Modernism vs postmodernism: The role of urban form for life quality on the example of Radogoszcz Zachód and Radogoszcz Wschód housing estates in Lodz, Poland

Abstract

A common residential environment in Poland is post-war neighbourhoods, the so-called large socialist housing estates. Their plans and construction adhered to the principles of architectural, urban design, and planning movements, including modernism and postmodernism. Both modernism and postmodernism recognised the need to create high-quality residential environments. However, they proposed different urban forms to address this need. The question is, which urban form – i.e., modern or postmodern – performs better from the perspective of life quality. Therefore, in this paper, we explore the role of urban form for life quality by studying two neighbouring large housing estates in Lodz, Poland – Radogoszcz Zachód and Radogoszcz Wschód – which were planned, designed and constructed according to the principles of modernism and postmodernism, respectively. To these ends, we employed field and online queries, and online surveys to capture the objective and subjective dimensions of life quality. As a result, we revealed apparent differences in the urban forms between these two estates, but a relatively similar objective dimension of life quality available on both. At the same time, we found some differences in the subjective assessments of urban form made by residents of the estates, generally favouring the postmodernist one. Despite this tendency, the overall subjective assessment of life quality in both estates turned out to be almost equal. This finding may suggest that, when considering their overall life quality, residents were not primarily guided by the issue of urban form.