From Vienna to Shangri-La: competing visions of the modern and new in Birmingham’s municipal housing

Summary

During the 1920s and 1930s local authorities from across Britain visited municipal housing schemes in continental Europe to learn more about the provision of new homes. This included representatives from Birmingham, Britain’s second-largest city, in the midst of replacing crowded urban dwellings. The Birmingham Corporation was particularly impressed by inner-city estates in Hamburg, Vienna and Prague, illustrating their recommendations with photographs of flowerbeds, communal facilities and plumbed-in bathrooms. Enthusiasm for building similar apartments in Birmingham, containing up-to-date medical, educational and social facilities, close to shops and workplaces, was clear.

The communal lifestyle offered by urban apartments meant something different to residents back home: a reminder of poverty endured in the city’s crowded back-to-backs. This paper will examine the conflict between competing visions of modernity offered by urban apartments versus the private, manicured spaces of back gardens, front parlours and automobiles preferred by many residents and offered by suburban cottage estates. 

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Archaeology Of Interwar Europe (1918-1939)   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2018

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 1065