Gartenstadt Staaken

Only a few minutes' walk from Staaken station and there it is: the small town in the big city. The Gartenstadt housing estate in the Spandau district of Staaken is a model for social housing.

Designed by the architect Paul Schmitthenner and built between 1914 and 1917, the estate is now one of the most important architectural heritage sites of the 20th century. The garden city was planned especially for the workers of the Spandau munitions factories and was intended to alleviate the housing shortage of the time.

The five different types of houses almost all have their own garden. The façades of the buildings were designed with local conditions in mind, with plaster used for residential buildings and brick for public buildings. The bell gables were inspired by the Dutch Quarter in Potsdam.

Today, the garden city is a very popular place to live. Anyone wanting to move into one of the houses on the western outskirts of Berlin can expect to be on a long waiting list.