The Sixteen Principles of Urban Design
From 1950 to 1955, the Sixteen Principles of Urban Design were the main model for planning cities in East Germany. One author was Edmund Collein, a Bauhaus-trained architect who later led the DDR Building Academy and the Federation of Architects of the DDR.
On July 27, 1950, the East German government decided that urban design should express the socialist order and the people’s goals. On September 7, 1950, after a new building law was adopted, work began to demolish the ruined Berlin City Palace. Plans called for a 90-meter-wide road from Frankfurter Straße via Alexanderplatz, Königstraße (now Rathausstraße), and Unter den Linden to the Brandenburg Gate. A central axis would run from the Brandenburg Gate to Alexanderplatz, creating a monumental “city crown” at Marx-Engels-Platz, with the central government building in place of the castle.
In 1951, Stalinallee became the first Socialist avenue in the GDR. Construction from 1952 to 1958, led by Hermann Henselmann (designer of the Hochhaus an der Weberwiese), produced large residential blocks. When work on Frankfurter Tor finished in 1960, the avenue’s historicist style already felt outdated.
Other major projects included Dresden’s Altmarkt, Leipzig’s Roßplatz, and Rostock’s Lange Straße. From 1955 a new development phase began after Soviet directives in 1954 called for more standardization and less ornamentation. The second phase of Stalinallee, between Strausberger Platz and Alexanderplatz, was built in an industrial style.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 04:34 (CET).