The 16 principles of town planning

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The 16 principles of urban planning were the model for urban planning in the GDR for about five years from 1950 . They were shaped by the ideal of the “ socialist city ” and, for their part, shaped the first phase of reconstruction with their typical style of “ socialist classicism ”.

history

Berlin

Typical architecture of the 1950s in Berlin's Karl-Marx-Allee

On May 17, 1945, Hans Scharoun was appointed by the Soviet military government to city planning officer and head of the building and housing department of the city ​​council , and in this office he was responsible for developing a reconstruction concept for the heavily destroyed city. In mid-1946 he presented the so-called “ collective plan” drawn up by the “planning collective ” under the title Berlin plans - first report , which was based on the Athens Charter and envisaged a radical detachment from the established layout of the city.

After the political and administrative division of the city in 1948/1949, the now separate planning and building authorities initially developed plans for the whole of Berlin, but from 1950 onwards independent urban planning guidelines for reconstruction for both halves of the city. The "collective plan" was further developed by the East Berlin authorities until 1949 into a "general development plan".

Dresden

A result of the 16 principles of urban planning in an architectural style that continues the “national cultural heritage”: Altmarkt house in Dresden , built between 1953 and 1956.

Other cities faced the same challenge. In Dresden , the architect Kurt W. Leucht , a former employee of Ernst Sagebiel , wrote the book Planning Basics, Planning Results for the Reconstruction of the City of Dresden , together with the garden architect Johannes Bronder and a graduate engineer , the first work on the planning of the reconstruction of a destroyed German city. In the 1950s, the black fibula , as the book was also called, was used in East and West, not least for the training of architecture students.

State excursion to the Soviet Union

After the founding of the GDR on October 7, 1949, the Ministry for Development was established under the direction of Lothar Bolz . On January 4, 1950, at the invitation of Wilhelm Pieck, the mayors of all major GDR cities and the country's most important architects met in Berlin to advise on a GDR building law. A list of participants was compiled from top functionaries of the emerging architecture and building administration of the GDR for a trip to Moscow , Kiev , Leningrad and Stalingrad . The aim of the trip was to meet with Soviet colleagues and officials to get to know the Soviet system and to develop the basis for the reconstruction of the destroyed cities of the GDR.

The GDR government delegation on April 12, 1950 at the Schlesisches Bahnhof in East Berlin before their departure for the Soviet Union . From left to right: Kurt Walter Leucht , Edmund Collein , Lothar Bolz , Waldemar Alder , Walter Piesternick , Kurt Liebknecht

The trip took place from April 12 to May 25, 1950. Participants were Kurt Walter Leucht from the Dresden City Planning Office, Edmund Collein as head of the City Planning Office of East Berlin, Construction Minister Lothar Bolz , Head of Department Walter Pisternik, Waldemar Alder from the Ministry of Industry and Kurt Liebknecht , Director of Urban Development and Structural Engineering in the Ministry of Construction. The Soviet planners heavily criticized the previous “general construction plan” because neither Soviet examples nor the division of the city were taken into account, as GDR government buildings were planned for Fehrbelliner Platz in West Berlin . Furthermore, the accusations of formalism and cosmopolitanism in architecture and town planning had to be fought off.

This marked a definitive departure from the principles of the Charter of Athens. The specifications from the USSR for future urban development resulted in the “16 Principles of Urban Development”, which was written on April 28, 1950 in the Soviet Union. Some passages are even based literally on quotations from the Soviet planners. In particular, these demanded an urban center as the “political center” with the “most important and monumental buildings” and places for “political demonstrations” and “marches”. The architecture of the individual buildings must be "democratic in content and national in form". The architecture uses "the experience of the people embodied in the progressive traditions of the past". What that should not mean, Walter Ulbricht brought a few days before the Council of Ministers decision at the III. Party Congress to the point: "We want in Berlin no American boxes and no Hitlerite barracks style longer see".

On July 27, 1950, these principles were adopted by the GDR Council of Ministers as the basis for planning the construction of the destroyed cities in the GDR.

Construction Law

On September 6, 1950 the construction law was passed, in which the "16 principles" for urban planning were declared binding. In addition to Berlin, the most important industrial centers, Dresden, Leipzig , Magdeburg , Chemnitz , Dessau , Rostock , Wismar and Nordhausen had priority in the construction. These two documents formed the basis for the future urban development of the GDR.

The principles in full

"Resolved by the government of the German Democratic Republic on July 27, 1950:

Urban planning and the architectural design of our cities must give expression to the social order of the German Democratic Republic, the progressive traditions of our German people and the great goals that are set for the construction of the whole of Germany. The following principles serve this purpose:

