Little known grids: La Cité Ouvrières II

The second Cité Ouvrières in Mulhouse was built between 1856 and 1900, west of the first workers city and the discharge channel (c). It has been laid out on a grid plan that was slightly modified between building phases. The wide streets are continued from one building campaign to the next, the variation lies in the passages (the narrow paths between the Mulhouse Quadrangles) and the addition of squares (p) after 1870. The area directly north of the Chausssée de Dornach partly predates the second workers city. Urbanization of this area was started by laying out a grid of streets; only older preexisting roads were left as-is and are recognizable by their varying alignment. The second Cité Ouvrières is integrated with the factories to the north of it and not to the other factory sites. Around it we find Wilhelm - Frey and Company (1), Thorens and Company (2), Dreyfus Manufacturing (3), Vaucher and Company (4), Koechlin - Schwartz (5) and Dreyfus - Lantz (6).

In the urban pattern we can distinctly make out the different stages in which this second Cité Ouvrières was built. The first part were six rows of back-to-back houses within the older grid (1). The Rue Lavoisier was extended and forms the backbone of the first phase of Mulhouse Quadrangles (2). The area left of this road is shortened to align with the factory enclosure behind it; it therefore has no central alley like the part on the right. A school (s) was built where  the two main axis meet. Along the wall of the Dreyfus factory a new wide street was constructed (Rue Julie, now called Rue Jean Jaurés) of which new streets and passages run westward forming the second phase of Mulhouse Quadrangles (3). Two alleys cut the streets at right angles. The second one seems to have been intended as the outermost street as it matches the width of the older part on the other side of the Rue Julie. Yet the quadrangles on the right where mirrored along this line and the Rue des Oiseaux became the edge of the Cité Ouvrières. Before 1870 the area west of the Thorens factory had been built up with row houses (4). In 1879 the church l'eglise St Joseph (e) was finished. By this time the expansion of the Cité Ouvrières had started north of the Passage du Rossignol (5), quickly extending further west. The existing pattern is carried through in this extension, but a large square with a school (s) is added. The square was conceived by extending the Rue des Abeilles to meet the extended rows of Mulhouse Quadrangles. South of this square three urban blocks (6) were laid out by only extending the roads and not the passages next to it. The rows of Mulhouse Quadrangles were extended even further (7) beyond the line of the Rue des Abeilles. In the south the Rue Julie was extended along the Thorens factory site and terraced houses were built along the streets (8). The last phase of the Cité Ouvrières has no more Mulhouse Quadrangles and has two large squares and long streets lined with terraced houses. On one of the squares the large Thérèse school (s) was built. The streets in this part (9) are a continuation of the adjoining grid, but they longer conform to the grid layout. They are testament to the changing ideas on urban living and housing factory workers around 1890.