“French Mass-Produced Housing in the Crucible of World War I.” Platform. Posted on March 21, 2022. https://www.platformspace.net/home/french-mass-produced-
housing-in-the-crucible-of-world-war-i.
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Henry Ford’s 1913 launch of the Model T assembly line inspired some architects to design houses that can be built quickly and cheaply in large numbers. Yet World War I, not Henry Ford, is the reason why many other architects started to listen to those pioneers. Ever since that war, mass-produced housing has been a central part of the architectural discipline and the built environment. Revisiting the context of France around 1920, when the concept of mass-produced housing first gained widespread acceptance, reveals its entanglement with misguided beliefs involving racial propagation, blind faith in the capitalist marketplace, and the magical power of new technologies.
