Post-War Middle-Class Housing

Gaia Caramellino is Senior Research Fellow in Architectural History at the Politecnico di Torino and teaches History and Theory of Architecture at the Politecnico di Milano. She was national coordinator of the research project «Architecture for the Middle-Classes in Italy, 1950s–1970s», funded by the Italian government, and was visiting scholar at the CCA in 2011. Her research focuses on the history of 20th-century housing models, cultures, policies and practices and on their circulation between Europe and the U.S.Federico Zanfi is Assistant Professor in Urbanism at the Politecnico di Milano. His design and research activity gravitates around the «post-growth» transformation of the 20th-century built heritage, with a focus on Italian urban systems: he has developed reform strategies for unauthorised southern settlements, for diffuse urbanization in central-northern regions, and for middle-class condominiums in the main metropolitan areas.

• Contents: Monique Eleb: Preface – Gaia Caramellino: Introduction. The Middle-Class Project: Designing New Ways of Living in the Post-War City – Lionel Engrand: The Middle-Class Dwelling Unit. Architectural Theory, Lifestyle and Marketing in France, 1945–1965 – Luca Molinari/Chiara Ingrosso: The ‘Residential Park’ as a New Model for the Emerging Middle-Class in Naples During the 1950s – Ioanna Theocharopoulou: A Social and Cultural Reading of the Athenian Polykatoikia 1949–1974 – Daniel Rincón De La Vega: Spanish Post-Civil War Middle-Class Housing. Limited Rent Flats in the Francoist Madrid – Anahi Ballent: Apartment Buildings for the Middle-Class. Cultural Transformation of Domestic Life and Urban Densification in Buenos Aires – Juliette Spertus/Susanne Schindler: Co-op City and Twin Parks: Two Models for Middle-Class Housing in the Bronx during the 1970s – Marieke van Rooij: Dutch New Town Almere Haven. A Search for the Accommodation of the Suburban Wishes of the Middle-Classes in the 1970s – Ana Vaz Milheiro/Filipa Fiúza/Rogério Vieira de Almeida/Débora Félix: ‘Radieuse’ Peripheries. A Comparative Study on Middle-Class Housing in Luanda, Lisbon and Macao – Eveline Althaus/Marie Antoinette Glaser: Legacies of Modernism. House Biographies of Large Post-War Residential Complexes in Switzerland – Els de Vos: Multiple Versions of Modernity in Post-War Belgium. The Housing Estate of Ban Eik – Filippo De Pieri: «Stories of Houses». Observing Post-War Middle-Class Housing in Italy – Jonathan Massey: Housing Risk: Neoliberal Homeownership in the United States – Matthew Soules: Deconstructing Liveability. Perspectives from Central Vancouver – Wouter Bervoets/Marijn van de Weijer: The Future of the Post-War Single-Family House: The Case of Flanders – Federico Zanfi: Afterword.