Sigfried Giedion’s small but vocal manifesto Befreites Wohnen (1929) is an early manifestation of modernist housing ideology and as such is key to the broader understanding of the ambitions of the International Congresses of Modern Architecture (CIAM) and the debate on the industrialization of construction processes and its impact on public housing at the beginning of the twentieth century. An important step in Giedion’s rise as one of the foremost propagators of modern architecture, this manifesto is based on the argumentative power of visual comparisons, and is the only book the art historian both authored and designed. Along a facsimile edition in German, Giedion’s Befreites Wohnen is presented here for the first time in English translation (by Reto Geiser and Rachel Julia Engler). It is completed with annotations and a scholarly essay that anchors the work in the context of its time and suggests the book’s relevance for contemporary architectural discourse.
