Ville Radieuse, What Ho!
A very interesting post at Aggregat 4/5/6 about Alexander Korda's deployment of Modernist architecture in WWII propaganda, and more generally on the use of the 1930s English branch of the international style as an instrument of public persuasion - amongst other things making clear that, if the new architecture was considered useful in convincing people to fight for A Better Britain, then the still occasionally prevalent idea that it was all a conspiracy by continental intellectuals to shove the benighted working man into totalitarian boxes looks, as ever, a bit silly.
posted by owen hatherley at 7:37 pm
3 Comments:
On rehousing, the truth about much of the property condemned as unfit in the postwar period is that what intellectualist propaganda there was (whether people fall for such propaganda is another matter) served the economic interests involved in what we now call redevelopment, which always prefer profit over aesthetics, whether populist or intellectual. Also, let's not forget that people aspire to newer, better lives, whether they'll be able to achieve them.
How unfit were the properties that were being superseded?
Was redevelopment all about humane necessity or gross national economic benefits?
In every town in England there are rows of houses potentially condemned under local slum clearance rulings - that would have supposedly liberate the working class from antiquated housing - that have happily housed the new space and health conscious middle classes since the early 1970s.
Neil
Yeah, but they can afford to fix them up properly. A manky early victorian terrace that's been properly insulated, double-glazed, had central heating installed, etc etc is very different to a manky early Victorian terrace in 1939. It should be pointed out that the poky Victorian terraces beloved of the metropolitan middle classes are usually smaller, more badly planned and badly sited, have less light and air etc, than yr average council flat.
(mind you, it's definitely true that a lot was demolished that need not have been, and there was lots of backhanders and dodgy dealing with councils and developers in the 60s especially. The hygiene argument also is a bit of a red herring - antibiotics and the NHS were far more important than less dank housing)
All a bit like these people.
At least post-war slum clearance talked about improving quality of life. Now, the same - and with more apparently worthwhile buildings destroyed - is being achieved to "renew markets". Absolutely crackers.
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