The Housing Project

The role and impact of housing exhibitions in architectural culture

Throughout the twentieth century housing displays have proven to be a singular genre of architectural and design exhibitions. By crossing geographies and adopting multiple scales of observation – from domestic space to urban visions – this volume investigates a set of unexplored events devoted to housing and dwelling, organised by technical, professional, cultural or governmental institutions from the interwar years to the Cold War. The book offers a first critical assessment of twentieth-century housing exhibits and explores the role of exhibitions in the codification of notions of domesticity, social models, policies, and architectural and urban discourse. At the intersection of housing studies and the history of exhibitions, The Housing Project not only offers a novel angle on architectural history but also enriches scholarly perspectives in urban studies, cultural and media history, design, and consumption studies.

This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content).

Contributors: Tamara Bjažić Klarin, Gaia Caramellino, John Crosse, Stéphanie Dadour, Rika Devos, Fredie Floré, Johanna Hartmann, Erin McKellar, Laetitia Overney, José Parra-Martínez, Mathilde Simonsen Dahl, Eva Storgaard, Ludovica Vacirca

Format: Edited volume - paperback

Size: 230 × 170 × 16 mm

328 pages

Colour and b&w illustrations

ISBN: 9789462701823

Publication: March 04, 2020

Languages: English

Stock item number: 133933

Gaia Caramellino is assistant professor in history of architecture at the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies, Politecnico di Milano. She is a member of the Board of the PhD in “Architecture. History and Project”, Politecnico di Torino.
Stéphanie Dadour is associate professor of history and theory of architecture at the École nationale supérieure d’architecture de Grenoble. She is a member of Laboratoire des Métiers de l’Histoire de l’Architecture (ENSAG) and of Laboratoire Architecture, Culture et Société (ENSA Paris-Malaquais UMR AUSser).

Les dix contributions rassemblées dans l’ouvrage s’attachent à éclairer, non le XXe siècle, mais une période particulièrement cruciale de l’histoire du logement (entre 1920 et 1960), de la crise aiguë qui caractérise l’entre-deux-guerres à la production de masse des années de croissance en passant par les problématiques spécifiques de la reconstruction. Elles montrent de manière particulièrement explicite la manière dont l’exposition d’architecture, souvent parée de vertus didactiques comme le rappelle Eva Storgaard, va s’imposer comme un efficace outil de promotion des politiques et des actions publiques, mais aussi de fixation et de circulation des modèles et des typologies.

Eléonore Marantz, Critique d’art, http://journals.openedition.org/critiquedart/86659