From the Charter of Athens to the ‘Habitat’: CIAM 9 and the African grids

Abstract

After World War II, geopolitical insecurity and human unsettlement mobilised architectural and urban design. During this time of extreme housing shortages, CIAM members lost confidence in pre-war institutions and ideologies. Designers slowly abandoned, though never rejected, previously acclaimed CIAM tools such as the Charter of Athens (1933) that could not deal with the post-war devastation and frustration. This prompted an intense period of research outside the traditional boundaries of the discipline. This essay examines CIAM’s post-war interest in the endemic paradigm of Africa, exploration of the concept of ‘habitat,’ and development of its new Charter. It focuses on the African examples discussed during CIAM 9 in Aix-en-Provence (1953): projects presented by GAMMA and ATBAT-Afrique on Casablanca; research on the bidonville Mahiedinne in Algiers; the Volta River project on the British Gold Coast; and studies of traditional French Cameroon. The essay analyses how post-war consciousness of the African ‘other’ emerged during the passage from imperial to post-colonial societies, and how it promoted CIAM’s internal reflections and reforms questioning dominant narratives of design.