Karel Teige: Minimum Apartment and Collective House

I. Social and Economic Roots of Housing Needs
The minimum housing unit has become a central problem of contemporary architectural creation and even a motto of today's architectural avant-garde. Certainly, this is because it is an urgent issue posed by the housing crisis and needs of European cities, which has lasted for many decades, simply since the time when the industry concentrated vast parts of the population in one place, but which mainly after the world war has resulted in a housing poverty that has never been seen before. This housing poverty, a vast army of the homeless or completely inadequately housed, has grown from many causes that mostly have their roots in the ways of capitalist economy, and is therefore a necessary accompanying phenomenon of its development. However modern industrial growth has triggered a dizzying increase in urban populations and the influx of rural inhabitants to industrial centers (so that in one century it has almost overturned the ratio of rural to urban population, which in the medieval and pre-industrial era was 9:1.) — it is essential to realize that housing need is not only a manifestation of the growing population in cities, which construction endeavors cannot serve, but that it has its causes in specific social and economic shifts. It is known that even often the housing supply exceeds the demand capable of paying the desired rent, and yet the housing needs of the least affluent strata persist. Since existing methods of addressing the housing problem were based on the economic equilibrium between supply and purchasing demand, they have not led to effective solutions or the alleviation of housing shortages. In cities, housing needs persist not because the number of urban inhabitants has increased, but especially because, in the overall population of cities, the number of economically very weak classes has enormously increased, that the working class paid low wages has numerically grown, or even finds no employment or means of livelihood at all. Thus not simply a rise in population overall, but only a relative overpopulation, belonging to today's modes of production. Just as the lack of housing is fundamentally just a lack of housing accessible to the poorest and at the same time most numerous class, so also with the increase in population, it is not merely a matter of overpopulation, an increase in needs, for which human production could not satisfy; the birth rate has not increased to such an extent that production and social wealth would not suffice for the life needs of the population: the law of population, as an abstract law, can apply only to animals, only as long as there is no interference from human production. Each mode of production has its special laws of population, and in today's economic order, there exists relative overpopulation, given precisely by this order and its tendencies, even when (again primarily socially conditioned) there occurs a decrease in birth rates or an increase in mortality and suicides, thus even an absolute decline in population. Moreover, the development of modern industry, which would be able to produce enough goods necessary to meet the needs of all people, shows that housing needs are not merely a consequence of urban growth, but are caused by the economic conditions in which this urban growth occurred, i.e., in relative overpopulation, in the proletarianization of the middle classes, the pauperization of the working class, and in periodic crises of the economic system; it is a phenomenon related to the accumulation and increase in the organic composition of capital. Besides, let us not forget that even today in large cities there are often so many houses that could largely eliminate housing needs if they could be rationally and economically used.
Since housing needs are not a primary social evil, but a secondary phenomenon caused by the given economic system, it has been recognized that they cannot be removed merely by increasing the supply, namely by the construction of new and new residential buildings. Housing needs cannot be eliminated either by building cheap apartments, or by socio-political laws, such as, for example, the Tenant Protection Law, or the construction industry law. The fact that offered apartments are inaccessible to the homeless or poorly housed strata is not caused by the absolute height of rent but by the unfavorable ratio between rent and wages and salaries. Lowering rents today always leads to a reduction in wages (and it should be noted that, from social and national economic perspectives, the rental ratio is not identical to the labor ratio, since renting an apartment is not the sale and purchase of labor power, but simply the sale of goods). It is known that the housing crisis was least oppressive not in the period of low rents secured by laws protecting tenants, but in a period of relatively high working-class wages: it was precisely that relatively prolonged period before the world war when there was no massive unemployment, because America and partly also colonial countries absorbed European overpopulation, when tens of thousands emigrated from the countryside and from the cities to overseas annually. Relatively high wages meant that apartments were available at the required rents, and generally strengthened the internal market in individual countries. As a result of these circumstances that were in effect at that time, the progress of pauperization was significantly mitigated. It is also known that the struggle of the working class for wage increases and shorter working hours has always been a powerful stimulus for technical progress.
