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Description of  Modernising Post-war France: Architecture and Urbanism during Les Trente Glorieuses

This book is about the role played by architects, engineers and planners in transforming France during the three post-war decades of growing prosperity, a period when modernisation was a central priority of the state, promising a way forward from the shame of defeat in 1940 to a place at the centre of the new Europe. The first part of the book examines the scale of transformation, showing how architecture and urbanism both served the cause of modernisation and shaped the identity of the new France. Mainstream modernism was co-opted to the service of the state, from major public buildings to Gaullist plans for the transformation of Paris to establish the city as the capital of Europe. Read more