The Renewal of Dwelling

Most of the residential buildings in Europe were built between 1945 and 1975. Within this short phase of just 30 years, the stock was not only renewed, but also significantly expanded. The public sector has a special role to play here. Thus, the state and the institutions involved had to eliminate the existing housing shortage and at the same time had the unique opportunity to realize their political ideals.

The publication shows for the first time how a fundamental renovation of living and its architectural implementation could succeed against this background. The comparison of individual projects makes it clear which superordinate topics the residential buildings negotiate and how local issues find their way into the architecture.

The study is based on seventy selected settlements and buildings from seven European cities. Shown are projects from Brussels, Zagreb, Cologne, Oslo, Porto, Lyon and Athens and the region of Liverpool/Manchester and Leeds/Sheffield.

Elli Mosayebi studied Architecture at ETH Zurich. In 2005 she founded the office Edelaar Mosayebi Inderbitzin Architekten in Zurich together with Ron Edelaar and Christian Inderbitzin. In her practice and research she is engaged in developing and implementing innovations in architecture and housing.

Her dissertation focused on Luigi Caccia Dominioni and the Milanese Architecture of the postwar period. In 2008 and 2009 she has been a Fellow Researcher at Harvard Graduate School of Design. Her publications include The Picturesque. Synthese im Bildhaften, Pamphlet 9 (ILA, ETH Zurich, 2008) and Adolf Loos. Die Kultivierung der Architektur (gta Verlag, 2008), edited together with Akos Moravanszky and Bernhard Langer. In 2013 she has been a guest editor for a special issue of werk, bauen+wohnen on the life and work of Luigi Caccia Dominioni. From 2012 to 2018 she held the chair for housing and design at TU Darmstadt, since autumn 2018 she is a professor for architecture and design at the Departement Architektur of ETH Zurich. 

Michael Kraus is an architect and publisher based in Weimar and a research associate at Technische Universitat Darmstadt. His doctoral research focuses on German post–war architecture journals as mediums of both architectural debate and political agenda in regards to the development of housing after World War II.

He studied Architecture at Bauhaus–Universitat Weimar, IIT Chicago and Stanford University. In 2010, he has been a co–founder and the editor-in-chief of HORIZONTE – Journal for architectural discourse. In 2012 he founded M BOOKS, an independent publisher of architecture books in Weimar. He is co-editor of the upcoming monographic volume Poetische Utopie – Der Architekt und Hochschullehrer Burkhard Grashorn (2016) on the life and work of Germany‘s first commissioner to the biennial Venice Architecture.