Making a New World: Architecture and Communities in Interwar Europe

In the changing world of interwar Europe a longing for stability rose to the surface of social life. Newly developed neighbourhoods and buildings were designed to create the healing community that many people were dreaming of. Various social groups with nationalist, ideological, or religious agendas made this concept of community a cornerstone in their framework and appropriated it to prescribe the relations between architecture and modernity. Making a New World analyses the various ways in which these relations were determined.Most reformers encountered the potentialities of modernity, such as technology or mass media, in an accommodating way. In a broad spectrum of actions and proposals―from art exhibitions to séances, photo reports to roof tiles, landscapes to sanitation―these individuals were hoping to create a universe in which their communal dream could become a reality. The contributions to this richly illustrated volume draw the contours of this new world by analysing its foundations and working mechanisms at its heart.

Rajesh Heynickx teaches Art History at Universiteit Antwerpen and Sint-Lucas Architectuur Gent-Brussel.