Network 45plus: Post-War Architecture in Europe

Community Spaces Conception – Appropriation – Identity

Large housing estates of the post-war era have shaped the face of many
cities throughout Europe. In the original plans of the 1950s-1980s they
were to amend the urban structure and in many cases they were expected
to enable a superior form of communality and urbanity. The estates were
built to ease the housing shortage, but were also thought to quite
literally become the home for a “new society”, be it under socialist
regimes or the democratic welfare state. The reformation of society was
linked to plans for a constructed environment and was expected to be
supported by through the environment of the estates and, most
crucially, their community spaces.

By focusing on community spaces, such as community centers, schools,
churches, hospitals, shopping districts but also parks, open spaces and
sport-grounds, this 45plus conference addresses spaces that were
thought to be a particularly important points of identification for the
“new societies” these estates were expected to foster. Community spaces
were planned in order to hold the housing estates together – as well
designed and attractive built environments, as social hubs and
especially as symbolic anchors. Quite often, they boasted prominent
design features, intended to serve as recognisable markers of the
estates and their programmatic subtexts. While planners and politicians
conceptualized community spaces with their potential to shape
identification in view, communities tended to appropriate such spaces
in different ways and to reinterpret their meanings. In short, local
inhabitants – as well as the broader public – possibly identified with
community spaces, their individual features and with the ideas and
practices they associated with them in significantly different ways
than originally intended. Today, the continuing tension between
intention and appropriation of community spaces can be understood as an
indicator of identification processes and appears to be one of the
major challenges in the redevelopment of large housing estates, but
might also provide unexpected opportunities.

For the conference we are seeking papers on community spaces in
large-scale housing estates of the 1950s-1980s that either explore the
original conceptualization or the subsequent appropriation in their
relevance for the development of and especially the identification with
the estates. We specifically encourage contributions that compare and
contrast intended and actual processes of identification and
appropriation. As an interdisciplinary endeavor, the conference aims to
draw together architectural analyses of individual buildings, public
spaces, the morphology of the estates and their urban design on the one
hand and research on the conception, the public perception, and the use
of individual features as well as complete ensembles of community
spaces from historical, sociological and political backgrounds on the
other hand.

Proposals should be submitted to 45plusfgstadt.org by April 22, 2012.
We will notify accepted paper-givers by May 6, 2012.

The organizing committee: Maren Harnack, FH Frankfurt am Main Sebastian
Haumann, TU Darmstadt Mario Tvrtkovic, TU Darmstadt Tobias Michael
Wolf, Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Hessen