Today, in the time of the general industrial and agricultural crisis, these forces that held back pauperization are ceasing or have ceased to operate, the level of wages has fallen, and the number of unemployed and underemployed is rising just as rapidly. In today's situation, characterized by a significant decline in the economic and living standards of the working class, the housing issue cannot be solved by the usual methods prevalent in periods of economic prosperity and high wages: today, the question of housing for the existential minimum is posed quite differently than as a question of building houses or cottages with cheap apartments and at the same time capable of profitability. Firstly because the overall standard has generally been reduced so that a minimum for existential purposes. This official, i.e., tax-free existential minimum is not in fact the actual minimum, namely the minimal wage limit. On the contrary, it is rather an economic level, corresponding approximately to the maximum wage limit of the worker. The minimal wage limit, determined by the absolute physiological minimum, the limit at which it is still possible to live without starving and suffering from malnutrition, is, of course, an economic level for which any, even the cheapest independent apartment is a luxury hardly accessible. Since statistics inform us that in Czechoslovakia, where the average worker's wage was still, during the economic boom (1928), almost in the last position in European wage statistics, namely 14th, — nearly a third of the population has incomes below that official tax-free minimum, because today out of 2.5 million Czechoslovak workers, almost 300,000 are unemployed and even more thousands are underemployed, because (according to last year’s statistics from the Official Social Insurance) 1,442,000 workers earn less than 100 CZK per week and 896,000 workers earn less than 150 CZK per week*, the issue of eliminating housing needs and solving the problem of the minimum apartment, respectively housing for the existential minimum, is posed under particularly difficult circumstances.
Since, as we showed at the beginning, housing needs have their roots in today's economic order, there is no other means to address the housing question than to replace this order with a new one. To consider today the minimum dwelling means to attempt to solve the housing problem outside of the existing construction structures and methods and on a different economic basis.

II. Congresses of International Modern Architecture and the Question of the Minimum Apartment
The necessity for modern architecture to view the problem of the minimum dwelling independently of existing building laws and regulations was pointed out several times by the CIAM communiqué (International Congresses of Modern Architecture). The exhibition prepared for the Brussels congress concerning the regulations of residential areas and layouts of minimum apartments aims to present proposals developed without regard to existing building laws; the preparatory committee of the Brussels 3rd congress asks national groups not only for reports on the objective conditions of the housing status of classes at existential minimum but also for so-called "ideal propositions" capable of realization in the future, both socially and economically, along with a description of current economic and legal barriers that prevent rational solutions. Finally, Le Corbusier's survey submitted to the congress poses its questions without regard to existing conditions, which pose a handicap to the perfect utilization of today's technical possibilities. The congresses' communiqué emphasizes that the main task is above all to pose and formulate important problems, "even if they cannot be solved immediately." — Therefore, proposals that serve as stimuli for further study are welcomed, even if they are not themselves definitive or may even be erroneous. In general: to pose the problem of the new, namely minimum dwelling elementary, clearly, in a laboratory manner, without consideration for anything that is not specifically given in this problem and in the production process, thus without regard to legal, social, and financial barriers arising from today's form of social organization and the antagonisms it harbors, is not technical utopianism. On the other hand, it is necessary to emphasize that no architectural, scientific, or technical problem can be separated from questions of economic and social nature, and every hypothesis about the architectural solution of tomorrow must at the same time rely on a scientifically precise prognosis of economic and social development.
The problem of the modern minimum apartment is posed elementarily and in social terms as a general line of human need, as a problem of a general plan: how to live. The standard of housing must correspond to the masses and typical biological, social, and cultural needs. It is necessary to reject the differentiation of the apartment according to the degree of wealth and according to the subjective preferences of the inhabitants.
