https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0401-8430
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Abstract
Techwood Homes (1937) in Atlanta, Georgia, was both the first federally funded public housing in the US and a synthesis of early twentieth-century European mass housing accomplishments. This article uses Techwood as a lens through which to view transnational design exchange in the Interwar/New Deal period — here, between Red Vienna and Jim Crow Atlanta. In 1933, Atlanta real-estate mogul turned housing crusader Charles F. Palmer secured funding through Roosevelt’s New Deal for Techwood Homes. In 1934, Palmer took a grand tour of European social housing sites to gather precedents for Atlanta. Vienna was a highlight of his trip. Palmer met policymakers to learn about financing, toured the Karl Marx-Hof and other municipal socialist housing projects, took his own photographs and moving picture films, and gathered promotional materials. Concrete urban design connections between the Hof and the Homes include: low site coverage (around 15%), rational yet non-rigid site planning, efficient housing units, abundant collective facilities, and high-quality garden and playground design. A comparative analysis of the two sites allows for critical assessment of why, how, and in what ways European housing principles crossed the Atlantic, and how urban design ideas are globalised then adjust to local scale.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 The Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss, an ‘Austrofascist’ who dissolved parliament in 1933 and installed autocratic rule, was assassinated by Nazi agents on 25 July 1934, just as the Palmers arrived in the city. The European edition of the New York Herald newspaper, with the Dollfuss news highlighted, is in Box 37, Folder 3, Charles F. Palmer Papers, Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University (hereafter Palmer Papers).
2 The late Dollfuss was no admirer of the Gemeindebauten. In February 1934, his militia attacked the housing blocks to oust armed socialist sympathisers. After three days of fighting, Dolfuss’s troops defeated the Red Viennese resistance. See Eve Blau, The Architecture of Red Vienna, 1919–1934 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999), p. 2.
3 Approval found in Robert D. Kohn to C. F. Palmer, ‘Approval of Projects No. H-148 (Techwood) and H-161 (University) of the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works’, 13 October 1933, Box 38, Folder 4, Palmer Papers.
4 Daniel T. Rodgers, Atlantic Crossings Social Politics in a Progressive Age (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998), p. 4.
5 Tom Avermaete and Cathelijne Nuijsink, ‘Architectural Contact Zones: Another Way to Write Global Histories of the Post-War Period?’, Architectural Theory Review, 25.3 (2021), 350–61 (p. 354) <https://doi.org/10.1080/13264826.2021.1939745>.
6 The International Federation for Town and Country Planning and Garden Cities (IFTCPGC), founded in 1913, transformed into the IFHTP in 1926. See Renzo Riboldazzi, ‘The IFHTP Congresses between the Wars: A Source for Studies on Modern Town Planning’, The Town Planning Review, 84.2 (2013), 159–60.
7 Edith Elmer Wood, Housing Progress in Western Europe (Boston, MA: Dutton, 1923). For more on Wood’s travels, see Eugenie Ladner Birch, ‘Edith Elmer Wood and the Genesis of Liberal Housing Thought, 1910–1942’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Columbia University, 1976), chapter VI.
8 Louis H. Pink, The New Day in Housing (New York, NY: John Day, 1928), pp. 63, 188.
9 Catherine Bauer, Modern Housing (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1934), p. l.
10 H. Peter Oberlander and Eva Newbrun, Houser: The Life and Work of Catherine Bauer (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2014), pp. 68–9.
11 Gail Radford notes that ‘projects sponsored by [local low-profit or completely non-commercial developers] would have been more in keeping with the American ideology of grassroots initiative than ones originated and owned by a federal agency’. See Gail Radford, Modern Housing for America: Policy Struggles in the New Deal Era (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996), p. 94.
12 See Eric J. Sandeen, ‘The Design of Public Housing in the New Deal: Oskar Stonorov and the Carl Mackley Houses’, American Quarterly, 37.5 (1985), 645–67 <https://doi.org/10.2307/2712614>; and Richard Pommer, ‘The Architecture of Urban Housing in the United States during the Early 1930s’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 37.4 (1978), 235–64.
13 Rodgers, Atlantic Crossings, p. 4.
14 For a full discussion of the University Homes federal housing project for Black families and its European connections, see Christina E. Crawford, ‘Black Community Building: New Deal Programmatic Advocacy at Atlanta’s University Homes’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 81.2 (2022), 213–34 <https://doi.org/10.1525/jsah.2022.81.2.213>.
