Germany's other modernity : Munich and the building of metropolis, 1895-1930 / Leif Jerram.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jerram, Leif.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

City planning--Germany--Munich--History--20th century.

City planning.

City planning--Germany--Munich--History--19th century.

Architecture--Germany--Munich.

Architecture.

Urbanization.

Architecture and society.

History.

Germany--Munich.

Architecture and society--Germany--Munich.

Architecture--Germany--History--20th century.

Germany.

Architecture--Germany--19th century.

Urbanization--Germany--Munich.

Munich (Germany)--Buildings, structures, etc.

Munich (Germany).

Physical Description:

vi, 229 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Manchester ; New York : Manchester University Press : distributed exclusively in the USA by Palgrave, 2007.

Summary:

This book is about what it meant to build a city in Germany at the turn of the twentieth century. It explores the physical spaces and mental attitudes that shaped lives, restructured society, and conditioned beliefs about the past and expectations for the future in the crucial German generations that formed the young Reich, fought the Great War and experienced the Weimar Republic.

Cities stand at the heart of modern life. This book examines how one city - Munich - was built, in its broader German and European contexts; by whom; why; and how urban spaces functioned to teach German citizens to be contented participants in a fast-changing world. It explores the anxieties provoked by rapid change and the strategies used to cope - but it also emphasises the joy in the metropolis that infused many Germans. Far from being mired in anti-urban nostalgia, many Germans seem to have been positive about urban life.

This book focuses on ordinary buildings and the way they shaped ordinary lives - homes, schools, hospitals. In so doing, it shows how material space could influence the lives of citizens, from the ways the elderly slept at night to the economy of the city as a whole. It also shows how we need to integrate the spaces and places of our lives into our explanations of politics, culture and economics. It is aimed at those who want to understand urban modernity, Wilhelmine and Weimar Germany, the use of space in social policy and politics, and the design of cities.

Contents:

Making sense of modernity 2

Cities, buildings and space 6

Historicising Germany, historicising buildings 10

1 Grossstadtangst: disorder and discomfort in the metropolis 20

The culture of anxiety 24

Metropolis as Heimat 25

Producing Heimat: strategy and tactics 31

Exhibiting the city: exhibiting anxiety 39

Stadtebau: building cities 47

2 Grossstadtfreude: joy in the metropolis 67

Liberal mentality and the community of Grossstadte, 1890-1914 69

Liberal mentality and the community of Grossstadte, 1918-30 78

Urban selves and rural others: peripheries, edges and the colonial mentality 82

The dysfunctional countryside and the useful city 90

Modern signs, modern citizens: technological symbolism in the city 92

3 The interior world of modernity 106

The social state and the ungrateful citzen 110

Domestic space and the modern citizen 126

4 The production of space and the execution of social policy 149

The politics of aesthetics 151

Defining the problem, asking the question: the space of home 153

Technologies of space: land versus architecture 161

Technology, rent and construction 170

From housing 'question' to design 'policy', 1917-30 172

Conclusion: Germany, space and modernity 192.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780719076077

0719076072

OCLC:

190776641