Housing

Definition

Housing names the architectural and social provision of shelter — a category distinct from the phenomenological concept of dwelling. In Benjamin's account, "the core architectural idea" of his work is "the shift from bourgeois dwelling to modernist housing" (Elliott): the 19th-century interior (the padded cell of the private individual, saturated with possession and trace) gives way to the modernist Existenzminimum — the functional, open, collective housing of the 20th century. This shift is at once a loss (the decay of intimate dwelling) and a gain (the progressive social potential of universal housing). The tension between housing-as-quantity and dwelling-as-quality — between the right to shelter and the need for place — structures the phenomenological critique of modernism (Heidegger's "dwelling is not housing") and the political-economic critique of housing as financialized commodity.

Key Thinkers

• Walter Benjamin — the shift from bourgeois dwelling to modernist housing.
• Martin Heidegger — the critique of housing in the name of dwelling.
• Brian Elliott — Benjamin on housing as the progressive core of architectural modernism.

Related Concepts

• Dwelling — the qualitative, existential mode housing is measured against.
• Modernism — the movement that universalized housing as a program.
• Modernity — the historical condition housing addresses.

Source Support

Sources in the wiki that discuss this concept:

• Benjamin for Architects — bourgeois dwelling vs. modernist housing.
• Building Dwelling Thinking — housing vs. dwelling.