Housing and Technological Reform in Interwar France: The Case of the Cité de la Muette

For a brief period beginning in the late 1920s, French housing production was characterized by a sudden and enthusiastic embrace of new technologies-a shift which was made most evident at the Cité de la Muette, built outside Paris between 1930 and 1934. This article examines the discourse employed to promote the technological innovations of the design, and connects this promotion to a larger campaign for national economic renovation. The article also examines criticisms of the project, which portrayed it as a threat to traditional conceptions of the social and domestic role of housing.