Housing Histories: New Research Strategies for Twentieth-Century Residential Architecture

Housing Histories explores how the study of 20th-century housing has posed specific problems for architectural historians, and how it has - as a result - yielded radically innovative approaches and methodologies of significance for the wider field of architectural history.

Global research in architectural history is currently witnessing a tension between ’conservative’ approaches rooted in traditional procedures (the study of archival sources, the close material observation of buildings) and ’critical’ approaches that push for a radical change in narratives and attitudes.

This book presents a collection of new research practices which explore unusual or hybrid methodologies. Fifteen leading architectural historians from different academic and cultural contexts present their own approaches to the historical study of modern dwelling landscapes, testing a variety of questions, methods and instruments, showing how these can be used within the context of a specific case study, and showing how the methodological choices made in the reconstruction of the history of places can effectively challenge shared public narratives about the spatial and social geography of cities.

The four parts of the book relate to specific areas of methodological innovation: the study of ordinary actors and processes by means of non-standard sources; the use of micro-historical and anthropological fieldwork; the use of exhibitions and public history initiatives as research tools; and a re-appraisal of the role played by urban and national histories within multi-scalar research agendas. The stories presented in the case-studies offer a nuanced and stereotype-free representation of 20th-century housing environments, altogether revealing the history of modern housing as a rich testing ground for experimenting with practices and methodologies of historical inquiry.

Gaia Caramellino is Associate Professor of Architectural History at Politecnico di Milano, Italy.

Filippo De Pieri is Professor of Architectural History at Politecnico di Torino, Italy.