CIAM

Loose association of architects founded in 1928, largely responsible for the formulation and dissemination of a Modernist orthodoxy (see Modern Movement). CIAM's predominantly functionalist ethic, which included strict delineation of housing, industrial, and commercial zones by green belts and an emphasis on high-rise mass housing, was to dominate architecture and town planning until the 1950s.

The Weissenhof exhibition in Stuttgart in 1927 demonstrated a unity in aim and practice within the Modern Movement, and the architects who participated went on to form CIAM the following year. A series of meetings and conferences followed in which principles were laid out, notably by Le Corbusier, for the post-war rebuilding of European cities - these were mainly collected in the ‘Athens Charter’ 1933. Strict urban zoning was to be observed and high-rises adopted as the best solution to urban housing problems. Not until the 10th conference, CIAM X in 1956, were these central beliefs challenged: a breakaway group, Team 10, switched concern to a re-evaluation of mixed-use and multilayered city centres. The rebels included Alison and Peter Smithson and Aldo van Eyck and in 1959 CIAM collapsed under their pressure.