Events

Seminar: Affordable social housing 1910s-1930s. A comparative study

The focus of the seminar is on working class and/or low-income neighbourhood areas of the interwar period and their impact in the overall urban design of part of the cities.
Black and white image from museum archives presenting children on a yard playing
Helsinki City museum archive photo

Following up the first event (held at Polytechnic University of Marche, Ancona, Italy) of the namesake series, this is the second day of seminar promoted by Aino Niskanen (Professor Emerita, Aalto University).

The focus of the seminar is on working class and/or low-income neighbourhood areas of the interwar period and their impact in the overall urban design of part of the cities. The attention goes also more in general to the city, spanning from the smaller scale of the dwelling units to the larger scale of the communal areas. As starting point for the comparative study, the Nordic interventions of the period play a central role for the present series of research seminars – because these are still little known outside the borders. But, the goal is to widen the analysis via the inclusion of coeval cases study designed in other countries in order to portray a larger and more solid overview of housing policies. The comparative look aims to draw on the specificities and common aspects among the different policies and housing estates.

The seminars encourage different methodologies like historical and research by design, bearing in mind how the formulation of affordable social housing policies in the 1910s-1930s encompassed multifaceted domain of knowledges and expertise.

Where             in presence  

Aalto UniversityBachelor Centre, Otakaari 1X, Espoo Lecture hall A1 

                        virtual presence Teams Link  

10.00 Opening addresses
Heleni Porfyriou, Coordinator of the GUDesign Network (Genealogy of Urban Design), CNR National Research Council, ISPC - Institute of Heritage Sciences
Aino Niskanen, Promoter of the Thematic Seminar, Professor Emerita, Aalto University

10.10 Introduction
Johan Mårtelius
Professor Emeritus, KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Nordic connections in 1920s housing

10.30 Monica Andersson
Chairman of Samfundet S:t Erik, Senior lecturer in Political Science, Stockholm University
Hallman in Stockholm – Garden City Movement in Artistic Town-Planning for working Class Families

11.00 Martin Søberg
Associate Professor, Royal Danish Academy, PhD, Architect
Kay Fisker and Social Housing in Denmark c. 1920–1940

11.30 Markus Lähteenmäki
University of Helsinki, PhD art historian
Leningrad: New Landscapes – Leningrad workers’ housing 1924–1930s

12.00-12.30 discussions on the presentations

12.30-13.00 lunch break

13.00-13.30 Aino Niskanen
Professor Emerita, Aalto University
On early affordable housing in Helsinki

13.30-14.00 Simo Paavilainen
Professor Emeritus, Aalto University
Wooden Käpylä – its town plan and architecture

14.00-14.30 Pekka Heikkinen
Professor, Aalto University
Innovative and sensitive with scarce resources – is it even possible

14.30-15.00 discussions on the presentations

15.00-16.00 roundtable and conclusion about next thematic seminar
 

The thematic seminar positions in the framework of the GUDesign network (Genealogy of Urban Design), with a particular regard to the program of activities coordinated within the Nordic Node group by Johan Mårtelius (Professor Emeritus, KTH Royal Institute of Technology), Chiara Monterumisi (Post Doc Fellow, University of Bologna, PhD and architect) and Antonello Alici (Associate Professor, Polytechnic University of Marche, Ancona).

For more information or technical issue, please contact [email protected]

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