Zur Entwicklung der deutschen Stadt

The theme of the book is the development of the German city since the beginning of the 19th century. The focus is on two centuries that represent a particularly eventful period in the twelve-century history of the German city. The author analyzes the characteristics that characterized the expansion and redesign of cities in the 19th century. Against the background of contemporary urban utopias and models, he reconstructs how the basic patterns of public versus private, parcelling, block formation, and other elements determined the image of the cities.
Using exemplary examples, the escape line planning at the end of the 19th century, the construction of factory or workers’ housing estates around the turn of the century, the garden cities and villa districts from the beginning of the 20th century, and the multi-story housing construction of the interwar period in the 1930s are described in more detail. A separate chapter is devoted to reconstruction in the GDR in the three periods of the 1950s, late 1960s, and early 1970s, as well as to postwar urban development in the old FRG. The chapter concludes with developments after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of the two German societies.