Project

The spectacle of socialism. A transnational and interdisciplinary research on the social and architectural history of Workers’ Assembly Buildings in European cities (1890-1914).

Code
3G027811
Duration
01 January 2011 → 31 December 2014
Funding
Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO)
Research disciplines
  • Humanities and the arts
    • History
    • Architectural design
    • Architecture
    • Art studies and sciences
    • Interior architecture
    • Visual arts
  • Engineering and technology
    • Architectural engineering
    • Architecture
    • Interior architecture
Keywords
people’s house labour movements volkshuis socialism architecture workers’ assembly building maison du peuple History
 
Project description

This PhD aims to investigate the interactions and entanglements between architecture and the political culture of labour movements in prewar Europe by focusing on the architectural phenomenon of the often spectacular social democratic Maisons du Peuple or ‘People’s Houses’ that were built around the turn of the nineteenth to twentieth century in a wide range of European cities. The objective is a clear-cut transnational and interdisciplinary study which tries to unravel the ways architects dealt with the complex interdependence between ideology, self-affirmation, aesthetics and technology.