Essentially, the housing question is a problem of statistics and technology, as is any question concerning the provision and satisfaction of human needs: it is a question of the determination of social needs and their satisfaction by rationalized mass production, the elimination of inefficiencies without loss of energy, and the elimination of detrimental effects caused by the combined forces of resistance, represented by the exploitative practices of the middlemen of business, by rent and land speculation, and so on.
As a question of statistics and technology, the housing question is essentially a question of the general plan, and as such can be solved only when social development and gen-eral economic activity are guided by a predetermined scientific plan. Statistics mea-sure and evaluate housing needs, determine the likely deficit of dwellings and square meters of dwelling area, and thereby represent the magnitude of unsatisfied demand. Planned pro-duction in a planned economy will provide the required number of dwellings over a fixed pe-riod of time. The general plan needs to be supplemented in architecture with its own plan and by answering the question of how and what these dwellings, houses, and towns should be.
This is how the housing question should be posed in a world of a general economic plan, worked out as the basis for a new and higher phase of historical development.
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Our book is an attempt to discuss the problem of the “minimum dwelling” as a problem of popular, proletarian housing in all its social, economic, technical, and architectural aspects and prospects. It attempts to analyze the housing question according to its principal causes and constituent elements, tracing their mutual relationships and the complex interaction of their elements with respect to the prevailing economic and social system, while at the same time trying to determine the root cause of the housing crisis, which will only be able to be abolished when the conditions that support its existence are done away with.
Statistical data are an important aid to the sociology of architecture and housing. Unfortu-nately, most of the statistics available to us today leave open more questions than they
an-swer. We have boundless quantities of statistical data, and yet they are insufficient. We have extensive and fairly complete statistics on medical conditions and hygiene, indicating how people get sick and die. But do we have statistics showing us how people live? Indeed, we are ignorant of the exact temperature of our cities, and do not really know what causes their fever.1In fact, statistics catch mostly facts that are already consequences, and thus are likely to seriously mislead us by failing to reveal essential causes and motives. Statistics are by their very nature descriptive. However, social phenomena cannot be entirely captured by numeri-cal measurements alone, that is, quantitatively and mechaninumeri-cally. Social conditions have a qualitative dimension as well. A complete sociological picture can be obtained only by a the-oretical interpretation of statistical data.
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The scientific investigation of the sociological fundamentals of architecture, including the housing question, requires a scientific method of work. Above all, we refuse to recognize so-ciology — especially a soso-ciology of architecture — as a real science as long as it remains con-tent to confine itself to an abstract study of society and of the relationship of architecture to social life, one that examines social organization and its constituent architectural elements in-dependently from their historical context — in short, one that has as its object the abstract and ahistorical study of society itself, instead of studying society as it exists in its complex reality today and thus we reject in principle a sociology parading as some kind of social metaphysics.
Of all the methods in the social sciences, only Marxism elevates sociology to the level of an exact science, as it alone promotes the application of the methods of dialectic materialism to life, work, and the scientific formulation of historical laws. Only historical materialism can be considered as a true scientific sociology, because it understands the laws of the dialecti-cal development of society and culture, while at the same time explaining their concrete his-torical meaning.2Marxist sociology does not stop with mere analysis as the only means of gaining understanding by its research; it consummates understanding by its own synthesis, while at the same supporting its prognoses with scientifically reasoned developmental laws, thus shedding light on the tendencies of future developments as well. Moreover, it not only provides a clear understanding of reality but at the same time acts as an instrument for change. It is by the methods of dialectical materialism that we arrive at a more accurate and deeper understanding of the social situation in housing and construction, and at the same time find the means by which problems can be overcome and changed in a practical way.
“Where speculation ends — that is, at the threshold of real life — true science begins by
under-1) Such evaluation of statistical data, relying on the method of historical materialism and tech-niques of graphic visualization for propaganda value, was very effectively accomplished in the im-portant exhibition on the problems of proletarian housing, organized by the architectural group Levá Fronta [Left Front] and shown in Prague in 1931, but forbidden by the police from being shown in Brno.
2) The ideas of evolution put forth by Marx and Engels are obviously much more complex, inte-grated, and profound than those of the conventional versions of evolution that dominate current discourse in historiography, natural science, art history, and aesthetic theory and thus in architec-ture as well. “Dialectic developments” pass anew through past stages, but in a different manner and on a higher level (the negation of negation). It is an evolution that is not linear but moving in cycles, progressing not in an uninterrupted, continuous manner but by means of jumps, catastro-phes, and revolutions, an evolution that changes quantity into quality mainly as a result of its own internal impulses.
standing practical activity and the everyday process of human progress. . . . Phrases and ap-prehension vanish, to be replaced by realistic knowledge instead” (Marx and Engels, German Ideology).
