Between Conventional and Experimental : Mass Housing and Prefabrication in Modernist Architecture

Abstract

How conventional and experimental prototypes and series created an architecture for all.

Mass housing and prefabrication shaped global modernist architecture like no other aspect of industrialised construction. This book offers a comprehensive exploration of how both conventional and experimental prototypes and series gave rise to an architecture for all and responded to crises, nation-building, and housing shortages within the context of transnational and regional research.

The book’s contributions explore partially unearthed empirical ground, such as cases from Finland and Sweden, while others offer a fresh interpretation of prefabrication’s role in the history of global architecture, notably in the USSR and Italy. The chapters' topics encompass colonial expansion, class, international collaboration, and the achievements and setbacks of industrialised design. The authors scrutinise the cultural impact of mass housing and prefabrication, tracing this influence through exhibitions, memory culture, and typologies, ultimately concluding with an outlook on the preservation and repair of structures and their adaptation for the future.

Contributors: Mia Åkerfelt (Åbo Akademi University), Yael Allweil (Technion Israel Institute of Technology), Inbal Ben Asher-Gitler (Sapir Academic College / Ben Gurion University of the Negev), Angelo Bertolazzi (University of Padua), Tamara Bjažić Klarin (University of Zagreb), Tzafrir Fainholtz (Technion Israel Institute of Technology / Åbo Akademi University), Alberto Franchini (Technical University of Munich), Ilaria Giannetti (University of Rome Tor Vergata), Regine Hess (ETH Zurich), Silke Langenberg (ETH Zurich), Daphna Levine (Technion Israel Institute of Technology), Stefania Mornati (University of Rome Tor Vergata), Uta Pottgiesser (TU Delft), Maryia Rusak (Oslo School of Architecture and Design), Liat Savin Ben Shoshan (Technion Israel Institute of Technology), Maria Tassopoulou (Technical University of Athens), Anna Wilczyńska (Estonian University of Life Sciences/ Warsaw University of Life Sciences).

Ebook available in Open Access. This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content).