Remembering that thread that’s downforum somewhere about the Germans reconstructing their old royal palaces I was reminded of this map that is in an old German pedagogical atlas (I have two of these, one from the 1950s, the other from the 1970s). 

 

This is a before and after of Hannover, how the center city was rebuilt after the war.  Using Google images and the birds eye feature in Live Search together with the map  here’s a thread on how German cities are really not that old due to postwar reconstruction, but also how the reconstruction wasn’t a straightforward replacement or reproduction of what was there before.

 

For comparison purposes Hannover is about 500,000 and the metro area is 1.1 million, so compare that with Ohio cities.  Historically it used to be the capital of the Kingdom of Hannover  until the 1860s, but really boomed during the “Grunderzeit” (1870s) and the ”Kaiserzeit” or “Second Reich”  (1871-1918),.

 

Here is the map.  Left is the wartime destruction in gray (orange spots are the few mostly undamaged buildings) and right is the postwar reconstruction, with the map emphasizing “Wide Streets” and “Breakthroughs” (meaning streets were widened and extended to make the city more friendly to automobiles).  “Parkplatz” are parking lots.  Another feature is that the streetcar system was rationalized during the reconstruction.

 

 

We’ll look a bit closer at the areas around the Anzieger building and the Aegidienkirch.

 

And this is the neighborhood around the Aegidienkirch before reconstruction.  This was part of the pre-modern core.  The old core and surrounding areas (about four square miles) was flattened or burned out in just  one air raid in 1943.

 

 

A portion of this area was never rebuilt but reserved for a parking lot.

 

The same area with postwar reconstruction (and perhaps some replacements after reconstruction, too;  things from the 1950s replaced with more recent construction).  The church ruin was  retained as a war memorial

 

 

The parking area is labeled.

 

As you can see the postwar reconstruction sort of looks old but really isn’t.

 

As an example this block just to the north/northwest of the church.  The tile gabled roofs with dormers gives a sort of period look, but one can tell by the windows and balconies that this is new construction. 

 

 

This was reconstructed in the heyday of modernism and functional zoning.  But note that’s not what’s done here.  Instead of separating out shopping and housing its mixed; ground floor retail and apartments on the upper floors.  And, as you can see in the previous pix offices are mixed in, too (and across the street on this pix)

 

This next pix is not that Aegidienkirch neighborhood., but a good representative example from Hannover of postwar streetscapes in reconstructed German cities.

 

 

 

Lower pix is a street scene in the pre-modern core.  Selected parts of this area was reconstructed as reproduction architecture, copying what was there before.

 

Upper pix is a street leading to the main train station.  The area was probably platted after the 1870s, and the original construction would have been late 19th/early 20th century.  Most German cities are really not that “old”, expanding around the same time US Midwest cities did….but later than Cincy or St Louis.

 

 

One can, again, see the modernist design of the replacement buildings.

 

More reconstruction pix. Don’t know who the guys are in the lower pic, but they are admiring the new modern Hannover.  In the background, a restored landmark of some sort and postwar reconstruction…pretty typical German streetscape.

 

 

Hannover has one of the few pre-war high rises in Germany. This is the Anzieger Building.  It was built for a newspaper publisher.  Believe it or not the Germans were experimenting with these baby skyscrapers before the war.  This one was done up in a sort of brick-expressionist style and was topped by an observatory.

 

Before and after pix.  The building to the right survived the war, too, but the one to the left did not and was replaced with a modern postwar thing.

 

 

This building has a bit of media history as it was the first HQ for the postwar German newsweekly Der Spiegel before the mag relocated to Hamburg.

 

The Anzieger Building in context.  One can see how the streets here have been widened  and made more traffic-friendly and the surrounding replacement buildings are more modern looking than around the Aegidienkirch.

 

 

Plenty of Free Parking (well, probably not really)

 

 

It’s interesting to see this sort of humanized commie-block style going on here, mix of flat and sloped roofs, and the widened street heading off to the upper left from the traffic circle and high-rise.  Nearly all of this area was wiped out during that air raid and was reconstructed.