So far, a coherent theory and sociology of architecture have yet to worked out on the basis of dialectical materialism. Sociological and theoretical sentiments, encountered in speeches, writings, and programmatic manifestos concerning contemporary architects and architectural groups, generally reveal their unscientific origin, be it in echoes of utopian communism and American philanthropism on the one hand, or in fallacious notions of national economic the-ories of organized (planned) state capitalism, ultra-imperialism, Fordism, and so on on the other; most are based on at best a vulgarized and superficial understanding of Marxism. This has been the case ever since the times of Morris and Ruskin, whose Pre-Raphaelite and senti-mentalized communism is nothing other than the reflection of a reactionary, petit bourgeois socialism whose patron saint is Sismondi, who wanted to bring back not only old methods of production — that is, the crafts, the guilds, and old world housekeeping (including idyllic vil-lage life)—but old social conditions as well. Its continuation is the pre-Proudhonian socialism of Berlage and the “planned” grandiose capitalist urban theories of Le Corbusier. Le Corbusier may have cured architecture from the hangover of the English garden city, only to start a new fashion among contemporary architects by offering them a new opiate: Fordism.
Even if it is true that more often than not modern architectural work is guided by unscientific and incorrect methods, such work has nevertheless contributed many important insights and discoveries in its search for new solutions in housing and the city. Any attempt at a deeper analysis of these processes and problems, studied objectively and as independently as pos-sible from the subjective position of each respective author, must necessarily lead to scientific (materialist) results.3Even though modern architecture remains in many cases unaware of this necessity, it does contribute significant material and tends to validate the correctness of the Marxist view of society, along with Marxist views on economics and technology, thus pro-viding convincing proof of the existing antagonism between currently active productive forces and social conditions. Not only that: any architectural solution that claims to be a true discovery and a progressive contribution — that is, one that does not put any limits on the scope of its solutions and has the courage to ignore those aspects of the problem that are not directly part of its solution — must take instead as its point of departure the realities of the or-ganization of society and the methods of technical thinking in architectural practice. It must at the same time have the courage to see problems in their full scope, beyond the constraints imposed by current technical and production limits. Only then will it be possible to arrive at results that have thus far been considered incompatible with the realm of the vested interests of present society, including its laws and building regulations, all of which are an expression of its prevailing system of property relations (i.e., the exploitation of the soil, land rent, mort-gage loans, etc.).
It is for these reasons that any progressive architectural solution must objectively oppose the interests of the ruling class and perform a revolutionary task, even in cases in which it may not be conscious of its mission. Today, any significant architectural initiative and progressive architectural work must by its own inherent necessity arrive at results that are in open conflict with existing building laws and regulations. Not necessarily for the reasons mentioned above, but nevertheless correctly, the Committee of the International Congresses of Modern Archi-tecture [CIAM] has decided to direct its attention to the need to seek solutions to
contempo-3) “To the extent that we genuinely research and think, we shall never escape materialism”
(K. Marx to T. Huxley).
rary architectural and urban problems, and — above all — to the problem of the minimum dwelling, disregarding currently valid building laws and land ownership conditions; after eliminating existing economic and legal obstacles, it will investigate any “ideal proposal” that would be technically and economically capable of realizing in full today’s technical and archi-tectural possibilities, whose practical implementation is currently prevented. Of course, the danger of such hypothetically posed laboratory efforts is the tendency to fall prey to technical utopianism on the one hand or to American flights of fantasy on the other, mainly because they fail to recognize that no architectural, scientific, or technical problem can be separated from political and economic questions, and that any architectural hypothesis about the future must find support in a correct prognosis of any future socioeconomic development.
Many of the important projects by members of the architectural avant-garde are testimonials to the vital need for reform in architecture, both in its fundamentals and in its details. These projects range from designs of individual dwelling cells to plans for entire cities. At the same time, barring minor and generally unimportant exceptions, today’s building practice with its outdated structures, old houses, and old site planning remains stuck in old patterns, not-withstanding the fact that our buildings are now constructed in steel or concrete. Relying on outdated assumptions about existing lifestyles and obsolete notions of social behavior, architecture will never be able to arrive at a full realization of any project attempting to fully instantiate its laboratory work. The old adage holds still today — namely, that it is necessary to build a foundation before building a roof, and that we are not concerned primarily with this or that commission for a building, but above all with architecture as a profession intended to provide a social service.
Only those members of the architectural avant-garde are worthy of that name who not only wish to “build modern” but who also decide to struggle for a new way of thinking, recogniz-ing the wretchedness of the current housrecogniz-ing conditions and understandrecogniz-ing that it can be alle-viated only if the material and spiritual distress of the poor is overcome first. A flat roof or steel furniture can never be regarded as the ultimate goal of avant-garde architecture. They are nothing other than fashionable design fetishes. Instead, the avant-garde must extend its interest to the fields of political economy and sociology, particularly in view of the simultane-ous emergence of serisimultane-ous economic, social, and political problems, exacerbated by the prob-lems of the modern city and amplified by the problem of the minimum dwelling. Avant-garde architects must become aware of the intensifying class struggle and take into account the ac-cumulation of social tensions, all of which make up the real situation in our time. The realiza-tion that modern architecture also implies political struggle signals a shift from illusion to the thing itself, to reality — a shift from abstraction to the concrete, from academic speculation to practical socioeconomic work. An architectural avant-garde that is conscious of social real-ity must realize at the same time that its position vis-à-vis the housing question cannot be confined to a position of impotent “social relief” (do-goodism). Only by such means will all future work in the field of architectural progress be transformed into a potent dialectical and political force.
