Three things are needed for a beautiful façade.

  1. Storey height,
  2. Storey height,
  3. Storey height.

In my opinion, it is advisable to specify the number of storeys in the development plans rather than the wall heights. With a fixed wall height, investors are tempted to add an extra storey. There are many streets where this has happened. Before the war, ground floor plus three upper floors were built, after the war a fourth upper floor was squeezed in - the wall height remained the same. Of course, this was at the expense of the storey height. The room heights of the individual storeys are lower, the ceilings are lower and the window formats are compressed. In addition, the designer has less space to shape the windows because there is little height between the parapet height and the storey ceiling - and a roller shutter still has to be fitted.

A modern construction of a storey ceiling has at least 35cm. With a storey height of 300, this leaves 260cm of clear room height. Of this, 90cm are used for the parapet and 30cm for a roller shutter box. This leaves 140cm window height. Not much, if you want to illuminate a room that is 4 metres deep. Of course, you can also glaze the parapet, but that doesn't do much for the depth of light in the room. It would be better to set the storey height to 320cm. This value was quite normal in the Gründerzeit or in Paris under Haussmann. We could afford these heights in the past. This makes the living spaces higher and more airy. High windows also provide better natural light. This also attracts and retains more potential buyers, as estate agents say: "High ceilings". This allows you to make your cut thanks to the high demand. It would be better to set a minimum storey height in the development plan. The wall height is less important. Black and white photos show how different the wall heights of the townhouses used to be, which did not harm the "ensemble". On the contrary: jumping eaves are seen as a nice change. Less forgivable is a jump in the number of storeys. We can see this very clearly on Frankfurt's Römerberg: it doesn't really matter whether the houses are gabled or eaves-fronted. It doesn't matter whether the houses are narrow or wide. The slopes of the roofs are not so important either. That makes the whole thing rather lively. It only becomes unsuitable when the storeys under the roofs are discarded. And if the façade is then also characterised by dull, gawky window formats, things become critical.

In Munich-Schwabing, the usual bullet configuration was E+III+D. This was normal in many large cities before the war. It can also be found in Stuttgart's Heusteig neighbourhood, for example. It generates densities of around 15,000 inhabitants per square kilometre. This means that an entire small town lives in one square kilometre. With positive consequences: Restaurants are also full on Wednesdays and the retail trade also works on foot. Hohenzollerstraße in Schwabing offers a shopping mile far removed from the pedestrian zone with bookshops, boutiques, butchers, hairdressing salons, furniture shops and, of course, the city's urban development highlight - the Elisabethmarkt. May God grant that they survive these times. But if the population density falls below 10,000, these promenades will become unprofitable. It's simply a question of statistics: if 15,000 people live in a square kilometre, then on any given Wednesday, around 41 people have a birthday. As the flat is small and the neighbours don't want to be bothered, the birthday celebrants like to go to a bar with friends or a nice restaurant with their partner in the evening. An innkeeper therefore addresses at least 41 birthday celebrants per day within walking distance. If we add a life partner as a guest, there are already 82 people who have a demand for a wine list. Since people can come on foot, both parties can enjoy the wine. This increases the likelihood of repeat orders. By the time you look around, the landlord has sold two glasses of sparkling wine, a bottle of red wine, two bottles of mineral water and two digestifs. Plus espresso and dessert. I know that sounds abstract to many people now, but that's how these restaurants used to be.

In this small town, our 15,000 inhabitants live spread over the entire urban area. That can be as much as 50 square kilometres. They live in detached houses and often have a property loan. That means there's space and the neighbours are on other people's property. You celebrate at home. If you still go to the pub with your sweetheart, you have to take the car, because no more licences are issued in residential areas - the risk of noise complaints is too high. This means that our landlord earns less from the drinks. If a partner is not allowed to drink, the caterer can't sell a bottle of wine. In my opinion, this explains why tenants change so often in small towns. As far as promenades are concerned, at densities below 15,000, these are only possible "indoors", where strollers in functional clothing can drive their cars to the car park. A lift then takes them to the shopping street. There, they have no chance of escaping the department stores' music.

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First published on Facebook on 14.02.2021