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A typical low large panel system-building in Leipzig, GermanyBerlin-Marzahn, the largest East German Neubaugebiet (1987)
The large panel system building[lower-alpha 1] is a building constructed of large, prefabricated concrete slabs. Such buildings are often found in housing development areas.
Although large panel system-buildings are often considered to be typical of East Germany and the majority of other Eastern Bloc countries, this prefabricated construction method was also used extensively in West Germany and elsewhere, particularly in public housing (see tower block).
History
Prefabrication was pioneered in the Netherlands following World War I, based on construction methods developed in the United States. The first German use of large panel system-building construction is what is now known as the Splanemann-Siedlung in Berlin's Lichtenberg district, constructed in 1926–1930.[1] These two- and three-storey apartment houses were assembled of locally cast slabs, inspired by the Dutch Betondorp in Watergraafsmeer, a suburb of Amsterdam.
Brand new Hanseatic-themed WBS 70 panel buildings in Rostock-Stadtmitte (September 1986)
In East Germany, large panel system-building areas have been designated as Neubaugebiet ("New development area"). Virtually all new residential buildings since the 1960s were built in this style, as it was a quick and relatively inexpensive way to curb the country's severe housing shortage, which had been caused by wartime bombing raids and the large influx of German refugees from further east. At the same time, many buildings from earlier eras had substantial drawbacks, such as coal heat, no hot running water, or bathrooms shared by multiple units. As these buildings fell into disrepair, many of their inhabitants moved into newer large panel system-building housing. Today, large panel system-building are often no longer desirable, due in part to both their low thermal efficiency, and their rapid deterioration as a result of their vulnerability to damp ingress and their cheap and quick construction methods, while older housing stock has undergone extensive renovation or been replaced with more modern dwelling units.
There were several common large panel system-building designs. The most common series was the P2, followed by the WBS 70, the WHH GT 18, and Q3A. The designs were flexible and could be built as towers or rows of apartments of various heights. The short sides of building blocks often featured large-scale murals or colourful mosaics.
Since the entire building had a standard structure, apartment layouts were also standardized. Furniture producers used this to offer prefabricated sets that matched a variety of typical apartment setups.
West German large panel system-building in Munich-Neuperlach
There have been projects with low rise "Plattenbauten" such as the town of Bernau just north of Berlin. This town had an almost complete historic center of mainly wooden framed buildings within its preserved city walls. Most of these were torn down after 1975 and during the eighties to be replaced by 2–4 storey buildings constructed of prefabricated concrete slabs. To fit in with the medieval church and the almost complete city wall, the houses used rather small design units and decreased in height the farther away they were from the Church and the nearer they came to the city wall. A similar project was the Nikolaiviertel around the historic Nikolai church in Berlin's old centre. In the case of the Nikolaiviertel the buildings were made to look more historic.
Large panel system-building apartments were once considered highly desirable in East Germany, largely due to the lack of any other viable alternative. The main alternatives of the time were overcrowded, deteriorating prewar housing, often with wartime damage still visible, due to policies that preferred new construction over repairing the damaged housing stock. Plattenbau suburbs were planned not only for apartment buildings, but included schools, shopping centers, hospitals, restaurants and recreational facilities. Commercial areas were either on the ground floor of high-rise apartment blocks, or in separate structures. Since few citizens owned cars, the developments were planned to include tramways, subways and bus lines.
Since reunification a combination of decreasing population, renovation of older buildings, and construction of modern alternative housing has led to high vacancy rates, with some estimates placing the number of unoccupied units at around a million. Many large panel system-building apartments were built in giant settlements, often on the edge of cities (such as Marzahn and Hellersdorf in Berlin and Halle-Neustadt), making them inconveniently located.[citation needed]
While some large panel system-building apartments have been being torn down, many are renovated to a modern standard. Especially in bigger cities, these districts are slowly getting more popular again, since they provide affordable apartments and often walkable environments with good public transport systems.
