 163–4; Liesbeth Bervoets, ‘Defeating Public Enemy No. 1: mediating housing
in the Netherlands’, Home Cultures 7, no. 2: 2010.
21. M. Harloe, The People’s Home? Oxford: Blackwell, 1995, 244–7, 304–19; Friso Wiebenga, A History of the Netherlands,
London: Bloomsbury, 2015, 230–6.
22. Information Department, Introduction to the Housing Problem in the Netherlands, Den Haag: Ministry of
Reconstruction, 1953, 10; J. Middleton, ‘Housing in The Hague’, RIAS Quarterly 86 (1950): 53–55.
23. Bouw, 5 April 1970, 765–73; Harloe, The People’s Home? 309–13; I. Teijmant and F. Martin, Nieuw-West, Amsterdam:
Bas Lubberhuizen, 1994, 9–10; Information Department, Rent in the Netherlands, Den Haag: Ministry of
Reconstruction, 1950.
24. Information Department, Introduction to the Housing Problem, 19; Central Directorate of Reconstruction, Woningen
1946–1952 Nederland, Den Haag: Central Directorate of Reconstruction 1952.
25. Central Directorate, Woningen; Harloe, The People’s Home? 300; R. Rosner, ‘Housing and Planning in Holland’,
Building, 18 February 1966, 339–42.
26. Harloe, The People’s Home? 309–13; Stadsontwikkeling Rotterdam, Stedebouw in Rotterdam, Amsterdam: Van Gennep,
1981 (fold-out).
27. Stedelijk Museum, Het Nieuwe Bouwen, Amsterdam 1920–1960, Delft: Delft University Press, 1983, 80–2; Information
Department, Introduction to the Housing Problem, 19; Ministry of Reconstruction, Revision of the Legal Measures
concerning Physical Planning, Den Haag: Ministry of Reconstruction, 1953.
28. Bouw, 25 April 1970, 765–8, 771–2; Harloe, The People’s Home? 306–8; M. Bulos and S. Walker (eds), The Legacy and
Opportunity for High-Rise Housing in Europe, London: Housing Studies Group, 1987, 35–51. Both 1955–61 and
1964–65 saw significant over-fulfilment of the ministry’s output targets.
29. Harloe, The People’s Home? 313–17, 474.
30. F. Paulen et al., Atlas Sociale Woningbouw Amsterdam, Amsterdam: Amsterdamse Federatie van Woningcorporaties,
1992, 10–12; P. Balchin, Housing Policy in Europe, London: Routledge, 1996, 90–1; Information Department,
Ministry of Housing, Some data on housing in the Netherlands, Den Haag: Ministry of Housing, 1974; Bouw, 5 April
1970, 771.
31. Ton Heijdra, Amsterdam Nieuw-West, Amsterdam: Rene de Milliano, 2010, 75; Stedelijk Museum, Het Nieuwe
Bouwen, 80–2; Teijmant and Martin, Nieuw-West, 9.

579
Notes

32. Information Department, Introduction to the Housing Problem, 10; R. Blijstra, Netherlands Architecture since 1900,
Amsterdam: n.p., 1960, 6–14; Museum Boymans van Beuningen, Het Nieuwe Bouwen in Rotterdam, Delft: Delft
University Press, 1982, 109–21.
33. A. Bos, De stad van toekomst, de toekomst van de stad, Rotterdam: Voorhoeve, 1946; Martin and Wagenaar, ‘Building a
new community’, 147. Museum Boymans van Beuningen, Het Nieuwe Bouwen, 109–21; Frank Wassenberg, ‘The
Netherlands’, Built Environment 32, no.1 (2006): 15–16; Blijstra, Netherlands Architecture; Heijdra, Amsterdam
Nieuw-West, 66–75; Stadsontwikkeling Rotterdam, Stedebouw, 46–7.
34. F. Paulen et al., Atlas Sociale Woningbouw, 12–13.
35. Information Department, Ministry of Housing, Some data; Amsterdam-Wonen 1900–1970, Amsterdam: n.p., 1970
36. Bouw, 25 April 1970; Information Department, Introduction to the Housing Problem, 15; Museum Boymans van
Beuningen, Het Nieuwe Bouwen, 80–2.
37. Heynen, ‘Belgium and the Netherlands’, 165.
38. F. Paulen et al., Atlas Sociale Woningbouw, 12–13; Museum Boymans van Beuningen, Het Nieuwe Bouwen, 89, 121–4;
Stadsontwikkeling Rotterdam, Stedebouw, 44–5; Central Directorate, Woningen; Information Department,
Introduction to the Housing Problem, 16; Middleton, ‘Housing’, 53–5; Rosner, ‘Housing and Planning’; The Builder, 12
February 1954, 307–8; P. C. de Groot, ‘Maastricht bouwt Malberg’, Bouw, 29 August 1964.
39. Bulos and Walker, Legacy and Opportunity, 35–51; Stedelijk Museum, Het Nieuwe Bouwen, 92–3.
40. Harloe, The People’s Home? 307; Government Physical Planning Service, Physical Planning in the Netherlands, Den Haag:
Government Physical Planning Service, 1952; Museum Boymans van Beuningen, Het Nieuwe Bouwen, 109–10; RIBA
Journal, September 1956, 455–6; Central Directorate, Woningen; ‘Nieuw flat-type te Rotterdam’, Bouw, 1952, 362–4.
41. The Builder, 12 February 1954, 307–8; ‘Galerijbouw in de Haagse Moerwijk’, Bouw, 1952, 476–80.
42. Bouw, 1952, 362–4; Housing Review 7, no. 4, (July–August 1958): 118; Rosner, ‘Housing and Planning’, 340; Heijdra,
Amsterdam Nieuw-West, 106.
43. Museum Boymans van Beuningen, Het Nieuwe Bouwen, 110–22, 139–57.
44. Stadsontwikkeling Rotterdam, Stedebouw in Rotterdam, 44–57.
45. Stedelijk Museum, Het Nieuwe Bouwen, 54–74, 79–110; Amsterdamse Federatie van Woningcorporaties, In Eenheid
zit Kracht, Amsterdam: AFW, 2007, 12.
46. Stedelijk Museum, Het Niewe Bouwen, 85–97: the multi-storey percentage at Osdorp was much higher – 26.5%
compared to 10% at Slotermeer, 1.5% at Geuzenveld and 8.3% at Slotervaart. A contemporary argued of
Dijkgraafsplein that ‘moeder-de-vrouw heeft op de hangbruggen namelijk overzicht en Pietje kan er buiten spelen’
(‘The housewife can keep an eye out from the balconies and so Little Johnny can play outside’): Heijdra, Amsterdam
Nieuw-West, 75–7, 93–7, 114–17; Teijmant and Martin, Nieuw-West; Amsterdam-Wonen 1900–1970.
47. Heijdra, Amsterdam Nieuw-West, 114–17; Teijmant and Martin, Nieuw-West, 10, 43–5.
48. ‘De nieuwe Bilmermeer’, Archis 9 (1997) (special edition); Directorate of Public Works, Stedebouwkundige ontwikkeling
en het grondbeleid in Amsterdam, Amsterdam: Directorate of Public Works, 1967; Bouw, 7 November 1964; Cees
Nooteboom, Unbuilt Netherlands, London: Architectural Press, 1985, 80–1; Bouw, 14 October 1967, 1476–7.
49. One WV claimed, ‘de Bijlmermeer is als het ware vóór en niet dóór de corporaties gebouwd’ (‘The Bijlmermeer was,
in reality, built for and not by the housing corporations’): Bouw, 19 June 1965, 946–50; H. McClintock and M. Fox,
‘The Bijlmermeer development’, Journal of the Royal Town-Planning Institute, July–August 1971, 313–16; ‘De nieuwe
Bijlmermeer’, Archis 9 (1997); F. Paulen et al., Atlas sociale Woningbouw, 10.
50. Bouw, 14 October 1967, 1476–7.
51. ‘De nieuwe Bijlmermeer’, Archis 9 (1997).
52. F. M. Dielman, ‘Social-Rented Housing’, Urban Studies 31, no 3 (1994): 447–63; Balchin, Housing Policy in Europe,
84–98; Harloe, The People’s Home? 474.
53. ANWB, Royal Dutch Touring Club, ‘Woonerf ’, 1980; D. van den Heuvel, ‘The Open Society and its Experiments’,
in Swenarton et al., Architecture and the Welfare State, 133–54; Bulos and Walker, Legacy and Opportunity, 35–53;
F. Urban, The New Tenement, Abingdon: Routledge, 145–7.

580
 Notes

54. Lidwine Spoormans, D. N. Carillo, H. Zijlstra and T. Pérez-Cano, ‘Planning history of a Dutch new town’, Urban
Planning 4 no. 3 (2019). De Architect 2 (1988): 56–63; A. Oosterman, Housing in the Netherlands, Rotterdam: NAI,
1996, 12–21; ‘Het woonmilieu Ijburg’, Archis 5 (1995): 7.
55. A 2006 article argued that to Belgian reformists, the Netherlands seemed an ideal beyond reach – ‘een perfect
geordend, zeer net en modern land’ – whereas Dutch policymakers were uninterested in Belgium: Van Herck and
Avermaete, Wonen en Welvaart, 272–8; see also Heynen, ‘Belgium and the Netherlands’, 159–77.

Chapter 8 Stability and Continuity: West Germany and the Alpine Countries

1. The Builder, 17 October 1952, 551.

2. SVW Zürich, Über genossenschaftlichen Wohnungsbau, Zürich: SVW Zürich, 2008; www.stadt.zuerich.ch/zueriplan.
3. Hochbauamt der Stadt Zürich, Der Soziale Wohnungsbau under seine Förderung in Zürich 1942–4, Zürich: Stadt
Zürich, 1946, 12; The Builder, 17 October 1952.
4. E. Reinhard, Neues Bauen und Wohnen, Basel: Ilion Verlag, 1947.
5. Reinhard, Neues Bauen; The Builder, 17 October 1952.
6. Andreas Herzog, ‘Wohnen zwischen gebauter und gelebter Norm’, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 16 May 2012; F. Furter and P.
Schoeck, Göhner Wohnen – Wachstumseuphorie and Plattenbau, Baden: Hier+ Jetzt Verlag, 2013. Company slogan:
‘Ein Zimmer mehr zum gleichen Preis!’
7. Furter and Schoeck, Göhner Wohnen.
8. Reinhard, Neues Bauen und Wohnen.
9. ‘Zürich will eine weitere städtische Wohnkultur erbauen’, Wohnen 32, no. 3 (1957); Werk 1, no. 3 (1949); N. Westwood,
‘A visit to Letzigraben’, Architect and Building News, 13 November 1952, 574–8; F. Graf and G. Marino, ‘Modern and
Green: Heritage, Energy, Economy’, DOCOMOMO International Journal 44, no. 1 (2011): 32–9.
10. F. Graf (ed.), La Cité du Lignon 1963–1971, Geneva: Infolio, 2012. Göhner’s Les Avanchets continued the theme of
clustered slabs. Giulia Marino, ‘Georges Addor’s housing complexes’, DOCOMOMO International Journal 51, no. 1
(2016): 10–15.
11. Stadt Zürich (online database), Wohnsiedlung Hardau II (www.stadt-zuerich.ch/hbd/de/index/hochbau); see also
www.stadt-zuerich.ch/zueriplan; Walter Meyer-Bohe, Apartments, Stuttgart: Koch, 1980.
12. For comments on West Germany and Austria in general, thanks are due to Florian Urban. W. Matznetter,
‘Organisational Networks in a Corporatist Housing System’, Scandinavian Housing and Planning Research, 1992,
23–35; P. Kramper, ‘Das Unternehmen als politisches Projekt: Die Neue Heimat, 1950–1982’, Mitteilungsblatt des
Instituts für Soziale Bewegungen 44 (2010): 90; F. Urban, ‘Public Housing in Europe’, in N. D. Bloom, F. Umbach and
L. Vale, Public Housing Myths, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 154–74; F. Urban, ‘Mass Housing in Germany’, in J.
Lizardi and M. Schwegmann (eds), Espacios Ambivalentes: historias y olvidos en la arquitectura social moderna, San
Juan: Callejón, 2012, 52–75.
13. E. Blau, ‘From Red Superblock to Green Megastructure: Municipal Socialism as Model and Challenge’, in
M. Swenarton, T. Avermaete and D. van den Heuvel (eds), Architecture and the Welfare State, Abingdon: Routledge,
2015, 26–49.
14. Matznetter, ‘Organisational Networks’, 23–35.
15. Hans Riemer, Wien baut auf, Vienna: JV Verlag, 1947; ‘Wohnbau in Wien – eine Bestandsaufnahme seit 1970’, Pro
Legomena, January 1980; W. Foerster, ‘80 Years of Social Housing in Vienna’, 2012, https://www.wien.gv.at/english/
housing/promotion/pdf/socialhous.pdf; Blau, ‘Red Superblock’, 28–9; F. Urban, The New Tenement, Abingdon:
Routledge, 163–5.
16. Monika Platzer, ‘Roland Rainer: a life steeped in history’, Architecture and Professionalism Conferene, Flanders
Architectural Archives, Antwerp, 7 December 2017. Blau, ‘Red Superblock’, 39; Swenarton et al, Architecture and the
Welfare State, 16.

581
Notes

17. Prolegomena, Wohnbau Wien, Vienna: Institut für Wohnbau, 1980, 16–17, 22–32.
18. R. Rosner, ‘System building in Vienna’, The Builder, 24 April 1964, 879–80. Montagebau-Wien GmbH jointly owned by
the council, Camus-Dietzsch and Österreichische Miba-Unternehmung.
19. Sophie Hochhäusl, ‘From Vienna to Frankfurt’, Architectural Histories 1, no. 1 (2013): 1–19. F Urban, ‘Vienna’s
resistance to the neoliberal turn: social policy through residential architecture from 1970 to the present’, Footprint 24,
no. 1 (Spring 2019): 83–104.
20. Gøsta Esping-Anderson, The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990, 27,
53; Foerster, ’80 Years’.
21. www.neueheimattirol.at; Prolegomena, Wohnbau Wien, 18, 50–3, 74–81, 88–91; Blau, ‘Red Superblock’, 41–6; F. Urban,
‘Vienna’s resistance to the neoliberal turn’, Footprint: Delft Architecture Theory Journal 13, no 1 (Spring–Summer
2019): 91–112.
22. Social Democrats’ abandonment of Marxism in 1959 ‘Godesberg programme’: Ullrich Schwarz and Hartmut Frank,
Neue Heimat: Das Gesicht der Bundesrepublik, Munich: Dölling and Galitz, 2019, 9; M. Harloe, The People’s Home?
Oxford: Blackwell, 1995, 228, 249, 331–7; G. Hallett (ed.), Land and Housing Policies in Europe and the USA, London:
Routledge, 1988, 20–31.
23. A. Power, Hovels to High-Rise, London: Routledge, 1993, 101; F. Urban, ‘Germany, country of tenants’, Built
Environment 41, no. 2 (2015): 190.
24. Nuremberg rally grounds developed 1945–6 with refugee hutments and US forces’ quarters: ‘Nürnberg-Langwasser,
die neue Stadt in Bayern’, Zeitschrift für das gemeinnützige Wohnungswesen in Bayern, September 1956 and June 1960;
M. Lenk, Nürnberg-Langwasser, n.p.p.: GRIN Verlag, 2010, 94–7.
25. Power, Hovels to High-Rise, 106–13, 158–9; Harloe, The People’s Home? 228, 341–2; F. Urban, ‘The Märkisches Viertel
in West Berlin’, in Swenarton et al., Architecture and the Welfare State, 189; R. Rosner, ‘Housing in Western Germany’,
Housing Review 7, no. 1 (January 1958): 19–23; Urban, ‘Germany, country of tenants’, 187. Some 60% of 1945–60
completions were social housing: T. Fiedler and M. Georgen, Die Geschichte der Deutschen, Hamburg: Stern, 2006,
222. BRD output increased steadily from 325,000 completions in 1950 to 591,000 by 1956 and 714,000 maximum in
1973.
26. Rosner, ‘Housing in Western Germany’, 19–23; Harloe, The People’s Home? 337–41; ‘West German reconstruction’, The
Builder, 21 April 1967, 127; P. Balchin, Housing Policy in Europe, London: Routledge, 1996, 28.
27. T. Harlander and G. Fehl (eds), Hitlers sozialer Wohnungsbau 1940–1945, Hamburg: Christians Verlag, 1986;
F. Urban, ‘The hut on the garden plot: informal architecture in twentieth-century Berlin’, Journal of the Society of
Architectural Historians 72, no 2 (June 2013): 221–49.
28. Public or private builders accepting 4% maximum returns for fifteen years received low-interest support: finance
comprised non-governmental first-mortgages (25–30%), state loans and grants (45–50%), owners’ contributions
(15%): M. Wynn, Housing in Europe, London: Croom Helm, 1984: 55–74; Rosner, ‘Housing in Western Germany’,
19–23; Harloe, The People’s Home? 342; Power, Hovels to High-Rise, 113–27.
29. Harloe, The People’s Home? 341–2. Of the 2,095, three-quarters were co-ops and the remainder limited companies:
Gesamtverband gemeinnütziger Wohnungsunternehmen eV, The Non-Profit Housing Enterprises in the Federal
Republic of Germany, Cologne: 1969, 5–6; SAGA GWG, Verantwortung für Hamburg: 90 Jahre SAGA GWG,
Hamburg: SAGA, 2012.
30. Harloe, The People’s Home? 249–55, 341–8; Urban, ‘Germany, country of tenants’, 185–9; W. and J. Petsch,
Bundesrepublik : eine neue Heimat? Städtebau und Architektur nach ‘45, Berlin: VAS, 1983; U. Herlyn, Wohnen in
Hochhaus, Stuttgart: K Krämer, 1970.
31. SAGA GWG, 90 Jahre. Andres Lepik and Hilde Strobl (eds), Die Neue Heimat 1950–1982: eine sozialdemokratische
Utopie und ihre Bauten, Munich: Detail, 2019.
32. Neue Heimat, Wohnungen, Wohnungen und nochmals Wohnungen, Hamburg: Neue Heimat-Hamburg, 1956.
33. J. S. Fuerst, Public Housing, London: Croom Helm, 1974, 70–87; Schwarz and Frank, Neue Heimat, 16, 31;
P Kramper, Neue Heimat, Stuttgart: VSWG Beiheft 2000, 2008; ‘West German reconstruction’, 1967, 127; Kramper,
‘Das Unternehmen’, 89–102. NH Städtebau 1969; Neue Heimat, WIR, Hamburg: Neue Heimat, 1964 (organizational

582
 Notes

diagram, 7); Power, Hovels to High-Rise, 134–42; SCIC: G. Bolle, Charles-Gustave Stoskopf, Architecte: les Trente
Glorieuses et la reinvention des traditions, Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2017, 92–5 (SCIC’s output
totalled 415,000 by 1981).
34. J. Diefendorf, ‘Reconstruction law and building law in postwar Germany’, Planning Perspectives 1 (1986): 107–29;
J. Diefendorf, Rebuilding Urban Japan, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, 216–19; Power, Hovels to High-Rise, 127.
35. Neue Heimat, WIR; F. Urban, Tower and Slab: Histories of Global Mass Housing, London: Routledge, 2015, 61–2;
Power, Hovels to High-Rise, 128; J. Düwel and N. Gutschow, Städtebau in Deutschland im 20. Jahrhundert, Berlin:
Bornträger, 2005, 204.
36. Wynn, Housing in Europe, 55–74; Harloe, Hovels to High-Rise, 349–51; W. Jung, H. Schmitz, N. Froberg and
S. Hessling, Reworking the ‘Economic Miracle’ Era in Wolfsburg-Detmerode, Frankfurt: Frankfurt University of Applied
Sciences, 2014. NH political power in Hamburg: Schwarz and Frank, Neue Heimat, 50.
37. Urban, ‘Märkisches Viertel’, 176–96; Urban, Tower and Slab, 67ff.; ‘West German Reconstruction’, 1967, 127; Urban,
‘Germany, country of tenants’, 188–90; Urban, New Tenement, 62–5: Wedding-Brunnenstrasse plan overseen by TU
Berlin professor Fritz Eggeling – largely completed by mid-1980s.
38. C. Quiring and W. Voigt, Ernst May 1886–1970, Munich: Prestel, 2010, 216; Power, Hovels to High-Rise, 159.
39. J. Göderitz, R. Rainer and H. Hoffmann, Die gegliederte und aufgelockerte Stadt, Tübingen: Wasmuth, 1957; Neue
Heimat, Neue Heimat Monatshefte 10 (1981): 16–29; Diefendorf, ‘Reconstruction law’; Düwel and Gutschow,
Städtebau, 166.
40. SAGA = Gemeinnützige Siedlungs-Aktiengesellschaft. F. Spengelin, ‘Die Entwicklung des Wohnungsbaus in
Hamburg seit 1945’, Neue Heimat Monatshefte 10 (1981): 18; SAGA GWG, 90 Jahre. The first blocks (1 and 4) opened
in 1950. Axel Schidt, Hartmut Frank and Ullrich Schwarz (eds), Die Grindelhochhäuser, Hamburg: Dölling & Galitz,
2007
41. G. Dolff-Bonekämper and F. Schmidt, Das Hansaviertel, Berlin: Verlag Bauwesen, 1999; Concrete Quarterly, January–
March 1958, 2–23; Bauen Wohnen 3 (1960): 95. Bauwelt, Neue deutsche Architektur 2, Stuttgart: Hatje, 1962, 52–69.
Designers of the five point-blocks included Van den Broek and Bakema, and G. Hassenpflug.
42. Düwel and Gutschow, Städtebau, 166–70. Bonn-Plittersdorf: Die Denkmalpflege (2017): 13–19. H. Schoszberger (ed.),
Neuer Wohnbau, Band 1, Ravensburg: Otto Maier Verlag, 1952, 9–39, 166–72; Jung et al., Reworking the ‘Economic
Miracle’ Era.
43. K. von Beyme, W. Durth and N. Gutschow, Neue Städte aus Ruinen, Deutscher Städtebau der Nachkriegszeit, Munich:
Prestel, 1991, 72.
44. By the Eisenbahnwohnbaugesellschaft Nürnberg, adjoining its Bauernfeind-Siedlung (1907–39): WBG Nürnberg
GmbH, ‘Historie’, 2016, www.wbg.nuernberg.de/unternehmensgruppe/historie. 1950–2 Ruhrgebiet coal/steel garden
cities: Ministerium für Arbeit des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, Bauen Wohnen Leben, Stuttgart: AWAG, 1954,
9–43.
45. Stadt Hannover, Neues Bauen in Hannover 2, Hannover: Presseamt Hannover, 1961. Alternative, high-density low-rise
patterns: e.g. Wohnstadt Überherrn, Saarland, built in 1961–5 with assistance from the mining industry: Die
Denkmalpflege 1 (1996): 69. See also Meyer-Bohe, Apartments.
46. Die Denkmalpflege 2 (2017): 174–5; M. Zimmermann, ‘Alte Stadt der Zukunft’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 7
February 1981; Schwarz and Frank, Neue Heimat, 144–7, 177–83. ‘Hochhaus in Bremen’, Bauwelt 2 (1959): 42–3;
Bauwelt 41 (1962): 1148–51; Lepik and Strobl, Neue Heimat, 140–3; Neue Heimat, WIR, 35–7.
47. Lenk, Nürnberg-Langwasser; Schwarz and Frank, Neue Heimat, 230–1. Nachbarschaft U, 1957–75: Lepik and Strobl,
Neue Heimat, 152–4.
48. Schwarz and Frank, Neue Heimat, 200–7, 262–72, 300, 385, 444, 737–41; Rosner, ‘Housing in Western Germany’,
19–23; W. Hagspiel, Architektur in Köln, Anfänge der Gegenwart, Cologne: n.p., 1978, 29; Düwel and Gutschow,
Städtebau, 192–201, 205, 234–6; Lepik and Strobl, Neue Heimat, 171–3, 177–86; Hamburger Abendblatt, 28 October
2014; Spengelin, ‘Entwicklung’, 22–5.
49. Schwarz and Frank, Neue Heimat, 300, 315ff., 376–84, 714; Die Zeit, 17 April 1959; Stuttgarter Nachrichten, 7 February
1959, 26 February 1959, 15 May 1959; Asemwald Intern, Jubiläumsausgabe, Stuttgart: 2011.

583
Notes

50. Schwarz and Frank, Neue Heimat, 186–90, 276–84, 376–81. Lepik and Strobl, Neue Heimat, 161–3, 174–6, 198–201;
Kramper, ‘Das Unternehmen’, 97; Quiring et al., Ernst May, 58, 216, 226, 312.
51. ‘Berlin builds in hope’, Building, 12 September 1969, 108–10; Urban, Tower and Slab, 67ff.; Urban, ‘Märkisches Viertel’,
176–96; Urban, ‘Germany, country of tenants’, 188–9; ‘Märkisches Viertel, Berlin-Reinickendorf ’, Architectural Design,
January 1964, 36–9.
52. Fritz Erler-Allee 120: http://www.bg-ideal.de/index.php?id=264; R. Rave and H. J. Knoefel, Bauen seit 1900 in Berlin,
Berlin: Kiepert, 1968, 82, 228; Urban, ‘Märkisches Viertel’, 176–96.
53. Sanierungsgebiet Kreuzberg Süd, Planungsgruppe SKS: R. Rave, H.-J. Knöfel and J. Rave, Bauen der 70er Jahre in
Berlin, Berlin: Kiepert, 1981, 296. Urban, New Tenement, 37–9.
54. Andreas Kunz, Die Akte Neue Heimat, 2 vols, Frankfurt: Lampus, 2003. Schwarz and Frank, Neue Heimat, 13, 17;
Power, Hovels to High-Rise, 146, 370; ‘Die verkauften Mieter’, Stern, 1986, 41ff.; Kramper, ‘Das Unternehmen’, 98–102.
55. Harloe, The People’s Home? 341–2, 462–7; Rosner, ‘Housing in Western Germany’; Urban, ‘Germany, country of
tenants’, 193.

Chapter 9 The Nordic Countries – Social Versus Individual?

1. G. Esping-Andersen, The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990;
B. Greve, Routledge Handbook of the Welfare State, Abingdon: Routledge, 2013.
2. P. Balchin, Housing Policy in Europe, London: Routledge, 1996, 111; Hannu Ruonavaara, ‘Home Ownership and
Nordic Housing Policies in the Retrenchment Phase’, Delft: Delft TU, 2008 (https://repository.tudelft.nl/islandora/
object/uuid:9d5bbec2-06e7-4a26-8e16-77ab78e3d56c/datastream/OBJ): 1990s percentages of social-rented housing,
individually-owned housing, and indirect ownership, including co-ops: 23/38/16 Sweden, 20/51/6 Denmark, 17/64/0
Finland, 5/63/14 Norway, 4/81/5 Iceland (remainder market-rented).
3. S. Bengtson, ‘Housing and planning in Sweden’, in J. S. Fuerst, Public Housing in Europe, London: Croom Helm, 1974,
108–9. K. Misgeld, K. Molin and K. Åmark, Creating Social Democracy: A Century of the SDP in Sweden, University
Park: Penn State University Press, 1992, 25–36.
4. Misgeld et al., Social Democracy, xxii, xxix, 3, 422–6; C. William-Olsson, Stockholm, Structure and Development,
Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell, 1961. H. E. Senkowsky, ‘Swedish Housing since 1955’, AA Journal (January 1962).
5. Misgeld et al., Social Democracy, 45, 264; H. Mattson, ‘Where the motorways meet: architecture and corporatism in
Sweden, 1968’, in M. Swenarton, T. Avermaete and D. van den Heuvel (eds), Architecture and the Welfare State,
Abingdon: Routledge, 2015, 158–9; Scandinavian Housing and Planning Research 9 (1992): 105–20.
6. Misgeld et al., Social Democracy, 219ff., 278–9.
7. D. Pass, Vällingby and Farsta: From Idea to Reality, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1973, 170. M. Hird, ‘The Good
Apartment’, Home Cultures 7, no. 2 (2010): 117–33.
8. Hird, ‘The Good Apartment’, 117–33.
9. L. Nordström, Lort-Sverige, Stockholm: Libris, 1938.
10. William-Olsson, Stockholm.
11. A. Hald, P. Holm and G. Johansson, Swedish Housing, Stockholm: Swedish Society of Architects, 1949, 24; Architecture
and Building, December 1958, 446; Misgeld et al., Social Democracy, 254. Christina Engförs, Folkhemmets Bostäder
1940–1960, Stockholm: Arkitektur Museet, 1987, 11; Arkitektur, December 1973, 18–20; Misgeld et al., Social
Democracy, 262.
12. Westholms bibel and Svenska Slojdföreningen publications: Christina Engförs, Folkhemmets Bostäder 1940–1960,
Stockholm: Arkitekturmuseet, 1987, 11; E. Eriksson, ‘Housing policy and housing renewal’, Arkitektur, December
1973, 18–20; Misgeld et al., Creating Social Democracy, 262.
13. Engförs, Folkhemmets Bostäder.
14. The Builder, 2 November 1946.

584
 Notes

15. Bo Bengtsson, ‘Not the Middle Way But Both Ways – Cooperative Housing in Sweden’, Scandinavian Housing and
Planning Research 9 (1992): 87–104.
16. Misgeld et al., Social Democracy, 237–9, 254–7, 264; Bengtsson, ‘Middle way’; Engförs, Folkhemmets Bostäder, 9–48;
Sveriges Allmännytiga Bostads Företag (SABO), Municipal Housing Companies – Experiences in Sweden, Stockholm:
SABO, 1996.
17. Pass, Vällingby and Farsta, 118–19; M. Andersson, Stockholm’s Annual Rings, Stockholm: Stockholmia, 1998;
I. R. Cook, ‘Showcasing Vällingby to the world’, Planning Perspectives 33, no. 3 (2018): 315–33.
18. Misgeld et al., Social Democracy, 258–9, 265; Engförs, Folkhemmets Bostäder.
19. Misgeld et al., Social Democracy, 290–6.
20. Land bank already in the early twentieth century: Misgeld et al., Social Democracy, 256–7.
21. Yngve Larsson (1940–6, Liberal) and Helge Berglund (1947–58, SAP): Pass, Vällingby and Farsta, 37–61, 115–19.
22. Within this consensual system, overtly polemical figures stood out as exceptions, such as militant småstuga advocate
Axel Dahlberg, Stockholm city estates director up to 1945: Pass, Vällingby and Farsta, 52–61, 113–14.
23. Town centre allocated to commercial AB Farsta Centrum after 4:3 vote on party lines: Pass, Vällingby and Farsta,
65–104, 170; Byggmästaren, July 1944. Pass, Vällingby and Farsta, 113–14; C. H. Sporle, ‘Owner-built cottages at
Stockholm’, The Builder, 27 April 1956, 412–13; G. E. Kidder Smith, Sweden Builds, London: Architectural Press,
1950.
24. Byggmästaren housing issue on social and private developers, Olle Engqvist foremost among the latter: Byggmästaren,
July 1944.
25. Borge Algers, Småhusbyggande I storstadregion, Byggforskningen, Stockholm: Rapport 96, 1963, 62–3, 116–17; Pass,
Vällingby and Farsta, 113–14; Sporle, ‘Owner-built cottages’, 412–13; Kidder Smith, Sweden Builds.
26. Swedes ‘have much to learn from British town planning, but practically nothing from British architecture, [with its]
meretricious, ill planned . . . poorly designed’ projects: RIBA Journal, October 1946, 529; Hald et al., Swedish Housing,
3; Byggmästaren A12 (1955): 203–5; Byggmästaren 10 (1945): 187.
27. Arkitektur, December 1973, 4–9.
28. Andersson, Stockholm’s Annual Rings, 146–54, 172–5; R. Turkington, R. van Kampen and F. Wassenberg (eds),
High-Rise Housing in Europe, Delft: Delft University Press, 2004; Pass, Vällingby and Farsta, 34–6.
29. Kooperativa Förbundets Artikektkontor (KFA), Swedish Cooperative Architectural Office, 1925–49 Part 2, Stockholm:
KFB Förlag, 1949; Byggmästaren A5 (1958): 116–20; Byggmästaren 10 (1945): 187.
30. Byggmästaren A7 (1958); Byggmästaren A12 (1955).
31. Danish questioning of ‘excessively rhetorical’ Swedish architecture: H. E. Langkilde, Byggmästaren (1946): 22–4.
Punkthus projects c. 1946: KFA, Swedish Cooperative, 102. ‘Sculpture in Space’, Architects’ Journal, 28 February 1952.
32. Byggmästaren A4 (1957).
33. British high-rise enthusiast Rolf Jensen on Swedes’ ‘strong national preference for flat life’, and ‘the ultimate simplicity
of expression and form’ represented by Danviksklippan, etc.: R Jensen, ‘Vällingby’, Architecture and Building News, 14
July 1955, 47–54; Ernst May: dwellings in towers should be 13% maximum: Housing Review 9, no. 3 (May –June
1960): 73–4.
34. Byggmästaren A4 (1957); Mattson, ‘Where the motorways meet’, 169; RIBA Journal, January 1963, 15–18;
J. F. Munch-Petersen, Byggeteknologiens udvikling: Danmark efter anden verdenskrig, Lyngby: n.p., 1980, 3. Allan
Skarne, Arkitektur, December 1973, 21–3; Architecture and Building, December 1958, 481–4; ‘A visit to Sweden and
Denmark’, Concrete Quarterly, October–December 1959, 2–13; RIBA Journal, January 1963, 15–18; Jensen, ‘Vällingby’,
47–54; Concrete Quarterly, October–December 1959, 2–13; Builder, 28 June 1963, 1313–15; ‘Ohlsson & Skarne’, R.
Diamant, Industrialised Building, London: Iliffe, 1964, 67–9; Housing from the Factory, London: 1962, 33–40; R.
Bradbury, ‘Industrialised Housing in Scandinavia’, Municipal Review, September 1963, 570–9 (Scandinavian systems
far in ‘advance’ of ‘pathetically weak’ British prefabrication).
35. Byggmästaren 3 (1945): 47–9; Byggmästaren 25 (1945): 484–93. It included showhouses fitted out by the Swedish
Design Council and SAR.

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Notes

36. Bostadsbyggelse i stora enheter, Tidskr, Stockholm: Byggmästarens Förlag, 1952; Engförs, Folkhemmets Bostäder;
Scandinavian Housing and Planning Research, 1992, 112–13.
37. Byggmästaren 10 (1945): 187.
38. Byggmästaren 2 (1946): 22–4; Danviksklippan, Engförs, Folkhemmets Bostäder.
39. Danviksklippan said to be 5% cheaper than medium-rise Zeilenbau. Taller tjockhus projects (seven to nine storeys)
included Marieberg and Johanneshov by Olle Engkvist, 1942–3: Byggmästaren 2 (1946): 33–46; A. Roth, ‘Punkthäuser,
Danvikslippan’, Werk 1 (1949): 10–13: Byggmästaren 7 (1944); Architects’ Journal, 10 January 1946, 29–32.
40. Andersson, Stockholm’s Annual Rings, 160–70; Arkitektur, December 1973, 4–6; M. Persson, ‘Årsta – staden i skogen’,
Folkets Historia 1 (1998): 2–14. H. Mattson and S. O. Wallenstein (eds), Swedish Modernism, London: Black Dog, 2010,
157; Familjebostäder, Hökarängen, Arkitekturmuseet, 1998; Byggmästaren 24 (1951) and A12 (1955). Hökarängen got
off to a bad start, with its low-income emergency flats in some blocks; Andersson, Stockholm’s Annual Rings, 168–70.
41. City estates official: Farsta ‘must be the largest stone quarry in Europe, because we’ve had to pull down hundreds of
thousands of cubic metres of mountains to make it possible to build’: Architecture and Building, December 1958, 446;
Jensen, ‘Vällingby’, 47–54; Official Architecture and Planning, February 1954; Pass, Vällingby and Farsta, 13–19, 80, 165;
Byggmästaren A12 (1955); E. J. Guerin, ‘Vällingby’, Architecture and Building, December 1958, 444–64.
42. Complex vernacular terraces like Italy’s INA-Casa, designed by Adrian Langedal of Stadsbyggnadskontor: Andersson,
Stockholm’s Annual Rings.
43. Näsbydal: The Builder, 28 June 1963, 1313–15; Byggmästaren 11 (1960); blocks interspersed by massive underground
air-raid shelters.
44. Expressen, 28 June 1962; Byggnadsindustrin 20 (1968); T. Hall and S. Vidén, Planning Perspectives, July 2005,
311–28.
45. State support stemmed from the 1959 pension law: Misgeld et al., Social Democracy, 52, 260–1; C. Söderquist,
‘Programmet som inte finns’, Arkitekten, September 2008; Andersson, Stockholm’s Annual Rings, 181–3;
Arkitekturmuseet, En Miljon Bostäder (Årsbok 1996), Stockholm: Arkitekturmuseet, 1996; Rekordåren: en epic i
svenskt bostadsbyggande, Karlskrona: n.p., 1999; S. Vidén and G. Lundahl (eds), Miljonprogrammets bostäder,
Stockholm: SRB, 1992; 340,000 built by municipal companies, 145,000 by co-ops, 93,000 private-rental, 350,000
single-family private-enterprise, 8,000 by communes for employees.
46. Svenska Institutet, Fact Sheets on Sweden: Housing and Planning Policy in Sweden, Stockholm: Svenska Institutet,
1980.
47. S. Bengtson, ‘Housing and planning in Sweden’, in J S Fuerst, Public Housing, London: Croom Helm, 1974, 106–9: ‘It
has been decided that housing can only be built in large quantities, if it is financed and controlled by government.
Such things as land speculation, segregation of the aged, segregation of the poor and rent-fixing are things of the past
in Sweden’; Balchin, Housing Policy in Europe, 106; Andersson, Stockholm’s Annual Rings, 181–203.
48. Tensta developers including Olsson, HSB, Svenska Riksbyggen, SB, Olaf Lindgren, Familjebostäder and Hanson och
Högland. Familjebostäder, Rinkeby, Stockholm: Arkitekturmuseet, 1998.
49. Mattson, ‘Where the motorways meet’, 169.
50. O. Bengtzon, J. Delden and J. Lundgren, Rapport Tensta, Stockholm: PAN, 1970; En Miljon Bostäder; Misgeld et al.,
Social Democracy, 295–6.
51. C. Flemström and R. Ronnby, Fallet Rosengård, Lund: n.p., 1972; Bengtson, ‘Housing and Planning in Sweden’, 109;
‘Nybyggd slum’, Expressen, 22 March 1966; Bengtzon et al., Rapport Tensta.
52. I. Elander and T. Strömberg, ‘Whatever happened to Social Democracy and planning?’, in L. Lundqvist (ed.), Policy,
Organisation, Tenure: A Comparative of Housing in Small Welfare States, Stockholm: Scandanavian University Press,
105–; L.-O. Franzén, ‘Riv Skärholmen!’, Dagens Nyheter, 10 September 1968; En Miljon Bostäder, 27; Misgeld et al.,
Social Democracy, 261.
53. Munch-Petersen, Byggeteknologiens udvikling, 58.
54. P. Sverrild, ‘Grenhusene’, Hvidovre Kommune plan, 2009.

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 Notes

55. The Builder, 16 August 1957, 272–3; E. Hiort, Housing in Denmark since 1930, London: Architectural Press, 1952,
14–28; XIII International Congress for Housing and Town Planning, Hastings, October 1946, Catalogue of Exhibits
from Denmark, 1946, 11–12; Munch-Petersen, Byggeteknologiens udvikling, 6–10.
56. Hiort, Housing, 7; IUA, Habitation 2, n.p.p.: IUA, 1955, 42–5; Norman Tiptaft, ‘Scandinavian housing’, Municipal
Journal 9 (December 1960): 3936.
57. In 1992, 20% of dwellings were non-profit (subdivided 6:1 between housing societies and municipal/government-
owned); Hiort, Housing, 17, 51–2; M. Larsen and T. Larsen, I medgang og modgang – dansk byggeri og den danske
velfærdsstat 1945–2007, Ballerup: Byggecentrum, 2007, 17–20; H. Vestergaard, Scandinavian Housing and Planning
Research 9 (1992): 37–45.
58. A. Power, Hovels to High-Rise, London: Routledge, 1993, 262.
59. 1951: loans from Kongeriget Danmarks Hypothekbank. 1955: top-up loans of 50% (non-profit), 15% (low-income
owner-occupation), 27% (private building), 15% grants (low-income): IUA, Habitation, 42–5; The Builder, 16 August
1957, 272–3. Hiort, Housing, 14–33.
60. Power, Hovels to High-Rise, 260–2.
61. Hiort, Housing, 9–13, 57–70, 98ff.; E. Graae, H. Helger and C., E. and A. Holst, Generalplanskitse: Høje-Tåstrup
Storcenter, n.p.p: n.p., 1966; J. Floris, ‘Dronningegården and Kay Fisker’s Continuum’, OASE 92 (2014): 30–40
62. B. Larsen and P. Sverrild, ‘The Køge Bugt Plan 50 Years on’, in C. Caldenby and O. Wedebrunn (eds), Survival of
Modern, Copenhagen: DOCOMOMO/Royal Danish Academy, 2013, 126–35; Sverrild, ‘Grenhusene’; G. A. Atkinson,
Architectural Review, November 1948, 289.
63. Architects’ Journal, 4 March 1981, 393; Hiort, Housing, 49–56; ‘Larsen & Nielsen’, in Diamant, Industrialised Building,
37, 77–80; Munch-Petersen, Byggeteknologiens udvikling, 3–10, 23, 27, 58; Power, Hovels to High-Rise, 261–2; Architect
and Building News, 17 September 1948, 242–3.
64. Danalea: Power, Hovels to High-Rise, 263–4; M. Kjeldsen, Industrialised Housing in Denmark, Copenhagen:
Byggecentrum, 1976, 60–9.
65. Kjeldsen, Industrialised Housing, 9; Munch-Petersen, Byggeteknologiens udvikling, 23–7; J. F. Munch-Petersen, ‘The
trend towards industrialised building methods in Denmark’, in Housing from the Factory, London: Cement and
Concrete Association, 1962, 26–32; H. Vestergaard and K. Scanlon, ‘Social Housing in Denmark’, in C. Whitehead and
K. Scanlon (eds), Social Housing in Europe, London: London School of Economics and Political Science, 2007, 44–53.
66. Kjeldsen, Industrialised Housing, 1–4, 23–8; Munch-Petersen, ‘The trend towards industrialised building’, 27;
Munch-Petersen, Byggeteknologiens udvikling, 23–8, 31–2, 42, 58; ‘Larsen & Nielsen’, in Diamant, Industrialised
Building, 77–80; The Builder, 16 August 1957, 272–3; J. F. Munch-Petersen, Typical Danish Prefabricated Floors, Walls
and Facades, Lyngby: Institute of Building Design, 1980. In 1963 a visiting British municipal delegation toured the
Glostrup factory with ‘Mr Larsen and Mr Nielsen personally’: Bradbury, ‘Industrialised housing’, 571, 578.
67. Architectural Review, November 1948, 21.
68. Hiort, Housing, 42, 58–60. Voldparken co-developed by Copenhagen Municipality, AAB (architect Kay Fisker) and
FSB (architect Ed Heiberg). Bredalsparken: 894 low-rise flats and 278 row-houses, designed with a lavishness difficult
to reconcile with cheap rents; P. T. Kristensen, F. Schoop and J. M. Lindhe, Svenn Eske Kristensen: Velfærdsarkitekten,
Copenhagen: Aristo, 2018.
69. KAB, SB, AKB and AAB: Hiort, Housing, 71–83; UIA, Habitation, 46–65. Scheme partly pre-financed by premium
from tenants: Munch-Petersen, ‘The trend towards industrialised building’.
70. G. E. Jensen, L. Hollensen, P. Sverrild, Velfærdsdrømme – Svenn Eske Kristensens bygninger I Brøndby og Hvidovre,
Hvidovre: Forstadsmuseet, 2010; Munch-Petersen, Byggeteknologiens udvikling, 50–6.
71. Ballerupplanen, Byggeindustrien, 1962, 3–4; Munch-Petersen, ‘The trend towards industrialised building’, 28–9.
72. Kjeldsen, Industrialised Housing, 18–23, 52, 100–3; Munch-Petersen, Byggeteknologiens udvikling, 34–42, 54–8. Avedøre
Stationsby divided between two societies, the Glostrup Boligselskab and the Arbejdernes Kooperative Byggeforening
A/S. Brøndby Strand’s engineers were Dominia A/S Kjeldsen. Partners: Danske Funktionerenes Boligaktieselskab,
Postfunktionerenes Andels-Boligforening; Brøndbyernes Kommunes Boligselskab AS; Tranemorgård.

587
Notes

73. R. E. Doel, K. C. Harper and M. Heymann, Exploring Greenland: Cold War Science and Technology on Ice, London:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, 47–8; Blok P was ultimately owned by the devolved Greenland government
(Naalakkersuisut) and was demolished in 2012.
74. Building, 12 September 1969, 99–101; Munch-Petersen, ‘The trend towards industrialised building’; Sverrild,
‘Grenhusene’. Galgebakken by Malmstrøm; Hyldespjældet, with Larsen & Nielsen; Farum Midtpunkt by Farum
Boligselskab and Københavns Almindelige Boligselskab. Kjeldsen, Industrialised Housing, 40–3, 110–15, 124–32;
Munch-Petersen, Byggeteknologiens udvikling, 60.
75. Munch-Petersen, Byggeteknologiens udvikling, 58.
76. Condominium flats peaked in the 1970s; self-built houses accounted for up to a third of output. Scandinavian
Housing and Planning Research 9 (1992): 47–59, 121–36. Ministry of the Environment, Housing, Building and
Planning in Finland, Helsinki: MOE, 1989, 14–17; M. R. Norri, E. Standertskjöld and W. Wang (eds), 20th-Century
Architecture, Finland, Frankfurt: DAM, 2000, 232; H. J. Becker and W. Schlote, Neuer Wohnbau in Finnland, Stuttgart:
Krämer, 1958, 51; Planning Perspectives 23, no. 2 (April 2008): 167.
77. Becker and Schlote, Neuer Wohnbau, 51; Planning Perspectives 23, no. 2 (April 2008): 147–69; Timo Tuomi,
Tapiola: A History and Architectural Guide, Espoo: City Museum, 1992; Norri et al., 20th-Century Architecture,
85–9.
78. Tiptaft, ‘Scandinavian housing’, 39–41. Timber houses accounted for 97% of the national housing stock in 1950. Norri
et al., 20th-Century Architecture, 74–5. Warkaus, Aalto: P. Korvenmaa, ‘The Finnish wooden house transformed’,
Construction History 6 (1990): 47–62.
79. Planning Perspectives, April 2008, 147–69.
80. Tuomi, Tapiola, 17–39.
81. Norri et al., 20th-Century Architecture, 94, 232–3; E. Mäkiö, Kerrostalot 1960–1975, Helsinki: Rakennustieto Oy, 1994,
20; Timo Tähtinen, ‘Financing Social Housing in Finland’, Housing Finance International, 2003, 1–5; D. van den
Heuvel, H. Mesman and W. Quist, The Challenge of Change: Dealing with the Legacy of the Modern Movement,
Amsterdam: IOS Press, 2008, 409–12; T. Tuomi, ‘Housing Areas in Finland 1960–1980’, in Caldenby and Wedebrunn,
Survival of Modern, 120–5.
82. CECODHAS, Housing Review Europe: Finland, Brussels: CECODHAS, 2012.
83. M. Harloe, The People’s Home? Oxford: Blackwell, 1995, 549; Lundquist, Policy, Organisation, Tenure, 71–86;
A.-H. Nagel, ‘Communalism or co-operativism?’, Housing and Planning Research, 1992, 71–86.
84. Ministry of Local Government and Labour (MLGL), From Reconstruction to Environmental Challenges, Oslo: MLGL,
1996, 8 and 23ff. Owners’ down payment covered the remainder; loans attracted 2.5% interest rates until 1957.
J.-D. Martens, Norwegian Housing, Oslo: Norsk Arkitekturforlag, 1993, 10–14, 31–5; Tiptaft, ‘Scandinavian housing’,
39–43; Harloe, The People’s Home? 549. System coordinated from 1946 by Federation of Norwegian Co-operative
Building and Housing Associations (Norske Boligbyggelags Landsforbund: NBBL).
85. Nagel, ‘Communalism or Cooperativism?’, 71, 80–2. BOB, founded 1941, was modelled on OBOS; Vestbo founded
1946. Guttorm Ruud, ‘Welfare as consumption’, EAHN 2018 Conference Proceedings, Tallinn, 2018.
86. R. Stenbro and S. Riesto, ‘Beyond the scope of preservation’, Nordisk Kulturpolitisk Tidskrift 17, no. 2 (2014):
210–34; Martens, Norwegian Housing, 21ff.; C. Caldenby and O. Wedebrunn (eds), Living and Dying in the Urban
Modernity, Copenhagen: DOCOMOMO/Royal Danish Academy, 2010, 136–7. Ammerud, 1966, Zeilenbau slabs and
curved block; Ramsås: Husbank-financed OBOS development, with stepped blocks up to ten storeys; OBOS: Oslo
Bolig- og Sparelag.
87. Bergen kommune, Verneverdige bygninger og bygningsmiljøer I bydelen Landås, Bergen: n.p., 1993. Strimmelen
planned by the municipality and transferred to BOB.
88. J. Nyberg and E. Røyrane, Arkitektur Guide Bergen, Bergen: Bodoni, 2014, 170–3; Nagel, ‘Communalism or
Cooperativism?’ In 1972, Laksevåg was absorbed by Bergen and Loddefjord acquired a ‘ghetto’ rather than elite
connotation.
89. Eggert Þór Bernharðsson, Undir bárujárnsboga. Braggalíf í Reykjavík 1940–1970, Reykjavík: JPV, 2000; A. M. Seelow,
Die Moderne Architektur in Island, Nürnberg: Verlag für Moderne Kunst, 2011, 297.

588
 Notes

90. J. R. Sveinsson, Scandinavian Housing and Planning Research, 1992, 61–70: with self-built housing the established
norm (but using concrete, given the absence of native timber stone) and very little private building capital available,
options were severely restricted.
91. J. R. Sveinsson, ‘The formation of urban home-ownership in Iceland’, ENHR Conference, Cambridge, 2004;
I. V. Jóhannsson and J. R. Sveinsson, Íslenska húsnæðiskerfið: Rannsókn á stöðu og þróun húsnæðismála, Reykjavík:
University of Iceland, 1986; information from J. R. Sveinsson and S. K. Friðriksson, 2013.
92. Bernharðsson, Braggalíf í Reykjavík; Eggert Þór Bernharðsson, Saga Reykjavíkur: Borgin 1940–1990, Reykjavík:
Iðunn, 1998; J. R. Sveinsson, Social Owner-occupation: The Icelandic Workers’ Dwellings, Reykjavík: n.p., 2004.
93. Pétur H. Ármannsson, Borgarhluti Verður Til: byggingarlist og skipulag í Reykjavík eftirstríðsáranna, Reykjavík:
Kjarvalsstadir, 1999. State Housing Board (Húsnæðisstofnun ríkisins): Sveinsson, ‘The formation of urban home-
ownership’. The SHB’s limited subsidies supplemented families’ self-build labour, and only grew during the hyper-inflation
years, when it was headed (1971–98) by Social Democrat Sigurður Guðmundsson; J. R. Sveinsson, Scandinavian Housing
and Planning Research 9 (1992): 61–70; information from J. R. Sveinsson and S. K. Friðriksson, 2013.
94. Ó. Mathiesen and B. Marteinsson, ‘Reykjavik 1943–1965: foreign influences on planning and construction’, in
Caldenby and Wedebrunn, Survival of Modern, 153–4; Ó. Mathiesen, ‘Breiðholt I Housing Estate’, in Caldenby and
Wedebrunn, Living and Dying, 72–3. Reconstruction Government: ‘Viðreisnarstjórn’; Seelow, Die Moderne
Architektur in Island, 389; information from J. R. Sveinsson and S. K. Friðriksson, 2013; Mathiesen and Marteinsson,
‘Reykjavik 1943–1965’, 136–56.
95. Pétur H. Ármannsson, Einar Sveinsson, arkitekt og húsameistari Reykjavíkur, Reykjavík: Reykjavík Municipal Art
Museum, 1995. Seelow, Die Moderne Architektur in Island, 297, 319, 321–7.
96. Ármannsson, Einar Sveinsson; Ármannsson, Borgarhluti.
97. Byggt yfir Hugsjónir: Breiðholt, Reykjavík: Listasafn Reykyavíkur, 2002; Ármannsson, Borgarhluti.
98. Sveinsson, Social Owner-occupation; Seelow, Die Moderne Architektur in Island, 326.
99. Mathiesen, ‘Breiðholt I Housing Estate’.
100. Mathiesen and Marteinsson, ‘Reykjavik 1943–1965’, 144–6; Sveinsson, ‘The formation of urban home-ownership’;
information from J. R. Sveinsson and S. K. Friðriksson, 2013; Sveinsson, Scandinavian Housing and Planning
Research 9 (1992): 61–70.