15 ‘The making of the Atlantic era in social politics […] required new sorts of brokers to span the connection’; see Rodgers, Atlantic Crossings, p. 4.
16 Alessandro Porotto, ‘Vienna’s Höfe: How Housing Builds the Collective’, in Architecture and Collective Life (London: Routledge, 2021), pp. 170–81.
17 See United States Housing Authority, Urban Housing: The Story of the P.W.A. Housing Division, 1933–1936, Bulletin No. 2 (Washington, D.C.: US Government Printing Office, 1936), p. 67; and United States Housing Act of 1937 / Wagner–Steagall Act, 50 Stat. 888, 1937.
18 Charles F. Palmer, Adventures of a Slum Fighter (Atlanta, GA: Tupper and Love, 1955), p. 4.
19 G. M. Stout, ‘Against Public Housing’, in Proceedings of the Conference on Low Cost Housing (Atlanta, GA: Curtiss Printing, 1935), pp. 75–84 (pp. 75–7).
20 Palmer, Adventures of a Slum Fighter, p. 102.
21 Ibid., p. 61.
22 Ibid., p. 101.
23 ‘Europe – 1934 – Vienna’, chapter from an early draft of Palmer, Adventures of a Slum Fighter, 1949, in Box 95, Folder 7, Palmer Papers.
24 ‘The Housing Policy of the Municipality of Vienna’ (Vienna, June 1933), typed translation and handwritten notes, both in Box 37, Folder 3, Palmer Papers.
25 Levying and Collection of Wohnbausteurer (Housing Tax) in Vienna, Box 37, Folder 3, Palmer Papers.
26 Palmer’s typed notes in Box 37 Folder 3, Palmer Papers. This can be compared to data about dwellings owned or directly controlled by the City of Vienna in Charles O. Hardy, The Housing Program of the City of Vienna (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1934), p. 58.
27 Radford, Modern Housing for America, chapter 2.
28 A 1922 racial redistricting plan proposed for Atlanta was deemed unenforceable in 1924 by the Georgia Supreme Court, but this did not measurably affect where Black residents could live in practice. See Robert H. Whitten, The Atlanta Zone Plan: Report Outlining a Tentative Zone Plan for Atlanta (Atlanta, GA: Atlanta City Planning Commission, 1922). See also the discussion in LeeAnn Lands, The Culture of Property: Race, Class, and Housing Landscapes in Atlanta, 1880–1950 (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2009), pp. 152–4.
29 ‘National Industrial Recovery Act (1933)’, National Archives, 2021, p. Sec. 202 (d) <https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/national-industrial-recovery-act> [accessed 28 August 2023]. ‘SECTION 201. (a) To effectuate the purposes of this title, the President is hereby authorized to create a Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works.’
30 The PWA Housing Division was founded to provide rental housing for non-military families, to be specific. During the First World War, the US government had built housing to support military industries.
31 Charles F. Palmer, Limited Dividend Project Application ‘To Division of Housing, Public Works’, 5 October 1933, RG 196, Project H-1101, Box 28, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) College Park.
32 Horatio B. Hackett, ‘Telegram to David D. Calhoun Confirming Architects’ Contracts Signed for Techwood Homes and University Homes’, 16 May 1934, NARA College Park, RG 196, Project H-1101, Box 26.
33 Horatio B. Hackett, United States Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works Housing Division: Low-Rent Housing Unit Plans (Washington, D.C.: PWA Housing Division, 1935), pp. 6–7.
34 Palmer was officially authorised to inspect eight Höfe: Lassalle-Hof, Metzleinstalerhof, Reumann-Hof, Am Fuchsenfeld, Fuchsenfeldhof, Spinnerin am Kreuz or George Washington-Hof, Karl Marx-Hof, and Sandleiten, as well as two settlements: Siedlung Hermeswiese and Gartenstadt Am Tivoli. See Box 37, Folder 3, Palmer Papers.
35 Der Karl Marx-Hof: Die Wohnhausanlage Der Gemeinde Wien Auf Der Hagenwiese in Heiligenstadt [The Karl Marx-Hof: The Residential Complex of the Municipality of Vienna on the Hagenwiese in Heiligenstadt] (Vienna: Thalia, 1930), Box 37, Folder 3, Palmer Papers, quoted in Palmer, Adventures of a Slum Fighter, p. 64.
