NEW HOUSES IN GERMANY

Evening Star, Issue 21934, 22 January 1935, Page 2

NEW HOUSES IN GERMANY

reversion to tradition POST-WAR MOVEMENT CHECKED During the comparatively short hislorv of Hitler's Germany, a definite attempt has been made to establish a school of architecture that will leave its mark on the future as the great periods have done in the past, writes a contributor to the November issue ol ‘ Homes and Gardens.’ The soaring ambition of the immediate post-war movement has been severely checked, and the ignored traditions have once more been allowed their rightful influence.

,ln an official booklet on German housing the writer says; “A world that did not know whether it should follow Bolshevism or misunderstood Americanism, and produce an architecture wavering between two incongruities, has hitherto been unable to adjust itself. and has been blind the impressive warnings ol the past. ’ With this in mind the new Germany has bent to the task of combining the traditions of design with the fruit of the most modern experience in planning. How successfully this has been done' can he seen by the houses in the Uonio-Colony Exhibition, which has been held tins summer in Munich. As an example of town-planning the exhibition has much to commend it. There is a pleasant variety in the tvpes of houses, which are placed on their sites in such positions that a maximum of sunshine is obtained by the gardens. The spacious roads give interesting vistas terminating on the church from various points. The general plan is marred, however, by the fact that at least one road delivers into a bottle-neck down which no vehicle can pass. Erom the standpoint of design the houses mostly appear to depend upon their plans for their elevations; this is a concession to Hie “' functional ”

school and results very often in the bad placing of windows and a consequent Jack of equilibrium iu the facades. Others, however, are very successfully designed both in plan and elevation.

The traditions ot the past have been strong enough to deny these buildings the ilat roof which was being generally adopted for Germany's houses before the advent of Hitler. Instead, there arc pitched roofs of the simplest type and a return to the type of house which, outside, recalls those of our own .Regency, and the early colonial days. The wide porches and the delicate ironwork of the balconies over them, the spacious verandahs under the eaves, arc reminiscent of a charm and quietude that mark the ideal, however incomplete may seem the attainment of it.