Ernst May e a Nova Frankfurt da Habitação operária à Cidade Moderna

Abstract

Frankfurt houses, even today, one of the most important experiences of architecture from the beginning of the 20s, which arises from a reaction to the industrial city. I refer to the housing program prepared by Ernst May, together with his team between 1925-1930. Under this program, several developments, including the Siedlung Niederrad and the Siedlung Römerstadt were built to fill the emerging need for housing in the city. It is possible to find in these two examples, the main characteristics of the work of Ernst May in Frankfurt. The architecture, in the New Frankfurt, is a way to give urban habitant a pleasant and healthy housing. The aesthetic simplification to construction aspects, the use of the new technical possibilities and a strong relationship with Nature, are the lines of this program. The housing program reflects the academic and professional path of Ernst May, who was able to combine tradition of building the European city with the experiences of architects with whom he contacted. The housing programs, contemporaries of New Frankfurt, held in Berlin, Vienna and Hamburg, share some principles and multiply differences. These diversity is the result of different architects and the contexts in which they had operated. The knowledge of these experiments reveals the uniqueness of the program of Ernst May.