While not a German city anymore Kaliningrad (or Königsberg prior to WWII) is a perfect example of how cities went from beautiful to horrible looking after WWII
@PAXperMort it's way worse in West Germany bro, believe me. Frankfurt am Main ist Not liveable and all the cities directly around them too. East Germany is only a little better tho. Soviet and USA are both shit
As a person living in germany I need to add something. When you go in a train station even at night you are all alone but you also have that familiar voice calling out train delays and cancelations that makes you even more suicidal
Big agree, I live there, in a town pretty far from the city, and it's absolutely beautiful. The video isn't false, but it applies strictly to big cities, and even those have the old town center which is extremely often absolutely stunning. Munich has both the beauty and the brutalism in its architecture, depending where you are.
5:30 I can't believe how great your 3D model of the miniature street. The lights looks really as they were miniatures ones, basically a led bulb at the end of a stick.
While some deregulation of the housing code might help to increase the number of new buildings, it wouldn't make them prettier. Private developers will always (with rare exceptions) only pay for the bare minimum. As long as there is a housing shortage in the cities, tenants will move into ugly houses. From a developers perspective that means that aesthetics are optional.
@@rainerpg We would not. What we now consider beautiful, the ornamentation and flourishes of pre-WW1 architecture, was deeply unpopular for many decades, considered decadent and wasteful. Even buildings that survived WW2 intact had their ornamentation deliberately removed to make them look more functional and rational. This was called "Entstuckung" or "removal of stucco" in Germany. This trend held on for much longer than the current trend of rediscovering (and clumsily replicating) older styles has, which I believe is not how we should react to the mistakes of the past. We need to find new styles, new ways of building our cities that are appropriate to our current times instead of merely trying to imitate an era that is long lost.
@@no1DdC agree, there are some uncomfortable ideas with the retvrn movement. We should aim to humanise and contextualise buildings, not just long for the return of a Kaiser.
@@no1DdC I do think those old cities centers look a lot nicer than my commie blocks (southern romania) but housing is already too expensive and forcing developers to create neoclassical buildings based on some city level design guidelines would only increase costs and bureaucracy, even if you do remove some of that older ornamentation to make them look less decadent. I honestly don't know what the solution to either of those problems is (somewhat ugly housing that's also unaffordable) but it's definetely not getting rid of regulation regarding fire safety and parking space size like this video seems to suggest lmao.
similar to poland, both germany and poland architecture got ripped apart, its only show not ww2 but universal truth wars destroys valuable treasure, good luck germany from poland
@@dmk-dv3vq As a German, I interrailed through Poland this year and cannot say that about Danzig, Breslau, Krakau, Warsaw and Posen. They were indeed beautiful. We should start together an architectural revolution - back to beauty! Love from Germany
As an American who has recently relocated to Germany full time, I find this video incredibly timely! Me and my wife have spent the better half of this year looking for a flat which is the catalyst that made me wonder and discuss this very topic. It exists, and will vary by location, but it is actually quite challenging to find a place that is newer & modern, or, older but has some charm and character to it (never mind the fact that finding a place, in general, is quite difficult at the moment). Thank for this incredibly informative and well presented video!
If you locate full-time you're immigrating or an expat (if you never plan to become a German citizens and/or renounce your American citizenship). Relocate only happens when you're still in the same country you were born in. - a fellow yank immigrant in Spain
It’s fascinating to see how urban design has evolved, but there’s also an interesting counter-example from East Germany. Many historic buildings that were heavily damaged during WWII remained largely untouched during the GDR era, almost as if frozen in time. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, these buildings were beautifully restored, and now city centers like Stralsund shine in their former glory. It’s a remarkable transformation that highlights the value of preserving and revitalizing historic architecture.
Weren't there a few cases of mayors in the future GDR surrendering to the Soviets without a fight, and thus sparing their historic city centers from destruction?
@@andyjay729 Yes. My home town Halle was one of those barely destroyed cities. At least by war. The GDR then tore down whole blocks to build a highway through the city. Others were left untouched, as @devopslp stated. But many of them went beyond repair :( They then were replaced by concrete sovjet buildings in the GDR time or went to parking lots after that.
