'Ungers noted that the main goal of the Vienna government was to raise working class consciousness and the communitarian spirit of the inhabitants rather than just to solve the problem of housing shortage. For this reason, the Viennese superblocks did not expand the city but were situated within the city itself as self sufficient islands in pronounced contrast to their surroundings. As Ungers emphasized, the superblocks clear architectural identity and generosity of collective spaces were in opposition to the individualization of the bourgeois metropolitan residences. Unlike many modernist city projects the Viennese superblocks were not innovative in terms of style, newness of building components, or layout of the apartment; instead their innovation lay in their radical redistribution of collective facilities within a radical and recognizable architectural form.' - [Aureli, 201]
'[Ungers] stressed that while modernist planning focused on refining architectural space with optimal living standards, the architects of the superblock focused instead on the thematic performance of space, giving the architecture a precise ritual identity that would elevate social housing from the mere act of providing space for the social management of the working class to the bold gesture of monumentality that gave the inhabitants dignity without masking their identity.' - [Aureli, 204]
- excerpts from Pier Vittorio Aureli's book: The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2011)
'[Ungers] stressed that while modernist planning focused on refining architectural space with optimal living standards, the architects of the superblock focused instead on the thematic performance of space, giving the architecture a precise ritual identity that would elevate social housing from the mere act of providing space for the social management of the working class to the bold gesture of monumentality that gave the inhabitants dignity without masking their identity.' - [Aureli, 204]
- excerpts from Pier Vittorio Aureli's book: The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2011)
