National contex
A reconstructive and centralising state
The massive destruction caused by the Second World War in the already dilapidated French housing stock plunged the country into an unprecedented housing crisis. The reconstruction of the cities, the resettlement of the victims and the fight against insalubrity become the national priority in the face of one million five hundred thousand victims to which are added more than thirteen million slums inherited from pre-war. Faced with the urgency, the State must implement not only a policy of reconstruction, but also a policy of construction to resolve the crisis of Badly housed. To give himself the means, he created in 1944, a powerful ministry that centralized all these operations: the Ministry of Reconstruction and Urban Planning (M.R.U.).
By destroying urban infrastructure, however, the war made it possible to clear the past, a radical way for theorists and technicians to free themselves from the constraints of the parcel and the old building.
To cope with the scale of the task, the modernization of the building industry is essential. The ministry advocates and encourages all projects aimed at rationalizing construction techniques through the standardization of surfaces and the use of prefabricated materials. It sets up experimental projects through competitions where architects, entrepreneurs and urban planners are encouraged to work together to improve the comfort of the housing while lowering its cost, without sacrificing architectural quality.
In the face of the national debate that is taking place between the advocates of a "historical" reconstruction and those who advocate change, the ministry under the leadership of Eugene Claudius-Petit encourages modernity and the application of the theories of the modern Movement. The minister refuses that "France becomes a great museum for foreign tourists" and proclaims: "(...) we must have the courage to build the architecture of our time!".
The intense constructive activity during the Thirty Glorious period transformed the urban landscape more than any other period of French architecture.
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