Hans Scharoun's 'dwelling cells' and the autonomy of architecture

The paper argues that Hans Scharoun’s articulation of the Siedlung Siemensstadt (1929 – 1931) and Charlottenburg Nord (1956 – 1961) exemplify a process of typological reasoning about how to house and group the urban population, hyperarticulating the spatial needs of the modern domestic family and it...

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Main Author: Borsi, Katharina
Format: Article
Published: Taylor & Francis 2018
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/46452/
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author Borsi, Katharina
author_facet Borsi, Katharina
author_sort Borsi, Katharina
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description The paper argues that Hans Scharoun’s articulation of the Siedlung Siemensstadt (1929 – 1931) and Charlottenburg Nord (1956 – 1961) exemplify a process of typological reasoning about how to house and group the urban population, hyperarticulating the spatial needs of the modern domestic family and its correlative of the neighbourhood, helping to mobilise the aspirations of the autonomous individual targeted by liberal government. This account does not support the insistence on modernism’s break with the past as the canon of architectural histories suggest. Instead, it demonstrates a continuity of spatial reasoning about the socio political concept of the family and the neighbourhood as established at the beginning of the twentieth century, taken up by architectural modernism’s impetus for experimentation. Conversely, the strategic value of typology is not seen as simply providing a spatial field of social intervention as the recent literature on urban governmentality suggests. Instead, it is typology’s particular formal and organisational specificity that allows its alignment with defined governmental strategies, continually problematizing the space and the government of the urban population.
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spelling nottingham-464522020-05-04T18:57:24Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/46452/ Hans Scharoun's 'dwelling cells' and the autonomy of architecture Borsi, Katharina The paper argues that Hans Scharoun’s articulation of the Siedlung Siemensstadt (1929 – 1931) and Charlottenburg Nord (1956 – 1961) exemplify a process of typological reasoning about how to house and group the urban population, hyperarticulating the spatial needs of the modern domestic family and its correlative of the neighbourhood, helping to mobilise the aspirations of the autonomous individual targeted by liberal government. This account does not support the insistence on modernism’s break with the past as the canon of architectural histories suggest. Instead, it demonstrates a continuity of spatial reasoning about the socio political concept of the family and the neighbourhood as established at the beginning of the twentieth century, taken up by architectural modernism’s impetus for experimentation. Conversely, the strategic value of typology is not seen as simply providing a spatial field of social intervention as the recent literature on urban governmentality suggests. Instead, it is typology’s particular formal and organisational specificity that allows its alignment with defined governmental strategies, continually problematizing the space and the government of the urban population. Taylor & Francis 2018-11-02 Article PeerReviewed Borsi, Katharina (2018) Hans Scharoun's 'dwelling cells' and the autonomy of architecture. Journal of Architecture, 23 (7-8). pp. 1104-1142. ISSN 1466-4410 Scharoun Modernist Housing Siedlungen Domesticity https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13602365.2018.1513418 doi:10.1080/13602365.2018.1513418 doi:10.1080/13602365.2018.1513418
spellingShingle Scharoun
Modernist Housing
Siedlungen
Domesticity
Borsi, Katharina
Hans Scharoun's 'dwelling cells' and the autonomy of architecture
title Hans Scharoun's 'dwelling cells' and the autonomy of architecture
title_full Hans Scharoun's 'dwelling cells' and the autonomy of architecture
title_fullStr Hans Scharoun's 'dwelling cells' and the autonomy of architecture
title_full_unstemmed Hans Scharoun's 'dwelling cells' and the autonomy of architecture
title_short Hans Scharoun's 'dwelling cells' and the autonomy of architecture
title_sort hans scharoun's 'dwelling cells' and the autonomy of architecture
topic Scharoun
Modernist Housing
Siedlungen
Domesticity
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/46452/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/46452/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/46452/