In the years of reconstruction and economic boom that followed the Second World War, the domestic sphere encountered new expectations regarding social behaviour, modes of living, and forms of dwelling. This book brings together an international group of scholars from architecture, design, urban planning, and interior design to reappraise mid-twentieth century modern life, offering a timely reassessment of culture and the economic and political effects on civilian life.

This collection contains essays that examine the material of art, objects, and spaces in the context of practices of dwelling over the long span of the postwar period. It asks what role material objects, interior spaces, and architecture played in quelling or fanning the anxieties of modernism's ordinary denizens, and how this role informs their legacy today.

About the Author

Robin Schuldenfrei is Junior Professor of Art History at Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin.

Reviews

"Describing a vast spectrum in terms of material scale, from Knoll's furniture pieces to the new neighbourhoods of Apulia, as well as in terms of time, from the Second World War to the early 1970s, this collection of well-carved essays unveils an intriguing choreography of ideologies and form. Between social engineering and mass marketing, four decades of tensions are discussed in a book that fills numerous gaps in the main narrative scanning architecture and design during the Cold War."

Jean-Louis Cohen, Institute of Fine Art, New York University

"Atomic Dwelling investigates a problem posed by modernism's cold war apogee: that of habitation in an era that offered rising affluence and potential nuclear annihilation. Its incisive essays assemble an innovative and unsettling vista of modernist practice and pedagogy in an age of anxiety."

Greg Castillo, University of California, Berkeley

Book Information
ISBN 9780415676090
Author Robin Schuldenfrei
Format Paperback
Page Count 306
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 544g