The Ciam Discourse on Urbanism, 1928-1960

CIAM (Congres Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne), founded in Switzerland in 1928,was an avant-garde association of architects intended to advance both modernism and internationalismin architecture. CIAM saw itself as an elite group revolutionizing architecture to serve theinterests of society. Its members included some of the best-known architects of the twentiethcentury, such as Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, and Richard Neutra, but also hundreds of others wholooked to it for doctrines on how to shape the urban environment in a rapidly changing world.In thisfirst book-length history of the organization, architectural historian Eric Mumford focuses onCIAM's discourse to trace the development and promotion of its influential concept of the"Functional City." He views official doctrines and pronouncements in relation to the changingcircumstances of the members, revealing how CIAM in the 1930s began to resemble a kind ofsyndicalist party oriented toward winning over any suitable authority, regardless of politicalorientation. Mumford also looks at CIAM's efforts after World War II to find a new basis for asocially engaged architecture and describes the attempts by the group of younger members called Team10 to radically revise CIAM's mission in the 1950s, efforts that led to the organization'sdissolution in 1959.

Eric Mumford is Assistant Professor at the School of Architecture, Washington University in St. Louis.