Chapter 10 Southern Europe: Social Housing for Kinship Societies

1. In 2002, social-rental percentages were 4% in Italy and 1% in Spain (35% in the Netherlands, 30% in Germany, 17%
in France); owner-occupation percentages were typically 75–85%: A. Boeri, E. Antonini and D. Longo, Edilizia
sociale ad alta densità – strumenti di analisi e strategie di rigenerazione, Milan: Mondadori, 2013, 9.
2. Post-1945 Public Works Department’s ‘Subsidised Workers’ Housing’ programme in Nicosia and Famagusta: Poly
Pantelides, ‘Colonialism in stone’, Cyprus Mail, 2 June 2013; M. Sioulas and P. Pyla, ‘Social Housing in Colonial
Cyprus’, in K. Kılınç and M. Gharipour (eds), Social Housing in the Middle East, Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 2019, 181–206.
3. Housing Authority Act, Chapter 261, 11 October 1976. Home-ownership reached 54% in 1985: D. G. Lockhart,
‘Public housing initiatives in Malta since 1955’, Scottish Geographical Magazine 103, no. 1 (1987): 33–43;
D. Chapman, ‘Knowing and unknowing: development and reconstruction planning in Malta from 1943’, Journal of
Urban Design 10, no. 2 (June 2005): 229–52.
4. S. Spiteri (ed.), Joseph M Spiteri: A Maltese Architect and his Work, Valletta: n.p., 2011, 302; A. Miceli-Farrugia and
P. Bianchi (eds), Modernist Malta: The Architectural Legacy, Gozo: Kamra-tal-Periti, 2009, 35–6.
5. Miceli-Farrugia and Bianchi, Modernist Malta, 35–43; Lockhart, ‘Public housing’.
6. M. Grandi and A. Pracchi, Milano: guida all’ architettura moderna, Milan: Zanichelli, 1980, 235, 259; L. Molinari,
‘Matteotti village and Gallaratese II’, in M. Swenarton, T. Avermaete and D. van den Heuvel (eds), Architecture and
the Welfare State, Abingdon: Routledge, 2015, 262. Milan’s population grew from 9 million to 16 million in 1951–71.

589
Notes

P. Di Biagi, La città publica, edilizia sociale e riqualificazione urbana a Torino, Turin: Allemandi, 2008, 52–3;
R.-H. Guerrand, Une Europe en Construction, Paris: La Découverte , 1992, 153–8, 188–90; Frédéric Dufaux and
Annie Fourcaut, Le monde des grands ensembles, Paris: Créaphis, 2004, 227–9.
7. M. Wynn (ed.), Housing in Europe, London: Croom Helm, 1984, 260; Dufaux and Fourcaut, Grands Ensembles,
228–33; Molinari, ‘Matteotti village’, 266–75.
8. P. Balchin, Housing Policy in Europe, London: Routledge, 1996, 188–9.
9. Balchin, Housing Policy in Europe, 188–9; F. De Pieri, B. Bonomo and G. Caramellino (eds), Storie di case: Abitare
L’Italia del boom, Rome: Donzelli, 2013; Flavia Castro, Edilizia Popolare a Trieste, Trieste: LINT, 1984.
10. Edilizia Popolare, November–December 1983 and January–February 1984; S. Grundmann and U. Fürst, The
Architecture of Rome, Fellbach: Axel Menges, 1998, 342–3. ANIACAP: National Association of Mass Housing
Institutions; INCIS: Istituto Nazionale Impiegato dello Stato; Mediobanca, Il finanzamento dell’edilizia economica e
popolare, Milan: Capriolo and Massimino, 1965, 31.
11. Molinari, ‘Matteotti village’, 258–60; Guerrand, Europe en construction, 188–9; L. Lagomarsino (ed.), Genoa: 100 Years
of Architecture, Genoa: Fondazione Labò, 2004, 93–8; Boeri et al, Edilizia soziale, 69; R. Capomolla and R. Vittorini
(eds), L’Architettura INA-Casa (1949–1963), Rome: Gangemi, 2009, 9–10; P. Di Biagi (ed.), La grande riconstruzione: il
piano Ina-Casa e l’Italia degli anni cinquanta, Rome: Donzelli, 2001; S. Zeier Pilat, Reconstructing Italy: The Ina-Casa
Neighborhoods of the Postwar Era, Farnham: Ashgate, 2014. Maximum annual output 49,000 in 1960: Mediobanca, Il
finanzamento, 8–16.
12. G. Caramellino, F. De Pieri and C. Renzoni, Esplorazioni nella città dei ceti medi, Turin: Lettura Ventidue, 2015,
92–105; F. De Pieri, B. Bonomo, G. Caramellino and F. Zanfi, Storie de case: abitare l’Italia del boom, Rome: Donzelli,
237–55; U. Carughi (ed.), Città architettura, edilizia pubblica, CLEAN, Napoli, 2006; S. Stenti, Napoli moderna, città e
case popolari, Naples: CLEAN, 1993. Grandi and Pracchi, Milano, 252–5; Mediobanca, Il Finanzamento, 40;
Capomolla and Vittorini, L’Architettura INA-Casa, 250–63; Boeri et al., Edilizia sociale, 69; Comune di Napoli,
Assessorato all’urbanistico, Fascicolo urbana, ‘Edilizia abitativa popolare, Comprensorio 167, Naples: Lotto A’, 2012.
13. Capomolla and Vittorini, L’Architettura INA-Casa, 9–17; W. Sonne, Urbanität und Dichte im Städtebau, Berlin: Dom,
2014, 94–7; Molinari, ‘Matteotti village’, 260; Grandi and Pracchi, Milano, 252–60.
14. The INA-Casa ideas drew on the 1949–51 Suggerimenti norme e tipi, an Italian equivalent of the Dutch ‘Voorschriften
en Wenken’: Grandi and Pracchi, Milano, 248–62; 1957 guidelines: ‘Guida per l’esame dei progetti’.
15. Kay Bea Jones, Suspending Modernity, Abingdon: Routledge, 2014.
16. Grandi and Pracchi, Milano, 239–43, 247–8; C. Conforto, G. de Giorgi and A. Muntoni, Il dibattito architettonico in
Italia 1945–1975, Rome: Bulzoni, 1977, 284–5.
17. Wynn, Housing in Europe, 256; Grandi and Pracchi, Milano, 253–5, 259–61; cf. Quartiere IACP Omero, 1949–55,
including nine-storey blocks.
18. Capomolla and Vittorini, L’Architettura INA-Casa, 68–81, 122–39; M. Guccione, M. M. S. Lagunes and R. Vittorini,
Guida ai quartieri romani INA-Casa, Rome: Gangemi, 2002, 50–68; Grundmann and Fürst, Architecture of Rome,
331–4; Casabella, December 1953, 20–5; A. Sotgia, INA-Casa Tuscolano, Biografia di un quartiere romano, Milan:
Franco Angeli, 2010; Conforto, Il dibattito architettonico in Italia 1945–1975, Rome: Bulzoni, 1977, 286–91, 300–1.
INA-Casa’s last Roman project, Torre Spaccata (1958–60), a 2,000-dwelling courtyard development of mixed-height
blocks, was planned by Plinio Marconi for IACP, INCIS and two insurance societies, the National Institute for
Workers’ Insurance (INAIL) and the National Social Providential Institute (INPS).
19. Capomolla and Vittorini, L’Architettura INA-Casa, 82–105, 140–51; Di Biagi, La città publica, 33–5; Conforto, Il
dibattito architettonico, 296–8; Architetti Bologna, Ciclovista 5, Villaggi in Cittä ad Ouest, Bologna, 2010. The same
approach was compressed into a micro-scale in smaller towns such as Cerignola, where Ridolfi built a sixty-unit
INA-Casa project for the Comune in 1950–1. R Maddaluno, ‘Mario Ridolfi at Cerignola’, DOCOMOMO 14 (2016);
‘Nuovi quartieri INA-Casa’, Prospettive 3 (1952).
20. Boeri et al., Edilizia sociale, 55.
21. Capomolla and Vittorini, L’Architettura INA-Casa, 14–15; G. Gianardi, ‘Quartiere Barca, Bologna’, Laboratorio di
Urbanistica Paesaggio e Territorio, Universitä degli Studi di Parma, Parma, 2009; Architetti Bologna, Ciclovista 5;
Conforto, Il dibattito architettonico, 310–11, 328–9; Boeri, Edilizia sociale, 69.

590
 Notes

22. Caramellino, De Pieri and Renzoni, Esplorazioni, 17–23. Cooperatives: De Pieri, Bonomo, Caramellino and Zanfi,
Storie di case, 257–75; Wynn, Housing in Europe, 247–80; Grandi and Pracchi, Milano, 343–73; Dufaux and Fourcaut,
Grands Ensembles, 227–31; Boeri et al., Edilizia sociale, 54–5.
23. Grandi and Pracchi, Milano, 343–5; Di Biagi, La città publica, 60–2.
24. Castro, Trieste, 70–3.
25. Grandi and Pracchi, Milano, 266–71, 344–51. Boeri et al., Edilizia sociale, 44–77. Rental IACP flats were 38% of the
total, home-ownership co-ops 62%. Molinari, ‘Matteotti village’, 258–75; S. G. Carughi and C. Mattiucci, ‘The Vele of
Scampia, Napoli’, Proceedings of the 12th International DOCOMOMO Conference, Porvoo: DOCOMOMO, 2013,
315–21. Conforto, Il dibattito architettonico, 386–7; Stenti, Napoli moderna.
26. Dufaux and Fourcaut, Grands Ensembles, 232; Corviale’s ‘chain’ included five sections, each a separate management
unit: cf. the ‘consorcio’ units of the earlier Conjunto General Savio, Buenos Aires (chapter 13). Conforto, Il dibattito
architettonico, 391; Grundmann and Fürst, Architecture of Rome, 350–1; L. Molinari and C. Ingrosso, ‘The Corviale/
Rome and the Vele/Naples: How a “monster” can become an urban opportunity, or not?’, 14th DOCOMOMO
International Conference. R. Vittorini, ‘Reloaded Corviale’, DOCOMOMO 54, no. 1 (2016): 45–51. Castro, Trieste,
76–81, 195–203: cf. megastructural PEEP di Valmaura (early 1980s).
27. Lagomarsino, Genoa, 152–3. The PEEP’s overall developer was CIGE (Consorzio Imprenditori Edile Genovesi).
28. Grundmann and Fürst, Architecture of Rome, 339–51; see also the higher-density, structuralist-style IACP Q. Vigne
Nuove (1971–9) and Tor Sapienza (1970–85).
29. Grandi and Pracchi, Milano, 266–8; 346–54; Di Biagi, La città publica, 40–1; Cagliari CEP: information from
Giuseppina Monni, 2017.
30. The Sant-Elia project, completed in 1979, was extended in the 1980s and 2000s in a similar manner: P. F. Cherchi and
G. B. Cocco, Architettura, città e paesaggio: il progetto urbano per il quartiere Sant’Elia a Cagliari, Rome: Gangemi,
2009, 26, 38–49. Grandi and Pracchi, Milano, 346–7, 353, 397; A. Sanna and G. Monni, ‘Il quartiere di Sant-Elia a
Cagliari tra progetto e costruzione’, Colloqui ATe 2016, Convegno Ar Tec Matera.
31. Edilizia Popolare 175 (November 1983–February 1984), ‘Venezia’ (special issue): 81–101 (IACP/Comune
intervention).
32. A 1993 law facilitated privatization of public rental housing. Boeri et al., Edilizia sociale, 103; Molinari and Ingrosso,
‘Corviale/Rome and Vele/Naples’; Carughi and Mattiucci, ‘Vele of Scampia’; Vittorini, ‘Reloaded Corviale’, 45–51.
33. Guerrand, Europe en construction, 167–71. Barcelona received 165,000 immigrants in the 1940s and 195,000 in the
1950s, and Madrid’s population more than doubled; 20% of Spain’s population shifted from country to city in the
early postwar decades. M. Neuman, The Imaginative Institution: Planning and Governance in Madrid, Abingdon:
Routledge, 2010; Dorotea Blos, ‘Los Polígonos de Vivienda Social’, PhD thesis, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya,
Barcelona, 1999, 5, 83; A. C. Sanchez, Fear and Progress: Ordinary Lives in Franco’s Spain, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell,
2009, 118–9; I. Ofer, Claiming the City and Contesting the State, London: Taylor and Francis, 2017.
34. Balchin, Housing Policy in Europe, 170–3; Wynn, Housing in Europe, 121–54; Sanchez, Fear and Progress, 5–12, 114.
Some 250,000 people were executed or starved to death during World War II; rural income dropped by 66% between
1935 and 1945.
35. Guerrand, Europe en construction, 94, 152, 167–71; Balchin, Housing Policy in Europe, 170–3; C. Sambricio (ed.), Un
Siglo de Vivienda Social, 1903–2003, vol. 1, Madrid: Editorial Nerea, 2003, 229–54; L. Moya Gonzalez, Barrios de
Promoción Oficial Madrid 1939–1976, Madrid: COAM, 1983, 32; Blos, Los Polígonos, 4–6; Sanchez, Fear and Progress,
118–19; J. López Diaz, ‘Vivienda social y Falange’, Scripta Nova 7, no. 146 (1 August 2003). Arrese blamed the
Republican government and wartime bombing for shortages. Bidagor: Neuman, Imaginative Institution, 102–3.
36. INV built 80,000 dwellings directly in 1944–54, mostly in the countryside, while OSH was said to have built over
138,000 dwellings between 1939 and 1960: Sanchez, Fear and Progress, 12, 118; C. Espegel, A. Canovas, J. M. Lapuerta
and C. M. Arroyo, Vivienda colectiva en España siglo XX, Valencia: GEA, 2013; Wynn, Housing in Europe, 121–54;
Blos, Los Polígonos, 7; ABC Catalunya, 3 June 2002.
37. Sambricio, Siglo de Vivienda Social 2: 53–7. Economic modernization inspired a proliferation of planning agencies,
such as the Comisaría General de Ordenación Urbana de Madrid, established in 1961: Neuman, Imaginative
Institution, 108–9.

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38. Sambricio, Siglo de Vivienda Social 1: 239–54, 288–9, 312–15.

39. Built under the Plan de Urgencia Social, the 1,444-dwelling Polígono Verdun, Barcelona, 1953, comprised heavy,
corniced four-storey blocks: Blos, Los Polígonos, 7–12, 56, 65; J. M. Fraga, C. L. Aizpún, C. D. Medina (eds),
Regeneración Urbana (II) Propuestas para el polígono Balsas de Ebro Viejo, Zaragoza, Zaragoza: Universidad de
Zaragoza, 2015, 82–3; Sambricio, Siglo de Vivienda Social 2, 90–1, 140–1, 167–9, 214–15.
40. B. C. Soriano, Las viviendas del Congreso Eucarístico (thesis), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, 2010,
24–33, 44, 76. The first occupants paid a deposit of 8,000–20,000 pesetas and a monthly mortgage of 175–575 pesetas.
See also http://www.academia.edu/3211430/La_vivienda_vista_por_los_cat%C3%B3licos_El_Patronato_de_las_
Viviendas_del_Congreso_Eucar%C3%ADstico_de_Barcelona.
41. Blos, Los Polígonos, 12–14; Fraga, Aizpún and Medina, Regeneración Urbana (II), 84–7; Sambricio, Siglo de Vivienda
Social 2: 116–17, 138, 180–3, 198–9; Guerrand, Europe en construction, 134–8, 208–9. Low-rise Poblado Hifrensa
public rental project for Vandellós-I nuclear power plant employees by architect Antonio Bonet (1967–75): R. Garcia
and J. Fernando, ‘Antonio Bonet, Poblado Hifrensa’, PhD thesis, Universitat Rovira, 2013.
42. J. P. Silva Nunes, ‘O Programa Habitações de Renda Económica’, Análise Social 206, no. 47 (2013): 82–100; F. Rosas,
Historia de Portugal: O Estado Novo, Lisbon: Circulo de Leitores, 1994; Guerrand, Europe en construction, 158–61;
Wynn, Housing in Europe, 281–310. Economic liberalization followed student and worker unrest in 1956–8;
C. G. Pooley, Housing Strategies in Europe, Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1992, 271–90; F. R. R. Oliveira,
‘HE-FCP – Casas de Renda Económica em Coimbra’, Masters thesis, Coimbra University, 2012, 35.
43. Nuno Portas (ed.), Habitação para o maior numero, Lisbon: CML, IHRU, 2013; SAAL: Serviço Ambulatório de Apoio
Local; N. Mota, ‘From house to home: social control and emancipation in Portuguese public housing’, JSAH 78, no 2
(June 2019).
44. Wynn, Housing in Europe, 305.
45. R. J. Garcia Ramos, E. Gonçalves and S. D. Silva,‘From the late 19th century house question to social housing
programmes in the 30s’, DOCOMOMO Journal 51, no. 2 (2014): 66; Silva Nunes, ‘O programa RE’, 83–7; Pooley,
Housing Strategies, 278–90; A. Alegre and T. Heitor, ‘Flexibility in the first generation of reinforced concrete housing’,
Construction History 20 (2004): 87; Sistema de informação para o Património Arquitectonico, ‘Célula 3 do Bairro de
Alvalade’, IHRU-SIPA 14 (2010); S. D. Silva, E. Gonçalves, R. Ramos, M. Tavares and T. Celix, ‘Mapping Public Housing
in Portugal’ (workshop), 14th DOCOMOMO Conference, Lisbon, 7 September 2016; T. V. Heitor, ‘Olivais e Chelas:
operações urbanísticas de grande escala’, Obtenida el 14: 3. Oliveira, ‘HE-FCP’, 71–3, 79–81.
46. Alvalade development plan, 1945; Alegre and Heitor, ‘Flexibility’, 86–7; ‘Célula 3 do Bairro de Alvalade’; J. Cardim,
‘Modular design in social housing: the work of Justino Morais, 1960–1980’, 21st International Seminar on Urban
Form, Porto, July 2014. Oliveira, ‘HE-FCP’, 83–4; Estacas: by Ruy d’Athouguia and Sebastião Sanchez.
47. Mota, ‘From house to home’; Gisela Lameira and Luciana Rocha, ‘Portuguese state-subsidised multi-family housing
projects’, DOCOMOMO (August 2018), Ljubljana; Oliveira, ‘HE-FCP’, 93–7.
48. Heitor, ‘Olivais e Chelas’; www.bairrojardim.weebly.com/arquitetura-e-urbanismo.html. Hook New Town/
Cumbernauld-style clustered approach in its early phases, such as areas I and N2 (1972–5); T. V. Heitor, ‘Revisiting
Chelas’, DOCOMOMO Journal 55, no. 2 (2016): 58–65; Oliveira, ‘HE-FCP’, 97–113.
49. Estados Unidos by Pedro Cid and João Vasconcelos Esteves: Lameira and Rocha, ‘Multi-family housing projects’.
Contemporary with it (from 1953) was the ten-storey, FCP-financed Águas Livres slab-block, also in central Lisbon:
Stefi Orazi, Modernist Estates Europe, London: White Lion, 2019, 72–81. Some 5,700 low-rise units in Morais’s
‘vernacular’ modular system were built in towns across Portugal.
50. C. A. Potsiou, The Long Experience of Greece Addressing the Question of Informal Settlements, Geneva: UNECE, 2009;
A. Zamani, A. Grigoriadis and E. Safiolea, The Retreat of the Social Housing Sector in Greece, Thessaloniki: ETC, 2015;
www.ekathimerini.com/26871/article/ekathimerini/news/historic-compex-saved; www.britannica.com/biography/
Alexandros-Papagos. Papagos modelled himself on De Gaulle. R Woditsch, The Public-Private House: Modern Athens
and its Polykatoikia, Zurich: Park Books, 2019. I. Theocharopoulou, Builders, Housewifes and the Construction of
Modern Athens, London: Artifice Books on Architecture, 2017; www.mmc.habitat.org.ua/modul2/pract1/pppp1091.
htm; www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aris_Konstantinidis. OEK was abolished in 2012 during the economic crisis: www.
socialpolicy.gr.

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51. A. Eraydin and T. Taşan-Kok, ‘State response to contemporary urban movements in Turkey’, Antipode 46, no. 1 (2014):
116–17; D. Özdemir, ‘The role of the public sector in the provision of housing supply in Turkey’, International Journal
of Urban and Regional Research 35, no. 6 (November 2011): 1101–2; S. Bozdoğan and A. Akcan, Turkey: Modern
Architectures in History, London: Reaktion, 2012, 157–8, 161–7, 282; O. Karaman, ‘Urban Renewal in Istanbul’,
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 37, no. 2 (March 2013): 718. Geçekondular mostly of around
60–100m².
52. Bozdoğan and Akcan, Turkey, 106–9, 157–68; Özdemir, ‘The role of the public sector’, 1102; N. B. Yöney and
Y. Salman, ‘Mass housing development by a government agency’, 14th IPHS Conference, Portsmouth, 2010.
53. Bozdoğan and Akcan, Turkey, 107, 150–3. Garden-city model introduced to Turkey in Jansen’s 1929 Ankara master
plan. Yöney and Salman, ‘Mass housing development’: Levent phase 1, 1947–56, 1,007 dwellings; phase 4, 367
dwellings.
54. Cf. the pioneering private Hukukçular building, Istanbul, 1957–62 – a twelve-storey Unité-style slab with duplexes
and communal facilities: Yöney and Salman, ‘Mass housing development’. Ataköy’s name referenced Atatürk. Phase 1
(1957–62) comprised 662 dwellings in blocks up to thirteen storeys, and phase 2 (1959–64) 852 units: Yöney and
Salman, ‘Mass housing development’; N. B. Yöney and G. Manioğlu, ‘A late Modern housing utopia of the 1950s and
1960s: Ataköy Phases I and II’, in Conservation of the 20th-Century Architectural and Industrial Heritage, Istanbul:
YEM, 2006, 169–72; N. B. Yöney, ‘The suburban development as modern city’, 11th International DOCOMOMO
Conference, 2008; Bozdoğan and Akcan, Turkey, 149; G. N. D. Alexander, ‘Caught between aspiration and actuality:
the Etiler Housing Cooperative’, JSAH 76, no. 3 (September 2017): 349–65. ‘Standards’ = ‘halk konutları standrartları’.
55. Information from Özgür Bingöl, Mimar Sinan University, Istanbul, 2017. The 1981 law was 2487, 1984 was 2985. The
1984 agency: Toplu Konut ve Kamu Ortaklığı İdaresi Başkanlığı. Mass Housing Fund: Toplu Konut Fonu; Özdemir, ‘The
role of the public sector’, 1103–4; Bozdoğan and A Akcan, Turkey; Eraydin and Taşan-Kok, ‘State response’, 117–18.
56. Özdemir, ‘The role of the public sector’, 1104.
57. Yöney and Salman, ‘Mass housing development’.
58. Elif Y. Özgen, ‘An analytical approach to semi-private and semi-public spaces’, PhD thesis, Izmir Institute of Architecture,
Izmir, 2002. ‘Evka’ = ev kazandırma, ‘housing construction’. G. Culcuoglu and D. Oguz, ‘For a better living environment:
Eryaman mass housing area’, ‘Housing in the New Millennium’, HDB Conference, Singapore, 2000, 1–3.
59. Information from Özgür Bingöl, 2017.
60. Özdemir, ‘The role of the public sector’, 1104–6; Bozdoğan and Akcan, Turkey, 282. Municipal development
companies KIPTAŞ and TOBAŞ in Istanbul and Ankara (later enhanced under AKP regime): Kılınç and Gharipour,
Social Housing in the Middle East, 91–8.

Chapter 11 The USSR: Developed Socialism and Extensive Urbanism

1. Raymond Aron, The Century of Total War, London: Verschayle, 1954: ‘the army industrialises itself; industry
militarises itself; the army absorbs the nation; the nation models itself on the army’. B. D. Peter, War and the Rise of
the State, New York: Free Press, 199, 231–4.
2. S. E. Harris, Communism on Tomorrow Street, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013, 40–3;
E. D. Simon, Lady Simon, W. A. Robson and J. Jewkes, Moscow in the Making, London: Longmans Green, 1937, 212,
220; Lynn Attwood, Gender and Housing in Soviet Russia, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010, 1; G.
Andrusz, ‘Housing Policy in the Soviet Union’, in J. A. Sillince (ed.), Housing Policies in Eastern Europe and the Soviet
Union, London: Routledge, 1990, 260: institutional power shifts as ‘seismographic registers of tectonic shifts in Soviet
society’; local hierarchy of gorispolkom (‘city council’) and raiispolkom (‘borough council’).
3. M. B. Smith, Property of Communists: The Urban Housing Program from Stalin to Khrushchev, De Kalb: Northern
Illinois University Press, 2010, 144–9; Attwood, Gender and Housing, 100–8.
4. P. Messana, Soviet Communal Living: An Oral History of the Kommunalka, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011;
DOCOMOMO Russia, Samara, Putevoditel po sovremennoi arkhitekture, 2006, n.p.p.: DOCOMOMO, 116–30; Fabien

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Notes

Bellat, Une ville neuve en URSS: Togliatti, Marseille: Parenthèses, 2015, 23–7; Harris, Communism on Tomorrow Street,
45–51, 53–70, 81–8; W. C. Brumfield and B. A. Ruble, Russian Housing in the Modern Age, New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1993, 194–205.
5. J. R. Zavisca, Housing the New Russia, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012, 23.
6. 1957: ‘Decree on the Advancement of Housing Construction in the Soviet Union’. Attwood, Gender and Housing,
154–5. Role of Gulag and MVD in projects such as the hydroelectric new town at Stavropol in 1951–3: Bellat,
Togliatti, 36–53. Anderson, Russia: Modern Architectures in History, London: Reaktion, 2015, 204, 224; Smith, Property
of Communists, 16–18, 59–61, 74–9, 102–5, 178, 193; Kuba Snopek, Belyayevo Forever: A Soviet Mikrorayon on its way
to the UNESCO List, Berlin: Dom, 2015, 22–37. P. Meuser, Die Ästhetik der Platte, Berlin: Dom, 2015, 203; W. J.
Tompson, Khrushchev: A Political Life, New York: St Martin’s Griffin, 1995, 43, 174–200, 218–40; Harris, Communism
on Tomorrow Street, 16, 306–7; G. Péteri, ‘The Occident within’, Kritika 9, no. 4 (Autumn 2008): 929–37; K. Rimkutė,
‘Soviet Mass Housing in Lithuania’, MSc dissertation, University of Edinburgh, 2014, 18. On 1959 kitchen-planning
rivalries with USA in New York Moscow exhibitions: K. Ritter, E. Shapiro-Obermair, D. Steiner and A. Wachter, Soviet
Modernism 1955–1991, Zürich: Park Books, 2012, 66–8.
7. T. J. Colton, Moscow: Governing the Socialist Metropolis, Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 1995, 436–7; Attwood, Gender and
Housing, 228; Harris, Communism on Tomorrow Street, 304–5; Smith, Property of Communists, 134; Tompson,
Khrushchev, 218–31, 245–66; W. Tompson, The Soviet Union under Brezhnev, Harlow: Pearson, 2013, 3.
8. Smith, Property of Communists, 102; J. H. Bater, The Soviet City, London: Arnold, 1980, 121; the emergence of a
‘politics of complaint’ as early as 1955; Colton, Moscow, 436–7; Tompson, Khrushchev, 245–69; Tompson, Brezhnev,
112; T. Crump, Brezhnev and the Decline of the Soviet Union, Abingdon: Routledge, 2014, 61, 89–95.
9. Attwood, Gender and Housing, 180–5; Smith, Property of Communists, 181–2; Crump, Brezhnev, 61, 89–95; Bellat,
Togliatti, 80–91, 94, 128–32; Tompson, Brezhnev, xi–xv, 37; Anderson, Russia, 248–9.
10. A. Serov (ed.), Writing on Perestroika: Leonid Brezhnev, The Period of Stagnation, Moscow: Novosti, 1989; Ritter et al.,
Soviet Modernism, 81, 154–6; Anderson, Russia, 247; Tompson, Brezhnev, 8, 18–19, 28–36, 85–7, 94–7, 100;
M. Drėmaitė, ‘Soviet industrialisation of housing technologies’, Tension of Europe and Inventing Europe Working Paper
2 (2009); M. Posokhin, Towns for People, Moscow: Progress, 1980, 177. Colton, Moscow, 370, 377, 434–8, 531;
P. Stronski, Tashkent: Forging a Soviet City, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010; interview with Mart Port,
29 May 2011; Zavisca, Housing the New Russia, 34; M. Ilic and J. Smith (eds), Soviet State and Society under Nikita
Khrushchev, Abingdon: Routledge, 2009.
11. Colton, Moscow, 2–5, 344–6, 351–6, 433–4, 488–93; B. A. Ruble, Leningrad: Shaping a Soviet City, Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1990, 212–15; A. Martiny, Bauen und Wohnen in der Sowjetunion, Berlin: Berlin Verlag, 1983, 26,
160; Smith, Property of Communists, 46, 115; J. Campbell and J. Hall, The World of States, London: Bloomsbury, 2015,
5, 23, 26; Rimkutė, ‘Soviet Mass Housing’, 12–16; interview with Dmitri Bruns, 2011; D. Donnison, ‘Housing Policies
in Eastern Europe’, Transactions of the Bartlett Society 3 (1964–5): 96, 109; Bater, Soviet City, 166; Tompson, Brezhnev,
17–19, 65–6, 73, 80, 147 (dolgostroi, storming); Crump, Brezhnev, 81 (whitewashing); Drėmaitė, ‘Soviet
industrialisation’, 5. Even prominent figures such as Uzbek leader Sharaf Rashidov were largely figureheads: G.
Gleason, ‘Sharif Rashidov and the dilemmas of national leadership’, Central Asian Society 5, nos 3–4 (1986): 133–60;
Stronski, Tashkent, 44. Interviews with R. J. Devinduonis, C. Mazuras and G. Balėniėnė, June 2013; Andrusz, ‘Housing
Policy’, 260–5.
12. Ruble, Leningrad, 207; Ilic and Smith, Soviet State, 26–45; Bater, Soviet City, 36–52, 104–9; Attwood, Gender and
Housing, 109–28, 155–8, 228; Anderson, Russia, 42ff.; Harris, Communism on Tomorrow Street, 91–105; Colton,
Moscow, 344–6, 440–54; Smith, Property of Communists, 5, 36–8, 57, 92, 102–5, 185. Enterprises’ share of housing was
especially high in war-devastated towns. M. Drėmaitė et al., Vilnius 1900–2013, Vilnius: Architektūros Fondas, 2013,
142; M. Kalm, ‘An apartment with all conveniences was no panacea’, A & U 46 (2012): 3–4, 197; Zavisca, Housing the
New Russia, 27; Donnison, ‘Housing Policies’, 109; Ritter et al, Soviet Modernism, 268. D. B. Hess and T. Tammaru
(eds), Housing Estates in the Baltic Countries, Cham: Springer Open, 2019, 60–3. Military-related secret towns: P.
Meuser (ed.), Architekturführer Kasachstan, Berlin: Dom, 2014, 319–39. Khrushchev attempted to give ispolkoms
oversight over house-building, while remaining dependent on enterprises for his late 1950s housing expansion:
Martiny, Bauen und Wohnen, 59–66, 68–72, 117–29. Unsuccessful efforts by Gorbachev to boost the soviets’ powers:
Andrusz, ‘Housing Policy’, 240–3; P. Troy, ‘Housing Policy in the Soviet Union’, Urban Policy and Research 8, no. 1
(1990): 12–17; Tompson, Brezhnev, 65–7.

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13. Industrial enterprises’ central role in urban housing design and construction by the 1940s: interview with Bruns,
2011; M. Kalm, Estonian 20th Century Architecture, Tallinn: Prisma, 2002, 268–9. Khrushchev in 1951 was First
Secretary of the Moscow Regional Committee: Colton, Moscow, 352–6, 377–401, 759, 796–7 (Moscow housing output
1913–91); Smith, Property of Communists, 32–8, 70–3; G. A. Porivai and M. I. Ilichev, Tvoye Zhilishchye, Moscow:
Stroizat, 1980, 3, 76; V. F. Promyslov, Moscow in Construction, Moscow: Mir, 1967, 20.
14. Housing management and administration was in turn devolved largely to over thirty raiispolkoms (raisoviets):
15. Meuser, Ästhetik der Platte, 443; Ruble, Leningrad, 61–2, 82, 221–2; V. Buchli, An Archaeology of Socialism, Oxford:
Berg, 1999, 148–9; Smith, Property of Communists, 132; Harris, Communism on Tomorrow Street, chapter 3.
Government policy in the 1950s–1960s was to bolster city-based housing-management organizations (ZheKi).
16. P. Meuser: Seismic Modernism: Architecture and Housing in Soviet Tashkent, Berlin: Dom, 2016; interview with Gennadi
Ivanovich Korobovtsyev, 20 March 2015; Colton, Moscow, 352–71; Previous attempt in 1946 to merge construction
trusts into larger bodies: Smith, Property of Communists, 53, 57, 70–95, 114; Ilic and Smith, Soviet State, 31.
17. Martiny, Bauen und Wohnen, 68–72, 17–121. Kucherenko was assisted by Vladimir F. Promyslov and Nikolai Y.
Pashchenko. The year 1967 saw an attempt to capture the remaining 15% through a single-client Chief Directorate of
Capital City Construction (GlavUKS), representing ispolkom, vedomstva and Gosplan – a system gradually
emasculated by the ministries, and largely defunct by the 1980s. Stronski, Tashkent, 218; Ruble, Leningrad, 69;
Colton, Moscow, 450–4; P. Meuser and D. Zadorin, Towards a Typology of Soviet Mass Housing, Berlin: Dom, 2015,
12, 23.
18. The ‘personal property’ proportion varied dramatically, with the Baltic states paradoxically having a low proportion
following expropriations after the Soviet takeover: Smith, Property of Communists, 8–15, 34–5, 91, 155, 161–2;
Attwood, Gender and Housing, 149–55; Donnison, ‘Housing Policies’, 93; Harris, Communism on Tomorrow Street,
206–17; Colton, Moscow, 399–418.
19. Harris, Communism on Tomorrow Street, 171–8, 223; Ilic and Smith, Soviet State, 43; G. Andrusz, ‘Housing co-
operatives in the Soviet Union’, Housing Studies 7, no. 2 (1992): 140–7. Co-ops: J. S. Fuerst, Public Housing in Europe,
London: Croom Helm, 1974, 115–16; Colton, Moscow, 486–92; Martiny, Bauen und Wohnen, 143–63; interview with S
Cereškevičius, 2013; Attwood, Gender and Housing, 155–76; Bater, Soviet City, 104; Andrusz, ‘Housing co-operatives’,
140–7; Smith, Property of Communists, 150–2, 163 (1957 tenure comparisons to E. Europe).
20. Ilic and Smith, Soviet State, 26–45; Bater, Soviet City, 121; Kalm, ‘An apartment with all conveniences’, 198. Colton,
Moscow, 368–9, 531. Implicit shift from collectivism to privatism: Brumfield and Ruble, Russian Housing, 251–2; see
also T. Ojari, ‘Floor-space: the Modernist residential housing ideology and Mustamäe’, Studies in Art and Architecture
2 (2004): 68. Media representations: Yulii Raizman’s 1961 film But what if it’s love?, the 1970s song, ‘Our address is not
a house or a street/our address is the Soviet Union’, and, in 1971, ‘It’s not our house – but it’s our house all the same’:
Attwood, Gender and Housing, 4, 195, 245; Smith, Property of Communists, 5, 16–18, 118, 121–9; Stronski, Tashkent;
Ironia Sud’by film; Meuser, Ästhetik der Platte, 32–6.
21. Leaders’ out-of-town dachas, e.g. in Moscow’s ‘Tsarskoe Selo’: Colton, Moscow, 149, 344–6, 510; Epp Lankots, ‘Classes
in a classless society’, Studies in Art and Architecture 2 (2004): 39–41; Ruble, Leningrad, 213–15; Meuser, Ästhetik der
Platte, 450–1; interview with L. Markejevaitė, 2013; A. Latur, Moskva 1890–2000, Moscow: Iskusstvo XXI Vek, 2009,
403–5. Artists’ studios in Riga’s Āgenskalna Priedes stage 1 of 1958–61, atop otherwise normal Series 316 blocks: J.
Krastiņš, ‘Āgenskalna Priedes, a late 1950s housing project in Riga’, in C. Caldenby and O. Wedebrunn, Survival of
Modern, Copenhagen: Royal Danish Academy, 2013, 92–101; Smith, Property of Communists, 95; Drėmaitė et al.,
Vilnius, 114–15, 152–3; Drėmaitė, ‘Soviet industrialisation’, 10.
22. Smith, Property of Communists, 4, 30–1, 102–3; Meuser, Ästhetik der Platte, 202; Martiny, Bauen und Wohnen, 251,
265; Rimkutė, ‘Soviet Mass Housing’, 12, 21–2; F. Urban, Tower and Slab: Histories of Global Mass Housing, London:
Routledge, 2015, 129 (Khrushchev quotation); Attwood, Gender and Housing, 155; N. S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev
Remembers (English translation), London: Andre Deutsch, 1974, 102; M. Ilic, S. Reid and L. Attwood, Women in the
Khrushchev Era, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, 178.
23. P. Meuser and D. Zadorin, Towards a Typology of Soviet Mass Housing, Berlin: Dom, 2015. Interviews with Port and
Bruns, 2011. Florian Faurisson, ‘How to create a Communist housing system from scratch’, in DOCONF 2019: Facing
Post-Socialist Urban Heritage, Budapest: BME, 2019, 66–7. Central input exerted at republic level through Posokhin’s
own role in commenting on republican plans: Colton, Moscow, 372–4; Leningrad Genplan: Ruble, Leningrad, 69–72.

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24. Ojari, ‘Floor-space’, 70; Ruble, Leningrad, 7–9; Meuser, Ästhetik der Platte, 61–70. Martiny, Bauen und Wohnen, 59–64.
Interviews with Port, 2011, and Nina Petrovna, 2013. ‘Spectacle’ projects such as Tallinn’s Väike-Õismäe or the
star-shaped towers and linear blocks of Moscow’s Biryulevo: Kalm, Estonian 20th Century Architecture,
346–8. Boulevard facades in central Kuibyshev’s enterprise-built Leninsky Prospekt: DOCOMOMO-Russia, Samara,
202–4.
25. Anderson, Russia, 206–8; Meuser, Ästhetik der Platte, 443–6; Bellat, Togliatti, 94–100; Latur, Moskva, 291, 296, 318–21;
Kalm, Estonian 20th Century Architecture, 268–9; T. Abrossimov (ed.), Noviye goroda SSSR 1958, Moscow:
Gosstroiizdat, 1958, 9; Colton, Moscow, 372–4, 457–70; Posokhin, Towns for People, 129; Smith, Property of
Communists, 91; Bater, Soviet City, 109.
26. P. Meuser, Seismic Modernism: Architecture and Housing in Soviet Tashkent, Berlin: Dom, 2016, 82; Ritter et al., Soviet
Modernism, 262–3; M. Drėmaitė, ‘The (Post) Soviet built environment’, Lithuanian Historical Studies 15 (2010): 11–26;
Drėmaitė et al., Vilnius, 140–9; Rimkutė, ‘Soviet Mass Housing’, 15–16, 77.
27. Andres Kurg, lecture at NaI Antwerp conference on Léon Stynen, December 2017.
28. D. Pountney, ‘Shostakovich meets Offenbach’, Opera, October 1994, 1160–5; A. W. Cleeve Barr, Architects’ Journal, 9
October 1958, 515–41; Smith, Property of Communists, 46; Latur, Moskva, 347; Colton, Moscow, 372–5; Snopek,
Belyayevo Forever, 14–21, 52–125. Prospekt Vernadskovo was the setting for Ironia Sud’by: Moscow Times, 29
December 2003.
29. P. Knoch and H. Johenning, Architekturführer Kiew,Berlin: Dom, 2015, 107; Drėmaitė et al, Vilnius, 140–9; Smith,
Property of Communists, 48; Latur, Moskva, 347.
30. E. Lankots and H. Sooväli, ‘ABC-centres and identities of Mustamäe mikrorayons’, Studies in Art and Architecture 4
(2008): 88–113; Colton, Moscow, 532–3. Knoch and Johenning, Kiew, 149–53.
31. Abrossimov, Noviye goroda; Drėmaitė, ‘Soviet industrialisation’, 13; Drėmaitė, ‘The (Post) Soviet built environment’,
22–3; M. Drėmaitė, Baltic Modernism: Architecture and Housing in Soviet Lithuania, Berlin: Dom, 2017, 111–15.
32. Anderson, Russia, 229–31. D. Hess and M. Hiob, ‘Preservation by neglect in Soviet-era town planning in Tartu,
Estonia’, Journal of Planning History 13, no. 1 (2014): 24–49; interview with Bruns, 2011.
33. M. Kalm, ‘Is urban life in the countryside good? The central settlements of collective farms in the Estonian SSR’,
Studies in Art and Architecture 4 (2008): 88–113. Oksana Zhukova and Simon Bell, ‘The Khrushchevka and the dom
kultura: urban lifestyles in a rural setting’, SHS Web of Conferences 63, 08001, 2019 (Modscapes 2019), 1–12.
34. Bellat, Togliatti, 107–8, 111–12; V. A. Nesterov (ed.), Arkhitektura: raboty proyetknikh i nauchnikh institutov Moskvy
1966–1969, Moscow: Stroiizdat, 1970, 116–17.
35. Bater, Soviet City, 108; Urban, Tower and Slab, 135; Attwood, Gender and Housing, 195; Martiny, Bauen und Wohnen,
143–63; Ojari, ‘Floor-space’; Brumfield and Ruble, Russian Housing, 258–60; Smith, Property of Communists, 8–15,
26–31, 39, 43–4, 65–9; Colton, Moscow, 344–6.
36. N. S. Khrushchev, ‘On the extensive introduction of industrial methods . . .’, in Project Russia 25: Microrayon, Moscow
and Amsterdam: A-Fond, 2002, 12–19; Colton, Moscow, 370–1; Brumfield and Ruble, Russian Housing, 171–210;
N. Mandelstam, Hope against Hope: A Memoir, New York: Athenaeum, 1970, 135 (‘Future generations will never
understand what “living space” means to us. Innumerable crimes have been committed for its sake . . . it is passed on
to one’s descendants like a family castle, a villa or an estate’); Zavisca, Housing the New Russia, 24–5; S. Kotkin,
Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995, 157–97; Smith,
Property of Communists, 159. Maximum output of small, self-contained dwellings was best expressed in living-space
calculations per flat rather than per person. Donnison, ‘Housing policies’, 97, 110; Harris, Communism on Tomorrow
Street, 16–21; Martiny, Bauen und Wohnen, 251, 265; Smith, Property of Communists, 101–10/
37. Ojari, ‘Floor-space’; Meuser and Zadorin, Towards a Typology, 15, 22, 168, 193–203; Colton, Moscow, 486–518;
Attwood, Gender and Housing, 155–8.
38. Meuser and Zadorin, Towards a Typology, 15–32, 62–70; Meuser, Seismic Modernism, 298–9; Rimkutė, ‘Soviet Mass
Housing’, 57; Kalm, Estonian 20th Century Architecture, 327, 341.
39. DOCOMOMO Russia, Samara; Colton, Moscow, 371; Ritter et al., Soviet Modernism, 75; Meuser and Zadorin,
Towards a Typology, 63–70, 136–7, 193–259, 271–327, 344, 375–425.

596
 Notes

40. Knoch and Johenning, Kiew, 179–91; Krastiņš, ‘Āgenskalna Priedes’, 98; Rimkutė, ‘Soviet Mass Housing’, 7, 77; Bellat,
Togliatti, 12, 94–102; Ojari, ‘Floor-space’, 66–7; Meuser, Ästhetik der Platte, 9, 21–31, 98–109, 123, 204–29, 443, 450–1,
468–73; Meuser and Zadorin, Towards a Typology, 12, 15–27, 95–7, 297–9, 304–5, 375–97; Meuser, Architekturführer
Kasachstan, 319–39; Ritter et al., Soviet Modernism, 279. Cleeve Barr, Architects’ Journal, 9 October 1958, 515–41;
Promyslov, Moscow in Construction, 50–7; interview with Nina Petrovna, 2013; V. B. Zhemochkina (ed.), Nomenklatura,
Moscow: OMP TsNIIEP, 1980. Pountney, ‘Shostakovich’, 1160–5; Cleeve Barr, Architects’ Journal, 9 October 1958,
515–41; Smith, Property of Communists, 115; P. Meuser, ‘The aesthetics of the Plattenbau’, in Project Russia 25, 80–6;
Harris, Communism on Tomorrow Street, 240–7; N. Heinich and B. Goldhoorn, ‘Towards an architectural guide of
standard housing types’, in Project Russia 25; contrast with the highly systematized single series (WBS70) in 1970s East
Germany. Regional variants of I-464: N. Erofeev, ‘Adapting Soviet Prefabricated Housing for the Regions’, EAHN 2018
Conference Proceedings, Tallinn: EAHN, 2018; Meuser and Zadorin, Towards a Typology, 193–203.
41. Martiny, Bauen und Wohnen, 68–72; Urban, Tower and Slab, 129.
42. D. Percival and A. Massie, The Building Industry in the USSR, London: Marx Memorial Library/Lawrence and
Wishart, 1942, 22–47; Smith, Property of Communists, 39–43, 114; Colton, Moscow, 372; Bellat, Togliatti, 17–22;
Meuser, Ästhetik der Platte, 75–95, 196–7, 208–29, 448, 450–2; interview with Port,2011; Promyslov, Moscow in
Construction, 44–9, 239; Meuser and Zadorin, Towards a Typology, 37–51, 64–70, 95–9; Brumfield and Ruble,
Russian Housing, 239; Fuerst, Public Housing, 115–16; Attwood, Gender and Housing, 171; Urban, Tower and Slab,
129.
43. Drėmaitė, ‘Soviet industrialisation’, 6–7; Meuser, Seismic Modernism, 38–9, 44–64, 244–64; Stronski, Tashkent, 220,
251; Meuser and Zadorin, Towards a Typology, 41, 51, 96–114, 171–3; interview with Port, 2011; Meuser, Ästhetik der
Platte, 132–5, 511–15.
44. Meuser, Ästhetik der Platte, 21–5.
45. Meuser and Zadorin, Towards a Typology, 96–114; Smith, Property of Communists, 108–10.
46. Interviews with Bruns, Port, 2011.
47. This applied both in the late 1940s and early 1950s, pre-SNiP, and subsequently: E. Lankots, ‘Classes in a Classless
Society’, Studies in Art and Architecture 2 (2004): 39–41; Drėmaitė et al., Vilnius, 114–15.
48. Colton, Moscow, 369, 372, 420–1; Brumfield and Ruble, Russian Housing, 254–6, 269; V. Makhrin, Arkhitektura SSSR
10 (1960): 22–6; Ritter et al., Soviet Modernism, 81ff.
49. Meuser and Zadorin, Towards a Typology, 70–95; Drėmaitė, ‘Soviet industrialisation’, 9; Vytautas Balčiūnas, ‘Some
suggestions by Lithuanian architects’, Statyba ir Architektūra 11 (1966): 4–5.
50. Posokhin, Towns for People, 29, 171.
51. Meuser and Zadorin, Towards a Typology, 137, 171–3, 297–305, 375–85 (K7, P44, KOPE). Ediny Katalog:
A. E. Rozinsky and V. Bulgakov, Organisatsya Experimental’novo Stroitelstva Zhilikh Domov, Moscow: Stroiizdat, 1980,
5–19, 47, 126, 151; Posokhin, Towns for People, 174–7; interview with Nina Petrovna, 2013. K7, P44, KOPE: Meuser,
Ästhetik der Platte, 434–51; Latur, Moskva, 119, 350, 379; Meuser, Seismic Modernism; Rimkutė, ‘Soviet Mass Housing’,
72, 77; W. Rietdorf, Neue Wohngebiete sozialistischer Länder, Berlin, Verlag für Bauwesen, 1976, 235–8; Rozinsky and
Bulgakov, Organisatsya Experimental’novo Stroitelstva, 30–1; Promyslov, Moscow in Construction, 94–103, 153.
52. Symmetry: e.g. prototype series 137 in ul. Belgradskaya, Kupchino, Leningrad, flanked by nine-storey blocks, 1974:
Meuser and Zadorin, Towards a Typology, 64–70, 387–97; Attwood, Gender and Housing, 180–5; Bater, Soviet City,
108; Andrusz, ‘Housing Policy’, 272–5; Colton, Moscow, 486–93.
53. Drėmaitė, ‘Soviet industrialisation’, 14; Meuser, Ästhetik der Platte, 170–90, 435; 1LG-600: Meuser and Zadorin,
Towards a Typology, 50–2, 297–301; Building, 28 February 1969 (re. November 1968 Arkhitektura SSSR). Anderson,
Russia, 256–9; Rozinsky and Bulgakov, Organisatsya Experimental’novo Stroitelstva, 30–1, 126–9; Promyslov, Moscow
in Construction, 158–65; Posokhin, Towns for People, 174; Colton, Moscow, 392, 534–5; Rietdorf, Neue Wohngebiete,
231–4. Chertanovo influence on e.g. Troparyevo ‘experimental building district’. Bellat, Togliatti, 102, 129; Nesterov,
Arkhitektura, 116–17; cf. the 1977–80 Moscow Olympic village: Latur, Moskva, 107, 382–6.
54. Kalm, Estonian 20th Century Architecture, 369, 382–5; Meuser, Ästhetik der Platte, 430–1, 461–2.
55. DOCOMOMO Russia, Samara, 194, 202–5, 212–3.

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56. Ritter et al., Soviet Modernism, 323; Rimkutė, ‘Soviet Mass Housing’, 21–2, 82; Meuser, Ästhetik der Platte, 437;
Drėmaitė et al., Vilnius, 149–50. Lithuania battles: interviews with R. Beinortas and Č. Mazūras, 2013 (Lazdynai
monoliths vetted by CP regional secretary). Bishkek: Ritter et al., Soviet Modernism, 349; Fuerst, Public Housing, 116;
Rozinsky and Bulgakov, Organisatsya Experimental’novo Stroitelstva, 30–1.
57. Cf. Chernovtsev’s concept of vast prefabricated concrete frames: Meuser and Zadorin, Towards a Typology, 50, 61.
NER Group (Novyi Element Rasselniia: New Unit of Settlement), founded 1959/60, led by architects Alexei Gutnov,
Zoia Kharitova, Ilya Lezhava and sociologist Georgii Diumenton: A. Moravánszky and J. Hopfengärtner,
Rehumanizing Architecture, Basel: Birkhäuser, 2017, 211–14.
58. Attwood, Gender and Housing, 71–88; Anderson, Russia, 226–8; Latur, Moskva, 353; Colton, Moscow, 531; Promyslov,
Moscow in Construction, 156; Buchli, Archaeology of Socialism, 148–9. Yasyenyevo: information from Dimitrij
Zadorin, 2019.
59. Interview with Port, 2011; Kalm, Estonian 20th Century Architecture, 352; Ojari, ‘Floor-space’, 68; Meuser,
Architekturführer Kasachstan; Campbell and Hall, World of States, 23. P. Metspalu and D. Hess, ‘Revisiting the role of
architects in planning large-scale housing in the USSR’, Planning Perspectives 33, no. 3 (2018): 335–61.
60. Tompson, Brezhnev, 94–7; Drėmaitė, ‘Soviet industrialisation’, 5, 11.
61. Meuser and Zadorin, Towards a Typology, 78 (Gradov), 407–25; Fuerst, Public Housing, 115–16; Ritter et al., Soviet
Modernism, 66–8, 81–3, 154–6, 318; Meuser, Seismic Modernism, 202–35; interview with R. Beinortas, 2013.
62. Kalm, Estonian 20th Century Architecture, 268–71, 284, 322–41; Lankots, ‘Classes in a classless society’, 39–41
(nomenklatura); Drėmaitė, Baltic Modernism, 66–7, 76. Trips in 1957–9: interview with Port, 2011; Drėmaitė et al.,
Vilnius, 114; Drėmaitė, ‘The (Post) Soviet built environment’, 17–18; Rimkutė, ‘Soviet Mass Housing’, 38, 43, 77;
Drėmaitė, ‘Soviet industrialisation’, 12; Lankots and Sooväti, ‘ABC-Centres’, 94–113. Danish prefabrication’s influence,
Hamburg visit: interview with Port, 2011; M. Kalm, ‘Soviet mass housing and its ambiguous legacy in Estonia’, ‘Trash
or Treasure’, DOCOMOMO electronic newsletter (2011): 1–6; Ojari, ‘Floor-space’, 67; Krastiņš, ‘Āgenskalna Priedes’,
92–101; György Petri (ed.), Imagining the West in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, Pittsburgh: University of
Pittsburgh Press, 2010, 2–31.
63. M. Drėmaitė, V. Petrulis and J. Tutlytė, Architecture in Soviet Lithuania, Vilnius: VDAL, 2012, 182; Planirovka novikh
gorodov, Moscow: Stroiizdat, 1984, 43; Drėmaitė, ‘The (Post) Soviet built environment’, 23; Drėmaitė et al., Vilnius,
144–9; L. Rekevičius and M. Drėmaitė, Lazdynai (excursion brochure), Vilnius: Architecture Fund, 2012; interviews
with Č. Mazūras, G. Balėnienė and R. Devinduonis, 2013.
64. Kalm, ‘Soviet mass housing’, 1–6; Kalm, Estonian 20th Century Architecture, 322–52, 380–5 (Pärnu KEK); interviews
with Port and Bruns; M Port, Nõukogude Eesti arhitektuur, Tallinn: Perioodika, 9–17; Kalm, ‘An apartment with all
conveniences’, 200–7; interviews with Port and Bruns; Hess and Tammaru, Housing Estates in the Baltic Countries,
111, 144–52, 167, 278–97; D. Bruns, Tallinna peaarhitekti mälestusi ja artikleid, Tallinn: Eesti Arhitektuurimuuseum,
2007, 32–3, 100–3, 118–21; R.-B. Kivi, Tartu Planeerimist ja arhitektuurist, Tallinn: Eesti Arhitektuurimuuseum, 2005,
28–9, 103–5; Kalm, ‘Urban life in the countryside’, 84–7; Drėmaitė, Baltic Modernism, 138–45; S Sultson, ‘Estonian
urbanism 1935–1955’, Planning Perspectives 33, no. 3 (2018): 385–409.
65. Rimkutė, ‘Soviet Mass Housing’, 21–2, 45–60, 77; interview with Balėnienė (I-464, etc.); Drėmaitė et al., Vilnius, 142,
148.
66. Krastiņš, ‘Āgenskalna Priedes’, 98; S. Treija and Uġis Bratuškins, ‘Large-scale housing estates in Riga’, in C. Caldenby
and O. Wedebrunn, Survival of Modern: From Cultural Centres to Planned Suburbs, Copenhagen: Royal Danish
Academy, 2013, 102–19; Hess and Tammaru, Housing Estates in the Baltic Countries, 161–80; S. Treija, Uġis Bratuškins
and A. Koroļova, ‘Up-to-date interventions and changing identity’, DOCOMOMO 2018 conference, Ljubljana.
Department of Construction = Otdel po delam stroitelstva i arkhitektury Rizhskogo gorispolkoma; Pļavnieki, built by
Riga Precast Building Plant/Imanta by Large-Panel Building-Construction Factory (type 602), 3rd RC Construction
Factory (type 467).
67. Interview with Markejevaitė; Drėmaitė et al., Architecture in Soviet Lithuania, 182; Rimkutė, ‘Soviet Mass Housing’,
28–37, 49–57; Drėmaitė et al., Vilnius, 141.
68. D. S. Carlisle, ‘The Uzbek power elite: Politburo and Secretariat’, Central Asian Survey 5, nos 3–4 (1986): 91–132;
Meuser, Ästhetik der Platte, 164; Stronski, Tashkent, 4–7, 57–61, 224–7, 241, 265–70; G. Gleason, ‘Sharaf Rashidov and

598
 Notes

the dilemmas of national leadership’, Central Asian Survey 5, nos 3–4 (1986): 133–60; interview with Gennadi
Ivanovich Korobovtsev, 2015; Meuser, Seismic Modernism, 44, 51.
69. Smith, Property of Communists, 178; Stronski, Tashkent, 252, 271. Meuser, Seismic Modernism, 62–75, 83–147, 255,
264.
70. Meuser and Zadorin, Towards a Typology, 77–95; Meuser, Ästhetik der Platte, 164 (Dimitriev, 1980); Meuser, Seismic
Modernism, 167–73; interview with Korobovtsev.
71. S. Askarov, Genezis arkhitektury Uzbekistana, Tashkent: Sanat, 2014, images 199–203, 208–11; Meuser and Zadorin,
Towards a Typology, 252–3 (Series 148); Meuser, Seismic Modernism, 170–98 (on Ts 19), 236–8 (monolithic), 244–54
(Series 148). Interviews with Korobovtsev (vertical mahalla parallel to Habraken ‘supports’) and Shukur Askarov,
2015.
72. Meuser, Architekturführer Kasachstan, 319–39; Bellat, Togliatti, 94–100; Ritter et al., Soviet Modernism, 198–8, 347.
73. Troy, ‘Housing policy in the Soviet Union’, 12–17; Crump, Brezhnev, xii–xiii, 89–95; Tompson, Brezhnev, 112–18;
Bater, Soviet City, 109; Colton, Moscow, 494–6.
74. A. Dedul, ‘Housing industry seeks a firm foundation’, Soviet Weekly, 14 June 1990; Troy, ‘Housing policy in the Soviet
Union’, 12–17; Urban, Tower and Slab, 129, 141; Andrusz, ‘Housing Policy’; Colton, Moscow, 369, 372.
75. Drėmaitė et al., Vilnius, 151; Meuser and Zadorin, Towards a Typology, 441.
76. Ritter et al., Soviet Modernism, 75, 326.
77. Unsuccessful attempts to foster US-style mass mortgage market – distrusted by many Russians as ‘debt bondage’:
Zavisca, Housing the New Russia.

