Back in 2003, when I was 12 years old, the largest housing block in my hometown Linz, built for the workers of the city's steel factory, was detonated. At the time it was the largest detonation of a building in Europe. My whole family went there to see it. It was celebrated by public officials and presented as the necessary step into a better future for the former inhabitants. The sheer force of the detonation stunned and silenced all of us and for a moment it seemed like everyone in the crowd understood how destructive and short sighted this was. Then the crowd started to cheer.


As multiple crises intensify with the climate crisis  picking up speed, events like these are seen through a different lens as everything continues to remain in the normal course of privatizing gains and socializing losses. Commodification and the relationship of the public sector to private property play a significant role in the destruction of social housing. These ensembles were not destroyed because they were bad, but because they were regarded as bad. 

All across Europe, the reconstruction period after the second world war was characterized by the aim to provide as many apartments as possible as quickly as possible. This resulted in the large panel system-building – in german ‘Plattenbau’.

The ecological question is inextricably linked to the social one. We need a temporary halt to building demolitions and a revision of the current regulations.

 To continue, to extend, to enlarge, instead of demolition and reconstruction, is more ecological, more economical, more gentle and more optimistic. It is also more creative, as French architects Lacaton&Vassal put it recently. We should regard the social housing estates as a critical heritage that has to be improved and extended upon. Simply because we won't be able to build as much in the future without extractivism.
 We need bold strategies that go beyond repainting and cladding buildings with toxic waste, and thus making them air proof and prone to mould. There are more intelligent ways of insulating a building than that. 

So what will happen to the large scale housing ensembles all over Europe during the coming European renovation wave? Will they be demolished and detonated? Will they be clad with toxic waste? No, they will go through metamorphosis!