For the Geneva Architecture Commission, AHA designed a two-day study trip on the conditions of housing production in Paris over the past 100 years. From the Amiraux to Bois-le-Prêtre, from the HBM of the Cité Rouge to La Maladrerie, from the “above the tracks” housing on Avenue de France to the “next to the tracks” housing at Chapelle Internationale, AHA guided the Commission through the Paris metropolitan area. What we wanted to demonstrate: in the face of a never-fully-satisfied demand, housing has always been a territory of constructive, typological, social, and urban experimentation. Yet, there can be no experimentation without collective effort and supportive policies. In this regard, Paris’s strategies have been exemplary. May future municipal teams remember that housing is a “new frontier,” one that connects the domestic to the political.