I doubt, that this is a "GDR" thing, but a small city thing. Stralsund was just irrelevant during WWII. It is stunningly beautiful, though. Rostock, where I was born, was bombed two or three times. But cities with a similar size as Rostock or Stralsund will look pretty as well. Marburg or Heidelberg come to mind. On the other hand, you got Dresden, which was ruthlessly and efficiently reconstructed. The weirdest thing the GDR did, was just not repairing or reconstructing churches, but declaring them as memorials against wars in the 60s. They did that to the Nikolaikirche, which was hit by a bomb, in Rostock... and famously to the Frauenkirche in Dresden. The reconstructions only started after reunification.
It might not be "objective", but there is a strong consensus when it comes to beauty. "The earth is round" objective. "Killing people is bad" subjective, yet for over 90% of the cases of someone being killed there will be consensus.
@@shracc I think a more accurate statement would be "Some factors influencing beauty are objective" An example for me would be depth. Beautiful things have some variety of depth. Doesn't matter if as a visual illusion (e.g. flat marble) or as actual depth. The first Bauhaus building is great at this. It's oviously not as decorated as the older stucco buildings. But, contrary to the ugly blocks you see sometimes in cities, with the roof, that reaches over the walls and the corner rooms protruding outwards a bit it still has a bit of depth. What's better between the two is subjective. But both are better than the flat-roofed, single-colour, windows almost flat to the facade Cubes, where the only depth you get is if somebody opens a window. The latter feels like a cheap, bad version of Bauhaus.
8:58 - "in other countries" - literally showing a frame of the German City Rostock with the tram - just a 3 minutes walk from my apartment :D Great video, as always!
It's RostoCk but you're completely right. It indeed shows the "Neuer Markt" area with the town hall. Wouldn't have expected to see my hometown in this video and honestly would not have noticed it without your comment :D
Very insightful and educational video, Fern! Describing them as 'ugly' and 'Angstraum' is spot-on! I lived in Apolda, near Weimar where the Bauhaus school started. In the northwestern part of town, there are these 'Bauhausen' buildings that have a dry, almost docile atmosphere. During the day, walking through these areas it makes you feel isolated from the world around you, as if the buildings are completely empty. At night, there's you can almost feel the eyes as they follow, which is unsettling. It was quite a gnarly experience overall. However, the contrast brought by the lively pubs, cozy cafes, and lush town center made the place truly feel like home.
As a German I agree with almost everything. But when you leave the big citys like Munich, Frankfurt, Berlin etc. you will find an endless amount of small citys which still have the pre war architecture. This citys and the vilages on the countryside show the beauty of medieval design.
Berlin hat extrem viel Vorkriegsarchitektur zu bieten. Nur eben keine geschlossenen Altstädte mehr, weil zerbombt. Gerade in Berlin steht noch überraschend viel von der Gründerzeitbebauung, entgegen dem weitläufigen Klischee, Berlin sei extrem hässlich. Stimmt eigentlich gar nicht, Berlin hat immer noch viele Alleen, viel Grün, viel Wasser und viel Gründerzeitbebauung. Nur meistens eben nicht an den Plätzen, wo Touristen hinkommen. Alex, Hauptbahnhof, Potsdamer Platz, Zoo, Friedrichstraße sind alle von Nachkriegsarchitektur geprägt, da bewegen sich die Menschenmassen. Abseits dessen gibt es unglaublich viele schöne Straßen, Plätze und Orte in Berlin.
Medieval architecture and neo-classical/neo-baroque will always be the best of human achievement. Brutalist and minimalist architecture is as depressing as the people that praise and inhabit it. I pity them.
What would have been there to explain in relation to the topic? It was war, lots of bombs fell, whole city quarters were reduced to rubble, doesn't everyone watching the video already know that? Or maybe that's just me projecting something that's just "obvious" to someone living in Germany onto people from other countries to whom it might not be obvious
"In the very probable case you have never heard the story of WWII before: There was this Austrian painter with the mustache. I cannot name him, because then the video will get demonetized."
Good video. However one nit-pick: I think it looks weird that at 9:31 (and later on in the vid) the bike-symbols on the ground are backwards. They should be facing the bikers who are riding on the left side.
