ACADEMIC VIEWS ON THE ECONOMICS OF CONSTRUCTION FRENCH VARIATIONS (1920/1970)

1. ACADEMIC VIEWS ON THE ECONOMICS OF CONSTRUCTIONFRENCH VARIATIONS (1920/1970) 1) Public housing of the 1920’s in France. Short presentation of early built garden cities in the outskirts of Paris : - Les Lilas (1921-1923 and 1930-1931) - Stains (1921-1933)

2. LES LILAS • Developer : Office public d’HBM du département de la Seine • Architects : Pelletier (Paul), Teisseire (Arthur) • Ground area : 6 hectares • Programme and dates of construction (two phases) : 1921-1923 : 212 dwellings, in one- and two-family houses, (destroyed 1971-1973, and replaced by housing blocks) 1930-1931 : addition of approx. 100 dwellings in housing blocks (northern part of the ground area, still existing)

3. Les Lilas : project design (1921)One- and two-family houses

4. Les Lilas : project design (1921)One- and two-family houses

5. Les Lilas, how it was built (photo 1927) Source : Henri Sellier, Une cité pour tous (Texts presented by Marrey (B.), Ed. du Linteau, Paris, 1998, p. 118).

6. Les Lilas : how it looks today (spring 2009) Small housing block (4 apartments)

7. Les Lilas : how it looks today (spring 2009) Housing blocks

8. Les Lilas : how it looks today (spring 2009) Housing blocks

9. Les Lilas : how it looks today (spring 2009) Tall buildings in place of one-family houses

10. Les Lilas : how it looks today (spring 2009) Projects of the1970’s instead of one-family houses

11. Les Lilas : how it looks today (spring 2009) Garden-city spirit preserved by private property

12. Les Lilas, how it looks today (spring 2009). Garden-city spirit preserved …by private property. Architect’s house (1933), at the corner of the alley shown in the previous photo.

13. STAINS • Developer: Office public d’HBM du département de la Seine • Architects : Gonnot (Eugène), Albenque (Georges) • Ground area : 28 hectares • Programme : 1700 dwellings, of which 460 one-family houses and 300 rooms for bachelors • Dates of construction : 1921-1933 At the period it was built, the garden city accomodatedone third of the population of the municipality. It still represents 15% of the dwellings in this municipality where social housing in a whole accounts for 69% of housing.

14. Stains : project design (1921)One-family houses

15. Stains : project design (1921)Housing blocks

16. Stains : how it looks today (spring 2009) Single family houses

17. Stains : how it looks today (spring 2009) Single family house

18. Stains : how it looks today (spring 2009) Single family houses

19. Stains : how it looks today (spring 2009) Housing blocks

20. Stains : how it looks today (spring 2009) Housing blocks

21. ACADEMIC VIEWS ON THE ECONOMICS OF CONSTRUCTIONFRENCH VARIATIONS (1920/1970) 2) Construction costs : academic approach of the comparison between single-family houses and housing blocks. - The thesis by Henri Sellier (1921) - The thesis by Claude Olchanski (1945) and what follows until the 1960’s

22. The thesis by Henri Sellier (1921) • A view based on a public developer experience. • At given volume and finishes, single family houses are cheaper than apartments in block houses (even including cost of public networks). • Therefore, construction in the suburbs has to favour a city of houses project. • Architecture and composition : reference to Raymond Unwin and the principles of garden cities.

23. The thesis by Claude Olchanski (1945) • Economic denunciationof garden cities, « particularly expensive given the extensions of roadways, pipework, the large number of foundations, structural works and roofs ». • Therefore, construction has everywhere to favour housing blocks, whose « reduced cost [permits] to improve comfort ». • As for the cost of construction itself, assertion is only based on arithmetic evidence, without any reference whatsoever to observations : a very questionable approach. • As for the cost of public networks, another arithmetic evidence, that will become recurrent… but is equally questionable.

24. Drancy : what was built in-between(Second programme by the Office de la Seine,1935) Source : Henri Sellier, Une cité pour tous (Texts presented by Marrey (B.), Ed. du Linteau, Paris, 1998, p. 203).

25. And later ?Academic views of the 1950’S and 1960’s • The Faculty of Law and Economics continued to crown doctoral works without these being based on facts. • The source of such an attitude is not to be found in the sphere of economic thinking. • References cited by economic authors prove that they matured their views under the influence of an understanding of modernity propagated by architects and town-planners. • The kind of profession of faith that held sway hereafter perfectly reflected professional interests of specialists involved in construction.

26. Conclusion • Two opposite views : the first favouring the city of houses project, the latter favouring housing blocks. • The lack of factual bases did not prevent the latter from contributing to real effects… • …but it resulted in a gap between construction culture sought by the elites and the popular perception of the problem. • Similar gaps would undoubtedly happen if, for whatever reason, we once again cultivated views of project economics subject to a doctrine rather than to observations.