36 Gedenkblatt und Programm der Feier der Namengebung des George Washington-Hofes in Wien am 26. Mai 1932, Box 37, Folder 3, Palmer Papers, quoted in Palmer, Adventures of a Slum Fighter, p. 65.
37 ‘Austria is Helping her Unemployed to Help Themselves’ booklet, Box 37, Folder 3, Palmer Papers.
38 The architects’ business cards are found in Box 37, Folder 3, Palmer Papers.
39 Die Wohnungspolitik der Gemeinde Wien: Ein Überblick über die Tätigkeit der Stadt Wien seit dem Kriegsende zur Bekämpfung der Wohnungsnot und zur Hebung der Wohnkultur [The Housing Policy of the Municipality of Vienna: An Overview of the City of Vienna's Activities Since the End of the War to Combat the Housing Shortage and Improve Housing Culture] (Vienna: Gesellschafts und Wirtschaftsmuseum in Wien, 1929), p. 44, Box 37, Folder 3, Palmer Papers.
40 Hardy, The Housing Program, pp. 10–1.
41 Manfredo Tafuri, Vienna rossa: la politica residenziale nella Vienna socialista, 1919–1933 [Red Vienna: Housing Policy in Socialist Vienna, 1919–1933] (Milan: Electa, 1980), pp. 26–9.
42 Hans Bobek and Elisabeth Lichtenberger, Wien. Bauliche Gestalt u. Entwicklung seit der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts [Vienna: Architectural Form and Development Since the Middle of the 19th Century] (Graz: Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1966), pp. 207–18.
43 This article was reprinted as an appendix in Camillo Sitte, Der Städtebau Nach Seinen Künstlerischen Grundsätzen [Urban Planning According to Artistic Principles] (Vienna: von Karl Graeser & K, 1909). The English translation is in George Roseborough Collins and Christiane Crasemann Collins, Camillo Sitte: The Birth of Modern City Planning (New York, NY: Rizzoli, 1986), pp. 303–21.
44 Otto Wagner showed his full urban vision for Vienna in Die Grossstadt (1911). The site plan and aerial perspective for the 22nd Vienna Municipal District project presented uniform residential blocks interspersed with monumental public buildings arranged along a central axis of green spaces. See also Otto Wagner, ‘The Development of Great City’, The Architectural Record, 31 (May 1912), 485–500.
45 Wolfgang Sonne, ‘Dwelling in the Metropolis: Reformed Urban Blocks 1890–1940 as a Model for the Sustainable Compact City’, Progress in Planning, 72.2 (2009), 53–149 (p. 77) <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.progress.2009.06.001>.
46 Palmer, Adventures of a Slum Fighter, pp. 63–4.
47 Report Development of Subsistence Homesteads and Living Quarters for Working Men in Austria, Box 37, Folder 3, Palmer Papers.
48 Blau, The Architecture of Red Vienna, p. 159.
49 Preston S. Stevens, Building a Firm: The Story of Stevens & Wilkinson Architects Engineers Planners Inc. (Atlanta, GA: Stevens & Wilkinson, 1979), p. 24.
50 Clifford M. Kuhn, Oral history interview of Preston Stevens, Sr., 1978, Kenan Research Center, Atlanta History Center, Living Atlanta oral history recordings <https://album.atlantahistorycenter.com/digital/collection/LAohr/id/182> [accessed 31 August 2020].
51 Viennese Höfe and modern Siedlungen in Frankfurt served as examples to highlight this opposition in Alessandro Porotto, L’intelligence des formes: Le projet de logements collectifs à Vienne et Francfort [The Intelligence of Form: Projects for Multi-family Housing in Vienna and Frankfurt] (Geneva: Mētispresses, 2019).
52 ‘The Housing Policy of the Municipality of Vienna’ (Vienna, June 1933), typed translation and handwritten notes, Box 37, Folder 3, Palmer Papers.
53 Hardy, The Housing Program, pp. 64–5.
54 Comparison here is made with the ‘Size and Equipment of Individual Apartments’ section in Hardy, The Housing Program, pp. 62–6 and the analysis of dwellings in Porotto, L’intelligence des formes, pp. 184–92.
