A fascinating investigation of the World War I origins of mass-produced architecture. Mass-produced housing became increasingly prevalent throughout the second half of the twentieth century and is now found around the globe. Though its popularity and growing adoption have been primarily associated with the post–World War II housing boom, Etien Santiago weaves together architectural, construction, and sociopolitical history to reveal how its foundations were laid earlier, during World War I.
Before World War I, buildings constructed serially—quickly, cheaply, and in large numbers—were typically limited to utilitarian colonial or military applications. Such buildings were also assumed to be temporary. Yet the Great War shattered these assumptions, prompting architects, designers, and engineers to adapt military advances in construction to create a new form of permanent residential architecture. A Barrage of Houses charts the rise of mass-produced dwellings in France from 1914 to the mid-1920s, as illustrated by housing designs by Auguste and Gustave Perret, Henri Sauvage, and Le Corbusier. Through their use of concrete, metal, modular wooden components, and new materials, these housing schemes addressed both the tangible fallout of the war and its thorny conceptual challenges.
