This book is about the role played by architects, engineers and planners
in transforming France during the three post-war decades of growing
prosperity, a period when modernisation was a central priority of the
state, promising a way forward from the shame of defeat in 1940 to a
place at the centre of the new Europe.
The first part of the book examines the scale of transformation, showing
how architecture and urbanism both served the cause of modernisation and
shaped the identity of the new France. Mainstream modernism was co-opted
to the service of the state, from major public buildings to Gaullist
plans for the transformation of Paris to establish the city as the
'capital' of Europe.
By contrast, the second part of the book explores the critique of
state-sponsored modernisation by radical architects from Le Corbusier to
the young Turks of the 1960s such as Georges Candilis and the students
who attacked the banality of mainstream modernism and its inability to
address the growing problems of France's cities. Following May 1968, the
Beaux-Arts was closed, the Grand Prix de Rome, symbol of the old order,
abolished - for a while the establishment might continue as before, but
progressive architecture was set on a new course.
Beautifully illustrated and written to be accessible to all, the book
sets the discussion of architecture and urbanism in its social,
political and economic contexts. As such, it will appeal both to
students and scholars of the history of architecture and urbanism and to
those with a wider interest in France's post-war history.
