A visual and narrative analysis tracing the trajectory of 1950s large housing estates in Oran, Algeria

Since the 1990s, attitudes to socialist mass housing in Central and Eastern Europe have been dominated by criticism and rejection of its basic urban and architectural principles. This has been manifested in strategies of humanisation, primarily through densification of the urban fabric and reconstruction of the facades of the original prefabricated buildings. Using Slovakia’s largest housing estate, Petržalka, as a case study, this essay illustrates how, in the last decade, engaged citizens and experts in the history of modern architecture and urbanism have begun to reflect critically on humanisation strategies, leading to a rehabilitation of the modernist mass housing project.

> You throw a stone into a deep pond. Splash. The sound is big, and it reverberates throughout the surrounding area. What comes out of the pond after that? All we can do is stare at the pond, holding our breath. > > — Haruki Murakami , 1Q84 What is the future of architectural history? The very question embodies an inherent contradiction, since historians are particularly skilled at studying the past; our aptitudes for predicting the future are far less honed. Nevertheless, important anniversaries invite introspection, reflection on our past, and speculation about our future. What pressures are coming to bear on our field that are most likely to cause significant change? Who will be our audiences in the decades to come? How will they find our work, and what will be the forms of our scholarship? In what follows, I examine three aspects of the architectural historian’s practice, casting stones into the pond of our field to see, as Murakami writes, what might come out of it after that. Until very recently, architectural historians generally conducted research in mostly the same manner as their colleagues across the humanities, which is to say, they did so largely working alone in libraries, museums, archives, and special collections. The single factor differentiating our work from that of scholars studying largely text-based or pictorially based subjects was our need for on-site investigation. Examining architectural, urban, and landscape spaces themselves has always been—and will no doubt continue to be—a crucial distinguishing aspect of our research culture, and there is little doubt that we will continue to perform solitary investigations with a range of primary and secondary sources. However much our methods of inquiry may remain constant, the archive, the library, and even the museum have changed. What does “the archive” now mean? In our current era of increasingly massive amounts of digitized …

It is time to look back on postmodernism

American urban history embraces all historiography related to towns, cities, and metropolitan regions in the United States. American urban history includes the examination of places, processes, and ways of life through a broad and diverse range of themes including immigration, migration, population distribution, economic and spatial development, politics, planning, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. Urban history emerged as an identifiable subfield of United States history in the mid-20th century, admittedly well after the establishment of similar areas of inquiry in other professional fields and academic disciplines, particularly sociology. Beginning in the 1930s and 1940s, a small number of academics, led by noted social historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr., commenced the first wave of scholarly interest in American urban history with works on colonial seaports and select 19th-century cities. By the 1950s, urban history coalesced as a recognizable subfield around a reformulation of American history, emphasizing the establishment of towns, rather than the pursuit of agriculture, as the spearhead for the formation and growth of the nation. The 1960s and 1970s witnessed a second round of interest in American urban history, set against the backdrop of the tremendous political and social changes that swept the nation and transformed the historical profession. Through innovative models of scholarship that broke with traditional consensus history, notably pioneering quantitative research methods, a self-identified “new urban history” emerged that emphasized spatial development as well as social, economic, and political mobility, conflict, and change. Over time, this new urban history was largely subsumed within social history, given the fields’ intersecting and overlapping interests in social and political issues viewed through the lenses of race, class, and gender. Social history’s broad focus resulted in an explosion of scholarship that all but dominated the American historical profession by the late 20th century. From the mid-1970s through the 1990s, books with urban settings and themes, most of them well within the camp of social history, won an impressive number of Bancroft prizes and other prestigious awards. Urban history itself has survived—even thrived—without a widely agreed upon canon or dominant research methodology. Scholars continue to make significant contributions to urban history, whether or not they embrace the title of urbanist. Note that attendance at the biannual meetings of the Urban History Association has grown significantly over the last two decades. The sources in this article’s twenty subject headings have been arranged to illustrate the depth and breadth of each prominent theme in the field and are by no means an exhaustive list of such scholarship, but rather a sampling of the most influential and innovative examinations of America’s urban canvas.

