ERIC Number: EJ1123658
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2016-Dec
Pages: 29
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-1740-2743
EISSN: N/A
Educational Civil Experiment--A Story of a Particular Radical Housing Estate
Matysek-Imielinska, Magdalena
Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, v14 n3 p251-279 Dec 2016
In the 1920s,in the environment of emerging brutal capitalism, exclusion and ghetto benches, on the initiative of avant-garde architects from the Praesens group and Polish socialists built a housing estate in Zoliborz, the ambition of which was to teach people how to dwell. Soon it turned out that the founders of the housing cooperative were, as we would call them today, activists. This housing estate, initially designed for working class, thanks to the engagement of the intellectuals, who were familiar with the concept of "sociology in action", benefited from a wide range of experimental forms of education, from the first co-educational secular school in Poland to the emancipated dimension of women's activities, or Free Workers University. The youth of Zoliborz was raised in a secular spirit of pacifism. The estate can be seen as a case study of "architecture in action", and dwelling as a process rather than form. I wish to recall the experiment in Zoliborz in order to show how in a particular radical housing estate there were shaped the attitudes of an "enlightened citizen" (Alfred Schütz). The performative perspective allowed to see "architecture in action", and dwelling as a process rather than form. A dweller-citizen is presented as a subject applying revolutionary and liberating initiatives (social, political, economical, educational). A critical perspective, however, as being related to performative, allows to see an unusual power of rebellion and need for change, which results from the connection of mind and action, thanks to the concept of culture as praxis.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Housing, Architecture, Case Studies, History, Citizenship, Social Action, Social Change, Social Systems, Political Attitudes, Teaching Methods, Collective Settlements
Institute for Education Policy Studies. University of Northampton, School of Education, Boughton Green Road, Northampton, NN2 7AL, UK. Tel: +44-1273-270943; e-mail: ieps@ieps.org.uk; Web site: http://www.jceps.com
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Poland
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A