2025 Theses Doctoral

The Architectures of the Marshall Plan in Europe : France, Greece, Germany, ca. 1948–1952 and Beyond

Arnórsson, Óskar Örn

The aftermath of World War II provided architects on both sides of the North Atlantic with an opportunity to rebuild European cities. Despite this, the US-sponsored European Recovery Program, known as the Marshall Plan, did not include an architectural component. Nevertheless, the Marshall Plan affected the built environment in Europe, contributing to a geopolitical reality that remains somewhat intact.

This dissertation explores the sources of this change by analyzing three aspects of the plan: productivity transfer through the Technical Assistance Program, the emergence of transnational development through foreign aid, and the mechanism of the ‘counterpart funds,’ which allowed American administrators to control European reconstruction projects. Each aspect is analyzed through a representative national case study, France, Greece, and the Federal Republic of Germany, respectively.

The dissertation is structured into three parts, each divided into chapters and each offering a closer focus. The first part consists of an introduction and a first chapter that introduces the concept of ‘Western Europe’ as constructed by the traveling exhibition Europe Builds. Designed by an international team of architects and directed by American ‘architect’ Peter Harnden, this exhibition was the first in a series that circulated throughout Western European countries, subtly constructing the Western Europe it purported to represent.

The second and third parts address the three aspects of the plan. The second part consists of two chapters providing birds’ eye-views of the Marshall Plan in France and Greece. The second chapter examines French productivity missions to the U.S., aimed at providing architects and engineers with knowledge of American production developments. The third chapter looks at reports by American administrators on Greek reconstruction projects. The third part offers a close-up of one national case, suggesting similar close-up analyses could be conducted for France and Greece.

It includes three short chapters on Germany, each focusing on a housing project funded by Marshall Plan counterpart funds, representing a struggle for Germany through housing politics. In each case, the protagonists are not the celebrated heroes of mid-century modernism but unremembered architects and mid-level administrators who leveraged the Marshall Plan’s economic incentives to advance American interests in Europe through architecture.