TEAM 10 MEETINGS
List of CIAM congresses (1947-1959)
and Team 10 meetings (1960-1981)

  1. Introduction
  2. Periodization
  3. The Emergence of Team 10 within CIAM (1953-1959)
  4. The 1960s
  5. The 1970s
  6. Sources

Introduction
The following documentation of the Team 10 meetings provides a chronological overview during the period from 1947 to 1981, covering the post-war years of CIAM (1947-1959) and the years when Team 10 organized its own meetings after abandoning the CIAM organization (1960-1981). The review of each meeting or event is accompanied by the names of participants. A distinction has been made between gatherings within CIAM and meetings following the dissolution of CIAM. In the case of the earlier CIAM gatherings, attended by large numbers of people, the chronology names only those participants who would later be part of Team 10 or played a role in the formation of the group; reviews of the later meetings are accompanied by the names of all persons present as far as could be ascertained from our comparative study of source material.


Team 10 in the garden of Van Eyck's home at Loenen, 1974

The meetings were quite different in character. Some had a theme clearly set out in advance, for example the meetings in Royaumont (1962), in Toulouse (1971), and in Berlin (1973), whereas others were rather informal, such as the ones in Berlin (1965) and in Toulouse (1977). Often the completion of one of the designs by Team 10 protagonists led to the organization of a meeting at the site itself, most notably Bagnols-sur-Cèze (1960) organized by Candilis-Josic-Woods, the Urbino Collegio del Colle (1966) by De Carlo, Toulouse-Le Mirail (1971) by Candilis, the Berlin Free University (1973) by Woods and Schiedhelm; the Terneuzen town hall and Van Eyck’s Pastoor Van Ars church led to the Rotterdam meeting (1974) organized by Bakema, and the Matteotti housing project to the Spoleto meeting (1976) by De Carlo. At times the inner circle of Team 10 convened to reach an understanding on one subject or another, to plan publicity-related activities or to organize future meetings.
In addition to the meetings, the reader will find a number of instances in which Team 10 members expressed their ideas, both communally and individually, through publications, exhibitions and education.

Periodization: Team 10 from beginning to end
Because Team 10 originated within CIAM, several CIAM congresses have been included in this overview, beginning with the sixth CIAM congress in Bridgwater (1947), the so-called reunion congress. In the historiography of Team 10 the ninth CIAM congress in Aix-en-Provence (1953) is generally viewed as the event which marked the rise of a younger generation of modern architects. It was also the first time that most of the core members of the future Team 10 attended CIAM in an official capacity, namely Shadrach Woods, Alison and Peter Smithson, Aldo van Eyck, Georges Candilis and Jaap Bakema — as well as John Voelcker, who was to play a major role in the early years of Team 10. Giancarlo De Carlo would not be present at any meetings until 1955, when he attended the CIAM Council meeting in La Sarraz. Participants at the meeting in Aix still represented the various national and local CIAM groups. Among those groups were MARS (Modern Architectural Research Group); the Dutch groups ‘de 8’ and ‘Opbouw’; Le Corbusier’s ASCORAL (Assemblée de constructeurs pour une rénovation architecturale); from the French colonies GAMMA (Groupe d’Architectes Modernes Marocains) and Algeria’s CIAM Alger; and the Italian Group.

In Aix the future Team 10 participants discovered a sense of affinity and learned to know and appreciate one another, both personally and professionally. Their presentations, given at that time within the framework of CIAM’s country-related delegations, played a decisive role in their compatibility. Presentations in Aix were given in the form of a so-called grid, a series of panels that had to comply with general guidelines formulated by CIAM. It was the content and design of these grids, in particular, that drew attention to the younger generation, whose members not only distinguished themselves through their grids but also recognized their own ideas in the contributions of their peers. The official CIAM grid was developed in 1947 by the French group ASCORAL, under the supervision of Le Corbusier. At CIAM VII in Bergamo in 1949, the grid was presented as an analytical method for comparing the various subjects and designs discussed at CIAM congresses. Although accepted by CIAM, the new means of presentation was criticized from the start, also within the CIAM organization itself. The grid and the debates surrounding its validation, was characteristic of the postwar CIAM climate with much emphasis on official and bureaucratic procedures. Eventually, this climate would instigate the younger generation to abandon the CIAM organization altogether.

