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