Mumford, Eric (2000). The CIAM Discourse on Urbanism,
1928-1960.
Cambridge,
MA: The MIT Press.
.
«CIAM
(Congres Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne), founded in Switzerland in
1928, was an avant-garde association of architects intended to advance both
modernism and internationalism in architecture. CIAM saw itself as an elite
group revolutionizing architecture to serve the interests of society. Its
members included some of the best-known architects of the twentieth century,
such as Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, and Richard Neutra, but also hundreds of
others who looked to it for doctrines on how to shape the urban environment in
a rapidly changing world.
In this
first book-length history of the organization, architectural historian Eric
Mumford focuses on CIAM's discourse to trace the development and promotion of
its influential concept of the "Functional City." He views official
doctrines and pronouncements in relation to the changing circumstances of the
members, revealing how CIAM in the 1930s began to resemble a kind of
syndicalist party oriented toward winning over any suitable authority, regardless
of political orientation. Mumford also looks at CIAM's efforts after World War
II to find a new basis for a socially engaged architecture and describes the
attempts by the group of younger members called Team 10 to radically revise
CIAM's mission in the 1950s, efforts that led to the organization's dissolution
in 1959.» (MIT Press webpage)