This study explores how people understand and represent the economy in different spaces across society. It draws on over 120 semi-structured interviews as well as participant observation across four sites: the civil service, the financial sector, the financial press, and one of the UK’s largest housing estates. The multi-sited empirical study builds on and contributes to two bodies of literature. First, through looking at the representations and understandings of the economy across a number of sites it explores how the economy is anchored in different registers of meaning across society. This brings the notion of the economy into the same theoretical framework that has been used to theorise the fragmentation of the public sphere, which has mainly focussed on political, cultural and media fragmentation, but ignored the economy. The second intervention comes in the field of economic sociology. The multi-sited framework allows for an investigation into different forms of agency in socioeconomic praxis. The sites are explored as both internal localised networks of interaction and as spaces situated within broader societal relationships of power. The findings and the argument constructed emphasise the importance of broader structural relationships. In doing so they contribute towards undermining the influential recent trend inspired by Michel Callon's notion of economic performativity, and the localised networked conception of agency at its core. Beyond these theoretical contributions, the thesis also provides a snapshot of contemporary society in the UK. The elite institutional sites looked at are found to generate a self-serving abstract economic discourse grounded in the politics of knowledge representation. This elite economic discourse does not resonate at spaces on the periphery of the public sphere, and in the lack of rational pluralised discourse on the economy many people turn to explanatory frameworks that harness an anti-elite sentiment and appear to fit with their immediate lifeworlds. The result is a fragmented economic imaginary across society that holds little hope of bringing much needed positive economic change.

Drawing on a study of men who engage in sexual and romantic relationships with other men and who currently live or have lived in large housing estates in the Île-de-France region, this article examines their occasional movements and interactions within commercial gay spaces in Paris. In a context where the injunction to be visible is often considered a hallmark of what is generally termed homonormativity (Duggan in: Castronovo, Nelson (eds) Materializing democracy, Duke University Press, Durham, 2002), this study adopts a “situated intersectionality” approach (Yuval-Davis in Raisons Politiques 58(2):91–100, 2015), which considers various power dynamics and is attentive to the specific geographical, social, and temporal contexts of individuals. This framework is used to interrogate the notion of “fleeing to the city”. The aim is to illustrate the social, economic, racial, and spatial factors that contribute to the mobility of sexual minorities in the French context. Additionally, we demonstrate that the “gay spaces” of major urban centres, often frequented at the beginning of one’s “gay career” (Becker in Outsiders: studies in the sociology of deviance, Free Press, Glencoe, 1963), are swiftly rejected due to both the racism within these minority spaces and their over-sexualisation.

Amateur Craft provides an illuminating and historically-grounded account of amateur craft in the modern era, from 19th-century Sunday painters and amateur carpenters to present day railway modellers and yarnbombers. Stephen Knott's fascinating study explores the curious and unexpected attributes of things made outside standardised models of mass production, arguing that amateur craft practice is ‘differential’ – a temporary moment of control over work that both departs from and informs our productive engagement with the world. Knott's discussion of the theoretical aspects of amateur craft practice is substantiated by historical case studies that cluster around the period 1850–1950. Looking back to the emergence of the modern amateur, he makes reference to contemporary art and design practice that harnesses or exploits amateur conditions of making. From Andy Warhol to Simon Starling, such artistic interest elucidates the mercurial qualities of amateur craft. Invaluable for students and researchers in art and design, contemporary craft, material culture and social history, Amateur Craft counters both the marginalisation and the glorification of amateur craft practice. It is richly illustrated with 55 images, 14 in colour, including 19th century ephemera and works of contemporary art.

