nieuws / recensies

Candilis-Josic-Woods: dialectic of
modernity
15 december 2005 / Hans Teerds
ARCHITECTUUR, STEDENBOUW

According to George Candilis, Alexis Josic and Shadrach Woods, building for
the masses was the primary function of architecture and urban design. They
believed that humanism and regionalism were the two main concepts. Tom
Avermaete wrote a thesis on the design philosophy and work of the three.

1 Concept of 'trunk' in project for Caen-Herouville (France), 1961

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'And if there are no more cities, we return to savagery.' This is one of the two quotes
from Shadrach Woods with which Tom Avermaete begins his book. It's a quote that
rings differently in the weeks after the unrest in French suburbs. Certainly for those
who interpret the disturbances as a sign of a lack of civilisation, or a 'return to
savagery' as the English psychiatrist Theodore Dalrymple claims. Has the non-
urban character of the banlieues indeed been exposed? Woods and his colleagues
criticised the anti-urban character of these neighbourhoods before they were even
built. High density by means of high-rise building offered no guarantee of urban
character.
Candilis, Josic and Woods, who worked together from 1955 to 1968, are primarily
known as the French members of Team 10 and for their 1963 prize-winning
competition design for the Free University in Berlin. Avermaete discusses their
work in light of what philosopher René Boomkens calls the third stage of
modernity: the rise of the masses. Candilis-Josic-Woods saw building for the
masses as the most important task in architecture and urban design. To them this
was not a negative fact because after all, they argued, architecture should be based
on the underlying rationality of mass culture and mass production. They were not,
however, referring to the rational planning of the banlieues, which were being built
at the time. The banlieues were not based on the real lives of residents but on
standard dimensions. Yet if there was one thing that could not be standardised, they
insisted, then it was how people used the home and neighbourhood. According to
Avermaete, research into the everyday use of the built environment lay at the heart
of the work of Candilis-Josic-Woods and signalled an essential departure from the
Modern Movement.
The implications of this change are perhaps clearest in the project Cité Verticale in
Casablanca (1952), which Candilis and Woods developed before they were joined by
Josic. The two architects had met at the office of Le Corbusier while working on the
design of the Unité d'Habitation in Marseilles. They also took part the well-known
CIAM congresses and contributed to the development of the Grid, a presentation
system that was introduced by Le Corbusier at the sixth CIAM congress
(Bridgewater, 1947). The grid is a matrix of columns and rows in which projects can
be presented analytically. The analysis should illuminate categories such as
'surroundings', 'built volume' and 'economic and social influences', elaborated of
course with the four familiar CIAM elements: 'living', 'working', 'recreation' and
'infrastructure'.
After World War II Candilis and Woods travelled to the French colonies in North
Africa, where the mainly worked on housing projects. They were greatly influenced
by anthropological research carried out by the Service de l'Urbaniste into the
everyday living habits and surroundings of the rural population. They took this
research as the starting point for housing schemes such as the Cité Verticale, which
they presented at the ninth CIAM congress in Aix-en-Provence (1953). Their
presentation didn't respect the obligatory CIAM categories and elements. Instead, it
highlighted the living conditions and habits of the residents and showed how they
influenced the design. This was a fundamental shift in architectural perspective
that, according to Avermaete, cannot be dismissed as a vulgar generation conflict
between the old CIAM guard and the young enthusiastic generation. To him an
epistemological change had been revealed, a changed notion about how architecture
gathers information and what its sources are.

1 Concept of 'trunk' in project for Caen-Herouville (France), 1961

 2 Web project for reconstruction of Frankfurt Römerberg (Germany), 1963

In contrast to the CIAM approach based on standards and on separating urban

functions, Candilis-Josic-Woods (and Team 10) put forward residents and their
living habits as the source of knowledge for architecture. That is why Avermaete
calls the partnership 'epistemologists of the everyday'. It is precisely in everyday
usage, the architects claim, that the inextricable complexity of urban life is
expressed. Moreover, the home is where tradition and modernity come together.
The Cité Verticale design is based on the traditional patio-dwelling and takes as
starting point the meticulous transition from private to public domain in the
Islamic tradition. At the same time, the design unites traditional elements with
modernity such as multi-level buildings, technology and contemporary collective
amenities.
Avermaete contrasts this dialectic take on modernity - he calls it 'another modern' -
with the neo-rational (Rossi and co.), populist (Venturi and co.) and neo-modern
(Tschumi and co.) approaches. He argues that none of them arrived at a balanced
analysis of both the city and countryside, of tradition and modernity. The approach
taken by Candilis-Josic-Woods, he continues, is much more balanced, and all
aspects are accorded their own place. The architects recognised the huge impact of
modernisation on everyday life. Appliances such as the television, washing machine
and fridge became available to the masses. That not only changed daily routines but
also had an effect on the use of the urban fabric. Life withdrew from the public
domain into the increasingly comfortable dwelling, a development that sociologist
Henri Lefebvre calls the 'privatisation of life'. The increasing modernisation was not
only greeted positively but also seen as a threat. Major changes also entail loss.
Candilis-Josic-Woods took this twin experience of modernity as their starting point.
According to them the dwelling could mediate between modernity and tradition,
future and loss, identity and anonymity. The existing landscape and old village and
town centres could also strengthen the identity of new plans. Both visions come
together in two concepts in the work of Candilis-Josic-Woods cited by Avermaete:
humanism and regionalism. The concepts did not stand for standards and forms.
Rather, they were expressions of their concentration on the culture of living as
source, framework and content of architecture. Humanism stands for the focus on
man and his living habits, regionalism for its geographic expression. Within this
framework Candilis-Josic-Woods rediscovered the street, to them the ultimate
urban space. Not the street in its traditional appearance but, rather, the network of
relations between the various collective functions of the neighbourhood and the
private domain of residents. This idea resulted in the now-familiar concepts of
'stem' as the basis of the urban plan and the three-dimensional 'web' upon which
their design for the university in Berlin is based.
Another Modern is really amazing to read. Avermaete succeeds very well in placing
the work in its context, which is essential to understanding this architecture and
urban design. Moreover, the work is highly relevant today. Candilis-Josic-Woods
studied themes that are again the subject of discussion in architectural debate: the
importance of the landscape, the resilience of old structures, the city as network, the
street as ideal urban phenomenon, and the necessary flexibility of buildings and
urban plans. All of which makes you curious about the state of their work today.
Has their often highly utopian vision survived the ravages of time? Have their
dwellings and urban plans indeed been able to mediate between past and future -
even if the residents turned out to have very different patterns of life? Do their
urban plans survive the 'lost civilisation'? Answering these questions wasn't
Avermaete's aim. Only one thing remains to be added to this wonderful study: a
review of the completed work of the Candilis-Josic-Woods partnership.

info

Tom Avermaete, Another Modern, The Postwar Architecture and Urbanism of Candilis-Josic-
Woods, Rotterdam 2005, NAi Publishers, 432 pp., € 35.- ISBN 90-5662-463-3 (English edition)

Projects by Candilis, Josic and Woods are on view in the exhibition Team 10 - A Utopia of the
Present, which is on show until January 8 at the NAi, Museumpark, Rotterdam

www

Team 10

Tom Avermaete Stem and web: a different way of Analysing, Understanding and Conceiving
the City in the Work of Candilis-Josic-Woods(pdf)

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