The Team 10 history ends in 1981 with the death of Jaap Bakema, who was seen by those involved as the driving and binding force of Team 10. Bakema was the only participant to attend all of the Team 10 meetings, even in the late 1970s when his health was deteriorating. As a result of his death, gatherings referred to as ‘Team 10 meetings’ were no longer held. Nonetheless, members of the group continued to maintain individual contacts, both personally and within organized forms of collaboration and assembly, particularly education. The use of these various channels enabled Team 10’s body of ideas to be passed on and assimilated by new generations. Obviously, education was a vital part of this conveyance of knowledge; members of Team 10 were active in education into the 1990s in both Europe and the United States, as well as in India, for example, a country visited by various members at the invitation of Balkrishna Doshi. The ILAUD workshops, which De Carlo began organizing in 1976, were a particularly important new platform for exchanging ideas.

Within the period 1953-1981 three main periods can be distinguished: the emergence of Team 10 within CIAM (1953-1959), the 1960s (1960-1968) and the 1970s (1969-1981).

The emergence of Team 10 within CIAM (1953-1959)
Team 10 was named after the CIAM committee responsible for planning the tenth congress: the CIAM X Committee. The tenth congress took place in Dubrovnik in 1956. Initially, the committee consisted of Jaap Bakema (the Netherlands), George Candilis (France), Rolf Gutmann (Switzerland) and Peter Smithson (United Kingdom). They represented the countries most active and dominant within CIAM at the time. The original four members of the CIAM X Committee were soon joined by a number of kindred spirits, among whom Van Eyck, Bill and Gill Howell, Alison Smithson, John Voelcker and Shadrach Woods. Together they prepared an agenda for the future of CIAM.

The period in question, which more or less coincided with the post-war reconstruction of Europe after the Second World War, came to a close in Otterlo with the final CIAM meeting, referred to in the history books as CIAM ’59. This congress was organized not by Team 10, but by an ad hoc group consisting of several Team 10 members (Bakema, Candilis and Voelcker) in collaboration with the Italian Ernesto Rogers, the Swiss Alfred Roth, and the Frenchman André Wogenscky. Rogers deserves a special mention because he introduced his protégé De Carlo to CIAM, thus bringing him into contact with Team 10. Apparently, Roth replaced Gutmann, who was highly regarded by the core group of Team 10, but with whom contact was lost after the tenth congress.
As a result of a decision taken at the Dubrovnik congress in 1956, participants were invited to the Otterlo congress on an individual basis rather than as representatives of national, or local CIAM groups. Some of these groups, including MARS, had already dissolved themselves. At Otterlo nearly all participants were European. As the standard method of presentation had been completely eliminated, participants employed diverse forms of presentation, each geared to the nature of the design shown. The Otterlo congress had neither chairman nor separate committee meetings; plenary discussions were held sitting in a circle around drawings pinned to the wall. During intervals, individuals or participants in small groups viewed the various projects.

The 1960s (1960-1968)
From approximately 1960 to 1968, participants of Team 10 meetings not only worked on themes previously discussed within CIAM, but also developed — in this relatively short period of time — a number of new and interesting concepts, chiefly within the scope of countless competitions organized during the transition from post-war reconstruction to welfare state. Among these were new inner-city plans for existing cities, large-scale housing projects and development schemes, and new university complexes, all of which were unprecedented in terms of number and scale.
At this time, a core group seems to have formed quite naturally. Although the composition of the inner circle changed to some degree as time passed, this core consisted of Jaap Bakema, Georges Candilis, Aldo van Eyck, Alison and Peter Smithson, Shadrach Woods and, at a later stage, Giancarlo De Carlo. In varying compositions this ‘inner circle’ — as coined by Alison Smithson — held smaller gatherings to determine the group’s agenda.


Team 10 at Royaumont, France, 1962. Photograph by George Kasabov.

While looking for new participants to vitalize the larger meetings — Bagnols-sur-Cèze, Royaumont, Berlin and Urbino — differences of opinion surfaced within the inner circle with respect to the size of the group, the nature of the meeting and, finally, the people to be invited. One example is the Smithsons’ strong opposition to the presence of James Stirling. Alison Smithson denied him a part in the Team 10 history simply by omitting any mention of him in her retrospective publication Team 10 Meetings, despite Stirling’s contribution to the Royaumont meeting. In the end, such differences precipitated a crisis that threatened the continuing existence of Team 10, particularly around the meeting in Urbino, an event organized by newcomer De Carlo in 1966.
This identity crisis in the latter half of the 1960s was not only internal in nature; it was also influenced by external factors, such as democratization movements launched by residents and students, protests that also questioned the work of Team 10 architects. A concrete example was the 1968 Triennale in Milan, organized by De Carlo and taken over by artists and students on its opening day.

