ABSTRACT
After World War II, the city of Vienna took up its interwar tradition of constructing public housing, with 96,000 units built between 1945 and 1970. While interwar housing had attempted to foster gender equality in the name of “modernity” by lessening women’s domestic burden, post-World War II public housing reflected changed gender norms and relations. This chapter explores the new definition of “modernity” and its influence on gender roles as expressed through built examples as well as textual and pictorial discourses by tracing the standardization of housing types and the ensuing homogenization of private life.
