mass support at CUNY

yesterday’s lessons today…

Mass Support: Flexibility and resident agency in housing

Between 1964 and 1990, the Stichting Architecten Research (Foundation for Architectural Research, or SAR) proposed a radical new way of thinking about mass housing, one that would fuse the efficiency of industrial construction with the flexibility of user customization. Initially led by John Habraken, the first dean of the TU/e’s Department of the Built Environment, the SAR suggested new functions for the construction industry, for households, and, crucially, for architects. Rooted in a deep commitment to research and observation, the SAR conceived the role of architecture as negotiating between communal responsibility and individual control.

For over 25 years, the SAR advocated for this vision through a variety of means: SAR members published articles, entered design competitions, taught at architecture schools, and delivered speeches and in-office presentations. In the Netherlands of the 1960s, these ideas resonated with a society facing a serious housing crisis that demanded large-scale, rational, and industrial solutions. In the 1970s and early ‘80s, SAR’s vision converged with a desire to democratize housing and offer opportunities for participation.

This exhibition surveys both the context and the outputs of the SAR, presenting a selection of drawings, models, project photos, and texts that tell the story of this bold experiment to reshape housing production and, eventually, to reimagine architecture and industrial construction more broadly.