Chapter 12 A Quarrelsome Family: The European Socialist States

1. B. Le Normand, Designing Tito’s Capital: Urban Planning, Modernism and Socialism in Belgrade, Pittsburgh: University
of Pittsburgh Press, 2014, 13–19, 169; Zarecor, ‘What was so socialist about the socialist city?’, 95–117.
2. F. Urban, Neo-Historical East Berlin, Farnham: Ashgate, 2009, 5, 247–9, 259; A. Ferkai, Housing Estates, Budapest: City
Hall, 2005, 56–8; J. A. Campbell and J. A. Hall, The World of States, London: Bloomsbury, 2015, 23; H. Moravčíková et
al., Bratislava Atlas Sidlisk, Bratislava: Slovart, 2011, 54–7; C. Frapier, ‘The circulation of technical knowledge between
France and Eastern Europe 1945–1975’, Journal of Architecture 14, no. 2 (2009): 185–96; E. Pugh, ‘From “national style”
to “rationalised construction” ’, JSAH 3 (2015): 91; C. Hannemann, Die Platte Industrialisierter Wohnungsbau in Der
DDR, Wiesbaden: Vieweg+Teubner Verlag, 1996, 72–3; E. Honecker, Aus meinem Leben, East Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1981,
302–9; Bezirksleitung Berlin der SED, Erich Honecker in Berlin, East Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1982, 97–100, 115.
3. G. Locsmándi and A. Szabó, Guidebook for an Urban Ecological Tour on Housing in the City of Budapest, Budapest :
T U, 2007; V. Molnár, Building the State: Architecture, Politics and State Formation in Postwar Central Europe,
Abingdon: Routledge, 2013, 45–58. Decentralization: ‘New Economic System’ or NÖS. C. Bernhardt, ‘Planning
urbanisation and urban growth in the socialist period’, Journal of Urban History 32, no. 1 (November 2005): 104–19;
C. Bernhardt and H. Reif, Sozialistische Städte zwischen Herrschaft und Selbstbehauptung, Stuttgart: Steiner, 2009;
M. Wynn, Housing in Europe, London: Croom Helm, 1984, 226–8; Moravčíková et al., Bratislava Atlas Sidlisk, 22–3;
D. V. Donnison, ‘Housing Policies in Eastern Europe’, Transactions of the Bartlett Society 3 (1964–5): 106; J. Sillince
(ed.), Housing Policies in East Europe and the Soviet Union, London: Routledge, 1990, 455–82; A. Marmot, ‘Polish
housing’, Housing Review, November–December 1981, 180; W. Rietdorf, Neue Wohngebiete sozialistischer Länder.
Berlin: VEB Verlag für Bauwesen, 1976, 146; Hannemann, Die Platte, 111. Building industry viewed as non-
productive and hence relatively deprived of resources. Pugh, ‘From “national style” to “rationalised construction” ’, 102.
4. Varna: Faurisson, ‘How to create a Communist housing system from scratch – the case of Varna in Bulgaria’, in
M. Benkő (ed), Facing Post-Socialist Urban Heritage, Budapest: BME, 2019, 66–71. Miskolc: information from Helka
Dzsacsovszki, 2018.
5. Sillince, Housing Policies, 62–77, 109–10, 173, 189, 334, 477–82. Bulgarian state housing reached 50% of total output,
during 1970s production spike. S. Tsenkova, Housing Policy Reforms in Post-Socialist Europe, Heidelberg: Physica,

599
Notes

2009, 39–42; Molnár, Building the State, 81–4; Locsmándi and Szabó, Guidebook; Donnison, ‘Housing Policies’, 91–3,
109; Wynn, Housing in Europe, 236; F. Dufaux and A. Fourcaut, Le monde des grands ensembles, Paris: Créaphis, 2004,
114. DBOR: Dyrekcja Budowy Osiedli Roboniczych. CZSBM: Centralny Związek Spółdzielczości Budownictwa
Mieszkaniowego. Marmot, ‘Polish housing’, 180; Rietdorf, Neue Wohngebiete, 146, 151. http://przymorze.gda.pl/blog/
jak-diszlo-do-powstania-spoldzieni-przymorze/; http://www.trojmiasto.pl/wiadomosci/Falowce. Other significant
examples included Wrocław’s Piast Housing Cooperative, which built the Grunwaldzki Square skyscraper cluster in
1970–3 (see below), or Katowice’s Millennium co-op (from 1961): http://www.smpiast.pl/ospoldzielni.html. Polish
co-ops were also overseen by the Central Association of Housing Cooperatives (CZSBM).
6. Sillince, Housing Policies, 330–4, 342–3; Deutsche Bauakademie, Projektiert, Gebaut, Bewohnt, Berlin: VEB Verlag für
Bauwesen, 1968, 9–14; A. Power, Hovels to High-Rise, London: Routledge, 1993, 153; WG Einheit, 50 Jahre
Geschichte(n), Chemnitz; n.p., 2004, 9–27 (the individual deposit was 2.500 Mark); Sillince, Housing Policies, 37–9,
90–4, 183, 330–43, 475; J. Jordan, ‘Industrialised building in Eastern Europe: German Democratic Republic’, Architects’
Journal, 15 March 1967, 677–80; P. Balchin, Housing Policy in Europe, London: Routledge, 1996, 245–51, 272–6.
7. Tsenkova, Housing Policy Reforms, 5–38, 42–4; M. Benkő, ‘The lifespan of large prefabricated housing estates’,
Architektura & Urbanizmus 49, nos 3–4 (2015): 180–97; Molnár, Building the State, 87; Sillince, Housing Policies,
38–9, 183–9, 208ff., 441–68; M. Branczik, ‘Planning of standardised housing types in Hungary’, Architektura &
Urbanizmus 3–4 (2012): 186–9; D. Parusheva and I. Marcheva, ‘Housing in socialist Bulgaria’, Home Cultures, 2010,
179–213.
8. Sillince, Housing Policies, 2, 39, 62–76, 90–106 (Czechoslovakia), 121, 335, 459–82. In the GDR, rents were controlled
through continuation of a 1936 Nazi law. Donnison, ‘Housing Policies’, 93; A. Wojtun, ‘Envisaging Nowy Targ Square’,
MSc dissertation, University of Edinburgh, 2013, 9–30, 102; Rietdorf, Neue Wohngebiete, 76, 153; J. Friedrich, Neue
Stadt in altem Gewand: der Wiederaufbau Danzigs 1945–1960, Cologne: Böhlau, 2010, 78–88; Ferkai, Housing Estates,
56–8; Balchin, Housing Policy in Europe, 245–51. The PR-5 programme followed on a 1972 parliamentary resolution
(no. 258) envisaging construction of seven million dwellings by 1980: information from Michał Duda.
9. Donnison, ‘Housing Policies’, 91; Building, 27 October 1967, 109; Parushevaand Marcheva, ‘Housing in socialist
Bulgaria’, 208; Sillince, Housing Policies, 25, 183–208, 335–50; Rietdorf, Neue Wohngebiete, 86, 106; Wynn, Housing in
Europe, 220–41; Urban, Neo-Historical East Berlin, 257; K. Angermann and T. Hilse, Altstadtplatten: ‘Komplexe
Rekonstruktion’ in den Innenstädten von Erfurt und Halle, Weimar: BUV, 2014, 88–9; Power, Hovels to High-Rise, 152;
Hannemann, Die Platte, 77–92, 155; Deutsche Bauakademie, Projektiert, Gebaut, Bewohnt, 10–11.
10. R.-H. Guerrand, Une Europe en Construction, Paris: La Découverte, 1992, 185–6; Der Tagesspiegel, 2 October 2011;
Wynn, Housing in Europe, 220–47; Sillince, Housing Policies, 337; Angermann and Hilse, Altstadtplatten, 88–9, 117–18;
Honecker, Aus meinem Leben, 302–16; F. Urban, Tower and Slab: Histories of Global Mass Housing, London: Routledge,
2015, 256–9; T. Fiedler and M. Georgen, Die Geschichte der Deutschen, Munich: DTV, 2008, 40; Rietdorf, Neue
Wohngebiete, 106; Karl-Marx-Stadt: WG Einheit, 50 Jahre Geschichte(n), 23–7. Propaganda figures: Florian Urban.
11. Sillince, Housing Policies, 5, 7, 442–54, 475; M. Lux and P. Sunega, ‘Public housing in the post-socialist states of central
and eastern Europe’, Housing Studies 29 (2014): 501–19; Moravčíková et al., Bratislava Atlas Sidlisk, 44–9.
12. Bernhardt and Reif, Sozialistische Städte zwischen Herrschaft und Selbstbehauptung; Marmot, ‘Polish housing’, 181. See
also DOCOMOMO Journal 59 (‘An Eastern Europe Vision’), 2018. Rietdorf, Neue Wohngebiete, 66
13. Donnison, ‘Housing Policies’, 91, 112.
14. Bernhardt, ‘Planning urbanisation and urban growth’, 111; Sillince, Housing Policies, 7. ‘Extensive Stadtentwicklung’:
Manfred Nutz, Stadtentwicklung in Umbruchsituationen. Wiederaufbau und Wiedervereinigung als Stressfaktoren der
Entwicklung ostdeutscher Mittelstädte, ein Raum-Zeit-Vergleich mit Westdeutschland, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag,
1998, section 4.2.
15. E. Mumford, ‘CIAM and the Communist bloc’, Journal of Architecture 14, no. 2 (2009): 239–41; K. Zarecor,
Manufacturing a Socialist Modernity, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011, 17–51, 94–109; Branczik,
‘Planning of standardised housing types in Hungary’, 182–5; S. Gzell, ‘Outline of postwar urban planning in Poland’,
Planning History 13, no. 2 (1995): 6–11; Moravčíková et al., Bratislava Atlas Sidlisk, 50–1; R. Anderson, Russia: Modern
Architectures in History, London: Reaktion, 2015, 225–6.
16. Pugh, ‘From “national style” to “rationalised construction” ’, 92–5; Urban, Neo-Historical East Berlin, 250–1; J. Nasr and
M. Volait (eds), Urbanism: Imported or Exported? Chichester: Wiley, 2003, 128–45; A. Diener, ‘Heimatgefühl im

600
 Notes

Plasteblock’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 16 August 2012, R1. At the suggestion of Vlasov and Sergei Chermyslov,
some Stalinallee blocks were heightened, especially in Strausberger Platz: Simone Hain, ‘Berlin Ost: “Im Westen wird
man sich wundern,” ’ in K. von Beyme et al. (eds), Neue Stadte aus Ruinen, Munich: Prestel, 1992, 32–57; Simone Hain,
‘Reise nach Moskau: Wie Deutsche “sozialistisch” bauen lernten’, Bauwelt 83 (1992): 2546–58; Molnár, Building the
State, 32–8, 45–9; Wynn, Housing in Europe, 243; Mumford, ‘CIAM and the Communist bloc’, 239–45 (underlying
similarities with Western modernist planning); Paulick: Udo Kultermann, Zeitgenössische Architektur in Osteuropa,
Cologne: DuMont, 1985, 122–4.
17. Late 1950s Socialist Realist housing: Branczik, ‘Planning of standardised housing types in Hungary’, 185; Ferkai,
Housing Estates, 47–54; Zarecor, Manufacturing a Socialist Modernity, 141–99; Moravčíková et al., Bratislava Atlas
Sidlisk, 74–81; Gzell, ‘Outline of postwar urban planning’, 7–8; Jerzy Zbiegień, ‘Nowa Huta in Krakow’, Sozalistischer
Realismus und sozialistische Moderne 58 (2013): 45–6; Maciej Miezan, Kraków’s Nowa Huta, Krakow: Wydawnictwo
Bedroża, 2004, 15–17, 57–63; Zbiegień, ‘Nowa Huta in Kraków’, 45–8.
18. C. Hannemann, Architecture as Ideology: Industrialisation of Housing in the GDR, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin,
Stadt- und Regionalsoziologie, working papers 2a, January 2004; Hannemann, Die Platte, 58; Bernhardt, ‘Planning
urbanisation and urban growth’, 115; T. Topfstedt, ‘Die nachgeholte Moderne’, in G. Dolff-Bonekämper and H. Kier
(eds), Städtebau und Staatsbau im 20. Jahrhundert, Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 1996, 39–50; ETH Studio Basel,
Belgrade, Formal/Informal, Zurich: Scheidegger & Spiess, 2012; Dufaux and Fourcault, Grands ensembles, 101–5;
Gzell, ‘Outline of postwar urban planning’, 6–12. Ulbricht criticism of the Interbau Hansaviertel’s open-space towers:
Hain, ‘Berlin Ost’, 45–56; Pugh, ‘From “national style” to “rationalised construction” ’, 92–5; Hain, ‘Berlin Ost’, 45–56;
Molnár, Building the State, 58, 69–71; R. Liebscher, Wohnen für Alle: eine Kulturgeschichte des Plattenbaus, Berlin:
Vergangenheits Verlag, 2009, 54–5, 77.
19. Osiedle PKWN: information from M. Duda.
20. Zbiegień, ‘Nowa Huta in Kraków’, 47; Miezan, Kraków’s Nowa Huta; Gzell, ‘Outline of postwar urban planning’, 8–9;
Wojtun, ‘Envisaging Nowy Targ Square’, 86–7. Moravčíková et al., Bratislava Atlas Sidlisk, 16–19, 74–81, 84, 110–19.
21. Sillince, Housing Policies, 177: 80% of Bulgarian dwellings in the 1950s were single-storey houses.
22. M. Branczik and M. Keller, Korszerű lakás az óbudai kísérlet, Budapest: Budapesti Történeti Múzeum, 2011. More
incremental Hungarian transition from Socialist Realism to modernism in a single town: see, e.g., Kazincbarcika,
developed for BVK Chemical Plant from 1954 to plans by the VÁTI town-planning institute: Helka Dzsacsovszki,
‘The expanding scope of the heritage value of socialist architecture’, MSc dissertation, University of Edinburgh, 2018,
25–9. B. Kerékgyártó, ‘Was humanized modernism possible after all?’, in A. Moravánszky and J. Hopfengärtner (eds),
Rehumanizing Architecture: New Forms of Community, 1950–1970, Basel: Birkhäuser, 2017, 67–9 (on Major and
importance of 1958 Brussels World’s Fair in Hungarian return to modernism).
23. Egressy út: information from Pál Ritoók. As late as 1960–1, a ‘Family House Debate’ in Hungary weighed up single-
family versus collective housing: Molnár, Building the State, 69–71, 78, 116–31; Ferkai, Housing Estates, 48–54.
24. Hannemann, Die Platte, 76–7; J. Jordan, ‘Industrialised building in Eastern Europe: Czechoslovakia’, Architects’
Journal, 19 April 1967, 963; Urban, Neo-Historical East Berlin, 250–1; Deutsche Bauakademie, Projektiert, Gebaut,
Bewohnt, 92; Pugh, ‘From “national style” to “rationalised construction” ’, 102; Jordan, ‘Industrialised building in
Eastern Europe: German Democratic Republic’, 678; Branczik, ‘Planning of standardised housing types in Hungary’,
184; Kerékgyártó, ‘Was humanized modernism possible after all?’, 74.
25. Rietdorf, Neue Wohngebiete, 34–5, 37, 120, 150–1, 260–71 (front cover: Vilnius’s Lazdynai); Zarecor, Manufacturing a
Socialist Modernity; Hannemann, Die Platte, 64–8; Moravčíková et al., Bratislava Atlas Sidlisk, front cover; Molnár,
Building the State, 45–58; Vision and reality: Zarecor, ‘What was so socialist about the socialist city?’, 9; Jordan,
‘Industrialised building in Eastern Europe: Czechoslovakia’; Ferkai, Housing Estates, 64–7; Bernhardt, ‘Planning
urbanisation and urban growth’, 111; Gzell, ‘Outline of post-war urban planning’, 10; K. Szaraniec, L. Szaraniec and
K. Szarowski, Przewodnik po Katowicach, Katowice: KTSK, 1977, 48–9 (architects Henryk Buszko, Aleksander Franta
and Tadeusz Szewczyk). Karl Marx Stadt/Rostock: information from Florian Urban.
26. Hannemann, Die Platte, 64–7; Bernhardt, ‘Planning urbanisation and urban growth’, 111–15 (Schwedt); Topfstedt,
‘Die nachgeholte Moderne’, 44–5; Moravčíková et al., Bratislava Atlas Sidlisk, 212–23; Zarecor, Manufacturing a
Socialist Modernity, 293–4; Angermann and Hilse, Altstadtplatten, 97–8; Diener, ‘Heimatgefühle im Plasteblock’;
Rietdorf, Neue Wohngebiete, 120–1. Low-rise version, Dresden Neustadt’s Straße der Befreiung, 1974–9: W. Rietdorf,

601
Notes

Stadterneuerung, Berlin: VEB Verlag für Bauwesen, 1989, 92–3. Paulick: Kultermann, Zeitgenössische Architektur,
122–4.
27. Donnison, ‘Housing policies’, 110. 53 million estimated total large-panel dwellings in Eastern Europe (including
USSR), only 1.8 million in Western Europe: P. Meuser and D. Zadorin, Towards a Typology of Soviet Mass Housing,
Berlin: Dom, 2015, 34; Benkő, ‘The lifespan of large prefabricated housing estates’, xlix, 304, 181; P. Meuser, Ästhetik
der Platte, Berlin: Dom, 2015, 96–123. Zarecor, Manufacturing a Socialist Modernity, 17–23, 74–5, 91–109, 242–4,
289–93; Moravčíková et al., Bratislava Atlas Sidlisk, 20–3, 46–9, 52; Lucie Skrívankóva, Rostislav Švácha and Irena
Lehkoživiva (eds), The Paneláks: Twenty-five Housing Estates in the Czech Republic, Prague: Museum of Decorative
Arts, 2017; K. E. Zarecor and E. Špačková, ‘Czech panelaks are disappearing, but the housing estates remain’, A & U
46, nos 3–4 (2012): 291; Rietdorf, Neue Wohngebiete, 106, 252–4, 260–1; Jordan, ‘Industrialised building in Eastern
Europe: Czechoslovakia’, 962–3; Moravánszky and Hopfengärtner, Rehumanizing Architecture, 158–60; Architektura
ČSSR, July 1967, 409–15; Balchin, Housing Policy in Europe, 276–7; Dufaux and Fourcaut, Grands ensembles, 143–62;
W. Prigge (ed.), Ernst Neufert. Normierte Baukultur im 20. Jahrhundert, Frankfurt-am-Main: Campus Verlag, 1999;
Der Neuaufbau Berlins, 1959, Hannemann, Die Platte, 59–64; Deutsche Bauakademie, Projektiert, Gebaut, Bewohnt,
5–13; Angermann and Hilse, Altstadtplatten, 91; Jordan, ‘Industrialised building in Eastern Europe: Czechoslovakia’,
961–3; Pugh, ‘From “national style” to “rationalised construction” ’, 87–108; Hannemann, Architecture as Ideology, 5, 9,
21; Sillince, Housing Policies, 4; Jordan, ‘Industrialised building: German Democratic Republic’, 677–80;
WG Einheit, 50 Jahre Geschichte(n), 23–7; Bezirksleitung Berlin der SED, Erich Honecker in Berlin, 97–100, 115;
Hannemann, Die Platte, 70–6, 82–94. The WBS70 was based on Kosel’s Einheitssystem, and the first example was
built by the Wohnungsbaukombinat Neubrandenburg in 1973 at Koszaliner Str. 1–7. Wynn, Housing in Europe,
220–246; Liebscher, Wohnen für alle, 89, 98.
28. In nine sectional-plan blocks of up to four storeys: Parushevaand Marcheva, ‘Housing in socialist Bulgaria’, 204;
Rietdorf, Neue Wohnungsgebiete, 34–5, 39.
29. G. Sebestyén, Large Panel Buildings, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1965; Molnár, Building the State, 79; Ferkai, Housing
Estates, 65–6; Architects’ Journal, 22 March 1967, 713–15 (Soviet-derived system); see also website: fortepan.hu.
30. Moravčíková et al., Bratislava Atlas Sidlisk, 46–7 (artwork), 54–7, 187–93 (flexible sectional design of sectional
‘sekciové bytové domy). Schmidt’s reservations about closed systems in 1956: Pugh, ‘From “national style” to
“rationalised construction” ’, 87–102; Urban, Tower and Slab, 68–71. Grunwaldzki, by architect Jadwiga Grabowska-
Hawrylak: G. Hryniewicz-Lamber, ‘Late modern buildings in a historic town centre’, in DOCOMOMO-US,
DOCOMOMO-International 2004 Conference Proceedings, New York, 2004, 275–81; Marcin Szczelina, Wrocław-
Breslau: An Architectural Guide, Berlin: DOM, 2018; A. Tomaszewicz and J. Majczyk, ‘Town planning and Socialist
Realism: the new academic district in Wrocław’, Planning Perspectives 34, no 4 (2019): 579–600. Ferkai, Housing
Estates, 67–71, 275–81; Molnár, Building the State, 13, 92; Branczik, ‘Planning of standardised housing types in
Hungary’, 190–1; A. Kedziorek and Ł. Stanek, ‘Architecture as a pedagogical object’, A & U 46, nos 3–4 (2012): 252–65.
Hungarian 1969 critiques of ‘monotony’, Zalotay’s Strip and design of Újpalota: Kerékgyártó, ‘Was humanized
modernism possible after all?’, 75–81.
31. Falowiec: http://przymorze.gda.pl/blog/jak-diszlo-do-powstania-spoldzieni-przymorze/; http://www.trojmiasto.pl/
wiadomosci/Falowce. Gdansk DSK: Gdańskie Przedsiebiorstwo Budownictwa Miejskiego (GPBM). Information
about Miskolc: courtesy of Helka Dzsacsovszki, 2018.
32. Moravčíková et al., Bratislava Atlas Sidlisk, 34–5, 38–9, 46, 48–9, 262–71 (Dlhé diely); M. Krivý, ‘Postmodernism or
Socialist Realism? The architecture of housing estates in late socialist Czechoslovakia’, JSAH 75, no. 1 (March 1976):
74–101. ‘Postmodernist’ Káposztásmegyer, with folk-style clock pavilion: Ferkai, Housing Estates, 71–7.
33. Molnár, Building the State, 111–31. Poland: Florian Urban, ‘Postmodernism and socialist mass housing in Poland’,
Planning Perspectives 35, no. 1 (2020): 27–60.
34. Sillince, Housing Policies, 3; 171–3.
35. Friedrich, Neue Stadt in altem Gewand, 76–7, 86–90; Wojtun, ‘Envisaging Nowy Targ Square; www.smpiast.pl/
ospoldzielni.html.
36. Sillince, Housing Policies, 4, 7, 114–19. Rietdorf, Stadterneuerung, 34–7 (1982–3 competition: ‘Variable
Gebäudelösungen in Grossplattenbauwiese für das innerstädtische Bauen’; 1984 project: ‘Komplexe Innerstädtische
Rekonstruktion und Erneuerung’); Urban, Neo-Historical East Berlin, 99–141, 259; Deutsche Bauakademie,

602
 Notes

Projektiert, Gebaut, Bewohnt, 284–91. Rostock city centre housing: information from Florin Urban. Rostock-Schmarl:
commissioned 1973 by Arbeiter-Wohnungsbaugenossenschaft Schifffahrt-Hafen Rostock and built by VE
Wohnungsbaukombinat Rostock, using WBS70R, some with curved plans; Angermann and Hilse, Altstadtplatten,
21–3, 38–56, 97–8; Tagespiegel, 20 October 2011; Kultermann, Zeitgenössische Architektur, 124.
37. Sillince, Housing Policies, 4, 360–93. Output fell back in the wake of the 1978 spilt with China. Tsenkova, Housing
Policy Reforms.
38. A. M. Zahariade, Arhitectură în proiectul comunist: România 1944–1989, Bucharest: Simetria, 2011, 2–11, 14–25, 40–4.
Rietdorf, Neue Wohngebiete, 182. In 1965, the Romanian Workers’ Party was renamed the Romanian Communist
Party. Romanian road to communism: ‘calea românescă spre comunism’; national communism: ‘comunismului
national’.
39. 1956 report: Juliana Maxim, The Socialist Life of Modern Architecture: Bucharest 1949–1964, Abingdon: Routledge,
2019, 61. Early postwar architecture and planning: Irina Tulbure, Arhitectură şi urbanism în România anilor 1944–
1960, Bucharest: Simetria, 2016.
40. Miruna Stroe, Locuirea între proiect şi decizie politică, Bucharest: Simetria, 2015, 242–7; Tsenkova, Housing Policy
Reforms, 39–42 (including the trust (de) construcţii); Zahariade, Arhitectură în proiectul comunist, 45, 48–9; Sillince,
Housing Policies, 3, 135–52, 164–5; Rietdorf, Neue Wohngebiete, 185–9; Zahariade, Arhitectură în proiectul comunist,
45–8; Alexandra Florea, ‘Rural architecture during the communist period in Romania’, paper at SAH Conference,
Glasgow, 9 June 2017; T. Ciolacu, ‘Urban planning in Romania under the effect of Systematisation’, DOCONF 2015
conference, BME University, Budapest, October 2015. After 1986, all new housing production was public rental.
Liliana Iuga, ‘Don’t tell me it cannot be done!’, in A. M. Zahariade (ed), Politics: Too Much or Not Enough, Bucharest:
Editura Universitară Ion Mincu, 2018, 87.
41. Stroe, Locuirea, 242–7. State Planning Committee: information from Ana Maria Zahariade. Khrushchev’s 1954
anti-Stalinist speech was only digested in the PMR with difficulty: M. Mărginean, ‘Some discussions on functionalist
housing’, Studia Politică 17, no. 1 (2017): 73–84. Ferentari and standard single-family house types: Tulbure,
Arhitectură şi urbanism, 158–63, 272; V. Marin, ‘Civil society and mass housing in post-communist Bucharest’,
DOCOMOMO Urbanism and Landscape conference, Edinburgh, 2011; Sillince, Housing Policies, 150–1; Rietdorf,
Neue Wohngebiete, 186, 189; Dimitru Rusu (ed.), Socialist Modernism in Romania and the Republic of Moldova,
Bucharest: BACU, 2017; G. Ionescu, P. Derer and D. Theodorescu, Arhitectură în România, perioada anilor 1944–1969,
Bucharest: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, 1969, 72, 74, 78, 111–12. Zahariade, Arhitectură în
proiectul comunist, 28–36 (prewar debates about housing aesthetics), 48, 54–6, 136; Maxim, Socialist Life, 38–46, 103;
R. Laurian, Urbanismul, Bucharest: Editura Tehnică, 1965, 93–104, 364: cf. also Piaţa 1 Decembrie, monumentally-
clustered at a busy street junction. Alexandru Panaitescu, De la Casa Scânteii la Casa Poporului, Bucharest: Simetria,
2012, 44–6, 53.
42. Maxim, Socialist Life, 18–22, 67–93, 176; Sillince, Housing Policies, 135–52; Laurian, Urbanismul, 364; Ionescu et al.,
Arhitectură în România, 68; Stroe, Locuirea, 123–9; Ciolacu, ‘Urban planning in Romania’; Zahariade, Arhitectură în
proiectul comunist, 30–7, 49, 61. Institute for Design of Type Constructions (from 1956) and type planning:
Moravánzsky and Hopfengärtner, Rehumanizing Architecture, 307.
43. Panaitescu, De la Casa Scânteii, 50. Information on systematization from Irina Tulbure.
44. Zahariade, Arhitectură în proiectul comunist, 36–7, 50, 59–62; Ciolacu, ‘Urban planning in Romania’; Tsenkova,
Housing Policy Reforms, 39; Sillince, Housing Policies, 135–58; Stroe, Locuirea; Marin, ‘Civil society and mass housing’.
Rejection of architectural conservation as incompatible with systematization – unlike other socialist countries:
M. Glendinning, The Conservation Movement: A History of Architectural Preservation, Abingdon: Routledge, 2013,
386–9; M. R. Popa, ‘Restructuring and Envisioning Bucharest’, PhD, Central European University, 2004; Panaitescu,
De la Casa Scânteii, 126–7, 148–9, 174, 193; D. C. Giurescu, The Razing of Romania’s Past, London: Architecture
Design and Technical Press, 1989, 41.
45. Tsenkova, Housing Policy Reforms, 39; Ciolacu, ‘Urban planning in Romania’; Zahariade, Arhitectură în proiectul
communist, 49, 61; Ana Maria Zahariade, ‘1980er Jahre: Ceauşescus postmodernes Manifest’, Arch + 229 (May 2017):
54–61; Iuga, ‘Don’t tell me it cannot be done’, 88.
46. M. Mrduljaš and V. Kulić (eds), Unfinished Modernisations, Zagreb: UHA, 2012, 6–10.

603
Notes

47. J. M. Stierli and V. Kulić, Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia 1948–1980, New York: Museum of
Modern Art, 2018, 41–54; J. Hegedüs, M. Lux and N. Teller, Social Housing in Transition Countries, Abingdon:
Routledge, 2013, 280–1.
48. L. Blagojević, ‘The residence as a decisive factor’, A & U 46, nos 3–4 (2012): 240–3; interview with J. Jovanović, July
2014. ETH Studio Basel, Belgrade, Formal/Informal, 187; Wynn, Housing in Europe, 156; Sillince, Housing Policies, 402,
415; Mrduljaš and Kulić, Unfinished Modernisations, 18–19, 71.
49. New Yugoslav constitutions: 1946, 1963 and 1974. Capitalist-style public combines: e.g Belgrade Land Development
Public Agency or Split Development Enterprise. Full name of JNA: Jugoslavenska narodna armija.
50. Mrduljaš and Kulić, Unfinished Modernisations, 11–14, 406. Typical was the Ljubljana authority, established 1955.
Wynn, Housing in Europe, 156–61; Sillince, Housing Policies, 37, 402–4; Mrduljaš and Kulić, Unfinished
Modernisations, 11–14, 406. The SZ largely replaced industrial enterprises. Luka Skansi (ed.), Streets and
Neighbourhoods: Vladimir Braco Mušić and Large-Scale Architecture, Ljubljana: Museum of Art and Design, 2016, 35;
T. Dabović, Z. Nedović-Budić and D. Djordjević, ‘Pursuit of integration in the former Yugoslavia’s planning’, Planning
Perspectives 34, no. 2 (2019): 215–41.
51. Le Normand, Designing Tito’s Capital, 138. Increased private building: Wynn, Housing in Europe, 156–63. Hegedüs et
al., Social Housing in Transition Countries, 130, 245; Sillince, Housing Policies, 402–28; ETH Studio Basel, Belgrade,
187–8. In 1967 the CC of the Yugoslav Communist Party (the ‘League of Communists of Yugoslavia’) voted to expand
the public role of professionals and technocrats. Mrduljaš and Kulić, Unfinished Modernisations, 18–19, 188; G.
Hallett (ed.), Land and Housing Policies in Europe and the USA, London: Routledge, 1988, 108. There was no Yugoslav
equivalent of Poland’s massive, parastatal co-ops. Tsenkova, Housing Policy Reforms, 40–2; ETH Studio Basel,
Belgrade, 187–8; Architects’ Journal, April 1967, 997; Balchin, Housing Policy in Europe, 242–3. Interviews with D. and
M. Marušić and A. Stjepanović, July 2014.
52. The home-ownership boom countered informal ‘wild construction’ which totalled 10,000 houses in Belgrade by 1965.
Interviews with Stjepanović and Jovanović, 2014. Divlja izgradnja: Le Normand, Designing Tito’s Capital, 148–9;
Sillince, Housing Policies, 410–11; J. Jordan, Architects’ Journal, 26 April 1967, 997; Tsenkova, Housing Policy Reforms;
42.33% in Slovenia (comprising 68% enterprise housing, 30% municipal, 2% other state agencies). Balchin, Housing
Policy in Europe, 242–3; Hegedüs et al., Social Housing in Transition Countries, 280–1.
53. Stierli and Kulić, Concrete Utopia, 41–2, 45, 48; D. Blažević, Split: arhitektura 20. Stoljeća, Zagreb: Društvo arhitekata
Zagreba, 2011, 27; Le Normand, Designing Tito’s Capital, 76, 92; N. Koselj (ed.), Docomomo-Slovenija 100, Ljubljana:
Ustanova France, 2017, 17, 37.
54. M. Mitrović, Modern Belgrade Architecture, Belgrade: Jugoslavija, 1975, 19; M. Mitrović, Arhitektura Beograda,
1950–2012, Belgrade: Glasnik, 2012. Cf. the ‘Western Gate’ of 1977: Mitrović, Modern Belgrade Architecture, front
cover, 19; Le Normand, Designing Tito’s Capital, 76, 92; M. Drėmaitė, Baltic Modernism: Architecture and Housing in
Soviet Lithuania, Berlin: Dom, 2017, 185–9. Information from J. Jovanović, 2014. Interviews with D. and M. Marušić
and Stjepanović, 2014. Stierli and Kulić, Concrete Utopia, 42–50.
55. Interview with D. and M. Marušić; Stierli and Kulić, Concrete Utopia, 48–50; Mrduljaš and Kulić, Unfinished
Modernisations, 36, 175–88, 277–300, 410–16. The 1957 system was simply known as ‘IMS’. Blagojević, ‘The residence
as a decisive factor’, 240; Mitrović, Modern Belgrade Architecture, 20–25; Jordan, Architects Journal, 26 April 1967,
995–8; interviews with D. and M. Marušić, and Jovanović, 7 and 8 July 2014; Wynn, Housing in Europe, 162–70;
Architects’ Journal, April 1967. Čerak built by contractor GP Napred, following 1977 competition. Čerak, Prikaz
modela izgradnje, Belgrade: IAUS, 1982; B. Petrović (ed.), Čerak 2: katalog stanova, Belgrade: Komanda odbrane grada
Beograda Stambeni organi, 1984.
56. On the 20th anniversary of its 11 April 1948 commencement, with 100,000 inhabitants already in residence, Mayor
Branko Pesić (1964–74) argued, ‘[I]t is only possible in socialist Yugoslavia to realise such a grandiose and, in many
ways, unique idea, of constructing Novi Beograd’: Mitrović, Modern Belgrade Architecture, 11. J. Jovanović, ‘New
Belgrade: past, present, future, and the future that never came’, DOCOMOMO Journal 59 (2018): 68–73.
57. Le Normand, Designing Tito’s Capital, 115–18, 120–6; Mrduljaš and Kulić, Unfinished Modernisations, 296–8. UZB =
urbanistički zavod Beograda. M. Petrović, ‘Post-socialist housing policy transformation in Yugoslavia and Belgrade’,
International Journal of Housing Policy 1, no. 2 (2010): 218; Blagojević, ‘The residence as a decisive factor’, 232–3.

604
 Notes

NBDD = Direkcija za izgradje Novog Beograda. Building Facilities Construction Directorate = Direkcija na izgradje
gradjevinska objektata državnog secretarijata za narodnov odbranov. The JNA was Yugoslavia’s first institution to
introduce planning standards and norms for public housing, in 1955 (‘Instructions for the Construction of
Residential Buildings for the Needs of the JNA’): Mrduljaš and Kulić, Unfinished Modernisations, 298.
58. These included GP Napred, Neimar, Ratko Mitrović, 7 Juli, Hidrogradnja and Čačak. Some helped develop Yugoslav
prefabrication, e.g. Žeželj and Jugomont: Mrduljaš and Kulić, Unfinished Modernisations, 164–5, 296–8. Development
was financed by compulsory deductions from employees’ wages and internal cross-subsidies; ETH Basel, Belgrade,
184; Blagojević, ‘The residence as a decisive factor’, 232–3; interview with D. Marušic, 2014.
59. Le Normand, Designing Tito’s Capital, 61–5, 120–6. Regulation Plan commissioned by Belgrade People’s Committee,
ratified by Municipal Assembly. New Belgrade ‘blok’ 600m x 400m; Brasilia superquadra 280m x 280m. Design
densities: 300 and 280 persons per hectare. Mrduljaš and Kulić, Unfinished Modernisations, 163; J. Jovanović, ‘Mass
Heritage of New Belgrade’, Periodica Polytecnica Architecture, paper 11621 (2017), 1–7; ETH Basel, Belgrade, 184–7;
Blagojević, ‘The residence as a decisive factor’, 232–3.
60. Tošin Bunar – designed in 1949 by Vrbanić and Ilić, built by 1955; Le Normand, Designing Tito’s Capital, 80;
interviews with D. and M. Marušic, 2014; Mrduljaš and Kulić, Unfinished Modernisations, 297–8. The meander block
designers (Mihajlo Čanak, Leonid Lenarčić, Miloscu Mitić, Ivan Petrović) worked within the IMS Institute. Mitrović,
Modern Belgrade Architecture, 20–25; Blagojević, ‘The residence as a decisive factor’, 232–40. From 1966, BLDPA was
chief investor and developer for many of these blocks.
61. Interview with Stjepanović, 2014. Its ‘Brutalism’ was influenced by the Banjica project. Mitrović, Modern Belgrade
Architecture, 29, 63, 103 and front cover; Mrduljaš and Kulić, Unfinished Modernisations, 237–8, 302–3; Le Normand,
Designing Tito’s Capital, 120–6, 138–41. Block 22 (also 1968–76), by the same design team as 23, comprised lower
buildings in similar ‘Brutalist’ style. Blagojević, ‘The residence as a decisive factor’, 232–5 (also on Block 29), 240–1,
245–6 (Bl. 24). Lower-than-anticipated demand compelled reversion to smaller flat sizes. Jovanović, ‘Mass Heritage of
New Belgrade’, 1–7. Western Gate: Dejan Aleksić, ‘Loša izolacija, podzemne vode i manjak para i u “zlatno doba” ’
(‘Bad insulation, groundwater and lack of funds even in the “golden age” ’), Politika 5 (November 2017).
62. The original 1967 BLDPA ‘luxury’ proposals for Block 30 were cancelled after public protest, demonstrating the limits of
‘market socialism’; they were eventually built with five-storey Žeželj blocks. Block 19 was built by the JNA and the
Directorate for the Construction of Belgrade. Mrduljaš and Kulić, Unfinished Modernisations, 304–7. There were also
ingenious circular link-blocks .The ‘coarsening’, and Balency’s alleged incompatibility with Yugoslavia’s smaller per-capita
living-space (16m2) than Western Europe, prompted the Marušić duo to resign from the project. Interviews with D. and
M. Marušić, July 2014 (including IMS, development system, self-management, the role of the JNA and Komgrap).
63. Ivan Mlinar, Remitinečki Gaj, Zagreb: CKNZ, 2014, 10, 42, 116; E. Blau and I. Rupnik, Project Zagreb, Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Graduate School of Design, 2007, 205, 248–65. Jugomont director Vilko Holub exploited Zagreb
municipal connections to launch his system nationally.
64. Dates and statistics for Vrbik, Travno: courtesy of Marko Špikić, Department of Art History, University of Zagreb,
2019. Dugave’s complex SIZ organization involved forty municipal enterprises, professional institutions and building
companies. Mrduljaš and Kulić, Unfinished Modernisations, 174–95, 328–35; Skansi, Streets and Neighbourhoods, 99;
Blažević, Split, 56–84; K. Lynch, The Image of the City, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1960. Previous Croatian exercises
in site-specific Sittesque modernism: I. R. Stojanović, ‘Parallel approaches to postwar urban reconstruction in socialist
countries’, DOCONF 2017, Budapest. Cf. two-axis Split 3 and Budapest’s Ujpalota. Contractors for Split 3 included
Lavčević Split, Konstruktor Split and Tehnogradja Split. Peter Blake, Form Follows Fiasco, Boston: Little-Brown, 1977,
94; Wynn, Housing in Europe, 162–71.
65. Mrduljaš and Kulić, Unfinished Modernisations, 207; Stierli and Kulić, Concrete Utopia, 72–4.
66. Koselj, Docomomo-Slovenija 100, 17, 79–81; Skansi, Streets and Neighbourhoods, 23, 55, 169–79; Blažević, Split, 92–5;
K. L. Vehovar, ‘Modern Neighbourhoods in Ljubljana’, paper at DOCOMOMO Conference, Ljubljana, 2017;
Blagojević, ‘The residence as a decisive factor’, 240; Mitrović, Modern Belgrade Architecture, 20–5; interviews with
D. and M. Marušić, July 2014; Wynn, Housing in Europe, 162–70; Jordan, Architects’ Journal, 26 April 1967, 995–8;
Mrduljaš and Kulić, Unfinished Modernisations, 175–88, 277–300, 336–47 (Murgle), 410–16.
67. Hegedüs et al., Social Housing in Transition Countries, 280–1; Balchin, Housing Policy in Europe, 307–22; Sillince,
Housing Policies, 4, 22, 420–30.

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Chapter 13 Socialist Eastern Asia: Mass Housing and The Sino-Soviet Split

1. John Doling and Richard Ronald (eds), Housing East Asia: Socioeconomic and Demographic Challenges, Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, 14–19; P. Nihal and T. Wing-shing, Transforming Asian Cities, Abington: Routledge, 2013;
C. Schwenkel, ‘Socialist palimpsests in urban Vietnam’, ABE Journal 6, nos 3–4 (2014): 2–3.
2. Ya-Ping Wang and Alan Murie, Housing Policy and Practice in China, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999, 6–15.
3. J. Campbell and J. Hall, The World of States, London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015, 39–40; J. Doling and R. Ronald,
Housing East Asia: Socioeconomic and Demographic Challenges, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, 16; Y. P. Wang,
‘Public sector housing in urban China 1949–1988: the case of Xian’, Housing Studies 10, no. 1 (1995): 79. Interwar
urban built form: B. Badcock, ‘Land and housing policy in Chinese urban development, 1976–86, Planning
Perspectives 1 (1986): 156; N. Arkaraprasertkul, ‘Towards modern urban housing: redefining Shanghai’s lilong’, Journal
of Urbanism 2, no. 1 (March 2009): 1–29.
4. X. Lü and E. J. Perry, Danwei: The Changing Chinese Workplace, Armonk, NY: Eastgate, 1997, 12–14; Lü Junhua,
P. G. Rowe and Z. Jie, Modern Urban Housing in China 1840–2000, Munich: Prestel, 2001, 48–99.
5. Mao’s 1919 embrace of Confucian-style villages: J. Chung, J. Inaba, R. Koolhaas and S. T. Leong, Great Leap Forward,
Cambridge, MA: Harvard Design School, 48–50; Lü and Perry, Danwei, 12–14, 26–45; D. F. Lu, Remaking Chinese
Urban Form, Abingdon: Routledge, 2006, 1–8; Wang, ‘Public sector housing’, 64–6.
6. Lu, Remaking Chinese Urban Form, 15–26, 39–41, 74, 83–4; Lü and Perry, Danwei, 12–14, 118–78, 228 (limited
housing impact of municipalization); F. Urban, Tower and Slab: Histories of Global Mass Housing, London: Routledge,
2015, 146; Wang, ‘Public sector housing’, 64. Job turnover in the USSR was ten times that of danwei China.
7. Wang and Murie, Housing Policy and Practice in China, 36–42; 45–63, 92–9, 132–42; Badcock, ‘Land and housing
policy’, 148–9; Doling and Ronald, Housing East Asia, 45; Lü and Perry, Danwei, 228 (limited housing impact of
municipalization).
8. Especially in Beijing (1949 decision to pull down ‘feudal’ city walls); Z. Xiaowei, ‘Urban housing reform in post-Mao
China’, International Study Paper 6, Shanghai: Institute of East Asian Political Economy, 1994, 9.
9. Limited confiscations – as seen for example in Xian: Wang, ‘Public sector housing’, 62–3; Lü et al., Modern Urban
Housing in China, 114–20, 140–3.
10. M. Bonino and F. De Pieri (eds), Beijing Danwei, Berlin: Jovis, 2015; Y. P. Wang, Urban Poverty, Housing and Social
Change in China, London: Routledge, 2004, 32–3; Xiaoxi Hui, Housing, Urban Renewal and Socio-spatial Integration,
Delft: Delft TU, 2012, 174; Lu, Remaking Chinese Urban Form, 39–47.
11. Lü and Perry, Danwei, 1–7; Lu, Remaking Chinese Urban Form, 48–54, 99–101; Hui, Housing, Urban Renewal and
Socio-spatial Integration, 105–25; Wang, ‘Public sector housing’, 65–6.
12. Wang, Urban Poverty, 32–3, 44; Badcock, ‘Land and housing policy’, 156–7; F. Wu, ‘Rediscovering the “gate” under
market transition’, Housing Studies 20, no. 2 (March 2005): 235–54; Lü and Perry, Danwei, 93–7; Lu, Remaking Chinese
Urban Form, 48–54. Surveillance focused on the individual’s dangan (dossier). The system privileged the urban
minority at the expense of the rural majority.
13. New housing was directly danwei-managed or management-contracted to the local authority; it was subdivided into
three organizational subcategories: danwei fang (unit-managed); xitong fang (managed as part of a larger
organization); and danwei fenpei fang (danwei-built, management contracted to local authority). Lu, Remaking
Chinese Urban Form, 77, 84–92; Hui, Housing, Urban Renewal and Socio-spatial Integration, 314; Wang, Urban Poverty,
35; Wang, ‘Public sector housing’, 70; Xiaofeng Zhao, ‘Housing in Tianjin’, 2016 report, Hebei University of
Technology; Lü and Perry, Danwei, 26–44, 228–9; Wang and Murie, Housing Policy and Practice in China, 39–65; Wu,
‘Rediscovering the “gate” under market transition’, 239; Doling and Ronald, Housing East Asia, 45; Lü et al., Modern
Urban Housing in China, 116, 130–3, 284–6. Abortive 1953 central-government land-allocation measures: Badcock,
‘Land and housing policy’, 147–9, 156–7.
14. Wang, ‘Public sector housing’, 63; Wang and Murie, Housing Policy and Practice in China, 80–8; Hui, Housing, Urban
Renewal and Socio-spatial Integration, 126–30, 145–86; P. G. Rowe, ‘Urban residential district-making in China’, in
W. Kirby (ed.), The People’s Republic of China at 60, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011; Lu, Remaking
Chinese Urban Form, 1–8, 15–26, 30–8, 41. Devolved management system encouraged in-situ enterprise danwei

606
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housing: Lü et al., Modern Urban Housing in China, 122–38, 140. Clearances for monumental Tiananmen Square
ensemble climaxed in 1958: J. Wang, Beijing Record: A Physical and Political History of Planning Modern Beijing,
Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co., 2011, 382. Chunlan Zhao, ‘Socio-Spatial Transformation in Mao’s China’,
PhD thesis, KU Leuven, 2007, chapter 4. Table of Shanghai estates: http://www.shtong.gov.cn/Newsite/node2/
node2245/node74728/node74738/node74875/node74879/userobject1ai89793.html.
15. Xian: state-enterprise danwei and city government involved in building. Wang and Murie, Housing Policy and Practice
in China, 41–62. Sectional plans enhanced ventilation, e.g. three-storey Zeilenbau Xingfucun, 1957: Lü et al., Modern
Urban Housing in China, 120–2, 124–35; Hui, Housing, Urban Renewal and Socio-spatial Integration, 218–19, 226.
Beijing: 1955 sectional plans by municipal design institute assumed 4m2 allocation per person. Urban, Tower and
Slab, 149–51; Zhao, ‘Housing in Tianjin’. Balcony access: for example, at Xingfucun, Beijing. Shanghai: Xiang Xuan,
‘The research of workers’ community residential architecture in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai from 1949 to 1978’,
M.Arch. dissertation, Jiangnan University, 2011, 26–8, 47, 51.
16. Neighbourhood 1 (Block 1) also contains a three-storey tongzhilou dormitory block with single-storey courtyard:
Hui, Housing, Urban Renewal and Socio-spatial Integration, 603–44, 685–8.
17. Hongbin Ouyang, ‘Danwei in Changsha’, 2017 report, Hunan University. Jianshecun: accessing six small flats and
communal toilets on each floor of each section. Jiceng danwei often had no purpose-built housing, but colonized the
municipally-managed pre-1949 inner-urban stocks.
18. Criticism of ‘big roofs’: Lu, Remaking Chinese Urban Form, 9, 122; Hui, Housing, Urban Renewal and Socio-
spatial Integration, 129–30, 246–7, 254; Wang, Beijing Record; The People’s Daily, 22 February 1955, 1, and 28
March 1955, 1; Lü et al., Modern Urban Housing in China, 124–35, 182–5, 290–1. Industrialization initiatives
in 1949, 1957 and 1975; standardized traditional construction prevailed in the 1950s and 1960s. Despite the economy
drives, construction cost rose from 47yuan/m2 in 1957 to 59 in 1965 and 89 in 1978: Xiaowei, ‘Urban housing reform’,
10.
19. Frank Dikötter, Mao’s Great Famine: The History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe, London: Bloomsbury, 2010;
Lü et al., Modern Urban Housing in China, 139–45. Resources were shifted to heavy industry, cutting state
construction investment allocated to housing from 9% in 1957 to 4% in 1962. Badcock, ‘Land and housing policy’,
149–50; Hui, Housing, Urban Renewal and Socio-spatial Integration, 130–5. The year 1960 saw attacks on ‘extravagant’
city planning, but soon the pendulum swung back towards centralization and local-authority control over housing
management. Wang and Murie, Housing Policy and Practice in China, 90–3; Wang, ‘Public sector housing’, 67–70.
Gandalei construction: based on traditional vernacular methods.
20. Ouyang, ‘Danwei in Changsha’; Urban, Tower and Slab, 151–3; Xuan, ‘Research of workers’ community’,
47, 51.
21. Mao’s earlier utopian socialist readings shaped them. Lu, Remaking Chinese Urban Form, 101–21; Chung et al., Great
Leap Forward, 48; H. J. Lethbridge, China’s Urban Communes, Hong Kong: Dragonfly Books, 1961. Over 1,000
communes existed by July 1960, in 190 cities. Wang, Beijing Record, 383–7; Hui, Housing, Urban Renewal and
Socio-spatial Integration, 130–4, 229. Chongwen People’s Commune in Beijing echoed Fusujing in a U-shaped form
with a higher central section; Tianjin’s Hongshunli People’s Commune forms two U-shaped blocks framing a
courtyard and community canteen. Lü et al., Modern Urban Housing in China, 163–5.
22. Construction investment devoted to housing recovered to 7% by 1965 but regressed to 4% by 1970; space-standards
declined from 4.5m2 per person in 1952 to 3.6m2 per person in 1978. M. Hu, ‘Dynamics of urban and rural housing
stocks in China’, Building Research and Information 38, no.3 (2010): 301–17; Wang and Murie, Housing Policy and
Practice in China, 87; Badcock, ‘Land and housing policy’, 149, 163.
23. Constructed under the ‘Dig deep, store grain, never seek hegemony’ campaign: information from Hongbin Ouyang
and residents, 2017.
24. Heightened by another floor in the 1980s: information from residents, June 2017.
25. Lü et al., Modern Urban Housing in China, 180–5; Hui, Housing, Urban Renewal and Socio-spatial Integration, 143–5,
182–4. Typical mid-1970s Beijing example: Xuanwumen Xidajie 101–117, four sixteen-storey towers accessible by
rear staircase galleries, adjoined by low-rise, hutong-style danwei developments.
26. Wang and Murie, Housing Policy and Practice in China, 120–32; Badcock, ‘Land and housing policy’, 148.

