| During the decade following World War II, Europe found itself faced with the massive task of reconstruction, which in terms of architecture was complicated by a variety of issues concerning nationalism, history, and style. This dissertation provides an in-depth investigation of a group of individuals who, in 1953, seized control of the Congres Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM) in order to advocate for a new, sympathetic relationship between architecture and inhabitant. Their so-called "ethic" resulted from a direct refutation of the utopian architectural projects of the prewar architectural establishment, embodied by CIAM, which the younger generation found to be removed from the exigencies of everyday life.;The attempt to name this new architectural ethic resulted in the heavily contested term "The New Brutalism." They claimed that these words were meant to stand not for at aesthetic, but rather an ethical position, characterized by a consuming relationship with what the Smithsons called the "inescapable present." However, as concluded in this dissertation, their words and deeds were often at a variance with one another, as an alternating embrace and denial of contemporary conditions forced a difficult and complex relationship between the ethical and the aesthetic components of architectural practice.;The major point of this dissertation is to understand the movement as a collaborative effort, and to situate each of the most prominent members of this younger generation within their historical context in order to understand how this new avant-garde negotiated the difficult terrain between the real circumstances of postwar European existence and the rarefied realm of the avant-garde, and to investigate the difficulties of collaboration when both actual and theoretical projects are concerned.;An examination of the contemporaneous situation in the United States, where postwar elation clashed with a new culture of containment, sheds light on this dilemma. The Europeans' view of their American contemporaries---such as Louis Kahn, Paul Rudolph, and Charles and Ray Eames---shows a desire to see beyond mere surface and find within the same ethical components celebrated in Europe, thus ignoring the Americans' overwhelming preference for formal concerns. |
