Axial interventions: the avenues of electoral Berlin and beyond

Following the growth of the Twin City Berlin-Cöln as a result of the growing importance of Prussia within the German Realm the capital city of Berlin grew rapidly from the 16th century onwards and several suburbs sprang up outside of the cities defences. In 1618 The Margraviate of Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia where joined cementing the pivotal position of the Elector of Brandenburg within the Holy Roman Empire.

Directly next to Cölln the electoral suburb of Friedrichswerder, which received town freedoms in 1662, was developed. The regular layout was aimed at enhancing the beauty of this new town as the first planned expansion. The new town was located on low-lying ground between the city walls of Cölln and the Spree Canal. In 1668 Friedrichswerder was incorporated into the city defences of the capital of Brandenburg, although it remained a separate settlement. Thus in 1678 a new town hall was built on the central market square.

In 1670 Elector Frederick William gifted the Kleiner or Cöllner Tiergarten (a swampy fenced-off hunting estate directly adjacent to the Spree river and the old city) to his wife Sophia Dorothea. Joachim Ernst, the Overseer of Fortifications, was responsible of the layout based on a strict grid of streets. This new extension of the city received town privileges in 1674 and was aptly named Neustadt before it was renamed Dorotheenstadt in 1681. It was secured by an extension of the city defences with an outer moat, earth banks and walls.

Electoral Berlin with the multitude of axial interventions and grid additions around the old Twin City of Berlin-Cölln with the city of Berlin (1) north and the city of Cölln (2) south of the Spree river The later was expanded with the addition of Neu-Cölln (3) and Friedrichswerder (4). Further west we find Dorotheenstadt (5) and Friedrichstadt (6).These were located adjacent to Luisenstadt (7) and the Grosser Tiergarten (8).

The grid of Dorotheenstadt was aligned parallel to the hunting avenue of Unter den Linden (literally: underneath the lime trees) that had been built in 1573 to link the Residence with the Kleiner Tiergarten and was extended to the edge of the Grosser Tiergarten in 1647. This axial intervention was done according to Dutch examples and planted with lime trees and walnut trees. In 1695 the avenue was extended for several miles to the Charlottenburg Palace and cut right through the large hunting pleasance. At one third of its length a large roundel was created within the Tiergarten with 8 avenues radiating out: the Grosser Stern. This design was based on Dutch examples of hunting forests, so-called Sterrenbossen, but on a much grander scale.  A second roundel was built at two thirds of the length of the axis, without the star shaped avenues radiating from it, but incorporating pre-existing roads.

After the death of the Elector Frederick William in 1688 his son Frederick III, the later King Frederick I of Prussia, had a new city built on the fields west of Cölln. The work on this third expansion of the city started in 1691 and was designed by a team of architects and engineers on a formal, geometric layout based on a grid with several open spaces of distinct shapes (square, rectangle, octagon and circle) and axial streets. The central axis was an extension from the Dorotheenstad north of Unter den Linden. The eponymous Friedrichstadt was entered from this point via the Friedricher Tor, a city gate. In the west the new city was bound by the Leipziger Landwehr, a defensive earthwork. It was also governed as a separate city with its own charter until all three electoral suburbs, Berlin and Cölln were incorporated as boroughs within the new city of Greater Berlin in 1709. After Prussia had been elevated to a kingdom in 1701 the importance of Berlin as a German Capital City rivalling Düsseldorf, Hanover, Dresden, Munich and Vienna increased steadily.

The first series of axial interventions was concentrated on the west side of the old city. The former hunting avenue of Unter den Linden (U) connects the Lustgarten (G) in front of the Hohenzollern Residence with the Brandenburgerplatz (B) with the well known Brandenburger Tor, a ceremonial gate. This splendid street also formed the central line of the Forum Fridericianum (F). The main axis of the new grids sits at a right angle to the original axis and was extended north across the river and south towards the round Hallesche Tor Platz (H). A secondary axis (Leipzigerstrasse) connects Friedrichswerder via the Leipziger Tor with the octogonal Leipziger Platz (L). The small oval Potsdammer Platz lay beyond the Potsdammer Tor. From here an axis (2) towards Schloss Bellevue (3) cuts through the Tiergarten. It crosses the extended axis of Unter den Linden with the Grosser Stern (1). A separately positioned axial intervention is related to the Reichstag Building (4). It follows the basic orientation of the Raczynski Palace that stood here before.

Whilst the development of Friedrichstadt was regulated and planned by royal appointment by Oberbaudirektor Philipp Gerlach, the suburb southeast of Cölln developed in a rather ad-hoc manner along pre-existing rural lanes and roads. This Cöllnische or Köpenicker Vorstadt fell prey to the ravages of the Thirty Years War and was completely destroyed by fire. Between 1734 and 1736 the Berliner Zollmauer (Customs and Duties Wall) was built around the city and its suburbs. The famous Brandenburger Tor on the axis through the Tiergarten is a remnant of this structure that had no military purpose. In 1802 the Köpenicker Viertel within was renamed Luisenstadt in honour of Luise the wife of Frederick William III.