607
Notes

27. Construction sector massively reinforced following ‘Third National City Works Conference’ in Beijing and its key
report, ‘On strengthening urban construction works’. Lü et al., Modern Urban Housing in China, 221–2; Badcock,
‘Land and housing policy’, 151–9; Wang, ‘Public sector housing’, 74–9.
28. Hui, Housing, Urban Renewal and Socio-spatial Integration, 103 (1982 constitution confirmed state ownership of all
urban land), 148; Doling and Ronald, Housing East Asia, 46–7; M. A. Chaichian, ‘Urban public housing in China: the
case of Tianjin’, Habitat International 15, nos 1–2 (1991): 134; Wang and Murie, Housing Policy and Practice in China,
40–5, 140–8. From 1979 to 1985, 60% of housing construction investment came from danwei enterprises; in Xian in
1980–8, danwei construction increased by 142%, whereas city-council housing only grew by 31%.
29. Household mobility was still only 3.5% in 1986 in Shanghai. Badcock, ‘Land and housing policy’, 160, 163; Lü and
Perry, Danwei, 230, 234–41. A wide variety by 1980 in danwei-held percentage of housing – 59% nationally, 68% in
Beijing, only 39% in Tianjin and 12% in Shanghai (in both, municipal housing was overwhelmingly dominant, with
only 20% of stock private). Lu, Remaking Chinese Urban Form, 97. In 1981, Shanghai completions were still
dominated (60%) by danwei. Urban, Tower and Slab, 154–60; Hui, Housing, Urban Renewal and Socio-spatial
Integration, 206–14, 236; Lü et al., Modern Urban Housing in China, 220–44. Experimental designs, e.g. at Wuxi; Wang,
‘Public sector housing’, 74–5. Quyang: https://www.shobserver.com/wx/detail.do?id=61242.
30. Wang and Murie, Housing Policy and Practice in China, 235–7; Lü and Perry, Danwei, 230–1.
31. In 1974, Beijing municipal regulation relaxation encouraged danwei self-financing. Hui, Housing, Urban Renewal and
Socio-spatial Integration, 176, 199–205, 336–57; Badcock, ‘Land and housing policy’, 152–7, 164.
32. Xian’s municipal housing department unsuccessfully privatized one new seven-storey block. Wang and Murie,
Housing Policy and Practice in China, 142–8.
33. D. Lisheng, T. Christensen and M. Painter, ‘Housing reform in China’, Journal of Asian Public Policy 3, no. 1 (March
2010): 4–17.
34. A 1986 scheme established by Shanghai municipality’s Second Light Industrial Bureau; the first ‘national code of
housing design’ was issued in 1987. Urban, Tower and Slab, 156–60, 166; Hui, Housing, Urban Renewal and Socio-
spatial Integration, 159–61; J. Chen, F. Guo and Y. Wu, ‘One decade of urban housing reform in China’, Habitat
International 35 (2011): 1–8; Wang and Murie, Housing Policy and Practice in China, 132, 140–73, 195–201; Doling
and Ronald, Housing East Asia, 44–7; Lü et al., Modern Urban Housing in China, 250–77; Y. P. Wang, L. Shao, A. Murie
and J. Cheng, ‘The maturation of the neo-liberal housing market in urban China’, Housing Studies 27, no. 3 (April
2012): 343–59; Urban, Tower and Slab, 166. Anju (‘comfortable and spacious’) programme: South China Morning Post,
28 June 1995, 60, and 1 November 1995, 47.
35. Proposals for full integration with the USSR were abandoned in 1952. First kombinat: ‘TETs1’.
36. D. Maidar, P. Turchin and D. Sainer, Gradostroitelstvo MNR, Ulan Bator: GEMNR, 1983, 123–8 and illustration pages
following.
37. Schwenkel, ‘Socialist palimpsests’, 16; Volume 21, ‘The Block’, Stichting Archis, Amsterdam 2009 (‘Mass housing Guide’
insertion, 15); H. H. Phe and Y. Nishimura, ‘Housing in Central Hanoi’, Habitat International 15, nos 1–2 (1991):
101–26. Kim Liên reflected North Korean norms in shared toilets/kitchens and 4.5m² per person space allocation.
38. Volume 21; Schwenkel, ‘Socialist palimpsests’, 2–11. Quang Trung was facilitated by the 1975 repair of the local DSK
cement factory; its blocks were officially numbered ‘VD’ (standing for ‘Vietnamese-German’).
39. P. Meuser (ed), Architectural and Cultural Guide: Pyongyang, vol. 2, Berlin: DOM, 2012, 99–101, 110–11; M. Kim
and I. Jung, ‘The planning of microdistricts in postwar North Korea’, Planning Perspectives 32, no. 2 (2017): 207;
C. Springer, Pyongyang: The Hidden History of the North Korean Capital, Portland, OR: Saranda Books, 2003, 1–2.
40. Kim and Jung, ‘The planning of microdistricts’, 199, 202–3, 206–8, 214. Kim declared that as Koreans ‘are fond of it . . .
we should eliminate the problem of the missing ondol in multiple dwellings’. G. Shin and I. Jung, ‘Appropriating the
socialist way of life: the emergence of mass housing in postwar North Korea’, Journal of Architecture 21, no. 2 (2016):
159–80; Meuser, Architectural and Cultural Guide: Pyongyang, vol. 2, 99–101, 110–11.
41. Kim and Jung, ‘The planning of microdistricts’, 210–11.
42. A small anteroom (jeonsil) played a similar role to the central circulation space of contemporary South Korean flats:
Shin and Jung, ‘Appropriating the socialist way of life’, 159–66, 173–6, 179.

608
 Notes

43. The thirty-five-component flat was gallery-access; the sectional staircase-access version required only thirty components.
44. Meuser, Architectural and Cultural Guide: Pyongyang, vol. 2, 99–102, 110–11.
45. S. Joshy, Korean People’s Paradise, Pyongyang: Foreign Language Publishing House, 1995, 14–15, 71.
46. Kim and Jung, ‘The planning of microdistricts’, 215–17. The wide avenues were possibly also intended as an air-raid
precaution. Choe Mi Ran, ‘The construction site resounds with the RED FLAG SONG’, Korea Today, July 1990, 17. ‘To
bring nobility and grace to our country, Comrade Kim Jong-Il adapted such construction principles as the greatest
size, a form that was both national and modern, and originality and non-repetition’: Korea Today, April 1996, 20–1.
Son Chol Sop, ‘Construction of Tongil Street and No. 8 Steelworks’, Korea Today, February 1991, 6–7; Korea Today,
February 1991. The cause of monolithic construction was undermined by the fiasco of the Ryugyong Hotel, a
105-storey, 330m-high pyramidal colossus commenced in 1987–9 and then left uncompleted for two decades:
Meuser, Architectural and Cultural Guide: Pyongyang, vol. 2, 67–73, 100–2, 110–11.
47. Kwangbok Street leads from central Pyongyang to Mangyongdae (official birthplace of Kim Il-Sung).
48. Springer, Pyongyang, 6. Also involved in work were ‘politically unreliable’ citizens. Meuser, Architectural and Cultural
Guide: Pyongyang, vol. 1, 14–15, 30–5; Meuser, Architectural and Cultural Guide: Pyongyang, vol. 2, 80–1; Korea
Pictorial, New Buildings in Pyongyang, Pyongyang: KP, 1988, 3, 12–13; Chin Yong Ho, ‘A new life has begun in Tongil
Street’, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, July 1992, 4–5.
49. ‘Block No. 6 of Tongil Street’, Korea Today, June 1991, 40; Ri Chol, ‘The People’s Leader’, Korea Today, April 1996, 21;
Korea Today, February 1991; Meuser, Architectural and Cultural Guide: Pyongyang, vol. 1, 14–19, 30–5; Meuser,
Architectural and Cultural Guide: Pyongyang, vol. 2, 198–9. Smaller-scale development in lesser cities, e.g. six-/
eight-storey blocks in Sinuiju (1990–2), retaining ondol heating: ‘A new distinctive city’, Korea Today, May 1990, 25.

Chapter 14 Latin America: Chameleon Continent

1. L’Observateur, 14 August 1952.

2. James M. Malloy (ed.), Authoritarianism and Corporatism in Latin America, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh
Press, 1977, 30.
3. A. Almandoz, ‘Towards Brasilia and Ciudad Guayana’, Planning Perspectives 31, no. 1 (2016): 31–3.
4. N. Kwak, A World of Homeowners, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015, 10–11.
5. C. Giles, ‘The autonomy of Thai housing policy’, Habitat International 27 (2003): 230.
6. F. Violich, Cities of Latin America: Planning and Housing to the South, New York: Reinhold, 1944.
7. Terms included ‘favelas’, ‘villas’, ‘conventillos’, sometimes ‘barrios’ (also used of formal housing projects in Argentina).
8. H. Mindlin, Modern Architecture in Brazil, New York: Reinhold, 1956.
9. Z. Dinzey-Flores, ‘Temporary housing – permanent communities: public housing policy and design in Puerto Rico’,
Journal of Urban History 33, no. 3 (March 2007): 476–80.
10. Tugwell in 1941 on Puerto Rico as a ‘grand testing ground for American intentions’. ‘El proyecto muñocista’ as a
socio-economic, political and cultural strategy: J. L. L. Pollock and M. Schwegmann, Espacios Ambivalentes: historias y
olvidos en la arquitectura social moderna, San Juan: Ediciones Callejón, 2011, 138–9, 171–5; R. Tugwell, The Stricken
Land: The Story of Puerto Rico, New York: Doubleday, 1947, 184.
11. Two-thirds of population in poverty, 1945: Dinzey-Flores, ‘Temporary housing’, 476–89; J. I. Fusté, ‘Colonial
laboratories, irreparable subjects’, Social Ideologies 16, no. 1 (January 2010): 41–50. Long’s 6,000-unit Urbanización
Puerto Nuevo, Hato Rey (from 1948, FHA-funded, costing $1,750 per dwelling): Pollock and Schwegmann, Espacios
Ambivalentes, 140–2; J. P. A. Lozada and C. A. R. Galindo, La Vivienda de Interés Social en Puerto Rico, San Juan:
Departamento de la Vivienda, ELA de Puerto Rico, 2003.
12. ‘Caseríos’ – a rural term adapted for urban use. 2004: 509,000 social dwelling units in Puerto Rico, including social
owner-occupation. Lozada and Galindo, La Vivienda de Interés Social; Dinzey-Flores, ‘Temporary housing, permanent
communities’, 474; Fusté, ‘Colonial laboratories’, 33–4, 41–50.

609
Notes

13. Residencial San José, 5,600-unit shanty-town clearance, 1948–50; Dinzey-Flores, ‘Temporary housing’, 476–81; Clare
Melhuish, ‘Aesthetics of urban identity’, Planning Perspectives 34, no. 2 (2019): 265–83; Pollock and Schwegmann,
Espacios Ambivalentes, 168–75.
14. Victoria Sanchez, ‘Colombia’s Social Housing’, paper at SAH 2017 Conference, Glasgow.
15. Maarten Goosens, ‘Modernist social housing in Colombia’, Proceedings of the 10th International DOCOMOMO
Conference, Amsterdam: IOS Press, 2008, 445–7.
16. A. Tellez (ed.), Vivienda multifamiliar en Santiago, Santiago: PUCC, 2009; Violich, Cities of Latin America, 137–9
(postwar influence of 1935 Plan Brunner); Alan Gilbert, In Search of a Home, London: UCL, 1993, 68–9; Rosanna
Forray, Francisca Márquez and Camila Semipúlveda, Unidad Vecinal Portales 1955–2010: Arquitectura, identidad y
patrimonio, Santiago: Ministerio de Vivienda, 2011.
17. R. Dunowicz and T. Boselli, ‘Habitar en la vivienda social de Buenos Aires, 1905–2002’, in J. M. Borthagaray (ed.),
Habitar Buenos Aires: Las manzanas, los lotes y las casas, Buenos Aires: Ciudad de Buenos Aires, 2010, 6–7.
18. R. Aboy, ‘The right to a home: public housing in post-World War II Buenos Aires’, Journal of Urban History 3 (2007):
493–518; S. Armada, ‘Paradigms of collective housing in Buenos Aires’, DOCOMOMO Journal 51 (2014): 48–53. La
Nación Argentina. Justa, Libre y Soberana, Buenos Aires: Control de Estado de la Presidencia de la Nación, 1950; Rosa
Aboy, Viviendas para el pueblo. Espacio urbano y sociabilidad en el barrio Los Perales, Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura,
2005, fig. 3.
19. Aboy, ‘The right to a home’: rents rose at 1/30th of the increase of the cost of living in 1946–55. N. Cosacov et al.,
Barrios al Sur, Buenos Aires: Instituto de Investigaciones Gino Germani, Universidad de Buenos Aires, 2011, 95;
R. Dunowicz (ed.), 90 años de vivienda social en la ciudad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires: Programa de
Manteniamento Habitacional, 2000, 14–15, 62–3; ‘La Teja 2: Barrios peronistas’: https://lateja2.wordpress.com/.
20. Aboy, Viviendas para el pueblo, 49; R. Aboy, ‘Mass housing in mid XXth Century Buenos Aires’, 2017 SAH Conference,
Glasgow; Aboy, ‘The right to a home’; Cosacov et al., Barrios al Sur.
21. Art Deco Kavanagh building, 1934, thirty-three storeys, highest in Latin America; R. Aboy, ‘A cultural urban
transformation: apartment building construction . . . in 1930s Buenos Aires’, Planning Perspectives 27, no. 1 (January
2012): 25–49.
22. 1949 home-ownership law: Dunowicz, 90 años, 14–15; ‘La Teja 2: Barrios peronistas’. Ley de Propiedad Horizontal
(13,512/48): Aboy, ‘The right to a home’; Dunowicz and Boselli, ‘Habitar in la vivienda social de Buenos Aires’, 6–7; C.
Sambricio (ed.), Ciudad y vivienda en América Latina 1930–1960, Madrid: Lampreave, 2012; Armada, ‘Paradigms of
collective housing’, 50.
23. Aboy, ‘The right to a home’, 503–4. Cf. BHN-funded military housing, Barrio General San Martin, 1950 (four-storey
Zeilenbau): Armada, ‘Paradigms of collective housing’, 50; Dunowicz, 90 años, 72–3. ‘La iniciativa, los sueños y las
ideas de General Perón por dar viviendas dignas y sanas a los obreros de la Patria’: Aboy, Viviendas para el pueblo, 76,
86–7; Dunowicz and Boselli, ‘Habitar en la vivienda social de Buenos Aires’, 6–8, 11–13.
24. https://lateja2.wordpress.com/.
25. Aboy, Viviendas para el pueblo, 82; Dunowicz, 90 años, 78–81. Avant-garde Casa Amarilla proposal, 1943, with its
zigzag facades: F. Álvarez and J. Roig (eds), Antoni Bonet Castellana, 1913–1989, Barcelona: COAC, 1996.
26. Dunowicz and Boselli, ‘Habitar en la vivienda social de Buenos Aires’, 4–8; https://lateja2.wordpress.com/.
27. J. Bredenoord and O. Verkoren, ‘Between self-help and institutional housing: a bird’s eye view of Mexico’s housing
production’, Habitat International 34, no. 3 (July 2010): 359–65. 1940–75 Mexico City’s ‘ejido’ land expanding 6%
annually: E. X. de Anda Alanís, Vivienda Colectiva de la Modernidad en México: los multifamiliares durante el periodo
presidencial de Miguel Alemán, Mexico City: UNAM, 2008, 200–2; Gilbert, In Search of a Home, 1–28.
28. ‘. . . que todos los Mexicanos tengan un Cadillac, un puro y un boleto para los toros’: Malloy, Authoritarianism and
Corporatism, 234–5.
29. It was renamed ISSSTE in 1974: Alanís, Vivienda Colectiva, 200–18; Bredenoord and Verkoren, ‘Between self-help an
institutional housing’.
30. J. P. Rodriguez Mendez, ‘Two Mexican housing units developed by the Social Security Institute’, DOCOMOMO Journal
51 (2014): 85–8; J. Sanchez Corral, La Vivienda Social en México, Pasado, Presente, Futuro, Mexico City: JSA, 2012.

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31. Alemán – flats mostly 48m², overall density 1,513ppa: Alanís, Vivienda Colectiva, 117–24, 226–36, 240–64, 271–308
(Juárez), 309–35 (Santa Fe); Sanchez Corral, La Vivienda Social en México, 52–5, 60–3; Miquel Adria, ‘Mario Pani
avant l’heure’, Archis 21, ‘The Block’ (2009): 122–3. Rodriguez Mendez, ‘Two Mexican housing units’, 85–8.
Independencia: density 485pph; commemorating 150th anniversary of independence, evoking both CIAM
modernity and the sixteenth-century Pueblos Hospital: Alanís, Vivienda Colectiva, 37–8.
32. The density was 903pph – double the Conjunto Independencia’s – but with only 25% of the site built on: Alanís,
Vivienda Colectiva, 37–40; Adria, ‘Mario Pani avant l’heure’, 122–3; Sanchez Corral, La Vivienda Social en México,
56–9. National University’s Engineering Institute helped design the blocks, including low-cost inverted-concrete
foundations – doubly ironical, given the project’s subsequent twin tragedies of student massacre and earthquake
collapse.
33. In 1950, favelas accommodated 7% of Rio’s population, fewer in São Paulo: D. Blos, ‘Los polígonos de vivienda social’,
PhD thesis, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, 2000, 30; Malloy, Authoritarianism and Corporatism, 120, 167–9.
34. Vargas (1948) on prioritizing workers’ home-ownership: N. Bonduki, Os pioneiros da habitação social, vol. 1, São
Paulo: Editora UNESP, 50–1, 307; N. G. Bonduki, ‘Origens da habitação social no Brasil’, Análise Social 29 (1994):
711–32.
35. Plan A allowed for 99,000 dwellings (approximately 60%); 20% built by IAPI; rents were one-third of income:
D. Antonucci et al., ‘Verticalização, Habitação social e multifunctionalidade: edifícios dos IAPs em São Paulo’, III.
Fórum de Pesquisa, FAU Mackenzie I, São Paulo, 2007, 6; Violich, Cities of Latin America, 141; Bonduki, Os
pioneiros, vol. 1, 46–51, 150–6, 161, 227–43; vol. 2, 189–230, 288–9; Bonduki, ‘Origens da habitação social no Brasil’,
724–6;
N. Aravecchia-Botas, Estado, arquitetura e desinvolvimento: a ação habitacional do IAPI, São Paulo: Unifesp, 2016.
36. ISSB: G. Shidlo, Social Policy in a Non-Democratic Regime: The Case of Public Housing in Brazil, Boulder, CO:
Westview, 1990, 30–47; Antonucci, ‘Verticalização’, 6; Alanís, Vivienda Colectiva, 17. FCP’s establishment provoked by
mid-1940s electoral success of Communist Party; Bonduki, Os pioneiros, vol. 1, 23, 48–51, 260–1; vol. 2, 348–9.
37. DHP rents were far below the IAPs (10% rather than 33% of wages), rents deducted direct from federal wages.
Cruzada’s progressiveness contrasted with European Catholicism’s conservativism: Bonduki, Os pioneiros, vol. 1, 51,
59, 278–325; vol. 2, 400–2.
38. Gröndal ‘star houses’ echoed in five-storey ‘star’ blocks of Conjunto de Areal, RJ, 1950: Bonduki, ‘Origens da habitação
social no Brasil’, 727. For instance, the FCP’s Benfica ‘veterans scheme’ of 1957, or the IAPC’s CR Iraja, PJ, with
three-storey ladder blocks. Bonduki, Os pioneiros, vol. 2, 22–6, 42–3, 58–9, 122, 190–4, 347–60.
39. For example the IAPI’s Anchieta (1941) and Japurá (1942) to Pedregulho in 1946–61: E. P. Pinheiro, ‘New urban
forms’, Planning Perspectives 27, no. 1, (2012): 121–9. Pedregulho official name: Conjunto Prefeito Mendes de Moraes;
designed by team led by A. E. Reidy. Gávea (CR Marquês de São Vicente) was cut to 328 dwellings from 748; Deodoro
(CR Presidente Getúlio Vargas): 494pph, only 12% site coverage; Bonduki, Os pioneiros, vol. 2, 80–4, 338–43, 378–83,
390–3.
40. The aim was construction-led industrialization and promotion of national integration: Bonduki, Os pioneiros, vol. 1,
162–3; vol. 2, 413–31, 446–51; F. Urban, Tower and Slab: Histories of Global Mass Housing, London: Routledge, 2015,
82–97. For a highly negative interpretation, see James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State, New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 2020, 126–7.
41. IAPB engineers’ ingenious construction shortcut to protect building-work from heavy rainfall: only alternate floors
were initially constructed, allowing roofs to be installed as soon as possible, and intermediate floors were inserted
later: Bonduki, Os pioneiros, vol. 2, 452–85.
42. USAID assistance mainly targeted at provinces controlled by anti-Vargas parties: Shidlo, Social Policy, 62; Bonduki,
Os pioneiros, vol. 1, 57.
43. Dictatorships: especially that of Juan Vicente Gomez, 1908–35. Gilbert, In Search of a Home, 114–19. For shanty
towns, Venezuelans used the term ‘barrios’ – the opposite to Argentina’s use of the word. J. McGuirk, Radical Cities,
London: Verso, 2014, 150–8; Judith Ewell, Venezuela: A century of Change, London: C. Hurst, 1984, 110–22; Lisa
Blackmore, Spectacular Modernity: Dictatorship, Space and Visuality in Venezuela, Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University
Press, 2017, 5–18, 50–3.

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Notes

44. Blackmore, Spectacular Modernity, 39, 50–5, 116–18; P. S. Byard and L. Klein, ‘23 de Enero: modern public housing
in post-modern Caracas’, Future Anterior 2, no. 1 (Summer 2005): 58–66; Gilbert, In Search of a Home, 104–9,
116–18.
45. Land coverage was roughly 20%. I. G. Viso and J. R. Vera, Caracas: Architectural Guide, Berlin: DOM, 2016, 70–7;
P. del Real and H. Gyger (eds), Latin American Modern Architectures: Ambiguous Territories, Abingdon: Routledge,
2013, 115–24; McGuirk, Radical Cities, 152–6.
46. A. Velasco, Barrio Rising: Urban Popular Politics and the Making of Modern Venezuela, Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2015, 21–51.
47. Adria, ‘Mario Pani avant l’heure’, 123. Worst 1968 casualties inflicted by ‘Olympic battalion’ snipers in Chihuahua
block; worst 1985 collapse was of Nuevo León.
48. Almandoz, ‘Towards Brasilia and Ciudad Guayana’, 48.
49. Cuba, Architecture in countries in the process of development, Havana, 1963 (for VII Congress of IUA), 85, 114;
T. Kapur and A. Smith, Housing Policy in Castro’s Cuba, 2002, 5–9, www.housingfinance.org/uploads/
publicationsmanager/Caribbean_Cuba_housingincastroscuba.pdf; R. Segre, Arquitectura y urbanismo de la
Revolución Cubana, Havana: Ed. Pueblo y Educación, 1998, 85; G. Couret, ‘Medio siglo de vivienda social en Cuba’,
Revista INVI 24, no. 7 (November 2009): 69–92. INAV = Instituto Nacional de Ahorro y Viviendas, headed by
Pastorita Nuñez, with Cesareo Fernandez as technical director; MINOP = Ministerio de Obras Públicas.
50. Habana del Este, a site scheduled pre-1959 for luxury private blocks, was now developed with largely three-bedroom
flats at 414pph net, with designs by architects Hugo d’Acosta and Mercedes Álvarez: G. L. More, Caribbean Modern
Architecture, New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2010, 18–23; Segre, Arquitectura y urbanismo, 83–98, 156;
51. It exemplified ‘our dreams in the field of urban construction’ and ‘the work of the revolution’, but owing to resource
shortages, such developments were ‘out of reach’: Arquitectura Cuba, January–March 1964, 46–9, 69.
52. Precast systems included ‘LP-IV’ (four-storey), an IMS ‘open system’ and the Larsen & Nielsen-based ‘Gran Panel 70’.
IMS designed by planning team of Grupo Nacional de Viviendas. Segre, Arquitectura y urbanismo, 89–98, 156; Kapur
and Smith, Housing Policy, 6, 11–13.
53. Dinzey-Flores, ‘Temporary housing’, 476–80. New master development plan, ‘El Proposito de Puerto Rico’.
54. Some 300 self-built owner-occupation developments completed 1960–73. Nemesio Canales branded ‘dumping
ground’ for displacees from Perla and M. Peña ‘arrabales’: Pollock and Schwegmann, Espacios Ambivalentes; Fusté,
‘Colonial laboratories’, 41–59; Lozada and Galindo, La Vivienda de Interés Social, 33–4; J. S. Fuerst, Public Housing in
Europe, London: Croom Helm, 1974, 182.
55. R. Harris, ‘From miser to spendthrift’, Journal of Urban History 3 (2007): 443–66.
56. USAID-funded Programa de Remodelación de Barrios del AMC from 1960 (FUNDACOMUN from 1962); Banco
Nacional de Ahorro from 1966: Gilbert, In Search of a Home, 115–23.
57. From the 1970s/1980s, new rental housing was curtailed and existing stock privatized. Gilbert, In Search of a Home,
20–34. Integración Latinoamericana was planned by Sanchez with ten-/fifteen-storey blocks at 740pph for medium-/
low-income owner-occupiers: Sanchez Corral, La Vivienda Social en México, 52–71.
58. Alanís, Vivienda Colectiva, 18; McGuirk, Radical Cities, 9–11; Violich, Cities of Latin America, 137; S. S. Kahatt, Utopías
Construidas: las unidades vecinales de Lima, Lima: PUCP, 2015.
59. The Zeilenbau blocks each had forty flats: the project aimed to provide new and rehabilitated low-income houses.
60. Shidlo, Social Policy, 39–47. New system introduced by Law 4.380, 21 August 1964. E. P. Negrelos, ‘Habitação social no
Brasil pós-1964, arquitetura, cidade e gestão: um estudo comparado entre a produção do BNH/COHABs e da CEF/
PAR em cidades do estado de São Paulo’, ‘ENANPARQ’ Symposium, Rio de Janeiro, 2010; Bonduki, Os pioneiros, vol.
1, 59–65; Blos, ‘Los Polígonos’, 60.
61. Only IPASE survived, until 1971: Bonduki, Os pioneiros, vol. 1, 63–71, 162; Blos, ‘Los Polígonos’, 31–3, 34–5, 59–68,
369. Fondo de Garantia por Tempo de Serviço (FGTS) and Sistema Brasileira de Poupança e Empréstimo (SBPE).
FGTS contributed 80% of BNH funding by 1973–4; municipalities held 51% minimum of COHAB shares; BNH also
experimented with ‘casas-embrião’ favela-redevelopment (basic core dwellings); its resources rose from $66 to $166
million 1973–5: Shidlo, Social Policy, 26–9, 49–100.

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 Notes

62. Negrelos, ‘Habitação social’; Shidlo, Social Policy, 26–9, 49–61, 83–131; Blos, ‘Los Polígonos’, 34–6, 60; vol. 2, 29–54.
63. In the Zona Leste, a vast area was compulsorily-acquired for COHAB-SP by the municipality: Bonduki, Os pioneiros,
vol. 1, 64–77.
64. Santa Etelvina was located 35km east of São Paulo centre in the Cidade Tiradentes area. Other H-block developments
included COHAB-SP’s Marechal Castelo Branco project, Carapicuiba, SP (14,360 flats, 1972–83): Blos, ‘Los polígonos’,
vol. 1, 100–19, 146–57 (bloque lineal aislado, Santa Etelvina).
65. Planned in 1967 in eight neighbourhoods, completed 1981: Bonduki, Os pioneiros, vol. 1, 76; R. L. Cattani, ‘Conjunto
de viviendas Zezinho Magalhães Prado’, DOCOMOMO-Brasil seminar, Brasília, 2011.
66. Generals Ongania, Levingston and Lanusse. Alberto Spektorowski, The Origins of Argentina’s Revolution of the Right,
Notre Dame, IN: Helen Kellogg Institute, 2003. The twentieth-century peak of shanty-dwellers was 214,000 in 1976.
67. A. Rascovsky and M. Zolkwer, ‘Argentina Megablocks’, The Block, Archis 21 (2009): 124–5. SVOA – the Secretaría de
Vivienda y Ordenamiento Ambiental (spun out of MOP).
68. Dunowicz and Boselli, ‘Habitar in la vivienda social de Buenos Aires’, 8–9. PEVE aimed to combat the area’s constant
flooding threat.
69. Dunowicz, 90 años, 16; Natalia Coscou and Maria Di Virgilio, Barrios al Sur, Buenos Aires: Instituto de
Investigaciones Gino Germani UBA, 2011, 9–10; McGuirk, Radical Cities, 48.
70. Dunowicz and Boselli, ‘Habitar in la vivienda social de Buenos Aires’, 9–10.
71. Total social-housing units in Buenos Aires: 15,091 in 1950, 21,431 in 1960, 32,771 in 1970, 40,132 in 1980.
72. External financial support from BID (Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo).
73. Dunowicz and Boselli, ‘Habitar in la vivienda social de Buenos Aires’, 8. In 1971, several grandes conjuntos were
transferred to direct management by PEVE and central-government Secretaria de Vivienda y Ordenamiento
Ambiental (SVOA).
74. Revista Summa, August 1967, 51. Catalinas Sur – first completed stage of 17,500-dwelling Plano Municipal de la
Vivienda: Dunowicz, 90 años, 94–5; Revista Construcciones, February 1964.
75. MSGSSV: Flora Manteola, Javier Sánchez Gómez, Josefina Santos, Justo Solsona and Rafael Viñoly; Estudio STAFF:
Ángela T Bielus, Olga Wainstein and Jorge Goldemberg.
76. Nuestra Arquitectura, December 1972, 20–5: ‘un sistema circulatorio horizontal y vertical’.
77. General Savio I and II (later renamed CU Lugano) designed by División Estudios y Proyectos of CMV’s
Departmento Tecnico. Cosacov et al., Barrios al Sur, 3–12. Dunowicz and Boselli, ‘Habitar in la vivienda social de
Buenos Aires’, 8; Rascovsky and Zolkwer, ‘Argentina Megablocks’, 124–5; Dunowicz, 90 años, 106–7, 158–9. McGuirk,
Radical Cities, 40–1. 1,500 flats in Y-plan towers (Savio III) added by FONAVI 1988–9: Revista Summa, September
1969, 53–6.
78. Revista Summa, May–June 1976, 79–80. Site area was 23ha: estate social conditions rapidly declined – became
stigmatized as ‘Fuerte Apache’: Rascovsky and Zolkwer, ‘Argentina Megablocks’, 124–5. Dunowicz and Boselli, ‘Habitar
in la vivienda social de Buenos Aires’, 8–9.
79. Revista de Construcciones, July–August 1976, 14–77; Cosacov et al., Barrios al Sur, 79–83; Dunowicz, 90 años,
116–19.
80. Further degeneration of the complex into chaos and violence (like Caracas 2 Diciembre/23 Enero, etc): McGuirk,
Radical Cities, 37–45, 152–5; B. Demoy, N. Ferme, T. Raspall and M. F. Rodríguez, ‘Entre la organización y la
desorganización: la administración consorcial en el conjunto urbano Soldati’, Instituto de Investigaciones Gino
Germani, Universidad de Buenos Aires, 2011.
81. Successive 1974–6 governments led by Juan Peron, Isabel Peron and Jorge Videla led to wildly fluctuating building
targets: ‘Firstly, in the competition, we had to plan for 2,000 houses. Then the next government said, “No, we want
600.” Then along came another government and said, “No, it’s 2,000 again” ’: interview with Manteola, 2017. ‘Edificio-
trama’: Revista Summa, October 1983, 64–7; McGuirk, Radical Cities, 41–3; Dunowicz, 90 años, 122–5.
82. Lucas Longoni, ‘Politicas y utopias urbanas’, Seminario de critica 2017, no. 2187, FADU, Universidad de Buenos Aires;
‘El Concurso Summa 70’, Masters in History of Architecture, Universidad La Tella, August 2016,.

613
Notes

83. P. Alonso and H. Palmarola, ‘A panel’s tale’, AA Files 59 (2009): 30–41. Squatter settlements led to a boom in house-
sharing; public/private housing ratio reversed from 3:1 in 1970–3 to 1:7 in 1974–82: Gilbert, In Search of a Home,
57–74, 76–8.
84. Gilbert, In Search of a Home, 57–61, 68–82.
85. Violich, Cities of Latin America; Fuerst, Public Housing in Europe, 171; Segre, Arquitectura y urbanismo, 90–8.
86. Rascovsky and Zolkwer, ‘Argentina Megablocks’, 124–5; Lozada and Galindo, ‘La Vivienda de Interés Social’, 33–4.
87. McGuirk, Radical Cities, 37–43.

Chapter 15 Echoes of Empire: Postwar Housing in The Middle East, South Asia and Africa

1. A. Gilbert and J. Guyler, Cities, Poverty and Development, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 97–102. Countries or cities
with an unusually high proportion of rental housing: United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat), Cities
in a Globalising World, n.p.p.: Habitat 2001, Statistical Tables, 313–15.
2. Kıvanç Kılınç and Mohammad Gharipour (eds), Social Housing in the Middle East, Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 2019; Catherine Scott, State Failure in Sub-Saharan Africa, London: IB Tauris, 2017; J. Campbell and J. Hall, The
World of States, London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015, 4–6, 63, 113–16; Asseel Al-Ragam, ‘The destruction of
modernist heritage: the myth of Al-Sawaber’, Journal of Architectural Education 67, no. 2 (2013): 243–52; R. Harris,
‘Development and hybridity made concrete in the colonies’, Environment and Planning 40 (2008): 7–8, 15, 20, 22;
Alexander Campbell, It’s Your Empire, London: Gollancz, 1945.
3. R. Home, Of Planting and Planning: The Making of British Colonial Cities, London: Spon, 1997, 200–3.
4. A. J. Njoh, ‘Urban planning as a tool of power and social control’, Planning Perspectives, July 2009, 305–11.
5. Tony Chafer and Alexander Keese (eds), Francophone Africa at Fifty, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013,
15–8. French financing organizations included CCCE (Central Economic Cooperation Bank) and FAC (Aid and
Cooperation Fund). Lucie Haguenauer-Caceres, ‘Construire à l’étranger: le role de la SCET-Coopération en Côte
d’Ivoire de 1959 à 1976’, Histoire Urbaine 3, no. 23 (2008): 147–50.
6. Harris, ‘Development and hybridity’; The Architectural Historian 1 (June 2015): 11. Gilbert and Guyler, Cities, Poverty
and Development, 97–8; Harris, ‘Development and hybridity’, 26; Home, Of Planting and Planning, 181–3 (rejection of
employer-provided workers housing), 192–217.
7. P. Amis and P. Lloyd (eds), Housing Africa’s Urban Poor, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990, 240–4;
T. Avermaete and M. Casciato, Casablanca-Chandigarh, Zürich: Park Books, 2014, 330; C. Abrams, Man’s Struggle for
Shelter in an Urbanising World, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1964, chapter 12; Gilbert and Guyler, Cities, Poverty and
Development, 96; R. Harris, ‘A double irony: the originality and influence of John Turner’, Habitat International 27
(2003): 245–69.
8. Harris, ‘Development and hybridity’, 27.
9. Kılınç and Gharipour, Social Housing in the Middle East.
10. A. Al-Ragam, ‘Strategies for adaptive re-use: high-density state housing in Kuwait’, paper at DOCOMOMO-
International Conference, Lisbon, 7 September 2016. Al-Ragam, ‘The destruction of modernist heritage’, 243–52
(houses of 290m2 as opposed to 500–1,000, and on 24.5ha). Kılınç and Gharipour, Social Housing in the Middle East,
207–38. A. Al-Ragam, ‘Negotiating the Politics of Inclusion’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 41,
no. 2 (2017): 235–50.
11. M. Seyed and A. Sedighi, ‘Kuye Kan: The Socio-Political Dimensions of Mass Housing in Tehran’, paper at SAH
Conference, Glasgow, 2017; H. Khosiravi, ‘CIAM goes East: the inception of Tehran’s typical housing unit’, Urban
Planning 4, no. 3, 2019; Yassamine Tayab, ‘L’habitat collectif à Téhéran’, in F. Dufaux and A. Fourcaut, Le monde des
grands ensembles, Paris: Créaphis, 2004, 213–23; F. Urban, Tower and Slab: Histories of Global Mass Housing, London:
Routledge, 2015, 15; T. Avermaete, ‘From Knoxville to Bidonville: Atbat and the architecture of the French welfare
state’, in Mark Swenarton, Tom Avermaete and Dirk van den Heuvel (eds), Architecture and the Welfare State,
Abingdon: Routledge, 2015, 21–35. The Construction Bank was transferred to the Ministry of Construction; the large

614
 Notes

construction companies in this programme were close to the Shah’s regime. J. Jalili and F. Emami, ‘Notions of class
and culture in housing projects in Tehran’, in Kılınç and Gharipour, Social Housing in the Middle East, 267–90.
12. Doaa Abouelmagd, ‘Public housing and public housing policies in Greater Cairo’, Housing and Urban Issues in
Developing Countries, 2011, 1–17; A. G. Tipple, Extending Themselves, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2000,
206–9; M. Mourad, ‘Egypt’, Architectural Review, August 1985; A. Konrad and J. Lagae (eds), Desert Cities, Zürich:
J. R. P. Ringier, 2008, 117; Kılınç and Gharipour, Social Housing in the Middle East, 75–85.
13. Project designated ‘IBP’. M. Glendinning, Modern Architect: The Life and Times of Robert Matthew, London: RIBA,
2008, 482–7; United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat), Cities in a Globalising World, 313.
14. T. Avermaete, S. Karakayali and M. van Osten (eds), Colonial Modern, London: Black Dog, 2010, 18, 25–30, 45, 147–8,
153–9 (cité horizontale, etc); Edoardo L. G. Bernasconi, ‘Learning from the douar: Michel Écochard and the modern
invention of the semi-rural Moroccan habitat’, SHS Web of Conferences 63, no. 2 (2019), 04002, DOI: 10.1051/
shsconf/20196304002. ATBAT’s 1953 plans for four-storey segregated blocks for Muslims, Jews, Europeans and
‘Mixed’. GAMMA: Groupe d’Architects Modernes Marocains. Charlotte Jelidi, Fès: la Fabrication d’une Ville Nouvelle,
Paris: ENS, 2012, 195–227; A. Muchada, ‘Between modernisation and identity’, Planning Perspectives 34, no. 4 (2019):
601–20; G. A. Atkinson, ‘Mass housing in rapidly developing tropical areas’, Tropical Development 31 (1960–1): 85ff.
Battles between Écochard and Service de l’habitat over whether to use a 9m x 9m grid (Écochard’s preference) or the
more economical 8m x 8m: the latter prevailed, allowing higher site density (350pph).
15. Kılınç and Gharipour, Social Housing in the Middle East, 121–30.
16. Previous public housing efforts in Algiers, including an OPHBM (from 1920), largely for Europeans; by 1950 only
1,000 dwellings had been built for Arabs. Z. Hakimi, Alger: politiques urbaines 1846–1958, Aubervilliers: Bouchène,
2011, 189–93, 200–6, 214, 226–8; J. Deluz-Labruyère, ‘Les grands ensembles ou l’impuissance de l’utopie’, in Dufaux
and Fourcaut, Le monde des grands ensembles, 183–95; M. Chachour, ‘Destandardisation of Castor housing estates in
Oran’, Lille: DeVisU Laboratory, University of Lille 3, 2016; S. Henni, ‘Algiers: three essential testimonies’, ESALA
Research Seminar, Edinburgh, 2010; Said Almi, Présence française en Algérie, Brussels: Mardaga, 2002. SCET-Coop
was simultaneously working on construction of Nouakchott in Mauritania.
17. Mapai was an acronym of ‘Mifleget Poalei Eretz Yisrael’ (Workers’ Party of the Land of Israel); Y. Allweil, Home-Land,
Abingdon: Routledge, 2017, 11–17; Haim Drabkin-Darin, Housing in Israel: Economic and Sociological Aspects, Tel
Aviv: Gadish Books, 1957; L. Weissbrod, Israeli Identity: In Search of a Successor to the Pioneer, Tsabar and Settler,
Abingdon: Routledge, 2013; Y. Allweil, ‘Israeli housing and nation-building: establishment of the state-citizen
contract’, TDSR 23, no. 2 (2012): 51–67; E. Werczberger and N. Reshef, ‘Privatisation of public housing in Israel’,
Housing Studies 8, no. 3 (1993): 195–7; S. Ilan Troen and N. Lucas (eds), Israel: The First Decade of Independence,
Albany: SUNY Press, 1995, 10, 37–43, 94–5, 137.
18. Y. Allweil, ‘Nation-building in Israel’, in Kılınç and Gharipour, Social Housing in the Middle East, 142–3. Jewish
Agency: a non-profit organization established in 1908 to promote Jewish immigration, or ‘Aliyah’, to Israel. Naomi
Carmon, ‘Housing policy in Israel’, Israel Affairs 7, no. 4 (2001): 181, 185, 202; R. Segal and E. Wiezman (eds), A
Civilian Occupation: The Politics of Israeli Architecture, Tel Aviv: Babel, 2003, 60–77; Drabkin-Darin, Housing in Israel,
7–11. J. S. Fuerst, Public Housing in Europe, London: Croom Helm, 1974, 53–5; Troen and Lucas, Israel, 2–11, 473;
Allweil, ‘Israeli housing and nation building’, 51–67.
19. Land was 93% owned by government and JNF – although the privately-owned 7% covered most existing urban areas;
R. Alterman, Planning in the Face of Crisis: Land-Use, Housing and Mass Immigration in Israel, London: Routledge,
2002, 51–3; Segal and Weizman, Civilian Occupation, 65–76. The years 1943–5 saw intensification of the links
between Zionist and British planners since the days of Geddes. Troen and Lucas, Israel, 17–18, 441–75, 479–89,
492–5; Allweil, ‘Israeli housing and nation building’, 51–67; Drabkin-Darin, Housing in Israel, 46–57, 149–50; Home,
Of Planting and Planning, 207. As early as 1949, planning had been separated from the potentially more important
housing function and, by 1953, had been absorbed within the Prime Minister’s Office: Carmon, ‘Housing policy in
Israel’, 184, 191–2.
20. The Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemet LeIsrael) was founded in 1901 to buy settlement land in Ottoman
Palestine. See rhruins.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/amidar-houses-and-other-state-built.html; Allweil, ‘Israeli housing
and nation building’, 51–67; B. Dadon, ‘Public housing in Israel: a proposal for reform’, Institute for Advanced
Strategic and Political Studies, Policy Studies 46 (2000): 6–7; Carmon, ‘Housing policy in Israel’, 197; Drabkin-Darin,

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Housing in Israel, 129–36 and facing page 113; Troen and Lucas, Israel, 472, 475; Werczberger and Reshef,
‘Privatisation’, 201, 204–5.
21. The only other important postwar example was New Zealand. Troen and Lucas, Israel, 471–94.
22. Drabkin-Darin, Housing in Israel, 2, 15, 58–64, 122–7, 188–93, 210; Werczberger and Reshef, ‘Privatisation’, 199–200,
204. The residual rented tenure became as entrenched as condominiums. Alterman, Planning in the Face of Crisis,
51–3; Allweil, ‘Israeli housing and nation-building’, 51–67; Dadon, ‘Public housing in Israel’, 6–7; Werczberger and
Reshef, ‘Privatisation’, 197–8, 204; Carmon, ‘Housing policy in Israel’, 185, 190, 197–8, 202.
23. M. Zaidman and R. Kark, ‘Garden cities in the Jewish Yishuv of Palestine: Zionist ideology and practice 1905–1945,
Planning Perspectives 31, no. 1 (2016): 55–82; Ari Shavit, My Promised Land, Brunswick, Victoria: Scribe, 2013, 170–1;
Drabkin-Darin, Housing in Israel, 64–7, 83–90; Troen and Lucas, Israel, 454–6; H. Shadar, ‘The History of Public
Housing in the State of Israel: the influence of the Ministry of Housing on the Urban Development of Be’ersheva’,
PhD thesis, Technion, Haifa, 2001.
24. Artur Glikson et al., Notes to Plan No.06, Experimental Habitational Unit in Kiryath Gat, Tel Aviv: Ministry of
Housing, 1960; K. Wilhelm and K. Gust (eds), Neue Städte für einen neuen Stadt, Bielefeld: Transcript, 2014, 126.
25. I. Ben-Asher Gitler, ‘Public mass housing in Israel: the “Second Wave” (1960s–1970s)’, paper at SAH Conference,
Glasgow, 2017; Alterman, Planning in the Face of Crisis, 187; Drabkin-Darin, Housing in Israel, 102–23. Prototype
gallery-access shikun at Einstein 69–73, Ramat Aviv, designed by Rechter-Zarhy, commenced in 1959 following
David Tanne’s visit to Berlin Interbau: information Yael Allweil, 2017.
26. Information from Inbal Ben-Asher Gitler, 2017; Ministry of Housing, Division of Physical Planning, Israel Builds:
New Trends in Planning of Housing, Tel Aviv: Ministry of Housing, 1967.
27. Haim Jacobi, ‘The geopolitics of neighbourhood: Jerusalem’s colonial space revisited’, Geopolitics 19, no. 3 (2014):
514–39; E. Weizman, Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Occupation, London: Verso, 2007, 28. Cf. Ministry of
Defence township development at Yamit, during short-lived post-1967 occupation of Sinai, evoking ‘Bedouin
tradition’ rather than ‘Old Jerusalem’; it was demolished after only nine years’ occupation.
28. Werczberger and Reshef, ‘Privatisation’, 198; Carmon, ‘Housing policy in Israel’, 181, 199; Dadon, ‘Public housing in
Israel’, 5–7; Alterman, Planning in the Face of Crisis, 10–11, 54–5, 81–116, 141; Carmon, ‘Housing policy in Israel’, 187;
A. Deming and C. Hawley, ‘Ariel Sharon’s empty houses’, Newsweek, 3 December 1991, 29; Weizman, Hollow Land, 3,
91–114, 286; Segal and Weizman, Civilian Occupation, 150–61.
29. Kılınç and Gharipour, Social Housing in the Middle East, 49.
30. A. Bansal and M. Kochupillai, Architectural Guide: Delhi, Berlin: DOM, 2013, 88: R. M. Dwivedi (ed.), Urban
Development and Housing in India, 1947–2007, New Delhi: New Century, 2007, 65–84; Urban, Tower and Slab,
108–10. New town projects were mostly run by Notified Area Committees, funded by state or federal grants.
31. I. Jackson, ‘Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew’s early housing and neighbourhood planning in Section 22, Chandigarh’,
Planning Perspectives, 2013, 1–25; Avermaete and Casciato, Casablanca-Chandigarh, 177–94, 197–211.
32. The first decisive legislation was the 1947 Rent Control Act. Dwivedi, Urban Development, 33–66; Bansal and
Kochupillai, Architectural Guide: Delhi, 88–90.
33. Plans for state-level coordination following 1955 housing ministers’ conference: Dwivedi, Urban Development,
65–110, 118–41, 205–21, 304. In 1959, government support apportioned 55% EWS/LIG, 45% MIG/HIG. Up to 2001,
HUDCO sanctioned 12.5 million urban and rural units. Housing built for one group was often eventually occupied
by the next one up (e.g. EWS households, earning under Rs. 350 per month, replaced by LIG, earning 350–600).
P. Sundaram, Bombay: Can it House its Millions? New Delhi: Clarion Books, 1989, 81–4. ULCAR was adapted in
separate state legislation, e.g. in Maharashtra in 1976.
34. The influx was concentrated especially in July–August 1947, then rose more slowly, to 2.5 million in 1961. The
process was facilitated by L & DO, custodians of central-government land (8,000 acres in New Delhi). Interview with
A. K. Jain, 2015; Bansal and Kochupillai, Architectural Guide: Delhi, 89.
35. DDA/DMC administratively replaced the Notified Area Committees. By 1956, Nehru decided DDA should be
Delhi’s central regional planning authority; slum-clearance was passed back and forth between it and DMC; the
200,000-plot Jhuggi-Jhopri Resettlement Scheme, 1957, was transferred in 1968 from DMC to DDA; 471

616
 Notes

unauthorized colonies were regularized by 1974: A. K. Jain, Urban Housing and Slums, New Delhi: Readworthy, 2009,
45–7, 204, 259–60, 274–5. Interview with Jain.
36. The DDA was modelled on UK-style new town development corporations; its first task to acquire all vacant land:
interview with Jain; Sundaram, Bombay, 176–9.
37. Of the 45,000, 14,000 was occupied by DDA colonies and 7,200 by squatter resettlement: DDA building allocated
50% to LIG, 30% to MIG, and 20% to HIG. Bansal and Kochupillai, Architectural Guide: Delhi, 88–91.
38. By direct building and plotted development, DDA housed a million families by 2014 (two-thirds LIG/PWS, 20%–
25% MIG, 8% HIG). Loans at 7–8% interest from the central government, 10%–12% from DDA: interview with Jain.
39. Information from Gaurav Sharma, 2017; S. Varghese, ‘Brick by Brick’, Indian Express, 16 January 2020.
40. Bansal and Kochupillai, Architectural Guide: Delhi, 88–9.
41. Laxmibai Nagar: 665 two-room flats for non-gazetted, 756 three-room flats for gazetted workers in the 1950s.
42. Jon T. Lang, A Concise History of Modern Architecture in India, Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan, 2002, 32–6, 53; Bansal
and Kochupillai, Architectural Guide: Delhi, 91–2; Hiralba Jadeja, ‘Architecture of Habib Rahman’, PhD thesis, School
of Architecture, CEPT University, Ahmedabad, 2013; interview with A. K. Jain. Two types of eight-storey block:
Type V, T-shaped, two-bedroom flats; Type VI, Y-shaped, three-bedroom flats.
43. ‘Architecture of Delhi’, http://delhi-architecture.weebly.com/housing-sector.html; Bansal and Kochupillai,
Architectural Guide: Delhi, 94–6. Tara: 125 dwellings per acre. Malviya Nagar Press Enclave colony, 1979, 180
apartments.
44. Urban, Tower and Slab, 121–4; briefing notes by F. Urban, 2014; Urban Design Research Institute, Mumbai Reader 13,
Mumbai: UDRI, 2013, 302.
45. Collective Research Initiatives Trust (CRIT), Housing Typologies in Mumbai, Mumbai: CRIT, 2007, section 8; Sundaram,
Bombay, 106–7; Urban, Tower and Slab, 108–11. Many EWS/LIG dwellings eventually passed into MIG occupation.
46. Most employee programmes were rental; much owner-occupied public housing was also provided by MHADA. Jain,
Urban Housing, 180.
47. Urban, Tower and Slab, 106–8.
48. CRIT, Housing Typologies, sections 8, 11. Prominent developments included: D. N. Nagar, MHADA, 1968, 40m2–50m2
flats; Tilak Nagar extensions, MHADA, 1960s–1970s; Sahakar Nagar (three-storey), 1961; Shell Colony MIG,
three-storey, begun 1976. Urban, Tower and Slab, 108–20; briefing notes by Urban, 2015. Tilak Nagar: interview with
Prof. Madhav Deobhakta, 2014.
49. Vashi prefabrication used UCOPAN Universal Concrete panel system, experimented with in 1967–71 in abortive
Ford Foundation-financed scheme for Calcutta Metropolitan Planning Authority; Urban, Tower and Slab, 119.
50. Tipple, Extending Themselves, 165–203. The 1991 population of Mirpur was 650,000. Post-1972, the Ministry of Relief
prepared a ‘Bastuhara’ (home lease) scheme as its first LIG project (largely unexecuted).
51. S. Yeh and A. Laquian, Housing Asia’s Millions, Ottawa: IDRC, 1979, 24–5, 117–18, 142–3, 240–2; Tipple, Extending
Themselves, 165–203; L. R. L. Pereira, ‘High-Rise trend in developing Sri Lanka’, in Singapore Professional Centre,
High-Rise High-Density Living, Singapore: SPC, 1984.
52. Amis and Lloyd, Housing Africa’s Urban Poor, 4, 6, 15–17, 244–50; Njoh, ‘Urban planning’, 301–17;
M. Huchzermeyer, Cities with ‘Slums’: From Informal Settlement Eradication to a Right to the City in Africa,
Claremont (SA): UCT Press, 2011; Scott, State Failure in Sub-Saharan Africa; Dennis Austin, West Africa and the
Commonwealth, London: Penguin, 1957; D. Christensen and D. D. Laitin, African States since Independence, New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2019.
53. B, Toulier, L. Lagae and M. Gemoets, Kinshasa: architecture et paysage urbain, Paris: Somogy, 2010, 17–18, 86–90,
94–107; B. de Meulder, ‘Het office des cités africaines’, in K. van Herck and T. Avermaete (eds), Wonen in Welvaart,
Rotterdam: 010, 2016, 95–111. Otranco’s cités included three eight-storey blocks.
54. A. Tostões (ed.), Modern Architecture in Africa: Angola and Mozambique, Lisbon: FCT, 2013, 134–7, 164–6.
55. Nelson Mota, ‘Beyond crisis and heroism: affordable housing and the politics of development aid in Addis Ababa,
1974–2014’, paper delivered at 17th IPHS Conference, ‘History, Urbanism, Resilience’, TU Delft, 2016.

