New Human, New Housing

Voigt, Wolfgang, Dorothea Deschermeier

In the 1920s, an unprecedented program of architectural and cultural r enewal was established in the German city of Frankfurt am Main. This scheme became inscribed in cultural history under the name ?The New Frankfurt.? Under the city?s lord mayor, Ludwig Landmann, and the head of the municipal planning and building control office, Ernst May, modernity as a way of life took shape there: As part of the housing and urban development initiative decided in 1925, more than 10,000 new residential units were planned. The Building Ministry?s architects, recruited from home and abroad, created pioneering work in many areas. Examples include the typification of family oriented flats, plans for affordable apartments for those on low incomes, the first standard kitchen, the industrial prefabrication of building shells, the construction of schools designed around children?s needs, and integrated...