Immediately after his ascension to the throne in 1840 King Frederick William IV commissions the famous landscape architect Peter Joseph Lenné to redesign Luisenstadt and execute an extension of this Borough towards the Flossgraben or Landwehrkanal ,a drainage canal that was dug in 1705. At the centre of the new design is a new drainage canal linking Spree and Flossgraben: the Luisenstadtischen Kanal that was opened in 1852. Lenné designed an axial composition inspired by Hausmannian interventions in Paris with several axes over a basic  grid layout, but incorporating older streets. The new canal forms part of the main axis that culminates in a church and starts at a wide lock. The brilliance of his design shows in the canal that curves away from the central axis leaving room for a secondary axial composition whilst widened sections of the canal served as spatial devices within the side axes with "water squares" at the crossing points.

The Luisenstadt is a contorted grid with several parallel axial streets. Of these only the central axis from the Canal Lock (1) via the Oranienplatz (2) on the main transverse axis towards the Church of St. Micheal (Michaelkirche - 3). The transverse axis connects two squares (one round, one square) on parallel axes. The Moritzplats (4) enforces the junction of the transverse axis with the Prinzenstrasse. The Heinrichplatz (5) signifies a secondary axis that ends with the Church of St Marianne (6) with the Bethanienkloster (7) at an angle of 90 degrees, thus emphasizing the curve in the Luisenstadkanal.

Onkel Toms Hütte, an example of expressive modernism

The first three building phases by the architects Bruno Taut, Otto Rudolf Salvisberg and Hugo Häring, are of a noticeable unity of design and together form the oldest part of the Onkel Toms Hütte Estate. This part has a layout akin to Unwinesque spatial design in the garden city tradition. The architecture, however, is not the vernacular design so often associated with garden city inspired suburban satellites, but an example of expressive modernism that was utilised by progressive continental architects in the 1920s and 30s.

The housing in the oldest phases of the suburban satellite is a mix of family houses in long and medium length terraces, semidetached properties and apartment blocks. The rows of family houses are placed along residential streets planted with trees. All have a front garden and a -larger- back garden. Every house has a flat roof!

In contrast the traditionalist design of the Fischtalgrundsiedlung places a strong emphasis on double pitched roofs. Here no ribbon-like windows are used, instead the windows are relatively small openings in the facade. The facade is broken up in the same way as in the modernist housing by colour-blocking.

A typical streetscape in the oldest part of Onkel Toms Hütte shows a garden city type arrangement of terraced housing oriented at the street lined with trees. In contrast to the usual species planted in garden villages such as fruit trees and small blossom trees, large forest species were introduced as a reference to the forest that once stood here. The use of bright colour in blocks breaks up the facade of the terraces.

The housing is of a typical unified modernist design, with a strong emphasis on standardisation and repetition. This is clear on the garden side of the terraces (on the left) where all houses are similar. Colour-blocking is mostly used on the facades visible from the street. Only in the detached self-built houses along the main street towards Zehlendorf the well known cubist style of white modernism is evident as the picture on the right shows.

Onkle Toms Hütte is well known for its expressive use of colour on the facades. This was something Taut used in many of his designs. It also lead to sneers from architects like Le Corbusier who considered themselves true modernist as they denounced colour all together. The combination of coloured facades and the tall pine trees that were kept in situ as a reminder of the Grunewald forest gives the area a distinct quality.

Taut uses white, off-white, yellow, green, red and blue. Often these blocks of colour are combined with brick or concrete details, like for instance the vertical courses on the right. This use of colour inspired post-modern architect to do similar things, but without the spatial quality of Taut's design thus resulting in rather gimmicky neighbourhoods. The so-called Regenboogbuurt (Rainbow Neighbourhood) in Almere is an example of this.

Other architects also used colour-blocking but in a more restrained manner. Her a design by Hugo Häring with ochre blocks of colour on the otherwise white facade with the red window frames and doors used as an extra ornamental element.

Especially on the corners Taut uses colour to emphasise and embellish these parts of the streetscape. In the oldest section of Onkel Toms Hütte this change in colour is linked to separate building masses -especially the semidetached houses on the corner of the long terraced. In the section north of Argentine Avenue the colours chance on the corners of buildings with the side elevation treated in a contrasting colour.

These flat-roofed blocks in natural hues are set amongst the trees. This type of suburban environment is a reference to the Waldsiedlung, a German type of housing project that was developed in per-existing woodland.

The apartment blocks have no use for front gardens an can therefore better emulate the Waldsiedlung type by having wide expanses of grass with pines and oaks. In the apartment blocks the building is treated as a sculpture for living in. Some have the Taut colours and brick details.

This long apartment building is part of the formal edge of the oldest part of Onkel Toms Hütte, separating this garden village inspired section from the railway tracks of the U--bahn. Here the many trees retained from the original forest and the newly planted birch trees break the long facades of the buildings.