  1. The city as a form of settlement was not created by chance. The city is the most economical and culturally rich form of settlement for the community life of the people, which has been proven by centuries of experience. In structure and architectural design, the city is an expression of political life and the national consciousness of the people.
  2. The aim of urban planning is the harmonious satisfaction of the human demand for work, housing, culture and relaxation. The principles of urban planning methods are based on natural conditions, on the social and economic foundations of the state, on the highest achievements of science, technology and art, on the requirements of economic efficiency and on the use of progressive elements of the people's cultural heritage.
  3. Cities 'in themselves' do not arise and do not exist. Cities are built to a large extent by industry for industry. The growth of the city, the number of inhabitants and the area are determined by the factors that form the city, that is, by industry, the administrative bodies and the cultural sites, insofar as they have more than local importance. In the capital, the importance of industry as a city-building factor takes a back seat to the importance of administrative bodies and cultural sites. The determination and confirmation of the urban-forming factors is strictly a matter for the government.
  4. The growth of the city must be subordinated to the principle of expediency and must be kept within certain limits. Excessive growth of the city, its population and its area leads to complexities in its structure that are difficult to eliminate, to entanglements in the organization of cultural life and the daily provision of the population, and to operational entanglements in both the activity and the further development of industry.
  5. Urban planning must be based on the principle of the organic and the consideration of the historically developed structure of the city when eliminating its shortcomings.
  6. The center forms the determining core of the city. The center of the city is the political hub for the life of its people. In the center of the city are the most important political, administrative and cultural sites. Political demonstrations, marches and popular celebrations on festive days take place in the squares in the city center. The center of the city is built on with the most important and monumental buildings, dominates the architectural composition of the city map and determines the architectural silhouette of the city.
  7. In cities that are on a river, one of the main arteries and the architectural axis is the river with its quays.
  8. Transport has to serve the city and its people. He must not tear the city apart and not be a hindrance to the population. The through traffic is to be removed from the center and the central district and carried outside its borders or in an outer ring around the city. Equipment for freight transport on railways and waterways must also be kept away from the central district of the city. The determination of the main thoroughfares must take into account the closeness and tranquility of the residential areas. When determining the width of the main thoroughfares, it should be borne in mind that for urban traffic it is not the width of the main thoroughfare that is of decisive importance, but a solution for the intersections that meets the requirements of the traffic.
  9. The face of the city, its individual artistic form, is determined by squares, main streets and the dominant buildings in the center of the city (in the largest cities by high-rise buildings). The squares are the structural basis for planning the city and its overall architectural composition.
  10. The residential areas consist of residential districts, the core of which are the district centers. All of the cultural, utility and social facilities of district importance that are necessary for the population of the residential district are located in them. The second link in the structure of the residential areas is the residential complex, which is formed by a group of residential districts, which are united by a garden laid out for several residential districts, schools, kindergartens, crèches and supply systems serving the daily needs of the population. Urban traffic may not be permitted within these residential complexes, but neither the residential complexes nor the residential districts may be self-contained, isolated structures. Their structure and planning depend on the structure and the demands of the city as a whole. The residential quarters as the third link mainly have the meaning of complexes in planning and design.
  11. Decisive for healthy and calm living conditions and for the supply of light and air are not only the density of living and the direction of the compass, but also the development of traffic.
  12. Turning the city into a garden is impossible. Of course, sufficient greening must be provided. But the principle cannot be overturned: In the city you live more urban, on the outskirts or outside the city you live more rural.
  13. The multi-storey construction is more economical than the one or two-storey one. It also corresponds to the character of the big city.
  14. Urban planning is the basis of architectural design. The central question of urban planning and the architectural design of the city is the creation of an individual, unique face for the city. The architecture uses the experience of the people embodied in the progressive traditions of the past.
  15. There is no abstract scheme for urban planning or for architectural design. What is decisive is the summary of the essential factors and demands of life.
  16. At the same time as the work on the city map and in accordance with it, drafts must be completed for the planning and development of certain parts of the city as well as of squares and main streets with the adjacent neighborhoods, which can primarily be carried out. "

implementation

Demolition of the Berlin City Palace

The demolition of the heavily damaged Berlin City Palace began on September 7, 1950, one day after the building law was passed . The plan was to build a 90-meter-wide street from Frankfurter Strasse via Alexanderplatz , Königstrasse (today: Rathausstrasse) and Unter den Linden to the Brandenburg Gate . With the “Central Axis”, a new representative main line was to be created between the Brandenburg Gate and Alexanderplatz, the center of which, as a monumental dominant feature - as the “city crown” on Marx-Engels-Platz - was to be the central government building instead of the palace. From 1951, the first socialist boulevard in the GDR was Stalinallee . The first construction phase was from 1952 to 1958 a. a. Realized according to plans by Hermann Henselmann . When the work on Frankfurter Tor was completed in 1960 , the historicizing style of the avenue was considered obsolete and was almost shamefully ignored.

Further major projects were implemented in Dresden on Altmarkt , in Leipzig on Roßplatz , in Magdeburg on Ernst-Reuter-Allee and on Langen Straße in Rostock. The residential buildings in Stalinstadt , which were largely created by Kurt W. Leucht, were also built as part of the “16 Foundations”.

A new phase of urban development in the GDR began in 1955, after the Soviet Union had issued new directives for architecture in 1954, which called for greater standardization without expensive representative buildings. The second construction phase of the Stalinallee between Strausberger Platz and Alexanderplatz was therefore built using industrial slab construction.

See also

literature

  • Lothar Bolz : From German building. Speeches and essays. Berlin (East): Verlag der Nation 1951, pp. 32–52.
  • Leonie Glabau: Squares in a divided country: City square designs in the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic from 1945 to 1990 . Verlag Peter Lang, Frankfurt 2010, ISBN 978-3-631-61202-6

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Berlin.de Alexanderplatz Planning 1945 to 1990 ( Memento of the original from January 8, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at the Senate Department for Urban Development, accessed on December 28, 2011  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.stadtentwicklung.berlin.de
  2. ^ Structure West Structure East German Historical Museum . Retrieved December 28, 2011
  3. ↑ Leonie Glabau: seats in a divided country: the city square designs in the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic from 1945 to 1990 . Peter Lang, Frankfurt 2010, p. 123f.
  4. ^ Aufbaugesetz (GDR) 1950 on Wikisource