During the nineteenth century surveys conducted by
sociologists, economists and physicians showed the difficult living conditions
of the working classes. The issue of housing has particular interest. Some
conservatives like dr. Louis René Villermé only note the problem and feel there
can be no solution to the squalor and deprivation. The philanthropists on the
other hand feel the need for urgent action to relieve their "brothers of
the lower classes" of their misery.
In 1845 a housing survey is carried out for assessing
the housing needs for the factory workers in Mulhouse, the most important manufacturing
center of the Alsace. The results are rejected by the mainly conservative
industrialists united in the Société Industrielle de Mulhouse (the Mulhouse
Industrial Society). Many surveys and initiatives follow in the next few years.
All are unsuccessful. That is until in 1851 the architect Emile Muller is commissioned
to design the new working class city (La Cité Ouvrières literrally: workers
city).
The workers city is built on agricultural land to the
northwest of the old city. This area was prone to flooding as two rivers -the
Doller and the Ill- squeeze through the narrow valley where Mulhouse* is
located. To relieve the flooding a relief channel is cut in 1846 that links
both rivers. On the sides of this canal several large textile factories
(spinning, weaving and textile printing) are erected. These factories pollute
the air with their smoking chimneys. The area no longer floods but is still
prone to water welling up from the ground after heavy rainfall. All in all not
an ideal location to build new housing.
The Cité Ouvrières is built on an orthogonal plan
witch long parallel streets at a right angle to the neigbouring canal and
intersecting lanes of only 2.5 meters wide that run parallel to it. Initially a
large central square was planned for various facilities, including shops,
bathhouses and laundry houses. The design was however scaled down and now we
find a large square park in its stead with a playground.
Two types of plots are defined for the houses, one
elongated, the other square, depending on the type of home to be built there.
Each house has a ground floor, a first floor, a cellar and an attic. One can
distinguish three main types of housing in this first Cité Ouvrières. The most
numerous are the houses in groups of four under one roof: the so-called Carré
Mulhousien (the Mulhouse Quadrangle). Each house shares two common walls with its
neigbours and has two facades overlooking a private garden. Another common type
of housing, is the back-to-back, with only one facade with windows and three
shared walls. These houses where the most economical to build and are also commonly
found in Brittish mining areas in the Middlands, Scotland and Wales. Finally
the more costly third type consists of large closed blocks around a courtyard
or garden.
The first Cité Ouvrières in
Mulhouse is built on a strict grid plan next to the DMC textile print factory of
Dollfus et Mantz (f) that is situated on the quay of the Canal décharge d'Ill
(c). Central is the square Place de Strasbourg (p). There was also a second
square called Place des Vosges (v). On the north side we see the Mulhouse
Quadrangles (1) and back-to-back housing (2). The southern half is taken up by apartments
in closed urban blocks (3).
The second new town or workers city is built between
1856 and 1870, west of the discharge channel. On an area of 55 hectares, 660
units are erected. Between 1870 and 1900 another 383 dwellings are constructed.
The houses in this seccond Cité Ouvrières are of only two types. The most
common are still the Mulhouse Quadrangles. After 1880 the focus shifts towards townhouses
built in terraces or in closed blocks around a courtyard or garden. The houses
in the second workers city are of a smaller size than in the first city: 46 m² to
50 m², comprising a small kitchen and a living room on the ground floor and two
bedrooms upstairs.
The city of Mulhouse is still growing at the time it
becomes German (Reichsland) between 1871 and 1918. However, until 1876, no new
houses are built as businesses closed and many workers emigrate to France and Switzerland.
Then, on fifteen hectares of the last sixty hectares that the city owns near
the canal, a total of 383 homes are built until the work is completed in 1897. From
about 1887 the new houses built increase in size, both in square footage but
also in height. The new dwellings range from 72 m² to 139 m² and stand 11m tall instead of the 9
meters of the earlier houses. These larger units are more expensive to build
(and therefore rent) and accessible only to skilled workers.
By 1900 the original uniformity of design is broken by
extensions and lean-to's built on the sides of the Mulhouse Quadrangles. In
many cases the houses are built to one another and now take the shape of back-to-back
terraced housing with only a small front garden remaining. The spacious
apartments in the closed blocks are sometimes split in smaller units. Although
by 1900 some 24% of homes in the workers city are occupied by lower middle
class households, the area to this day preserved its working class character. As
a model of (social) workers housing the Mulhouse Quadrangle was taken up by
many other industrialist, mainly in Belgium and Germany.
* The name Mulhouse is an appropriated form of the Germanic mull - hausen meaning "at the mill
cottages" or "the hamlet near the mill". The city is best characterized as a
river crossing settlement and from the name it is clear there once was a watermill
on the river Ill.
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