German Model Houses for Workmen 
BEDROOM OF A FOREMAN’S DWELLING—COLONY WILDAU 
in connection with his new ventures 
were so fully realized that within a 
short time the manufacture, begun in 
i860, of sidings, travelling platforms, 
turntables, roof structures, bridges, 
station equipments, etc., developed to 
such an extent that Schwartzkopft' 
found it necessary to considerably 
extend his works. 
When a few years later, in the year 
1866, the establishment carried out 
its long projected plan of adding the 
construction of locomotives to the 
existing departments, an extensive 
branch establishment was erected on 
the site known as 96 Acker Strasse 
within easy distance from the parent 
works in the Chaussee Strasse. From 
this moment the construction of loco¬ 
motives became the principal depart¬ 
ment of the firm’s activity. The crea¬ 
tion of this new department, which 
eventually became an essential feature in estab¬ 
lishing Germany’s position as a locomotive pro¬ 
ducing country, rapidly obtained for the firm a 
world-wide reputation. On the 8th of July, 1870, 
the firm was incorporated as a limited company, 
under the title of “Berliner Maschinenbau-Actien- 
Gesellschaft vormals L. Schwartzkopff” the founder 
remaining until 1888 at the head of the establish¬ 
ment. 
When toward the end of the seventies there was 
a noticeable decline in the demand for locomotives, 
the firm turned its attention to other specialties, 
and accordingly added in 1878 the construction 
of torpedoes, submarine mines, and other utensils 
of war; subsequently that of steam engines, boilers, 
air compressors, hydraulic water supply and pump¬ 
ing machinery. 
In due course the development of electrical 
engineering exercised its influence upon the firm’s 
sphere of activity with the result that an electrical 
department was instituted in 1885. 
In 1897 departments were added for the manu¬ 
facture of linotype composing machines, and 1893 
witnessed the inclusion of slow and quick working 
piston pumps and patent high pressure centrifugal 
pumps, as well as machinery for actuating swinging 
and bascule bridges and sluice-gates. 
In 1897 the new works, covering an area of 148 
acres, were built in Wildau, near Berlin. 
Mr. Fairlie, in his work on “Municipal Admin¬ 
istration,” says of the German system; “The 
active management of municipal affairs is very 
largely in the hands of a special class of technically 
trained officials, who apply scientific adminis¬ 
trative methods to a degree unknown in other 
countries. Yet it is these cities which have ad¬ 
vanced farthest in the direction of what is known 
as ‘ municipal socialism ’; not, however, as the 
result of any political propaganda, but as a gradual 
development from their own experience.” 
Another authority, Mr. Justice Horsfall, thinks 
that the system which exists in the best managed 
cities in Germany seems to be the only one by 
which the control of the housing of the inhabitants 
of a large city can be properly managed. The 
Germans, he says “have long known that this 
work needs the whole time and the whole atten¬ 
tion of many well-trained men who are aware that 
the community will hold them responsible for any 
mistakes which they may make.” 
In Berlin, the building police supervise the making 
of plans for the proper laying out of streets and open 
spaces, both in the city and in the districts outside 
of the city limits. This department is well informed 
regarding the needs of the community, so that its 
plans provide all that is necessary for the health and 
welfare of the population and can force all who build 
to comply with its plans and regulations. 
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