Heimat Leipzig (1929)

A few apartment houses of an unfinished huge residential area in Gohlis.

Description

This housing estate is composed of three equal blocks (Adolph-Menzel-Straße 15, 15a, 17, 17a; Corinthstraße; Walter-Cramer-Straße), each with four entrances. The fourth block (Adolph-Menzel-Straße 13, 13a) has only two entrances and is shorter in length. All blocks are oriented lengthwise in southwest-northeast. The balconies, which were added after the last modernisation, face southeast. The fifth block (Adolph-Menzel-Straße 11) has been built next to an older building an therefore got a hipped roof and not a flat roof like the other four blocks.

The outer entrance of the three long blocks are four-storey buildings. The two intervening entrances have three storeys. The different heights of those sections create a rhythmised roofs. In contrast, the short block has been built only with four storeys. Behind the small windows on the top of the houses are situated the drying floors.

Compared to other residential buildings in the neighboorhood, these blocks represent the urban planning of the late 1920s. Closed courtyards no longer exist and the long sides of the houses are not built along the main street. Only their gables are facing the main street.

Between the blocks on Adolph-Menzel-Straße are inserted three blocks of garages.

History

These blocks were built between November 1929 and February 1931. The first tenants moved in in March 1931. In 1929, the Leipzig building police office still demanded saddle roofs, but Wünschmann successfully refused, arguing that the exterior of the buildings should not be deteriorated. The houses were modernised in 1998 and were supplemented by balconies on the southeast sides.