page_title: New Objectivity (architecture)
section_title: Functionalism and the Minimum Dwelling
hierarchical_section_title: New Objectivity (architecture) / Functionalism and the Minimum Dwelling
caption_attribution_description: Wohnblock in der Habichtstraße in de:Hamburg-Barmbek-Nord, erbaut 1927/28 von Karl Schneider für die "Gemeinnützige Wohnungsbaugesellschaft Groß-Hamburg"This is a photograph of an architectural monument.It is on the list of cultural monuments of Hamburg, no. 23181
context_page_description: The New Objectivity is a name often given to the Modern architecture that emerged in Europe, primarily German-speaking Europe, in the 1920s and 30s. It is also frequently called Neues Bauen
context_section_description: The architects of the New Objectivity were eager to build as much cost-effective housing as possible, partly to address Germany's postwar housing crisis, and partly to fulfill the promise of Article 155 of the 1919 Weimar Constitution, which provided for "a healthy dwelling" for all Germans.  This phrase drove the technical definition of Existenzminimum (subsistence dwelling) in terms of minimally-acceptable floorspace, density, fresh air, access to green space, access to transit, and other such resident issues.  
  At the same time there was a massive expansion of the style across German cities. In Berlin, architect-planner Martin Wagner worked with the former Expressionists Bruno Taut and Hugo Häring on colourful developments of flats and terraced houses such as the 1925 Horseshoe Estate, the 1926 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' (Onkel-Toms-Hütte) and the 1929 'Carl-Legien-Siedlung', through the auspices of the Trade Unionist building society GEHAG. Taut's designs featured controversially modern flat roofs, humane access to sun, air and gardens, and generous amenities like gas, electric light, and bathrooms. Critics on the political Right complained that these developments were too opulent for 'simple people'. The progressive Berlin mayor Gustav Böss defended them: "We want to bring the lower levels of society higher." Similar experiments in municipal socialism such as the Viennese Gemeindebau were more stylistically eclectic, so Frankfurt and Berlin's authorities were taking a gamble on public approval of the new style.
  Elsewhere, Karl Schneider designed Estates in Hamburg, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe designed low-cost houses in Berlin's Afrikanische Strasse (and in 1926, a monument to Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht) while straight-aligned, and to their critics, schematic Zeilenbau flats were built to the designs of Otto Haesler, Gropius and others in Dammerstock, Karlsruhe. The term Functionalism began to be used to denote the rather severe, nothing superfluous ethos of the New Objectivity, being used as early as 1925 by Adolf Behne in his book Der Moderne Zweckbau ("The Modern Functional Building"). In 1926, practically all Modernist German architects organised themselves into a group known as Der Ring, which attracted criticism from soon to be-Nazi architects like Paul Schultze-Naumburg, who formed Der Block in response. In 1928 the CIAM had formed, and its earliest conferences, dedicated to questions of Existenzminimum were dominated by the social programmes of German architects.
caption: Karl Schneider, flats in Hamburg, 1929
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