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A. Aigner:
"Living in heritage-protected Modern Movement estates: taste, social inequality and cultural conflicts";
Vortrag: 2012 Annual Meeting AAG (American Association of Geographers) (Im)Mobilities of Dwelling: Places and Practices, New York (eingeladen); 24.02.2012 - 28.02.2012.

Sharing a common address or living in the same dwellings does not necessarily mean that residents share a common standard of living and lifestyle. This is also the case today with Modern Movement estates originally built for relatively homogenous social groups (mostly underprivileged, low-income families) during the interwar period. After a prolonged unobserved period of use accompanied by visible user adaption and improvement ('deformation' or 'disfigurement' in architects' jargon), conservation beginning in the 1980s has frequently led to the reconstruction of the 'original' exterior appearance of such buildings. But this exterior harmonization is at odds with different problems and radical changes taking place inside the houses. Above all, it tends to veil emerging social differences and differentiating modes of user appropriation. On the basis of two case studies - Le Corbusier's and Pierre Jeanneret's housing estate in Pessac (1924-1926) and the Vienna Werkbund estate (built by 32 international architects under the guidance of Josef Frank in the Viennese district Lainz in 1930-1932) - this paper considers the changes in social structure and of dwelling in modernist housing estates over time with a strong emphasis on relations of power and social inequality. Based on fieldwork and theoretical underpinnings from Pierre Bourdieu, it sheds light on how houses characterized by an 'aesthetic of necessity' become homes in more pretentious present times. It highlights that different types of lifestyle and user habits are related to class and cultural conflicts.

Modern Movement architecture, heritage-protected estates, user appropriation, transformation, aesthetics, taste, conflict, social inequality, Pierre Bourdieu

http://meridian.aag.org/callforpapers/program/AbstractDetail.cfm?AbstractID=44034