One of the problems of urban history is the fearsome range of expertise that the urban historian is supposed to appreciate, if not master. Belaboured, rightly, by archaeologists, geographers, and architectural historians, we have begun to open our eyes to the evidence of the physical environment of medieval towns, but that is not the half of it. In order to understand urban institutions one needs to be a religious historian, an economic historian, a legal historian; and if one were ever to make sense of everything that is included in the ‘social history’ of towns, then social anthropology, historical demography, and sociology are only three of the battery of foglamps that would be needed to penetrate our cloud of unknowing. The subject which I now wish to add to the list of those we are supposed to cover does not even have the attraction of sounding new and modish and exciting. The history of political thought has, after all, formed a part of undergraduate history courses in this country ever since they began, and it is traditionally one of the least popular and least satisfactory parts of them, especially for the sort of students who may go on to be interested in urban history: those who relish the exact, the local detail, the reality of topography, the ability to connect the documents of the past with visible phenomena in the present.

Siena, one of the major artistic centres of medieval and Renaissance Italy, is renowned for its striking architecture and its beauty as a city. This book is the first to focus on Sienese architectural and urban history during the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Fabrizio Nevola offers a comprehensive picture of the city, describing in detail how the layout and appearance of Siena changed between 1400 and 1520, as political and social events triggered a variety of initiatives that transformed the city's urban core. Weaving together social, political, economic and architectural history, the book explores the role of key patrons in Siena's urban projects, including Pope Pius II Piccolomini and his family and, later, the quasi-despot Pandolfo Petrucci 'The Magnificent'. Nevola also considers how the government used architecture to forge a local identity and establish authority, the influence of important architects and architectural theorists, and the way that ritual events contributed in special ways to the changing face of the city. Enhanced with a beautiful collection of historic and new photographs, the book offers a fresh and engaging account of Siena's unique architectural achievements.

A pioneering study of 18th century Scottish urbanism: dynamic but different GBS_insertPreviewButtonPopup(['ISBN:9780748692569','ISBN:9780748692576','ISBN:9780748692583']); This heavily illustrated and innovative study is founded upon personal documents, town council minutes, legal cases, inventories, travellers’ tales, plans and drawings relating to some 30 Scots burghs of the Georgian period. It establishes a distinctive history for the development of Scots burghs, their living patterns and legislative controls, and shows that the Scottish urban experience was quite different from other parts of Britain. With population expansion, and economic and social improvement, Scots of the time experienced immense change both in terms of urban behaviour and the decay of ancient privileges and restrictions. This volume shows how the Scots Georgian burgh developed to become a powerfully controlled urban community, with disturbance deliberately designed out. This is a collaborative history, melding together political, social, economic, urban and architectural histories, to achieve a comprehensive perspective on the nature of the Scottish Georgian town. Not so much a history by growth and numbers, this pioneering study of Scottish urbanization explores the type of change and the quality of result. Key Features A pioneering study of how Scottish urban life changed during the 18th century, to be matched against the well-covered English town. Combines social, economic, architectural and urban history in a systematic, comparative manner. The product of an extensive 3-year AHRC-funded research project into extensive, yet untapped primary sources. This research significantly revises current historiography about the Scots urban evolution and the nature of ‘British’ towns. Heavily illustrated, the pictures being as much of the message as the text. "

