The Blumlager Feld Housing Estate

The ‚LungenFluegel‘ Traverse Building

The third and last housing project by Otto Haesler for Celle was the Blumelafer Feld Housing Estate, which he built during 1930/1931.

Thanks to rationalised construction methods and standardised floor plans, Haesler was able to create affordable, small apartments for the poorer residents of Celle. In hindsight, it was his most radical blueprint in terms of minimising living space and saving costs. The floor plans however aroused great criticism among the advocates of ‘New Building’ and the ‘New Objectivity’ movement. In view of the housing shortage prevailing at the time, the housing estate made an important contribution to the construction of social housing during  the Weimar Republic.

The estate originally consisted of several two-storey buildings. Two 222-metre-long linear buildings along the Hugoweg and the Rauterbergweg, with a distinctive transverse section defined the appearance of the estate.

In 2003, the linear building on Hugoweg was demolished but the building on Rauterbergweg was given an additional storey and extended. Only a few buildings have been preserved in their original form, including one section housing two flats, the transverse building (the “Lungenflügel”) plus the wash and bath house, within the extension of the Rauterbergweg building – the entrance of which is at Galgenberg 13. The Otto Haesler Foundation has run the Otto Haesler Museum, in the latter building, since 2001.

The apartments in the first linear buildings, with their very small rooms were equipped with furniture and fitted kitchens. The apartments in the second linear building and the transverse wing were unfurnished and therefore provided slightly larger room dimensions. Between the two buildings, 88 tenant gardens were laid out to promote a purpose of self-sufficiency and this lent the estate the character of a garden city.

This was followed by three shorter linear buildings and two single structures during the second construction phase, situated to the north. Due to the higher demand for unfurnished apartments, these buildings have the dimensions and floor plans of the original second linear building.