Architecture and Modernity : A Critique

inaugurate the new era by developing a dialectic between a new formal idiom and
the existing traditions of an existing city.
As to the tissue characteristics and morphology of the Siedlungen themselves,
an evolution can be clearly discerned. The layout of the estates that were conceived
of before 1929 show plenty of evidence of the influence of garden city
principles. The later developments, however, were based on a strict pattern of open
row housing (Zeilenbau) that is much more rationalist.
The Siedlung of Römerstadt (1927–1929) is the most famous and convincing
example of May’s city planning (figure 24). The basic idea behind Römerstadt was to
make good use of the qualities of the landscape: the development follows the contours
of the hillside in the form of terraces while it is related to the valley of the Nidda
by viewpoints on the bastions that punctuate the retaining wall between the Siedlung
and the valley (figure 25). There is an obvious hierarchy with a main street (the
Hadrianstrasse), residential streets, and paths inside the blocks, a hierarchy that the
architecture accentuates. The difference between the public front and the private
back of the dwellings is strikingly emphasized by the neat design of the entrance section
on the front (with a canopy over the front door and a design that prevents
passersby from peering in). The blocks, however, are no longer closed like the
nineteenth-century type. By staggering the long straight streets at the height of the
bastions, long monotonous sightlines are avoided (figure 26). All of these elements
bear the clear imprint of Unwin’s design principles. 73
25 Aerial photograph of Römerstadt.
(From Christoph Mohr and
Michael Müller, Funktionalität
und Moderne, p. 135.)
2 Constructing the Modern Movement