Kees Somer

The Functional City
CIAM and the legacy of Van Eesteren

Design: Joseph Plateau, Illustrated (colour and b/w), hardback, 304 pages, Size: 24.5 x 30.0 cm
English edition, ISBN 978-90-5662-576-4 , € 59.50
Dutch edition, ISBN 978-90-5662-575-7, € 59.50

With the support of the Van Eesteren-Fluck & Van Lohuizen Foundation

Dutch architect Cornelis van Eesteren served as president of CIAM from 1930 to 1947. This volume about Cornelis van Eesteren (1897–1988) and CIAM fills a hiatus in the existing literature. The main focus is CIAM’s legendary fourth congress about ‘The Functional City’, which was held in the summer of 1933 and chaired by Van Eesteren. There is special consideration for the underexposed but vital contribution of the Dutch CIAM group and the town planner Cornelis van Eesteren.

The leitmotif in this narrative is the principle of collectivity: the avant-garde ideal of concerted action as the basis for the creation of a thoroughly contemporary human habitat. The evolution of CIAM is traced using the abundance of archived material that reveals its inner workings. Delving beneath the surface of the ‘official’ history affords insight into the quest for a unique position, role and methodology within the architectural and urban development spectrum.

The book examines the positioning of CIAM during its early years, before probing more deeply into the pursuit of collectivity and the idea of CIAM as a cooperative, which was primarily embraced by its Dutch and Swiss members.

The city analyses conducted by CIAM members for the 1933 congress made an important contribution to ‘comparative town planning’, which was developed in Europe during the early decades of the 20th century. After 1936, CIAM found itself in a crisis from which it never truly recovered, despite a post-war revival, and certainly not in the wake of Van Eesteren’s influential presidency. The rapidly expanding association became a global institution in the 1950s, but its influence was waning and the rebellious ‘Team 10’ group would subsequently play a greater role.