Werkbund Siedlung: a modernist showcase

The highest building was designed by André Lurcat. It is a very sculptural block of 4 row houses that serves as the entrance to the model housing estate. As is common in Vienna the name and year of completion are displayed in large lettering on the side of this building.

The rounded shapes of the Lurcat building are not often associated with modernism, although in the 1920s Bauhaus also incorporated an expressionist tendency. The cubist treatment of the building mass is what is generally known as modernism. It later became the international style, when it spread beyond northwest Europe into Great Britain, the Americas and Australia.

Terraced housing also became more sculptural. Every architect reacted to the design of the neighbouring property. In the middle two cubes with windows seek to define the very basis of a dwelling. On either side of these are more expressive houses. The long window band on the left is very typical of Bauhaus.

The basis of the still recognisable modernist idiom are a cubist treatment of the building mass in combination with flat roofs and the absence of eaves. The clean lines are enhanced by the regular placement of the windows.

Although post war modernisme (the international style) is best known for the white or slight grey colour of the facades, in earlier modernism no such dictate concerning a lack of colour existed. Especially in Germany and the Netherlands many architects experimented with block colouring on the walls. Here an example by the Dutch architect and designer Gerrit Rietveld, who was well known for his grafic work using primary colours in blocks.

A part of the wall around the white entrance is painted white to emphasise the entrance and at the same time give better proportion to the whole facade. The windows are often recessed into the outer walls of the building to compensate for the reflection of sunlight of the light walls and also to emphasise the window shape.

Monotony is avoided by using blocks of colour on the separate dwellings within a row of terraced housing. Also the building line and building height varies to add interest. The roofline is, however, kept at the same level to unify the separate dwellings into a single urban block (or unit).

The baroque tradition in Germany and Austria in colouring the wall in soft tones of pink, yellow, green and blue is also picked up in some of the buildings in the Werkbund Siedlung.

This semidetached house displays a new form for this well known housing type. This single storey building (in effect a bungalow) has a roof terrace. The entrances are emphasised by higher glazed sections that flood the low building with light. Providing natural daylight, fresh air and easy access to nature (in the form of a garden, a public park or allotments) was an important premise of the Bauhaus-movement.