Modern architecture in a life cycle perspective

By confronting the mistakes from the Modern Movement, the ideas of modernistic architecture are under pressure. This paper will summarize the primary architectural mistakes of the mono-functional thinking in planning and building and the non-appropriate environmental dispositions of the big plans from the 60s and will suggest a holistic and broader life-cycle perspective on housing from the welfare society.
On one hand, we care for the strong Modern Movements manifestoes in the form of architectural heritage. On the other hand, 600.000 dwelling-units in Denmark are suffering from degradation and are inhabited by society’s most vulnerable people. The housing schemes are directly influenced by the fragmentation of the planning in a divided and segregated city. These ´Modern Cities´ have suffered from stigmatization ever since they were built.
A positive development in society is that these living areas are now undergoing huge transformations. Add to the physical change the huge effect transformations as a tool has on the inhabitants’ self-understanding and on increasing their feeling of ownership for the changes.
Cases from Denmark will demonstrate, compare and present perspectives of contemporary architectural transformations on city level and on housing level. The transformation goals are to secure the economy and the social and the environmental aspects in the transformation´s life-cycle perspective in order to make the buildings and the districts interact with and adapt to society.
The conclusion points out the architectural consequences of prioritizing in the transformation process the social parameters higher than the original rigid architectural theories.