42 
HO USE & GARDEN 
Block D, facing the .Eberhardstrasse, has 
large stores on the ground floor; the 
second, occupied by a restaurant, with 
office buildings filling the remainder 
The streets center in the Geiss-Platz, 
where the pivotal point is the “Hans im 
Gluck" fountain. Note the old spirit in 
these modern buildings 
Sgraffito ornament in browns, greys and yellows, are used 
on all the buildings. The shutters are carved with 
decorative designs and painted a dark green 
only by skilful planning, and by the 
modest dimensions of the block in 
question. 
In Block E, with its four houses, 
forming in all eight apartments to a 
floor, only two main rooms face on 
courts, and one of these courts has 
the ventilating value of a street, in 
view of its great openness. In Block 
B, with ten houses and fifteen apart¬ 
ments, we find again but two main 
rooms lighted only from the court; in 
Block C, with seven houses, nine 
stairs and seven apartments, there are 
five. But here, again, the conditions 
are somewhat different, for two of the 
houses have nine-room apartments with 
separate service stairs, their entrance being 
from the Eberhardstrasse, with service en¬ 
trances from the Geiss-Strasse in the rear. 
The plans of the individual apartments, 
examined more in detail, show a decided 
departure from the machine-made types 
that we have learned, to tolerate. The Ger¬ 
mans have no fear of irregularity in their 
plans, and show great ingenuity in the ar¬ 
rangement of rooms on irregular sites. 
They do not consider rectangularity a 
prime requisite in a room, and seem, in 
fact, rather to favor the use of corner tur¬ 
rets, of bay windows unsymmetrically 
placed, and of truncated angles and curved 
walls when these can be of use. The plac¬ 
ing of the stairs, with their curved 
plans fitted into the angles of the 
courts, is worthy of notice, even 
though the condition of our building 
trades may render their use imprac¬ 
ticable on this side of the Atlantic. 
The architectural treatment of these 
buildings is, perhaps, even more in¬ 
teresting to us than their interior dis¬ 
position. Here a combination of vari¬ 
ous materials has been used to excel¬ 
lent advantage. The ground floors are 
mainly of stone, the upper floors of 
stucco, except on the Eberhardstrasse, 
where stone is more generally used. 
The style of the architecture is not an 
archaeological reproduction of the old 
buildings occupying the site, but a free, 
modern handling of the forms derived di¬ 
rectly from the conditions of the problem. 
Only the high gables and tiled roofs recall 
the older houses that these have replaced. 
The office building on the Eberhard¬ 
strasse (Block D) is, of course, the most 
