Architecture and Modernity : A Critique

61

core of the city. However, one can get to it from Westhausen only by crossing the

busy Ludwig Landmannstrasse. The structure of Westhausen is definitely nonhier-

archical. It has no definite center and there is only one place with a striking individual

design—the communal laundry with its tall chimney, situated in the southwest cor-

ner of the Siedlung.^75

The evolution from a garden city concept to open row development occurred

largely because of growing problems with financing these housing schemes; at the

same time it also fitted in with an increasingly radical tendency toward rationaliza-

tion.^76 The earlier Siedlungen, including Römerstadt and Riedhof, were distinguished

by the highly differentiated design of the urban spaces that was the result of using

divergent types of dwelling and by applying architectural accents in appropriate

places. After 1929 there is an unmistakable tendency toward great simplicity: there

60

31

30

Axonometric scheme of the

Siedlungof Westhausen.

Scheme of the organization of

open spaces in Westhausen:

streets, pedestrian paths, grass

strips, and private gardens.

(From D. W. Dreysse,

May-Siedlungen, p. 20.)