Customer Reviews

The Movement for Housing Reform in Germany and France, 1840-1914 (Cambridge Urban and Architectural Studies)

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This study still deserves reading even 20 years after its publication. It is a well written, very well documented analysis, with many illustrations, which has few equivalents even now. France and Germany are studied separately, and the general plan is quite analytic, not very original. The reader will also find many useful and suggestive remarks comparing the situation of these countries with english situation. An authoritative book, which will give a mine of informations and should so stay on the list of people interested by history of housing for many years. However the readers who look for exciting focus of analysis might be deceived. Many pages are concerned with the discussions of reformer, may be too much, what gives a picture quite technical and deprived of any sociological imagination. It lacks some breath even if there are chapters with insightful remarks on architectural evolutions of dwellings. Evolutions of private/public spheres, popular ways of living are not really discussed.
A good introduction (even a very good one), which gives detailed accounts of housing reform and informs on the historical context (notably economic, scientific and architectural), but readers eager of suggestive propositions will complement this by other readings. After all, this might well correspond to what the book was intended for.