Social Housing - From Utopia to Reality Part 1 Dissertation 1999 Ene Mihai Ion Mincu University of Architecture and Urbanism | Romania This work is an attempt to understand the origins and evolution of a relatively new idea of the recent history - social housing. Being conceived as a short history of the ideas, which gave birth to remarkable works, the present paper is, first of all, from the author's point of view, a journey of discovery and clarification. The relationship between social needs and demands and their influence upon architectural thought and action is a constant line of inquiry. The topic is exemplified by now famous and referential works of architecture, an interesting point being the fact that almost every great architect (at least of this century) has had its attempt to answer this architectural problem. Because it is a field of such great social interest it was also necessary to analyze and understand the way different political systems assumed this problem and then dealt with it, each in its own manner, according to ideology and specific goals. This work is a concise overview of the social housing issue, a very acute contemporary subject for the local architecture. It shows remarkable research capabilities, a serious control of the bibliographic sources, as well as the necessary maturity for a student at the end of his studies to synthesize them. Nevertheless, the work could have been more incisive by formulating personal views and even personal evaluation of the impact of various ideas over architecture and society within this field.