Committed to constructivism, the architectural avant-garde must essentially assume a de-structive role in the capitalist context: it must promulgate with all its energy the negation of existing cities and existing ways of dwelling, and it must unmask the hoax and deceptions that are being spread abroad on the matter of housing. It must criticize the methods used today to address the housing shortage, analyze the housing market and its supply and demand, and expose the unwillingness of the bureaucracy and the government to put into place an effec-tive popular housing policy — in short, it must demonstrate that the inability of society to solve the housing crisis is one of the most intractable exigencies of the current ruling order.
Still, destruction implies a subsequent constructive effort. Accordingly, today’s archi-tectural avant-garde must actively support the struggle of the proletariat by means of its spe-cialist knowledge and not merely by utopian-political tracts, proceeding from a struggle for the partial improvement of healthy and humanly decent dwellings and a fair wage that will make worker’s houses affordable to the ultimate goal of the fundamental reconstruction of the whole economic and social order.
Modern architectural doctrine, initially conceived as a formalistic, antidecorative movement, has gradually become more profound and purified in its subsequent development. Over the years of its evolution from the intentions and manifestos of its early theories, modern archi-tecture has arrived at a stage where it always wanted to be: after all, constructivism was never supposed to become merely a new formal aesthetic formula, but was from the beginning con-ceived as a vehicle for changing the socioeconomic environment of humanity. Regrettably, during this process of purification, many architects stopped halfway, especially those with a weak spirit and mediocre talent. Many retreated from constructivism and modern archi-tectural principles, once they discovered that the development of new archiarchi-tectural ideas in practice not only carried with it aesthetic effects but also involved elements of social responsibility. Accordingly, to many authors this retreat signified not just a reduction of the original aims of constructivism but its complete perversion, leading to its opposite — that is, the reduction of architecture to a new formal aesthetic and the design of socially conservative works — thus resulting in an absurd pseudo-constructivism, which currently still prevails in certain architectural circles that would like to consider themselves modern. In effect, there is not a single phenomenon that under certain circumstances cannot be turned into its opposite.
It is therefore necessary to put primary emphasis on real social goals and insist on the need for a massive reevaluation of the new architecture. As it is, a fault line divides our world: there are two societies, two cultures, two sciences, two architectures.
It is also here that we encounter an essential distinction, a necessary parting of the ways in the various architectural factions of modernism. Authors who for a number of years had walked the same path are now parting ways: some turn right, others left; some stop halfway, acting as milestones on the road, which indicate to those following how little or how far they were able to advance. A few decide to get rid of the burden of dying ideas and instead forge boldly ahead. The majority chooses to hide behind their “professional” status, avoiding or ig-noring politics, but without noticing that this way they fall prey to the most wretched kind of political influence: fascism (just as many obstinate practitioners are ostensibly scornful of theory, but in reality are effectively inspired by theories hundreds of years old), best exempli-fied by Le Corbusier’s book Précisions [1930]. It is by such means that many authors display the limits of their strength, that is, by marking out the limit beyond which even they cease to be innovators and revolutionaries. By exposing their limitations today, in a period of up-heaval, they make clear that their time for playing the role of leaders has passed.
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It is in the form of the collective house that the architectural avant-garde must solve the prob-lem of the minimal dwelling. Collective dwellings are structures and design solutions of a higher quality than existing housing of the family-centered households type, and they are in stark conflict with the existing perception of the family as the primary social unit and the main-stay of the dominant family ideology. Collective housing represents the negation of existing forms of housing, best represented by family-based apartment house types in urban rental
buildings. Collective housing represents a future dwelling type, but it is not utopian. The rea-son for this is that everything that will be already exists in an embryonic state in that which is as an antithesis to that which endures now on a lower degree of quality, to be over-come by its own higher quality. The collective dwelling, which will be discussed in greater de-tail in the following chapters, responds to a social situation in which the family will cease to exist as a basic economic unit and the division of labor and the resulting inequalities between man and woman, parent and child, will be overcome. However, it should be noted that in to-day’s society there already exists a class — the proletariat — in which the family as an economic
buildings. Collective housing represents a future dwelling type, but it is not utopian. The rea-son for this is that everything that will be already exists in an embryonic state in that which is as an antithesis to that which endures now on a lower degree of quality, to be over-come by its own higher quality. The collective dwelling, which will be discussed in greater de-tail in the following chapters, responds to a social situation in which the family will cease to exist as a basic economic unit and the division of labor and the resulting inequalities between man and woman, parent and child, will be overcome. However, it should be noted that in to-day’s society there already exists a class — the proletariat — in which the family as an economic