Description

The type of lodging provided by the first Men’s and Women’s Hostels could hardly be considered permanent. Numerous sleeping cubicles were arranged in large dormitories, rentable for a single night at a time, and the sleeping rooms were not accessible during the day.[1] Additionally, not only the spatial conditions but also the company ad – ministration worked to create an environment in which levels of privacy were very low. Such hostels were initially only available to members of a single occupational group. One of the first hostels that provided individual bedrooms and was accessible to all trades was the Rehhoffstraße building in Hamburg. It was reserved for men, offering them an affordable place to live close to their work.

The Rehhoffstraße Hostel was subsidized by the municipality in support of the overall political push to discourage private citizens from taking in night lodgers. As a result of the funding, in 1913 the Hamburg Building Society (Bauverein zu Hamburg) was able to construct the Rehhoffstraße Hostel quite close to the city center, and as a non-profit organization. A combination of generous common rooms and very small, functional, and furnished single rooms measuring 8 m² provided a home and security for the single male residents. A total of 112 single rooms without private sanitary facilities could be rented on a long-term basis, with the use of bathrooms, kitchen, and lounges organized collectively. There were cleaning and laundry rooms and toilets on each floor, and residents could use a bathhouse with tubs located in the basement. The ground floor included a restaurant with dining room, leisure areas, a reading room, a co-op store, and administrative offices. There was also a stew ard,[2] who looked after the Rehhoffstraße Hostel, performed janitorial duties, organized cleaning and laundry services, and ensured adherence to social mores.

The Rehhoffstraße Hostel operated this way for many decades, but over time a more profit -oriented business and space restructuring took place. The common areas were separated from the hostel and rented out, and ownership was transfered to a foreign investor in 2 009. Dedicated citizens, residents, and people from the neighborhood set up a foundation to maintain the Rehhoffstraße Hostel as a historic artifact, testimonial to urban social history, and residence for single men. The city also intervened, rejecting all reconstruction plans sub mitted by the investors, citing the need to protect a historic neighborhood, and safeguarding the building as a monument. In 2012, 75 men still lived in the Rehhoffstraße Hostel, about half of whom who had been there for at least 20 to 40 years.[3]

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Originally published in: Susanne Schmid, Dietmar Eberle, Margrit Hugentobler (eds.), A History of Collective Living. Forms of Shared Housing, Birkhäuser, 2019. Translation by Word Up!, LLC, edited for Building Types Online.