History of housing cooperatives

"More than a roof over your head"
- on the history of housing-cooperatives

A children's party at the Charlottenburger Baugenossenschaft, 1911

The demand for "light, air and sun" was the key slogan for overcoming the housing misery in the tenement houses of Berlin at the late 19th century. Housing cooperatives had further-reaching social, cultural and economic aspirations.

The small self-help organisations developed new architectural and town planning designs for better living conditions. Moreover, they conceived new dimensions to joint ownership, participation and solidarity, as well as strengthening the neglected legal rights of tenancy.

Today many cooperative estates are not only famous as historic architectural monuments; they also stand as achievements in social and cultural history. Kindergartens, libraries and leisure facilities became common in housing-coops. Social life often revolved around pubs belonging to the cooperative; the Berliner Spar- und Bauverein founded in 1892 had as a motto "To lead pub life along nobler paths." Numerous associations extended neighbourhood networks and activities such as choirs, skittle and chess clubs or discussion circles. Cultural and educational events as well as organised forms of social economy such as bakeries and consumer cooperatives contributed to neighbourhood life - but it was children's parties and summer fêtes which had the biggest attraction.

At the end of the 19th century, the economic and legal basis for the foundation of housing cooperatives improved significantly. In 1889 the Cooperative Act was amended to include limitation of liability. At the same time the German Chancellor Bismarck established the system of social insurance funds, which were able to provide credit at regulated rates of return. In this way a first wave of cooperatives was founded between 1890 and 1910.

The standard juridical framework, however, did not result in a standardised product. Berlin in particular, since 1871 capital of the newly founded "Deutsches Reich", developed a colourful diversity of cooperative types. Their scope encompasses civil servants' associations, self-help groups promoting alternative lifestyles and cooperatives initiated by middle-class sponsors. According to the composition of their membership and sponsors - and their reform ideas - a great diversity of architectural forms emerged. The ideal of living in a community found its expression in big courtyards, equal standards without the former hierarchies, light and sun for all dwellings. The integrated composition of housing estates and building ensembles demonstrated a new community-orientated form of urban design, known under the slogan "democracy as builder".

Because they were mostly small enterprises, they could hardly improve the overall housing situation to a quantitative degree; but like "islands in a stony ocean of tenements" (Julius Posener) it was principally they who conceived and implemented innovative models for housing provision in the fast growing industrialized cities. When housing markets in Germany collapsed after World War I, the housing cooperatives were too minor to fill the gap. But the non-profit sector of the newly founded housing associations, adopting the principal ideas and structures of cooperatives, gained increasing importance.

The circle of housing cooperatives is extended by the former working-class housing cooperatives of the GDR (the AWG), founded after 1954: although part of the state-socialist system, they held values of self-help and solidarity, especially in the early years. Today, all these former initiatives are undergoing reinterpretation and reform. Today, all these former initiatives are undergoing reinterpretation and reform. Many of the newly foundes housing cooperatives enrich the movement with contemporary sicial values and ensure that traditional principles are also meaningful and attractive for younger people.