- En savoir plus
- L'auteur
- 13 x 21 cm
- 328 pages
- 98 black and white illustrations
- ISBN: 978-2-9092-8378-4
- Text in French only
Maine-Montparnasse and La Défense are emblematic of the relationship between city and architecture which was established after the war. Demographic concentration, industrial decentralization and the advent of the tertiary sector required the remodeling of urban structures unsuitable for contemporary modes and speeds of travel, a major concern of the 1950s. From 1959, successive master plans established inventories of the projects to be undertaken: destruction of unsanitary islands, drilling of traffic routes, land consolidation. It was a "clean slate" policy with foundations in the rationalist theses of Le Corbusier and the conclusions of the Buchanan report, as well as in the utopian projects of Hugh Ferriss or Norman Bel Geddes. From the first drawings, where buildings appear in an abstract manner, to the creations of the mid-70s, we see the concept of the slab, the ideal base of the city of the future, being born, evolving, then disappearing, marking the end of an era where it was believed possible to modify the conditions of urban life.