Page 8 - Vertical City

8 The vertical city

dable only in recent times, which explains the current
enthusiasm for high-rise habitations.

This infatuation goes hand-in-hand with attraction
for city life where the world’s population is increasin-
gly concentrated. It has led to an almost automatic and
anarchic development of tentacular megalopoles in
both an industrial and financial 2 process of globalization,
technology, banalization and conformity characteristic
of collectively governed societies.

This also follows on the changes in the composition
of families during the past century.

The home or the farm still housing three generations
of one or of several families common at the beginning
of the 20th century has been gradually replaced by the
one-family home or apartment after World War 2 and
is now ceding place to smaller habitations, often for
single parent families.

The large house or farm corresponded to a self-suf-
ficient way of life in the countryside and was quite isola-
ted, except for certain neighborhoods, from the cities.

Small contemporary habitations (and probably the
modular habitation of the future, even smaller 3) that

2 Report McKinsey Global Institute, June 2012: Urban World: Cities and
the Rise of the Consuming Class is instructive as it does not directly
address, nor does it exclude, the potential emergence of a more
reflective approach to urbanization and a more luminous architec-
ture.

3 The “modern” dream of small, modular habitations, where the
game of musical chairs is carried out with the furnishings and equip-
ment, allows the use of the living space in accordance with the
present needs first saw the light of day in 1925. Jean LABADIE, “A