Großsiedlung Britz and Weiße Stadt

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Großsiedlung Britz

   From above, the Hufeisensiedlung, the Horseshoe Estate, looks like a giant horseshoe wrapped around a pond, and from the ground it looks like something rarer, a housing project that people actually love. It was designed by Bruno Taut and Martin Wagner between 1925 and 1930 for a cooperative, as part of the effort in Weimar-era Berlin to give working families light, air and gardens instead of the dark tenements of the nineteenth century. Rows of low terraced houses with their own small gardens curve around a central green, and the façades are painted in strong colours, notably a long blue wall. It is one of six Berlin housing estates that UNESCO listed together in 2008 as examples of modern housing reform.

   Read the complete Großsiedlung Britz write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Großsiedlung Britz is where the day begins. Next is Waldsiedlung Zehlendorf.

2. 2. Waldsiedlung Zehlendorf

   Bright colours were a weapon for Bruno Taut. The architect believed that good housing could change people's lives, and in the 1920s he designed several large housing estates in Berlin for working and middle class families, with light, airy flats, gardens and shared green spaces. The Waldsiedlung Zehlendorf, better known as Onkel Toms Hütte, Uncle Tom's Cabin, after a nearby inn and the underground station, was built between 1926 and 1931 on the edge of the Grunewald forest, and Taut, working with other architects, painted the houses in strong reds, greens, blues and yellows, so that the estate glows among the pine trees. It is one of the great monuments of modern housing in Germany.

   Read the complete Waldsiedlung Zehlendorf write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Waldsiedlung Zehlendorf comes up about 18 km into the recorded legs. Next is Weiße Stadt.

3. 3. Weiße Stadt

   The first thing you notice in the Weiße Stadt is how little it shouts. This is a housing estate in Reinickendorf, in the north of Berlin, built between 1929 and 1931 to a design by Otto Rudolf Salvisberg, with Bruno Ahrends and Wilhelm Büning, and its smooth white walls, strip windows and flat roofs were a quiet manifesto for a new way of living. It is called the White City for obvious reasons, and in the late Weimar years it was meant to show that ordinary people could have light, air and a balcony.

   Read the complete Weiße Stadt write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 37 km into the recorded legs you reach Weiße Stadt. Next is back through Waldsiedlung Zehlendorf.

4. 4. back through Waldsiedlung Zehlendorf

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Waldsiedlung Zehlendorf write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Waldsiedlung Zehlendorf, late in the day. Next is Großsiedlung Britz.

5. 5. Großsiedlung Britz

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Großsiedlung Britz write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Großsiedlung Britz. That is the ride.