Collective housing and the city: invention without rupture

Abstract

Since the end of the 20th century, the "return to the city," announced in different ways, has been the focus of studies and proposals in urbanism and architecture. Topics such as the renewal of urban centers, creation of new districts, social housing and urban sustainability are on the agenda together with the discussion of the renewed importance of the sense of the polis. However, such actions, in their most meaningful examples, are accompanied by eccentric occupations of territory and the manipulation of old social structures. This article reviews some theoretical positions from the second half of the 20th century, which seem to reappear in contemporary architecture and urban projects. The goal is to identify concepts and methodologies appropriate to these interventions, essentially, "in context." This article brings examples from the 1950s through the 1990s in the shadow of the large objects designed by the star-system of globalized architecture, but which represent hypotheses apart from the unsustainable mega-structures promoted as great contemporary icons.