The 1970s (1969-1981)
During this period, which loosely covers the time between 1969 and the last meeting in 1977, a number of developments were going on at the same time.
Following the crisis in Urbino, a definitive shift saw Team 10 meetings take on the character of ‘family meetings’. Members retreated into a tight circle. A small group augmented by only a few outsiders, so to speak, would regularly meet from 1971 on-wards, the year in which Candilis organized a meeting to acknowledge the completion of the first phase of Toulouse-Le Mirail. Meetings in Berlin in 1973 and in Rotterdam in 1974 were also occasions organized primarily to visit realized work.
In terms of content, these meetings allowed members to review their professional roles and to reconsider the ideal of the welfare state. The immediate cause for this reflection was a series of large building projects completed during these years, all of which were realized within the framework of the welfare state. Besides evaluating personal work and positions, various Team 10 participants — namely De Carlo and Van Eyck, but also Bakema and Erskine — became involved in new phenomena such as residents’ participation and the controversy surrounding urban renewal.


Team 10 in Spoleto, Italy, 1976. From left to right: De Carlo, Peter Smithson, Van Eyck, Richards, Guedes, Alison Smithson, Coderch. Photograph by Sandra Lousada.

The rise of postmodernism was reason for new divisive actions in the group. A major example is the dispute with Ungers, who was a frequent participant of Team 10 meetings, and who organized a rather extraordinary Team 10 seminar at Cornell University. Van Eyck wrote an open letter to Ungers expressing his fury at the way the latter was treating history, and submitting that he had placed himself outside the ‘orbit’ of Team 10. Van Eyck ended the letter by saying: ‘Just a closing word about Team X. It has no members, nor has it ever had. Membership was never our line. Does that ring a bell! Anyway there is no need to worry: a latecomer like yourself may yet turn out to be the first, last and only member of Team X.’
The issue of postmodernism also led to the desire to appear once more in public as a group. A particular emphasis on this subject emerged in Bonnieux in 1977. Among other ideas put forward was a suggestion that they participate in IBA Berlin (Internationale Bau Ausstellung). Nothing ever came of this idea, however. Communicating Team 10 ideas continued for the most part through education and in several magazines. Especially instrumental in this attempt were the platforms that De Carlo established in the latter half of the 1970s: the ILAUD summer schools and the magazine Spazio e Societá.

Sources
The gathered data of the meetings and Team 10 participants are based on a comparative study of source material. Given that documentation of the various Team 10 meetings is far from complete and unequivocal, a certain amount of prudence has been called for in the presentation of this summary.

The most important Team 10 documents consulted while compiling the list are kept in the Bakema archive and the Smithsons archive at the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAi) in Rotterdam; and in the De Carlo archive at the University of Venice (IUAV). John Voelcker’s archive, maintained by his family, provided additional information on the early years. Extra data on activities in the 1970s came largely from the archive of Manfred Schiedhelm. Owing to the dissolution of Candilis-Josic-Woods and the premature death of Shadrach Woods, the firm’s files have been dispersed and, even more unfortunately, have partly disappeared. Thanks in part to our work on this project, the Woods archive, previously maintained by Val Woods, has found a permanent home at Columbia University. To date, however, no material on Team 10 meetings organized by Candilis-Josic-Woods has been discovered; commentary on these meetings is based on articles published in magazines (such as Le Carré Bleu) and on relevant photographs culled from other archives. An exception is the meeting in Royaumont; transcriptions of tape recordings made at this meeting are at the NAi.

Generally speaking, we reconstructed the various meetings with the use of photos, letters, invitations, and such. Other material consisted of lists of those invited (often inconsistent), published presentations, and diverse articles published after meetings had taken place. We are also grateful for the use of material from previous studies of CIAM and Team 10 carried out by a number of colleagues; deserving of special mention are Jos Bosman, Eric Mumford, Annie Pedret and Francis Strauven.

Wherever possible and wherever applicable, the data include the following information:
— Date and place of the meeting
— Initiator or chief organizer of the meeting
— Predetermined theme
— Participants
— Persons invited who did not attend
— Participants regarded at the time as members of Team 10 (as indicated in the Team 10 Primer, for example, or on address lists)
— Projects presented or visited (a list that is far from complete)

We have treated as three separate matters the period in which Team 10 was still part of CIAM, the final CIAM congress in Otterlo in 1959, and Team 10 meetings. In reporting on meetings within CIAM, we have not included an exhaustive list of participants, which would be not only nearly impossible — some 3000 people attended the congress in Aix-en-Provence — but also unnecessary. Accompanying the reviews of these CIAM meetings are only the names of people who played a role in the formation of Team 10. In the case of later meetings, we have provided a list of all known participants, with the exception of guests such as family members and employees.

Max Risselada and Dirk van den Heuvel