Workers’ Housing and Houses: Interwar Planning from Dessau to Detroit

Abstract

Facing post–World War I housing shortages and the prospect of social unrest, policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic supported the construction of modern workers’ dwellings. Their efforts produced an extraordinary volume of new units, transforming the working-class experience. Yet, architectural and planning historians have overlooked the comparative potential in this body of work, which includes landmarks of modernism and wood-framed bungalows. This article contributes a transatlantic comparison. It explores European and US policies and projects, shedding light on the particularity of the American case, epitomized by Detroit, where in the absence of planned developments workers sought houses as independent consumers.