The Labour Movement, Architectural Heritage, and Social Memory

The Labour Movement, Architectural Heritage, and SocialMemory explore the emergence and significance of workers' assembly halls in late nineteenth-century European cities, examining how these buildings served as both functional spaces for the labour movement and powerful symbols of working-class solidarity and political strength.

Taking a comparative approach, this book discusses four cities as case studies: Brussels, Leipzig, Vienna and Paris. Together, these cities represent the rich variety among workers’ assembly halls, each building carrying its own unique story – sometimes a story of success, sometimes one of failure – with some buildings having been demolished and others that have survived. Drawing on a wide range of archival sources – from police reports to postcards – and combining approaches from social, cultural and architectural history, this book provides a new understanding of workers' assembly halls as a transnational phenomenon.

This book is intended for scholars and students of modern European history, labour history, urban studies, and architectural history. It will also appeal to researchers interested in social movements, material culture, and the spatial dimensions of political activism, as well as general readers seeking to understand the built environment's role in shaping working-class identity and collective action during a transformative period in European history.