The Kleinhaus and the Politics of Localism in German Architecture and Planning, c. 1910

Isabel Rousset

doi:10.17645/up.v7i1.4714

Abstract

As an antidote to the substandard tenement apartment, the ideal of the “small house” (Kleinhaus) was ubiquitous in housing debates in Germany before World War One. Denoting a modestly sized two-story family house aligned with the street, it had its origins in the Middle Ages, during which it was constructed to serve the humble domestic needs of urban craftsmen who lived and worked in thriving trade cities including Lübeck, Bremen, Hamburg, Augsburg, Nuremberg, and Ulm. For modern promoters of low-density alternatives to the tenement, the Kleinhaus was an ideal model for mass appropriation. Unlike foreign and untranslatable dwelling models like the “villa” and the “cottage,” the Kleinhaus conveyed something that was both urban and quintessentially Germanic. It was thus enlisted by housing reformers to strengthen local cultural identity whilst raising the standards of the nation’s housing stock. This article examines the significance of the Kleinhaus in fostering dialogue between the fields of architecture and planning, and considers its embeddedness in a wider project of cultural nationalism in pre-war Germany.

Highlights

After stumbling off the main road of Glockengießerstras‐ se and encountering them in a narrow alley, one could be forgiven for momentarily forgetting one’s urban location in the center of Lübeck’s old town (Figure 1)
Unified by a plain coat of whitewash and a generous pitched roof, these alley houses exemplified a residential type that by the early 20th century came to be known as the “small house” (Kleinhaus)
The Kleinhaus typically described a house of no more than two stories, which could be detached, duplex, or terraced, but which was rec‐ ognizable as a self‐contained single‐family unit by the presence of three windows and a separate entry that was aligned directly with the street—usually a cozy residen‐ tial path concealed from the main traffic artery

Summary

Introduction

After stumbling off the main road of Glockengießerstras‐ se and encountering them in a narrow alley, one could be forgiven for momentarily forgetting one’s urban location in the center of Lübeck’s old town (Figure 1). The three‐ volume Die schöne deutsche Stadt [Beautiful German Cities] (Baum, 1912; Wolf, 1911, 1913) utilized a wealth of materials amassed from slide agencies, heritage pro‐ tection enthusiasts, and amateur photographers to offer a wide‐ranging survey of simple domestic building tradi‐ tions dating back to the Middle Ages The goal of these and similar volumes was to extend popular apprecia‐ tion for Heimat, and to train the architect’s eye in identifying classic Sittean urban design principles, including picturesque grouping and enclosed intimate streets. The housing complex was unique in operating as a preventative mech‐ anism that symbolically placed the secular institution of the family at the heart of modern urban society

Terming the Kleinhaus

Fabricating the Kleinhaus

Conclusion