the projects I know have living conditions, environmental improvements in the foreground. This might also have aesthetic implications, but this aspect is surely not the most important. An important issue, however, is that once the aesthetic aspects of places improve a lot then people become aware (and interested) in the places that were earlier not interested to live there. What can happen is that the initial population of a slum is driven out when the place improves, improves also aesthetically.

Well, I guess modernism is the only philosophy / ideology / doctrine that deals explicitly with slums and therefore brings its aesthetics to any solution that it envisages. Modernism values efficiency, mass production, standardization, hygiene, social equality (as a broad topic, not only the socialist side of modernism) etc. What other ideologies are addressing slums? The Victorian era had issues with slums but the ideological part was already "modern", in terms of its commitment to public health and dignity. The post-modern era is divided in between various neoliberal, neoconservative discourses that value "development" as a solution to inequality and precarity or return to whatever previous values and lifestyle (the explicitly anti-modern part). The World Bank is essentially post-modern, though some of its projects might follow the steps of modernism. I think your question is a political one and if you look at aesthetics and the symbolism attached to it you will find a lot of contradictory, hybrid, unclear answers. Political values of social equality, basic human rights and so on are easier to be associated with slum upgrading so I guess you will have to read mostly political philosophy rather then slum upgrading literature if you want to clarify this.

It looks that the papers you mention are associating modernism with a centralized, authoritarian state. To some extent they are right, slum eradication can only take place in centralized regimes.

"Ideals in Concrete" (ed. Cor Wagenaar) has some stuff related to the ideological trails of modernism, nothing on slums but about the socialist cities from Eastern Europe. Then there is Rod Hackney telling how much he is a modernist in "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly", again, not an ideal answer to your question.

Thank you for your answers Catalin Berescu and Eberhard Weber . I appreciate you took the time to answer. Thank you for the suggestions too Catalin Berescu I will check those books. I also tend to agree with you regarding the importance of politics because regarding aesthetics and symbolism there are scholars/architects favoring modernist approach as a pathway to "development and progress" and others criticizing it as a "perverse mechanism of state control" and as "enhancing stigmas on informal urbanism". So yes, there are certainly contradictory positions which I think are interesting. I am trying to align with the first stream while also acknowledging the second one.

Two more random thoughts, unfiltered (I am a big fan of slums, cannot help it).

1. Eberhard does not explicitly mentions gentrification, though this is what most researchers would jump at, and this is interesting because it points at a larger understanding of gentrification as a process that can be driven also by the state/international donors i.e. maybe like: "slums development can have the effects of a large scale gentrification, not driven by class difference but by administrative policies".

2. I am looking at the impact of evangelical missionaries in Roma neighbourhoods in Eastern Europe. In many communities this has a "modernizing" effect, in the sense that it empowers women and reduces patriarchy. I guess Modern architecture has a gospel effect, maybe not so much on the inhabitants but on architects for sure. Just check Hassan Fathy's "Architecture for the Poor" and its transformation in time, or Louis Kahn, Dhaka (not slums, but the same nexus of modernism and underdevelopment, the gospel of redemption through aesthetics).

The question is indeed interesting, for I believe it has not been tackled from an architectural perspective that much. Ijlal Muzzafar has an interesting PhD on the view of third world within modernity. But I think this topic can and has to be explored. Myself I have a paper on the construction of the term "slum" and it ties to its spatial construction as a negative term to oppose to formal architecture.

Article The periphery within : modern architecture and the making of...

Thank you Alejandro De Castro Mazarro for the recommended thesis and for answering. You are right that in general slums are perceived as negative spatial entities, and that is why it is interesting to see new slum upgrading programs "returning" to modernism in order to answer the architecture and urban challenges of slums. I am not yet sure, but it seems it is something mostly happening in Latin America, which is also interesting as LAM has a rich history of modern architecture that might have been an influence in this. Thank you again!

Depends on the intent of the project. What is the result you're looking for? As a reverse engineer you start at the end every time. Project coordination is a object-oriented goal in time. With no control study there has to be a previous project your current work is founded on. Thank goodness we all have math. I have high hopes for a project in the works that I have been deeply working on. The architecture of a vertical farm inside of a city. A hydroponics skyscraper with unique plumbing. Rainwater conversion and air purification. Advanced HVAC for a completely sealed system. A food and information hub. Just a side project. Either way I've been working on it for a while. Natural process of freeing money from food-dependent individuals and groups to advanced engineering and expansive law.

-John Mellet

Dear Jose Rafael Nunez Collado , thanks for this excellent and meaningful question. If you look India, the definition of slum includes the informal settlements in the urban areas. There can be a variety of inhabitants in a slum, most notable are the migrants from the other (mostly rural) areas. They bring their own value systems of aesthetics and symbolism. Unfortunately, the overalapping of these organic and traditional systems and beliefs are not accommodated well in a structured/urbanised/city systems. The same dwelling structure which can be easily classified as a beautful shelter or a cozy house in a rural context can be called called as a slum in an urban context. I believe, this activity to be modernist: seeing it as self-other and looking just the materiality.

The slum up gradation policies attempts to make slums like the other 'formal', 'rationalised' or 'sanitised' settlements. They just judge the surface and material, not the living systems of informality. A decade back, I researched about a similar informal-formal interaction which you can find here. Conference Paper Informal in Formal: Mushrooming of Dhabas next to BPOs/MNCs in Gurgaon

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230738894_Peri-Urban_to_Urban_Landscape_Patterns_Elucidation_through_Spatial_Metrics

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229826816_Empirical_patterns_of_the_influence_of_Spatial_Resolution_of_Remote_Sensing_Data_on_Landscape_Metrics

Dear Jose Rafael Nunez Collado, this is an interesting question that has been (and still is) part of my own research. I am attaching an article that I co-authored about this subject which was published in 2012 in the Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography.

Also, Marshall Berman's classic "All that is solid..." greatly shows how the urban upgrading in New York, led by Robert Moses, was inspired by philosophies of modernity; it also shows how marginalized city residents embraced its 'dream of progress' while at the same time suffering from it.

Finally, this 2010 book is also very insightful: Rethinking the Informal City: Critical Perspectives from Latin America, Edited by Felipe Hernández, Peter Kellett and Lea K. Allen

Good luck with your research.

Dear Martijn Koster thank you very much for your comment. In fact I have read your work on this topic and I find it very informative. While your case studies are in Brazil, I am interesting to uncover this in the Dominican Republic. I wonder what the similarities will be? Is this a new trend in Latin America? Is this a "Revival of the promises of modernism?". Is this new wave connected to left-wing policies? and if so what will happen as there is trend towards right wing governments now in L.A.? I do not have the answers to these questions, but I think they are timing. I look forward to continue reading your work.

Hi @Jose Rafael Nunez Collado, that nice to hear. An interesting topic to explore further, indeed. This article might also be of use:

Endres, K. W. (2017). Traders versus the state: Negotiating urban renewal in Lào Cai City, Vietnam. City & Society.

It will be part of a special issue that I am guest-editing (with Marie Kolling) on urban development as a form of betrayal. The issue will probably be online in 2020.

Very best,

Martijn