617
Notes

56. Amis and Lloyd, Housing Africa’s Urban Poor, 33–7; Chafer and Keese, Francophone Africa at Fifty, 15–18; Tipple,
Extending Themselves, 291–2. Senegal’s PTT built a substantial programme for its own staff.
57. Marcel Djamat-Dubois, Kouamé N’guessan and Aloko N’guessan, ‘Les logements économiques à Abidjan’, Montreal:
CRAU Abidjan and University of Montreal, 1983, 1–3; B. Blanc, F. Charboneau and R. Parenteau, Habitat Économique:
Modernisation et Promotion Social en Abidjan, Montreal: University of Montreal, 1991, 1–3; Haguenauer-Caceres,
‘Construire à l’étranger’, 150–1, 157;
58. Haguenauer-Caceres, ‘Construire à l’étranger’, 148–59 (‘petite SCIC’). The state’s holding in SICOGI 56%; CDC’s 17%.
In 1976, SCET-Coop’s local office became national society SCET-Ivoire. Blanc et al., Habitat Économique, 2, 6–9, 20–3;
Amis and Lloyd, Housing Africa’s Urban Poor, 37–9. SOGEFIHA’s 1960s–1980s output divided 81% rental/19% sale.
Djamat-Dubois et al., ‘Les logements économiques à Abidjan’, 46–78.
59. The Plan Bodoni’s author, Daniel Bodoni, later planned key housing areas in Côte d’Ivoire and France. Haguenauer-
Caceres, ‘Construire à l’étranger’, 156–8; Blanc et al., Habitat Économique, 9–16, 34–40, 67, 158–62; Djamat-Dubois et
al., ‘Les logements économiques à Abidjan’, 72, 75–7, 452–3, 516; P. Haeringer, ‘Vingt-cinq ans de politique urbaine à
Abidjan’, Politique Africaine 17 (1985): 20–40; Blanc et al., Habitat Économique; K. N’guessan, ‘Devant et derrière les
murs: la qualité de vie dans l’habitation économique d’Abidjan’, Cahiers ORSTOM 19, no. 4 (1983): 449–58.
60. M. Abouet and C. Oubrerie, Aya de Yopougon, London: Jonathan Cape, 2007 edition; Blanc et al., Habitat Économique,
20–3, 39, 156–62; Djamat-Dubois et al., ‘Les logements économiques à Abidjan’, 46–9, 517–18, 521–2. Densities
eventually increased to 800pph.
61. G. A. Myers, ‘Designing power: forms and purposes of colonial model neighbourhoods in British Africa’, Habitat
International 27 (2003): 193–8; Home, Of Planting and Planning, 179–88.
62. The Builder, 11 March 1955, 412–20.
63. Harris, ‘Development and hybridity’, 26–8.
64. Myers, ‘Designing power’, 199–201.
65. Kwadwo Konadu-Agyemang, The Political Economy of Housing and Urban Development in Africa: Ghana’s Experience
from Colonial Times to 1998, Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007, 67–89, 134–45.
66. Konadu-Agyemang, Political Economy, 97, 112, 133, 140, 146–67; Godwin Arku, ‘The economics of housing
programmes in Ghana’, Planning Perspectives 24, no. 3 (July 2009): 281–300; M. F. Lofchie, The State of the Nations,
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971, 65–92.
67. Flats’ unsuitability for making of ‘fufu’: UN Habitat, Ghana: Housing Profile, Nairobi: UN Habitat, 2011, 74.
68. Some7m cedis was spent on building-materials programmes in 1953–65. Asawasi and Suntreso were incrementally
privatized by 1980. I. Jackson and R. Oppong, ‘The planning of late colonial village housing in the tropics: Tema
Manhean, Ghana’, Planning Perspectives 29, no. 4 (October 2014): 479–86; Arku, ‘The economics of housing
programmes’, 294; Tipple, Extending Themselves, 248–50.
69. DOCOMOMO-International, ISC/Technology, ‘The early years of Schokbeton’: exhibition, 28 November 2015
to 20 March 2016, Museum Vergulde Swaen, Zwijndrecht; information from Wido Quist and Ola Uduku, July
2018.
70. Konadu-Agyemang, Political Economy, 33, 137, 142–6, 181–3; Jackson and Oppong, ‘The planning of late colonial
village housing’, 479–93; UN Habitat, Ghana: Housing Profile, xxiii, 23–35; Arku, ‘The economics of housing
programmes’, 290–4; M. Provoost, ‘Exporting new towns: the welfare city in Africa’, in Swenarton et al., Architecture
and the Welfare State, 276–97; Ł. Stanek and N. Erofeev, ‘African Housing in Soviet Gift Economies’, paper at SAH
Conference, Glasgow 2017; Tipple, Extending Themselves, 248–50.
71. Amis and Lloyd, Housing Africa’s Urban Poor, 75–82.
72. Richard Harris and Alison Hay, ‘New plans for housing in urban Kenya, 1939 to 1963’, Planning Perspectives, April
2007, 195–224. Some 20,000 units: 31% City Council-built, 22% privately owned, 47% built by other agencies (such as
the railways) on municipally-plotted sites.
73. Winnie V. Mitullah, ‘State Policy and Urban Housing in Kenya’, PhD thesis, University of York, 1993, 21–3. Four-storey
aided self-help blocks were heightened by owners to seven storeys, producing densities over 5,000ppha: Gilbert and
Guyler, Cities, Poverty and Development, 100; M. Huchzermeyer, ‘Tenement City’, International Journal

618
 Notes

of Urban and Regional Research, December 2007, 714–32; Amis and Lloyd, Housing Africa’s Urban Poor, 37,
175–87, 208–11, 262; Ujumaa: James C. Scott, Seeing like a State, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2020,
223–4.
74. Delamere Flats (Zeilenbau) were built in 1947–51: C. Quiring, W. Voigt, P. Schmal and E. Herrel, Ernst May, Munich:
Prestel, 2011, 207–8. Kampala, experimental blockwork houses, 1964, designed by architect of Uganda Protectorate
African Housing Department. The Builder, 11 March 1955, 412–20; Andrew Byerley, ‘Displacements in the name of
(re)development’, Planning Perspectives 28, no. 4 (2013): 547–70; A. Byerley, ‘Drawing white elephants in Africa?’,
Planning Perspectives 34, no. 4 (2019): 643–66.
75. The Builder, 24 April 1953, 626–7; Amis and Lloyd, Housing Africa’s Urban Poor, 190–7.
76. The Builder, 24 April 1953, 626–7; Amis and Lloyd, Housing Africa’s Urban Poor, 225–37.
77. Tipple, Extending Themselves, 290–2: 60,000 were freehold, 12,000 were rented, 14,000 were single person, and 12,000
were in hostels.
78. Hilton Judin, ‘ “Their own pure cultural possession”: Architectural regional modernism and Afrikaner cultural
nationalism in the apartheid capital, Pretoria, 1957–1966’, PhD thesis, Witwatersrand University, Johannesburg, 2016;
O. Uduku, ‘South African townships: a study in separation or the foundations of hope?’, paper at ‘Trash or Treasure’
Conference, Edinburgh College of Art, 22 August 2007, 5.
79. Cf. S. E. Harris, Communism on Tomorrow Street, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013, 83.
80. ‘Housing for the Bantu’, The Builder, 11 March 1955, 41–20; H. Judin and I. Vladislavić, Blank: Architecture, Apartheid
and After, Rotterdam: NaI, 1998, 203–19. Judin, ‘Their own pure cultural possession’, 53–6, 126–7, 492.
81. Judin, ‘Their own pure cultural possession’, 37, 217; Judin and Vladislavić, Blank, 203–19.
82. D. M. Smith (ed.), The Apartheid City and Beyond, London: Routledge, 1992, 16–28, 60; Judin, ‘Their own pure
cultural possession’, 375–7, 514; Judin and Vladislavić, Blank, 432–4; S. Parnell, ‘Public housing as a device for white
residential segregation in Johannesburg, 1934–53’, Urban Geography 9 (1988): 584–602.
83. Judin, ‘Their own pure cultural possession’, 379–83, 386–7, 476; Smith, The Apartheid City and Beyond, 17–28, 74–86.
De Waal Drive, District 6: www.groundup.org.za/media/features/gentrification/gentrification.html. Johannesburg’s
‘Triomf ’ redevelopment: Parnell, ‘Public housing’, 584–602. Kwa Thema planned at under 60ppa: Atkinson, ‘Mass
housing’, Plate 6. Judin and Vladislavić, Blank, 207–19.
84. The National Housing Commission also funded state housing until the mid-1980s: Journal of the Natal Provincial
Institute of Architects 13, no. 4 (1988): 4 (ed.. E Haarhoff ); Judin, ‘Their own pure cultural possession’, 363–71, 383;
Judin and Vladislavić, Blank, 423–33; D. M. Calderwood, ‘Native Housing in South Africa’, PhD thesis, Witwatersrand
University, 1953; J. E. Mathewson, The Establishment of an Urban Bantu Township, Pretoria: J. L. van Schalk, 1957.
85. Recollections by Hanson in 1963: C. T. Welch, Urban Bantu Townships (supplement to South African Architectural
Record), December 1963, foreword.
86. A. Steenkamp, ‘Postwar low-cost housing in South Africa: Ideal and Reality’, in DOCOMOMO 2004 Conference
Proceedings, New York: DOCOMOMO-US, 2004, 201–6.
87. Uduku, ‘South African townships’; Judin and Vladislavić, Blank, 210–2, Steenkamp, ‘Postwar low-cost housing’;
‘Housing for the Bantu’, The Builder, 11 March 1955.
88. Home, Of Planting and Planning, 210.
89. Judin and Vladislavić, Blank, 434–7; The Builder, 24 April 1953, 626–7; ‘Housing for the Bantu’, The Builder, 11 March
1955.
90. Welch, Urban Bantu Townships, foreword.
91. Commentators included P. H. Connell, NBRI architect Betty Spence and Johannesburg planner/councillor
A. J. Cutten: Judin, ‘Their own pure cultural possession’, 363–5, 371–4, 383; Steenkamp, ‘Postwar low-cost housing’.
92. S. D. Brunn and M. W. Wilson, ‘Cape Town’s million-plus black township of Khayelitsha’, Habitat International 39
(2013): 284–94; http://www.sahistory.org.za/place/khayelitsha-township. ‘Illegals’ were deported to the Transkei
‘homeland’.
93. Judin, ‘Their own pure cultural possession’, 375–7, 386–9; Judin and Vladislavić, Blank, 269–77.

619
Notes

94. In the 1980s, ‘native’ housing architecture became more variegated than the now-ridiculed NE51s: e.g. high-density
courtyard housing, Kwandengezi, 1981, by the Natalia Development Board (founded 1975): Journal of the Natal
Provincial Institute of Architects 4 (1988): 1; A. Gunter, ‘Creating co-sovereigns through the provision of low-cost
housing’, Habitat International 39 (2013): 278–83; Smith, The Apartheid City and Beyond, 28–9, 61; R. Hamilton, ‘SA’s
controversial housing policy’, BBC News Channel, 7 December 2004, news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/Africa/3973179.stm;
U. Jürgens, R. Donaldson, S. Rule and J. Bähr, ‘Townships in South African cities: literature review and research
perspectives’, Habitat International 39 (2013): 256–60.

Chapter 16 From Third World to First World: Mass Housing in Capitalist Eastern Asia

1. Stephen Yeh and Aprodicio Laquian, Housing Asia’s Millions, Ottawa: IDRC, 1979, 189.
2. J. Doling and R. Ronald, Housing East Asia: Socioeconomic and Demographic Challenges, Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2014, 14–21; J. Campbell and J. Hall, The World of States, London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015, 39;
P. Evans, Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995.
3. R. Home, Of Planting and Planning, London: Spon, 1996, 198.
4. Doling and Ronald, Housing East Asia, 92–8, 140–9; Yeh and Laquian, Housing Asia’s Millions, 20–1, 25–6, 189. This
system was aided by the Employees Provident Fund (founded in 1951). G. Rudduck, Town Planning in Kuala Lumpur,
New York: UN Technical Assistance Administration, 1956.
5. Ceinwen Giles, ‘The autonomy of Thai housing policy 1945–1996’, Habitat International 27 (2003): 230–6, 240–1
(unification calls, e.g. 1963 from the National Economic Development Board; Bangkok shanty towns boomed from
eighty-six in 1942 to 361 in 1980); Anuvit Charernsupkul, ‘Urban Housing for the Low-Income Group, Bangkok,
Thailand’, PhD thesis, Rice University, Houston, 1971, 30–2, 39.
6. Density raised from sixty to 187 persons per hectare; second and third phases, 666 dwellings completed 1963–4:
Charernsupkul, ‘Urban Housing’, 30–5; Giles, ‘Thai housing policy’, 232–9. Sophon Phonchokchai, Housing Finance
Mechanisms in Thailand, Nairobi: UN Habitat, 2008, 20–5.
7. Ngai Ming Yip, ‘Housing, Crises and Interventions in Hong Kong’, in Doling and Ronald, Housing East Asia, 71, 76.
8. C. Hein, J. Diefendorf and I. Yarifusa, Rebuilding Urban Japan after 1945, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003,
159–61.
9. Hein et al., Rebuilding Urban Japan, 6–11, 23.
10. A. Waswo, Housing in Postwar Japan: A Social History, London: Routledge, 2002, 40–1.
11. Influence of Dojunkai’s chief architect, Yoshikazu Uchida: S. Tewari and D. Beynon, ‘Japan’s Dojunkai experiment:
courtyard apartment blocks 1926–1932’, Planning Perspectives 31, no. 3 (2016): 472; Urban Renaissance Agency, 100
Housing Complexes, Tokyo: URA, 2007.
12. Some 215 cities and towns were bombed, with 2–3 million houses burned down: Hein et al., Rebuilding Urban Japan,
1–24; Tewari and Beynon, ‘Japan’s Dokunkai experiment’, 473; Waswo, Housing in Postwar Japan, 45–6.
13. Tied to rent maxima, not any particular development agency. S. R. Reed, Japanese Prefectures and Policymaking,
Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1986, 105–7; I. Kuriyagawa, ‘Housing management’, in Housing in the New
Millennium, HDB 40th Annual Conference, Singapore: HDB, 2010.
14. Y. Hirayama, ‘Housing and the rise and fall of Japan’s social mainstream’, in Doling and Ronald, Housing East Asia,
117–18, 121, 130; Waswo, Housing in Postwar Japan, 40–1. Urban Renaissance Agency, 100 Housing Complexes, 4–15;
Reed, Japanese Prefectures and Policymaking, 85; Hein et al., Rebuilding Urban Japan, 25.
15. NJK development finance repayable at 5% (state-supported), and in 1945–73 the public sector built 35% of new
dwellings (NJK 4%, local-authority 8%, GHLC-funded 15%, 8% for state employees): Waswo, Housing in Postwar
Japan, 54–79, 93; Hirayama, ‘Housing and the rise and fall of Japan’s social mainstream’, 49–64, 99, 136; Urban
Renaissance Agency, 100 Housing Complexes, 4–7; information from R. Takagawa, 2017; Kuriyagawa, ‘Housing
management’, 1, 85–9. Income categories rose from type 2 public housing (L1) to NJK rental housing (M1):
Kuriyagawa, ‘Housing management’, 85–7; Reed, Japanese Prefectures and Policymaking, 86–109. Municipally-

620
 Notes

led developments, e.g. Senri new town, Osaka, 1970: DOCOMOMO-Japan: Future and Legacy, Tokyo: n.p., 2011,
item 065.
16. Waswo, Housing in Postwar Japan, 58–79; Urban Renaissance Agency, 100 Housing Complexes, 4–15. Akabane: Hong
Kong Public Records Office (HKPRO), file HKRS 1588–9-11 (IHFTP Tokyo). Building Design, 17 November 1995,
20–1.
17. DOCOMOMO Journal 50, no. 1 (2014): 57; J. M. Reynolds, Maekawa Kunio, Oakland: University of California Press,
2001; Urban Renaissance Agency, 100 Housing Complexes, 6. Galleries referred to as ‘corridor’ in Japanese;
information from R. Takagawa, 2017.
18. Takashimadaira: fourteen-storey single-aspect balcony access, eleven- to twelve-storey double-corridor blocks
(divided 80%/20% rental/sale): Urban Renaissance Agency, 100 Housing Complexes, 9–11, 14, 19; Takashimadaira/
Ashiya-Hama, information from R. Takagawa, 2017.
19. Name derived from English ‘mansion’. Enabled by 1962 law clarifying ownership in collective buildings: Waswo,
Housing in Postwar Japan, 93–106.
20. Hirayama, ‘Housing and the rise and fall of Japan’s social mainstream’, 123–36; information from R. Takagawa, 2017.
21. Kwak on suppression of informal housing, Singapore as example of ‘failed American housing diplomacy’: Nancy H.
Kwak, A World of Homeowners, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015, 115–26.
22. Yeh and Laquian, Housing Asia’s Millions, 13, 20, 29, 116–17, 131, 147–8.
23. As late as the 1960s, the armed forces soaked up 60%–70% of public spending (45% by mid-80s). Liling Huang,
‘Promoting private interest by public hands?’, in L. Lees, H. B. Shin and E. Lopez-Morales (eds), Global Gentrifications,
Bristol: Policy Press, 2015, 225; Doling and Ronald, Housing East Asia, 206–9.
24. Huang, ‘Promoting private interest’, 226; https://www.goteamjosh.con/blog; https://synapticism.com/inside-the-
decaying-courtyard/ . Information on Taipei projects from Rémi Wang and Yen Hsin-Yin, 2019.
25. C.-O. Chang and S.-M. Yuan, ‘Public housing policy in Taiwan’, in J. Chen et al. (eds), The Future of Public Housing,
Berlin: Springer, 2013; Doling and Ronald, Housing East Asia, 208–9; Huang, ‘Promoting private interest’, 225–40.
Some 45% of the area of Taipei city was publicly owned; land costs accounted for 70% of building costs. J. Chow,
‘Taipei City grapples with housing woes’, Straits Times, 25 January 2016. Information from Rémi Wang and Yen
Hsin-Yin, 2019.
26. Joonwoo Kim, ‘Apartment Urbanism: The Logic of Apartment Development in Seoul, South Korea’, PhD thesis, KUL
Leuven, 2017, 24, 28, 42, 52–3, 58, 334–6; F. Dufaux and A. Fourcaut, Le monde des grands ensembles, Paris: Créaphis,
2004, 210; Doling and Ronald, Housing East Asia, 180–3.
27. Kim Jae-Kwan, ‘A Study on the Sustained Growing Process of Korean Apartment Danji’, MA thesis, Oxford Brookes
University, Architecture Department 2007, 24; Valérie Gelézeau, Séoul: ville géante, cités radieuses, Paris: CNRS, 2003,
60–1, 101, 172, 185, 188, 264. Colonial land redistribution law, 1934; first actual readjustment programme from
1937–8: Joonwoo Kim, ‘Apartment Urbanism’, 52, 102–5.
28. Kim Woo-Jin, Economic Growth, Low Income and Housing in South Korea, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997, 107–8;
Joonwoo Kim, ‘Apartment Urbanism’, 22. Gelézeau, Séoul, 8; Doling and Ronald, Housing East Asia, 184.
29. 1946 (10,000), 1954 (1 million) and 1955 (a five-year plan): Kim Woo-Jin, Economic Growth, 18.
30. Chonsei: up-front, lump-sum deposit of 50%–80% of a home’s value, paid on entry instead of monthly rents, and
used by owner for housing investments: H. B. Shin, ‘Living on the edge’, Environment and Urbanisation 20, no. 2
(2008): 413–14; Doling and Ronald, Housing East Asia, 201; Kim Woo-Jin, Economic Growth, 180–1.
31. Gelézeau, Séoul, 101–2; East Asian Science, Technology and Society 3, no. 1 (2009): 137–45.
32. Kim Jae-Kwan, ‘A Study on the Sustained Growing Process of Korean Apartment Danji’, 26, 60. Exports under 5% of
GNP in 1950, 35% in 1980s; Joonwoo Kim, ‘Apartment Urbanism’, 18, 55, 58, 220 (TCK launch 1962). Gelézeau, Séoul,
154–6, 168, 185–8, 191; Kim Woo-Jin, Economic Growth, 18, 61–2, 152–3, 201; Doling and Ronald, Housing East Asia,
181. Park’s 1960s mantra, ‘ui, shik, chu’ – ‘clothing, food, housing’. TCK launch 1962: Joonwoo Kim, ‘Apartment
Urbanism’, 220. Doling and Ronald, Housing East Asia, 184–5.
33. Sujin Eom, ‘Infrastructures of displacement: the transpacific travel of urban renewal during the Cold War’, Planning
Perspectives 35, no. 2 (2020): 307–10; Joonwoo Kim, ‘Apartment Urbanism’, 102–5 (1934 Colonial City Planning Law);

621
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G. Hallett (ed.), Land and Housing Policies in Europe and the USA, London: Routledge, 1988. Gelézeau, Séoul, 107,
153–7; Kim Woo-Jin, Economic Growth, 127–9, 147.
34. Kim Jae-Kwan, Korean Apartment Danji, 60, 89–93, Gelézeau, Séoul, 156–7. Eom, ‘Infrastructures’, 312.
35. Joonwoo Kim, ‘Apartment Urbanism’, 30; Kim Woo-Jin, Economic Growth, 109, 152–3. Eom, ‘Infrastructures’, 312.
36. S. Jung, ‘Oswald Nagler, HURPI, and the formation of urban planning and design in South Korea’, Journal of Urban
History 40, no. 3 (January 2014): 585–605; S. Jung, Y. Kwon and P. G. Rowe, ‘The minimum dwelling approach by the
Housing, Urban and Regional Planning Institute (HURPI) of South Korea in the 1960s’, Journal of Architecture 21, no.
2 (2016): 181–209 (abortive 1966 8,000-unit Kumhwa split-level project); Joonwoo Kim, ‘Apartment Urbanism’,
53–74, 319–23.
37. Gallery-access blocks = ‘poktoshik konmul’; staircase-access = ‘kyedanshik konmul’. Gelézeau, Séoul, 50, 54,
38. Kim Jae-Kwan, Korean Apartment Danji, 34, 62; Dufaux and Fourcaut, Le monde des grands ensembles, 204–8;
Joonwoo Kim, ‘Apartment Urbanism’, 20; Lee Hyo-Jae, Life in Urban Korea, Seoul: Royal Asiatic Society, 1971, 41.
39. Joonwoo Kim, ‘Apartment Urbanism’, 206; Kim Woo-Jin, Economic Growth, 56, 152, 201; Gelézeau, Séoul, 9, 50, 54,
75–7, 104–9, 158–62, 185, 208–9.
40. 1972 law: ‘Chutaek konsol chokchin pop’: Gelézeau, Séoul, 117–18, 142–4, 165, 168, 174; Kim Woo-Jin, Economic
Growth, 107–9, 124–6, 132, 136; Dufaux and Fourcaut, Le monde des grands ensembles, 209–10. Apartment zones:
‘apatu chigu’.
41. Kim Woo-Jin, Economic Growth, 154, 160. Further for-sale tanji at Yoido (1971): Gelézeau, Séoul, 110–11, 142, 155–6,
188; Dufaux and Fourcaut, Le monde des grands ensembles, 210; R. Oppenheim, ‘On the Republic of Apartments’, East
Asian Science, Technology and Society 3, no. 1 )(2009): 137–45; Kim Jae-Kwan, Korean Apartment Danji, 64. Tongbu
dubbed ‘menshyon’ (after Japanese ‘manshon’), following TCK directors’ tour to Japan: the name did not catch on in
Korea.
42. Joonwoo Kim, ‘Apartment Urbanism’, 95–7, 99, 107–16 (two phases of Gangnam, with different superblock layouts),
119–26, 134, 268–73; Gelézeau, Séoul, 115; Seoul Metropolitan Government, Yeuido and Han Riverside Development
Plan, Seoul: Seoul Metropolitan Government, 1969.
43. Joonwoo Kim, ‘Apartment Urbanism’, 114, 118, 132–7, 218–21; Dufaux and Fourcaut, Le monde des grands ensembles,
210; Gelézeau, Séoul, 20, 110–14. 180-Day: ‘Chutaek konsol 180il chakchon!’ Kim Jae-Kwan, Korean Apartment Danji,
40 (sale flats subsidized by Housing Bank or USAID).
44. 190m2 duplexes; Dufaux and Fourcaut, Le monde des grands ensembles, 210; Gelézeau, Séoul, 15, 30, 37, 63–7, 74–7,
82–5, 111–12. Multi-storey slab: ‘kochung konmul’; Joonwoo Kim, ‘Apartment Urbanism’, 35, 128–32, 298–300.
Apkujong: owing to the large flats, sectional staircase-access plans predominated; information from Prof. J. Kim,
2012.
45. Public housing = ‘konggong chutaek’: Gelézeau, Séoul, 143–4, 144–51; Doling and Ronald, Housing East Asia, 185;
Kim Woo-Jin, Economic Growth, 114, 138–9, 142.
46. TKK (Toji Kaebol Kongsa) founded in 1978. Seoul City Development Agency founded in 1989, with similar powers
to TKK. Gelézeau, Séoul, 110–12, 116–17, 123, 153, 168, 175; Kim Woo-Jin, Economic Growth, 114–15, 124, 127–9,
144–5 (big jobs restricted to large ‘delegated’ contractors).
47. ‘Short-term rental’ flats (tangi imde chutaek) purchasable after two to three years; ‘long-term rental’ (changi imde
chutaek) purchasable after five years; permanent public rental housing – ‘yongu imde chutaek’. Sales policy resembled
e.g. Israel and Brazil. 660,000 public housing units in Seoul, 1982–2000: Gelézeau, Séoul, 153.
48. S.-K. Ha, ‘The role of state-developed housing and housing poverty in Korea’, International Development Planning
Review 27, no. 2: (2005): 227–32, 236–9; Kim Jae-Kwan, Korean Apartment Danji, 103–5; Doling and Ronald, Housing
East Asia, 186–91; B. G. Park, ‘Where do tigers sleep at night?’, Economic Geography 74, no. 3 (July 1998): 272–88.
Five-year rentals in 2000 – 56% of public rental stock. 1.26 million ‘public rental housing’ units constructed 1982–
2000 (34% TCK, 9% local-authority, 57% private-built five-year rental). Shin, ‘Living on the edge’, 423–4.
49. Kim Woo-Jin, Economic Growth, 185–6. Controlled prices were covered by buyers’ up-front cash payments or tenants’
post-purchase chonsei: Ha, ‘The role of state-developed housing’, 236; Doling and Ronald, Housing East Asia, 186–9,
201; Kim Woo-Jin, Economic Growth, 138, 180–1.

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50. Gelézeau, Séoul, 78, 116, 123–4, 168. TKK expenditure 30% on expropriation, 38% infrastructure and 32% land-
formation: Joonwoo Kim, ‘Apartment Urbanism’, 158–96, 306, 211–17; C. M. Lee and K. H. Ahn, ‘Five new towns in
the Seoul metropolitan area’, Habitat International 29, no. 4 (2005): 647–66. Hollow superblocks were likened by
Korean commentators to traditional ‘hanok’, secluded from the street. Sibum Danzi: mixed high and low slabs around
an undulating linear open space. Ilsan New Town’s development was similar, in 1990–5. Kim Jae-Kwan, Korean
Apartment Danji, 50–2, 107–44.
51. Kim Woo-Jin, Economic Growth, 161, 201; Kim Jae-Kwan, Korean Apartment Danji, 44; Joonwoo Kim, ‘Apartment
Urbanism’, 20, 224–7, 246–9, 308, 326–9;.Gelézeau, Séoul, 62–9, 125–7, 130–2.
52. Singapore public housing ‘superiority complex’: Lee Kuan Yew, The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew,
Singapore: Pearson Ed Asia, 1998; Lee Kuan Yew, From Third World to First, Singapore: Harper, 2000; HDB, 50,000 Up:
Homes for the People, Singapore: HDB, 1965; HB204-69 ‘Prestige Publication of HDB’s Achievements . . . 1960–69’,
1969; W. Fernandez, Our Homes: 50 Years of Housing a Nation, Singapore: Straits Times Press/HDB, 2011; Loh Kah
Seng, ‘The 1961 Kampong Bukit Ho Swee Fire and the Making of Modern Singapore’, PhD thesis, Murdoch
University, Australia, 2008, chapter 10.
53. Early postwar Singapore: C. M. Turnbull, A History of Singapore 1819–1975, Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press,
1977; H. C. Chan, A Sensation of Independence: David Marshall, a Political Biography, Singapore: Times Books
International, 2001; Singapore Constitutional Commission, Report of the Constitutional Commission, Singapore: n.p.,
1954; T. Y. Tan, Creating Greater Malaysia: Decolonisation and the Politics of Merger, Singapore: ISEAS-Yusof Ishak
Institute, 2008. PAP emergence: J. B. Tamney, The Struggle over Singapore’s Soul, Berlin: De Gruyter, 1996; T. Bellows,
The People’s Action Party of Singapore, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1970; D. K. Mauzy and R. S. Milne,
Singapore Politics under the People’s Action Party, London: Routledge, 2002
54. Early postwar Hong Kong: S. Tsang, A Modern History of Hong Kong, Hong Kong: I.B. Tauris, 2004; D. Bray, Hong
Kong Metamorphosis, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2001; J. M. Carroll, Edge of Empires, Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2005; D. Drakakis-Smith, High Society: Housing Provision in Metropolitan Hong Kong 1954
to 1979, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1979; Y. C. R. Wong, Hong Kong Land for Hong Kong People, Hong
Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2015.
55. Hong Kong early postwar governance, civil service: D. Akers-Jones, Feeling the Stones: Reminiscences by David Akers
Jones, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004; Establishment Branch, Hong Kong Administrative Service
1862–1967, Hong Kong: n.p., 1967; Hong Kong Government, The Government and the People, Hong Kong: Hong
Kong Government, 1962; S. Tsang, Governing Hong Kong: Administrative Officers from the Nineteenth Century to the
Handover to China, London: I.B. Tauris, 2007; L. F. Goodstadt, Uneasy Partners: The Conflict between Public Interest
and Private Profit in Hong Kong, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2005; G. B. Endacott, Government and
People in Hong Kong 1841–1962, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1964. Singapore ‘Malayanization’:
M. Castells, L. Goh and R. Y. W. Kwok, The Shek Kip Mei Syndrome: Economic Development and Public Housing in
Hong Kong and Singapore, London: Pion, 286. British/Commonwealth housing/planning links with Hong Kong:
HKPRO file HKRS156-1-3425 (Abercrombie report); HKRS156-1-3812, 156-1-5264 (1953, 1956–60 visits by
Atkinson); HKRS156-1-4079-1 (1953 report by A. R. Giles on UK New Towns); HKRS156-1-9678 (1962 visit by
Fraser to Calcutta). Singapore–UK links: HDB 1086 (Lincoln Page, Senior Architect, visited Rosebery Avenue flats,
London, 1949); HB229-70.
56. Castells et al., Syndrome, 270.
57. Home, Of Planting and Planning.
58. C. Low and National Heritage Board, Ten Stories: Queenstown Through the Years, Singapore: National Heritage Board,
2007; Castells et al., Syndrome, 215–24, 262. Master Plan: National Archives, Singapore (NAS), file HDB 1219 (Future
of SIT 1956–60). Increasing paralysis of SIT: NAS, file HB4-1-60, disruption complaints. Slowdown in production
1958–9: HDB1070-1078.
59. Positive pre-1959 portrayal of postwar SIT history: NAS, file HB 4-1-60, Colony Annual Report 1958, draft chapter
on Planning and Housing (output of 21,408 flats hailed as ‘prodigious achievement’, calls for ‘planning for the growth
of a modern state’ by housing Minister, Haji Jumat). Castells et al., Syndrome, 225. Mid-1950s roots of Resettlement:
HDB1238, HDB1256, HDB1284.
60. HDB’s pre-1959 origins: NAS, file HDB1219 (Future of SIT, 1956–60).

623
Notes

61. SIT-HDB transition: Loh, ‘Bukit Ho Swee’, chapter 3; NAS, file HDB1070-1078; HDB1244; Castells et al.,
Syndrome, 230
62. Beginnings of HKHA/HKHS: HKPRO, file HKRS523-2-1, 896-1-49
63. Shek Kip Mei, genesis of Mk I blocks: A. Smart, The Shek Kip Mei Myth: Squatters, Fires and Colonial Rule in Hong
Kong 1950–1963, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2006; A. Smart, Making Room: Squatter Clearance in Hong
Kong, Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong, Centre of Asian Studies, 1992; HKPRO, file HKRS163-1-781, 310-1-1,
310-3-1, 310-1-11, 310-3-5 (1967–8, celebration of millionth resettlement tenant). Resettlement (general): HKRS394-
23-8, 524-2-11, 890-1-10, 896-1-9, 686-3-161
64. Special Committee on Housing, Final Report, Hong Kong: n.p., 1958; National Archives, London, CO-1030–1179.
HKPRO, file HKRS523-2-7, 896-1-72, 156-3-6/7, 158-1-62, 158-2-9, 158-2-10 (comments on report by Fraser, etc.);
Castells et al., Syndrome, 5–23; Smart, Shek Kip Mei Myth, 190; J. M. Fraser, ‘Planning and housing at high densities in
three crowded cities’, Town and Country Planning Summer School – University of St Andrews, London: Town Planning
Institute, 1960, 104–16.
65. HKHA early projects: Gu Daqing, Time + Architecture 4 (2011): 50–3; NAS, file HB 193-61, 1961 report by Teh on
HK public housing; Neil Monnery, Architect of Prosperity: Sir John Cowperthwaite and the Making of Hong Kong,
London: LPP, 2017.
66. PAP’s emergency years and ‘arson’ claims: Loh, ‘Bukit Ho Swee’, chapter 8; HDB1244 (Ong Eng Guan ‘Meet the People’
sessions, 1959);
67. Programme post-Bukit Ho Swee Fire: NAS, file HDB1263, HDB1074-1079; Loh, ‘Bukit Ho Swee’, chapter 8; Teh and
Lim: National Archives of Singapore, Interview transcripts 526 and 891 (Lim, Choe); Low, Ten Stories, 62–5; Castells
et al., Syndrome, 238–9. Teh’s claim that PAP conceived HDB: HDB1227, note of 11-3-63 by TCW. Post-1961 building
policy: HDB 1243, HDB1263 (improved flat designs); HB224-1-65 (research unit, formed 1964).
68. First New Towns: see, e.g., NAS, file HDB 1095 (Toa Payoh squatter clearance), HDB 1259 (Woodlands). Castells
et al., Syndrome, 215–24, 259–64
69. Start of HOS: NAS, file HB145-63; HDB1244, 1254 (St Michael, Tiong Bahru); HDB 1228 (1958–9 HOS proposal).
L. Low and T. C. Aw, Housing a Healthy, Educated and Wealthy Nation through the CPF, Singapore: Marshall
Cavendish International, 1997. Comparisons with Israel/Finland, etc.: J. Kemeny, The Myth of Home Ownership,
London: Heinemann, 1981; J. Kemeny, From Public Housing to the Social Market, London: Routladge, 1995 Jiat-Hwee
Chang, ‘A History of Transition in Singapore’s Public Housing, 1945–65’, paper to SAH Conference, Glasgow, 2017.
70. Riots: G. Ka-wai Cheung, Hong Kong’s Watershed: The 1967 Riots, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2009;
HKPRO, file HKRS524-2-15-1. Castells on Hong Kong governing class ‘striving to leave their final trace in history’
pre-1997: Castells et al., Syndrome, 332
71. General evaluation of MacLehose: HKPRO, file HKRS684-2-16. 1970s public housing policy (general): HKRS
483-4-1, 489-7-27; E. G. Pryor, Housing in Hong Kong, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973; Drakakis-Smith, High
Society. Formation of new HKHA: HKRS163-9-1338, 163-10-141, 163-10-57, 163-7-1, 177-3-6, 545-1-456, 523-2-2,
70-6-788, 151-1-4809-1, 163-10-56. Secret memo: National Archives (Kew), file FCO 40-510, memo of 27 May 1974
from MacLehose to James Callaghan (Foreign Secretary).
72. Planning policy/Colony Outline Plan, HKPRO, file HKRS896-1-114, 608-1-44, 608-1-40-41. HOS: Castells et al.,
Syndrome, 136–40; J. Lee, Housing, Home-Ownership and Social Change in Hong Kong, Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999;
HKRS163-7-83, 545-1-459-1, 667-2-4, 835-1-171, 163-8-141, 143, 147. Mei Foo as precedent for HOS: HKRS70-3-
297; interview with Sir D. Akers-Jones, 2013. HK New Towns: HKRS 337-4-4337, 545-1-447-2, 895-1-55, 1070-1-1,
710-3-3, 608-1-49. Organizationally, the difference from Britain’s council housing was stark: a closer parallel was
Northern Ireland, which also responded to serious problems of political legitimacy by introducing (1971) an
administrator-led, depoliticized central housing authority.
73. Castells judgement: Castells et al., Syndrome, 332, 136–40.
74. Liu Thai-Ker, ‘Design for Better Living Conditions’, in S. H. Yeh (ed.), Public Housing in Singapore, Singapore:
Singapore University Press, 1975, 145–51 (origins of precinct concept in 1970s); T. Tan et al., ‘Physical Planning and
Design’, in A K. Wong and S. H. K. Yeh (eds), Housing a Nation: 25 years of Public Housing in Singapore, Singapore:
Housing and Development Board, 56–112.

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 Notes

75. SERS: see e.g. Low, Ten Stories, 146–50.

76. SCMP, 20-1-1967, 6.
77. Evolution of standard blocks: Hong Kong Housing Authority, Planning, Design and Delivery of Quality Public Housing
in the New Millennium, Hong Kong: Hong Kong Housing Authority, 2010; HKRS163-8-29, 461–12
78. http://macauantigo.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/manuel-vicente-1934-2013-o-arquitecto.html http://www.icm.gov.mo/
rc/viewer/40050/2256; https://sigarra.up.pt/faup/pt/noticias_geral.ver_noticia?p_nr=1027.
79. Joaquin Mendes Macedo de Loureiro, ‘A Habitacão Social em Macau’, Administracão 7 (1994): 323–33; http://www.
ihm.gov.mo/pt/node-102; http://www.ihm.gov.mo/pt/node-104; http://www.ihm.gov.mo/pt/node-59?id=223.

Chapter 17 Resilience and Renewal: Mass Housing into the Twenty-First Century

1. United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat), Cities in a Globalising World: A Global Report on Human
Settlements, London: Earthscan, 2001, 93.
2. J. Campbell and J. Hall, The World of States, London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015, 110–15.
3. Home-ownership: ‘The Horrible Housing Blunder’ (special housing report), Economist, 18–24 January 2020, 3–12;
L. Vale, Purging the Poorest: Public Housing and the Politics of Twice-Cleared Communities, Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2013, 3, 22, 26, 33; N. Bloom (ed.), Public Housing Myths: Perception, Reality, and Social Policy, Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press, 84. HOPE VI: originally named ‘Homeownership and Opportunity for People
Everywhere’, later changed to ‘Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere’. E. G. Goetz, ‘Where have all the towers
gone? The dismantling of public housing in US cities’, Journal of Urban Affairs 33, no. 3 (August 2011): 267–87.
4. Vale, Purging the Poorest, 22, 26, 35; Bloom, Public Housing Myths, 47, 84.
5. Vale, Purging the Poorest, 37. Percentage of new mortgages partly/wholly state-supported: 35% 2006, 86% in 2009.
‘Comradely capitalism’, Economist, 20 August 2016, https://www.economist.com/briefing/2016/08/20/comradely-
capitalism; David Madden and Peter Marcuse, In Defense of Housing, London: Verso, 2016; L. J. Vale, After the
Projects: Public Housing Redevelopment and the Governance of the Poorest Americans, Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2018.
6. M. Harloe, The People’s Home? Oxford: Blackwell, 293; ‘Der faule Frieden von Paris’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung,
24 January 2015, 3, David Madden and Peter Marcuse, In Defense of Housing: The Politics of Crisis, London: Verso,
2016, 26–35.
7. Architects’ Journal, 20 September 2017 on Hackney social housing programme; ‘Soaring prices put affordable areas
beyond reach for buyers’, Guardian, 3 September 2015, 14; ‘Can Jeremy Corbyn solve the housing crisis?’, Architects’
Journal, 4 September 2015; Larry Elliott, ‘At last, reason to celebrate: house prices are falling’, Guardian, ‘Opinion’,
10 May 2018, 3; W. Hurst and R. Waite, ‘Urban Splash team to build huge modular housing scheme for new town’,
Architects’ Journal, 6 February 2019. On polemic, see, e.g., N. Taylor, The Village in the City, London: Temple Smith,
1973; J. Rees-Mogg contribution to Grenfell Tower debate, 22 June 2017, https://hansard.parliament.uk/
Commons/2017-06-22/debates/E4B84F46-4699-4725-BBE4-AA724C3A0191/GrenfellTower.
8. G. Pitcher, ‘Robin Hood Gardens remnants to be displayed at Venice Biennale’, Architects’ Journal, 6 March 2016;
Nikita Woolfe (director), Concrete Soldiers UK, 2017 (film), www.concretesoldiers.uk; C. Blain, ‘Living a Manifesto’,
paper at 14th DOCOMOMO Conference, Lisbon, 2016.
9. Arkkitehti, April 1995, 44; L. Molinari and C. Ingrosso, ‘The Corviale/Rome and the Vele/Naples’, paper at 14th
DOCOMOMO Conference, Lisbon, 2016; Roberto Saviano, ‘Naples is tearing down the Camorra’s tower blocks’,
Observer, 8 March 2020, 20–2.
10. Marlise Simons, ‘6 years after crash, talk of cover-up’, New York Times, 7 February 1999; Architects’ Journal,
4 September 2015; F. Graf and G. Marino, ‘Housing Reloaded’, DOCOMOMO Journal 54, no. 1 (2016): 6.
11. Gemeindebau contribution: 9,000 new, 4,000 upgraded dwellings annually.
12. www.wien.gv.at/stadtentwicklung/projekte/aspern-seestadt; www.wohnservice-win.at/wohnen/kommunaler-
wohnbau; information from Monika Platzer, 2017; F. Urban, The New Tenement: Residences in the Inner City since

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Notes

1970, Abingdon: Routledge, 273–82; F. Urban, ‘Vienna’s resistance to the neoliberal turn’, Footprint 13, no. 1 (2019):
91–112.
13. Empresa Municipal de la Vivienda y Suelo, Memoria de Gestión, Madrid: EMVS, 2008, 9–19, 42.
14. J. Iñigo and A. Mace, ‘The suburban perimeter blocks of Madrid 10 years on’, Planning Perspectives 34, no. 6 (2019):
999–1021. Limited slum-clearance: 129-unit El Cañaveral demolition scheme. EMVS, Memoria de Gestión, 42.
Funding regimes in 2005 included Régimen Especial (RE), Protección Pública (PP) and Protección Pública Básica
(PPB).
15. This echoed earlier modernist housing set pieces such as the 1949–50 LCC ‘design revolution’: EMVS, Memoria de
Gestión, 9–19; Building Design, 16 March 2007; ‘Horizons of Public Housing: 25 Years of EMVS’ (exhibition), RIBA,
March–April 2007.
16. www.designbuild-network.com/projects/morphosis/; www.worldbuildingsdirectory.com/project.cfm?id=643; www.
earchitect.co.uk/madrid/carabanchel_madrid.htm; www.mimoa.eu/projects/spain/madrid/12%20towers%20in%20
vallecas/.
17. A+U 346; MVRDV Files II, Projects 069-349, 07:01, Tokyo, 2007.
18. ‘Sociópolis’, 350,000m2 ‘urban quarter’, conceived in 2003 as a 2,800-unit scheme for immigrants and disadvantaged
groups. It was designed in iconic modernist style by Guallart and Díaz: Amparo A. T. Vento, ‘Global Architecture and
the Politics of Competitiveness’, PhD thesis, University College London, 2013.
19. Z. Kovacs and G. Herfert, ‘Development pathways of large housing estates in post-socialist cities’, Housing Studies 27,
no. 3 (April 2012): 324–42: Budapest’s public housing fell from 51% to 8% 1990–2006.
20. J. Hegedüs, N. Teller and M. Lux (eds), Social Housing in Transition Countries, London: Routledge, 2013, 322–9;
M. Lux and P. Sunega, ‘Public housing in the post-socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe’, Housing Studies 29,
no. 4 (2014): 501–19.
21. Indrė Ruseckaitė, ‘Waking up the Sleeping Districts’, paper at 14th DOCOMOMO Conference, Lisbon, 2016.
Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Bau und Stadtentwicklung, 10 Jahre Stadtumbau Ost: Berichte aus der Praxis, Berlin:
BMVBS, 2012.
22. For example AWBG Einheit in Karl Marx-Stadt/Chemnitz was transformed in 1990–2 into a Western-style
housing company, owning its own land and 8,600 dwellings: 50 Jahre Geschichte(n), WBG Einheit, Chemnitz, 2004;
A. Bartetzky, Die gerettete Stadt, Leipzig: Lehmstedt, 2015.
23. J. R. Zavisca, Housing the New Russia, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012, 1–5.
24. K. Snopek, Belyayevo Forever: A Soviet Mikrorayon on its Way to the UNESCO List, Berlin: DOM, 2015.
25. A. Luhn, ‘Moscow’s big move’, Guardian, 31 March 2017; ‘Moskauer Stadtpolitik per Abrissbirne’, Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung, 7 April 2017, 11.
26. ‘Construction of 100,000 Flats Sped Up’, Korea 8 (2010): 12; P. Meuser, Architectural and Cultural Guide: Pyongyang,
vol. 2, Berlin: DOM, 2012, 198–9.
27. Bonduki, Os pioneiros da habitacão social, São Paulo: UNESP, 2012, vol. 1, 79, 83, 96, 100–7, 110–19 (investment boost
via SBPE, and also FGTS/OGU), 122–3; www.minhavidaminhacasa.com; www.minhacasaminhavida: of the
35 million target, some 75% were to be for ‘future needs’ but only 8% for favela redevelopment.
28. CRIT, Housing Typologies, Sections 13, 15. The mills had been obsolete since a 1983 strike: interview with Prof.
Vidyadhar Phatak, 2014; F. Urban, Tower and Slab: Histories of Global Mass Housing, London: Routledge, 2015, 112–20.
29. D. D’Monte, Mills for Sale: The Way Ahead, Mumbai: Marg Publications, 2006, 24, 31–56; MHADA database, Swadeshi
Mill, https://mhada.maharashtra.gov.in/?q=swadeshi_mill. New Hind Mill site split 2:1 between former mill workers
and slum displacees.
30. Habitat, Cities in a Globalising World, 93; UN Habitat, An Urbanizing World: Global Report on Human Settlements,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, 145; Campbell and Hall, The World of States, 115–16; A. Mayne, Slums:
The History of a Global Injustice, London: Reaktion, 2017, 240–7; Mike Davis, Planet of Slums, London:
Verso, 2007.

626
 Notes

Chapter 18 Race to the Top: The New Asian Developmentalism

1. C. Giles, ‘The autonomy of Thai housing policy 1945–1996’, Habitat International 27, no. 2 (June 2003): 241;
P. Marcuse, The Myth of the Benevolent State: Towards a Theory of Housing, New York: Columbia University,
Graduate School of Architecture and Planning, 1978, 21–31.
2. ‘Asia’s choking cities’, Newsweek, 9 May 1994, 36–43.
3. TOKİ, Building Turkey’s Future, Ankara: Finar Kurumsal, 2009, foreword.
4. J. Campbell and J. Hall, The World of States, London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015, 75; Ayda Eraydin and Tuna
Taşan-Kok, ‘State Response to contemporary urban movements in Turkey’, Antipode 46, no. 1 (2014): 110–29.
5. M. Schwegmann, ‘Is history repeating itself? From squatter settlements to mass housing’, in Jorge L. Pollock Lizardi
and Martin Schwegmann (eds), Espacios ambivalentes: Historias y olvidos en la arquitectura social moderna, San Juan:
Callejón, 74–88; M. Aynes, B. Gourisse and E. Massicard (eds), Order and Compromise: Government Policies in Turkey
from the late Ottoman Empire to the early 21st Century, Leiden: Brill, 2015, 172–4.
6. Despite the AKP’s religious ideology, the modernization drive was distinctly Kemalist in character: D. Özdemir, ‘The
role of the public sector in the provision of housing supply in Turkey, 1950–2009, International Journal of Urban
Regional Research (IJURR), November 2011, 1099–117; TOKİ, Building Turkey’s Future, 33; G. E. Lelandais, ‘Space and
identity in resistance against neo-liberal urban planning in Turkey’, IJURR, September 2014, 1785–806; Aynes et al.,
Order and Compromise, 174–82; Ozan Karaman, ‘Urban renewal in Istanbul’, IJURR, March 2013, 722–3; Daily Sabah
(Real Estate Supplement), 26 March 2017.
7. Lelandais, ‘Space and identity’, 1785–806; Karaman, ‘Urban renewal’, 718–21; Aynes et al., Order and Compromise, 181.
8. S. Bozdoğan and E. Akcan, Turkey, London: Reaktion, 2012, 242–50; TOKİ, Building Turkey’s Future, 46; Karaman,
‘Urban renewal’, 722–4; Aynes et al., Order and Compromise, 170–6, 179–81; Karaman, ‘Urban renewal’, 716–18, 723,
730; Eraydin and Taşan-Kok, ‘State Response’, 110–29; İ. Dinçer, Z. Enlil and T. İslam, ‘Regeneration in a New Context:
A New Act on Renewal and its Implications on the Planning Processes in Istanbul’, paper at ACSP–AESOP Fourth
Joint Congress, Chicago, 2008; Özdemir, ‘The role of the public sector’, 1110–14; TOKİ, Building Turkey’s Future, 11,
28–9, 43, 64.
9. Mimdap, ‘The giant satellite will welcome the first guest in January’, 9 December 2010: www.mimdap.org/?p=46370.
€64,000: 2,000 application fee, 8,000 deposit, 54,000 balance: Aynes et al., Order and Compromise, 171–81; TOKİ,
Building Turkey’s Future, 96–7; information from Selcen Yalçın, 2017; Kıvanç Kılınç and Mohammad Gharipour (eds),
Social Housing in the Middle East, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2019, 98, 296.
10. Karaman, ‘Urban renewal’, 725–9.
11. Y-L Chen, ‘New prospects for social rental housing in Taiwan’, International Journal of Housing Policy 11, no. 3 (2011):
305–18.
12. Taiwan Today, 18 January 2016; Taipei Times, 11 and 14 January 2018; information from Rémi Wang;
DOCOMOMO-Taiwan: the Songshan development was designed by the firm of Bio-Architecture Formosanas.
13. D. Sudjic, ‘Bangkok’s instant city’, Blueprint, July–August 1993, 17–19. Built by Bangkok Land using proprietary
precast-concrete system of French contractors Bouygues Thai.
14. 4.7% of total housing fell under this heading (1.9% for URA).
15. H. B. Shin, ‘Living on the edge’, Environment and Urbanisation 20 (2008): 411–24; S. K. Ha, ‘Social housing estates and
sustainable community development in South Korea’, Habitat International 32 (2008): 351–3
16. ‘South Korea’, 215 Cities, 3rd Year ACCA Report, Part 2, November 2014, http://www.achr.net/upload/files/South%20
Korea%2015-16.pdf.
17. Governo da Região Administrativa Especial de Macau, ‘Cerimónia de entrega dos habitações aos primeiros
proprietários do Edifício do Lago’, 2012, www.ihm.gov.mo/pt/node-59?id=223; www.ihm.gov.mo/pt/node-102; www.
ihm.gov.mo/pt/node-104.
18. L. Xueying, ‘Singaporean PM: all to enjoy fruits of growth’, Straits Times, 9 August 2010. URA’s 2001 international
competition was won by two Singaporean firms, ARC Studio and RSP Ltd, with design for seven towers linked by sky
bridges on the 26th and 50th storeys, to redevelop Duxton Plain, an early HDB estate.

