The minimum dwelling =

by Karel Teige

"Karel Teige (1900-1951), one of the most important figures of the European avant-garde, influenced virtually every area of art, design, and urban thinking in the 1920s and 1930s. His Minimum Dwelling, originally published in Czech in 1932 and appearing now for the first time in English, is one of the landmark architectural books of the twentieth century.". "Minimum Dwelling is not just a book on architecture; it is a blueprint for a new way of living, calling for a radical rethinking of domestic space and of the role of modern architecture in the planning, design, and construction of new dwelling types for the proletariat. Teige goes far beyond Gropius, Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, and other architects whose proposals Teige viewed as little more than new versions of baroque palaces, mainly for the new financial aristocracy. Teige envisioned the minimum dwelling not as a reduced version of a bourgeois apartment or rural cottage, but as a wholly new dwelling type built with the coop