{{Infobox Artist
| name = Louis Sauer
| image = 
| imagesize = 
| caption = 
| location = Melbourne, Australia
| nationality = 
| nationality 2 = 
| field = Architecture
| training = Institute of Design IIT Chicago
| movement = New Bauhaus
| works        = 
| patrons =
| awards = FAIA, Progressive Architecture}}
'''Louis (Lou) Sauer''', American architect. In the 1960s to 1970s Sauer was one of the most prolific of American architects whose work in low-rise high-density housing was defined by a combination of design excellence and pragmatic involvement in society. Helping to define his career was a period with Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority (the Morton Urban Renewal Project) doing advocacy working with the poor.

<small></ref>}}</small> 

Beginning with custom housing, such as the Hamilton House (New Hope, Pennsylvania 1961 - '''Progressive architecture award (PA/DA)'''), Jan 1964), the thoroughly articulated Cripps residence (1962 Lambertville, New Jersey - PA/DA, Jan 1963), Buten House (1962 Philadelphia - PADA Aug 1964), James McClennen House(127 Pine Street, Philadelphia, 1965 - PADA Jun 1969), Frankel Residence (1967 Margate, New Jersey), Louis Sauer designs have been published in more than 100 international books and magazines.  The Buten House in particular was an early template for the system Sauer was developing for large-scale housing projects. The twelve or fourteen-foot wide living unit, reproduced in all directions as part of a grid, is the conceptual heart of most of the housing designs which Sauer has done.<ref name=Saggio></ref>

Undaunted by the compromises often required when working with developers, Sauer produced a unique body of highly acclaimed and innovative work in low-rise high-density housing, breathing new life into the previously maligned 'row housing' form. As principal of Louis Sauer Associates, Architects, Philadelphia, Sauer designed about forty residential complexes in the period 1961-1979, with eight constructed residential and commercial developments in Fells Point waterfront redevelopment plan and the design of its Main Square.

Among his most notable works is Penn's Landing Square, at Society Hill, Philadelphia, which took up a whole block with 118 homes-units.<ref name=Garvin_2002></ref> Other award winning projects include 180 home units in the new town of Reston, Virginia, and the urban design and 400 homes for the Baltimore's new Harbour Walk neighbourhood at Baltimore's Inner Harbor. Sauer's New Market project was a noteworthy contribution to Edmund Bacons transformation of the Philadelphia Society Hill landscape.

Sauer began as a student in pre-medicine, moved out of sciences to pursue an interest in art and photography, and then drifted into architecture, where a passion for modern design was fostered while studying at the famous Moholy-Nagy's "New Bauhaus"Institute of Design IIT Illinois Institute of Technology, 1949 to 1953, in Chicago. Temporarily interrupted by conscription, and a military tour of duty in Germany, Sauer then joined the 1956 summer session of CIAM Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne in Venice at the Instituto Universitario di Achittectura. Here he spent a formative period studying under notable architects such as Giuseppe Samonà, Ernesto Rogers and Giancarlo De Carlo, Gino Valle. Sauer stayed another six months in Venice and later set up a partnership with Giancarlo Guarda in Philadelphia. Sauer returned to America in 1959, for post-graduate studies in Architecture at the Louis I Kahn Studio at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

==After 1979: Full-time academic ==
It took many of Sauer's fellow practitioners by surprise when he suddenly closed his office in Philadelphia in 1979, giving up a successful private practice and moving on to a full time academic career. Sauer felt strongly about the role of education for shaping future the architect practitioners. He believed strongly that unless architects learned to deal with society on realistic terms, society would simply deal architects out of the game. He was appointed Professor and Head of the Department of Architecture at Pennsylvania (1965-1979) and Colorado (Boulder, 1985-89) and a visiting professor at MIT, Yale and at numerous other US and Canadian universities.

I '''congressi internazionali di architettura moderna''' (''Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne'') o '''CIAM''', sono nati dal bisogno di promuovere un'architettura ed un'urbanistica funzionali. Il primo incontro ebbe luogo nel 1928 a La Sarraz (Svizzera). Nel corso del XI congresso nel 1959 che si tenne a Otterlo (Olanda), i membri decisero di cessare la loro attività. 

==Formazione e membri==

I CIAM furono costituiti nel Castello di La Sarraz nel giugno 1928 da un gruppo di 24 architetti europei su iniziativa di Le Corbusier, Hélène de Mandrot (la proprietaria del castello) e Sigfried Giedion, primo segretario generale. 

Tra gli altri membri fondatori c'erano Karl Moser (primo presidente), Victor Bourgeois, Pierre Chareau, Josef Franke, Gabriel Guevrekian, Max Ernst Haefeli, Hugo Häring, Arnold Höchel, Huib Hoste, Pierre Jeanneret, André Lurçat, Ernst May, Fernando García Mercadal, Hannes Meyer, Werner Max Moser, Carlo Enrico Rava, Gerrit Rietveld, Alberto Sartoris, Hans Schmidt, Mart Stam, Rudolf Steiger, Henri-Robert von Der Mühll e Juan de Zavala. 

In seguito, altri membri importanti si aggiungeranno al gruppo, come Alvar Aalto e Hendrik Petrus Berlage.

Nei Congressi del dopoguerra si aggiunsero, tra gli altri, Ernesto Nathan Rogers e Giancarlo De Carlo.

==Influenza==

I CIAM presentarono la Carta di Atene nel 1933, testo fondatore dell'architettura e dell'urbanistica moderna. 
Questo testo enuncia i mezzi per migliorare le condizioni di esistenza nella città moderna, che devono permettere lo svolgere armonioso delle quattro funzioni umane: abitare, lavorare, divertirsi e spostarsi. 
Ma il suo "manifesto concreto" resta la costruzione realizzata per l'esposizione internazionale del 1937: un "Padiglione dei tempi nuovi, tentativo di museo di educazione popolare (urbanistica)". 

==I Congressi==