CIAM

views updated Jun 11 2018

CIAM (Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne). At the request of a rich patron of architects, Madame Hélène de Mandrot(1867–1948), in 1928, Sigfried Giedion organized a meeting of leading Modern architects including Berlage, Le Corbusier, El Lissitzky, Rietveld, and Stam. Karl Moser was elected as the first president of CIAM, which became the arbiter and disseminator of the theory and dogma of International Modernism until its dissolution in 1959. It promoted Functionalism, standardization, and rationalization in the 1930s, when it was dominated first by the Germans, and then by Le Corbusier. In 1933 the Athens Charter set down the primary functions of urban planning, including rigid functional zones with green belts between, high-rise apartment-blocks for housing, provision for traffic, and space for recreation. Costa's Brasilia was to be the realization of CIAM's aims in this respect, but rigid adherence to the dogmas of CIAM has been responsible for many problems in planning and architecture since 1945, and the results have not been happy aesthetically, socially, functionally, nor in many other ways. Furthermore, the insistence on rectangular structures has resulted in plenty of SLOAP which cannot be used for much. CIAM held its final meeting in 1959 after which architects such as Bakema and the Smithsons attempted to take Modernism forward on new tracks with Team X.