627
Notes

19. N. M. Yip, ‘Housing, Crises and Interventions in Hong Kong’, in J. Doling and R. Ronald (eds), Housing East Asia:
Socioeconomic and Demographic Challenges, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, 71–7; Naomi Ng, ‘Work to start
in 2024 on golf course blocks’, South China Morning Post, 21 February 2019, 1; Sun Lok-Lei, ‘Environmentalists rally
against Lantau reclamation’, South China Morning Post, 26 February 2019, 3.
20. Hong Kong (HK) civil service in 1970s–1990s: McKinsey & Co, The Machinery of Government, Hong Kong: n.p.,
1973; I. Scott and J. Burns (eds), The Hong Kong Civil Service and its Future, Hong Kong: Oxford University Press,
1988; HKHA, Planning, Design and Delivery, Hong Kong: HKHA; Singapore housing as ‘heritage’: G. L. Ooi,
‘National Identity, Public Housing and Conservation in Singapore’, Habitat International 18, no. 2 (1994):
71–80.
21. Housing and Asia (general): J. Doling, ‘Housing Policies and the Little Tigers’, Housing Studies 14, no. 2 (1999):
229–250; S. H. Ha (ed.), Housing Policy and Practice in Asia, London: Croom Helm, 1987; R. P. Applebaum and
J. Henderson (eds), States and Development in the Asian Pacific Rim, Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1992. Present-day
‘HK vs. Singapore’ debates (density, etc.), see, e.g., L. Xueying, ‘Hong Kong finds room for 7.2 million people’, Sunday
Times (Singapore),
19 February 2013 (info. courtesy of Ian Tan). Links between Hong Kong unrest and mass housing: see, e.g., South China
Morning Post, 2 September 2019, News 4; 14 September 2019, News 3; 27 September 2019, News 3; 17 October 2019,
News 1 and 5; 2 November 2019, News 1; 6 November 2019, Property 2; Sunday Morning Post, 10 November 2019, 11.
22. M. M. Ho, H. Bergsdal, E. van der Voet, G. Huppes and D. B. Müller, ‘Dynamics of urban and rural housing stocks in
China’, Building Research and Information 38, no. 3 (2010): 301–17. Chongqing: see, e.g., http://www.scmp.com/
article/710727/chongqing-launches-huge-public-housing-programme.
23. Ya-Ping Wang, Urban Poverty, Housing and Social Change in China, London: Routledge, 2004, 3–10, 47, 69–70, 150;
Ya-Ping Wang, L. Shao, M. Murie and J. Cheng, ‘The maturation of the neo-liberal housing market in China’, Housing
Studies 27, no. 3 (2012): 343–56, 371; F. C. Peng, ‘Shanghai adopts SAR housing model’, South China Morning Post,
13 November 1997, 61. Ineffective government support focusing on ‘economic’ programme: Ya-Ping Wang and Alan
Murie, ‘The new affordable and social housing provision system in China’, International Journal of Housing Policy 11,
no. 3 (September 2011): 241–8; L. Ruobing, ‘Reforming China’s urban housing policy: the case of Xiamen’, East Asian
Background Brief 365 (2008); Wharton.com, ‘Out of reach: China’s affordable housing ambitions’, www.
knowledgeatwharton.com.cn/index.cfm?fa=article&articleid=2434. New gated enclaves motivated by emancipatory
ideals of privatized anonymity: F. Wu, ‘Rediscovering the gate under Market Transition’, Housing Studies 20, no. 2
(2005 –6): 235–54. Li Yu and H. Cai, ‘Challenges for housing rural-to-urban migrants in Beijing’, Habitat International
40 (2013): 272; China Daily, 21 June 2013, 19. In October 2007, prices were 11% higher than the year before. Wuxi:
information courtesy of Wuxing Jia Yuan estate office and Yumeng Sun, 2018.
24. Ministry of Construction was renamed the Ministry of Housing and Urban–Rural Development. Guaranteed Social
Housing: ‘bao zhang xing zhu fang’. Dong Lisheng, T. Christensen and M. Painter, ‘Housing reform in China’, Journal
of Asian Public Policy 3, no. 1 (2010): 9–10; Wang, Urban Poverty, 150; Wang and Murie, ‘The new affordable and
social housing provision system’, 243.
25. J. Zhou and R. Ronald, ‘The resurgence of public housing provision in China: the Chongqing programme’, Housing
Studies 32, no. 4 (2017): 431–6; ‘Chongqing leads the way in affordable housing’, China Daily, 10 March 2011, www.
chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011npc/2011-03/10/content_12146937.htm; J. T. Areddy, ‘China pins hopes on public
housing’, Asia News, 31 December 2011: online. wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203430404577094233524538406.
html; ‘Chongqing builds more public rental houses’, CCTV, 24 October 2011, http://english.cntv.cn/program/
bizasia/20111024/108676.shtml.
26. A. Rabkin, ‘Building on empty’, Architect, June 2013, 122–32; Zhu and Ronald, ‘The resurgence of public housing
provision’, 431–4.
27. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 24 June 2014, 13. The HDB’s privileged position could not be replicated in China’s
rough-and-tumble conditions.
28. Areddy, ‘China pins hopes on public housing’; Rabkin, ‘Building on empty’, 122–32; Zhu and Ronald, ‘The resurgence
of public housing provision’, 435–6.
29. Lisheng et al., ‘Housing reform in China’, 12; information from Hongbin Ouyang; J. Chen, F. Guo and Y. Wu, ‘One
decade of urban housing reform in China’, Habitat International 35 (2011): 1–8; China Daily, 21 June 2013, 19.

628
 Notes

Liangnan Yuan: information from estate office and from Sun Yumeng, 2018. The blocks were arranged in sectional
plans with each lift serving three flats per floor; the cost to the occupants was CNY 7,000–13,000 monthly.
30. Zhu and Ronald, ‘The resurgence of public housing provision’, 428–30.
31. P. C. C. Huang, ‘Chongqing: equitable development driven by a “third hand”?’, Modern China 37, no. 6 (2011): 590,
593–603; Zhu and Ronald, ‘The resurgence of public housing provision’, 438–9. Chongqing: see, e.g., http://www.
scmp.com/article/710727/chongqing-launches-huge-public-housing-programme. Housing and Asia (general):
J Doling, ‘Housing Policies and the Little Tigers’, 229–50; Ha, Housing Policy and Practice in Asia; Tom Miller,
‘Chongqing’s Challenge’, Cairo Review of Global Affairs, 24 November 2013, www.aucegypt.edu/gapp/cairoreview/
pages/articledetails.aspx?aid=463; A. Krishnan, ‘A tightrope walk in post-Bo Chongqing, The Hindu, 2 October 2012,
www.thehindu.com/news/a-tightrope-walk-in-postbo-chongqing/article3955938.ece; Applebaum and Henderson,
States and Development in the Asian Pacific Rim. Present-day ‘HK vs. Singapore’ debates (density, etc.), see, e.g.,
L. Xueying, ‘Hong Kong finds room for 7.2 million people’, Sunday Times (Singapore), 19 February 2013 (info.
courtesy of Ian Tan); Huang, ‘Chongqing’, 590.
32. ‘Chongqing rolls on’, Economist, 28 April 2012, 54–5; ‘Families celebrate festival in new public rental
apartments’, China Daily, 30 January 2012, www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2012-01/30/content_14506810.htm;
Wharton.com, ‘Out of reach’; Zhu and Ronald, ‘The resurgence of public housing provision’, 437–9; Huang,
‘Chongqing’, 590.
33. Wharton.com, ‘Out of reach’; Huang, ‘Chongqing’, 572–88, 596–8, 603–4; Zhu and Ronald, ‘The resurgence of public
housing provision’, 439–44; interview with Peng Chun, Head of Architectural Design Department 5 of Chongqing
Architectural Design Institute (with Wang Xiao Kun, Deputy Head), 27 January 2015 (translated in 2017 by Rong
Zheng); Malcolm Moore, ‘Bo’s “Smash the Black” reign of terror’, Daily Telegraph, 19 November 2013, 14; Wharton.
com, ‘Out of reach’; ‘Source: Chongqing looks to sell distressed assets after Bo scandal’, Asahi, 2 May 2012, http://ajw.
asahi.com/article/asia/AJ201205020069; Sandy Li, ‘Public rental homes lie empty’, South China Morning Post
(international property section), 14 May 2012, http://interests.scmp.com/international-property/china/public-rental-
homes-lie-empty ; Li Tao, ‘Housing miracle in Chongqing’, China Daily, 22 October 2011, www.chinadaily.co.cn/
hkedition/2011-10/22/content_13953456.htm.
34. CPRHA full title in pinyin: ‘Chong qing shi gong zu fang guanli ju’.
35. Huang, ‘Chongqing’, 591; interview with Peng Chun; Chris Buckley, ‘In China’s Chongqing, dismay over downfall of Bo
Xilai’, Reuters website, 6 March 2012, https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-china-chongqing-idUKBRE82F0H120120316.
36. Assuming 3m storey-heights: interview with Peng Chun.
37. Li, ‘Public rental homes lie empty’. One-bedroom flats up to 40m², two-bedroom up to 60m². Interview with Peng
Chun. Public housing link to ‘Liangjiang New Area’ customs-free zone, english.liangjiang.gov.cn/html/2011-03/31/
content_6012046.htm.
38. Visiting HKHA 2012 delegation feted for Hong Kong’s ‘comprehensive community facilities’, 22 February 2012,
www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/201202/22/p201202220522.htm.
39. Zhu and Ronald, ‘The resurgence of public housing provision’, 441–4; Areddy, ‘China pins hopes on public housing’;
Asahi, ‘Source: Chongqing’; ‘Chongqing rolls on’, Economist, 28 April 2012; interview with Peng Chun; Buckley, ‘In
China’s Chongqing, dismay over downfall of Bo Xilai’.
40. Interview with Peng Chun; C. Shepherd, ‘How one city in China is trying to avoid a property boom and bust’,
Financial Times (China business section), 26 October 2016, www.ft.com/contents/2d117204-9758-11e6-a1dc-
bdf38d484582.
41. South China Morning Post, 28 December 2018.

Chapter 19 Conclusion: Global and National, Idealism and Realpolitik

1. F. Urban, Tower and Slab: Histories of Global Mass Housing, London: Routledge, 2015; F. Dufaux and A. Fourcaut,
Le monde des grands ensembles, Paris: Créaphis, 2004.

629
Notes

2. M. Swenarton, Homes fit for Heroes: The Politics and Architecture of Early State Housing in Britain, London: Ashgate,
1981.
3. Ana Maria Zahariade, ‘1980er-Jahre: Ceaușescus postmodernes Manifest’, ARCH+ 229 (July 2017): 54–61.
4. Martin Pitts and Miguel John Versluys (eds), Globalisation in the Roman World: World History, Connectivity and
Material Culture, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014, 7–21; P. Horden and N. Purcell, The Corrupting Sea:
A Study of Mediterranean History, Oxford: Blackwell, 2000, 64.
5. M. Swenarton, T. Avermaete and D. Van den Heuvel, Architecture and the Welfare State, Abingdon: Routledge,
2015, 20.

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Germany
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Harlander, T., Zwischen Heimstätte und Wohnmaschine, Basel: Birkhäuser, 1995.
Harlander, T. and G. Fehl (eds), Hitlers sozialer Wohnungsbau 1940–1945, Hamburg: Christians Verlag, 1986.
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Kunz, A., Die Akte Neue Heimat (2 vols), Frankfurt: Lampus, 2003.
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Ghana
Konadu-Agyemang, K., The Political Economy of Housing and Urban Development in Africa: Ghana’s Experience from
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Hong Kong
Castells, M., L. Goh and R. Y. W. Kwok, The Shek Kip Mei Syndrome: Economic Development and Public Housing in Hong
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Hungary
Ferkai, A., Housing Estates, Budapest: Budapest City Hall, 2005.

Iceland
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India
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Ireland
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Israel
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Japan
Urban Renaissance Agency, 100 Housing Complexes, Tokyo: URA, 2007.
Waswo, A., Housing in Postwar Japan: A Social History, London: Routledge, 2002.

Korea (North)
Meuser, P., Architectural and Cultural Guide: Pyongyang, 2 vols, Berlin: Dom, 2012.

Korea (South)
Gelézeau, V., Séoul, ville géante, cités radieuses, Paris: CNRS, 2003.

Malta
Miceli-Farrugia, A. and P. Bianchi (eds), Modernist Malta: The Architectural Legacy, Gozo: Kamra-tal-Periti, 2009.

Mexico
Alanís, E. de, Vivienda Colectiva de la Modernidad en México, Mexico City : UNAM, 2008.

Morocco
Avermaete, T. and M. Casciato, Casablanca-Chandigarh, Zurich: Park Books, 2014.
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Netherlands
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Paulen, F. et al., Atlas Sociale Woningbouw Amsterdam, Amsterdam: AFWC, 1992.
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Stedelijk Museum, Het Nieuwe Bouwen, Amsterdam 1920–1960, Delft: Delft University Press, 1983.
Stieber, N., Housing Design and Society in Amsterdam, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.

New Zealand
Firth, C., State Housing in New Zealand, Wellington: Ministry of Works, 1949.
Leach, A., Frederick H. Newman, Lectures on Architecture, Ghent: A & S, 2003.
Schrader, B., We Call it Home, Auckland: Reed Press, 2005.

Norway
Martens, J.-D., Norwegian Housing, Oslo: Norsk Arkitekturforlag, 1993.

Poland
Miezan, M., Kraków’s Nowa Huta, Cracow: Wydawnictwo Bedroża, 2004.

Romania
Maxim, J., The Socialist Life of Modern Architecture, Bucharest 1949–1964, Abingdon: Routledge, 2019.
Panaitescu, A., De la Casa Scânteii la Casa Poporului, Bucharest: Simetria, 2012.
Stroe, M., Locuirea între proiect şi decizie politică, Bucharest: Simetria, 2015.
Tulbure, I., Arhitectură şi urbanism în România anilor 1944–1960, Bucharest: Simetria, 2016.
Zahariade, A. M., Arhitectură în proiectul comunist: România 1944–1989, Bucharest: Simetria, 2011.

Singapore
Castells, M., L. Goh and R. Y. W. Kwok, The Shek Kip Mei Syndrome: Economic Development and Public Housing in Hong
Kong and Singapore, London: Pion, 1990.
HDB, 50,000 Up: Homes for the People, Singapore: HDB, 1965.
Yeh, S. H. (ed.), Public Housing in Singapore, Singapore: HDB, 1975.

South Africa
Judin, H. and I. Vladislavić, Blank: Architecture, Apartheid and After, Rotterdam: NaI, 1998.
Smith, D. M. (ed.), The Apartheid City and Beyond, London: Routledge, 1992.

Spain
Espegel, C., A. Canovas, J. M. Lapuerta and C. M. Arroyo, Vivienda colectiva en España siglo XX, Valencia: GEA, 2013.
Sambricio, C. (ed.), Un Siglo de Vivienda Social, Madrid 1903–2003, Madrid: Editorial Nerea, 2003 (2 vols).

Sweden
Arkitekturmuseet, En Miljon Bostäder (Årsbok 1996), Stockholm: Arkitekturmuseet, 1996.
Backström, S. and S. Ålund, Fyrtiotalets svenska bostad, Stockholm: Byggmästaren, 1950.

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Brunnström, L., Det svenska folkhemsbygget, Stockholm: Stockholm Arkitektur Förlag AB, 2004.
Engförs, C., Folkhemmets bostäder 1940–60, Stockholm: Arkitekturmuseet, 1987.
Kidder Smith, G. E., Sweden Builds, London: Architectural Press, 1950.
Mattson, H. and S. O. Wallenstein (eds), Swedish Modernism, London: Black Dog, 2010.
Misgeld, K., K. Molin and K. Åmark, Creating Social Democracy: A Century of the Social Democratic Party in Sweden,
University Park: Penn State University Press, 1992.
Pass, D., Vällingby and Farsta: From Idea to Reality, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1973.

Switzerland
Furter, F. and P. Schoeck, Göhner Wohnen: Wachstumseuphorie and Plattenbau, Baden: Hier+ Jetzt Verlag, 2013.
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SVW Zürich, Über genossenschaftlichen Wohnungsbau, Zurich: SVW Zürich, 2008.

Turkey
Bozdoğan, S. and A. Akcan, Turkey: Modern Architectures in History, London: Reaktion, 2012.
TOKİ, Building Turkey’s Future, Ankara: Finar Kurumsal, 2009.

UK
Beattie, S., A Revolution in London Housing: LCC Housing Architects and their Work, 1893–1914, London: GLC, 1980.
Begg, T., Fifty Special Years: A Study in Scottish Housing, London: Melland, 1987.
Boughton, J., Municipal Dreams: The Rise and Fall of Council Housing, London: Verso, 2018.
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Dunleavy, P., The Politics of Mass Housing in Britain, Oxford: Clarendon, 1981.
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Ravetz, A., Model Estate: Planned Housing in Quarry Hill, Leeds, London: Croom Helm, 1974.
Tarn, J. N., Five Per Cent Philanthropy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973.

United States of America

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Bloom, N. D., Public Housing that Worked: New York in the 20th Century, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,
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Bloom, N. D., F. Umbach and L. Vale (eds), Public Housing Myths, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2015.
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Caro, R. A., The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, New York: A. A. Knopf, 1974.
Cromley, E. C., Alone Together: A History of New York’s Early Apartments, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990.
Fairbanks, R., The War on Slums in the Southwest, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2014.
Hirsch, A. R., Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983.
Huxley, J., TVA: Adventure in Planning, Cheam: Architectural Press, 1943.
Jackson, A., A Place Called Home: A History of Low-Cost Housing in Manhattan, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1976.
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Plunz, R., A History of Housing in New York City, New York: Columbia University Press, 1990.
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Press, 2000.
Vale, L., Purging the Poorest: Public Housing and the Politics of Twice-Cleared Communities, Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2013.
Vale, L., After the Projects: Public Housing Redevelopment and the Governance of the Poorest Americans, Oxford: Oxford
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Venkatesh, S. A., American Project: The Rise and Fall of a Modern Ghetto, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
2000.
Wright, G., Building the Dream: A Social History of Housing in America, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1981.

USSR
Abrossimov, T. (ed.), Noviye goroda SSSR 1958, Moscow : Gosstroiizdat, 1958.
Anderson, R., Russia: Modern Architectures in History, London: Reaktion, 2015.
Bellat, F., Une ville neuve en URSS: Togliatti, Paris: Parenthèses, 2015.
Colton, T., Moscow: Governing the Socialist Metropolis, Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 1995.
Drėmaitė, M., Baltic Modernism: Architecture and Housing in Soviet Lithuania, Berlin: Dom, 2017.
Drėmaitė, M. et al., Vilnius 1900–2013, Vilnius: Architektūros Fondas, 2013.
Harris, S. E., Communism on Tomorrow Street, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013.
Kotkin, S., Magnetic Mountain, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.
Martiny, A., Bauen und Wohnen in der Sowjetunion, Berlin: Berlin Verlag, 1983.
Meuser, P., Die Ästhetik der Platte, Berlin: Dom, 2015.
Meuser, P., Seismic Modernism: Architecture and Housing in Soviet Tashkent, Berlin: Dom, 2016.
Meuser, P. (ed.), Architekturführer Kasachstan, Berlin: Dom, 2014.
Meuser, P. and D. Zadorin, Towards a Typology of Soviet Mass Housing, Berlin: Dom, 2015.
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2012.
Smith, M. B., Property of Communists: The Urban Housing Program from Stalin to Khrushchev, De Kalb: Northern
Illinois University Press, 2010.
Snopek, K., Belyayevo Forever: A Soviet Mikrorayon on its way to the UNESCO List, Berlin: Dom, 2015.
Stronski, P., Tashkent, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010.
Zavisca, J. R., Housing the New Russia, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012.

Venezuela
Blackmore, L., Spectacular Modernity: Dictatorship, Space and Visuality in Venezuela, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh
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Yugoslavia
Blažević, D., Split: Arhitektura 20. stoljeća, Zagreb: Društvo arhitekata Zagreba, 2011.
LeNormand, B., Designing Tito’s Capital: Urban Planning, Modernism and Socialism in Belgrade, Pittsburgh: University of
Pittsburgh Press, 2014.
Mitrović, M., Modern Belgrade Architecture, Belgrade: Jugoslavija, 1975.
Mitrović, M., Arhitektura Beograda, 1950–2012, Belgrade: Glasnik, 2012.
Mrduljaš, M. and V. Kulić (eds), Unfinished Modernisations, Zagreb: UHA, 2012.
Skansi, L. (ed.), Streets and Neighbourhoods: Vladimir Braco Mušić and Large-Scale Architecture, Ljubljana: Museum of
Art and Design, 2016.
Stierli, J. M. and V. Kulić, Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia 1948–1980, New York: Museum of
Modern Art, 2018.

640
INDEX

NYC=New York City

The letter f after an entry denotes a figure

AAB (Arbeidernes Andels-Boligforening) 21, 22f capitalism 81

Abercrombie, Patrick 150–1f civic housing authorities 61–3f see also NYCHA
Aberdeen 163, 164 communism, fear of 93–4, 96f, 98, 109
Abidjan 465, 467f–8 construction 95
access layouts 12, 15 Dallas, Texas 109
Accra 469 demolition 526
Ackerman, Frederick L. 61 Detroit 109, 527f
Adickes, Franz 20 FHA (Federal Housing Administration) 93–4
Africa 77, 83 see also South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa finance 93, 94, 103, 105, 106, 109, 312
East Africa 470–2 ‘French flats’ 23, 24f
Lusophone 464 home-ownership 23, 59, 74, 93–4, 404
North Africa 181 HOPE VI 526
Aillaid, Émile 184 housing policies 21–3, 63–4, 93, 94–7, 106–7, 526
Ajmeri Gate, Delhi 456, 457f insurance companies 64, 95, 103, 113
Akabane-dai, Tokyo 483, 484f–5f Latin America 404
Akroydon 15 Los Angeles 64, 66f, 109, 132
Akterspegeln, Gröndal 244, 245f Moscow ‘Kitchen Debate’ 81, 82f
Alamar, Havana 430f multi-storey buildings 64–6f, 95–7, 109, 111, 113–15
Albania 360–2 neighbourhood-unit principle 61
Albergo dei Poveri, Naples 12 New Deal policies 59–60, 67, 70
Albertslund Syd, Albertslund 256, 258f Philadelphia 22, 60f, 64, 66f, 111, 112f
Alcock, Alfred ‘Bunny’ 470 philanthropic housing 59–60f
Alden Park, Philadelphia 64, 66f Phoenix, Arizona 109
Alexanderpolder, Rotterdam 209 postwar housing 92–7
Alexandra Park, Toronto 122, 123 race 94, 109, 111–16
Alexandras Avenue, Athens 47f, 48, 294 single-family housing 93–4
Algeria 181, 447–8 slums 59, 63f, 64, 74, 94, 96f, 111
Cité des Castors d’Oran 447, 448 St Louis 109, 110f
Climat de France, Algiers 447 T-E-W Act 94–5, 96f, 103, 105
Diar-el-Mahçoul, Algiers 446f, 447 urban renewal 94–5
Diar-es-Saada, Algiers 447f veterans’ housing 93
‘Dunes, Les’, El-Harrach, Algiers 447–8 World War II 74
Plateau d’Annassers, Algiers 447 Yonkers 117f
Algerian War 171 Ammon, Francesca
Allen Homes, Baltimore 111 Bulldozer 94
alphabet towers 100 Amstellaan, Amsterdam-Zuid 29f
Alster-Zentrum project, Hamburg 231, 234f Amsterdam 209–12
Alt-Erlla, Vienna 221, 222f, 223f Bijlmermeer 210, 212, 213f, 528
Altena 229 ‘Bijlmerramp’ disaster 528
Alvear, Buenos Aires 410, 411f council housing 41
Am Fuchsenfeld, Vienna 35 demolition 528
Am Schöpfwerk, Vienna 221, 223f Dijkgraafsplein 210, 212f
America 83, 116, 551 see also Chicago and NYC General City Extension Plan 41
anti-Americanism 81 Modern Movement 32
Atlanta 526 multi-storey buildings 41, 43f
Baltimore 110f, 111 Osdorp 210, 212f
Boston 23, 109, 110f, 115 Plan Zuid 30, 41

641
Index

Slotermeer 204f, 206, 209, 210, 211f Ashburton Estate, Camberwell, Victoria 131f
Sloterplas 210, 211f Atherton Street Estate, Fitzroy 132, 134f
Slotervaart 210, 211f Carlton Estate, Melbourne 132, 133f, 136
Spaarndammerbuurt 29f CSHA (Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement) 129–30,
Victorieplein 41, 43f 140
Westelijke Tuinsteden 210, 211f, 528 Debney Meadows, Melbourne 134f
Woningwet programmes 30, 41 Dobell, Sydney 136, 139f
Amsterdamse School 29f, 30, 32, 41 Drysdale, Sydney 136
Ang Mo Kio, Singapore 516f, 538f Endeavour project, Sydney 136, 138f
Angel Road, London 156f finance 129
Anglosphere, the 92, 442 Frank Wilkes Court, Northcote 134f
Angola 464 Glebe project, Sydney 136, 139f
Annelinn, Tartu 310 Greenway complex, Sydney 136, 137f
Ansambul Ferentari, Bucharest 362, 264f Holmesglen factory 132, 140
Antwerp 197, 199f, 201f home-ownership 67, 127, 129
apartheid 71, 90, 129, 468, 473–8 John Northcott Place, Sydney 136, 137f
Apkujong, Gangnam, Seoul 497, 498f–9f Maloney Street project, Sydney 136
Arbeidernes Andels-Boligforening (AAB) 21, 22f multi-storey buildings 74, 75f–6f, 130, 132–40
Ardler, Dundee 163 Olympic Village, Heidelberg West, Melbourne 130, 131f
Argentina 70, 84, 409–10f, 434f–9 see also Buenos Aires Park Towers, South Melbourne 134, 135f
multi-storey buildings 436–7f Poet’s Corner estate, Sydney, 136, 137f
Puerto Madryn 439 prefabrication 67, 68f, 132
shanty towns 409, 434 Sirius, Sydney 136, 139f
arm’s-length policies 16,–21 34, 83, 141, 552 slums 26, 67, 125, 129–32, 136
Austria 220 Austria 51, 218–23 see also Vienna
Canada 118 autogerechte Stadt, Die (Reichow, Hans-Bernard) 231
Côte d’Ivoire 465 Av. Conselheiro Borja, Macau 518, 521f
France 46, 54, 170, 193, 526 badd to france? avant-garde, the 6–7 see also radical policies
Israel 449 Avedøre Stationsby, Brøndby 255, 256f
Latin America 70 Avenida dos Estados Unidos da América, Lisbon 293f
Mexico 412 Avenida Tamagnini Barbosa, Macau 521f, 522
Netherlands 30, 214 Avighna Park, Mumbai 531
NYC 98 Avsekļa iela development, Riga 40
Switzerland 217 Avtostroy, Nizhni Novgorod 50f
army married-quarters, Hounslow 12 ‘Aya de Yopougon’ (film) 468
Årsta, Stockholm 242, 245, 247f Aylesbury Estate, London 156, 157f
art 28, 30
Ascot Estate, Essendon, Victoria 131f, 132 Bach, T. and Simony, L. 12
Asemakaavaoppi (‘Town Planning’) (Meurman, Otto-Iivari) Bairro das Condominhas, Porto 54
260 Bairro de Alvalade, Lisbon 291–2, 293f
Asemwald, Stuttgart 233, 235f Bairro Económico de Belem, Lisbon, 53f, 54
Ashburton Estate, Camberwell, Victoria 131f Bairro Tamagnini Barbosa, Macau 522
Ashiya-Hama, Kobe-Osaka waterfront 486, 487f Baiwanzhuang, Beijing 384–5f
Asia 84 see also under individual countries Ballantyne Report 38
Central Asia 338 see also Tashkent Ballerupplan 253, 256f
Eastern Asia 85, 383, 479–80, 481 see also ‘Asian Tigers’ Ballymun, Dublin 165–6, 167f
South Asia 84, 455–6, 461 Baltic states 328–32f
‘Asian Tigers’ 481, 487–8 see also under individual countries Baltimore 110f, 111
Aspern-Seestadt, Vienna 528 Allen Homes 111
Ataköy, Istanbul 295, 296f Bangkok 480
Atherton Street Estate, Fitzroy 132, 134f Bangladesh 461
Atkinson, G. A. 442, 468, 469 Mirpur, Dhaka 461, 463f
Atteridgeville, Pretoria 474, 476f Banjica, Belgrade 369, 371f
Augustenborg, Malmö 240–5 Barbados 431, 443f
Australia 26–7, 67, 74, 127, 128–40, 551 Barbican complex, London 145, 148f, 155
aboriginal Australians 129 Barcelona 288–9, 291
Ascot Estate, Essendon, Victoria 131f, 132 Mina, La 291, 292f

642
 Index

Polígono Gornal 291, 292f Sint-Maartensdal development, Leuven 200, 202f

Polígono Verdun 592 n.39 slums 195, 196f
Sant Marti 290f Société Cooperative des Maisons de Bon Marché de
Sudoeste del Besós 289 Grivegnée project, Angleur 197, 198f
Viviendas del Congreso Eucarístico 289, 290f Zaanstraat, Kiel development, Antwerp 197, 201f
Barczy, István 27–8 Belgrade
Barnett, F. Oswald 67, 130 Banjica 369, 371f
Barrio Juan Perón, Buenos Aires 409, 410f Čerak Vinogradi 372, 374f
Barrio Los Perales, Buenos Aires 409, 410f Novi Beograd 369, 372–6, 377f
Baruch, Bernard M. 74 Rudo (Eastern Gate) 369, 371f
Baruch Houses, Manhattan, NYC 100, 102f Zvezdara Hill 369, 370f
Başibüyük, Maltepe 534, 536f Bellahøj, Copenhagen 253, 255f
Basin Street, Dublin 165, 166f Bellamy, Alec 95, 97, 113–14, 567 n.28
Basseinaia Street complex, St Petersburg 21, 22f Bellmansgade, Copenhagen 253, 255f
Bauer, Catherine 59, 63, 64, 97, 526, 552 Belyayevo, Moscow 322f
Modern Housing 59 Ben-Gurion, David 48
Bayraktar, Erdo ǧ an 532 Bengtson, Sven 249
Becontree Estate, London 38f Bergen 263, 264
Beernaert, Auguste 17 Birkeveien 265f
Be’ersheva 449f, 451, 452f–3f Bergensdalen 264
Begato, Genova 285, 286f Berglund, Helge 242
Begovaya Ulitsa, Moscow 327f Bergpolder, Rotterdam 32, 33f
Behjat-Abad, Tehran 444 Bergtold, Fritz 86
Behmenstraße, Neubrandenburg 359, 360f Berlage, H. P. 30, 206
Beijing 396, 539, 541, 549 Berlin 20, 32f, 42, 44 see also East Berlin and West Berlin
Baiwanzhuang 384–5f Bethnal Green Estate, London 38f–39f, 40
Fusujing Commune Mansion 391f Bežigrad BS-3 (Nove Stožice), Ljubljana 381, 382f
Qiansanmen 393, 394f Bežigrad BS-7 (Ruski Car), Ljubljana 380–1, 382f
Sanlihe Neighbourhood 1 387f bidonvilles
Belfast 168, 169f Congo, the 464
Belgium 16, 17, 48, 54, 194–200 Côte d’Ivoire 465
Brunfaut housing 195–7 France 171, 173, 181
Cité de Droixhe, Liège 197–8, 201f Morocco 445, 446f
Cité Hellemans, Brussels 17, 18f Tunisia 447
Cité Modèle/Modelwijk, Heysel, Brussels 198, 202f Bijlmermeer, Amsterdam 210, 212, 213f, 528
colonialism 195, 464 ‘Bijlmerramp’ disaster 528
Congo, the 195, 464 Birkeveien, Bergen 265f
De Taeye housing 195–7 Birmingham 149, 157, 159f
Europark, Antwerp 201f Biryulovo, Moscow 323
finance 48, 195, 196f ‘Biscione’, the, Genova 280f, 282
home ownership 17, 48, 194, 195 Bishopsfield, Harlow 158
Ieder Zijn Huis housing, Evere 197, 198f Bizaron estate, Tel Aviv 451
Jan De Voslei project, Antwerp 197, 199f Blaakse Bos, Rotterdam 213f, 214
Klein Heide, Hoboken 197, 198f Blackburn, William 12
Kruiskenslei development, Boom-Noord 198, 200, 202f Blackhill Rehousing Scheme, Glasgow 39f
Luchtbal development, Antwerp 197, 199f Blaney, Neil 165
multi-storey buildings 195, 197–200 Bloch-Lainé, François 170, 173
Nieuw Sledderlo, Genk 195 Bloco Duque de Saldanha, Porto 54
NMGW (Nationale Maatschappij voor Goedkope Woningen Blom, Piet 212, 214
[National Economic Dwellings Association]) 48 ‘Bo Bättre’ (‘Live Better’) exhibition 243, 244f
NMKL (Nationale Maatschappij de Kleine Landeigendom Bo Xilai 543–4, 546, 549
[National Association for Small House Ownership]) 48 Bobur St, Tashkent 334f, 335f
Parkwijk Casablanca project, Kessel-Lo, Leuven 197, 198f Bocksriet-Siedlung, Schaffhausen, Zürich 216f, 217, 218
planned settlements 15 Bogaers, Pieter 203
religion 194, 195 Bølerskogen I, Oslo 264
Residentie Olympia, Ghent 199f Bollate, Milan 286, 287f
Silvertoplaan, Antwerp-Zuid 201f Bombay (Mumbai) 456, 458, 461, 531 see also New Bombay

643
Index

Avighna Park 531 Brettenham Road Estate, London 155f

Chandanwadi Chawls 24f, 461 Breuer, Marcel 32
Kannamwar Nagar 461, 463f Brezhnev, Leonid I. 299, 300, 304
New Hind Mill site 529f, 531 Briey 176
Sahakar Nagar 462f Britain 11, 16, 169 see also England and London and Scotland
Tilak Nagar Colony 461, 462f Channel Islands 164–5, 166f
Wadala Colony 461, 463f Classic Road, Liverpool 154f
Western Railway Colony 462f Colonial Development and Welfare Act 77
Worli Chawls 72f, 461 colonialism 23–4f, 26–7, 455, 473–8, 481, 501–2
Bonames-Niedereschbach, Frankfurt 237f construction 152, 154
Bondy, Paris 171, 172f council housing 12, 17, 34, 38–40, 141–2, 526
Bordeaux 181, 186f council housing regulation 56
Borgo Panigale, Bologna 276, 278f decolonization 442, 449, 468–78
Borgo San Sergio, Trieste 273 demolition 527f
Bos, A. 206 design 40, 143–7f, 150f, 552
‘stad van toekomst, der toekomstder stad, De’ (‘City of the direct labour organizations (DLOs) 153
Future – Future of the City’) 205f, 206 Edmonton, Middlesex 153
Boston 109, 115 finance 142, 152–3
Cathedral project 109, 110f green belts 150–1
Columbia Point 109 home ownership 56, 169, 526
‘French flats’ 23 housing policies 16, 34, 141, 526–7
Botongbeol, Pyongyang 400 Israel 449
Boundary Street Scheme, London 16–17, 18f Manston Road Allotments, Ramsgate 154f
Brandon Estate, London 147f militancy 27
Brandram’s Works Site, London 143, 147f multi-storey buildings 95, 151–7f
Braem, Renaat 195, 196f, 197, 198, 200 municipal socialism 16–17
Brasília 84, 415, 419, 421f–5f New Towns 142, 143, 151f, 157
design 423 Oliver Close, Leyton 154f
propaganda 551 party politics 141–2
superquadras 421f, 422f, 423f–5f postcolonialism 442
Brazil 70–1, 415–25f, 432–4, 439, 530–1 see also Brasília and Rio prefabrication 152–3
de Janeiro rent controls 34
Conjunto Habitacional Presidente Castelo Branco, ‘right to buy’ 526
Carapicuiba 434f slums 55, 147–52, 158–60
Conjunto Habitacional Zezinho Magalhães Prado, Cumbica socialism 83
434 Swedish influence 242
Conjunto São Sebastião, Niteroi 418 ‘British’ Africa 468–73
Conjunto Tiradentes, São Bernardo do Campo 418 Britz-Buckow-Rudow, West Berlin 235–6, 237f
design 418 Broadwater Farm, London 145, 148f
DHP (Departamento de Habitação Popular de Prefeitura do Brøndby Strand 255, 257f
Distrito Federal [Capital Prefecture Social Housing Bronxdale Houses, The Bronx, NYC 96f
Deparment]) 418, 419f Brotherhood of St Laurence 131
finance 415, 425, 432, 433, 531 Brownsville Houses, Brooklyn, NYC 102f
home ownership 433, 531 Brunfaut, Fernand 195–7
IAP programmes 71, 415 Brussels 197
Kubitschek, Juscelino 415, 419, 421f, 423 Brutalism 89, 143
military dictatorship 84 Bucharest 363
multi-storey buildings 77, 418 Ansambul Ferentari 362, 264f
Niemeyer, Oscar 404, 418, 419, 421f Bulevardul Victoria Scoialismului 366f, 367
Santa Etelvina, São Paulo 433 Calea Grivitei 363, 364f
São Paulo 433, 434f Drumul Taberei 363, 365f
Zona Leste de São Paulo 434f earthquake damage 366f
Bredalsparken, Hvidovre, Copenhagen 253, 254f Şoseaua Mihai Bravu 365–6, 367f
Breiðholt, Reykjavik 266, 267f Budapest 12
Bremen 230f, 231, 232f, 233f, 237f Barczy programme 27–8f
Bremen-Tenever project 237f Egressy út 348
Brentford Waterworks development, London 144f Havanna 342
Brest 171, 172f Kelenföld 351, 354f

644
 Index

Újpalota 355, 356f Capwell scheme, Cork 40

Wekerle project 28f Carl Mackley Houses, Philadelphia 60f
Buenos Aires 27, 409, 436 Carlton Estate, Melbourne 132, 133f, 136
Alvear 410, 411f Carrières Centrales, Casablanca 90, 445–6f
Barrio Juan Perón 409, 410f Casa Colectiva America, Buenos Aires 69f, 70
Barrio Los Perales 409, 410f Casa Colectiva Martin Rodríguez, Buenos Aires 409, 410f
Casa Colectiva America 69f, 70 Casablanca 90, 445–6f
Casa Colectiva Martin Rodríguez 409, 410f Caserió Lluis Lloréns Torres, San Juan 407, 408f, 431
Catalinas Sur 436 Caserió Nemesio Canales, San Juan 406
Chacras de Saavedra 439 Caserió San Antonio, San Juan 406, 408f
Complejo Habitacional Soldati 437–9 Casteldebole, Bologna 286
Conjunto Habitacional Ciutadela I and II 437 Castelo Branco, Humbertode Alencar 432, 434f
Conjunto Habitacional Rioja 436, 437f Castle Vale, Birmingham 159f
Conjunto Urbano Alfedo Palacios 435f Castle Village, NYC 32, 64, 66f
Conjunto Urbano General Nicolás Savio 436–7, 438f Castlehill, Aberdeen 163
Conjunto Urbano Luis Piedrabuena 437, 439, 440f Castro, Fidel 429
Conjunto Villa del Parque 434f, 436 Catalinas Sur, Buenos Aires 436
Curapaligüe 410, 411f Cathedral project, Boston 109, 110f
design 436–9 Ceaușescu, Nicolae 362, 363, 365, 366, 367
Edificio Nicolas Repetto 410, 411f Centennial Flats, Berhampore, Wellington 74, 75f
Edificio Rochdale 436 Central Asia 338 see also Tashkent
Mansión Popular de Flores 69f Central Committee Residential Complex, Moscow 49
Monoblock General Belgrano 409–10f Centro Urbano Presidente Miguel Alemán, Mexico City 412,
building-patterns 6 413f
Bukit Ho Swee, Singapore 505–6, 511f Century Gardens, Zinzhou 539
Bulevardul Victoria Socoialismului, Bucharest 366f, 367 CEP complex, Cagliari 285, 286f
Bulgaria 342, 343, 344, 345 Čerak Vinogradi, Belgrade 372, 374f
banking scandal 346 Ceylon 461
cooperative associations 344 Chaban-Delmas, Jacques 176
Hipodrama, Sofia 348, 349f chaebols 495
industrialized building 350, 354f Chacras de Saavedra, Buenos Aires 439
modernism 347, 348 Chalandon, Albin 193
multi-storey buildings 348, 357 Challenge of Slums, The (UN-Habitat II) 531
Tolstoy, Sofia 350, 354f Champ de Manoeuvre, Liège. See Cité de Droixhe, Liège
Bulkwang, Seoul 491 Chamshil, Gangnam, Seoul 496, 497, 498f, 537
Bulldozer (Ammon, Francesca) 94 Chandanwadi Chawls, Bombay (Mumbai) 24f, 461
Bundang 500 Chandigarh 455
Burkitt, Ray 132 Changan Apartments, Seoul 491
Byker, Newcastle 159f Changgwang Street, Pyongyang 400
Changsha Building Materials Machinery factory staff
Ca’ Granda Nord, Milan 275, 276f accommodation 392f, 393
Cables Wynd, Edinburgh 163 Changsha Institute of Mining and Metallurgy staff
Cabrini Green project, Chicago 113, 115 accommodation 387
Cagliari 276, 278f, 285–6f, 287f Changsha tongzhilou drivers’ dormitory 392f, 393
Calea Grivitei 363, 364f Changsha Water Conservancy and Hydropower of Hunan
Calenberger Neustadt, Hannover 231 Province housing 388f
Callaghan, James 168 Changsha Zhengyuan Power Accessories factory
Camus, Raymond 187, 316 accommodation 389f, 390
Camus 187–90, 316–18 Changsha Zinc Factory 543f
Canada 26, 67, 116–25 see also Toronto Channel Islands 164–5, 166f
home ownership 67, 116, 118 Charles L. Curran Court, Yonkers 117f
multi-storey buildings 120–5, 126f Charlestown, Boston 65f
multiple houses, Inuvik 119 chawls 24f
prefabricated units, Nunavik 119 Chelas, Lisbon 293, 294
slums 119, 120 Chelmsley Wood, Birmingham 157
Caoyang Xincun, Shanghai 385, 386f, 387 Cheng-Kuang, Taipei 488, 489f
Cape Town 26, 71, 474, 477 Cheng Nan Jia Yuan, Chongqing 544f–5f, 546, 549
capitalism 81, 502 Chertanovo Sevyernoe, Moscow 323, 324f

645
Index

Chicago 111, 113–115f, 526 Cité de Droixhe, Liège 197–8, 201f

Chilanzar, Tashkent 317f, 318, 333 Cité de l’Étoile, Bobigny 184
Chile 70, 84, 406, 439 Cité de la l’Abreuvoir, Bobigny 184, 185f
China 71, 383–97, 539–49 see also Beijing and Chongqing and Cité de Lignon, Geneva 218, 220f
Shanghai Cité des Castors d’Oran 447, 448
Bo Xilai 543–4 Cité du Wiesberg, Forbach 184, 185f
Century Gardens, Zinzhou 539 Cité Hellemans, Brussels 17, 18f
Changsha Building Materials Machinery factory staff cite industrielle, Une (Garnier, Tony) 31
accommodation 392f, 393 Cité Modèle/Modelwijk, Heysel, Brussels 198, 202f
Changsha Institute of Mining and Metallurgy staff Cité Napoléon, Paris 14f, 15
accommodation 387 Cité Pierre Collinet, Meaux 189f, 190
Changsha tongzhilou drivers’ dormitory 392f, 393 Cité radieuse, Marseille 86, 174f
Changsha Water Conservancy and Hydropower of Hunan Cité Rotterdam, Strasbourg competition 177, 179f, 180
Province housing 388f City of Stockholm Housing Competitions 58f, 59, 243, 244f
Changsha Zhengyuan Power Accessories factory Ciudad Antonio Nariño, Bogotá 406
accommodation 389f, 390 Ciudad Kennedy, Bogotá 406
Changsha Zinc Factory 543f Clarence Road, London 156f
corruption 542, 544, 549 Clark, W. C. 67, 118
Cultural Revolution 393 Classic Road, Liverpool 154f
Dalian 543 Claudius-Petit, Eugène 171, 175, 176–7
danwei 383–4, 387–90, 393, 396–7 Climat de France, Algiers 447
design 388, 542, 546 closed systems 89
devolution 552 Co-op City project, NYC 105–6f
Eco-City, Tianjin 542 Cold War, the 81
Feng Yuan complex, Changsha 542 collectivism 31, 35, 305, 326, 330
finance 542, 546 Cologne-Chorweiler 231, 233f
Great Leap Forward 390–1 Colombia 406
home ownership 539 Colonial Development and Welfare Act 77
Hunan University housing 388, 392f, 393 colonialism 23–7, 77, 461, 463 see also decolonization
industrialized building 388, 439, 491 Belgium 195
Jianshan, Tianjin 387f Britain 23–4f, 26–7, 455, 473–8, 481, 501–2
Kaifu Temple road (south of), Changsha 388, 389f Congo, the 195, 464
land finance 542, 546 France 23, 181, 190, 465–8
Liangnan Yuan complex, Wuxi 542, 543f Francophone Africa 465–8
multi-storey buildings 391, 393, 394f, 395f, 541, 542, 543f, Hong Kong 501, 502
544f, 546, 547f India 23–4, 26, 455
People’s Communes 390–1 Japan 481
Poblacion Huemul II and III, Santiago 406 Lusophone Africa 464
reform era 393, 395–7 North Africa 181
Remodelación Republica, Santiago 406, 408f Portugal 464, 518
shanty towns 539 Singapore 501, 503
Shenzhen 395f, 396 South Africa 473–8
Singaporean influence 542 Colseguros, Bogotá 406
Soviet influence 383, 384, 385, 387 Columbia Point, Boston 109
Unidad Vecinal Portales, Santiago 406, 408f commonalities 7
Wuxing Homeland (Jia Yuan) project, Wuxi 539, 541, 543f Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement (CSHA) 129–30, 140
Yanshancun, Hunan University 392f, 393 communal living 35
Chinungwiza 472 communism 81
Cho Yiu Chuen, Kwai Ching 514f American fear of 93–4, 96f, 98, 109
Choi Fook Estate, Hong Kong 541f Complejo Habitacional Soldati, Buenos Aires 437–9
Choi Hung (‘Rainbow’) estate, Kowloon 504, 507f concentration camps 73
Choi Ying Estate, Hong Kong 541f concentric-zone model 83
Chombart de Lauwe, Paul-Henry 175 Concrete Ltd 153
Chongqing 543–9, 553 conflict see also revolution and war
Choux et Maïs complex, Créteil 190, 191f America 113, 115
CIAM (International Congresses of Modern Architecture) 32 Argentina 439
May, Ernst 51 Australia 134–6
Cité Beauregard, Poissy 180, 182f decolonization 441

646
 Index

France 526 India 456, 458, 461

Hong Kong 502, 512, 539 Italy 285
Italy 527 Netherlands 30, 41, 200
Northern Ireland 168 Norway 45, 263
Puerto Rico 439 Peru 432
South Africa 474 Poland 343, 355
Soviet Union 300, 333 South Korea 496, 501
Sweden 528 Soviet Union 305
conglomerate design 145–6, 148f Sweden 45, 56, 240, 241f
conglomerate planning 89 Switzerland 45
Congo, the 195, 464 Taiwan 488
African housing 464, 466f Turkey 296
Conjunto Deodoro, Rio de Janeiro 418, 420f Yugoslavia 368–9
Conjunto Gávea, Rio de Janeiro 418, 420f Corbusier, Le 32, 33f, 86, 176–7
Conjunto Habitacional Ciutadela I and II, Buenos Aires 437 corporatism 194
Conjunto Habitacional Dona Julieta Nobre de Carvalho, Macau Corradino Hill Flats, Paola 269f
518, 521f Corso Grosseto complex, Torino 40
Conjunto Habitacional Presidente Castelo Branco, Carapicuiba Corviale, Rome 283–5, 286
434f cost-income escalation 12
Conjunto Habitacional Rioja, Buenos Aires 436, 437f Côte d’Ivoire 441, 465–8
Conjunto Habitacional Unidad Independencia, Mexico City 412, Grand Bloc, Le, Adjamé, Abdijan 467f–8
414f shanty towns 465
Conjunto Habitacional Zezinho Magalhães Prado, Cumbica 434 Yopougon, Abdijan 467f, 468
Conjunto Nonoalco-Tlatelolco, Mexico City 412, 414f Coteto, Livorno 279f
Conjunto Resdencial de Benfica, Rio de Janeiro 415, 416f, 418 council housing 34–48
Conjunto São Sebastião, Niteroi 418 Britain 12, 17, 34, 38–40, 56, 141–2, 526
Conjunto Tiradentes, São Bernardo do Campo 418 Denmark 45–6
Conjunto Urbano Alfedo Palacios, Buenos Aires 435f England 141
Conjunto Urbano General Nicolás Savio, Buenos Aires 436–7, 438f France 46
Conjunto Urbano Luis Piedrabuena, Bueno Aires 437, 439, 440f Germany 42
Conjunto Villa del Parque, Buenos Aires 434f, 436 Hungary 45
Conservation Movement, The (Glendinning, Miles) 550 Ireland 17, 40
Constitution Hill, Dublin 165, 166f Italy 46, 47f
constraints 89 Netherlands 40–2, 203–4
construction 95 see also prefabrication Northern Ireland 17, 624 n.72
America 95, 105–6 Norway 45, 263
Canada 122 Scotland 40, 56, 141, 142
Britain 152 Sweden 45, 46f
France 187 Switzerland 45
skyscrapers 89, 95 Courant, Pierre 171, 173, 176
Cook, Theodore Andrea 3 Courneuve, La 176, 183, 193
Cooper, Peter Courtillières, Les, Pantin 184
‘Housing in the Public Sector’ 169f Coventry 158
cooperatives see also SCET ‘Coventry Mural, The’, Lower Precinct, Coventry 150f
America 105, 106, 113 Cregagh167, 169f
Argentina 410, 437 Crescent Town, Toronto 122, 123f
Austria 221 Créteil 190, 191f
Brazil 432–3 Créteil-Montaigut 190, 191f
Bulgaria 344 crises 26, 27–8, 31, 551 see also conflict and revolution and war
China 397 COVID-19 pandemic 553
Czechoslovakia 45, 344 Germany 42
Denmark 21, 45, 54, 250 Great Depression 48–54, 56
Finland 260 Latin America 67, 426–9
France 20, 176, 197, 198 Mexico 426–7
GDR 343–4, 346 plague 26, 71
Germany 20, 42 refugee 48
Hungary 344 World War 1 34
Iceland 56, 264, 266 World War II 73

647
Index

Cruddas Park, Newcastle 157, 159f Lajpat Nagar 456, 459f

CSHA (Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement) 129–30, Laxmibai Nagar 456, 457f
140 Lodi Colony 456, 457f
Cuba 429–31 R. K. Puram Colony 458, 459f
Alamar, Havana 430f rehabilitation colonies 456
Distrito Plaza de la Revolución, Havana 429 Sheikh Sarai Colony 458, 460f
Habana del Este, Havana 429, 430f Sujan Singh Park 456, 457f
home ownership 429 Tara Group Housing 458, 460f
industrialized building 429 Yamuna Apartments 458, 460f
Malecón, Havana 429 Delouvrier, Paul 190
multi-storey buildings 429 Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). See North Korea
shanty towns 429 Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV). See North Vietnam
Soviet influence 429 demolition 359, 525–30, 532, 536, 537
Cullingtree Road, Belfast 168, 169f Denmark 21, 22f, 45–6, 54, 56, 250–9f, 528
Cumbernauld 158 Albertslund Syd, Albertslund 256, 258f
Curapaligüe, Buenos Aires 410, 411f Avedøre Stationsby, Brøndby 255, 256f
Curzon Road hostels, Delhi 458, 459f Ballerupplan 253, 256f
Cyprus 268 Bellahøj, Copenhagen 253, 255f
Czech Republic 530 Bellmansgade, Copenhagen 253, 255f
Czechoslovakia 45, 342, 343, 344, 346–7, 348 Bredalsparken, Hvidovre, Copenhagen 253, 254f
design 357 Brøndby Strand 255, 257f
Februárka, Bratislava 347 council housing 45–6
industrialized building 348, 350 design 253
Litvinov 346 Dronningegården, Copenhagen 252, 254f
Engstrands Allé, Hvidovre, Copenhagen 253, 255f
Da’an (Great Peace), Taipei 488, 489f Farum Midtpunkt, Furesø 258, 259f
Dafna Estate, Tel Aviv 449, 450f finance 252
D’Alesandro, Thomas L. J. 111 Gadekæret, Ishøj 258f
Daley, Richard J. 113 Galgebakken, Alberstlund 258
Dalian 543 Gellerupplan, Århus 255
Dallas, Texas 109 Gladsaxeplan 253, 256f
danchi 482–3 see also tanji Godthåb, Greenland 255, 257f
Danviksklippan, Stockholm 244–5, 246f Grenhusene, Hvidovre 256, 258f
danwei 383–4, 387–90, 393, 396–7 Hjortekjærhusene 253
Danzig 43 Høje Søborg, Copenhagen 253, 254f
Dar es Salaam 472 Holmegårdsparken, Kokkedal 257f
Daranyi Houses, Hungary 45 Hyldespjældet, Albertslund 258, 259f
Darmstadt-Kranichstein 233, 235, 236f industrialized building 252–3, 255
Darst, Joseph M. 109 Jesperson 252, 253
Daugavpils 304 Køge Bugt master plan 252, 255, 257f
Davis, Lewis 107 Larsen & Nielsen 252–3
Dawsons Hill, London 156, 157f militancy 27
De Gaulle, Charles 175 multi-storey buildings 252, 253
De Taeye, Alfred 195–7 planning 252
Dearborn Homes, Chicago 111, 113 Søndergård Park, Bagsværd 253, 254f
Debney Meadows, Melbourne 134f Strandhavevej, Hvidovre, Copenhagen 253, 255f
decolonization 81, 441–8, 465–72 ‘tæt-lave’ 256, 258
Britain 441, 449, 468–78 Voldparken, Husum, Copenhagen 253, 254f
conflict 442 working class housing schemes 21
France 441, 465, 467–8 World War II 73
Hong Kong 85, 481, 501, 502 Derby Street (Camus), Dundee 163
Malaya 442, 479 Derry 168
Singapore 85, 479, 481, 501 design 90, 552 see also diversity
South Africa 441, 468, 473–8 America 95
Dedman, John 129 Amsterdamse School 29f, 30, 32, 41
Delhi 456–8 Argentina 436–9
Ajmeri Gate 456, 457f Australia 132–4, 136
Curzon Road hostels 458, 459f Austria 35, 221

