‘Tower and Slab: Histories of Global Mass Housing’ by Frorian Urban


This book explains the history of mass housing in 7 cities.

It describes how in Chicago, “racial segregation…was at the root of [the] construction management and perception” of cheaply built mass housing .

In Paris, the mass housing blocks built around the city outskirts in the 50’s were already by the early 60’s being compared to civil barracks, rabbit cages, and termite cities and described as “ a factory for hooligans”.

Similarly, Berlin modernist mass hosing went from being considerer “the breeding ground of a just society, [to] generators of crime and deviancy” by the late 60’s.

Brasilia was founded on modernist principles in the 50’s, in a largely uninhabited plateau in the centre of Brazil as a capital, political centre and model city. The workers who built the city accommodated themselves into informal shanty towns which are now inseparable from the planned city.

Mumbai challenges many preconceived ideas about mass housing”. Developers often make deals with slum dwellers, demolishing and replacing their informal settlements with a combination of luxury high-rises to sell and basic bock housing to accommodate them for free.

In Moscow a third of housing is mass-produced post-war blocks. They are home not “of the marginalised, but socially mixed environments. And unlike in many other countries, they are far from being considered obsolete”

Similarly “in Shanghai mass housing is ubiquitous” people have little attachment to older low-rise housing, and the housing debate revolves less around architecture and more around ownership.

References: See pages 21, 49, 66, 92, 101, 141, 145


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I arrived in Leipzig early in the evening and went straight to D21, the project space from which Raster : Beton (Concrete : Grid) festival has been organised. This space was founded in 2006 by a group of artist as a platform from which to curate an international exhibition program of contemporary art, especially in the fields of new media, installation and performance, to show in Leipzig.

From D21 I took the tram to my accommodation (pictured) in the Grünau neighbourhood, where the festival is taking place. 2016 marks the 40 year anniversary of the founding of this neighbourhood which consists of eight  prefabricated housing complexes housing approximately 45,000 inhabitants. Despite good infrastructure, the population of Grünau has been in decline since the 90’s. It is within this context that Raster : Beton has set out to consider the architecture, and life in large housing estates from the perspective of contemporary art .


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