The ‘Hobrecht Plan’ (1862) and Berlin's urban structure

Abstract

The Hobrecht Plan of 1862 is the framework for Berlin's urban development. The changing assessments of this plan over the past 150 years can be followed using contemporary evaluations of street and park layout and the Mietskaserne (tenement). Following early suggestions that it was authoritarian, and persistent criticism that it was responsible for bad housing, it later came to be seen more positively, as renewal and conservation took over from clearance and when reunification highlighted its significance as a common factor in the new capital city.