Berlin-based architect David Chipperfield has suggested that the plain appearance of Plattenbau housing does not promote gentrification, and may be a factor that helps preserve social continuity for local residents and neighborhoods.[2]
A building being constructed using prefabricated concrete elements, 2009Modernised large panel system-buildings in Berlin Marzahn
In Finland, particularly in northern towns, such as Rovaniemi, Plattenbauten are commonplace. Rovaniemi was nearly completely destroyed during World War II and subsequently rebuilt from scratch, with new concrete panel buildings replacing old wooden houses and becoming a symbol of modernization.[3] Whereas in the rest of Europe large panel system-building are associated with public housing, in Rovaniemi they are favoured by the middle classes on their way to purchasing a bungalow.[citation needed]
A tower block, high-rise, apartment tower, residential tower, apartment block, block of flats, or office tower is a tall building, as opposed to a low-rise building and is defined differently in terms of height depending on the jurisdiction. It is used as a residential, office building, or other functions including hotel, retail, or with multiple purposes combined. Residential high-rise buildings are also known in some varieties of English, such as British English, as tower blocks and may be referred to as MDUs, standing for multi-dwelling units. A very tall high-rise building is referred to as a skyscraper.
A housing estate is a group of homes and other buildings built together as a single development. The exact form may vary from country to country.
The Unité d'habitation is a modernist residential housing typology developed by Le Corbusier, with the collaboration of painter-architect Nadir Afonso. It formed the basis of several housing developments throughout Europe designed by Le Corbusier and sharing the same name.
Prefabrication is the practice of assembling components of a structure in a factory or other manufacturing site, and transporting complete assemblies or sub-assemblies to the construction site where the structure is to be located. Some researchers refer it to “various materials joined together to form a component of the final installation procedure“.
Panelák is a colloquial term in Czech and Slovak for a large panel system panel building constructed of pre-fabricated, pre-stressed concrete, such as those extant in the former Czechoslovakia and elsewhere in the world. Paneláks are usually located in housing estates.
Prefabricated homes, often referred to as prefab homes or simply prefabs, are specialist dwelling types of prefabricated building, which are manufactured off-site in advance, usually in standard sections that can be easily shipped and assembled. Some current prefab home designs include architectural details inspired by postmodernism or futurist architecture.
A prefabricated building, informally a prefab, is a building that is manufactured and constructed using prefabrication. It consists of factory-made components or units that are transported and assembled on-site to form the complete building. Various materials were combined to create a part of the installation process.
Khrushchevkas are a type of low-cost, concrete-paneled or brick three- to five-storied apartment building and apartments in these buildings, which were designed and constructed in the Soviet Union since the early 1960s, during the time its namesake Nikita Khrushchev was the leader of the Soviet Union. Khrushchevkas are sometimes compared to the Japanese danchi, similar housing projects from the same period, which by some accounts were directly inspired by them.
Multifamily residential, also known as multidwelling unit (MDU)) is a classification of housing where multiple separate housing units for residential inhabitants are contained within one building or several buildings within one complex. Units can be next to each other (side-by-side units), or stacked on top of each other (top and bottom units). Common forms include apartment building and condominium, where typically the units are owned individually rather than leased from a single building owner. Many intentional communities incorporate multifamily residences, such as in cohousing projects.
Panelház is a Hungarian term for a type of concrete block of flats, built in the People's Republic of Hungary and other Eastern Bloc countries.
Prefabs were a major part of the delivery plan to address the United Kingdom's post–World War II housing shortage. They were envisaged by war-time prime minister Winston Churchill in March 1944, and legally outlined in the Housing Act 1944.
Stadthaus is a nine-storey residential building in Hackney, London. At nine stories, it is thought to be the second tallest timber residential structure in the world, after the Forte apartment complex in Melbourne, Australia. It was designed in collaboration between architects Waugh Thistleton, structural engineers Techniker, and timber panel manufacturer KLH.