55 Katie Marages Schank, ‘Producing the Projects: Atlanta and the Cultural Creation of Public Housing, 1933–2011’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, The George Washington University, 2016), p. 118.
56 The United States began official participation in CIAM in 1930 when Richard Neutra attended the CIAM III conference in Brussels; see Eric Mumford, The CIAM Discourse in Urbanism, 1928–1960 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000), p. 52.
57 Martin Steinmann, CIAM: Dokumente 1928–1939 (Basel: Birkhäuser, 1979), p. 36.
58 Catherine Bauer, Modern Housing (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2020), p. 222.
59 ‘Standards for Low-Rent Housing (Planning Requirements Set up by the PWA Housing Division)’, The Architectural Record (March 1935), 182–4 (p. 182).
60 Unit dimensions taken from original 1934 architectural drawings collected for the Historical American Building Survey (HABS) and accessible through the US Library of Congress <https://www.loc.gov/search/?in=&q=Techwood+Homes&new=true&st=> [accessed 6 October 2016].
61 ‘Standards for Low-Rent Housing’, pp. 182–4.
62 For more on the Frankfurt kitchen, see Susan R. Henderson, Building Culture: Ernst May and the Frankfurt Initiative, 1926–1931 (Bern: Peter Lang, 2013), pp. 143–60.
63 Hackett, United States Federal Emergency Administration, p. 6.
64 L’abitazione razionale atti dei congressi C.I.A.M. 1929–1930 [Rational Housing Proceedings of C.I.A.M. congresses 1929–1930], ed. by Carlo Aymonino (Padova: Marsilio, 1971), p. 82.
65 Schank, ‘Producing the Projects’, p. 106, original quote from [Anon.], ‘A Traveling Exhibit of Housing Projects’, American City, 48 (March 1933), p. 50.
66 Palmer, Adventures of a Slum Fighter, p. 65.
67 Typed translation of The Housing Policy of the Municipality of Vienna, Box 37, Folder 3, Palmer Papers.
68 Karl Marx-Hof photos, Box 163, Folder 17, Palmer Papers.
69 Blau, The Architecture of Red Vienna, chapter 8.
70 Maria Auböck, Die Gärten der Wiener [The Gardens of Vienna] (Vienna: Jugend u. Volk, 1975), p. 62.
71 S. Schmidt, ‘Gärten Im Roten Wien/The Gardens in “Red Vienna”’, Topos, 2 (1993), 92–9.
72 Hegemann lived and worked between Germany and the United States throughout the early twentieth century. For more on his transnational life, see Christiane Crasemann Collins, Werner Hegemann and the Search for Universal Urbanism (New York, NY: Norton, 2005), quote from Werner Hegemann, City, Planning, Housing. Vol. 3: A Graphic Review of Civic Art 1922–1937 (New York, NY: Architectural Book, 1938), p. 93.
73 Cliff Kuhn, Living Atlanta: An Oral History of the City, 1914–1948 (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1990), p. 48.
74 Ibid.
75 Ibid., p. 45.
76 Avermaete and Nuijsink, ‘Architectural Contact Zones’, p. 358.
77 Stevens, Building a Firm, p. 26. Bauer’s multi-year correspondence with Palmer can be found in Boxes 3 and 25, Palmer Papers.
78 The 604-unit Techwood Housing project was demolished in the late 1990s, and the 675-unit University Homes was entirely cleared by 2009. See Lawrence J. Vale, Purging the Poorest: Public Housing and the Design Politics of Twice-Cleared Communities (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2013), chapter 3.
79 Edward G. Goetz, New Deal Ruins: Race, Economic Justice, and Public Housing Policy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013), pp. 73, 100–10.
80 Francesca Mari and Luca Locatelli, ‘Lessons From a Renters’ Utopia’, The New York Times, 23 May 2023, Magazine section <https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/23/magazine/vienna-social-housing.html> [accessed 7 September 2023].
81 Léa Pelleteret, ‘“Housing is a Human Right, Not a Business”: An interview with Dr. Kurt Puchinger, Senior Housing Expert, and former Director of Urban Planning for the City of Vienna, at Vienna’s Rathaus’, Les Cahiers de la recherche archiecturale urbaine et paysagère, ‘Matérieux de la recherche’ (2020) <https://doi.org/10.4000/craup.5202>.