648
 Index

Belgium 552 Dobell, Sydney 136, 139f

Berlin 228, 233 Dojunkai projects 481
Brazil 418, 423 Dom Novogo Byta, Novye Cheryomushki 326, 327f
Britain 40, 143–7f, 150f, 552 Don Mills, Toronto 120
Canada 122 Douglass Homes, Detroit 527f
China 388, 542, 546, 552 Dov Gruner St., Jerusalem 454f
conglomerate 145–6, 148f DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea). See North Korea
Czechoslovakia 357 Dronningegården, Copenhagen 252, 254f
Denmark 253 Drumchapel Township Unit 2, Glasgow 162
England 143–7 Drumul Taberei, Bucharest 363, 365f
France 90, 176–80, 181–2 DRV (Democratic Republic of Vietnam). See North Vietnam
garden suburbs 90 Drysdale, Sydney 136
GDR 348 DSK system 316–19f
Hong Kong 513, 518, 552 Dublin 17, 18f, 165
Hungary 357 Ballymun 165–6, 167f
India 456, 458 Basin Street 165, 166f
Ireland 40 Constitution Hill 165, 166f
Israel 451 Fenian Street 165
Italy 273, 275, 552 King Street North 166f
Japan 483, 552 Marino garden suburb 40
Netherlands 204–14, 552 Pearse House 39f
New Zealand 127, 128f slum clearance 40, 165
North Korea 400 Dubuisson, Jean 187
NYC 90, 100, 105–6, 107 Dufaux, Frédéric/Fourcaut, Annie
Singapore 513, 552 monde des grands ensembles, Le 550
site-specific 35 Dugave, Novi Zagreb 378, 379f
Soviet Union 49, 51, 307, 320–6, 333–8f Dundee 163
star flats 127, 128f ‘Dunes, Les’, El-Harrach, Algiers 447–8
Sweden 218, 242–3, 249 Durban 474
Vienna 35, 221
West Germany 228, 233 East Africa 470–2
Yugoslavia 369, 552 East Berlin 350, 359
Detroit 109, 527f Marzahn 354f
Deutscher Werkbund 32 Nikolaiviertel 359, 361f
development aid 441–2, 464, 468, 531 Socialist Realism 347
Argentina 436 Strausberger Platz 347
Côte d’Ivoire 465 Weberwiese 345f, 347
Denmark 252, 253 East Germany. See GDR
France 175 East London, South Africa 474
Morocco 445 East Pakistan 461
Netherlands 206 Mirpur, Dhaka 461, 463f
North Vietnam 398 East River Houses, NYC 64, 100
Portugal 291 Eastern Asia 85, 383, 479–80, 481 see also ‘Asian Tigers’
Taiwan 488 ECA-Siedlung, Bremen 230f, 231
West Germany 228 Eco-City, Tianjin 542
Yugoslavia 368 Écochard, Michel 445, 446, 465
Diar-el-Mahçoul, Algiers 446f, 447 EDF towers, Ivry-sur-Seine 527
Diar-es-Saada, Algiers 447f Edificio do Lago, Macau 536f, 537
Dijkgraafsplein, Amsterdam 210, 212f Edificio Nicolas Repetto, Buenos Aires 410, 411f
Din Daeng, Bangkok 480 Edificio Rochdale, Buenos Aires 436
Diósgyőr, Miskolc 355, 358f Edinburgh 163f
Diotallevi, Irenio 275 Edmonton, Middlesex 153
Distrito Plaza de la Revolución, Havana 429 Eesteren, Cornelis van 41
diversity 1–2, 6, 90 Egressy út, Budapest 348
Modern Movement 31–2 Egypt 445
regional 6, 315f, 316, 328–32f Gamal Abdel Nasser Estate, Cairo 445
Vienna 35 elderly housing 97, 114
Dixon Street Flats, Wellington 74, 75f–6f, 127 Ellor Street and High Street, Salford 160f

649
Index

Ellor Street-Broad Street CDA, Salford 160 existential crises 26 see also crises
Emmertsgrund, Heidelberg 233, 236f plague 26
Endeavour project, Sydney 136, 138f Existenzminimum kitchen 89
Engkvist, Olle 244 Extensive Urbanism 307, 310, 329, 332f, 348, 363
England 11, 141, 157–60f see also Britain and London
access layouts 12 Falansterio, El, San Juan 69f, 70
army married-quarters, Hounslow 12 Falchero, Turin 276–7, 278f
Bishopsfield, Harlow 158 Falowiec (Wave) blocks, Przymorse, Gdańsk 348, 355, 357f
Byker, Newcastle 159f Faludi, Eugene 119–20
Castle Vale, Birmingham 159f Fangualong, Shanghai 390, 391f
Chelmsley Wood, Birmingham 157 Farragut Houses project, Brooklyn, NYC 100, 101f
Classic Road, Liverpool 154f Farringdon Road improvements, London 12, 13f
council housing 141 Farsta 242, 248f
Coventry 158 Farum Midtpunkt, Furesø 258, 259f
‘Coventry Mural, The’, Lower Precinct, Coventry 150f Februárka, Bratislava 347
Cruddas Park, Newcastle 157, 159f Feng Yuan complex, Changsha 542
design 143–7 Fenian Street, Dublin 165
Edmonton, Middlesex 153 Ferantov vrt, Ljubljana 380, 381f
Ellor Street and High Street, Salford 160f Fiat housing, Turin 273, 274f
Ellor Street-Broad Street CDA, Salford 160 Fife 164
Heath Town, Wolverhampton 146, 149f Fife Lane, Miramar, Wellington 67, 68f
Heywood, Manchester 160f finance 6, 16 see also development aid
‘Lawn, The’, Harlow New Town 143, 145f America 93, 94, 103, 105, 106, 109, 312
Lincoln Green, Leeds 151f Argentina 70, 409
Manston Road Allotments, Ramsgate 154f Australia 129
modernism 143, 145f Belgium 48, 195, 196f
multi-storey buildings 143–7f, 157–60 Brazil 415, 425, 432, 433, 531
municipal architectural departments 143, 144f Britain 142, 152–3
New Empiricism 242 Bulgaria 346
Norfolk Park, Sheffield 157, 159f Canada 118–19, 125
Oliver Close, Leyton 154f Chile 70, 406, 439
Park Hill, Sheffield 146, 150f, i157 China 542, 546
planned settlements 15 Colombia 406
Portsdown Hill, Portsmouth 146, 149f, 527f Côte d’Ivoire 465, 468
prisons 12 Czechoslovakia 45, 346
public housing leaflet 96f Denmark 252
Swedish influence 242 Finland 259–60
Wellington Hill, Leeds 160f France 20, 171
Woodside Lane, Sheffield 157 GDR 346
Engstrands Allé, Hvidovre, Copenhagen 253, 255f Germany 20, 42
Engström, Edvin 59 Ghana 469
Epen, Jop van 41 Hong Kong 487, 539
Erdoǧan, Recep Tayyip 452 Hungary 346
Erskine, Ralph 158 Iceland 264–5
Erskineville scheme, Sydney 67, 68f India 455, 458
Ervi, Aarne 260 Israel 451
Eryaman, Ankara 297 Italy 21, 270
Espace d’Abraxas, Les, Noisy le Grand 192f Mexico 70, 412
Esping-Andersen, G. Mitchell-Lama programme 105
Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, The 239 Moses, Robert 98
Estacas, Lisbon 292, 293f Netherlands, the 201, 203
Estonia see also Tallinn Norway 263
Vinni, Rakvere 332f Puerto Rico 431
Europark, Antwerp 201f Senegal 465
Europe 15, 34 see also Southern Europe Singapore 487, 539
social housing policies 16, 17–21 South Korea 487, 497, 500, 537
EVKA, Izmir 296f, 297 Soviet Union 299, 303, 305, 312
Evry 190, 191f, 92f Spain 289

650
 Index

Sweden 240, 249 Front de Mer Sud, Le Havre 172f, 187

Switzerland 217 GEAI system 190
Taiwan 487 Grand Parc, Bordeaux 181, 186f
Turkey 295, 532, 533, 536f Grande Borne, La, Grigny 184, 185f
Venezuela 431 grands ensembles 181–6f, 193
West Germany 224–5, 227 hard French housing 177–80, 190
Yugoslavia 368, 381 Haut-du-Lièvre, Nancy 183f, 184
Finland 259–62f, 528 see also Helsinki Havre, Le 171, 172f, 177, 187, 307
finance 259–60 HLM (Habitation à loyer modéré [low-income housing])
home ownership 259 171–3, 193 see also OPHLMs
Pihlajamäki 262f home ownership 17, 20, 83, 172, 173, 193
Tapiola 260, 262f Îlot development, Le Havre 187, 188f
Vantaanpuisto 260, 261f industrial/housing developments 180, 182f
First Houses, NYC 61, 62f industrialized building 180, 182f 173, 175, 187–90
First World 5–6, 7, 83 intellectualism 175–6
Fisherman’s Bend, Victoria 67, 68f ISAI (immeubles sans affectation individuelle [buildings
Fisker, Kay 56 without individual allocation]) 171
Fitch, Morgan Modern Movement 32
‘Realtor Says No to Public Housing, A’ 93 Muette, La, Drancy 54, 55f, 73, 177
Flagg, Ernest 23 multi-storey buildings 54, 55f, 177, 178f, 183f–93
flat-slab construction 95 Nanterre complex 179f, 180
Flats and Houses (English government guide) 143 L’Obelisque, Épinay 183f, 184
Flemingdon Park, Toronto 122, 123f OPHBMs (HBM offices) 46, 54
Flierl, Bruno 351 OPHLMs (HLM offices) 171, 173, 176
folkhem concept 56, 239–40 Perret, Auguste 86, 171, 172f, 177–80
Fondation Rothschild housing competition 19f, 20 Place de l’Hôtel de Ville, Le Havre 171
Ford, Henry 34 Plan Constantine 181
Fordham Hill Apartments, NYC 103, 106f Plan Construction 190
Fordism 34, 300, 310, 312 Plan Courant 171–3
Forster, E. M. Plan Voisin 32
Machine Stops, The 27 postcolonialism 141–2
Fort Greene, NYC 98, 100 postwar reconstruction 83–4, 171–3, 175
Forte Quezzi, Genova 280f Pyramides, Evry 190, 192f
France 15, 28, 54–5f, 170 see also Paris 16, 17, 20, 46, 170, 171–2, Quai des Belges, Strasbourg 180
173 Quartier d’Esplanade, Strasbourg 179f, 180
Algeria 447–8 Quartier des grarte-ciel (Skyscraper District), Villeurbanne
arm’s-length policies 46, 54, 170, 193, 526 54, 55f
bidonvilles 171, 173, 181 Red Ring 175, 193
Camus, Raymond 187–90 religion 172–3
Choux et Maïs complex, Créteil 190, 191f Sarcelles grand ensemble 181, 182f–3f, 184
Cité Beauregard, Poissy 180, 182f SCET (Société Centrale pour l’Equipment du Territoire) 173,
Cité du Wiesberg, Forbach 184, 185f 175, 441–2, 465
Cité Pierre Collinet, Meaux 189f, 190 SCIC (Societé central immobilière de la CDC) 173, 175,
Cité radieuse, Marseille 86, 174f 193
Cité Rotterdam, Strasbourg competition 177, 179f, 180 secteur industrialise 185, 187–90
colonialism 23, 181, 190, 465–8 SHAPE Officers’ Village, St Germain-en-Laye 187, 188f
conflict 526 SHAPE village, Fontainebleau 187
construction 187–93 social housing policies 16, 17, 20, 46, 170, 171–2, 173
Corbusier, Le 32, 33f, 86, 176–7 Société Mulhousienne des cites ouvrières (SOMCO) 15
council housing projects 46 Sotteville-lès-Rouen 177, 178f, 307
criticism 184 standard plans 173, 174f
decolonization 441–2, 445, 465, 467–8 Toulouse-le-Mirail 184–5, 186f
design 90, 176–80, 181–2 Tour Perret, Amiens 177, 178f
DGEN (Délégation générale à l’équipement national Unité d’habitation, Marseille 86, 174f, 176
[National Infrastructure Commission]) 175 Unité de Construction de Bron-Parilly 183f–4
EDF towers, Ivry-sur-Seine 527 usager concept 175–6
Espace d’Abraxas, Les, Noisy le Grand 192f Vieux-Port, Marseille 171
finance 20, 171 Villeneuve-St Georges competition 177, 178f, 180

651
Index

Villeneuve, Grenoble 185 Kuwait 442

World War II 73, 171 Netherlands 206, 210
zone à urbaniser prioritaire (ZUP [priority urbanization Rhodesia 468
zone]) system 180–2 South Africa 71, 73, 468, 475, 550
Francis Cabrini Homes, Chicago 114f Soviet Union 307
Francis Joseph I (emperor of Austria) 27 Uganda 472
Francophone Africa 465–8 garden suburbs see also Siedlungen
Frank Wilkes Court, Northcote 134f Argentina 409
Frankfurt 42, 44f, 237f Australia 26
Bonames-Niedereschbach 237f Belgium 15
garden suburbs 43 England 12, 15, 56
Großsiedlung Romerstadt 44f France 14f, 18f, 20, 54
Modern Movement 32 Germany 43
Frankfurt-Nordweststadt 231, 234f Ireland 40
Fraser, J. M. 503, 504, 505 Kenya 470
free-standing tall blocks 86, 89, 295, 323, 325, 426 see also New Zealand 74
multi-storey buildings Portugal 54
French Hill, Jerusalem 451, 454f Sweden 56
Fresh Meadows project, NYC 103, 104f Unwin, Raymond 23
Friesenberg, Zürich 215, 216f Gardiner, Frederick ‘Big Daddy’ 119–22
Fritz Erler-Allee, West Berlin 236 Garnier, Tony
Front de Mer Sud, Le Havre 172f, 187 cite industrielle, Une 31
Fry, Max 77 Gartenstadt Vahr, Bremen 231, 232f
Fulvio Testa, Milan 286 Gaskin, Jack 132
Fusujing Commune Mansion, Beijing 391f Gavanskii Settlement, St Petersburg 21
Gdańsk 357, 359f
Gadekæret, Ishøj 258f Przymorze 348
galerijbouw 207–8f Falowiec (Wave) blocks, Przymorse 348, 355, 357f
Galgebakken, Albertslund 258 GDR (German Democratic Republic) 342, 343, 345–7, 348, 359,
Gallaratese, Milan 283f, 285, 286f 530 see also East Berlin
gallery-access developments 41–2, 45, 90, 146 see also Behmenstraße, Neubrandenburg 359, 360f
galerijbouw cooperative associations 343–4
Australia 136 demolition/redevelopment programmes 359
Austria 12 design 348
Belgium 17, 18f Halle-Neustadt 348, 530
Britain 38 Hoyerswerda 348, 350, 351f, 527f
England 7, 12, 13f, 56 industrialized building 347, 348, 350, 359
GDR 347 modernism 346–7
Hungary 12 Prager Straße, Dresden 350, 352f
Ireland 40 Rostock-Schmarl 359, 361f
Japan 483 Schwedt 348
Kenya 471 WBS70 350, 353f, 356f
Netherlands 32, 41, 43f, 208 Wilhelm-Raabe-Straße, Karl-Marx-Stadt (Chemnitz) 344,
North Korea 399 345f, 346
Scotland 12, 15 Geddes, Patrick 26
Singapore 513 gegliederte und aufgelockerte Stadt, Die (‘The Zoned and
Slovakia 45 Opened-Out City’) (Göderitz, Rainer and Hoffmann) 86,
South Korea 495 228
Gallowgate, Aberdeen 163f Gellerupplan, Århus 255
Gamal Abdel Nasser Estate, Cairo 445 Gemeindebauten 35–37f
Gangnam, Seoul 496–9f Gemeinwirtschaftliche Siedlungs- und Bauaktiengesellschaft
garden cities 23, 37f, 73, 90 (GESIBA) 35, 221
Austria 35, 37f, 221 General City Extension Plan, Amsterdam 41
China 385 Genova 285
Finland 260 Begato 285, 286f
Hungary 73 ‘Biscione’, the 280f, 282
India 455, 456, 458, 461 Forte Quezzi 280f
Israel 451 George, Henry 20

652
 Index

George Porter Towers, Wellington 127, 128f grand narratives 81

German Democratic Republic (GDR). See GDR Grand Parc, Bordeaux 181, 186f
Germany 42–5, 530 see also GDR and West Germany Grande Borne, La, Grigny 184, 185f
building boom 42 Grande Hornu, Le 15
council housing schemes 42 Great Britain. See Britain
DAF (German Workers’ Front) 51, 225 Great Depression 48–54, 56
finance 20, 42 Greece 294–5
Halle-Neustadt 530 Alexandras Avenue, Athens 47f, 48, 294
housing policies 20–1, 34, 42, 51, 530 home ownership 294–5
land use 20 Pefki Solar Village, Attica 295
Modern Movement 32 refugee settlements 48
Nazi government spending 51 Skopos, Thrace 48
postwar policies 63–4 Green, Ronald 166–8
producer-neutrality 42 green belts 150–1
trade union movements 51, 225 Green Street, St Helier 164, 166f
Weissenhof Siedlung, Stuttgart 32 Greenland
World War II 73–4 Godthåb 255, 257f
GESIBA (Gemeinwirtschaftliche Siedlungs- und Greenway complex, Sydney 136, 137f
Bauaktiengesellschaft) 35, 221 Grenfell Tower, London 526
Geumhwa Apartments, Seoul 494f Grenhusene, Hvidovre 256, 258f
Ghana (Gold Coast) 469–70 Grishin, Viktor 304, 323
Asawasi, Kumasi 470, 471f Gropius, Walter 32, 474–5
industrialized building 470 Großfeldsiedlung, Vienna 221, 222f
Schokbeton houses 470 Großsiedlung Romerstadt, Frankfurt 44f
Soviet mutual-assistance 470 Großsiedlungen 227, 231, 233, 235
Suntreso, Kumasi 470, 471f Großstadtarchitektur (Hilberseimer, Ludwig) 32
Tema Manhean 470, 471f Groupe Prague complex, Paris 19f
Gheorghiu-Dei, Gheorghe 362 Grupo Coronel Lopez Larraya, Madrid 289, 290f
Gibson, David 83, 161, 162f, 551 Guangju 492
Ginsburg, Moisei 51 Gun Hill Houses, The Bronx, NYC 102f
Giuseppe di Vittorio, Turin 285, 286f Győri, Ottman 28
Gladsaxeplan 253, 256f
Glasgow 39f, 40, 142, 149, 161–2f Habana del Este, Havana 429, 430f
Blackhill Rehousing Scheme 39f Habitação Social de Fai Chi Keu, Macau 537
Drumchapel Township Unit 2 162 Habitat, Montréal 125, 126f
housing committee 145f Habitation à loyer modéré (HLM [low-income housing]) 171–3,
Red Road project 153, 155f 193
Sighthill 161, 162f habitation sociology 175–6
Townhead Area A 162f habitations à bon marché (HBM). See HBM
Glavmosstroi 305 Habitations Jeanne Mance, Montréal 125, 126f
Glebe project, Sydney 136, 139f Hall, John 77
Glendinning, Miles Halle-Neustadt 348, 530
Conservation Movement, The 550 Hamburg 225–6f, 231
Glengarry Court, Windsor 125 Alster-Zentrum project 231, 234f
globalism 531 Grindelberg 227, 228, 229f
Göderitz, Rainer and Hoffmann Mummelmannsberg 226f
gegliederte und aufgelockerte Stadt, Die (‘The Zoned and Steilshoop 231, 235f
Opened-Out City’) 86, 228 Hammarkullen, Göteborg 248f, 250
Godthåb, Greenland 255, 257f Hanly, Dáithí 165
Goecke, Theodor 20 Hanoi 397, 398
Gofers, Tao 136 Hansen, Oskar 355
Goldberg, Bertrand 113 Hanson, Norman 474, 475
Golden Lane, London 145, 148f Harare 472
Gomułka, Władysław 343 hard French housing 177–80, 190
Gordon Wilson Flats, Wellington 127, 128f Hardau II, Zürich 218, 220f
Gortzak, Henk 204 Hardy, Thomas
Goujon, Lazare 54 Mayor of Casterbridge, The 1
Governor Smith Houses, Manhattan, NYC 99f, 100 Harlem River Houses, NYC 60, 61f

653
Index

Harumi, Tokyo 483, 485f Iceland 264

Haut-du-Lièvre, Nancy 183f, 184 Israel 451
Havre, Le 171, 172f, 177, 187, 307 Japan 482
Hayes, Frank 156 Latin America 404
HBM (habitations à bon marché) 17, 19f, 46, 54 see also HLM Macau 522
and OPHBMs Mexico 431–2
HDB (Housing and Development Board) 503, 505, 506, 510, 513 New Zealand 127
Heath Town, Wolverhampton 146, 149f Norway 263
heating 399, 495, 496, 497 Portugal 54, 291
Hellman, Louis Puerto Rico 405, 431
‘History of a Modern Listed Building’ 527f Singapore 502, 503, 510
Helsinki 260 South Europe 83
Herttoniemi 262f South Korea 491, 497
Maunula 260, 261f Southern Rhodesia 472
heritage protection 527, 530 Soviet Union 305
Herttoniemi, Helsinki 262f Spain 288
Hertzen, Heikki von Sweden 242
Koti vaiko kasarmi lapsilemme? (‘A home or a barracks for Turkey 295, 533
our children?’) 260, 261f Venezuela 431
Heywood, Manchester 160f West Germany 225, 227
HICOG-Siedlung Muffendorf, Godesberg 228, 229f Yugoslavia 368–9
high-density housing. See space Honecker, Erich 343, 345f, 346, 350, 353f
high modernism 1 Hong Kong 85, 487, 501–5, 512–13, 537–9, 551
‘High Paddington’ project, London 86, 87f British influence 513
Hikarigaoka Park Town, Tokyo 486 Cho Yiu Chuen, Kwai Ching 514f
Hilberseimer, Ludwig Choi Fook Estate 541f
Großstadtarchitektur 32 Choi Hung (‘Rainbow’) estate, Kowloon 504, 507f
Zeilenbau 32, 33f Choi Ying Estate 541f
Hin Keng, Sha Tin 519f colonialism 501, 502
Hing Man, Chai Wan 518, 519f corruption 537–8, 540f
Hipodrama, Sofia 348, 349f decolonization 85, 481, 501, 502
‘History of a Modern Listed Building’ (Hellman, Louis) 527f design 513, 518, 552
Hjortekjærhusene 253 devolution 552
Hjorthagen, Stockholm 58f, 59 finance 487, 539
HKHA (Hong Kong Housing Authority) 504, 518 Harmony standard blocks 518, 520f
HLM (Habitation à loyer modéré [low-income housing]) 171–3, Hin Keng, Sha Tin 519f
193 see also OPHLMs Hing Man 518, 519f
Høje Søborg, Copenhagen 253, 254f HKHA (Hong Kong Housing Authority) 504, 518
Hökarängen, Stockholm 245, 247 home ownership 513
Hollamby, Ted 155 Kai Ching Estate 541f
Holmegårdsparken, Kokkedal 257f Kai Tak Sites 541f
Holmesglen factory 132, 140 Kwai Shing West 507f
home-ownership 15, 525 Kwun Tong Resettlement Estate 506f
America 23, 59, 74, 93–4, 404 modernism 552
Argentina 409 multi-storey building 90, 504, 507f, 509f, 518, 519f, 538–9
Australia 67, 127, 129 Oi Man, Kowloon 510f
Belgium 17, 48, 194, 195 Ping Shek, Kowloon 508f
Brazil 433, 531 resettlement programme 504
Britain 56, 169, 526 Sai Wan (Cadogan Street) Estate 507f
‘British’ Africa 469 shanty towns 504
Canada 67, 116, 118 Shek Kip Mei, Kowloon 504, 506f, 541f
Chile 406, 439 Siu Hong Court, Tuen Mun 515f
China 539 Sui Wo Court, Sha Tin 88f, 515f, 518
Cuba 429 Sun Chui Estate, Sha Tin 514f
Finland 259 Tai Hing Estate, Tuen Mun 514f
France 17, 20, 83, 172, 173, 193 Tin Shui Wai New Town 520f
Greece 294–5 Tsui Ping South Estate 520f
Hong Kong 513 Upper Ngau Tau Kok 539

654
 Index

Wah Fu Estate, Waterfall Bay 504, 509f Ieder Zijn Huis housing, Evere 197, 198f
Yu Chui Court, Sha Tin 537, 540f Îlot development, Le Havre 187, 188f
Hong Kong Housing Authority (HKHA) 504, 518 Ilsan 499f, 500
HOPE VI 526 Imanta, Riga 330
Horden, Peregrine and Purcell, Nicholas 2 imperialism. See colonialism
Hornbækhus, Copenhagen 46f, 56 INA-Casa 89, 206, 270–80
hospitals 12 India 71, 455–61, 531 see also Delhi
Houphouët-Boigny, Félix 465, 466f Chandigarh 455
Housing and Development Board (HDB) 503, 505, 506, 510, ‘chawls’ 24f
513 colonialism 23–4, 26, 455
Housing Asia’s Millions (Yeh, Stephen/Laquian, Aprodicio) design 456, 458
487–8 finance 455, 458
housing campaigns 6 Improvement Trusts 26
‘Housing in the Public Sector’ (Cooper, Peter) 169f MHADA (Maharashtra Housing and Area Development
housing need 3 Authority) 458–61
housing prioritization 6 multi-storey buildings 456, 458, 531
housing reform 11, 15 plague 26
America 23 prefabrication 24, 455
Britain 23 shanty towns 24
France 17 slums 23–4, 26, 71, 456, 458, 461, 531
Howard, Ebenezer Vasi Naka Colony, Shastri Nagar 531
Tomorrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform 31 individual circumstances 90
Hoyerswerda 348, 350, 351f, 527f Indonesia 479
Hringbraut, Reykjavik 56, 266, 267f ‘Industrialised Building Project’ Misrata, Tripoli 443f–4f, 445
Huang Qifan 543, 546, 549 industrialized building. See prefabrication
Huay Kwang, Bangkok 480 Industrialnyy Prospekt, Leningrad 320f
Hufeisensiedlung, Berlin 42, 43f, 44f insurance companies 64, 95, 103, 113
Hugo Breitner-Hof, Vienna 221, 222f Interbau, West Berlin 87f
Hukukçular, Istanbul 593 n.54 interiors 89
Hunan University housing 388, 392f, 393 internal staircase access developments 12, 16, 90
Hungary 21, 342, 343, 344, 346–8 see also Budapest International Congresses of Modern Architecture (CIAM). See
council housing 45 CIAM
design 357 international modernism 85–91 see also modernism
Diósgyőr, Miskolc 355, 358f Inuvik 119
finance 346 Invalidovna, Prague 350, 353f
industrialized building 350–1, 355 Iran 444
Invalidovna, Prague 350, 353f Behjat-Abad, Tehran 444
Jihozápadní Mĕsto, Prague 357, 358f Kuy-e Kan, Tehran 444
József Attila Street, Budafok 354, 355f Shahrak-e-Ekbatan, Tehran 444
modernism 346–8 Ireland 165–6f
Káposztásmegyer, Prague 357, 358f Ballymun, Dublin 165–6, 167f
Óbuda, Budapest 348, 355 Basin Street, Dublin 165, 166f
Pécs 357 Constitution Hill, Dublin 165, 166f
Sidlištĕ Petřiny, Prague 349f council housing 17, 40
Strip project, Budapest 355 Fenian Street, Dublin 165
tenements 12 King Street North, Dublin 166f
working class housing schemes 21 Pearse House, Dublin 39f
World War II 73 slums 40, 165
Hutcheon Street, Aberdeen 164f Ironia sudby (‘The Irony of Fate’) 305
Hyldespjældet, Albertslund 258, 259f Israel 448–54f see also Jerusalem and Tel Aviv
Hyundai 495, 497 Be’ersheva 449f, 451, 452f–3f
design 451
IACP (istituti per le case popolari) 21, 46 home ownership 451
fascism 51 Kiryat Gat 451, 452f
Piazza dei Foraggi 46, 47f Ma’ale Adumim 453
Via Arquata, Turin 47f Rosh Ha’ayin 449
Iceland 56, 263, 264–7f see also Reykjavik Yamit 616 n.27
idealism 551 istituti per le case popolari (ICP/IACP). See IACP

655
Index

Italy 21, 40, 270 see also Genova and Milan and Naples and Mukagawa, Osaka 486
Rome and Trieste and Turin multi-storey buildings 483–7f
Borgo Panigale, Bologna 276, 278f NJK (Nihon Jutaku Kodan [Japan Housing Corporation])
Casteldebole, Bologna 286 482–3, 486
CEP complex, Cagliari 285, 286f Nogeyama, Yokohama 483
civil servants’ housing 46 Soko Matsubara, Saitama 483, 485f
conflict 527 Jardim de Alá, Rio de Janeiro 417f, 418
Coteto, Livorno 279f Järvafältet 249–50, 251f
council housing projects 46, 47f Jasmine Place, Aberdeen 164
design 273, 275, 552 Jencks, Charles
fascism 51 Post-Modern Architecture 109
finance 21, 270 Jersey 164–5
ICP (istituti per le case popolari) 21 Jerusalem 451
IACP (istituti per le case popolari) 21, 46, 47f, 51 Dov Gruner St. 454f
ICAM (Istituto comunale per le abitazioni minime) 21 French Hill 451, 454f
IFACPs (Fascist ICAPs) 51 Talpiyot East 454f
INA-Casa 89, 206, 270–80 Jesperson 252, 253
INCIS (Istituto nazionale per le case degli impiegati statali Jiankang Public Rental Project, Songshan, Taipei 534, 536
[National Institute for Civil Servants’ Housing]) 46 Jianshan, Tianjin 387f
industrialized construction 282, 285 Jihozápadní Mĕsto, Prague 357, 358f
Mazzorbo, Venice 286, 287f Johannesburg 26, 474, 476f
multi-storey buildings 285 Orlando 73
Neo-Realist movement 275 John Northcott Place, Sydney 136, 137f
PEEP (Piano per l’edilizia economica e popolare Johnson, Lyndon 116
[Plan for Economic and Popular Construction]) Jordan 454
282, 285, 286 Joseph, Keith 142, 152
Pilastro, Bologna 281f, 282 József Attila Street, Budafok 354, 355f
Plan INA-Casa 270–81 Juknaičiai, Lithuania 330
planning 281–7f Julia Lathrop Homes, Chicago 60f
Quartiere INA-Casa ‘Barca’, Bologna 277, 279, 280f Juliusz Słowacki, Lublin 355
Quartiere INA-Casa Cerignola 590 n.19 Jurong West Neighbourhood, Singapore 517f
Quartiere Palazzo dei Diavoli, Florence 279f Jury, Archibald 161
Quartiere San Giuliano, Mestre 276, 277f Justus van Eiffenstraat, Rotterdam 41, 43f
Sant’Elia, Cagliari 285–6, 287f
social housing policies 21, 51, 54 Kadleigh, Sergei 86
topography 285 Kai Ching Estate, Hong Kong 541f
‘Treno’, the, Bologna 279, 280f, 282 Kai Tak Sites, Hong Kong 541f
Via Arquata, Turin 47f Kaifu Temple road (south of), Changsha 388, 389f
Via Max, Sesto San Giovanni 285 Kaiser Franz-Josef 1 Jubiläumshäuser, Vienna 12
Via Peano, Turin 273 Kalinin Prospekt, Moscow 310, 311f
Via Pessina, Cagliari 276, 278f Kallang Airport Estate, Singapore 505f
Via Pinerolo tenements, Turin 21, 22f Kang Zhuang Mei Di, Chongqing 548f
‘Virgolone’, the, Bologna 281f, 282 Kantorowitch, Roy 475
Ivanovskaya Street, Volodarsky Raion, Leningrad 50f Káposztásmegyer, Prague 357, 358f
Ivory Coast. See Côte d’Ivoire Karl 346, Hof, Vienna 35, 37f
Ivry-sur-Seine 176, 527 Karl-Marx-Stadt (Chemnitz) 344, 346
Karl Wrba Hof, Vienna 221
Jacob Riis Houses, NYC 100 Karoliniškes, Vilnius 302f, 303, 330f
Jacobs, Jane 87, 107, 176, 526 Kawaguchi Shibazono, Saitama 486f
James Weldon Johnson Houses, Manhattan, NYC 102f Kayabaşi Konutlari, Istanbul 533–4, 535f
Jan De Voslei project, Antwerp 197, 199f Kazincbarcika 601 n.22
Jane-Exbury Towers, Toronto 122, 124f Keay, L. 56
Jane-Finch project, Toronto 122, 124f Kecskehegy Hill, Hungary 45
Japan 71, 85, 481–7, 534, 537 see also Tokyo Kelenföld, Budapest 351, 354f
Ashiya-Hama, Kobe-Osaka waterfront 486, 487f Kelly, Tom 40
design 483 Kennerly, Martin 113
home ownership 482 Kensal House, London 56
Kawaguchi Shibazono, Saitama 486f Kenya 467, 470

656
 Index

Dandora, Nairobi 472 Labzak, Tashkent 336f

decolonization 442 Lagos 71, 470
East African Railway flats, Mombasa 470–2 Lagutenko, Vitaly Pavlovich 312, 316, 318
Kariokor, Nairobi 470 Lajpat Nagar, Delhi 456, 459f
Ofafa Maringo, Nairobi 470 Lake Front Homes, Chicago 114f
Keppler, Arie 41 Lake Meadows, Chicago 113–14, 115f
Khamid Alimdzhan Square, Tashkent 338, 340f Lambert, Harold 157
Khayelitsha (‘New Home’), Cape Town 477 Lambertseter, Oslo 263–4
Khrushchev, Nikita 299–300, 301f, 304, 310, 312 Lambeth 155, 156f
criticism 306, 320 Langa, Cape Town 71
Khrushchevki 90 Langahlid, Reykjavik 266
Moscow ‘Kitchen Debate’ 81, 82f Langston Terrace, Washington DC 60f
planning 307 language 1–2
prefabrication 304, 316 Langwasser, Nuremberg 231, 233f
Kiev 49 Larsen & Nielsen 252–3
Kim Hyeon-Uk ‘Bulldozer Kim’ 491, 493f, 494 Larsson, Yngve 242
Kim Il Sung 399 Laskaris, Kimon and Kyriakos, Dimitrios 48
Kim Jong-Il 400, 402 Lasnamäe, Tallinn 306, 329–30, 331f
Kim Liên, Hanoi 397 Latin America 67, 84, 404–5, 426–31, 439–40 see also under
‘Kineski zid’ (‘Great Wall of China’), Spinut, Split 378, 380f individual countries
King, Mackenzie 118 American influence 404
King Street North, Dublin 166f arm’s length policies 70
King’s Gate, Valletta 269f conflict 27
Kinshasa 77 home ownership 404
Kips Bay Plaza, NYC 95 shanty towns 404
Kiryat Gat 451, 452f Latvia 40, 330, 332f
Kispesti Állami Munkás Lakótelep, Budapest 28f ‘Lawn, The’, Harlow New Town 143, 145f
Klein Heide, Hoboken 197, 198f Lawrence Heights, Toronto 121f, 122
Kleinpolder, Rotterdam 207, 209 Laxmibai Nagar, Delhi 456, 457f
Kleppsvegur, Reykjavik 266, 267f Lazdynai, Vilnius, Lithuania 329f
Klerk, Michel de 41 Le Corbusier 32, 33f, 86, 176–7
Koenigsberger, Otto 442, 455 Leblon, Rio de Janeiro 415
kommunalka 34 Lee Hsien Loong 537
Komsomolsky Massiv, Kiev 308, 309f Lee Kuan Yew 501, 503, 505f, 537
Kon’kovo, Moscow 321f Lefrak City, NYC 103
Konstantinidis, Aris 294 Leith Fort, Edinburgh 163
Korean Wars 94, 397, 491 Leningrad 302f, 304, 316
Kos, Karoly 28 Industrialnyy Prospekt 320f
Koti vaiko kasarmi lapsilemme? (‘A home or a barracks for our Malaya Okhta 315f
children?’) (Hertzen, Heikki von) 260, 261f Novosmolenskaya Embankment 325f
Kramer, Piet 41 1LG-600 (‘Ship’) 316, 317f
Kruiskenslei development, Boom-Noord 198, 200, 202f prefabricated housing 319f, 320f
Kubitschek, Juscelino 415, 419, 421f, 423 Sosnovaya Polyana 318f
Kucherenko, Vladimir A, 304–5 Ul. Belgradskaya 319f
kukaku-seri 481, 482, 488, 490, 492 Vassilievsky Island 317f, 323, 326
Kumasi 469–70 Leningradskoye Shosse, Moscow 326f
Kurrizi, Kosovo 381 Leninsky Prospekt, Kuybishev 323, 325
Kuwait 442–3f Leninsky Prospekt, Moscow 307–8, 309f
Sabah-al-Salem, Kuwait City 443 Lensovet building, Leningrad 49, 50f
Sawaber, Al-, Kuwait City 443f Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev Square, Novye Cheryomushki 326f
Kuy-e Kan, Tehran 444 Léopoldville (Kinshasa) 464
Kuybishev 323, 325 Leroux, Môrice 54
Kwai Shing West, Hong Kong 507f Leroy, Jean-Paul 173, 175
Kwangbok (Liberation) Street, Pyongyang 400, 401f Leroy, Léon-Paul 442, 465
Kwun Tong Resettlement Estate, Hong Kong 506f Letzigraben, Zürich 218, 219f
Leuven 200
La Guardia, Fiorello 59, 64, 74 Levitt, William 94
La Muette, Drancy 54, 55f, 73, 177 Levittown, Long Island 93–4

657
Index

Lewis, C. S. Model Lodge (1851 Great Exhibition) 12, 13f

Space Trilogy 81 Mortlake/Eldon/Clever Roads development 160f
Liangnan Yuan complex, Wuxi 542, 543f Paragon Road 151f, 152
Liao, Donald 504, 508f, 513 Picton Street 144, 147f
Libera, Adalberto 276 Pimlico 143, 146f
Libya 445 Robin Hood Gardens 527
‘Industrialised Building Project’ Misrata, Tripoli 443f–4f, 445 Roehampton Estate 143, 146f
Lilian Wald Houses, NYC 100 Ronan Point 160, 512, 526
Lillakulla, Tallinn 319, 320f Swedenborg Square 147f
Lillington Street, London 146, 150f Thamesmead 145–6
Lim Kim San 506 Watney Street Market 154, 156f
Lim Yew Hock 501, 502, 503 West Chelsea Redevelopment (World’s End) 145, 149f
limited-profit companies 17, 20 Los Angeles 64, 66f, 109, 132
Lincoln Green, Leeds 151f low-income residence-compound, Tianjin 71
Lindsay, John V. 107 Luanda 464
Ling, Arthur 157 Luchtbal development, Antwerp 197, 199f
Lino, Raul 54 Lurçat, André 176
Lithuania 302f, 303, 310, 328, 329f, 330f Lusophone Africa 464
Litvinov 346 Luxembourg 48
Liverpool 56, 152–3, 154f Lyautey, Hubert de 23
Livett, R. A. H. 56
living space Ma’ale Adumim 453
Beograde 371, 373 Macau 518, 521f–2, 537
Puerto Rico 407f Av. Conselheiro Borja 518, 521f
Romania 362, 363 Avenida Tamagnini Barbosa 521f, 522
Soviet satellite bloc 346 Bairro Tamagnini Barbosa 522
Soviet Union 34, 312, 313f Conjunto Habitacional Dona Julieta Nobre de Carvalho 518,
Yugoslavia 369 521f
Loddefjorddalen, Laksevåg 264, 265f Edificio do Lago 536f, 537
Lodi Colony, Delhi 456, 457f Habitação Social de Fai Chi Keu 537
Lods, Marcel 177, 187, 190 home ownership 522
Logécos plans 173, 174f multi-storey buildings 518, 521f–2, 536f, 537
Loggetta, La, Naples 279f McCarthy, Joseph 93, 94
Loi Beernaert 17 McCulloh Homes and Extension, Baltimore 110f
London 12, 149, 153–7f, 551 Machine Stops, The (Forster, E. M.) 27
Angel Road 156f MacLehose, Murray 501, 512–13, 514f, 551
Aylesbury Estate 156, 157f Madrid 288, 289, 291, 528
Barbican complex 145, 148f, 155 Ensanche de Vallecas 528
Becontree Estate 38f Grupo Coronel Lopez Larraya 289, 290f
Bethnal Green Estate 38f–39f, 40 Mirador 528, 529f
Boundary Street Scheme 16–17, 18f Moratalaz 291, 292f
Brandon Estate 147f Paseo Castellana 289
Brandram’s Works Site 143, 147f Poblado Dirigido de Almendrales 291, 292f
Brentford Waterworks development 144f San Blas 289, 290f
Brettenham Road Estate 155f Villaverde 289, 290f
Broadwater Farm 145, 148f Magnitogorsk 51
Clarence Road 156f Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority
Dawsons Hill 156, 157f (MHADA) 458–61
Farringdon Road improvements 12, 13f maisonettes 143–4, 207–8
Golden Lane 145, 148f Malawi 472
Grenfell Tower 526 Malaya 479, 484
‘High Paddington’ project 86, 87f decolonization 442, 479, 484f
Kensal House 56 Malaya Okhta, Leningrad 315f
LCC (London County Council) 142, 143–4, 152, 153–4 Malaysia 479–80
Lillington Street 146, 150f Malberg, Maastricht 207
married-quarters, Hounslow 12 Malecón, Havana 429
maisonettes 143–4 Malmö 240–1
‘Model Houses for Families’ 12, 13f Maloney Street project, Sydney 136

658
 Index

Malta 268–9f Unidad Santa Fé 412

Corradino Hill Flats, Paola 269f Unidad Vecinal No. 9 (Modelo) 412, 413f
King’s Gate, Valletta 269f Meyer, Hannes 76, 412
Santa Lucija New Town 269f MHADA (Maharashtra Housing and Area Development
Manchester 149, 159, 160f Authority) 458–61
Mannheim-Vogelstang 233, 236f Middle East 84, 442 see also under individual countries
Mansión Popular de Flores, Buenos Aires 69f migration 11, 16, 23 see also refugees
Manston Road Allotments, Ramsgate 154f Albania 360
Mansur, David 118 Algeria 447
Map’o Apartments, Seoul 491, 495 America 94
Map’o-gu, Seoul 501 Argentina 409
Marcuse, Peter 3 Australia 130
Margarethengürtel development, Vienna 35, 36f Bangladesh 461
Margit Boulevard, Budapest 28f Brazil 415
Marino garden suburb, Dublin 40 ‘British’ Africa 468
Markelius, Sven 241f, 242 Channel Islands 164
Märkisches Viertel, West Berlin 235, 236, 237f China 384, 539
Marrane, Georges 176 Congo, the 464
married-quarters, Hounslow 12 East Pakistan 461
Marseille 171, 174f, 176 France 46, 180
Marshall, David 501, 503, 510 Germany 530
Martello Court, Edinburgh 163f Hong Kong 502, 504, 505
Martinique 406 Iceland 266
Marzahn, East Berlin 354f Israel 448–9, 451, 453
Mathenesserweg, Rotterdam 207, 208f Italy 270
Matteotti-Hof, Vienna 36f Latin America 67
Matthew, Robert 168 Mexico 410–11
Matzleinsdorferplatz, Vienna 222f Morocco 445
Maudsley, Alan 157 Pakistan 461
Maunula, Helsinki 260, 261f Portugal 288, 291
Maxwelltown, Dundee 163 Puerto Rico 70, 405
May, Ernst 32, 42, 44f, 316 Rhodesia 468
Avtostroy 50f Singapore 502
Darmstadt-Kranichstein 233, 235, 236f South Africa 71, 73, 468, 473–4, 477
Kampala 472 South America 74
Magnitogorsk 51 South Asia 454–5, 461
Neue Heimat 228 Spain 288–9, 528
Mayor of Casterbridge, The (Hardy, Thomas) 1 sub-Saharan Africa 464, 473
Mazzorbo, Venice 286, 287f Turkey 295
Mdantsane, East London, South Africa 474 Yugoslavia 368
Meir (Myerson), Golda 448, 449 Miklos Horthy Garden City, Angyalföld 73
Metro Toronto 119–20 Mikrorayon Ts-7, Tashkent 302f
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (MLIC) 103 Milan 21, 275, 282, 285, 286
Meurman, Otto-Iivari 260 Bollate 286, 287f
Asemakaavaoppi (‘Town Planning’) 260 Ca’ Granda Nord 275, 276f
Mexico 27, 70, 77, 410–14f, 431–2 see also Mexico City Fulvio Testa 286
finance 70, 412 Monte Amiata project, Gallaratese 283f
multi-storey buildings 412, 413f QT8 project 274f, 275
1985 earthquake 427, 428f Quartiere Autosufficiente Comasina 275
shanty towns 430 Quartiere CEP Gallaratese 285, 286f
Tlatelolco massacre 426–7 Quartiere Fabio Filzi developments 52f
Mexico City 410–12 Quartiere Feltre 281f
Centro Urbano Presidente Miguel Alemán 412, 413f Quartiere Gabriele d’Annunzio developments 53f, 54
Conjunto Habitacional Unidad Independencia 412, 414f Quartiere Harrar 275, 276f
Conjunto Nonoalco-Tlatelolco 412, 414f Quartiere MacMahon tenements 21, 22f
home ownership 431–2 Quartiere Varesina 274f
1985 earthquake 427, 428f Sant’Ambroglio 286
Tlatelolco massacre 426–7 via Ripenati municipal flats 21

659
Index

military metaphor 3–4 Begovaya Ulitsa 327f

Miller’s Point, Sydney 25f, 26 Belyayevo 322f
Mina, La, Barcelona 291, 292f Biryulovo 323
Minxin Jia Yuan (‘People’s Hearts Garden’), Chongqing 546, 547f Chertanovo Sevyernoe 323, 324f
Mirpur, Dhaka 461, 463f Kalinin Prospekt 310, 311f
Misato, Tokyo 486 ‘Kitchen Debate’ 81, 82f
MLIC (Metropolitan Life Insurance Company) 103 Kon’kovo 321f
mod cons 89 Leningradskoye Shosse 326f
‘Model Houses for Families’, London 12, 13f Leninsky Prospekt 307–8, 309f
Model Lodge (1851 Great Exhibition) 12, 13f Vosstaniya 307, 309f
Modern Housing (Bauer, Catherine) 59 Yasyenyevo 326, 327f
Modern Movement 1, 3, 31–2, 41, 85–6 see also CIAM and Moses, Robert 64, 98, 100, 103, 105, 106f, 107
modernism Gardiner, Frederick ‘Big Daddy’ and 119
modernism 6–7, 41, 49, 85–91, 550, 552 see also Modern Moss Park, Toronto 122–3, 126f
Movement Moynihan, Daniel
Algeria 447 Negro Family, The 115
apartheid 473 Muette, La, Drancy 54, 55f, 73, 177
Argentina 436 Mukagawa, Osaka 486
Brazil 418 Mulhouse plan 14f, 15, 16
Britain 527 Muller, Émile 15
Bulgaria 347, 348 multi-storey building 86–8f, 357 see also Großsiedlungen and
colonial cities 71 skyscrapers
Czechoslovakia 45, 346–7, 348 America 64–6f, 95–7, 109, 111, 113–15
England 143, 145f Amsterdam 41, 43f
GDR 346–7 Argentina 436–7f
high 1 Australia 74, 75f–6f, 130, 132–40
Hong Kong 552 Austria 221–3f
Hungary 346–8 Belgium 195, 197–200
Latin America 404 Brazil 77, 418
Netherlands, the 205f, 206 Britain 95, 151–7f
‘Neues Bauen’ architecture 346–7 Bulgaria 348, 357
New Zealand 127 Canada 120–5, 126f
NYC 552 Chile 439
paradoxes 73 China 391, 393, 394f, 395f, 541, 542, 543f, 544f, 546, 547f
Poland 347 construction 95
Romania 552 criticism 97
South Africa 474–5, 476 Cuba 429
South Korea 490 Denmark 252, 253
Soviet Union 49, 51 England 143–7f, 157–60
Sweden 56, 59 France 54, 55f, 177, 178f, 183f–93
Third World 441 free-standing tall blocks 86, 89, 295, 323, 325, 426
Modrego, Gregorio 289, 290f Hong Kong 90, 504, 507f, 509f, 518, 519f, 538–9
Moldavia 328 Iceland 266
Mombasa 470–2 India 456, 458, 531
Monahan, Philip 40 Iran 444
monde des grands ensembles, Le (Dufaux, Frédéric/Fourcaut, Italy 285
Annie) 550 Japan 483–7f
Mongolia 397 Jersey 164–5
Monoblock General Belgrano, Buenos Aires 409–10f Macau 518, 521f–2, 536f, 537
Montchoisy-Deaux Parcs, Geneva 218 Mexico 412, 413f
Monte Amiata project, Gallaratese, Milan 283f Netherlands, the 207–8f, 209, 210
Montréal 125, 126f New Zealand 74, 75f–6f, 127
Moratalaz, Madrid 291, 292f Nigeria 470
Morocco 23, 445–6f North Korea 399, 400–2f
Carrières Centrales, Morocco 90, 445–6f Norway 264, 265f
decolonization 441 NYC 64, 65f, 86, 95–7, 100
Mortlake/Eldon/Clever Roads development, London 160f Poland 348
Moscow 304, 307–8, 316, 323 see also Novye Cheryomushki Portugal 294

660
 Index

Romania 363 arm’s-length policies 30, 214

Scotland 161–4f construction 206–7
Singapore 505f, 513, 516f–17f. 537, 538f council housing 40–2, 203–4
South Korea 491, 494f, 495, 496, 497, 498, 500, 501, 537 design 204–14
Soviet Union 323, 325–6, 333, 336f–9f, 341 finance 201, 203
Spain 291 galerijbouw 207–8f
Sweden 243 gallery-access developments 41–2
Switzerland 218, 219f housing policies 34, 200–6
Taiwan 534, 536f Malberg, Maastricht 207
Thailand 534 modernism 205f, 206
Turkey 297, 534, 535f multi-storey buildings 207–8f, 209, 210
Uzbekistan 333 religion 200, 204f, 209–10
Venezuela 77 Schokbeton houses 470
Yugoslavia 369, 373–6 standardization 206
multiple modernities concept 1 strokenbouw 205f, 206, 210
Mumbai. See Bombay Voorschriften en Wenken (Regulations and Hints) 206
Mummelmannsberg, Hamburg 226f wijkgedachte 205f, 206
Munich-Neuperlach 231, 234f Woningwet 30
municipal socialism 16–17 Neue Heimat (NH). See NH
Muñoz Marin, Luis 70, 405, 406, 431 Neue Vahr, Bremen 231, 233f
Muo-Thong Thani 534 Neue Wohngebiete sozialistischer Länder (Rietdorf, Werner) 329f
Murgle, Ljubljana 381, 382f ‘Neues Bauen’ architecture 346–7
Mušić, Vladimir 378, 380 New Bombay (Navi Mumbai) 458, 461
Mustamäe, Tallinn 310, 328–9, 331f Vashi Sector 1 461, 463f
mutual assistance 442, 464, 470 New Hind Mill site, Mumbai 529f, 531
Mutulong, Shenzhen 395f New South Wales, Australia 136–7f, 138f, 139f
Myerson (Meir), Golda 448, 449 New Towns 142, 143, 151f, 157, 190
Britain 142, 143, 145f, 151f, 157
Naberezhnye Chelny 323 GDR 348
Nairobi 470, 472 Hong Kong 520f
Nangok redevelopment, Seoul 537 India 455
Nanjichang Community, Taipei 488, 489f Malta 269f
Nanjing 71 Singapore 510, 517f
Nanterre complex 179f, 180 Slovakia 348, 350, 352f
Naples 270, 273 South Africa 475
Albergo dei Poveri 12 South Korea 492, 499f, 500
Loggetta, La 279f Soviet Union 308, 310, 323, 341
Ponte dei Granili 277, 279f New York Life Insurance Company (NYLIC) 103, 113
Vele di Scampia 283f, 286, 527 New Zealand 27, 67, 68f, 125, 127
Napoleon III (emperor of France) 15 Dixon Street Flats, Wellington 74, 75f–6f, 127
Narkomfin Building, Moscow 49 George Porter Towers, Wellington 127, 128f
Näsbydal, Täby 243, 244f Gordon Wilson Flats, Wellington 127, 128f
Naselje februarskih žrtava (February Martyrs’ Housing Scheme), home ownership 127
Novi Zagreb 376, 378f modernism 127
Nasser, Abdul 444 multi-storey buildings 74, 75f–6f, 127
national society 6 star flats 127, 128f
national identity 30, 333, 448, 487 Strathmore, Wellington 128f
nationalism 23, 40 Te Aro, Wellington 127, 128f
Afrikaner 473 World War II 74
Brazil 421 Newcastle 158–9f
Israel 448 Newman, Frederick 127
Netherlands 41–2 NH (Neue Heimat) 225–7, 231, 236–8
Navi Mumbai. See New Bombay Wohnungen, Wohnungen, und nochmals Wohnungen 227
Negro Family, The (Moynihan, Daniel) 115 Niemeyer, Oscar 404, 418, 419, 421f
Nehru, Jawaharlal 455, 456 Nieuw Sledderlo, Genk 195
Neighborhood Gardens, St Louis 60 Nigeria 71, 470
neighbourhood-unit principle 61, 89 Nixon, Richard M. 81, 82f, 116
Netherlands 30, 194, 200–6 see also Amsterdam and Rotterdam Nizhni-Tagil 51

