Gartenstadt Rüppurr, one of the oldest examples of a garden village

In 1905 Hans Kampfmeyer in association with likeminded individuals founds the Karlruhe chapter of the German Garden City Society (Deutschen Gartenstadtgesellschaft). Their aim is to envelop the existing city with a necklace of new garden city inspired suburbs. Together with the more famous Gartenstadt Hellerau near Dresden, Gartenstadt Rüppurr is one of the oldest examples of a garden village in Germany based on the core principles of communal ownership of land, buildings and society. In 1910 12 hectares of land, east of the village of Rüppurr near the railway line linking Karlsruhe with Bad Herrenalb, are acquired by the society. With the purchase an option to buy an additional 64 hectares is also agreed.

Building work commences immediately and in 1911 42 buildings with almost 100 dwellings are completed. The garden village is added on to in later years in several building phases. The layout of the streets incorporates older routes and thus ties in the new garden village with the neighbouring historic village of Rüppurr on the westside of the railway. The development of the garden village also leads to an expansion of the historic village first towards the garden village and later further south near a railway station. The site for the new garden village was carefully selected to be near an important thoroughfare and near the Albtalbahn which already had a station Klein-Rüppurr further north near the site of the former castle on the Alb river. In 1924 a new halt was opened called Gartenstadt (Garden City) halfway between the two older halts. All the streets are named after flowers, with the exception of the oldest streets (Blütenweg, Heckenweg and Im Grün).

The garden village was built in small building campaigns of a few streets at a time between 1910 and 1965. Although in name a garden city (the literal translation of Gartenstadt) the plan was always to develop a garden village on the site. The plans included allotment gardens (A), a school (S) and a community hall (C), but both were never built. Their respective reservation were developed with low blocks of flats from the late 1950s. Next to the garden village a hospital (H) was built during the 1930s.The houses destroyed by bombs in 1944 were replaced with blocks of flats.

Originally the garden village was planned with detached and semidetached houses with some short terraces of three to six houses, all according to Unwinesque principles. After 1912 the focus shifts towards providing more housing units per hectare. So at the end of phase one and especially in phase two longer terraces are introduced. In the third phase of development blocks of flats are introduced next to long terraces. The 1930s addition are a return to semidetached housing and short rows fitting in with the ideology of the National Socialists at the time. After WW2 gaps are filled with more blocks of flats. In 1990 meadows to the north are developed. This development phase is the only one that doesn't fit in with the rest of the buildings in the garden village. It is remarkable how every phase has delivered buildings with their own characteristics that in all make for a coherent urban landscape, setting Gartenstadt Rüppurr apart from other suburban developments around it.

The historic situation forms the basis for the layout of the garden village. In 1900 the small village of Rüppurr sits on the higher banks of the river Alb with the railway running directly east of the village. In 1920 the garden village starts to take shape on the other side of the railway. The close on the old lane follows the underlying parcelling of the fields. In 12912 an extra street has been laid out following older dirt roads. In 1915 work starts on expanding the garden village with new curved streets and the central square that links it to the neighbouring old village. The Waldstraße (Woodland Road) forms the southern limit of the development. In 1927 permission is granted to expand the garden village beyond the Waldstraße and north of the Holderweg towards the allotments. The Waldstraße is renamed Hedwigstraße and changed into a walkway linking the back passages and providing a separate route towards where the community hall was planned. In 1938 a new square forms the endpoint of the central street. The Dahlienweg (Dahlia Road) that was planned to run parallel to the other streets was bayoneted in a rather odd way to go around the reservation for a school. The layout of streets is basically a repeated reworking of the underlying pattern.