Summary: EVALUATING ARCHITECTURE THROUGH ITS HISTORICAL
BACKGROUND — BERLINS WHITE CITY
An architectural project never stands alone, it is made by: the trends in architecture and
urban planning are joined by political circumstances and social visions that were
formulated at the time.
So to understand an object that is being observed, it is essential to highlight its historical
background.
Between World War 1 and World War 2, the White City (“Die Wieße Stadt) was built as
one of the six large scale housing projects. The White City has been enlisted on the
UNESCO World Heritage List in2008. Just as the other 5 building projects after World war
1, The White city was built to house all the Berliners after the war.
To help these people, the city administration provided funding and passes laws that
allowed the construction of large scale housing projects that were based on these new
planning principles. The White City was built between 1919 and 1930, housing over
140.000 that were built during that time.
The houses are even enlisted by the UNESCO because they were key projects in early
modernist urban planning and architecture.
The White City is built around a central north-south axis, Aroser Allee (see map). The
south entrance is marked by two tall “Gate Houses” (Torhäuser) designed by Bruno
Arends, which step out of the row of facades along the street and reach out above the
pavement. A few hundred meters north, the center of the complex is represented by the
Bridge House (“Brückenhaus”) by Otto Rudolf Salvisberg, which crosses Aroser Allee and
features loggias one one side and open corridors with the apartment entrances on the other
– in its function as the center of the complex, it had to have two “front sides” and no
backside.