661
Index

Nkrumah, Kwame 469, 470 Brownsville Houses, Brooklyn 102f

Nogeyama, Yokohama 483 Castle Village 32, 64, 66f
nomenklatura housing 306, 307, 309f, 310, 320, 323 Co-op City project 105–6f
non-profit housing 20 construction 95, 105–6
Toronto 26 corruption 105
Norra Guldheden, Göteborg 243, 244f design 90, 100, 105–6, 107
Norfolk Park, Sheffield 157, 159f East River Houses 64, 100
North Africa 181 Farragut Houses project, Brooklyn 100, 101f
North America. See America and Canada First Houses 61, 62f
North Ankara Entrance Project, Ankara 534 Fordham Hill Apartments 103, 106f
North Korea 399–402f, 530 Fort Greene 98, 100
Botongbeol, Pyongyang 400 ‘French flats’ 23, 24f
Changgwang Street, Pyongyang 400 Fresh Meadows project 103, 104f
design 400 Governor Smith Houses, Manhattan 99f, 100
industrialized building 399 Gun Hill Houses, The Bronx 102f
Kwangbok (Liberation) Street, Pyongyang 400, 401f Harlem River Houses 60, 61f
multi-storey buildings 399, 400–2f insurance companies 64, 95, 103
Tongil (Reunificaiton) Street, Pyongyang 402f Jacob Riis Houses 100
North Vietnam 397–8 James Weldon Johnson Houses, Manhattan 102f
Northern Ireland 40, 165, 166–9f, 624 n. 72 Kips Bay Plaza 95
Cullingtree Road, Belfast 168, 169f Lefrak City 103
NIHE (Northern Ireland Housing Executive) 168 Lilian Wald Houses 100
NIHT (Northern Ireland Housing Trust) 167, 168 Mitchell-Lama programme 105
religion 167, 168 Modern Movement 32, 552
slums 167 modernism 552
Northern Rhodesia 472 multi-storey buildings 64, 65f, 86, 95–7, 100
Norway 45, 54, 263–4, 265f see also Bergen and Oslo NYCHA (New York City Housing Authority 61, 64, 90,
Bergensdalen 264 97–100, 103, 117f
home ownership 263 Parkchester 64, 103, 104f
Loddefjorddalen, Laksevåg 264, 265f philanthropic housing 64
multi-storey buildings 264, 265f planning 100
Strimmelen, Landås 264, 265f public housing policies 64
working class housing schemes 21 Queensbridge Houses 64, 65f, 100
World War II 73 Riverbend Houses, Harlem 107, 108f
Norwich 149 Rochdale Village 105
Nõukogude Eesti arhitektuur (Soviet Estonian Architecture) (Port, Rockefeller Center 86
Mart) 331f Roosevelt Island complex 107, 108f
Nová Daba project, Bratislava 45 shanty towns 23
Novi Beograd 369, 372–6, 377f slums 74, 97, 98, 100, 103, 105
Novi Zagreb 376–8f Stuyvesant Town 103, 104f
Dugave 378, 379f tenements 16, 23
Naselje februarskih žrtava (February Martyrs’ Housing Tremont Park 107
Scheme) 376, 378f Trump Village 105
Travno Block B-6 378, 379f Twin Parks 107, 108f
Vrbik 376, 378, 379f UHF 105–6
Zapruđe 376, 378f Waterside, Manhattan 107, 108f
Novosmolenskaya Embankment, Leningrad 325f ‘Working Men’s Home’16
Novye Cheryomushki, Moscow 307, 309f, 313f, 316, 323, 530 World War II 74
demolition 528f Nyerere, Julius 472
Dom Novogo Byta 326, 327f NYLIC (New York Life Insurance Company) 103, 113
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev Square 326f
Nowa Huta, Kraków 347 L’Obelisque, Épinay 183f, 184
Nowy Targ, Wrocl̄ aw 347, 359f Obolon, Kiev 325f, 326
Nukus Street, Tashkent 339f see also Ul. Nukussaya Óbuda, Budapest 348, 355
Nunavik 119 O’Dwyer, William 97
NYC (New York City) 16, 97–107, 526, 551 Ohlsson & Skarne 243
Baruch Houses, Manhattan 100, 102f Oi Man, Kowloon 510f
Bronxdale Houses, The Bronx 96f Old Harbor project, Boston 61, 63f

662
 Index

Olivais, Lisbon 291, 293–4f Pécs 357

Oliver Close, Leyton 154f Pedregulho, Rio de Janeiro 418, 419f
Olympic Village, Heidelberg West, Melbourne 130, 131f Pefki Solar Village, Attica 295
Ommoord, Rotterdam 208f, 209 Pendrecht, Rotterdam 207–8, 209
1LG-600 (‘Ship’), Leningrad 316, 317f People’s Park, Singapore 516f
Ong Eng Guan 503, 506 Per Albin Hansson Siedlung, Vienna 220–1
Oosterflank, Rotterdam 209 Pérez Jiménez, Marcos 426, 427f
open systems 89 Perón, Eva 409
openness 12 Perón, Juan 409
Operation Breakthrough 95, 116 Perret, Auguste 86, 171, 172f, 177–80, 187
OPHBMs (HBM offices) 46, 54 Perry, Clarence 61, 490
OPHLMs (HLM offices) 171, 173, 176 Peru 432
Örebro 240, 243 Petržalka, Bratislava 348, 350, 352f
Orlando, Johannesburg 73 Pettenkofer, Max von 20–1
Osdorp, Amsterdam 210, 212f Philadelphia 22, 111, 112f
Osiedle PKWN, Wrocl̄ aw 347, 349f Alden Park 64, 66f
Osiedle Tysiąclecia, Katowice 355, 357f Carl Mackley Houses 60f
Osiedle Walentego, Rożdzieńskiego 355 Southwark Plaza 111, 112f
Osiedle Za Żelazną Bramą, Warsaw 348, 349f Westpark Apartments 112f
Oslo 21, 263 Wilson Park 112f
Bølerskogen I 264 philanthropic societies 21
Lambertseter 263–4 Phoenix, Arizona 109
Otto Speckter Straße, Hamburg 52f Piazza dei Foraggi, Trieste 46, 47f
Oud, J. J. P. 41 Picton Street, London 144, 147f
Outram Park, Singapore 511f Pierre, Abbé 172f–3
Pihlajamäki 262f
Pacheco, Duarte 54 Pilastro, Bologna 281f, 282
Pakistan 461 Pimlico, London 143, 146f
Palme, Olof 239 Ping Shek, Kowloon 508f
Pani, Mario 412 pingmin cun (commoners’ village), Shanghai 71
Panpo, Gangnam, Seoul 497, 498f Pinnacle@Duxton project, Singapore 537, 538f
Paragon Road, London 151f, 152 Pl. Amira Tamura, Tashkent 336f
Paris 15, 54, 176 Plac Grunwaldzki, Wrocław 355, 356f
Bondy 171, 172f Place de l’Hôtel de Ville, Le Havre 171
Cité de l’Étoile, Bobigny 184 plague 26, 71
Cité de la l’Abreuvoir, Bobigny 184, 185f Plan Voisin 32
Cité Napoléon 14f, 15 Plan Zuid, Amsterdam 30, 41
Courneuve, La 176, 183, 193 Plate, Auguste 41
Courtillières, Les, Pantin 184 Plateau d’Annassers, Algiers 447
Groupe Prague complex 19f Pļavnieki, Riga 330, 332f
Plan Voisin 32 Plett, Heinrich 225
Red Ring 175 Plischke, Ernst 74
Sarcelles grand ensemble 181, 182f–3f, 184 Poblacion Huemul II and III, Santiago 406
SCIC (Societé central immobilière de la CDC) 175 Poblado de Absorción 1, Gran San Blas 289, 290f
SERPEC tower, Maisons Alfort 187, 189f–90 Poblado Dirigido de Almendrales, Madrid 291, 292f
shanty towns/slums 171, 173, 181 Poe Homes, Baltimore 63f
Park Chung-Hee 491, 493f, 494, 551 Poet’s Corner estate, Sydney, 136, 137f
Park Hill, Sheffield 146, 150f, 157 Poland 342, 343, 344, 347, 355, 530 see also Gdańsk
Park La Brea, Los Angeles 64, 66f, 132 industrialized building 347, 355
Park Towers, South Melbourne 134, 135f Juliusz Słowacki, Lublin 355
Parkchester, NYC 64, 103, 104f multi-storey buildings 348
Parkmerced, San Francisco 64 Nowa Huta, Kraków 347
Parkwijk Casablanca project, Kessel-Lo, Leuven 197, 198f Nowy Targ, Wrocl̄ aw 347, 359f
Parkwohnanlage Zollhaus, Nuremberg 229, 231, 232f Osiedle PKWN, Wrocl̄ aw 347, 349f
Pärnu-KEK, Estonia 323 Osiedle Tysiąclecia, Katowice 355, 357f
Paseo Castellana, Madrid 289 Osiedle Walentego, Rożdzieńskiego 355
Paulick, Richard 347, 348 Osiedle Za Żelazną Bramą, Warsaw 348, 349f
Pearse House, Dublin 39f Plac Grunwaldzki, Wrocław 355, 356f

663
Index

Przyczółek Grochowski, Warsaw 355 India 24, 455

Ursynów, Warsaw 348 Iran 444
Polígono Gornal, Barcelona 291, 292f Italy 282, 285
Polígono San Pablo, Seville 291 Khrushchev, Nikita 304, 316
Polígono Verdun, Barcelona 592 n. 39 Netherlands, the 207, 212
Ponce project, Puerto Rico 405, 407f North Korea 399
Ponte dei Granili, Naples 277, 279f Norway 265f
Port, Mart 331f Poland 347, 355
Nõukogude Eesti arhitektuur (Soviet Estonian Architecture) Slovakia 348, 350, 352f
331f Soviet Union 304, 316–21f, 338
Port Royal Hospital, Jamaica 12 Sweden 243
Portinho, Carmen 417f, 418 Switzerland 217
Porto, Rubens 71 Yugoslavia 372, 373
Portsdown Hill, Portsmouth 146, 149f, 527f Prenda neighbourhood plan 464
Portugal 54, 288, 291–4f Pretoria 473, 474, 476f, 477f
Avenida dos Estados Unidos da América, Lisbon 293f, prisons 12
294 privacy 38, 49
Bairro de Alvalade, Lisbon 291–2, 293f private-sector housing 5, 31, 34, 304 see also chaebols
Chelas, Lisbon 293, 294 America 93, 94–5, 103, 113–14
colonialism 464, 518 Australia 127, 131
Estacas, Lisbon 292, 293f Austria 35
home ownership 54, 291 Belgium 195
multi-storey buildings 294 Bulgaria 344
Olivais, Lisbon 291, 293–4f Canada 116, 118, 119–20, 122, 123, 125
Ramalde, Porto 292 China 396–7
Post-Modern Architecture (Jencks, Charles) 109 Cuba 429
postcolonialism 441–2 Denmark 250, 252
postmodern urbanism 87 France 180
postmodernism 89, 357 Germany 42
France 192f, 193 Greece 294
Netherlands 213f, 214 Hungary 343, 344
postwar housing 81–91 Ireland 40, 165
boom 94 Israel 453
Potong Pasir, Singapore 517f Italy 270, 273
poverty 11, 12 Netherlands 30, 40–1, 200, 203, 212
America 115, 526 New Zealand 127
France 171 Northern Ireland 40, 166–7
Prager Straße, Dresden 349, 352f Norway 54, 263
prefabrication 89 Poland 344
Albania 361 Russia 530
Australia 67, 68f, 132 Scandinavia 45
Britain 152–3 Soviet Union 305, 338
Bulgaria 350, 354f Spain 288, 289
Camus 187–90, 316–18 Sweden 45, 240, 242, 250
Canada 67, 119, 122 Switzerland 217, 218
Chile 439 Turkey 295
China 388, 439, 491 West Germany 224, 225
criticisms 351, 355, 357 Yugoslavia 344
Cuba 429 production 6
Czechoslovakia 348, 350 Professor-Jodlhof, Döblinger Gürtel, Vienna 37f
Denmark 252–3, 255 protests. See conflict
DSK system 316–19f PRRA (Puerto Rico Recovery Administration) 67, 70
Finland 260, 262 Pruitt-Igoe project 109, 110f
France 180, 182f, 173, 175, 187–90 Przyczółek Grochowski, Warsaw 355
GDR 347, 348, 350, 359 Przymorze, Gdańsk 348, 355, 357f
Ghana (Gold Coast) 470 public health 11, 12, 26, 71
Hungary 350–1, 355 public housing 16, 17, 526
Iceland 264 Puerto Madryn 439

664
 Index

Puerto Rico 405–8f, 431, 439 Rathenau, Walter 34

Caserió Lluis Lloréns Torres, San Juan 407, 408f, 431 Ravnikar, Eduard 378, 380
Caserió Nemesio Canales, San Juan 406 Raymond Hilliard Homes, Chicago 113, 115f
Caserió San Antonio, San Juan 406, 408f Realengo project, Rio de Janeiro 71
finance 70, 431 ‘Realtor Says No to Public Housing, A’ (Fitch, Morgan) 93
home ownership 405, 431 Red Road project, Glasgow 153, 155f
housing authorities 70 Red Vienna 27, 35–7f, 551
New Deal policies 67, 70 Modern Movement 32, 41
Ponce project 405, 407f Reformblock architecture 12
shanty towns 405 refugees 48, 455, 458, 461 see also migration
slums 67 Regent Park, Toronto 120, 121f
Puerto Rico Recovery Administration (PRRA) 67, 70 Regent Park South, Toronto 121f, 122
punkthus 243, 244f regional diversity 6, 315f, 316, 328–32f
Pyongyang 399 regionalism 476
Botongbeol 400 regulatory controls 16
Changgwang Street 400 NYC 16, 21, 23
Kwangbok (Liberation) Street 400, 401f Reichow, Hans-Bernard 231
Tongil (Reunificaiton) Street 402f autogerechte Stadt, Die 231
Pyramides, Evry 190, 192f Reidy, Affonso Eduardo 418
religion
Qiansanmen, Beijing 393, 394f Argentina 409
Quai des Belges, Strasbourg 180 Belgium 194, 195
Quang Trung, Vinh 397 France 172–3
Quarry Hill project, Leeds 56, 57f Italy 173
Quartier des grarte-ciel (Skyscraper District), Villeurbanne Netherlands, the 200, 204f, 209–10
54, 55f Northern Ireland 167, 168
Quartier d’Esplanade, Strasbourg 179f, 180 Spain 289, 291
Quartiere Autosufficiente Comasina, Milan 275 Remodelación Republica, Santiago 406, 408f
Quartiere Casilino, Rome 285 rent controls 35
Quartiere CEP Gallaratese 285, 286f America 98
Quartiere Fabio Filzi developments, Milan 52f Austria 35, 221
Quartiere Feltre, Milan 281f Britain 34, 38
Quartiere Gabriele d’Annunzio developments, Milan 53f, 54 Canada 118
Quartiere Harrar, Milan 275, 276f Côte d’Ivoire 465
Quartiere INA-Casa ‘Barca’, Bologna 277–8, 280f Czechoslovakia 344
Quartiere INA-Casa Cerignola 590 n. 19 Denmark 45
Quartiere MacMahon tenements, Milan 21, 22f Germany 42
Quartiere Palazzo dei Diavoli, Florence 279f Netherlands 40, 201
Quartiere San Giuliano, Mestre 276, 277f South America 74
Quartiere Tiburtino, Rome 88f, 275, 276f Sweden 45, 73, 240
Quartiere Varesina, Milan 274f West Germany 224
Quartiere Viale Etiopia, Rome 275, 276f Residentie Olympia, Ghent 199f
Queensbridge Houses, NYC 64, 65f, 100 revolution 11, 23, 27, 342 see also conflict and war
Queenstown, Singapore 503, 505f, 506, 512f Cuba 429
Quyang, Shanghai 395f, 396 Cultural 393
Hungary 344
R. K. Puram Colony, Delhi 458, 459f Russia 34
Rabenhof, Vienna 35, 36f Reykjavik 264–6
race/racism 26, 73, 473 see also apartheid and segregation Breiðholt 266, 267f
America 60, 94, 103, 109, 111–16 Hringbraut 56, 266, 267f
Australia 129 Kleppsvegur 266, 267f
Radburn, New Jersey 61, 62f Langahlid 266
radical policies 31 Skúlagata 266
Rainer, Roland 86, 221 Sólheimar 266, 267f
Ramalde, Porto 292 Rhodesia 468, 472
Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv 451, 452f Richter, Vjenceslav
Rankin, Annabelle 130 Sinturbanizam 369
Rashidov, Sharaf 333, 334f Riehl, Wilhelm Heinrich 20

665
Index

Rietdorf, Werner 346, 363 Pendrecht 207–8, 209

Neue Wohngebiete sozialistischer Länder 329f Zuidplein 207, 208f
Stadterneuerung 360f Zuidwijk 206, 207
Riga 40, 330, 332f Rowell Court, Singapore 516f
Ringers, Johan 200, 206 Rozzol Melara, Trieste 284f, 285
Rio de Janeiro 27 Rubanenko, Boris 310, 323
Conjunto Deodoro, Rio de Janeiro 418, 420f ‘Ruche, La’ garden suburb, Saint-Denis 18f, 20
Conjunto Gávea, Rio de Janeiro 418, 420f Rudo (Eastern Gate), Belgrade 369, 371f
Conjunto Resdencial de Benfica, Rio de Janeiro 415, 416f, Rusanovka Massiv, Kiev 308, 309f
418 Russia 530 see also Soviet Union
Jardim de Alá, Rio de Janeiro 417f, 418 working class housing schemes 21, 22f
Leblon, Rio de Janeiro 415 Russian Revolution 34
Pedregulho, Rio de Janeiro 418, 419f
Vila Portuária Presidente Dutra, Rio de Janeiro 415 Sabah-al-Salem, Kuwait City 443
Riverbend Houses, Harlem, NYC 107, 108f Sahakar Nagar, Bombay (Mumbai) 462f
Robert Taylor Homes, Chicago 113, 114f Sai Wan (Cadogan Street) Estate, Hong Kong 507f
Roberts, Henry 11, 12, 15 Saint-Denis 18f, 20, 176, 177
Robin Hood Gardens, London 527 Salford 159–60
Robinson, Hilyard 60 Salisbury (Harare) 472
Rochdale Village, NYC 105 Saltaire 15
Rockefeller, Nelson 105, 106f Samarès Marsh, Jersey 164–5
Rockefeller Center, NYC 86 Samúelsson, Guðjón 56
Rocks, The, Sydney 25f, 26 San Blas, Madrid 289, 290f
Rogan, Pat 163 San Romanoway, Toronto 122
Roh Tae Woo 500 Sánchez, Félix 412
Romania 362–7f see also Bucharest Sandleitenhof, Vienna 37f
boulevards 363, 365f–6f Sanierungsgebiet Kreuzberg-Süd, West Berlin 236
garden suburbs 15 Sanlihe Neighbourhood 1, Beijing 387f
modernism 552 Sant Marti, Barcelona 290f
multi-storey buildings 363 Santa Etelvina, São Paulo 433
systematization (sistematizare) 363, 365 Santa Lucija New Town 269f
Târgu-Jiu 367 Sant’Ambroglio, Milan 286
Rome 21, 275–6, 277f, 285 Sant’Elia, Cagliari 285–6, 287f
Corviale 283–5, 286 São Paulo 433, 434f
Quartiere Casilino 285 Saracoǧlu, Ankara 295
Quartiere Tiburtino 88f, 275, 276f Saratov 303
Quartiere Viale Etiopia 275, 276f Sarcelles grand ensemble 181, 182f–3f, 184
Testaccio 21 Sauvy, Alfred 5
Torre Spaccata 590 n. 18 Three Worlds framework 5–6, 83, 404
Tuscolano 275–6, 277f Al-Sawaber, Kuwait City 443f
Villaggio Olimpico 285 Scandinavia 45, 83
Ronan Point, London 160, 512, 526 SCET (Société Centrale pour l’Equipment du Territoire) 173,
Roosevelt Island complex, NYC 107, 108f 175, 441–2, 465
Rosengärd, Malmö 250, 251f Schokbeton houses 470
Rosenthal, Richard 100 Schwarzwaldsiedlung, Eseener Straße, Hamburg-Langenhorn 52f
Rosh Ha’ayin 449 Schwedt 348
Rosta, Örebro 243, 245f SCIC (Societé central immobilière de la CDC) 173, 175, 193
Rostock-Schmarl 359, 361f Scotland 161–4f see also Britain and Glasgow
Rotterdam 30, 41, 209 access layouts 12, 14f, 15
Alexanderpolder 209 Ardler, Dundee 163
Bergpolder 32, 33f Cables Wynd, Edinburgh 163
Blaakse Bos 213f, 214 Castlehill, Aberdeen 163
Justus van Eiffenstraat 41, 43f council-housing 40, 56, 141, 142
Kleinpolder 207, 209 Cumbernauld 158
Mathenesserweg 207, 208f Derby Street (Camus), Dundee 163
modernism 206 Gallowgate, Aberdeen 163f
Ommoord 208f, 209 Hutcheon Street, Aberdeen 164f
Oosterflank 209 Jasmine Place, Aberdeen 164

666
 Index

Leith Fort, Edinburgh 163 Hong Kong 504

Martello Court, Edinburgh 163f India 24
Maxwelltown, Dundee 163 Latin America 404
multi-storey buildings 161–4f Mexico 430
Scottish Special Housing Association (SSHA) 142 NYC 23
tenements 12, 14f, 15, 56, 90 Puerto Rico 405
Whitfield, Dundee 163 South America 74
working-class housing 38 South Korea 491
Scott, James C. Soviet Union 305
Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Spain 289, 528
Human Condition have Failed 1 Venezuela 426
Scott Brown, Denise and Venturi, Robert 106 Vienna 35
Second World 5–6, 7, 84, 298, 342, 402–3 SHAPE Officers’ Village, St Germain-en-Laye 187, 188f
sectional plans 90 see also standardization SHAPE village, Fontainebleau 187
Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Sharon, Ariel 543
Condition have Failed (Scott, James C.) 1 Sheddon, Sheridan 157
segregation 26, 113, 115, 468, 473 Sheffield 157, 159f
Selegie Estate, Singapore 512f Sheikh Sarai Colony, Delhi 458, 460f
self-help movement 442 Shek Kip Mei, Kowloon 504, 506f
Sellier, Henri 54 Shenzhen 395f, 396
Senegal 465 Sheppard Fidler, A. G. 157
Senior Command Staff building. Kuybishev 49 Shetland 164
Sennestadt, Bielefeld 231 Shoreditch 155
Seoul 492, 498, 500, 501 Sidenbladh, Göran 242
Apkujong, Gangnam 497, 498f–9f Sidlištĕ Petřiny, Prague 349f
athletes villages 498 Siedlung St Lorenz, Lübeck 226f
Bukahyeon-dong district clearances 536f Siedlungen 35, 36f, 43
Bulkwang 491 Siegfried, Jules 17, 20
Chamshil, Gangnam 496, 497, 498f, 537 Siegfried Act 17, 20
Changan Apartments 491 Sighthill, Glasgow 161, 162f
Gangnam 496–9f Silencio, El, Caracas 77
Geumhwa Apartments 494f Silvertoplaan, Antwerp-Zuid 201f
Map’o Apartments 491, 495 Simms, Herbert 40
Map’o-gu 501 Simon, E. D. 3, 31
Nangok redevelopment 537 Sin Ming Court, Bishan New Town 517f
Panpo, Gangnam 497, 498f Singapore 85, 487–8, 504–6, 510, 512, 537
Seun Complex 90, 494f Ang Mo Kio 516f, 538f
Tongbu Ichon-dong 496 British influence 513
Wawoo collapse 492, 493f Bukit Ho Swee 505–6, 511f
Yurim Building 482, 491, 493f colonialism 501–3
SERPEC tower, Maisons Alfort 187, 189f–90 decolonization 71, 85, 479, 481, 501
Seun Complex, Seoul 90, 494f design 513, 552
Shahrak-e-Ekbatan, Tehran 444 devolution 552
Shanahan, Thomas J. 105 Eco-City, Tianjin 542
Shanghai 396, 541 finance 487, 539
Caoyang Xincun 385, 386f, 387 HDB (Housing and Development Board) 503, 505, 506, 510,
Fangualong 390, 391f 513
Minhang Road 388 home ownership 502, 503, 510
Quyang 395f, 396 Jurong West Neighbourhood 517f
Xuhui Xincun 393, 394f Kallang Airport Estate 505f
Yan Dan tower 395f ‘Malayanization’ 502
shanty towns 74 see also bidonvilles and slums multi-storey buildings 505f, 513, 516f–17f. 537, 538f
Argentina 409, 434 New Towns 510, 517f
China 539 Outram Park 511f
Côte d’Ivoire 465 People’s Park 516f
Cuba 429 Pinnacle@Duxton project 537, 538f
France 171, 173, 181 politics 501–2, 503
Greece 48 Potong Pasir 517f

667
Index

Queenstown 503, 505f, 506, 512f Austria 35

Rowell Court 516f Germany 20–1, 34, 42, 51, 63–4, 530
Selegie Estate 512f Brazil 71, 421, 432
Sin Ming Court, Bishan New Town 517f Britain 11, 12, 38
state legitimacy 551 China 549
Tiong Bahru estate 71, 72f France 171
Toa Payoh 510, 538f Ireland 40
single-family housing 93–4 Italy 21, 51, 54
Sint-Maartensdal development, Leuven 200, 202f Japan 487
Sinturbanizam (Richter, Vjenceslav) 369 Netherlands 34, 200–6
Sirius, Sydney 136, 139f Nigeria 470
Siu Hong Court, Tuen Mun 515f Portugal 291
Skärholmen, Stockholm 250, 251f Scotland 142
Skarne, Allan 243 South Korea 496, 500
Skopje 380 Spain 288
Skopos, Thrace 48 sub-Saharan Africa 464
Skúlagata, Reykjavik 266 Sweden 239
skyscrapers 41, 43f see also multi-storey buildings Turkey 295, 296
construction/technology 89, 95 West Germany 227
France 54, 55f, 177, 178f social housing policies 16–23, 34, 92, 268 see also under
Moscow 307–9f individual countries
Slavutych, Ukraine 341 social instability, threat of 3, 11
Slotermeer, Amsterdam 204f, 206, 209, 210, 211f social welfare 3
Sloterplas, Amsterdam 210, 211f geopolitical structure of 5–6
Slotervaart, Amsterdam 210, 211f prioritization 6
Slovakia 348, 350, 352f, 357, 530 socialism 32, 34–5
slums 11, 16, 24, 92 see also shanty towns and urban renewal home-ownership 15
America 59, 63f, 64, 74, 94, 96f, 111 Sweden 56
Australia 26, 67, 125, 129–32, 136 Socialist Realism 345f, 347, 349f, 357
Belgium 195, 196f China 385f, 387f
Britain 55, 147–52, 158–60 Czechoslovakia 347
Canada 119, 120 England 158
France 171, 173, 181 Hungary 347
Greece 48 Poland 347
India 23–4, 26, 71, 456, 458, 461, 531 Romania 362, 363
Ireland 40, 165 Yugoslavia 369
Northern Ireland 167 Societé central immobilière de la CDC (SCIC) 173, 175, 193
NYC 74, 97, 98, 100, 103, 105 Société Centrale pour l’Equipment du Territoire (SCET) 173,
Puerto Rico 67 175, 441–2, 465
South Africa 73 Société Cooperative des Maisons de Bon Marché de Grivegnée
Spain 528 project, Angleur 197, 198f
Tanzania 472 Socíopolis, Valencia 528–9
Thailand 480 Södra Ängby, Stockholm 56
United Nations 531 Soko Matsubara, Saitama 483, 485f
Venezuela 426 Sólheimar, Reykjavik 266, 267f
West Germany 228 SOMCO (Société Mulhousienne des cites ouvrières) 15
Zanzibar 469 Søndergård Park, Bagsværd 253, 254f
småstuga 242 Şoseaua Mihai Bravu, Bucharest 365–6, 367f
Smith, T. Dan 158–9f Sosnovaya Polyana, Leningrad 318f
Smythe, Eric 151–2 Sotteville-lès-Rouen 177, 178f, 307
Snieckus, Lithuania 310 South Africa 71, 473–8, 550 see also Cape Town
SNiP (‘Stroitelnye normy i pravila’ [‘Building Norms and Atteridgeville, Pretoria 474, 476f
Regulations’]) 311f, 312–13 Johannesburg 26, 73, 474, 476f
Snopek, Kuba 530 Mdantsane, East London 474
Sobyanin, Sergei 530 modernism 474–5, 476
social class 15, 21, 441 New Towns 475
Argentina 409, 437 regionalism 476
Australia 136 segregation 26, 71, 468, 473–8

668
 Index

slums 73 Khrushchevki 90, 312

Soweto 476f Komsomolsky Massiv, Kiev 308, 309f
Witbank, Pretoria 477f Kreschatik, Kiev 307
zoned planning 71 Kucherenko, Vladimir A, 304–5
South Australia Housing Trust 67 Kuybishev 323, 325
South Korea 85, 481, 487, 490–501, 537, 551 see also Seoul Labzak, Tashkent 336f
Bundang 500 Lagutenko, Vitaly Pavlovich 312, 316, 318
chaebols 495 Latvia 330
corruption 497 Lazdynai, Vilnius 329f
finance 487, 497, 500, 537 Leninsky Prospekt, Kuybishev 323, 325
Hapdong programme 501 Lithuania 302f, 303, 310, 328, 329f, 330f
home ownership 491, 497 mikrorayon concept 307–8
Hyundai 495, 497 Mikrorayon Ts-7, Tashkent 302f
Ilsan 499f, 500 modernism 49, 51
modernism 490 Moldavia 328
multi-storey buildings 491, 494f, 495, 496, 497, 498, 500, 501, Moscow ‘Kitchen Debate’ 81, 82f
537 multi-storey buildings 323, 325–6, 333, 336f–9f, 341
‘Punyang’ system 497 Naberezhnye Chelny 323
shanty towns 491 nomenklatura housing 306, 307, 309f, 310, 320, 323
tanji 490, 491, 500 Nukus Street, Tashkent 339f see also Ul. Nukussaya
‘2 Million Housing Units Construction Plan’ 500 Obolon, Kiev 325f, 326
Wawoo collapse 492, 493f Pärnu-KEK, Estonia 323
South Asia 84, 454–6, 461 perestroika years 338–41
Southern Europe 83 Pl. Amira Tamura, Tashkent 336f
Southern Rhodesia 472 planning 306–7, 312
Southwark 155–7f Pļavnieki, Riga 330, 332f
Southwark Plaza, Philadelphia 111, 112f private construction 305
Soviet satellite bloc 342–50 propaganda 318–19, 551
Soviet Union 34–5, 49–51, 84, 298–9, 300–1f, 342 see also regionalist housing 328–32f
Leningrad and Moscow Riga, Latvia 40, 330, 332f
Annelinn, Tartu 310 Rubanenko, Boris 310
architecture journals 307, 308f Rusanovka Massiv, Kiev 308, 309f
Baltic states 328–32f satellite bloc 342–50
Bobur St, Tashkent 334f, 335f Scandinavian influence 328
Brezhnev administration 300, 304, 320, 323 sectional planning 90, 312
Camus 190, 316–18 seismic considerations 333, 339f
Central Asia 338 see also Tashkent shanty towns 305
Chilanzar, Tashkent 317f, 318, 333 Slavutych, Ukraine 341
climate zones 316, 328 Snieckus, Lithuania 310
construction 301–4, 310–20 SNiP 311f, 312–13
cooperative construction 305 standardization 305, 310–16, 328, 330, 341
criticism 310, 312, 338, 341 Tashkent 302f, 303f, 317f, 318, 326, 333–8f, 339f–40f
Cuba 429 Teremky-1, Kiev 323, 325f
design 49, 51, 307, 320–6, 333–8f Togliatti 90, 310, 311f, 323
DSK system 316–19f Ts.27 district, Tashkent 336, 337f
Estonia 332f see also Tallinn Ul. Bogdana Khmelnitskovo, Tashkent 334f, 336
Extensive Urbanism 307, 310, 329, 332f, 348, 363 Ul. Nukusskaya, Tashkent 338f see also Nukus Street
finance 299, 303, 305, 312 Vilnius, Lithuania 302f, 303, 329f, 330f, 530
geographical variety 315f, 316, 328–32f Vinni, Rakvere 332f
Ghana (Gold Coast) 470 Western influence 307, 328
Glavmosstroi 305 workers’ housing 49, 303–4, 310, 323
Gosstroi 303f, 304, 305, 311f, 312, 315f–16 World War II 73
home ownership 305 Yunusabad, Tashkent 303f, 338f
industrialized building 304, 316–21f, 338 Zharsky brothers 334
Juknaičiai, Lithuania 330 Zhek competition 302f
Karoliniškes, Vilnius 302f, 303, 330f Zhemchuk, Tashkent 326, 338, 340f
Khamid Alimdzhan Square, Tashkent 338, 340f Soweto 476f
Khrushchev administration 299–300, 304, 307, 310, 312 Spaarndammerbuurt, Amsterdam 29f

669
Index

space 15, 85, 86–7, 90, 552 see also living space Britain 40, 132
America 103 Bulgaria 350, 357
Britain 154 China 387, 388, 390
Canada 119, 120, 123f Czechoslovakia 350, 357
Denmark 256 Denmark 252, 253
England 146–7 Egypt 445
Hong Kong 504, 513 Finland 260
India 458, 461 France 173, 174f, 187
morality 40 GDR 348, 350, 359
Singapore 513 Hong Kong 518, 520f, 538
South Africa 475 Hungary 350–1, 355, 357
Soviet Union 34, 306, 310, 312, 313f, 530 Ireland 17, 165
standards 21 see also standardization Netherlands 206–7
Thailand 480 New Zealand 74
West Germany 231 North Korea 399
Space Trilogy (Lewis, C. S.) 81 Poland 355, 357, 359
Spain 288–91, 528 see also Barcelona and Madrid South Africa 473, 475, 476f
finance 289 South Korea 490, 498
home ownership 288 Soviet satellite bloc 346, 350–9
multi-storey buildings 291 Soviet Union 84, 298, 305, 310–16, 328, 330, 341
Poblado de Absorción 1, Gran San Blas 289, 290f Sweden 249–50
Polígono San Pablo, Seville 291 Turkey 533, 534
shanty towns 289, 528 Yugoslavia 605 n. 57
Slums 528 star flats 127, 128f
Socíopolis, Valencia 528–9 state, the
Valencia 528–9 authoritarian 432–40, 551
World War II 73 control 298, 300, 383–4
Split 3 88f, 378–80f devolution 217, 223, 225, 228, 368–9, 551–2
Spooner, W. H. 129–30, 131 domination 3, 298
squats 481 effectiveness 551
Argentina 439 emergence of 2
Austria 35 intervention 16, 31
Egypt 445 legitimacy 551
France 171 political challenges 81
Hong Kong 504, 505f propaganda 318–19, 551
Kenya 472 Soviet Union 298, 300–4
Singapore 503, 506 Steilshoop, Hamburg 231, 235f
South Africa 473 Sternlieb, George
South Korea 492, 496 Urban Housing Dilemma, The 107
Soviet Union 305 Stockholm 240, 242, 244–9
Taiwan 488 Akterspegeln, Gröndal 244, 245f
Venezuela 426 Årsta 242, 245, 247f
Sri Lanka 461 City of Stockholm Housing Competitions 58f, 59, 243, 244f
ŠS4 Siska, Ljubljana 382f Danviksklippan 244–5, 246f
St Jamestown project, Toronto 123, 125 Hökarängen 245, 247
St Laurent, Louis 118, 122 Järvafältet 249–50, 251f
St Louis 109, 110f Skärholmen 250, 251f
‘stad van toekomst, der toekomstder stad, De’ (‘City of the Future Västertorp 245, 247f
– Future of the City’) (Bos, A.) 205f, 206 Stoskopf, Charles-Gustave 90, 180, 190
Stadterneuerung (Rietdorf, Werner) 360f Strandhavevej, Hvidovre, Copenhagen 253, 255f
staircase-access blocks 7, 15, 90 Strasbourg 177, 179f, 180
Berlin 32f, 42, 43f Strathmore, Wellington 128g
Edinburgh 14f Strausberger Platz, East Berlin 347
staircase-and-lift access flats 15 Strimmelen, Landås 264, 265f
Stam-Beese, Lotte 209 Strip project, Budapest 355
standardization 21, 350–9 Stroitelnye normy i pravila’ (SNiP [‘Building Norms and
America 93, 97, 100, 107 Regulations’]) 311f, 312–13
Brazil 433–4 strokenbouw 205f, 206, 210

670
 Index

structuralism 86–7, 212 Cité de Lignon, Geneva 218, 220f

student house, Moscow Textile institute 49 council housing 45
Stuttgart-Fasenhof 235f finance 217
Stuyvesant Town, NYC 103, 104f Friesenberg, Zürich 215, 216f
sub-Saharan Africa 442, 461, 464 see also under individual Hardau II, Zürich 218, 220f
countries Letzigraben, Zürich 218, 219f
‘British’ Africa 468–72 Montchoisy-Deux Parcs, Geneva 218
Francophone Africa 465–8 multi-storey buildings 218, 219f
South Africa 26, 71, 73, 473–8, 550 Sunnebüel, Volketswil 217f
Sudoeste del Besós, Barcelona 289 Tscharnergut, Bern 218, 219f
‘Suggerimenti norme e tipi’ (‘Suggested standards and types’) Unteraffoltern, Zürich 218, 219f
guidelines 273, 276 World War II 73
Sui Wo Court, Sha Tin 88f, 515f, 518 Sydney 136
Sujan Singh Park, Delhi 456, 457f slum-redevelopment 25f, 26
Sun Chui Estate, Sha Tin 514f systematization (sistematizare) 363, 365
Sunach Terraces, Toronto 24f, 26
Sunnebüel, Volketswil project 217f T-E-W (Taft-Ellender-Wagner) Act 94–5, 96f, 103, 105
Surulere 71 tabula-rasa redevelopment 32
surveillance 12 Täby 249
Sveinsson, Einar 266 Taft-Ellender-Wagner (T-E-W) Act 94–5, 96f, 103, 105
Svoboda, Josip 376 Tai Hing Estate, Tuen Mun 514f
Sweden 45, 239–50 see also Stockholm Taipei 488, 534
Augustenborg, Malmö 240–5 Cheng-Kuang 488, 489f
‘Bo Bättre’ (‘Live Better’) exhibition 243, 244f Da’an (Great Peace) 488, 489f
British influence 242 Jiangkang Public Rental Project, Songshan 534
City of Stockholm Housing Competitions 58f, 59, 243, 244f Nanjichang Community 488, 489f
conflict 528 Xining 488, 490f
construction 243, 250 Taiwan 481, 487, 488, 534, 536f see also Taipei
cooperative associations 45, 56, 240, 241f Takashimadaira, Tokyo 483, 486f
council housing 45, 46f Tallinn 308, 319, 328
design 218, 242–3, 249 Lasnamäe 306, 329–30, 331f
Farsta 242, 248f Lillakulla 319, 320f
finance 240, 249 Mustamäe 310, 328–9, 331f
folkhem concept 56, 239–40 Väike-Öismäe 329–30, 331f
Hammarkullen, Göteborg 248f, 250 Tallkrogen, Stockholm 46f
home ownership 242 Talpiyot East, Jerusalem 454f
housing manuals 240 Tamadaira, Tokyo 483, 484f
HSB 240, 241f tanji 490, 491, 500 see also danchi
Järvafältet 249–50, 251f Tanne, David 448
Million Programme 239, 249, 250 Tanzania 472
modernism 56, 59 Tao Jia, Chongqing 548f
multi-storey buildings 243 Tapiola 260, 262f
Näsbydal, Täby 243, 244f Tara Group Housing, Delhi 458, 460f
neighbourhoods 241f, 242, 245 Târgu-Jiu 367
Norra Guldheden, Göteborg 243, 244f Tashkent 302f, 303f, 326, 333–8f, 339f–40f
propaganda 551 taxation
punkthus 243, 244f America 93, 100, 103, 105, 106
Rosengärd, Malmö 250, 251f Brazil 415, 432
Rosta, Örebro 243, 245f Canada 550
småstuga 242 China 390
socialism 56 Côte d’Ivoire 465
Täby 249 France 171
Vällingby 242, 247f, 249 Germany 42
World War II 73 Greece 294
Swedenborg Square, London 147f Italy 270, 272
Swenarton, Mark 551 Puerto Rico 406
Switzerland 31, 215–18 Senegal 465
Bocksriet-Siedlung, Schaffhausen, Zürich 216f, 217, 218 Switzerland 215

671
Index

Vienna 35 Don Mills 120

West Germany 224 Flemingdon Park 122, 123f
Taylor, Frederick Winslow 34 Jane-Exbury Towers 122, 124f
Taylorism 34 Jane-Finch project 122, 124f
Te Aro, Wellington 127, 128f Lawrence Heights 121f, 122
technology 89, 95, 190 Moss Park 122–3, 126f
Techwood Flats, Atlanta 60 non-profit housing 26
Teh Cheang Wan 510 prefabrication 122
Tel Aviv 449, 451 Regent Park 120, 121f
Bizaron estate 451 Regent Park South 121f, 122
Dafna Estate 449, 450f San Romanoway 122
Ramat Aviv 451, 452f St Jamestown project 123, 125, 126f
Yad Eliahu (‘Memorial to the Sons’) estate 449, 450f Sunach Terraces 24f, 26
Tellen, Garcia 77 Thorncliffe Park 122, 123f
Tenement Group Project A, San Juan 69f, 70 Torre Spaccata, Rome 590 n. 18
tenements 16 Toulouse 173
America 23 Toulouse-le-Mirail 184–5, 186f
Hungary 12 Tour Perret, Amiens 177, 178f
Italy 21 Tower and Slab (Urban, Florian) 550
NYC 16 Townhead Area A, Glasgow 162f
Scotland 12, 14f, 15, 56, 90 Travno Block B-6, Novi Zagreb 378, 379f
Vienna 27 ‘Treno’, the, Bologna 279, 280f, 282
Tenke, Tibor 355 Tremont Park, NYC 107
Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) 59 Triest 21
Teremky-1, Kiev 323, 325f Borgo San Sergio 273
Testaccio, Rome 21 Piazza dei Foraggi 46, 47f
Thailand 480, 534 Rozzol Melara 284f, 285
Muo-Thong Thani 534 Tripoli 443f–4f, 445
Thamesmead, London 145–6 Truman, Harry S. 94, 95
Third World 5–6, 84–5, 404, 441, 551 Trump Village, NYC 105
Thorncliffe Park, Toronto 122, 123f Ts.27 district, Tashkent 336, 337f
Three Worlds framework 5–6, 83, 404 see also First World and Tscharnergut, Bern 218, 219f
Second World and Third World Tsui Ping South Estate, Hong Kong 520f
Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, The (Esping-Andersen, G.) 239 Tucker, Gerard Kennedy 131
Tianjin 71 Tugwell, Rexford 70, 97
Tijen, W. van 206, 210 Tunisia 447
Tilak Nagar Colony, Bombay (Mumbai) 461, 462f decolonization 441
timber småstugor houses 45, 46f Tunnard, Christopher 143, 145f
Tin Shui Wai New Town 520f Turin 21, 282
Tiong Bahru estate, Singapore 71, 72f Falchero 276–7, 278f
Tito 368, 369, 370f, 372 Fiat housing 273, 274f
Toa Payoh, Singapore 510, 538f Giuseppe di Vittorio 285
Togliatti 90, 310, 311f, 323 Via Arquata 47f
Tokyo 481, 483 Via Peano 273
Akabane-dai 483, 484f–5f Via Pinerolo tenements 21, 22f
Harumi 483, 485f Turkey 295–7, 532–4
Hikarigaoka Park Town 486 Ataköy, Istanbul 295, 296f
Misato 486 Başibüyüy, Maltepe 534, 536f
Takashimadaira 483, 486f Eryaman, Ankara 297
Tamadaira 483, 484f EVKA, Izmir 296f, 297
Tolstoy, Sofia 350, 354f finance 295, 532, 533, 536f
Tomorrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform (Howard, Ebenezer) home ownership 295, 533
31 Hukukçular, Istanbul 593 n. 54
Tongbu Ichon-dong, Seoul 496 Kayabaşi Konutlari, Istanbul 533–4, 535f
Tongil (Reunificaiton) Street, Pyongyang 402f multi-storey buildings 297, 534, 535f
Toronto 119–25, 550 North Ankara Entrance Project, Ankara 534
Alexandra Park 122, 123 Saracoǧlu, Ankara 295
Crescent Town 122, 123f Uzundere, Izmir 534

672
 Index

Turmstadt (‘Tower Town’) 86, 88f Vasi Naka Colony, Shastri Nagar 531
Tuscolano, Rome 275–6, 277f Vassilievsky Island, Leningrad 317f, 323, 326
TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) 59 Västertorp, Stockholm 245, 247f
Twin Parks, NYC 107, 108f Ved Volden, Copenhagen 57f
Velde, J. J. van der 204f
Uganda 77, 472 Vele di Scampia, Naples 283f, 286, 527
UHF (United Housing Federation) 105–6 Venezuela 425–6, 427f, 431
Újpalota, Budapest 355, 356f finance 431
Ul. Belgradskaya, Leningrad 319f home ownership 431
Ul. Bogdana Khmelnitskovo, Tashkent 334f, 336 multi-storey buildings 77
Ul. Nukusskaya, Tashkent 338f see also Nukus Street shanty towns/slums 426
Ulan Bator 397, 398f Silencio, El, Caracas 77
Ulbricht, Walter 343, 347 Unidad Residencial 2 de Diciembre, Caracas 426, 427f–8f
UN-Habitat II 531 vernacular movement 89
Challenge of Slums, The 531 Verstersøhus, Copenhagen 58f
Unidad Residencial 2 de Diciembre, Caracas 426, 427f–8f Verwoerd, Hendrik 473, 474, 475
Unidad Santa Fé, Mexico City 412 verzuiling (pillar) system 194
Unidad Vecinal No. 9 (Modelo), Mexico City 412, 413f Belgium 194, 195
Unidad Vecinal Portales, Santiago 406, 408f Netherlands, the 194, 200, 203
Unitas complex, Bratislava 45 Vesnin, Viktor 312
Unité de Construction de Bron-Parilly 183f–4 Via Arquata, Turin 47f
L’Unité de quartier Fabien, Saint-Denis Via Max, Sesto San Giovanni 285
Unité d’habitation, Marseille 86, 176 Via Peano, Turin 273
United Housing Federation (UHF) 105–6 Via Pessina, Cagliari 276, 278f
United Nations Centre for Human Settlements 531 Via Pinerolo tenements, Turin 21, 22f
Unteraffoltern, Zürich 218, 219f Via Ripenati municipal flats, Milan 21
Unwin, Raymond 23, 40 Vicente, Manuel 518, 522
Upper Ngau Tau Kok, Hong Kong 539 Vicko Krstulović Shipyard workers’ housing, Split 369, 370f
Urban, Florian Victoria, Australia 130–6, 137, 140
Tower and Slab 550 Victorieplein, Amsterdam 41, 43f
Urban Bantu Townships (Welch, Tod) 477f Vienna 220–3f, 528 see also Red Vienna
urban density. See space Alt-Erlla 221, 222f, 223f
Urban Housing Dilemma, The (Sternlieb, George) 107 Am Fuchsenfeld 35
urban infill sites 35 Am Schöpfwerk 221, 223f
urban initiatives 32 Aspern-Seestadt 528
urban flats 12, 15 design 221
urban periphery projects 83 Gemeindebauten 35
urban renewal 94–5, 97, 116, 310 Großfeldsiedlung 221. 222f
urbanism 464 Hugo Breitner-Hof 221, 222f
Ursynów, Warsaw 348 Kaiser Franz-Josef 1 Jubiläumshäuser 12
Uruguay 432 Karl Marx Hof 35, 37f
USA. See America Karl Wrba Hof 221
USSR. See Soviet Union Margarethengürtel development 35, 36f
Uzbekistan. See Tashkent Matteotti-Hof 36f
Uzundere, Izmir 534 Matzleinsdorferplatz 222f
militancy 27
Väike-Öismäe, Tallinn 329–30, 331f Per Albin Hansson Siedlung 220–1
Valdés, Miguel Alemán 411–12 Professor-Jodlhof, Döblinger Gürtel 37f
Valencia 528–9 Rabenhof 35, 36f
Valera, Eamon de 40 Sandleitenhof 37f
Vällingby 242, 247f, 249 shanty towns 35
Van Der Meeren, Willy 197 socialism 35
Van Der Veken, Jeanne 194 tenements 27
Vanderbijl Park 475 Wohnanlage Maderspergerstraße 223f
Vantaanpuisto 260, 261f Vietor, Albert 225, 227
Vargas, Getulio 70, 71, 415 Vieux-Port, Marseille 171
Varna 343 Vila Portuária Presidente Dutra, Rio de Janeiro 415
Vashi Sector 1, New Bombay (Navi Mumbai) 461, 463f Villaggio Olimpico, Rome 285

673
Index

Villanueva, Carlos Raúl 426 Bremen-Tenever project 237f

Villaverde, Madrid 289, 290f Calenberger Neustadt, Hannover 231
Villeneuve, Grenoble 185 Cologne-Chorweiler 231, 233f
Villeneuve-St Georges competition 177, 178f, 180 Darmstadt-Kranichstein 233, 235, 236f
Villeurbanne, Lyon 32 design 228, 233
Vilnius, Lithuania 330, 530 ECA-Siedlung, Bremen 230f, 231
Karoliniškes 302f, 303, 330f Emmertsgrund, Heidelberg 233, 236f
Lazdynai 329f finance 224–5, 227
Vinh 398 Frankfurt-Nordweststadt 231, 234f
Vinni, Rakvere, Estonia 332f Gartenstadt Vahr, Bremen 231, 232f
‘Virgolone’, the, Bologna 281f, 282 Großsiedlungen 227, 231, 233, 235
Viviendas del Congreso Eucarístico, Barcelona 289, 290f HICOG-Siedlung Muffendorf, Godesberg 228, 229f
Voldparken, Husum, Copenhagen 253, 254f home ownership 225, 227
Voorschriften en Wenken (Regulations and Hints) (Dutch housing housing policies 223–5, 227, 238
manual) 206 Langwasser, Nuremberg 231, 233f
Vosstaniya, Moscow 307, 309f Mannheim-Vogelstang 233, 236f
Vrbik, Novi Zagreb 376, 378, 379f Marshall Plan economic Cooperation Administration
programme 228
Wadala Colony, Bombay (Mumbai) 461, 463f Munich-Neuperlach 231, 234f
Wah Fu Estate, Waterfall Bay 504, 509f Neue Vahr, Bremen 231, 233f
Wales 141 see also Britain NH (Neue Heimat) 225–7, 231, 236–8
war 3–4, 23, 26 see also conflict and revolution Parkwohnanlage Zollhaus, Nuremberg 229, 231, 232f
Algerian War 171 Sennestadt, Bielefeld 231
Cold War, the 81 Siedlung St Lorenz, Lübeck 226f
Korean Wars 94, 397, 491 slums 228
World War I 32–4 social housing 223–8, 236–8
World War II 73–7 Stuttgart-Fasenhof 235f
Ward, Elizabeth 93 temporary housing 224
Waterside, Manhattan, NYC 107, 108f West Indies 442
Watney Street Market, London 154, 156f Westelijke Tuinsteden, Amsterdam 210, 211f, 528
Watton, Henry 157 Western Railway Colony, Bombay (Mumbai) 462f
Wawoo, Seoul collapse 492, 493f Westholm, Sigurd 240
WBS70 350, 353f, 356f, 359, 360f Westpark Apartments, Philadelphia 112f
Weberwiese, East Berlin 345f, 347 What Public Housing did to England leaflet 96f
Weinwurm, Friedrich 45 Whitfield, Dundee 163
Weissenhof Siedlung, Stuttgart 32 Wibaut, Floor 41
Wekerle, Sandor 27, 28 wijkgedachte 206
Welch, Tod Wilhelm-Raabe-Straße, Karl-Marx-Stadt (Chemnitz) 344, 345f,
Urban Bantu Townships 477f 346
welfare state, the 6, 8, 83, 141, 553 see also corporatism Willert Park House, Buffalo 63f
America 93 William L Igoe Apartments 109, 110f
Eastern Asia 481 Wilmott, Jesse 94
Hong Kong 502 Wilson, Gordon 74
Singapore 502 Wilson Park, Philadelphia 112f
Soviet Union 299 Windsor, Ontario 125
Sweden 239–40 Witbank, Pretoria 477f
Wellington Hill, Leeds 160f Wohnanlage Maderspergerstraße, Vienna 223f
Wendell Oliver Pruitt Homes 109, 110f Wohnungen, Wohnengen, und nochmals Wohnungen (NH)
West Berlin 228 see also Berlin 227
Britz-Buckow-Rudow 235–6, 237f Womersley, Lewis 157
Fritz Erler-Allee 236 Woningwet programmes 30
Interbau 228, 229f, 260 Wood, Elizabeth 111, 113
Märkisches Viertel 235, 236, 237f Woodside Lane, Sheffield 157
Sanierungsgebiet Kreuzberg-Süd 236 ‘Working Men’s Home’, NYC 16
West Chelsea Redevelopment (World’s End) 145, 149f World War I 32–4
West Germany 225–38 see also Frankfurt and Hamburg and World War II 73–7, 171
West Berlin Worli Chawls, Bombay (Mumbai) 72f, 461
Asemwald, Stuttgart 233, 235f Wuxing Homeland (Jia Yuan) project, Wuxi 539, 541, 543f

674
 Index

Xi Peng, Chongqing 548f ŠS4 Siska, Ljubljana 382f

Xining, Taipei 488, 490f Vicko Krstulović Shipyard workers’ housing, Split 369, 370f
Xuhui Xincun, Shanghai 393, 394f Western influence 369
Zagreb 376
Yad Eliahu (‘Memorial to the Sons’) estate, Tel Aviv 449, 450f Žeželj system 372, 373, 374f
Yamit 616 n.27 Yunusabad, Tashkent 303f, 338f
Yamuna Apartments, Delhi 458, 460f Yurim Building, Seoul 482, 491, 493f
Yan Dan tower, Shanghai 395f
Yanshancun, Hunan University 392f, 393 Zaanstraat, Kiel development, Antwerp 197, 201f
Yasyenyevo, Moscow 326, 327f Zagreb 376 see also Novi Zagreb
Yeh, Stephen/Laquian, Aprodicio Zalotay, Elemér 355
Housing Asia’s Millions 487–8 Zambia 468–9
Yeniseisk 303 Zanzibar 469
Yoba 71 Zapruđe, Novi Zagreb 376, 378f
Yonkers 117f Zharsky brothers 334
Yu Chui Court, Sha Tin, Hong Kong 537, 540f Zhek competition 302f
Yugoslavia 344, 362, 367–72 see also Belgrade Zhemchuk, Tashkent 326, 338, 340f
Bežigrad BS-3 (Nove Stožice), Ljubljana 381, 382f zhilaia ploshchad 34
Bežigrad BS-7 (Ruski Car), Ljubljana 380–1, 382f Zeilenbau 32 see also strokenbouw
design 369, 552 Athens 47f, 48
Ferantov vrt, Ljubljana 380, 381f Berling 33f
finance 368, 381 Bratislava 45
home ownership 368–9 Magnitogorsk 51
industrialized construction 372, 373 Sweden 58f, 59, 244
‘Kineski zid’ (‘Great Wall of China’), Spinut, Split 378, 380f Ziwani 470
Kurrizi, Kosovo 381 Zona Leste de São Paulo 434f
multi-storey buildings 369, 373–6 zoned planning 71
Murgle, Ljubljana 381, 382f Zuidplein, Rotterdam 207, 208f
Neo Zagreb 376–8f, 379f Zuidwijk, Rotterdam 206, 207
Skopje 380 Zürich 215–18, 219f
Split 3 88f, 378–80f Zvezdara Hill, Belgrade 369, 370f

675
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