Alongside the pure architectural and urban design solution to building a new society, modernism was accompanied by the ideas of a liberal, just society without restraints of colonialism, imperialism, rejecting old traditions and looking into the future. These goals were the same both in the war-torn former imperialist states of the Global North and the newly established post-colonial nation states of the Global South. Political and social institutions built in Europe and the USA after the First World War are strongly related to the architectural movement: a public welfare system, social housing construction, protection of the environment and a liberal system of enabling participation. But the movement didn't stop there. It spread all over the world; and was, at times rightly so, welcomed very critically.
Modernist high-rise blocks or slabs once built as social housing or as other means are reused today and taken back by the community. At times the governments try to use the renovation of these buildings for a revitalization of the whole neighborhood, in other cities activist community efforts regenerate their own buildings or informal communities are being created that look like vertical slums from the outside. Do these communities offer solutions to today’s pressing affordability crisis both in the North and the South? Which role does government play, and how much self-help of a community is bearable to the safety of a neighborhood?
We will look into different regions of the world to find practices of how modernist tower blocks are reused and new communities are being built up. A multidisciplinary approach brings together scholars from different disciplines from Bauhaus University and outside Weimar. |
