Dammerstock, a showcase of the modernist model home

A central strip of green separates the northern and southern sections of Dammerstock. Along the edge also runs the main road that links this suburb to the main road along the railway. The strip has been planted as an ornamental park with expanses of grass with trees and shrubs.

The traditionalist style of building of the Stuttgarter Schule (left) contrasts sharply with the cubist lines of the Bauhaus architecture (right).

The buildings in the traditionalist style that date from the 1930s are positioned along long parallel streets with ample green front gardens. The orthogonal street plan wasn't changed, so the houses with pitched and hipped roofs are arranged in long rows running north to south.

This building stands at the entrance to Dammerstock and advertises the intended Bauhaus style of the development. The complex had a social function with a bakery, kitchen, bathhouse, laundrette and community hall.

The apartments can be accessed via a back street that runs underneath a gateway. This gate separates the functional parts of the complex, but also creates a strong sense of place.

The functional elements of the architecture are the ornament within the Bauhaus doctrine. Exceptions are made for murals and tableaus. For the most part the architecture depends on the sculptural quality of the blocks with the rhythm of the structural elements, faces and openings.

The streets that run east to west are the through streets, that now harbour all the parked cars of the residents. The ends of the rows of housing create a strict rhythm along these streets. This also emphasizes the perception of depth, thus making the area look more spacious.

In contrast the rows of housing are spaced relatively close to each other creating long rows that run north to south. Some blocks are multifamily houses with small to medium size apartments. These blocks all have a unifying plinth in a gray colour.

The equally long rows of terraced houses lack the plinth and have a uniform facade in a single colour. Here the openings for the doors and windows are used to great effect creating both a horizontal and vertical rhythm. The small awning over the entrance and the steps are almost ornamental, although fully functional.

The ambition was to create modern living for modern people in a green and pleasant setting. So the design incorporated communal gardens with fruit trees and private gardens for the terraced housing. Hedges were used to unify all elements and create structure. These hedges are the same as in garden villages: privet.

The strips of garden space are unified by the long hedges running along. The white blocks stand out between the surrounding green thus supporting the idea(l) of a spacious place to live happily that has none of the vices of urbanity. Dammerstock is basically a modernist garden suburb.

Along the edge of the quarter a ridge of higher apartment blocks define the area against the surrounding landscape and also serve as a barrier towards the railway and the main through road on that side. De Blocks are of a deceptively simple design that is emphasised by the shadows of the trees in the park like public garden that sits next to it.

The blocks of flats don't stand out, as they are surrounded by higher vegetation (trees) that the lower rows at the heart of Dammerstock (that have fruit trees).The architecture emphasises their relative height through the horizontal alignment of windows and balconies in bands along the facade.

Dammerstock, Bauhaus in Karlsruhe

The city of Karlsruhe (literally: Charles' Rest) issues a design competition in 1928 for the development of a new suburban satellite to be built on a number of fields along the river Alb. The area is known locally as Dammerstock and was part of Beiertsheim until this settlement was incorporated by Karlsruhe in 1907. Subsequently, plans were drawn up to create a large industrial area on the relatively flat land. This changes with the Generalbebauungsplan (a regional urban plan) of 1926, that was commissioned by the mayor Hermann Schneider. The explicit aim was to create a new garden village type settlement in between the so-called Südstadt (South City) and the Gartenstadt Rüppurr (Rüppurr Garden Village). The site lies along the Albtalbahn, a railway line running south from the city.

The new urban quarter was an ambitious project within modernism, a style advocated by the city council. Several famous architects are asked to participate in the design competition. The choice of architects reflects the modernist inclination. The same can be said of the jury consisting of Erst May, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Paul Schmitthenner. The design competition centred around the usability of modern housing for families with average to low incomes. For realisation of the development a non-profit building society (gemeinnützige städtische Baugenossenschaft Volkswohnung) was founded.

Walter Gropius was proclaimed the winner of the design competition. He had been the director of Bauhaus from 1918 onwards after taking over from the Belgian Henry van de Velde. He is also the person who fused the Polytechnic of Saxony with the Academy for the Arts to form the Staatliches Bauhaus (State School for Building) in 1919.In 1925 the Bauhaus is moved from Weimar to Dessau where the famous school buildings by Gropius still stand. The aim of the Bauhaus is to provide both technical and practical schooling in which all the creative disciplines contribute to a Gesamtkunstwerk (or: total work of art). In 1928 Gropius was succeeded by another famous modernist Hannes Meyer, who in turn was succeeded in 1930 by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, another famous modernist architect.

