Weißenhofsiedlung (Weissenhof Settlement)

The Weissenhof Settlement - a symbol for new building
The Weissenhof Settlement in Stuttgart is considered to be one of the most excellent building memorials of modern architecture in Europe.
It was built in 1927 as an archetype settlement with the programmatic goal of creating a model for the future living of people in large cities. The German Werkbund initiated the project in 1925. With its exhibition topic "The residence" it was able to win the city of Stuttgart and convince it to make available the site on the south east slope of the Killesberg for the exhibition in the scope of their urban housing program.

Living as an expression of a new life form
Under the artistic leadership of the Berliner architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, namely representatives of the European architectural avant-garde were invited to participate in the planning of this archetype settlement. It was the task to design "residential housing" for families with small and medium incomes for whom there was a great demand for housing in Stuttgart.
16 architects form 5 European countries then realized their vision of living in the future on the Weissenhof.

Witness to a revolutionary architectural conception
Corresponding to the general re-orientation in politics, society, economy and art after the First World War, new design principles were also supposed to be created for living, which were supposed to correspond with the technical, hygienic and aesthetic demands of the new times.
Mies van der Rohe saw it as his task to create an overall concept for the Weissenhof Settlement within which the architects could freely realize their construction and living visions. For example Peter Behrens from Berlin designed a green terrace house, Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret from Paris experimented with free ground plans and facade design and Walter Gropius from Dessau conceived two one-family houses in which new possibilities of industrial pre-fabricated assembly construction was supposed to be tested.
The result was a settlement of buildings with flat roofs and mainly white walls which are testimonials to the form and technology, design and construction of what was then a revolutionary architectural conception.