Karl Marx Hof, Vienna: social housing in a large emblematic ensemble

The housing projects of the socialist council of Vienna are located throughout the urban Area. The city of Vienna is a separate (city) state within the country of Austria and is by far the largest city. his has been the case for centuries. The state of Vienna not only compromises of built-up areas but also includes large parks, many allotment complexes, floodplain along the Danube and forests. The planners tasked with creating the large-scale housing projects took most of their inspiration from Garden City Movement principles of multinuclear development along railroads and other lines of public transport. As such all the housing projects of the Rotes Wien encircle the old city and are located in the outer districts that often were (semi-)rural still in the 1920s.

One of the most famous examples of the Gemeindebauten of the Rotes Wien is the Karl-Marx-Hof. It is situated in Heiligenstadt, one of the Orte in the 19th District, along a railway next to the local commuter station. On the other side a tramline runs along the 1.100 metres long housing complex. This makes Karl-Marx-Hof the longest single residential building in the world. No fewer than 4 tram stops are available along its full length.

As the name "Hof" suggest the complex isn't a single monolithic structure but rather a complex of apartment buildings linked into one large structure that wraps around green communal gardens. The German Hof translates as "garden" or "courtyard". The housing complex was built between 1927 and 1930 after designs by Karl Ehn on land that had previously belonged to the crown, first as pasture on the floodplain and later as gardens. These gardens were removed to make way for the complex by the local council dominated by the Austrian Social Democratic Party. As an emblem of communal social housing the housing complex was named for Karl Marx, best known for his 1848 pamphlet The Communist Manifesto which he wrote with Friedrich Engels. The latter also had one of the housing complexes named after him (it is located in Simmering, District 11).

The Karl-Marx-Hof originally held 1.382 apartment of 30-60 m2 within several linked superblocks. Only 18,5 % of the site was built up. The rest of the 156.000 m2 site was planted as gardens and developed for playgrounds and allotments along the train track. Essentially a vertical garden village the complex was designed to house some 5000 people in varying ages. In the design many amenities were included: laundries, public bathhouse, kindergartens, a school, a library, doctors offices, dental practice, midwife office, business offices, coffeehouses, and communal rooms for clubs to meet (and for workers to unite and organize themselves).

The Karl-Marx-Hof stretches along the railway tracks next to the Heiligenstadt Station (S). Along the railway (R) allotment gardens (A) were built for the tenants. At the heart of the complex is a large garden square that once looked out over fields; this space (F) was renamed 12 Februar Platz in 1950. The apartment complex is a super block that wraps around communal gardens (G) making it a Gartenhof. In these communal gardens are located: a bathhouse with pool (1), a primary school (2), a community hall (3) and a kindergarten (4). All other amenities were incorporated into the building complex.

The residents famously protested the Anschluss of Austria with Nazi-Germany. A monument still remembers this act of defiance on February 12 1938. Located near an indsutrial estate and two railway stations the complex suffered severe war damage and was restored in 1950. The building was refurbished between 1989 and 1992, enlarging the accommodation by merging apartments. The Karl-Marx-Hof is now a monument and an important landmark beyond central Vienna. The public gardens are still in use and the apartments are rented at affordable rates by the city of Vienna.

Rotes Wien, social housing provision on a grand scale (1923-1934)

The Great War ended in 1918. With it the Austrian-Hungarian dual monarchy also ceased to exist. This lead to the independent development of many nations in central Europe. Austria became a republic as the monarchy was denounced on November 12 1918. At the following elections in which all citizens of legal age had a right to vote and the Social Democratic Party gained an absolute majority in the capital Vienna. Jakob Reumann was elected the first social democratic mayor. He was succeeded by Karl Seitz in 1923. Until the forced  Anschluss with Nazi-Germany in 1938 Vienna was nicknamed Rotes Wien (Red Vienna).

The collapse of the Austrian Empire created hyperinflation an poverty, triggered a refugee crisis (German-speaking people from Hungary, Galicia, Romania and Moravia fled their homeland) and left the large capital city at the head of a much smaller country. Vienna was also no longer located central in the empire, but right on the edge of the new Republic of German-Austria.

