The Intelligence of Forms. The Collective Housing Project in Vienna and Frankfurt.
MétisPresses| N° d'inventaire | 22257 |
| Format | 17 x 24 |
| Détails | 323 p., paperback with flaps. |
| Publication | Geneva, 2019 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | 9782940563586 |
The urban policy experiments conducted in Vienna and Frankfurt in the interwar period—Das rote Wien and Das neue Frankfurt—still constitute essential references in the history of collective housing in Europe. The architectural models at the origin of their design, the Hof in Vienna and the Siedlung in Frankfurt, represent the "extreme polarities" of the housing built during this period. While they have been the subject of numerous studies, the principle of complementarity that Alessandro Porotto detects through his rigorous analysis offers an original avenue for reflection, both for the historical study and for the architectural potential of these projects. Beyond the documentary understanding of the Viennese and Frankfurt experiments, the author conceives them as two paradigms of urban organisms fully belonging to the contemporary city. Through this comparative study, crucial questions emerge regarding the collective housing project and its future evolution. Without dwelling on ideological prejudices, The Intelligence of Forms presents a critical analysis ranging from the scale of the city to the housing plan to present the results of these two alternative project models. The archival documents supplement an exhaustive series of meticulous "redrawings" that reveal the complexities of these complexes, allowing for an easy comparison of their typological specificities. The author's redrawings thus form, as Bruno Marchand points out in his preface, a very strong link between architecture and the urban. Combined with the text, they provide the reader with a key tool in understanding housing forms, their collective vocation, and their intelligence. Preface by Bruno Marchand
The urban policy experiments conducted in Vienna and Frankfurt in the interwar period—Das rote Wien and Das neue Frankfurt—still constitute essential references in the history of collective housing in Europe. The architectural models at the origin of their design, the Hof in Vienna and the Siedlung in Frankfurt, represent the "extreme polarities" of the housing built during this period. While they have been the subject of numerous studies, the principle of complementarity that Alessandro Porotto detects through his rigorous analysis offers an original avenue for reflection, both for the historical study and for the architectural potential of these projects. Beyond the documentary understanding of the Viennese and Frankfurt experiments, the author conceives them as two paradigms of urban organisms fully belonging to the contemporary city. Through this comparative study, crucial questions emerge regarding the collective housing project and its future evolution. Without dwelling on ideological prejudices, The Intelligence of Forms presents a critical analysis ranging from the scale of the city to the housing plan to present the results of these two alternative project models. The archival documents supplement an exhaustive series of meticulous "redrawings" that reveal the complexities of these complexes, allowing for an easy comparison of their typological specificities. The author's redrawings thus form, as Bruno Marchand points out in his preface, a very strong link between architecture and the urban. Combined with the text, they provide the reader with a key tool in understanding housing forms, their collective vocation, and their intelligence. Preface by Bruno Marchand