Das Neue Frankfurt

In Autumn Semester 2023, our seminar week revisited one of the ‘classics’ in the history and theory of urban design: Das Neue Frankfurt. By visiting several of Das Neue Frankfurt Siedlungen, such as the Zickzackhausen (1926-1928), Siedlung Römerstadt (1927-1928), and Erwerbslosensiedlung Goldstein (1931-1935), we discussed the entwined roles of architects, urban planners, municipal authorities and industry in addressing the housing question. While Frankfurt and its appointed city planning councilor Ernst May launched their ambitious program of Das Neue Frankfurt almost 100 years ago, the housing question is still today a central point of discussion in contemporary debate. With Frankfurt and May as our main guides, but also passing through Stuttgart and its Weissenhofsiedlung (1927), the DAM’s exhibition on protest architecture, and Stirling’s Neue Staatsgalerie (1983), we explored the housing question and the role of urban design via the entwinement of various actors, the role of societal debate, and ideas of rationality and self-sufficiency in a changing society.