Berlin modernists: Onkel Toms Hütte

From 1900 onwards Zehlendorf on the edge of the Grunewald southwest of Berlin developed into a wealthy suburb with small and large villa's on large to medium sized plots. When Zehlendorf and the large forest of Grunewald (litterally: Green Wood) were joined with Berlin in 1920 to become part of Greater Berlin it was assigned to be borough 10 (Stadtbezirk 10). In 1885 a local entrepreneur named Thomas opened a public house on the edge of the Grunewald forest on a forest road that connected the Königsallee (Kings Avenue) with the centre of Zehlendorf. In his beer garden he constructed several shelters for the visiting public that quickly became known as Thoms Hutten (Tom's cabins). Soon after the name of the establishment was changed into Onkel Toms Hütte after Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin of 1852.

Between 1926 and 1932 a large social housing estate was built on the edge of Zehlendorf. It was situated along the planned underground extension from the Central Line (Stamstrecke) to Krumme Lanke on the edge of Zehlendorf and the Grunewald forest. The development was planned as part of a series of new suburbs that would encircle the city of Berlin along the lines of the Ebenezer Howard diagram for Garden Cities.

Bruno Taut drew the plans for this new suburban satellite. He had been appointed chief architect and planner at the GEHAG, the largest housing cooperative in Berlin in 1924 and had previously designed the well received Huffeisensiedlung (Horseshoe Estate). Taut quickly started working on several new housing estates after his appointment. The estate at Onkel Toms Hütte was also financed and planned by the GEHAG (Gemeinnützigen Heimstätten-, Spar- und Bau-Aktiengesellschaft, best translated as the non-profit, community oriented, joint stock company for homes, savings and building). This organisation is still the owner of this estate (albeit under its new name of Deutsche-Wohnen-Gruppe).  

Taut decided not to pursue the existing planes of the district but to completely redesign the layout, first along the lines of Unwineske streetscapes combined with a so-called Waldsiedlung and later along the lines of the principles of Neues Bauen (New Objectivity in English although the literal translation 'new way of building' is more apt). In total 1100 apartments and 800 family houses were planned and built on the site that was mostly forest. The development was divided amongst the architects Bruno Taut (northern section), Otto Rudolf Salvisberg (southern section) and Hugo Häring (eastern section). The pines on the site were retained between the buildings, making for a pleasant living environment and giving the development a continued forest-feel. In 1927 as Taut's houses are being built, the borough approves plans for the Siedlung am Fischtalgrund on the edge of Onkel Toms Hütte. This development would be built in a traditionalist style however and runs along the edge of the Fischtal (Fish Valley).

In 1929 the new underground station on the U3, designed by Alfred Grenander, was completed and work started on the realisation of new homes north of the wide thoroughfare Argentinischen Allee (Argentine Avenue). The houses in this Hochsitzviertel were designed by Taut. He later also designed the Escherhauserviertel, with its parallel terraces (not dissimilar to Dammerstock). The station building was enlarged by Salvisberg and strip malls with housing were added on either side (1931), thus better incorporating the building in the bold, long facades that follow the curved thoroughfare. The clearly modernist placement of the apartment blocks along Argentine Avenue shows the shift in design concept. This is also evident in the last portion of the development designed by Taut: the Riemeisterviertel directly north of the underground station that consists of large apartment blocks set within pre-existing woodland.

The Uncle Tom's Cabin Estate consist of a modernist core built in several phases along modernist stylistic principles (shown in dark grey). Along the edges several traditionalist neighbourhoods were developed. These houses have pitched instead of flat roofs and often also have window shutters.The Fischtalgrund development (F) along the Fischtal (f) is the oldest. The Quermatensiedlung (Q) and Sprungschanzsiedlung (S) both date from after 1935. The underground station Onkel Toms Hütte (U) lies at the heart of the estate.

In the first building phase that conforms to Unwineske principles of placement of buildings along the street and spatial conventions of the Garden City Movement, a mix of family houses in often long terraces and apartments in sculptural blocks was realised. The urban design moved towards New Objectivity and the free placement of building with a relation to neighbouring buildings or the adjacent space but not the functional accessibility. The first phase south of the underground station also differ in density from the later building phases.

On both sides of Argentine Avenue the social housing estate of Onkel Toms Hütte was developed between 1926 and 1932.

Getting around... Berlin

The Berliner Untergrundbahn (U-Bahn) first opened in 1902 and now boasts 10 underground lines. With the 170 halts the underground railway (which is in fact underground for 80% of its length) provides a vital service in the metropolitan area. The public transport network comprises of the underground, a rapid transit railway system (S-Bahn), busses and tram lines in the east of Greater-Berlin. There are 9 S-Bahn lines with the circle line S4 having been split into several new expanded routes (41-47) linking east en west. Berlin is also connected to the high speed train network with frequent ICE services to all mayor cities in Germany.

in the ICE whizzing             one of the old                   nostalgic

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