The Modern Project: A Research Hypothesis

The project of the industrial modern city comprises many heterogeneous paths and stories, in particular those regarding the CIAM (Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne) Functional City. They all come together in a discourse that links the architectural form to positive urban and social transformations. Such a discourse was interpreted from two different perspectives: The first hypothesized the need for political change starting from the collectivization of land ownership as stressed in the declaration of CIAM at La Sarraz in 1928, whereas the second theorised the capacity of new architecture to improve living conditions irrespective of the political context as supported by Le Corbusier. Starting from these premises, the present commentary proposes a fresh perspective on the functional city project, where the research on the minimization of effort contributed to a different definition of work from the Marxist one and in the modern sense. Therefore, the design and the space of the Existenzminimum blatantly contributes to the construction of a new routine, inspired by minimum effort, with the creation of a new effort–relaxation–rest rhythm and repetition.