The label «People’s home» coined by Swedish Social-Democrats expresses the first step towards the 1930s, 40s and early 50s, which would make Sweden a model for war-ravaged Europe. But “people” and “home” attracted planners, architects, co-operatives and politicians well before. The aim of this article is to trace the origins of their social concerns in first initiatives of land policies and mass-housing by discussing spatial experiments with housing districts on Stockholm’s fringe in the 1910s and 20s.

Frankfurt, Vienna and Stockholm: three European cities which played a fundamental role in the housing policies implemented during the inter-war period. The research projects and teaching activity carried out at the EPFL in the Laboratory of Construction and Conservation focuses on this specific historic context. The experiences of these three cities with regard to housing are well documented from a historical viewpoint that, however, show many shortcomings with regards to the architectural analysis. The provided examples sum up simultaneously the social dynamics, the cultural milieu, as well as the adopted intentions and political programme. The exhibition aims at producing fresh knowledge of the three contributions to modern housing available to students, scholars, professors and architectural practitioners. The goal is to compare a selection of remarkable housing neighbourhoods through the different scales of the project, ranging from the relation with the city till the dwelling unit layout. The produced drawings and documents show the morphological and typological variety. Frankfurt, Vienna and Stockholm equally illustrate different ways of designing the collective space—that is the intermediary space in-between the communal and private – which is a crucial feature of the “living together”.

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Far from nostalgically celebrate the 90th anniversary of the second CIAM, which indeed opened in October 1929 in Frankfurt, the present issue is intended as collective work, a springboard which aims to widen the debate over housing experiences beyond geographical and temporal frameworks. The focus of that event, the Existenzminimum, has often been cited as representing a fundamental contribution to the rational design of the modern dwelling. But the debates during that event went beyond the definition of this concept, because demonstrated, on the one hand, how the responsibility of architects would imply the resolution of multiple technical aspects, starting from the typological concern stretching towards the town planning aspects, and on the other hand, the calling to develop a multifaceted intellectual vision of society. Though the title selected for the present issue, namely ‘Housing Builds Cities’, denotes the different scales of the project, the aim is to achieve a something more. First and foremost, the objective is not strictly confined to a historical understanding of facts around the 1929 congress. Today a critically objective approach is useful to examine past contributions and, if applicable, their actualization. Secondly, this special issue intends to address the CIAMs’ theoretical and architectural legacy. The hypothesis on their interpretation suggests that these are still topical issues today. The issue comprises fourteen articles which investigate, through different applied methodologies, the years from the first steps of the CIAMs to the 1929 aftermath, analyze the post-war production and explore many case-studies, of which some are also geographically far from a Euro-centric vision as well as contemporary realities.

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