Vienna however was also a city of creative minds and intellectuals. The changed situation also incited optimism and a sense of new possibilities for modernisation. The social democratic politicians and the affiliated unions pushed for a radical agenda of (local) government-lead intervention and provision for all residents and the less well-off in particular. Creating public housing projects became the main concern of the Social Democrats in Vienna. For this they made use of the Imperial Tenant Protection Act (Mieterschutzgesetz) passed in 1917 that froze the rent of flats at the level of 1914. This made new private housing development unprofitable. As a result no new housing was planned, although the demand for affordable flats grew extremely high. The 1919 Housing Requirement Act kick-started extensive public housing planning by the city administration. This was supported by the decision to create the capital Vienna as a separate province in 1921. The prices for land and the cost of labour and materials were low as a result of the complete standstill in construction. House building started in earnest in 1923 with the first complexes of affordable Most housing was completed after 1925 when the strong new Schilling currency replaced the devalued Krone.

All these things contributed to Vienna become a socialist laboratory for social reform and public housing provision. As such this short period in Austrian history has attracted much attention in the past, and is arguably still relevant when viewing the problems with housing provision in the Western World. The social housing, that took the shape of blocks of flats with  few types of standardised flats typically built around a communal garden, was designed and developed by the Viennese city administration. The program was funded by the Viennese Housing Tax (40%), federal funds and a Luxury Tax. No money was borrowed to make house building possible. Using public money meant that rents could be kept very low. For the low-paid rents was set at only 4% of their household income. In contrast in privately rented accommodation over 30% of household income could be spent on rent. Furthermore if tenants become ill or unemployed rent could be waved or payment could be postponed.

In total the local government constructed 400 housing complexes with some 64.000 units (nearly always flats, but some terraces were also realised) and several amenities like a bathhouse, laundry, schools, community rooms, shops, playgrounds, maternity care, doctors surgery, etcetera. With over 10% of the population of Vienna living in these Gemeindebauten (Communal Houses) the true scale of the program becomes evident. The improvements in public health were enormous. So too were advances the in level of schooling and workers productivity. The number of people designated destitute fell dramatically.

The building campaign also become divisive as an expression of the political agenda of the left that contrasted sharply with the conservative mindset of surrounding rural Austria. During the civil war of February 1934, “Red Vienna” came to a sudden, tragic end, as the socialists’ enemies fired on the Karl-Marx-Hof -one of the emblematic projects- and drove the party and its leader’s underground, often into exile. Vienna's communal housing remain both as a symbol and a strategy. In effect these bastion-like mega-blocks stood isolated in a bourgeois city that longed for times gone by and were only occupied by people who supported their construction. They function still however as affordable housing and are managed by the city's authorities. As such they are more than expressions of municipal socialism, but a possible pragmatic example of solving a large-scale housing crisis. The workman's utopia was never realised in Vienna, but the city was reshaped to include people of all incomes in a comfortable and economic way. So let's not focus on the socialist ideals underpinning this housing program but seek inspiration in the knowledge that it is possible to build affordable housing in large quantities without deferring the costs to later generations by massive third-party financing.

These Gartenhof complexes are located around the old city of Vienna as satellites. They combine the ideas of the garden city movement (so enthusiastically embraced by socialists and reformers alike) with the Mietskaserne en Mietshof. The result is the Gartenhof with amenities as seen in Austria, Germany, The Netherlands and even England. All the Gartenhof apartment complexes still exist in Vienna. Most are also aesthetically very pleasing. Tours are organised to some of the better known examples, amongst them the Carl Seitz Hof (or Gartenstadt Floridsdorf).

Solarsiedlung Krefeld: making a decisive push for sustainable living

As part of the 50 Solar Housing Estates in the State of North Rhine Westphalia the city of Krefeld submitted a project for a "Solarsiedlung" in the borough of Oppum. It was designed in 2003 on former playing fields behind a school in the large Donk Estate. It consists of 38 housing units, mostly in short terraces, but also some detached and semidetached houses have been included. No rental properties or social housing in this development that is solely aimed at owner-occupiers. The average plot size is 420 m2, the total site developed measures 19 hectares (resulting in the very low 2 housing unit per hectare). Parking spaces have been provided on the edges of this infill estate, with the option of turning this into a garage. Building work started in 2015 and will finish in the spring of 2017.

Some of the terraced housing with plank-clad facades and outbuildings (sheds) with the same treatment. The entrances have been emphasized by the use of render in an earth colour. This isn't loam render however. The photovoltaic array on the shed is clearly visible. There is no car-access to the houses, only a footpath for slow traffic (pedestrians and cyclists).

The houses are built using a standard method of construction (Massivbau in German) with large blocks of re-used concrete. On the left one of the last houses now under construction. The detached houses have been built in a clustered manner which results in little space in between (as seen on the right). The style evokes the international-modernist idiom.

