Meanwhile on the woodland edge

As the trees and shrubs are now almost in full leaf the canopy is closing so the flowering plants are mainly located on the woodland edges and around clearings.

Lunaria annua (left) or Honesty originated in the Balkans bat has naturalised throughout most of temperate Europe. Smyrnium perfoliatum is a curious plant with vivid green flowers that light op this shady spot amongst the unrolling ferns. The dark flowers of the Geranium phæum have given this plant its common name of Mourning widow.

Rhododendrons are at their peak right now, on the left a lovely lilac blue variety. Euphorbias are poisonous plants with curious flowers. What seems to be the flower is actually a bract. The tiny maroon coloured dots are the actual flowers. The flowers of Symphytum grandiflorum change colour from red through pink to a porcelain blue. Many plants in this family have flowers that change colour, think only of the Forget-me-not.   

Gartenstadt Luginsland: a garden village in the Swabian vernacular

The garden village Luginsland was built in the Swabian vernacular with hipped roofs with red tiles, dormers, low chimneys and rendered walls in off-white, cream, yellow and ochre. The curved streets are lined with spacious semidetached and detached houses in the northern part of the garden village. The streets lack trees but are lined with large front gardens with originally privet hedges.

These more simple houses with gabled roofs and no dormers (although some were added later) are of a later date and were built around 1930. The large semidetached properties are setback further from the road, providing for larger front gardens with room for a separate small garage.

Only two of the closes are designed in a classic Unwinesque style with a building foreshortening the line of sight from the entrance, most however are short cul-de-sacs with houses on either side of the dead-end street. In the background we see the modernist church building. This Neuen Gartenstadtkirche was consecrated in 1968 to replace the old church which was converted to a community centre.

The old church was built in 1931 to replace an older chapel built in 1911. The building was destroyed by allied bombs and rebuilt between 1945 and '48. The new church in stark concrete designed by the Stuttgart architect Rall is a clear break from the Swabian vernacular of the surrounding garden village.

The Gartenstadtkirche was consecrated in 1931 and was a multi-use building with a large church hall on the ground floor and with an apartment for the parish priest and a health centre (community nurse) above. The present building was rebuilt after 1945, but quickly became too small, so a new church was built behind it, a kindergarten was built next to it and the church itself was converted into a community centre. The building was modelled on the historic village churches of the area.

The Gaststätte Luginsland stands at the entrance to the garden village an comprises of a pub and a guesthouse with small apartments let out to single factory workers. Around the corner within the same building some shops were located. These stand mostly empty now. Behind the Gaststätte a garden square is located at the heart of the garden village with small but vary detailed houses around it.

The garden square is a large rectangular space encircled with trees and mostly laid to grass. Part of the space has been made into a playground. The low houses around are very detailed in their architecture. This central section of Luginsland was the first to be built between 1911 and '14.

Regardless of the building period the houses were fitted with functional window shutters in a few types. The type of shutter is simplified over the years. Where the older houses have a very detailed architecture with compound roofs and lots of small details (as shown on the right) the later buildings were simplified with only basic facades.

The streets south of the Goldbergstrasse are lined with small properties in short terraces. These buildings only have small garden at the front and are built so close to one another that they seem to form a continuous building line. The architects have employed varying the direction of the roofline to break up the length of the roof surfaces and create visual interest.

Gartenstadt Luginsland, Untertürkheim

Untertürkheim east of Stuttgart on the Neckar is known to most people for the Benz Autowerken a car factory. Daimler AG has its main plant here. The company has concentrated the development, production and shipment of engines, transmissions and axles for the Mercedes-Benz Cars division at the Untertürkheim location. Also located in the main plant are the Daimler Group headquarters, parts of the Trucks division, the research and development unit.

On a hill above Untertürkheim, some 2 kilometres from the riverside car factory, Gartenstadt Luginsland can be found. Although Gartenstadt translates as Garden City, it is actually a Garden Village built to provide homes for the factory workers of the nearby car factory. The garden village however wasn't constructed by the company, but was built by a Collective Building Society called Gartenstadt Eigenes Heim (literally: Private Home Garden City) between 1913 and '33. After WW2 the garden village was extended on the westside in a much more conventional manner.

In an area of about 9 hectares, 400 dwellings were constructed. Most of these were owner occupied family houses, but 48 rental apartments for single people (men) were also included. The houses are detached, semidetached or have been built in short terraces. A café is situated at the entrance of the garden village on the main road from Untertürkheim to Fellbach. The same block also houses the apartments on the upper floors and some shops on the ground floor. Most people have a large garden, still a large complex of allotments was provided. The garden village also has its own church,  the Gartenstadtkirche, that doubled up as a community hall and a primary school. After WW2 a second church and a Kindergarten were built on either side of the old church.

The houses designed by Wacker and Schönagel are situated on curved streets and some closes. The whole garden village is in keeping with the Unwinesque principles of English examples. For visual interest the building line is staggered along the streets with buildings angled out at junctions. Most buildings have a similar roof line, only n the more densely built up streets the roofline varies. The streets know very few trees. There is however a central tree lined street that connects the entrance with a central garden square with a playground. Al the green is provided by front garden, especially where detached and semidetached properties dominate. The terraced housing has little to no front garden. The garden village is in parts therefore more urban than rural in character.

