Campus Authors: The CIAM Discourse on Urbanism, 1928-1960

Eric Mumford, assistant professor of architecture

The CIAM Discourse on Urbanism, 1928-1960

(MIT Press, 2000)

Eric Mumford recently published the first book-length study of CIAM (Congrs Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne), the avant-garde group of architects that, in the mid-20th century, included such figures as Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Richard Neutra. His book, titled "The CIAM Discourse on Urbanism, 1928-1960," examines the group's official doctrines and pronouncements advocating the creation of a more socially engaged architecture and focuses on the development and promotion of its influential concept of the "Functional City," which would come to impact the practice of architecture around the world. Mumford also traces the relationship between those official positions and the changing circumstances of, and sometimes contentious relationships between, the group's members.

A passage from the book (Chapter 1, pp. 53-54):

"Rehabilitation, however economically justifiable, was clearly not on the housing agenda at CIAM 3 [Brussels, 1930], and the attitude in favor of a new urban pattern, whether or not it included high-rise building, was evident in the accompanying exhibition, also called Rationelle Bebauungsweisen [Rational Site Planning], which consisted of fifty-six site plans on aluminum boards with accompanying information. The names and locations of the projects were given, but the architects' names were not listed. The uniform scale and manner of presentation gave the collection a unified appearance. Like specimens under a microscope, the fifty-six plans in the exhibition were intended to be seen as samples of urban organisms. Their uniform presentation, indifferent to issues of local cultural context and architectural convention, enhanced the notion, already widespread in planning circles, that the 'industrial city' was a uniformly chaotic phenomenon susceptible to scientific improvement through the proper interventions from above. To this idea CIAM added its distinctive advocacy of certain formal strategies intended to maximize green space and to eliminate the traditional corridor street. Despite disagreements over the most appropriate building heights or issues of centralization versus decentralization, it was clear that CIAM rejected all previous forms of urbanism, which it could only see as evolutionary stages leading toward its new methods."