Michenzani is a large neighbourhood of Ng'ambo, the more modern part of Zanzibar City in Tanzania. It is located just across Creek Road, that separates the historical part of the city, Stone Town and Ng'ambo. The place is mostly known for the Plattenbauten, i.e., the large apartment blocks that were built here in the late 1960s and early 1970s with the aid of East Germany.
P2 is the abbreviation for a type of residential panel building found in former East Germany. The P stands for parallel and refers to load-bearing walls arranged parallel to wall surfaces. 2 denotes the arrangement of two stairways in a building.
The FOCSA Building is a residential and commercial block in the Vedado neighborhood of Havana, Cuba. At 121 meters (397 ft), it is the tallest building in Cuba. It was named after the contracting company Fomento de Obras y Construcciones, Sociedad Anónima, and the architects were Ernesto Gómez Sampera (1921–2004), Mercedes Diaz, and Martín Domínguez Esteban (1897-1970), who was the architect of the Radiocentro CMQ Building. The structural engineer was Luis Sáenz Duplace, of the firm Sáenz, Cancio & Martín, and professor of engineering at the University of Havana. The civil engineers were Bartolome Bestard and Manuel Padron. Gustavo Becquer and Fernando H.Meneses were the mechanical and electrical engineers, respectively. It is located on a site bordered by Calles 17 and M and Calles 19 and N in the Vedado.
Berlin's history has left the city with an eclectic assortment of architecture. The city's appearance in the 21st century has been shaped by the key role the city played in Germany's 20th-century history. Each of the governments based in Berlin—the Kingdom of Prussia, the 1871 German Empire, the Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany, East Germany and the reunified Federal Republic of Germany—initiated ambitious construction programs, with each adding its distinct flavour to the city's architecture.
Unité d'Habitation of Berlin is a 1958 apartment building located in Berlin-Westend, Germany, designed by Le Corbusier following his concept of Unité d'Habitation. Le Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation concept was materialised in four other buildings in France with a similar design. The building is constructed in béton brut and is part of the initial architecture style we know today as brutalism. The structure was built with on site prefab cast concrete panels and poured ceiling slabs. The Modulor system is the base measure of the Unité and Corbusier used not more than 15 Modulor measures to construct the entire structure form. Ultimately the work has been eliminated from Le Corbusier's oeuvre, which he confirmed himself until his death in 1965 and which has also been confirmed posthumous in 1967 in his last authorized publication of his work.
Q3A is an abbreviation for a type of three, four and five storey prefabricated buildings constructed in the GDR in the 1950s and 1960s. The letter "Q" in the word stands for "Querwandbau".
Wilfried Stallknecht was a German architect, planner and furniture designer. He was known chiefly for his significant role in shaping Germany's post-World War II built environment – particularly that of the former East Germany (GDR) – through his major contributions to the designs of the country's ubiquitous, iconic and often standardized housing blocks – the so-called Plattenbau – as well as a similarly ubiquitous and standardized single-family house design known as the EW58. He was affiliated with the GDR's Bauakademie from 1959 to 1973 and served as planner for the town of Bernau bei Berlin from 1974 to 1984.
The Wilhelmine Ring is the name for a belt of distinctive multi-occupancy rental housing blocks constructed in the second half of the 19th century around the historic city center of Berlin. It is characterized by a dense settlement pattern with four- to five-story residential buildings with side and rear wings around an inner courtyard. The designation reflects the period of origin of this town planning solution under the German monarchs Wilhelm I and Wilhelm II.
Meuser, Philipp; Zadorin, Dimitrij (2016). Towards a Typology of Soviet Mass Housing: Prefabrication in the USSR 1955 – 1991, DOM publishers, Berlin. ISBN978-3869224466.
Meuser, Philipp (2019). Prefabricated Housing. Construction and Design Manual, DOM publishers, Berlin. ISBN978-3-86922-021-5
External links
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