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Oskar Leo Kaufmann prefab project
"The Landmarks Preservation Commission is an 11-member panel that oversees changes to the 23,000 buildings in New York City that are either individual landmarks or within one of the city's 82 historic districts. Since the commission designates, on average, 4 new districts and 12 individual landmarks each year, a growing number of residents are subject to its rules.
Whenever anyone wants to renovate, alter, demolish or build anew in or around a landmark or a building in a historic district, commission permission is required before a building permit can be issued. "We want people who live in these places to be able to meet our goal, which is the preservation of that property and of those resources, in as simple, seamless, effortless and intelligent a way possible," Mr. Tierney said."
"The Minimum Dwelling was a response both to the acute interwar housing shortages and to the Western European avant-garde’s attempt to solve this problem. While the focus of the treatise is in fact the minimum necessary habitation for the proletarian worker, Teige had opinions on the present and historical conditions of the city and worker’s housing, contemporary avant-garde architecture and urban design. The result of this breadth of interests is a model for socialist living that applies the principles of dialectical materialism to space in constructing a liberated socialist city. Tiege’s prescriptions range from the correct ordering of social institutions to specific technical data concerning site orientation and window type to use in a room. Despite its abundance of detail, The Minimum Dwelling is an engaging read, even for non-architects. Teige’s enthusiasm hooks the reader and enables even the most stalwart capitalist to take up Teige’s rationale for his own. Architects will be interested in the English translation because Teige’s arguments established a methodology for urban and architectural critique that remains current and incisive 70 years later."