DIE NEUE HEIMAT (1950–1982)

The “New Home” was the largest and most important non-governmental housing group in post-war Europe. Over a period of more than thirty years, the union organization planned and executed more than 400,000 flats, including, from the 1960s, numerous municipal and commercial buildings in Germany. The “New Home” carried the hopes of participants in Germany’s economic miracle, which made the scandalous collapse of the cooperative in the early eighties even more of a shock to the people of West Germany. A gap of over a generation offers an opportunity for a critical examination: What were the approaches of the social democratic visions, and what has become of the ongoing aspiration “Housing for all?” Based on numerous historical photos and plans and brief contributions, large housing estates such as the Neue Vahr Bremen or the overspill town of Neuperlach and enormous large-scale projects of the “New Home Urban Development” such as ICC Berlin are documented.