WHY CAN’T WE LIVE TOGETHER? Stockholm – Vienna’s large court blocks

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to look back on some valuable accomplishments at the beginning of the XX century, built in Stockholm (1916-1930) and Vienna (1919-1933). Far from a mere process of revising history, those first dwelling attempts demonstrate how housing turned into a core-concern from that time. Selected case studies of the two cities – analysed through original items and the re-drawings of plans done by the authors – provide a clear framework to retrace the origins of an emphasis on building community units. Planning policies and dwellings responded to the accelerated metropolitan growth and acute housing shortage. Housing started to become a public utility, part of a wider and multifaceted social view as well as considered fundamental elements for the construction of the city. The attention and the responsibility of planners, architects, co-operatives, and politicians went to poor social ladders. Secchi identifies in those European town plans a common ground in the search for adequate forms of living together and an expression of democratic ideals. Besides broadening the limited understanding of these instances, we examine their inspiring and still convincing qualities concerning morphology and spatial sequences. Large court blocks - ”Storgårdskvarteret” in Swedish and ”Höfe” in German - interact with the irregularities of the topography and the surrounding urban fabric. The results show two sides of the same coin: a peculiar synthesis of Sitte and Unwin’s theories, which presents matching points. Although, the two experiences were designed almost one hundred years ago, they offer key suggestions for today’s housing initiatives. Indeed, in Europe we have recently been observing the progressive crisis of the social concept and architectural connotation of “collective house”. As Elias and Bauman claim, in our individualistic society it becomes even more crucial the role of the collective dimension of the city and common living.

Full text

Cities, Communities and Homes: Is the
Urban Future Livable?
• Paper / Proposal Title:
Why can’t we live together? Stockholm – Vienna’s large court blocks
• Format:
Written paper (3,000 words) and Conference presentation
• Authors Name:
Chiara Monterumisi and Alessandro Porotto
• University or Company Affiliation:
École Polytecnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland
• Abstract:
The purpose of this paper is to look back on some valuable accomplishments at the
beginning of the XX century, built in Stockholm (1916-1930) and Vienna (1919-1933). Far
from a mere process of revising history, those first dwelling attempts demonstrate how
housing turned into a core-concern from that time. Selected case studies of the two
cities – analysed through original items and the re-drawings of plans done by the authors
– provide a clear framework to retrace the origins of an emphasis on building
community units.
Planning policies and dwellings responded to the accelerated metropolitan growth and
acute housing shortage. Housing started to become a public utility, part of a wider and
multifaceted social view as well as considered fundamental elements for the
construction of the city. The attention and the responsibility of planners, architects, co-
operatives, and politicians went to poor social ladders. Secchi identifies in those
European town plans a common ground in the search for adequate forms of living
together and an expression of democratic ideals. Besides broadening the limited
understanding of these instances, we examine their inspiring and still convincing qualities
concerning morphology and spatial sequences. Large court blocks - Storgårdskvarteret
in Swedish and Höfe in German - interact with the irregularities of the topography and
the surrounding urban fabric. The results show two sides of the same coin: a peculiar
synthesis of Sitte and Unwin’s theories, which presents matching points.

Although, the two experiences were designed almost one hundred years ago, they offer
key suggestions for today’s housing initiatives. Indeed, in Europe we have recently been
observing the progressive crisis of the social concept and architectural connotation of
“collective house”. As Elias and Bauman claim, in our individualistic society it becomes
even more crucial the role of the collective dimension of the city and common living.
• Authors Biography:
Chiara Monterumisi and Alessandro Porotto are architects and belong to the research
staff of the Construction and Conservation Laboratory (LCC) at the École Polytecnique
Fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland). They are conducting complementary research
projects – fully funded by Swiss National Science Foundation –, which deal with urban
policies concerning European social housing complexes during the interwar period.
Monterumisi is Post Doc researcher and B. Sc.’s teaching assistant. Her current research
project is focused on the Scandinavian “soft” interpretation of the modern’s mythical
image about urban morphology, typology and designing urban spaces. She completed
the Ph.D. degree in Architecture (2015) at the Università di Bologna (Italy); due to the
topic she spent extend time at Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan i Stockholm (Sweden). Her
thesis “Genius loci and urban memories. Stockholms Stadshuset-Nämndhus and villa
Geber” explores urban transformations in Stockholm, particularly through two less-known
projects by R. Östberg (1866-1945). She received the M.Sc. in Architecture (2011) at the
University of Bologna.
Porotto is PhD Candidate. He received the M. Sc. in Architecture (2012) at the
Politecnico di Torino (Italy). Through the Erasmus Placement Program he worked in an
architectural office in Berlin, dealing with urban history and housing topics. His doctoral
research focuses on the morphological, typological and greenery design comparison
between social housing models in Vienna and Frankfurt in the 1920s. The objective is to
establish a new critical approach to observe the European social housing experiences
with the highest degree of comparability. Since 2014 he is also B. Sc.’s teaching assistant
at the Housing-Design Sturdio.