International congresses of new architecture rightly understand their mission: they are not to be class congresses, they are to be what official congresses ("International Congresses of Architects", this year in Budapest) cannot and do not know how to be: an organization of work and not of representation, a focal point of international cooperation, a laboratory of new architectural thought; they are to address the significant problems posed by the constantly evolving phase of new architecture and the current needs of social development. This task of these congresses was set by the first founding congress in 1928 in Switzerland, in La Sarraz. The 2nd congress, held in 1929 in Frankfurt am Main, took as its task to discuss the problem of the "minimum apartment". An exhibition of layouts of small apartments was organized, in which Czechoslovakia could not be represented, because, as has often been noted (Index I number 11, Stein Holz Eisen, 1930, number 13.), “we in our country simplified the problem by not seriously addressing it; thus wagon colonies, wooden huts arose, and on the other hand, expensive public buildings” (B. Fuchs and J. Polášek in Index). Statistics of "people's apartments" in Prague, established in the years 1923-1928, indicate that from a total of 41,778 apartments, 2,944 were in attics and 2,271 in basements. From the stated total, 10,132 apartments were one-room and 14,496 were two-room apartments. Of the small apartments, 21% are attic and basement, and about 35% of one-room apartments. Since 1923, the number of one-room apartments in Greater Prague has increased 25 times, and two-room apartments 15 times. However, these are not desirable "minimum apartments", with minimum area, maximum sunlight and air, but simply apartments where, regardless of "human rights" to health, profit is made the most, as rent prices are inversely proportional to the quality of the housing. Czechoslovak architecture has not been systematically and purposefully engaged with these social conditions and issues until this year's competition for conceptual solutions for houses with small apartments sparked interesting trials. The results of the congresses can thus particularly stimulate our country. This year's congress in Brussels continues working on the solution of minimum housing. The next congress, to be held in 1931 in Moscow, will also address issues of residential architecture, but will also transition to urbanism problems. The theme of this congress has not yet been decided. Proposed are: "The Path to the Organic City," or "Constructive City," or finally "Collective Housing and the Socialist Combination of City and Countryside."

III. Housing for the 'Existential Minimum' without Household
Considering the problem of housing for the existential minimum presupposes an awareness of the unique lifestyle and way of the existential minimum class, namely the proletariat. It is important to first recognize that this class from today’s society is also the class that will create a new society; it is a human sphere that has an international and universal character and does not require particular rights: thus, this is a class that for the first time accepts perfect uniformity concerning living and housing needs. Furthermore, it is necessary to recognize that the existing housing in family or apartment buildings is completely unsuitable for the lifestyle of this class.
Primarily because the existing housing-household structure corresponds to bourgeois social and family relations. However, the bourgeois household and family is based on capital and can only fully develop among the owning class. Where there is no ownership, there are no reasons why this family and household (with the subordinate position of women) should exist. The strata of "existential minimum" have no means to properly form such a family and household. Here the relationship between woman and man and their relationship to children has nothing in common with bourgeois family relations.
With the emergence of the patriarchal family, the management of the household lost its public nature and became a private service. Only modern large industry opened the path for working women again generously into public production, drove them out of the family into the labor market and factories, and often made them the breadwinners of the family. A woman, who irrepressibly leaves the household to join the production process and claim her place in public life, cannot however fulfill dual obligations and dual work; she must therefore be liberated from cooking, cleaning, washing, sewing, and from raising children. This dissolution of family economy and life is not in itself a social evil; on the contrary, it is a prerequisite for the complete equalization of women with men and a logical manifestation in the lifestyle of the new class. If the condition for the emancipation of women is that the entire female sex must be reintroduced into production, it is essential that the household as an economic unit and its household be abolished. Private household economies must be transformed into public industry, and childcare and education must become public affairs. If contemporary architects, who are obliged to collaborate on these tasks, have often called for help from women managing households (Bruno Taut: The architect thinks, the housewife directs!), it is necessary that in the proposals for new living structures outside the traditional household, they appeal for the help of working women, who know that despite all the laws that have granted them voting rights, reformed marriage, etc., women remain servants of the apartment and household, dulled by domestic work that ties them to the kitchen and children's room, grotesquely draining their strength through absurdly unproductive, petty, nerve-wracking, and debilitating work. True emancipation of women will happen only where domestic economy is abandoned and the mass transformation of the household into large industry occurs. Today's hotels and, above all, communal kitchens, dining halls, childcare centers, and kindergartens are the sprouts of new housing and living methods and the only means for the emancipation of women. Like all material prerequisites of the new society (socialism), they were created by capitalism, but remain a rare phenomenon here (today's boarding houses are only exceptional among urban residential buildings) and primarily exist mainly as either a meager social care or commerce, with all the deformities and adverse sides of speculation and the pursuit of profit. "Without introducing women to independent participation both in public and political life generally, as well as in all-round work in the state's interest, no socialism is possible, nor any complete and lasting democracy" (Lenin). Therefore, it is a matter of abolishing the private family economy, the traditional household where one works laboriously and wastefully for one's own consumption, and returning to the social body, its production and its culture all those forces that the household consumed.
