An early Gartenhof: Nordbahndorfl, Stuttgart

The old railway station of Stuttgart was built directly adjacent to the old city on the Schloßstraße in 1846. The first station building, a terminus station, was built by Karl Etzel for the opening of the Württemberg Central Railway (Zentralbahn), with its two branches to Ludwigsburg and Esslingen. The building comprised of a station hall, made of wood, covering the four tracks. To relieve the main station a second station was planned further north at the junction of the Gäubahn and Nordbahn railways. Work on this Nordbahnhof (literally the northern station) was completed in 1893. The new station was located near the Pragsattel a high ridge between the Stuttgart-basin and the Neckar river valley.

Between 1894 and 1912 a neighbourhood for railway personnel (Bahnarbeiter) was built directly south of the railway station. On a circa 9,5 hectare plot 890 apartments were constructed in two building campaigns. This so-called Nordbahnhofdorfl (literally: little village by the northern railway station) is a high density development consisting of a series of Gartenhöfe (Garden Courts).

The dwellings, designed by the Königliche Hochbausektion (The Royal High-rise Department) are arranged in large blocks around communal gardens. Originally none of the apartments had any private outdoor space. The two building campaigns resulted in 10 such garden courts. At the heart of the neighbourhood a bathhouse was built in 1911. The whole was developed on a grid plan, that was skewed near the railway bend in the southeastern corner. The gridlines run almost perfectly north-south and east-west.

The seven blocks between the Nordbahnhofstraße and the Krollstraße were built in an eclectic style during the 1890s. The apartment buildings were treated as mansion blocks with very ornate brick architecture. Each building stood separate from the others with an ornate gate in between to give residents access to the communal garden. The buildings built in the early 1910s have a distinctly different architecture. These buildings are rendered and the blocks are longer with fewer openings. Sometimes the openings took the shape of wide passages. As a result of heavy bombardments during WW2 a large part of the original buildings were destroyed. New apartment buildings were erected on the old building lines. These postwar buildings are much less detailed and have fewer openings resulting in long and rather boring street facades. In places the colour of the replacement buildings contrasts sharply with the original buildings.

 

The so-called railway workers village is an urban neighbourhood. In the original design dullness is prevented by punctuating the facades with gates and later passages towards the central courtyards. Of the eastern 20th century section (within the red outline) only a small portion still stands in its original form; much was rebuilt (indicated by the hatching).The original part concentrates around the bathhouse (B). Little public green space is provided, except for a small playground by the bathhouse, the public gardens in the Mittnachtstraße (M) and the now built over allotment gardens (A) along the railway.