In contrast to the wood-clad buildings most houses are finished in the German staple of coloured render. Here in a lovely natural yellow. The photovoltaic array and the sun boiler are clearly visible on the roof. The garden wraps around these semidetached properties on two sides with a wide walking path along the front.^0 % of all warm water is created using heat collectors and sun boilers.

A row of recycling bins along the side of a wood-clad shed shows the efforts made to streamline separate streams of waste. The size and colour of the lid indicates the material to be collected.. A few houses have these wooden blinds on the outside as a design feature. The panels slide in front of the windows between stainless steel leads.

In this short terrace each house is recognisable by the varying building line and the slight differences in the facade. Again the water heater arrays on the roof are very visible from some distance. They seem as an afterthought in the design however. This is a shame as they could have been part of the architectural statement.

The combination of brightly painted wooden elements inserted in the rendered facade is a clear architectural statement when in front of the facade. It gives each house in the terrace an individual accent. Another use of wood is in these large protruding eaves supported by wooden posts that also support the balconies.

Two of these semidetached houses next to one another The houses are quite large, but not by German standards. This is the back of the house. The gardens are made more private by a wild hedge along the edge. The use of such wild mixed hedges instead of a more formal clipped hedge also aides the distinctiveness of this development as a green Solar Housing Estate.  

Solarsiedlungen North Rhine Westphalia: Building with the sun

At the end of the 1990s the Energy Agency of North Rhine Westphalia (EA.NRW) launched the "Mit der Sonne Bauen" project. The aim of this project was to build 50 new housing estates "with the sun". In conjunction with the Federal state of North Rhine Westphalia  the workgroup "Bauen und Wohnen" (= Building and Living) of the EA.NRW drew up plans to develop 50 so-called Solarsiedlungen in the new millenium.

The aim of this initiative was to greatly reduce the energy requirements of housing by appropriating solar energy and also to provided the energy needs of the residents by using sustainable sources. Three requirements were defined. For a housing estate to be eligible for the title of "Solar energy housing estate" at least two of the three requirements had to be met. The specific requirements for a "Solar Estate" are:

·         Heat energy consumption: max. 15 kWh/m²a (passive house standard) or max. 35 kWh/m²a. Use of the suns energy, earth warmth en/or extra insulation to achieve an low-energy of passive house.

·         Production of hot water: The solar energy contribution is to be at least 60 % of the energy requirements for the production of hot water for heating and domestic daily use..

·         Electricity: The production of electricity by photovoltaic cells should be at least 1 kWh per housing unit. 

To make these example projects in sustainable housing development possible the State government of North Rhine Westphalia coordinated all the subsidies granted by several ministries to provide a lasting and dependable financial framework. This is one of the reasons why this initiative succeeded in Germany (here NRW) whilst so many in other countries fail or only see a small number actually realised, as the funding is redirected or not guaranteed for long enough.

The government of North Rhine Westphalia invited local councils to come up with projects for Solar Housing Estates. This makes this initiative an excellent example of true bottom-up planning. Most large cities provided proposals, but also quite a number of smaller communities. The proposals submitted included both new housing, but also the redevelopment of existing estates or the sustainable refurbishment of extant social housing.

Most developments are rather small in scale. They vary from 15 new houses to a few hundred apartments in several blocks being refurbished. Most new housing can be classified as infill or redevelopment of brown field sites. As such these developments also know a more sustainable planning regime. As infill developments most of these housing estates are comprised of 20 to 40 buildings with several housing units arranged along cul-de-sacs or car free streets. As part of the design there is often a focus on stimulating cycling and walking -in a way similar to Danish and Dutch examples.

All in all these Solarsiedlungen are rather incidental in character both in scale, situation and embedding in the urban context. As example projects they are very successful. The architecture of the housing is often an expression of the sustainable measures included in their construction, much like in EVA-Lanxmeer. This results in what can be best typified as eco-architecture with vegetation roofs, sun boilers, photovoltaic arrays on roofs and sheds, wooden panelling and loam render on the facades, rain chains hanging from overhanging roofs, water rills in the pavement, open pavements, sustainable urban drainage and so on.

The Solar Housing Estates have been built -and are being built- all over the state of North Rhine Westphalia. Image after project information sheet EnergieAgentur.NRW.

In 15 years time the planned 50 Solar Housing Estates with 4300 housing units have been either finished or are in the process of being being built. More will be developed using the same regulatory framework. This makes North Rhine Westphalia a forerunner in Europe when it comes to sustainable housing development. The lessons learnt should now be extrapolated to "normal" developments and be made mandatory for all (re)developments. I always say: "you don't just talk about sustainability in project, you simply do it - always and everywhere".