High-rise Housing in Europe
Current Trends & Future Prospects
By Richard Turkington, et al.
September 2004
Delft University Press
ISBN: 9040724830
284 pages, Illustrated, 6 ½" x 9 ½"
$87.50 Paper Original
Whilst every country has its own house-building traditions, there is only one truly European housing type. In the generation after the Second World War, countries throughout Europe built high-rise housing in the public sector as the 'modern' response to acute housing shortage.
North and south, east and west, similar dreams were shared in different political cultures, high-rise was an expression of the new Europe. A generation later, products which shared similar starting points have reached very different positions. This book attempts to tell the story of high-rise housing in 15 European countries, from first thoughts to current realities and finally to future prospects.
What is clear is that, irrespective or its status and quality, high-rise housing is here to stay. No country is in a position to ignore this legacy of the post-war and mass housing period. We have to be equipped to assess the contribution of high-rise housing and to determine its future - this book is a major contribution to developing this perspective.
Contents include: High-rise housing estates in Europe, The changing position of high-rise housing estates: Background developments, Sweden: high-rise housing in a low-density country, Denmark: Limited problems but intensive action, Finland: High-rise in suburbs in the forest, Italy: High-rise as an urban way of life since the Roman Empire, Spain: High-rise housing as urban phenomenon, France: From dreams to disillusion, Belgium: The impact of modernism in a divided country, The Netherlands: Modernist housing in a developed welfare state, Britain: High-rise as a doubtful guest, Germany: Common legacy from a divided past, Poland: A future for the 'blokowisko'?, Ukraine: Inheritance of centralized planning, Slovakia: A continuing role for high-rise housing estates, Hungary: From socialist ideology to market reality, Slovenia: Effects of privatization, Prospects for high-rise housing estates.
Urban Studies
Housing & Urban Policy Studies, No. 28
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