The garden village Luginsland nestles between two per-existing roads and was built on farmland called the Nägelsäcker. At the entrace we find the Gaststätte (G) a large building housing a café, shops and apartments. At the heart of the garden village is a small garden square (the Goldbergplatz - p). We also see typical closes (c), allotment gardens (A), a church (Gartestadtkirche - GK) and a primary school (s). Luginsland was developed as a complete society with all the amenities deemed necessary.

The houses have been built in a simple Swabian vernacular style, with tiled roofs, window shutters and rendered facades. The inhabitant take great pride in their gardens, which means that the garden village is still predominantly green and leafy in character. As all family houses are privately owned improvements have in some cases spoiled the cohesive original design. Especially extensions and replacement windows and doors are seldom in keeping with the garden village aesthetic. Apart from this the whole garden village is still very recognisable as a stylistic entity within the suburban sprawl north of Untertürkheim.

Meanwhile in the undergrowth

With my attention drawn up by the vast amount of blossoms one would almost forget to look down at those delicate little plants that are now in full bloom in the undergrowth.

Glechoma hederacea  (left) or Ground-ivy is related to Mint and not to Ivy. The flowers and fruit of the Woodland strawberry (Fragaria vesca) are small compared to the better known Garden strawberries, but the small fruits are very tasty and fragrant. The Hybrid bluebell (Hyacinthoides x massertiana) is a cross between the Common bluebell and the Spanish Bluebell and looks a bit like both parents.

Although a very low plant the very fragrant blooms of Lily of the Valley (Convallaria majalis) make themselves known before one has seen them. In close-up the little white urn-like flowers (left) of this highly poisonous woodland plant are truly lovely. Another plant that loves a shady position in open woodland is the Forget-me-not (Myositis sylvatica) with its baby blue flowers. The marked leaves of the Italian arum (Arum italicum), aid the plant to distribute the low light on the forest floor to the chlorophyll in its leaves. The striking marbled leaves often appear in autumn to make the most of the period that the trees overhead have shed their leaves.

Tuinwijk Moortebeek: a decorative garden village

The garden village is characterised by long streets running from north to south. By using Unwinesque design devises within such a modernist layout a greater degree of visual interest is created. Here for instance by bringing forward the building line to visually pinch the view along the street. The direction of the roof ridge is also employed to create interest.

The use of green verges in grass planted with trees is not employed regularly across the garden village. Where it is used the streets immediately take on a familiar garden village look.

Most streets rely on the green front garden with privet hedges and low gates to create the garden village feel. the roads have been turned into one-way streets to accommodate parking spaces for cars. These were of course not very prevalent when the garden village Moortebeek was originally built in the 1920s.

The architecture in the northern part is best characterised as romantic modernism. All component like windows, doors, awnings, chimneypots, etcetera, were standardised. The roof shapes vary but are variations on three basic types. All window frames and doors were (and are) painted in the same brown colour. The walls are rendered in a an off-white roughcast or have painted brick facades. The houses were built in classes; second class houses (left) are simpler in design and smaller in size than the first class houses (right) with their more expressive design details like this beautiful sculptural corner.

The streetscape with second class houses makes for a much simpler design than that of a street with first class houses. The unity in design, however, creates a pleasant atmosphere.

The Unwinesque devise of the close is also employed within this garden village. Within this more interesting spatial configuration the rather simple second class houses look the part and create the impression of a rural living environment.

The third class houses on the edge of the northern part of the garden village Moortenbeek are lower and smaller that the second class housing. The unity of design of the architecture by Jean-Francois Houben is clear in the overall look and the details.

The use of wooden window shutters creates a rural feel and also adds a practical detail to the garden village. All houses in every of the three classes have the shutters, creating great unity throughout. The central Avenue Shakespeare (right) is a wide, parklike, elongated public garden with tree lined streets on either side.

Along the sides of the former recreation ground of Moortebeek two large apartment blocks were built in the late 1950s by modernist architect René Bragard. At the centre part of the original park was kept as a public garden with now mature trees. Here a view at the back of one of the apartment buildings.

The cubist volumes of the building by Bregard (left) fit wonderfully well with the older architecture in the northern part of the garden village Moortebeek. The greyish-white colour complements the off-white of the older architecture. The brutalist architecture around the garden village makes for an uneasy contrast (shown right). The concrete high-rises and mid-rises are of an entirely different scale, volume and surface treatment.

The southern part of Moortebeek designed by Joseph Diongre shows a more expressive take on vernacular architecture making the whole tie in with of Art Deco. The houses built in terraces all have alternating architectural expressions. The floor plans, however, are the same.

Two examples of the decorative colour blocking employed by Diongre to break the facades of his terraced housing. Left a gable with colour blocking related to the windows and entrance. On the right an example of colour blocking used to break the length of the terrace by emphasising the vertical.

With the front gardens surrounded by privet hedges and uniform gates the garden village feel is also present in the southern part of Moortebeek. The overall impression is also similar due to the use of the off-white render on the facades. A one-way system is also in place here to create space for parking.

The use of colour blocking as a design devise to both emphasise functional parts of the buildings (entrances) as well as breaking up the facade and thus down scaling the visual impact can be clearly seen in the example on the left. In other places blocks of colour are used in a way similar to natural stone in vernacular architecture, creating a very attractive facade.

In the southern part there is also a distinction between first class housing, that is larger and decorated in a more elaborate way, and second class housing with les variation in roof shapes and a more repetitive decorative scheme of colour blocking on the ground floor only.