Description

“The essence of the new way of living is apartment buildings that have an inward focus and are expanded by shared common spaces.” Erwin Mühlestein[1]

The three models of living discussed here — Garden Cities and Courtyard Apartment Buildings with a vision of social reform, Community Settlements as staged neighborhoods, and Cooperative Living with its open living spaces — shared the political intentions of improving housing quality and increasing social stability. Despite differences, these collective living models were primarily aimed at nuclear families and focused on providing quality, well-planned living spaces. New forms of living that provided collective spaces for other user groups did not emerge in this particular phase, from the early 20th century to the Second World War.

An early example of a Garden City was the Proskauer Straße Residential Complex in Berlin (1894, Alfred Messel), even though the Homesgarth House in Letchworth (1903, Clapham Lander) is more well-known today. Margarethenhöhe Company Housing Settlement in Essen was built in 1912, sponsored by the Margarethe Krupp Housing Foundation (Georg Metzendorf), followed by Wedau Railway Company Housing Settlement in Duisburg (1915, Caspar Maria Grod), Metzleinstaler Courtyard Apartments in Vienna (1920, Robert Kalesa), Bon Marché des Amiraux Residences in Paris (1923, Frédéric Savage, Charles Sarrazin) and Weissensteingut Railway Company Housing Settlement in Bern (1925, Franz Trachsel, Otto Ingold). The best-known cases of a Courtyard Apartment Building are probably Karl-Marx-Hof in Vienna (1927, Karl Ehn) and Britz Hufeisen Settlement in Berlin (1930, Bruno Taut, Martin Wagner). The construction of Garden Cities and Courtyard Apartment Buildings in time period up until the Second World War arose from an embrace of social democratic ideals. In addition to housing cooperatives and trade unions, municipalities also became actively involved in construction activities. The architecture and design of these generally larger-sized housing estates were influenced by the ideals of New Objectivity. Rationalization, standardization, and the use of new materials were also of great importance, as were qualities like light, air, and sun. The most essential shared areas in Garden Cities and Courtyard Apartment Buildings were outdoors, for the first time providing spaces for outdoor recreation and growing food in front yards, courtyards, or squares. The selfcontained family apartments were often supplemented by numerous collective facilities such as shared bathrooms, central laundries, daycare facilities, schools, libraries, meeting facilities, and community centers.

During the post-war period, a new Community Settlement living model emerged, lasting into the 1970s. The hoped-for political stability after the Second World War, accompanied by economic growth and the idealization of the nuclear family with traditional roles, promoted a retreat into private life. It was only in the Scandinavian nations that some developers continued to reference the pre-war visions of collective living spaces by including shared amenities such as collective kitchens, dining rooms, daycare facilities, and recreation rooms. Other than this, common areas were often limited to open-air spaces such as balconies or shared accessways like rues intérieurs. The middle class established itself in the Community Settlements, replacing the working classes as the users of shared spaces.

Not until Cooperative Living projects started in the 1970s to mid-1980s did closed-off living spaces begin to open up to the collective once more. Experiments with shared access areas in Community Settlements were undertaken and then improved upon. This led to broad hallways and expanded access areas designed for active use, each affiliated with the adjacent apartments. The spatial connection to private spaces enabled residents to interact in these shared areas. The social change of the late 1960s, marked by a questioning of traditional hierarchies and role models that increasingly influenced private spatial boundaries, directly led to this evolution within Collective Living and the opening up of the private sphere.

The first two housing models of this era were characterized by more paternalistic and providential forms of organization, planned topdown and financed by non-profit, municipal, and, occasionally, private property developers. The Cooperative Living models of the 1970s and 1980s marked the first attempts at involving residents in the planning, construction, and operation of these residential properties through participatory processes. The driving force behind these developments came from developers and architects, for the most part, rather than from the residents themselves. Over time, the degree of resident participation steadily increased, and many residential properties were eventually selfmanaged. With political change and the women’s liberation movement, a new understanding of living as a shared, neighborly way of life was born. The goal of simply supplying accommodation receded into the background. This, in turn, affected the diversity of collective living spaces. While the collective areas of Garden Cities and Courtyard Apartment Buildings were limited to additional infrastructure and outdoor areas, and Community Settlements were focused on collective access areas, Cooperative Living models established new types of and uses for common areas. Shared kitchens and collective living areas were complemented by shared recreational spaces such as workshops and craft rooms, photo labs, and saunas. Larger accessways could be used for meeting and communication areas.

Something common to all three housing models was that the family, which had not yet been challenged as a social unit, remained the central focus of the community. Thus, autonomous family apartments with functional workspaces for well-organized housekeeping remained a feature typical of the collective living projects of the time. For the most part, there were no services offered or employees managing the common living areas. With women’s changing status and the evolving values of the 1970s, Cooperative Living models began to reveal cracks in the acceptance of traditional roles and conceptions of the family. However, these developments did not have a structural or spatial impact on collective living models until the years that followed.

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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.