 

Finally,  Christmas season shopping somewhere in Hannover.  Vertical signs are sort of a feature of German commercial design of the Wirschaftswunder (“economic miracle”) era of 1950s/60s.  One can see two department store chains here..Kaufhof and Karstadt. 

 

 

Maybe an example of a reconstructed shopping street.

 

Anyway, not Urban Ohio, and not a historical landmark place, but maybe an interesting take on how they didn’t follow modern orthodoxy during the “wiederafubau” (reconstruction), around the same time we in the US were, via urban renewal.

 

This is fantastic stuff. Thanks.

Good stuff. My general impression has been that while German old towns and city centers tend to be a lot denser and more pedestrian-friendly than most American cities, almost all did do a lot of self-destruction in post-war construction ... streets widened, streetcar transit reduced (though generally not eliminated), lots of surface lots. And outside of the city centers, pedestrian orientation has really suffered in many places.

 

I've seen this over and over in mid-sized German cities, particularly in the Ruhrgebiet. In this industrial region, the movement to a car culture really wreaked havoc on cities that approximated the 1960s urban renewal efforts in the U.S. (although to a much lesser degree ... and again, even in these industrial cities, there is generally still a pedestrian orientation in the core). Duisburg is a great example; across a range of different factors, it strikes me as more or less interchangeable with Cleveland ... aerial maps of surface parking v. what it looked like pre-war are really striking. The city is doing a great job with its current planning ... lots of attention to mixed use along its inner harbor, the development of Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord, reclaiming surface lots, planting green corridors through downtown streets that have been widened, etc.

 

Will try to post some pics and impressions of German cities when I get back to the States next month. Nice post, Jeffery!

This is an old thread, but for a professional journalistic take on the issue the german newsmag Der Spiegel has a nice series (and photo gallery) on the postwar reconstruction

 

Out of the Ashes:  A New Look at Germanys Postwar Reconstruction

 

A five part series with eight photo galleries.  What is remarkable is how "new" (AKA post WWII) Germanys urban built environment is:

 

During World War II, carpet-bombing by Allied forces leveled up to 80 percent of the historic buildings in Germany's main cities....

 

....Never before had so much been lost -- and, yet, never before were there so many new beginnings. Never before had an entire country been rebuilt. Indeed, the lion's share of buildings standing in Germany today was erected after 1948.....

 

....From an architectural and urban-planning point of view, Germany's phoenix-like resurrection from the inferno resembled a continuation of the wartime destruction by other means: Another 30 percent of the country's historic buildings were simply wiped off the map to make way for the new.

 

 

I'd also note, that for the cities that lost their older (pre 19th century) cores (building stock dating from the pre-Napoleonic era), they did retain neighborhoods dating from the 19th century, mostly starting in the 1870s, so what remains that is old (by US standards) is as old as US cities.  For example, the building stock in 19th century districts surrounding the old core of Nuremburg are about the same vintage as Cincinnatis Over the Rhine, maybe even newer. 

 

Antebellum districts of Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh ("Mexican War Streets") are probably older than what is still standing in German cities.

Anyway, interesting stuff.  Looks like the Germans are thinking of rebuilding yet again...

Americans think of Europe as the Old World, but their cities beyond their early modern cores are about the same age as most American cities - the big difference is generally a fortress or two and the big churches, which give the vibe of a much older place than the surrounding built environment.

awesome jeffery!  :clap:

 

my immediate thoughts are well of course land use is well controlled in european countries and that certainly paved the way for city centers destroyed by war to get rebuilt back into such an urban-appropriate manner. so that keeps the suburbs in check. but also they didnt have to follow usa style urban renewal because they are a monoculture country. a lot of our post-war urban renewal was of course an underlying assault on close-quarters urban multiculturalism. just another style of the same 'ol racial bs we are used to in this country and how very ironic that mostly untouched by war on the homefront we destroyed so much of our own cities ourselves. however, i am very glad the wind has changed directions and our cities downtowns at least are coming back to life with residential again -- hopefully it wont turn into a complete yuppie (now known as yunnie) reversal rout and push the poor folks...of color...out to the banlieus. i follow the lead of your famous fellow chicagoan on that, i keep hope alive!

:laugh: