ELEB, Monique 1945-

PERSONAL:

Born 1945, in Casablanca, Morocco; married Jean-Louis Cohen (an architectural historian).

ADDRESSES:

Home—Paris, France. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Monacelli Press, 902 Broadway, Eighteenth Floor, New York, NY 10010. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer and educator. Ecole d'Architecture Paris-Malaquais, Paris, France, currently professor of psychology and sociology, director of Architecture, Culture, and Society Research Center, and director of the doctoral program on architecture and urbanism.

WRITINGS:

(With Anne Marie Châtelet and Thierry Mandoul) Penser l'habité: le logement en questions, PAN 14, P. Mardaga (Liege, Belgium), 1988.

(With Anne Debarre-Blanchard) Architectures de la vie privée. Maisons et mentalités, XVIIe-XIXe siècles, Aux Archives d'architecture moderne (Brussels, Belgium), 1989.

L'apprentissage du "chez-soi": le Groupe des maisons ouvrières, Paris, avenue Daumesnil, 1908, Editions Parenthèses (Marseille, France), 1994.

(With Anne Debarre-Blanchard) L'invention de l'habitation moderne: Paris, 1880-1914. Architectures de la vie privée, Hazan (Paris, France) and Archives d'architecture moderne (Brussels, Belgium), 1995.

(With husband, Jean-Louis Cohen) Casablanca: mythes et figures d'une aventure urbaine, Hazan (Paris, France), 1998, translation published as Casablanca: Colonial Myths and Architectural Ventures, Monacelli Press (New York, NY), 2002.

(With Jean-Louis Violeau) Entre voisins: dispositiv architectural et mixité, Epure (Paris, France), 2000.

(With husband, Jean-Louis Cohen) Paris architecture, 1900-2000, Éditions Norma (Paris, France), 2000, translation published as Paris Architecture, 1900-2000, Gingko Press, 2001.

Also author of A deux chez soi, 2002, and (with husband, Jean-Louis Cohen) Les mille et une villes de Casablanca, Art Creation Realisation, 2003.

WORK IN PROGRESS:

A book on L.A. café life, for Editions de L'Imprimeur; a book on Paris café life.

SIDELIGHTS:

Monique Eleb is a French psychologist and sociologist who specializes in domestic architecture. She has written a number of books on Parisian architecture, as well as on that of her native Casablanca. Two of her books have been published in English.

Eleb's 1989 book Architectures de la vie privée. Maisons et mentalités, XVIIe-XIXe siècles chronicles the history of Parisian domestic planning from the seventeenth to the late nineteenth century, a period during which, for example, the apartment house arrived as an architectural type. Her volume L'invention de l'habitation moderne: Paris, 1880-1914. Architectures de la vie privée picks up where the other book left off and covers the thirty-four years before World War I. This period is not particularly known for richness of invention in French architecture, but Eleb challenges that notion and argues that it was, in many ways, a very innovative time period. It was during the early twentieth century that modern notions of living comfort were incorporated into exterior and interior architectural planning. Barry Bergdoll, who reviewed L'invention de l'habitation moderne in Burlington magazine, commended Eleb for bridging "two well-known periods; the mid-nineteenth century Haussmannian city and the great concern of the modern movement in the 1920s with housing and domesticity."

Eleb collaborated with her husband, Jean-Louis Cohen, on Casablanca: mythes et figures d'une aventure urbaine, published in English as Casablanca: Colonial Myths and Architectural Ventures. The book deals with the city's architecture and city planning from 1900 to the 1960s. It portrays a unique effort of architects and urban planners to blend different cultures while at the same time trying to ensure adequate living conditions for all classes. David Soltesz found in Library Journal that the book's major themes "could have been more coherently developed" amidst a mountain of data, but he still called it "a feast for serious students of North Africa, urban planning and trends in twentieth century architecture."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Burlington, Volume 139, number 1129, 1997, Barry Bergdoll, review of L'invention de l'habitation moderne: Paris, 1880-1914. Architectures de la vie privée, p. 270.

Houses, November, 2001, Julie Oliver, review of Paris Architecture, 1900-2000, p. 70.

Library Journal, May 1, 2003, David Soltesz, review of Casablanca: Colonial Myths and Architectural Ventures, p. 108.*