Gartenstadt

Why was Bamberg’s Gartenstadt once called Spinnseyersiedlung? Our journey through Bamberg brings us to Gartenstadt, a neighborhood with a fascinating history. Until 1951, this area was known as Spinnseyersiedlung. It was built starting in 1935 on the Spinnseyer, a cleared section of the Hauptsmoorwald. The name “Spinnseyer” refers to the barren, heath-like landscape that resulted from uncontrolled deforestation after World War I. The sandy soil, combined with a high water table due to underlying clay, made the area unsuitable for both agriculture and settlement. The only structures present before Gartenstadt’s development were a post office workshop, a small worker’s settlement, and a water tower. Bamberg, facing economic hardship and housing shortages, initially avoided developing this area. The costs associated with making the land usable seemed too high. However, the Bamberg Handwerker-Baugenossenschaft (HGB) began acquiring land and building a drainage canal in 1934. The city, seeing the initiative, purchased neighboring land and offered loans to the HGB for house construction. In return, the HGB members expanded the canal system. The Gartenstadt project, fueled by the Siebert-Program and with plans drawn by architect Glu00fcck, aimed to create 400 small homes. The first houses were built in 1935. These were small, one-and-a-half story homes with steep saddle roofs, cellars, and gardens. The design reflected the national emphasis on self-sufficiency, with large gardens for fruit trees, shrubs, vegetable patches, and even small outbuildings for laundry, wood storage, and small livestock. The layout of Gartenstadt followed existing paths within the cleared forest, supplemented by new parallel and cross streets. The placement between three main roads—Memmelsdorfer Straße, Zollnerstraße, and Weißenburgstraße—is typical of settlements founded during the Third Reich. While not a garden city in the classical sense, Gartenstadt borrowed key elements: low-rise buildings, uniform design, large gardens, and a main axis, Seehofstraße, with a central square. The square featured a restaurant, echoing the gabled facade of the Kunigundenschule across the street. Denser rows of rental apartments along Seehofstraße aimed to create a more urban feel. After World War II, Gartenstadt, having suffered minimal damage, continued to expand eastward. The construction of the Kunigundenkirche and the Gartenstädter Markt shifted the neighborhood’s center. The post-war expansion saw the addition of multi-story residential and commercial buildings and the development of a new area around the Auferstehungskirche and Pestalozzischule. Gartenstadt today reflects its layered history. While few original single-family homes remain due to modernization, the various house types are still recognizable. The gardens, now mainly used for recreation, have lost their original agricultural character, though communal green spaces around the apartment buildings have been preserved. From its humble beginnings as a solution to a housing crisis, Gartenstadt evolved into a unique blend of urban and rural elements, a testament to Bamberg’s ongoing story.