It would therefore be completely incorrect, irrelevant, and false if we were to try to address the housing needs of the "existential minimum" class with minimum apartments meant for family household economies. Alongside this unique characteristic of this class (that namely, its family relations are fundamentally different from those of bourgeois family relations), it is also necessary to consider the mobility of the working population, for which having one's own family house or own furniture in a rented house is a burden. (As literature for the study of these phenomena we cite: Walter Gropius: Report at the 2nd Congress of International Modern Architecture. Engels: On the Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. The Same: On the Housing Issue. The Same: The Position of the Working Class in England. Lenin: The Great Initiative, and "Theses on Housing," developed by the Society of Soviet Architects OSA, in the magazine S. A.)

IV. Collective Houses
"Ideal proposals" for modern, i.e., minimum housing must therefore, taking into account the mentioned factors, be formulated as follows: The smallest apartment needs to be conceived as a living unit for an adult individual; these units should be grouped into large residential hives. Such a collective house thus resembles the existing large hotels, boarding houses, flats, dormitories, which are various forms of housing, depending on which strata they are intended for and where the boundary runs between centralized collective economy and individual housing. Desirable collective houses would, however, set this boundary in such a way that completely all economic aspects of housing are centralized, collectivized, and industrialized, so that the formula for this smallest individual apartment would at its core be a sleeping cabin.
The individual unit will be a truly minimal apartment, since everything that does not belong to the living functions will be excluded from it: it will not be a dining room, a workplace, or a living room: it is not a place for work and socializing, but for sleep, rest, and individual mental and emotional life. Thus, coexistence of two people in one living element is completely excluded. The place for physical and mental work is in workshops and workspaces, the place for social life is in club rooms, the place for physical culture is in shared sports areas, gyms, playgrounds, etc. The hive of such minimal cells for individuals is complemented by extensive collective facilities such as kitchens, dining rooms, buffets, laundries, drying rooms, club rooms, lecture halls, reading rooms — all this considered for about 1—3 thousand residents in one complex, with appropriately sized children’s homes and gardens.
In principle, we need to consider such collective houses as houses for an unusual number of residents, as enormously large residential complexes (regarding existing conditions). As multi-story buildings, and if you will, skyscrapers. Only increasing the number of floors allows for the preservation of sufficient undeveloped areas for gardens between individual houses, without falling into the familiar disadvantage of garden cities, namely too much distance from the apartment to the workplace and subsequently overburdening transportation. In large and high buildings, comfort is more economical, and it is more advantageous to organize central economy. Not only "hotel" organization of household economy, but above all the installation of modern ventilation and heating (e.g., according to the system of Gustav Lyon), without which it is impossible to reduce living rooms, is only possible in large houses. Thus we arrive at the garden city that is developed vertically. The individual residence, man or woman, in a collective house represents a rigorous reduction of existing housing programs. Not only that: it even means a complete transformation from "quantity to quality." The existing reforms of housing on the path from castle, palace, and mansion through modern bourgeois apartments, from luxury apartments (maison de plaisance and hotel particulier) to minimum households are quantitative changes. These quantitative changes, brought about by architectural and technical progress (rationalization of the apartment, mechanization of its operation, revision and restriction of its dimensions) reach a point where quantity transforms into quality, when the traditional, albeit minimal household is overcome, where there is a revolution, a radical break, when we arrive at a dwelling consisting of a large number of living units with centralized and industrialized economy, with the collectivization of social life and the publicization of childcare. To a new formation: a factory for housing.
