View of the Heerstrasse and the University of Berlin, Germany, Perspective

From the 1920s to the 1930s, German architect and planner Ludwig Hilberseimer’s work transitioned from a focus on the high-rise city to what he described as “mixed-height” housing developments (Mischbebauung) that joined high and low-rise housing types with vast areas of green space. In a series of drawings for the redevelopment of the area around the University of Berlin, Hilberseimer elaborated his version of the modern superblock, a form of planning that dissolved the traditional city grid in favor of larger tracts of land that could support single and multiple family dwellings with walkable cul-de-sacs for residential areas and framed by larger streets and transit. This decentralized model of city planning, begun in Germany, formed the core of the planner’s work for the American city after his move to Chicago in 1938.