DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.45213#0101
97
For the same project Le Corbusier designed two buildings completing his seminal Five Points
Towards a New Architecture. One, called Maison Citrohan, which he had begun to elaborate al-
most a decade earlier, featured a flexible floor plan: certain areas were designated for basic func-
tions leaving the remainder fully adaptable to the occupants' needs. The other building's floor
plan was even more flexible and the arrangement of the entire space could be modified. Pillars
raised the structure off the ground. Both houses had one half of the ground floor left open and
formed a kind of arcade, there were rooftop terraces to accommodate gardens and create ad-
ditional usable space.
Since 1926, experiments with split-level or maisonette flats designed for collective houses
were conducted in the Soviet Union. Mosei Ginzburg was the first to present this conception in
his design submitted for an architectural competition organised by the trade journal Sovremien-
naia Architecture.240
The most basic and economical type of living space, the so-called Existenzminimum, was
regarded as the most pressing topic to be addressed by modern domestic architecture. Dutch
architects, like Jacobus Johannes Pieter Oud, Mart Stam and others, became leading specialists in
this area. They envisioned very small living units located in row-houses featuring the family room
and kitchen on the ground floor and sleeping rooms on the first floor. The Kiefhouek housing
estate in Rotterdam is a good example of this conception. Each of the Werkbund model housing
estates featured versions of the Existenzminimum units intended for sequential manufacturing in
the future. One was described as follows: "Inside, each little house has a small kitchen and living
room on the ground floor and two or three bedrooms on the upper floor. All rooms have been
'functionalised' to the extreme: the placement and shapes of all pieces of furniture decided on
once and forever, all activities and motions of the tenants structured and organised."241
The Existenzminimum flat, which satisfies man's basic social, biological, and technological
needs242, became the principal topic of the 2nd Cl AM organised in Frankfurt-am-Mein in 1929. The
venue must have been purposefully selected because the city served as a testing ground for new
urban planning, domestic architecture, and technological innovations. Ernst May insisted that
rational planning had to have scientific foundations and biological, psychological and sociologi-
cal research was needed to establish the minimal living space depending on the family's size.243
In Germany, the Rfg had already been conducting such studies for some time. The Rfg (abbre-
viation standing for Reichsforchungsgesellschaft fur Wirtschaftlichkeit) in Bau- und Wohnung-
240 Christine NIELSEN, 'Osiedle Werkbundu we Wroclawiu, tematy i tfo, lokalne uwarunkowania'. [Lecture accompanying the opening of
the Ku nowoezesnemu osiedlu (Towards the Modern Housing Estate) presented at the Museum of Architecture in Wroclaw on 10.10.1997.]
The Section of Standardised Housing of the Housing Committee, established in 1928, took up the idea.
241 Szczgsny RUTKOWSKI, op.cit., p.109.
242 Helena SYRKUS, Spoleczne cele..., p.206.
243 Ibidem, p.212. At the 2nd Congress of CIAM, Ernst May presented a paper on national housing design in which he put forward seven
theses: 1. Programme, 2. Organisation of production, 3. Financing, 4. Planning policy, 5. Organisation of the apartment's design, 6. Methods
of production of apartments, 7. Technical improvement of apartments. Thesis number five contained the principles of rational design of
the apartment.
For the same project Le Corbusier designed two buildings completing his seminal Five Points
Towards a New Architecture. One, called Maison Citrohan, which he had begun to elaborate al-
most a decade earlier, featured a flexible floor plan: certain areas were designated for basic func-
tions leaving the remainder fully adaptable to the occupants' needs. The other building's floor
plan was even more flexible and the arrangement of the entire space could be modified. Pillars
raised the structure off the ground. Both houses had one half of the ground floor left open and
formed a kind of arcade, there were rooftop terraces to accommodate gardens and create ad-
ditional usable space.
Since 1926, experiments with split-level or maisonette flats designed for collective houses
were conducted in the Soviet Union. Mosei Ginzburg was the first to present this conception in
his design submitted for an architectural competition organised by the trade journal Sovremien-
naia Architecture.240
The most basic and economical type of living space, the so-called Existenzminimum, was
regarded as the most pressing topic to be addressed by modern domestic architecture. Dutch
architects, like Jacobus Johannes Pieter Oud, Mart Stam and others, became leading specialists in
this area. They envisioned very small living units located in row-houses featuring the family room
and kitchen on the ground floor and sleeping rooms on the first floor. The Kiefhouek housing
estate in Rotterdam is a good example of this conception. Each of the Werkbund model housing
estates featured versions of the Existenzminimum units intended for sequential manufacturing in
the future. One was described as follows: "Inside, each little house has a small kitchen and living
room on the ground floor and two or three bedrooms on the upper floor. All rooms have been
'functionalised' to the extreme: the placement and shapes of all pieces of furniture decided on
once and forever, all activities and motions of the tenants structured and organised."241
The Existenzminimum flat, which satisfies man's basic social, biological, and technological
needs242, became the principal topic of the 2nd Cl AM organised in Frankfurt-am-Mein in 1929. The
venue must have been purposefully selected because the city served as a testing ground for new
urban planning, domestic architecture, and technological innovations. Ernst May insisted that
rational planning had to have scientific foundations and biological, psychological and sociologi-
cal research was needed to establish the minimal living space depending on the family's size.243
In Germany, the Rfg had already been conducting such studies for some time. The Rfg (abbre-
viation standing for Reichsforchungsgesellschaft fur Wirtschaftlichkeit) in Bau- und Wohnung-
240 Christine NIELSEN, 'Osiedle Werkbundu we Wroclawiu, tematy i tfo, lokalne uwarunkowania'. [Lecture accompanying the opening of
the Ku nowoezesnemu osiedlu (Towards the Modern Housing Estate) presented at the Museum of Architecture in Wroclaw on 10.10.1997.]
The Section of Standardised Housing of the Housing Committee, established in 1928, took up the idea.
241 Szczgsny RUTKOWSKI, op.cit., p.109.
242 Helena SYRKUS, Spoleczne cele..., p.206.
243 Ibidem, p.212. At the 2nd Congress of CIAM, Ernst May presented a paper on national housing design in which he put forward seven
theses: 1. Programme, 2. Organisation of production, 3. Financing, 4. Planning policy, 5. Organisation of the apartment's design, 6. Methods
of production of apartments, 7. Technical improvement of apartments. Thesis number five contained the principles of rational design of
the apartment.