Such a minimum apartment is not merely a reduction of a bourgeois or middle apartment and a melioration of a popular, working-class dwelling. It is a revolution in housing solutions. If the minimum apartment, remaining within the traditional form of household, actually signifies a return to the most primitive modes of housing, architecturally and in terms of comfort it represents a step backward compared to today's modern apartments of the wealthy classes — (the living kitchen here returns in a technically enhanced form of a living room with a niche for cooking), if it cannot rid itself of certain, unacceptable modes for modern humanity (the marital bedroom) — on the contrary, such a collective house is a tremendous advancement in housing culture and provides the collective of its inhabitants with comfort that was previously inaccessible. The solution to the problem of the collective house revolutionizes architecture, as it means: solving the housing issue on a higher level of social development and its history.
Thus, such a minimum apartment in a collective house is therefore not just a "way out of necessity." It is a principle. With universal validity. At least for the class of "existential minimum" and for its new society. The principle: minimum apartment = modern apartment, implies the demand for a unified housing type and standard for all.

V. Current Obstacles
As for current obstacles that stand in the way of generous and rational alleviation of the housing crisis and solving the problem of popular housing, it must be stated that all essential obstacles are rooted here in economic and social causes. Obstacles posed by outdated construction regulations and laws can be considered removable, provided they are remnants of outdated ideologies and views; however, if they are the legal expression of existing property interests, the interests in land and housing yields, in maximum exploitation of space, in the possibilities of mortgage credit (the necessity to build houses "for eternity" and not just for about one generation, as would be appropriate) — until then, these obstacles will hardly be completely overcome within the limits of today's order.
Concerning the most serious economic and social obstacles, we recall that housing needs cannot be eliminated by building houses in private enterprises and in private operation, since houses where the rent would be accessible to today's miserable, but actual existential minimum, could not be profitable, even if they were built from the worst materials and completely without comfort. Construction cooperatives of completely poor people are, of course, also paradoxes.
The housing crisis could be significantly alleviated only by building houses from public, municipal, or state funds, and it would be necessary that the rent in these houses be determined in proportion to the residents' incomes, and that housing be provided free of charge to unemployed individuals or those without means. This struggle against housing poverty, as a matter of social care and social policy, has no hope of success under current conditions, since financial resources cannot be found in the budgets of states and municipalities: we know that items for social care, education, and public health in these budgets are in an ever-worsening ratio to items for military spending, etc. This clearly shows that there is no will to solve housing poverty in this way.

VI. Regarding Le Corbusier’s Questionnaire
In relation to Le Corbusier’s survey of the International Congresses of Modern Architecture, it should be noted:
Le Corbusier also emphasizes that today's building regulations contradict broad and significant initiatives that would allow for a radical transformation of the outdated organism of cities, that it is forbidden to exploit technical possibilities to their maximum, that the architectural revolution brought about by modern technique can be considered in developed countries as something already finished, and that now we must study the influence of physical, hygienic, chemical, and biological discoveries on modern architecture; and that finally, we must know how contemporary social phenomena are to be organized (Comment tend à aménager le phénomène social contemporain). Thus, Le Corbusier poses a series of questions: a) to physicians (air, noise, sunlight, and artificial light), b) to physicists (heating and ventilation systems, sound insulation, isotermia, solar radiation), and c) to architects. Although Le Corbusier does not specifically ask about "contemporary social phenomenon" issues, it must be stated that we must consider this problem not "later", but primarily, if we want to approach a systematic solution to the housing issue, which is essentially a social issue. What is this contemporary social phenomenon? Le Corbusier defines it as "a new social state produced by the machine." Precisely defined, it is today’s state of social development, namely the old society, divided into two classes (which are fundamentally different in their position in the division of labor and relation to the means of production, according to the degree of utilization of social wealth), spheres with conflicting life interests and opposing historical missions: the last antagonistic form of social production process. That "intelligent organization of social life within large cities," which Le Corbusier presupposes will arise in the foreseeable future, cannot be anything other than a fundamental social metamorphosis, which ultimately and definitively cannot be realized not just "within metropolises," but on a global scale, and where, for example, the housing issue will be solved in a far-reaching connection with other economic and social transformations, among which the elimination of the distinction between city and countryside is one of the most important.
Le Corbusier asks for answers that do not take into account the current state of building conditions and regulations. However, his questions cannot be answered by some abstract law; they can only be considered in relation to certain, either current or hypothesized, different economic and social conditions; if we do not base our assessment of architectural development in the near future on an accurate diagnosis and prognosis of social development, we would remain in barren utopianism. To presume enormous architectural advancement in the future, revolutionized by modern technique, thus great architectural changes without changes in social structure, is unrealistic. On the other hand, if we correctly understand everything that sociologically must determine the minimum apartment, considering all its functions, then, naturally, we will also arrive at its resulting solution and architectural formula. If we think about new housing in terms of its social functions, we will realize whether a certain proposed architectural solution is correct or not.
Le Corbusier envisions the house of the future as a hermetic house: a house isolated by double walls of transparent or opaque material from the outside air and temperature, suitable for any climate, ventilated and simultaneously heated with air of constant temperature and humidity (circuit d’air fermé), so that it will have no opening windows. Since he considers the way of living in isolated households (be it in family or rented houses) to be architecturally exhausted and no longer sustainable, he presupposes that such a house will be a large complex, constructed upwards, serviced by a large machinery of elevators. This house could be envisioned somewhat like Le Corbusier's earlier proposal "Immeuble-villas."

Le Corbusier's Questions Regarding the Architectural Solution of this House:
1. What number of floors can be considered advantageous for the good utilization, mechanically and architecturally, of such a residential complex?
The question of absolute height of the house cannot at all be answered generally: the advantage of specific height construction is always given only in relation to the price of the land. Even if we do not consider today's selling, monetary price of land, even if we assume that all land is owned by the community, the price of land will vary in this or that place because in certain, densely populated areas there will be a relative shortage of land and consequently the necessity to build upwards is more pronounced; elsewhere there will always be an excess of inferior land that will allow for horizontal development of constructions. The price, respectively the material and productive value of land, given by its natural properties (fertility, mineral wealth, healing springs, etc.) will always co-determine the height and construction, even when its current, speculation-inflated selling price does not come into play. National and, respectively, European economic and settling plans will assign certain areas qualifications corresponding to their natural nature; it will be necessary to take care that all land is utilized in the most suitable manner, that is, that areas capable of better use are not built over, and that the construction of houses and cities does not occupy agriculturally or mineral-rich areas. As for the technically possible height of buildings, we can cite the results of research recently conducted by the American steel company "Institute of Steel Construction" in New York. It was found that technical possibilities far exceed today's utilized heights of skyscrapers; however, due to the profitability of the building, height depends on the price of land, the profitability curve rises with building height up to a certain limit, and beyond this limit, a taller building would be less advantageous and profitable. The technical limit of possible skyscraper height is, however, enormously greater. If we are allowed to assume the improvement of elevator devices, this technical limit can be set at a height of 600 m. A skyscraper of 600 m height can today, according to the claims of that company, be considered technically realizable.
2. What distance is acceptable for the length of corridors leading from the elevator to the entrance of the apartment?
With the introduction of horizontal elevators, moving walkways in corridors, this distance could potentially be very large. Its limit would be approximately a certain proportion of the width of the corridor to the depth of the rooms; moreover, it can be assumed that the long corridor will narrow progressively as it moves away from the elevators, as shown by American hotels.
3. Assuming that common economy will continue to expand, including childcare (gymnasiums, dining rooms, kitchens, laundries, etc.), what area should be determined for one resident in a small, medium, and so-called bourgeois apartment?
