Dr. Alessandro Porotto, expert on European Interwar housing based at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland, and author of L'intelligence des formes : Le projet de logements collectifs à Vienne et à Francfort, will conduct research at Emory with Professor Christina Crawford in the Spring 2020 semester. Porotto won a Swiss National Science Foundation grant for the collaborative project “Collective Housing Atlanta - Vienna: Mapping Interwar Connections.”
Between 1919 and 1934, the widely celebrated architecture and planning effort in so-called Red Vienna provided 63,000 new affordable dwellings for the city’s working class. This initiative was fully conducted and funded by the Viennese socialist municipality. The new housing projects, situated within the urban fabric of the Vienna’s speculative outskirts, contributed to the re-organization and development of the city. Through this period, Red Vienna became one of the most impactful examples of social housing in Europe. Atlanta’s Charles Palmer visited Vienna and toured these projects in his 1934 Grand Tour of European housing; significant Viennese materials sit in Palmer’s papers at Emory University's Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library. The main hypothesis of the proposed research project is that the connections established between Atlanta and Vienna realized collective housing accomplishments that were innovative during the Interwar period and are still relevant references for contemporary and future housing design from a collective perspective.
For Dr. Porotto’s research and publications, please visit his Researchgate profile. Some of his beautiful analytical drawings of Frankfurt and Vienna interwar housing can be seen below.
