Abstract
Three essential elements of modernism consolidated through war: a centralised welfare state, a serial industrial apparatus and, often, a territorial tabula rasa. Hence, for many modernist architects and urban planners, post-war Europe became the ideal ground to put their ideas to the test. However, there is a genuine discrepancy between the proposals of the first four Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM) and what was massively implemented throughout Europe after 1945. To explore this divergence, Brussels proves to be an interesting case study for two main reasons. First, it hosted the third CIAM in November 1930, where Victor Bourgeois presented his views on housing and cities, in line with the ideals of the time. Second, after the war, Belgium, like many Western countries, experienced a period of euphoria, during which the modernist ideology attained a sudden and broad consensus. In the capital over the following three decades new infrastructure was built, as well as housing developments that derived, at least formally, from the CIAM ideals. This article explores the gap between the ideals and the reality of modernism through a comparison on two scales: the city and housing. Bourgeois’s Grand and Nouveau Bruxelles proposals are compared to the Manhattan Plan and Etrimo’s housing developments. Understanding the gap between the ideals of modernism and its implementation may help identify characteristics of the modernist movement but also, as Lacaton-Vassal pointed out when citing Habermas, complete the “unfinished project” (Habermas, 1984) of modernism.
Highlights
Three essential elements of modernism consolidated through war: a centralised welfare state, a serial industrial apparatus and, often, a territorial tabula rasa
It is no coincidence that Huib Hoste, one of Belgium’s leading architects in the interwar period, wrote the play If I Was a Dictator (Hoste, 1937), illustrating the frustration of modernist architects to carry out their ideology
Modernist ideology turned its back on the conventions of the past, rejecting both traditional urban morphologies and housing types that echoed local conventions
Summary
Modernist architects considered the city an inseparable body, tying in the same reflexion the scale of furniture, domestic spaces and territory (Gropius, 1925a). By the end of the 19th century, the “housing crisis” had become so acute that it literally became the battle cry of the architectural avantgarde (Teige, 1932) This determination to reshape both housing and urban planning was developed comprehensively in the first four Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM). If modernist architects developed radical and innovative solutions regarding urban planning and housing design, their ideas were only implemented marginally in the interbellum due to economic crises, political unrest and a lack of understanding among the population. In these troubled times, modernism remained primarily rhetorical (Heynen, 2000). Upon the end of the war, everything was in place to carry out the modernist project
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