Campaigning for Postwar Modernist Housing Estates in the Frankfurt Rhine-Main Area

Maren Harnack,Natalie Heger,Ruth Schlögl,Matthias Brunner

doi:10.31577/archandurb.2021.55.3-4.7

Abstract

Most German large-scale postwar housing estates suffer from a negative image. While many individual buildings from the era are part of the listed cultural heritage today, the estates usually have escaped formal listing even as conservation areas, despite their historic significance being obvious. Although in theory, listing does not depend on public opinion, in practice, […]

Highlights

Most estates were conceived as neighbourhoods that cater for all everyday needs of their inhabitants, meaning that large-scale housing estates are important witnesses of a formative phase in postwar German history
Because of the devolution of German heritage management, it is almost impossible to present exact figures for the whole country, but we were able to establish that in the Rhine-Main Region only six postwar social housing estates have been recognised as cultural monuments,[1] all of them located in the city of Frankfurt, and all of them built in the 1950s
Heritage authorities need to listen to the public to a certain degree, because otherwise, in the long run, heritage laws will be adapted to the public opinion

Summary

Introduction

V tomto príspevku najprv vysvetľujeme špecifickú situáciu veľkých sídlisk v Nemecku. Následne skúmame, ako na seba vzájomne pôsobia zaradenie pod pamiatkovú ochranu a verejná mienka v kontexte nemeckých spolkových krajín, ktoré majú vlastné zákony o kultúrnom dedičstve, pričom sa zameriavame na spolkovú krajinu Hesensko, kde sídli Výskumné laboratórium povojnovej moderny. Postwar monuments are often condemned as ‘ugly’ and ‘eyesores’ and public opinion frequently criticizes the listing of postwar buildings, accusing the heritage authorities as being elitist and unworldly. The status of a monument is an inherent characteristic of a building, not the result of being listed.[5] This definition reduces the urgency of the formal listing process to a certain degree, as a cultural monument does not need to be listed in order to enjoy protection. It allows the heritage authorities to influence plans for unlisted monuments by threatening with formal listing In many cases, this strategy leads to acceptable results and avoids public controversies about the correctness of designating an object a cultural monument.

Objectives

Conclusion