CIAM, Congrès internationaux d'architecture modern

(The International Congresses of Modern Architecture)

CIAM was formed one year before the building of the German Pavilion in Barcelona. Its foundation
marks the determination of Modernist architects to promote and finesse their theories. For nearly
thirty years the great questions of urban living, space, and belonging were discussed by CIAM
members. The documents they produced, and the conclusions they reached, had a tremendous
influence on the shape of cities and towns the world over.

Founded - June 1928

Location- the Chateau de la Sarraz in Switzerland,
Founders: 28 European architects organized by Le Corbusier, Hélène de Mandrot (owner of the castle), and Sigfried Giedion
Other founder members –
Karl Moser (first president) André Lurçat Henri-Robert Von der
Hendrik Berlage Ernst May Mühll,
 Victor Bourgeois Fernando García Mercadal Juan de Zavala
Pierre Chareau  Hannes Meyer El Lissitzky
Sven Markelius Werner M. Moser Nikolai Kolli 
Josef Frank Carlo Enrico Rava Moisei Ginzburg
Gabriel Guevrekian Gerrit Rietveld
Max Ernst Haefeli Alberto Sartoris
Hugo Häring Hans Schmidt
Arnold Höchel Mart Stam
Huib Hoste Rudolf Steiger
Pierre Jeanneret (cousin of Le Corbusier),  Szymon Syrkus
Other later members included Walter Gropius, Alvar Aalto, Uno Åhrén, Louis Herman De Koninck (1929) and Fred
Forbát.

Responsible for a series of events and congresses arranged around the world by the most prominent architects of the
time, with the objective of spreading the principles of the Modern Movement focusing in all the main domains of
architecture (such as landscape, urbanism, industrial design, and many others). CIAM was one of many 20th century
manifestos meant to advance the cause of "architecture as a social art".
CIAM I: 1928 - 1930 (Chateau of La Sarraz, Switzerland)
The La Sarraz Declaration
 
• Modern architecture includes a league between architectural phenomenon and prevailing economic
system
• Economic efficiency does not imply maximum usefulness, but production minimum work effort
• Need for maximum efficiency economy is the inevitable result of a impoverished economy
• The more efficient production method is the result of rationalization and standardization
• You will be given more emphasis on building than architecture, subjecting it to more extensive political
problems and economic considerations
• The quality of construction would depend therefore no artisans or workers but adopting rational
methods of production.
• The development should also be subject to a functional order, through policies collective ground .
Farewell to chaos in the subdivision of land , to speculation, to inheritance and the unfair distribution of
surplus resulting from public works
architecture could no longer exist in an isolated state separate from governments and politics, but that
economic and social conditions would fundamentally affect the buildings of the future.

As society became more industrialised, it was vital that architects and the construction industry
rationalise their methods, embrace new technologies and strive for greater efficiency. (Le Corbusier,
one of the movement's founders, often liked to compare the standardised efficiency of the motor
industry with the inefficiency of the building trade.)
CIAM II 1929
Frankfurt
• Invitation Ernst May, Head Department of Housing, Planning and Construction
• Subject: Affordable Housing
• Efficiency and economy in design and construction, 'May System' prefabricated slabs
• "Existence-minimum" standards of space, extensive use of integrated furniture (kitchens "Frankfurter Küche"
cabinets,wardrobes)
• Exhibition of drawings to the same scale, of various interventions (becomes rule for other centers)
• For the first time presented Walter Gropius, Alvar Aalto, José Luis Sert

CIAM III 1930

 Brussels
• Initiative Victor Bourgeois
• Theme: "Rational Methods for Site Plan" (detached house in a row, apartment buildings,
footpaths)
• New President: Cornelius van Eesteren planner, younger, representative of the future
approach CIAM
 

CIAM IV 1933: The Athens Charter

• express invitation of the USSR Association of Housing and Construction
• Theme: Urban Planning, "Functional City"
• Stalin does not allow its realization (against the avant-garde)
The Athens Charter
 
The fourth CIAM Congress in 1933 (theme: "The Functional City") consisted of an analysis of thirty-four cities and
proposed solutions to urban problems. The conclusions were published as "The Athens Charter".
This document remains one of the most controversial ever produced by CIAM. The charter effectively committed
CIAM to rigid functional cities, with citizens to be housed in high, widely-spaced apartment blocs. Green belts
would separate each zone of the city.

The Charter was not actually published until 1943, and its influence would be profound on public authorities in post-
war Europe.
FUNCTIONS:
  - Inhabiting: Home
- Work: workplaces
- Cultivate the body and spirit: recreation areas
- Circular Road and Transport
• Historical Heritage

PRODUCT:
• rigid functional zones, separated by green belts
• Only one type of urban housing, high-rise, widely separated
• Dogmatic, unworkable, paralyzing research on other types of housing
• Housing should take the best urban spaces
• Minimum of hours basking
  • Minimum distance between home and work
• Independent Living Industry Sectors
• Business Center (equipment) easy access to housing

RECREATION:
• All neighborhood with green surface necessary for games and sports
• Demolishing unhealthy apples and turn them into green areas
• That rivers, forests, hills, valleys, lakes, sea integrate
Circular:
CIAM VIII 1951

Hoddesdon, London
• Organized by MARS
• The 4 basis points of the Charter of Athens decided were insufficient
• "the heart of the city" was added
• Last period of CIAM that would be dedicated to the formation of the city center, followed by concern for human
habitat
• The pedestrian rights became a key point of planning
• the first sketches of Chandigarh is shown
• The old guard can not satisfactorily answer questions on the issue of the war, young people who become restless in
this predicament

CIAM IX 1953
The new generation opposed the basic categories of the Charter of Athens, criticizing its simplicity, and address
the issue of "identity", referring to the need for belonging and recognition of the district as the unit above the
housing

Habitat Charter

• Spatial relationships of the individual:

- Within the family
- With the community
- Need of stillness and isolation
- The need for contact with nature
- From passive observer to active participant
• Village, city and metropolis replaced by "human agglomeration"
• Contemporary architecture that starts with solving a problem
The End of CIAM
 
It didn't take long for architects to question the conclusions reached at Athens, and to worry
publicly about the sterility of the city envisioned by CIAM. Chief among these doubters were
young British architects Alison and Peter Smithson, who led a breakaway from CIAM in 1956.
Three years previously they had outlined their concerns; "Man may readily identify himself with
his own hearth, but not easily with the town within which it is placed. 'Belonging' is a basic
emotional need- its associations are of the simplest order. From 'belonging'- identity- comes the
enriching sense of neighbourliness.
The short narrow street of the slum succeeds where spacious redevelopment frequently fails."

The Smithsons worried that CIAM's ideal city would lead to isolation and community
breakdown, just as European governments were preparing to build tower blocks in their ruined
cities.

The last CIAM meeting was held in 1956. By the mid-1950s it was clear that the official
acceptance of Modernism was stronger than ever, and yet the concerns voiced by the
Smithsons and their allies that the movement was in danger of creating an urban landscape
which was hostile to social harmony, would rise to a crescendo in the decades to come.
CIAM succeeded in developing new architectural ideas into a coherent movement, but
Modernists would spend many years defending, and often undoing, its legacy.