The rise of the modern city 1925–1933: Frankfurt, Vienna and Hamburg. Three models in comparison

After the First World War, the largest cities in Germany and Austria witnessed and suffered from change in all areas. Instead of a monarchy, democratically constituted republics had emerged, with universal voting rights for men and women. However, the gain in freedom was initially accompanied by food shortages, economic crisis, currency devaluation and, above all, an acute housing shortage. During the First World War, as well as afterwards, hardly any housing had been built. Both in Vienna and in the major German cities, housing construction, which had previously been driven by private building speculation, became a priority task for the municipality.

Not only Frankfurt, but also Hamburg and Vienna experienced an era of forced reform between 1925 and 1933/34, which was brought to an end by National Socialism and Austrofascism. These three cities wrote urban and housing history, albeit in different ways:

- in Frankfurt, the anti-urban New Frankfurt planned by Ernst May and his team with its low-rise housing estates in the countryside, inserted into an “urban landscape” of “Trabanten” and green belts;

- in Vienna, Red Vienna with the “Community Buildings”, ie urban, sometimes monumental complexes in dense multi-storey housing with integrated communal facilities;

- in Hamburg, the residential city of Hamburg structured by Fritz Schumacher's “model urban development” with half-open blocks of multi-storey housing.

The juxtaposition in the exhibition at the Museum Angewandte Kunst offers the opportunity to critically question established narratives. The comparison will make the characteristics of each model and the differences between them all the clearer. One hundred years later, the housing supply is once again in crisis, particularly in Germany. The housing shortage is reaching dramatic proportions, particularly in the major urban centers, and not just for low-income earners. A look back at the exemplary pioneering achievements of the years 1924-33 in Frankfurt, Vienna and Hamburg can raise awareness of the current crisis and support approaches to overcoming it.