Podcast Summary: New Books Network – Miles Glendinning on "Mass Housing: Modern Architecture and State Power – a Global History" (Bloomsbury, 2021)

Date: February 15, 2025
Host: Timmy Coyedro (University of Vienna)
Guest: Professor Miles Glendinning (University of Edinburgh)

Episode Overview

This episode of New Books in Urban Studies features a deep-dive interview with Professor Miles Glendinning about his seminal book "Mass Housing: Modern Architecture and State Power – a Global History." Glendinning, a leading architectural historian, provides a panoramic survey of the political, architectural, and social factors behind the rise and evolution of mass housing across the globe during the twentieth century. The conversation explores the empirical and global scope of the work, highlights divergences from conventional academic narratives, and offers rich comparative insights into how state power and modern architecture became entwined, with enduring consequences and lessons for contemporary housing discussions.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Glendinning’s Academic Journey and the Genesis of "Mass Housing"

• Early Interests: Trained first in the classics, Glendinning’s foundation in Roman politics eventually led him to architecture and its socio-political dimensions ([02:51]).

  "I was particularly interested in Roman political history and the whole kind of thing of the sort of battles of interest groups and patrons and clients. ... I kind of shifted to architectural history..." – Miles Glendinning, [02:51]

• Initial Mass Housing Research: Started with a PhD on UK tower blocks in the 1980s, focusing on interviews with architects, politicians, and civil servants. Challenged then-prevalent Marxist interpretations, emphasizing diversity and regional variation in mass housing ([02:51]–[06:52]).

  "The main theme ... was a kind of to emphasize the regional and civic diversity in different cities and across Britain and the UK..." – Glendinning, [02:51]

• Global Turn: After work in Scotland and Hong Kong, re-engaged with mass housing in the 2000s. Involvement with international networks (Dokomomo) and field research, including a vast image archive and collaborative scholarship ([08:07]).

2. Defining Key Terms: "Mass Housing" and "Modern Architecture"

• Empirical Definition: Not strictly economic; mass housing involves significant state support and is rooted in the modern architectural movement ([13:09]).

  "It's basically programs that are both significantly supported by the modern state, but which also are in terms of their built environment, fall under the general ... heading of the modern movement." – Glendinning, [13:09]

• Exclusions: Private, market-driven developments and self-help housing generally excluded from primary focus ([13:09]).

3. Contrasting with Dominant Theories and Narratives

• Rejection of Single-Track Modernism: The book deliberately challenges the idea of modernism as an imposition of global standardization, instead highlighting diverse "multiple modernities" ([16:38]).

  "The book very heavily emphasizes diversity of multiple modernity as opposed to things like ... modernism as just being identical things march into the horizon." – Glendinning, [16:38]

• Empirical vs. Theoretical Method: Avoids heavy theoretical frameworks (e.g., Foucault), drawing instead from scholarship on multiple modernities (e.g., Eisenstadt), micro-environments, and locally-rooted historical methods ([19:35]).

  "There are writers who have emphasized the idea of multiple modernities ... but while retaining links and kind of thematic overview links..." – Glendinning, [19:35]

4. Origins & Discourses of Mass Housing (Pre-History and Justifications)

• Varied Global Drivers: Rural-to-urban migration in southern Europe; slum clearance in Anglophone countries; informal settlements in the Global South. Justifications broadly centered on social need, but specifics differ sharply by context ([23:16]).

  "...in Anglophone countries ... the idea that the worst housing is concentrated in the inner areas ... therefore you have to have huge amounts of slum clearance or urban renewal..." – Glendinning, [23:16]

• Divergences between Rhetoric and Reality: Public statements often focused on morality or eliminating slums, but real motivations included serving state employees or key support groups ([26:09]).

  "...the reality often being like political expediency ... not just employees of the state, but people who ... the government needs the support of..." – Glendinning, [26:09]

5. Role of Residents and Participation

• Primarily a Top-Down Enterprise: In most cases, mass housing decisions were made by states or large organizations, with residents as passive recipients. Only in later decades did participatory processes emerge (notably in Hong Kong) ([28:31]).

  "...one of the defining things about it is it's a top down thing organized by large organizations ... with relatively little direct input by, if you like, like tenant groups..." – Glendinning, [28:31]

6. Architecture, Technocracy, and State Policy

• Technocracy and Its Limits: Faith in experts and systematized methods was influential—more in the Soviet Bloc and France than in Britain or the US. Organizational and political strength mattered more than technological sophistication in most places ([32:05]).

  "...the faith in technocracy and experts, it is a major factor, but ... not always the dominant one..." – Glendinning, [32:05]

• Architectural Diversity: Despite popular stereotypes of uniform, soulless blocks, the global reality was marked by vivid variation—by design, tenure, and ideology ([35:58]).

• Notable Belgian Example ([38:32]):

  "Housing tenure is linked to confessional pillars—socialist rental flats vs. Catholic single-family homes—reflecting a strong left-right ideological divide."
  – Paraphrased from [38:32].

7. Organization and Land

• Public vs. Nonprofit Provisions: Direct government provision (UK) contrasted with arm’s length nonprofits (France, Netherlands). Local political histories (e.g., France’s fear of municipal power post-Commune) shaped different models ([43:18]).

• Land Ownership as a Determinant: Where the state or municipalities controlled land (Singapore, Soviet bloc), larger and denser schemes were possible. Private land regimes (US, Hong Kong) constrained projects and inflated costs ([48:14]).

8. Scale and Monumentality

• From Practicality to Ideology: The "mass" in mass housing refers to both scale (sometimes defined at >500+ units) and ambition, often driven by land assembly, economic necessity, and in some contexts by monumental state ideology (Soviet Union) ([51:07]).

9. International Exchange and Influence

• Parallel Discourse: Experts, architects, and planners participated in a lively international dialogue—via conferences, exhibitions, and visits—but “the nitty gritty” of housing organization in each country tended to be local and path-dependent ([53:32]).

  "The nitty gritty of housing organization ... housing officials, they did a lot less of this ... discourse that just sustains itself as a discourse, you know, preaching to the converted ..." – Glendinning, [53:32]

• Self-Help and International Agencies: Aided self-help, promoted by the World Bank, UN, etc., arose as a significant, internationally networked alternative to state-directed mass housing ([56:43]).

10. Colonialism, Postcolonialism, and Segregation

• Colonial Consequences: Colonialism weakened postcolonial states' capacities, often leaving them unable to sustain ambitious mass housing programs. French colonial influence persisted in Francophone Africa, though only while economic conditions permitted ([59:57]; [61:16]).

  "...colonialism as such ... had an enfeebling effect ... producing decolonized states that were ... not able to really sustain viable programs for a long time." – Glendinning, [59:57]

• Spatial and Racial Segregation: Mass housing reflected and sometimes accentuated social divides, notably in apartheid South Africa, though sheer scale was often insufficient for mass housing to shape the urban social order everywhere ([64:41]–[65:41]).

11. The Waning of Mass Housing

• Decline in Enthusiasm: By the late 20th century, Western welfare states and socialist experiments both retreated—due to privatization, commodification, new property regimes, and the soaring cost of land. Consequences differed in East and West, shaped by politics and tenure ([67:53]).

  "In the first world it's the sort of, the kind of declining impetus of welfare state ideas ... in the second world it was the end of the state socialism..." – Glendinning, [67:53]

12. Contemporary Lessons and the Limits of Mass Housing as a Historical Model

• Takeaways for Today: With today’s land prices, speculative home ownership, and shifts to demand-side subsidies, Glendinning is skeptical that mass housing offers clear lessons for contemporary housing policy ([71:55]).

  "I'm not totally sure what lessons can be drawn from it. I think it's possibly more of a historical episode..." – Glendinning, [71:55]

Memorable Quotes

• “It's a history of one of the grandest of all modernist grand narratives written from a distinctly postmodernist standpoint.”
  — Miles Glendinning, [15:32]
• “Mass housing ... is almost defined ... as a top down thing organized by large organizations ... with relatively little direct input by, if you like, like tenant groups or inhabitant groups.”
  — Miles Glendinning, [28:31]
• “The key ... in under the Sylvie definition of the first and second worlds is having a well organized political and organizational system and well funded, which obviously many global south third world didn't have.”
  — Miles Glendinning, [32:05]
• “The book very heavily emphasizes diversity of multiple modernity as opposed to things like ... modernism as just being identical things march into the horizon.”
  — Miles Glendinning, [16:38]

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:51] - Glendinning’s career and entry into mass housing history
• [08:07] - Research methods and global fieldwork
• [13:09] - Defining "mass housing" and scope of the book
• [16:38] - Critique of the "grand narrative" approach
• [23:16] - Historical drivers and global discourses of housing need
• [28:31] - The (limited) agency of residents in mass housing programs
• [32:05] - Technocracy, architecture, and implementation
• [38:32] - Belgian example: tenure and political ideology
• [48:14] - Land ownership, supply, and project scale
• [53:32] - International exchange and national adaptation
• [59:57] - Colonial legacies in mass housing
• [67:53] - Reasons for the decline of mass housing
• [71:55] - Contemporary relevance and limits of lessons for today

Further Reading Recommendations

• Philipp Meuser, "Die Ästhetik der Platte" (DOM Publishers): Comprehensive German-language work on socialist prefabricated housing, with English spin-offs focusing on mass housing in Ukraine ([74:38]).
• Glendinning’s own "Hong Kong Public Housing" (Routledge): Recently published, archive-driven account of mass housing linked to decolonization in Hong Kong ([73:09]).

Closing Notes

• Professor Glendinning’s work stands as a major contribution to understanding mass housing as a globally variegated phenomenon, rejecting both simple condemnation and uncritical praise, and reminding us that the built environment—while often marked by bureaucratic and political intent—is always intimately shaped by place, politics, and people.
• For listeners interested in global urbanism, architecture, or state policy, the episode and associated book are recommended for their breadth, nuance, and empirical rigor.