Mohammed Khan Freshman Scholars Group 6

First Lecture

Housing and its Discontents: Episodes in the History of Housing Reform;Jon Ritter, Department of Art History, Urban Design and Architecture Studies

Professor Ritter discusses the history of urban housing and housing reform in Europe and America, starting from the 18th century through the Industrial Revolution eventually coming to the present day. He focused mainly on housing crises that have occurred in megacities, overly large cities plagued with over population due to rapid urbanization. He then explains how it leads to the changes in architectural design and public policy that came to fruition in an attempt to solve the issue.

Like any problem, in order to offer a solution, you must first understand the problem. The first urbanization movement came during the late 18th to early 19th century in London, cause by the massive wave of migration of farmers and their families from their farmlands to the cities. This enormous migration was the result of the Industrial Revolution, which centralized infrastructure, stabilized new jobs, and brought resources and culture into the cities. Advances in agricultural, health, and science also boomed population numbers letting people live longer and healthier lives. This drove people off the land where they had to work for every thing they did into the cities where there were markets to accommodate for needs. As the cities grew crowded by the masses, the affluent moved out which left working class and immigrant families with houses which were converted to dormitories. Most of those houses were originally built for only one family to live in, but landlords put multiple families into one room to make more money. These extremely packed conditions often went unnoticed by the general public until outbreaks of diseases caused high rates of death in these areas, instigating investigation by the government. Once the horrid conditions of these dormitories was discovered (lack of clean water, lack of hygiene, filth, disease), there was an immediate support for reform from the elites, either due to some sense of moral obligation, self-preservation or economic purposes. New building were planned and required to be built, designed to increase organization and sanitation, but were not very effective because housing wasn’t subsidized by the government until the Peabody Trust was founded by George Peabody. The trust was dedicated to building and maintaining affordable, satisfactory housing. In the United States a similar pattern followed in the early 1900’s, with most slum neighborhoods being overcrowded with immigrants. Once discovered, the state and the government started to build more houses and impose housing regulations on what is and is not acceptable. Over time, buildings began to change in design to allow lighter, circulation, slightly more privacy, and better sanitation. Due to advances in technology, in current times, space become slightly less worrying as instead of building out, we can now build up.

I found this lecture extremely interesting both because of its direct relevance to New York City. What made it really stand out were the connections that Professor Ritter made of how influential architecture could be to the history of a city. The entire story of a city could be told with the architectural changes made in it. I had never even considered architecture to be of such high importance. For me, this was an eye opening presentation, and really made me think about the effects that housing has on society, and what a simple or complex building can tell me about a place and its people.