The Minimum Dwelling

"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 cooperation of architects, sociologists, economists, health officials, physicians, social workers, politicians, and trade unionists.". "The book covers many subjects that are still of great relevance. Of particular interest are Teige's rejection of traditional notions of the kitchen as the core of family-centered plans and of marriage as the foundation of modern cohabitation. He describes alternative lifestyles and new ways of cohabitation of sexes, generations, and classes."--BOOK JACKET.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.