Berlin Seeks UNESCO Status For 1920s Social Housing

"The six sites, which were built by star architects such as Walter Gropius and Hans Scharoun, include the famous horse-shoe-shaped complex in Britz, the Siemensstadt and White City estates, the Schillerpark settlement and the Falkenberg Garden City, as well as the Carl Legien estate. Evaluators have been sent to Berlin to assess the buildings, and the big decision will be announced next year. But what are Berlin's hopes of making the grade?'

"Annemarie Jaeggi, director of Berlin's Bauhaus Archive museum, thinks the chances are good. 'The settlements are something really special, not just in Germany or even in Europe,' she says. 'The quality of the building is so high and the architecture has spread right across the world -- it was really one of Germany's contributions to the 20th century.'"

"The construction of these projects could only have occurred in one particular time and place: Berlin of the Weimar Republic. The right to decent housing was enshrined in the 1919 constitution of the new German democracy that emerged from the ashes of World War I. There was finally the political will to meet the massive housing shortages, and a special tax was introduced to fund huge building projects across the country."