The phenomenon of contemporary art is considered as the content basis of education. The reasons for the contradiction between the educational potential of works of contemporary art and their rare use by teachers for solving educational tasks are determined. The results of qualitative and quantitative analysis of questionnaire materials received from 227 teachers of General education organizations are presented. The article clarifies the concept of contemporary art as the art of the second half of the twentieth century and the present day, aimed at the study and interpretation of a complex, rapidly changing world using a variety of artistic and expressive means and languages, based on philosophical, psychological, socio-cultural concepts and new technologies; having the attributes of experimentation, non-canonicity, topicality, innovation, critical content. The prospects of introducing the results of the study into educational practice by increasing the level of knowledge of teachers about contemporary art are shown.The subject of the article - contemporary art as a meaningful basis for education. The main theme - to identify the possibilities of contemporary art in the education of schoolchildren. The work Purpose - to analyze the results of the survey, which allow us to judge the professional and personal position of teachers in relation to contemporary art, the level of their competence in the field of contemporary art and culture. Methodology of the work: qualitative analysis-hermeneutical and content analysis of visual material when working with works of contemporary art, interpretive and comparative analysis of respondents' assessments and judgments about contemporary art and its educational potential; quantitative method-statistical analysis of empirical data. Results: the analysis of examples of works of contemporary art used to solve educational and / or educational tasks revealed that teachers prefer to use works of art created at the end of the XX – first decades of the XXI century, continuing the classical tradition, as well as the most fashionable and relevant examples of mass culture in their work. Non-classical works of art are used by 10.6% of respondents. Scope of results is the educational space of the school and pedagogical University. Conclusions. Teachers are open to new experiences and are interested in using works of contemporary art to solve educational problems.

Book Review| March 01 2022 Street Life in Renaissance Italy Fabrizio Nevola Street Life in Renaissance Italy New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2020, 320 pp., 150 illus. $60 (cloth), ISBN 9780300175431 Saundra Weddle Saundra Weddle Drury University Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (2022) 81 (1): 105–106. https://doi.org/10.1525/jsah.2022.81.1.105 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Saundra Weddle; Street Life in Renaissance Italy. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 1 March 2022; 81 (1): 105–106. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/jsah.2022.81.1.105 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentJournal of the Society of Architectural Historians Search With the ambitious, innovative, and beautifully illustrated Street Life in Renaissance Italy, Fabrizio Nevola makes a valuable contribution to the spatial history of Italian Renaissance cities. Revisiting themes he has examined in previous publications, especially focusing on Siena and Florence, Nevola expands his scope to consider cities of various scales and sociopolitical profiles from across the peninsula, including major centers such as Rome and, more cursorily, Venice, Milan, and Naples, but also smaller cities like Arezzo, Bologna, Ferrara, and Mantua, as well as less studied towns like Viterbo and Ascoli Piceno. He uses archival records, novellas, maps, architectural drawings, treatises, paintings, and prints from 1400 to 1600 to narrate microstories that document the interplay between spatial practices and the urban realm. Throughout, Nevola effectively deploys the theories of Henri Lefebvre and Michel de Certeau to examine how everyday activities gave meaning to the built environment and how it in... You do not currently have access to this content.

ABSTRACT:Sense of community is analyzed in two very different types of neighborhoods in Ljubljana, Slovenia: a large housing estate and a middle-class neighborhood of individual houses. The main research question posed is which individual characteristics are associated with sense of community in the two neighborhoods. A specific addition to current knowledge involves the inclusion of values as important characteristics associated with sense of community. The analysis was made on a quota sample of 337 individuals. Sense of community was shown to be comprised of three factors: (1) contact with neighbors; (2) social control; and (3) attachment. We observed this separately in the two neighborhoods. The analysis showed that values significantly increase the model’s explanatory power and that the two neighborhoods differ significantly in terms of which variables are important for sense of community, therefore indicating that this could be highly context-dependent. In addition, qualitative data are used to illustrate the sense of community in the two neighborhoods.

Digital social innovation: An overview and research framework

The current academic and popular interest in urban history is accompanied by methodological explorations. Paralleling the recent trends in social history, architectural historians working on urban topics have broadened the subject matter. They now investigate social, economic, political, and cultural issues to explain the built forms of cities, thereby relying on interdisciplinary research. The focus is often on urban transformations with a wide-spread concern to address the issues and problems of today and tomorrow through studying history. While the recent methodological search in urban history is rich and inspirational, it also bears shortcomings. Methodological pluralism can easily lead to a diminution of focus and a general ambiguity, obscuring evaluation standards. The approaches surveyed here display the widening perspectives, but also point to the importance of further theoretical and methodological discussion.