At Home in Postwar France: Modern Mass Housing and the Right to Comfort by Nicole C. Rudolph (review)

In this deeply researched and dense study of state housing policy in postwar France, Nicole C. Rudolph argues that debates about the organization of domestic interiors became a battleground on which politicians, bureaucrats, and designers fought over what it meant to be a modern French citizen. Six chapters track variations in proposed and built examples of state-sponsored housing units as the government sought to optimize its financial and ideological investments in housing construction from the 1940s to the 1970s. Rudolph chronicles overt and subtle changes in the organization of residential spaces, including the number and size of rooms, the layout of kitchens, and the location of living and sleeping areas. She shows that even small changes to floor plans were intended to encourage modern ways of living as understood by experts working in the state bureaucracy.

Chapter 1 describes the first postwar attempts to design ideal units based on scientific principles of hygiene and functionality. Rudolph writes that the state was moving toward a "one-size-fits-all home," but that early experiments with model units revealed that "rather than the modern home having to accommodate how real people lived, occupants were going to be expected to adapt to the modern home" (p. 32). This antagonism between residents and the experts appears as a theme throughout the book. Chapter 2 focuses on the interwar history of the architectural profession in France and its engagement with the housing question. Rudolph provides a brief summary of French avant-garde proposals for ideal apartments, including designs by Le Corbusier and fellow members of the Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM). The chapter follows these architects into the 1940s, when they had opportunities to test ideas in state-funded projects, the best known of which is Le Corbusier's Unité d'habitation in Marseilles. The third chapter steps away from the chronological development of the units and looks to the postwar years of the Salon des Arts Ménagers (SAM). This annual exhibition, which ran from 1923 to 1983, was devoted to "educating the French" in the "art of living" and in-spiring women to become the "perfect" housewives (p. 87). In its postwar incarnation, the SAM advertised appliances, home decorating techniques, and even full-scale model homes that showed off a middle-class consumer lifestyle.

Chapters 4 and 5 return to the design of apartment units. By the mid-1950s, the slow rate of housing construction in France, especially in comparison to Great Britain and West Germany, created a sense of urgency and crisis. Chapter 4 discusses the grands ensembles that dominated state housing programs in this decade and examines the range of options offered across economic strata from minimum units for the poor to those for the middle class. For all units, the total square meters decreased and transitional spaces such as foyers and hallways were removed. Chapter 5 looks at the qualitative results of these efforts, especially in the opinions of housewives. Experts conducted surveys with residents who often expressed dismay at the inflexibility of their new spaces. Some architects dismissed the complaints as a failure to adapt to modern design, but Rudolph shows that apartment layouts did start to reflect these concerns. The final chapter follows the growth of the suburbs in the 1960s as more single-family homes were built. Even William Levitt, the developer of the American Levittowns, built 5,000 French suburban houses in the 1970s. Many French architects rejected this suburbanization and argued for regulatory reform to make it easier to finance new buildings in dense urban neighborhoods. After 1968 they left behind the functionalist one-size-fits-all model and promoted individual approaches to unit design while remaining committed to urban sites and state funding.

Rudolph is writing for a French studies audience that is assumed to be well-versed in political and social history. This is both a strength and...