This question should be answered that — in our opinion — we need to consider only one type and size of apartment, the smallest apartment as a minimum-maximum apartment, dictated by strictly defined biological needs, which can vary only according to climatic and other conditions in a certain area. Desirable residential complexes are not conceivable with apartments differentiated according to the social status and wealth of inhabitants, primarily because the collective house is a residential structure class that is advantageous only for the strata of "existential minimum," for the proletariat, and corresponds to their lifestyles. Wealthy strata would refuse to live in collective houses, even in luxurious apartments, because their way of living (villa, castle) suited them best: the burden of apartment management is placed on the shoulders of numerous servants, and thus the patrician villa is the most perfect form of housing for wealthy classes, for their social and family life, and besides, only a private villa allows the subjective demands and whims that these classes impose on housing to be realized. The objection that this way of living is extraordinarily uneconomical has no effect since living in these strata, clinging to traditions and prejudices, is not a matter of economy but ostentatious luxury. Therefore, modern architecture must consider solving luxury housing as an unworthy task of itself, as the guiding principle of architectural organization is rational economy. A modern luxury apartment — namely "modernly simply" furnished luxury apartment, does not meet any real need and necessity, as here thrift is not the order of the day: It is known that wealthy individuals pay dearly for "modernly simplified" furniture, and that this simplicity of architecture is not here a requirement of necessity, but fashion.
Apartments in collective houses cannot be distinguished like 1st, 2nd, and 3rd class in a train. It is necessary to consider only one housing standard, the same apartment for all, with comfort 1 and a complete lack of luxury "of the 3rd class" of the train. An apartment that meets all individual needs of a class that has no particular claims and preferences. Only this class finds collectivized, levelled housing desirable and acceptable. Thus, only the objective needs of this class can be decisive for the architectural solution. An individual living unit designated for habitation by one adult resident, a dwelling devoid of all economic elements, a sleeping cabin and cell for subjective thought and emotional life of solitary moments can be of truly minimal dimensions. An area of 3x3 m² or 3x4 m² can be considered sufficient,** where large windows opening onto gardens (possibly with glass allowing ultraviolet rays) eliminate the feeling of spatial confinement. The level of comfort can only be decided by the state of social welfare.
4. Assuming maximum isolation and fulfillment of architectural and circulation requirements (cars would not park along the roads, but in special parks located beneath these houses, at the entrances to the elevator shafts) — what schematic form of the residential complex would be most advantageous (if possible, the shortest access paths, maximum green spaces, least walking inside the houses and on the streets)?
First of all: the question of parking cars will probably not play such a significant role in the future in large cities, as we can assume that the car, which is a luxury personal transport means within cities, will disappear. The car is a luxury mode of transport not only for its price but because it is fundamentally uneconomical, as it employs many horsepower to transport a relatively small number of people, takes up too much space on the road for this small number of people, and requires large areas for parking. On the other hand, it can be assumed that the enormous majority of freight, passenger, and express transport will be underground: between individual underground stations there would be a network of moving sidewalks. Moreover, it is known that auto exhaust fumes destroy trees along roads, so they are likely harmful to human health as well.
The most advantageous parking scheme remains free row building (Zeilen), allowing for perfect sun access to apartments, cross-ventilation of rooms, and air movement between the rows of houses. Underground transport would be laid out in a checkerboard pattern beneath these residential cities (possibly also with diagonal connections for rapid transport); vehicular transport classes above ground, which would be significantly reduced, would run vertically to the rows of houses. The rows of houses would be equally tall and equally distanced in certain neighborhoods. Entrances to the underground railway would be at transport classes; above-ground intersections and squares would be eliminated. This also cancels the traditional corridor streets. Shops, cafes, cinemas, theaters, etc., would be placed along these classes and near underground railway stations and so on. By situating the majority of transport underground, the city will be quiet and street noise, harmful to the nerves, will disappear.
5. In light of the preceding and considering the most advantageous modalities of construction, what population density per hectare should exist in these residential quarters? Should modern urbanism aim to decrease or increase population density?
The problem of population density is posed differently for old cities and under the current construction methods than for the anticipated and considered new cities. In old cities, high density was a social and hygienic evil in terms of housing, also a burden for poorly organized street transport. For current urban conditions, hygienists demanded a maximum permissible density of 350 people per hectare.
In a city with sufficient health measures, where all apartments are well sunlit and ventilated, where inhabitants live at a humanly decent social level, and where in large collective houses there are no children, it is possible to demand an increase in population density.

* It should also be considered that about a third of all the workforce in our country is women and that women's wages are regularly 30% or more lower than men's.
** Cabins of transatlantic ships have an area of approximately 7.5 m² - 9.5 m², luxury cabins 14 m²