The winning design is textbook Bauhaus. The central motif is formed by parallel strips of row housing. The square buildings with flat roofs and light rendered facades were set in green gardens on paths that connected to trough streets. The buildings were all designed by Gropius and students of his in a similar style. Only the first building phase was ever completed as after 1933 the Bauhaus was closed and modernist architecture was declared entartet (degenerate) by the NSDAP. The northern section of Dammerstock was subsequently completed in the style of the so-called Stuttgarter Schule which focussed on recreating vernacular design. The layout was, however, not altered.

The original design for Dammerstock redrawn from original poster for the 1929 Model Homes exhibition (Ausstellung Dammerstock-Siedlung, die Gebrauchswohnung). The graphic concept for this exhibition of the Neues Bauen (literally: the new way of building) was by the designer Kurt Schwitters.  On the right the actual situation with in red the traditionalist buildings in the Stuttgarter Schule and in yellow the original buildings of 1929 and parts that were completed in the same style by the architect van den Kerkhof in 1949. Although what still stands is impressive, it would have been quite something this suburb of Karlsruhe if it had been completed as originally intended.

Gartenstadt Rüppurr: from the Unwinesque aesthetic to German Plattenbau

The buildings along the Heckenstraße (Hedge Street) are typical for early garden villages that follow the Unwinesque aesthetic. The oldest buildings (at the front) are mostly semidetached and terraces of three, whilst the houses that were built after 1912 are mostly terraced as can be seen further down the street.

Two examples of vernacular inspired architecture in the first building phase along the Holderweg (Elder Road) that at the time was called Auerweg (Meadow Road). Both buildings have variable roof shapes with protruding gables and windows with shutters. The walls are rendered with a fine roughcast or with weatherboarding.  

The Blütenweg (Flower Road) is a classic Unwinesque close with buildings along a central public garden. Most buildings are semidetached except for the row of terraced housing along the northside of the close.

The buildings from the first and second phase  sit well next to the ensemble around the Ostendorfplatz. The two buildings (as seen on the right) directly behind the shops on the garden square show that although slightly different in details have been designed along the same lines as the semicircular blocks of shops. This second and third phase were designed by Friedrich Ostendorf after whom the central square was named in 1915.

The semicircular Ostendorfplatz was designed as the new centre linking garden village and the old village of Rüppurr. The buildings still house shops and are located near the S-Bahn Station Gartenstadt. n ornamental fountain sits at the centre of this garden square.

 

The curved street Im Grün (In the Green), built in phases 1 and 2, is typical of the classical Unwinesque design principles with mainly large semidetached properties and some terraces that are set back from the road to create a more interesting streetscape. 

The streets laid out as part of Ostendorf's phase 2 are all similar with alternation terraces and semidetached houses. The Rosenweg (Rose Road) is an excellent example. Along this street the houses are finished in white roughcast with bottle green wooden shutters and hipped roofs that reference the vernacular architecture of the Back Forest. The buildings along the Asternweg (Aster Road) and Resedenweg (Weld Road) are coloured ochre instead of white.

In the details of Ostendorf's buildings it is clear that he has tried to integrate multiple ideas within buildings that have a cottage-like and romantic feel. The floor plans of most of the properties are similar, but there has been great effort made to differentiate the buildings in appearance.

Two L-shaped along Krokusweg (Crocus Road) form a formal termination of the garden village along the central Holderweg. These buildings are part of the 1930s buildings built in the so-called Stuttgarter Schule (a traditionalist school of architecture favoured after 1933).The buildings blend well into the earlier and even later building phases.

The blocks of flats that were built after WW2 to replace damaged buildings (right) are very sympathetically designed and fit in well with the older remaining blocks of flats (left). The older apartment buildings have hipped roofs, are 1 storey lower and have more elaborately detailed wall openings.

 

Along the Irisweg (Flag Iris Road) the shift away from Unwinesque treatment of the streets and placement of the housing blocks can be clearly seen. On the southside of the road are long terraces of family houses with a front and back garden. On the northside of the street are parallel blocks of flats (Zeilenbau in German). That way of building has been a staple of social housing in Germany since the 1920s as a part of the modernist movement.