3/3. Fourth International Congress of Modern Architects - -Marseille and Athens 1933.
In July 1933, Le Corbusier and 90 other delegates boarded a boat in Marseille. Architects, engineers, writers and artists from 18 countries spent the next 15 days, on board and in Athens, discussing ideas for the city of the future. Though they didn't know it, the delegates were creating a blueprint for the rebuilding of Europe's cities, about to be destroyed by the Second World War. Today many argue that the Utopian ideas that came to dominate architecture after the 1933 Congress have led to misery and social breakdown for the inhabitants of those new towns and buildings. Frances Stonor Saunders explores how this meeting in 1933 changed the way people live today and how, as cities continue to expand, it will go on to influence the way they live in the future. Producer Kirsty Pope