@@PatNeedhamUSA no they were not. This is obviously 3D Animation with a lot of focal blur. The designer just made a mistake which is likely considering the amount of CGI shots in this video
In my opinion Berlin is a very beautiful and well designed city. The urban planning is really good, there are wide sidewalks everywhere with a great amount of pedestrian roads that act as small plazas, there are many green spaces, mass transportation is really efficient, roads are wide and well maintained reducing the traffic. An other great thing about Berlins urban planning is that everything has the right dimensions from the sidewalks to the space for green and trees between the road and to the road itself that has sufficient dimensions for lanes and parking spaces. Also minimal buildings are not as dystopian as you claim, for me minimalism gives a clean and calm vibe compared to the typical north European Renaissance architecture or Baroque, which can be really overwhelming sometimes. As long as the building is well designed in harmony with the environment and properly maintained it can be beautiful even if it’s just a simple square with windows. Also we don’t have to look all things with negativity, glass buildings can also “store” heat in cold days reducing the consumption of electricity for heating ( also in my opinion the look cool and futuristic). Anyways the video was really nice 👌🏼
@Truth is that Americans build their cities slightly different from North-Western Europeans. Europeans tend to have more walkable cities with historical centres and wall to wall mixed zone buildings. Americans from the other hand lack in historical centres (since all their cities are relatively “new”), their cities are mostly based on cars with huge roads and infinite parkings rather walk-bike or mass transportation, while commercial and residential are mostly divided there . It’s a different urban planning style that in both cases can bring a beautiful result. In my opinion I would rather live in Miami or in some Californian city rather in Berlin although I really like Berlin and I believe it’s a great city ( maybe it’s due to the climate rather than the cities themselves 😅).
@@most_wanted_gsxr4221 walkability is non-negotiable for me. I lived both continents. Us cities are killing Americans. Especially as malls shut down, there are fewer and fewer places for people to go out and just be around others.
Ein Musterbeispiel ist die Stadt Görlitz, dort findet man alle Architekturstile. Diese Stadt blieb fast unzerstört, wurde aber nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg durch das Potsdamer Abkommen geteilt, so dass der östliche Teil heute zu Polen gehört und Zgorzelec heißt.
Areas in middle germany like Erfurt, Halle and Leipzig still do look like the portrayed stereoptype of old architecture. There are huge quarters in heavily bombed cities like Berlin or Hamburg that look fine as hell.
This is indeed true, but it is notable that many of those quarters have been rebuilt to resemble what was there previously. The most notable example of this is the historic city Centre of Dresden. There are other examples of this as well. Take Rothenburg ob der Tauber, the medieval small city that shows up on basically every „places to visit in Germany“ list. Large parts of the historic city Centre have also been destroyed during heavy bombings in WWII. However, the city was aware of the significance of their medical appearance and rebuilt the entire city to strongly resemble what was there before
To be fair German cities were also ugly before ww2 you can look at many images that show they were not at all ornamented like Fern shows but only a few houses here and there with others plain façades with no decoration. Other countries that got their cities destroyed by Germany WW1 then in WW2 unlike Germany rebuilt them as good as they could
@@Nobody_Cares913 look it up compared to the European standard they were ugly and i'm not talking about Vienna and Paris they didn't meet the standard of cities like Budapest
As a German I can tell you that my home town of Augsburg was almost completely destroyed by allied areal bombing. There are regular bomb findings during construction to this day. Sometimes the bombs are so large that huge areas need to be evacuated for safe disposal. And yet cars have done far more damage over the decades. Only the city center remains mostly intact and is still pretty, but everything in the periphery is a car centric mess almost as bad as the US Modern architecture and car centric city planning is a plague.
@@garryferrington811 stop the missinformation please. I do live here, you know. Try this on Wikipedia and educate yourself: Bombing_of_Augsburg_in_World_War_II wiki/Messerschmitt_AG It really isn't that hard to come by the necessary sources. WW2 is well documented. Everybody is entitled to an opinion, but with that comes the ability to make a fool of yourself as well. So keep that in mind when jsut making stuff up.
@@Youbetternowatchthis I believe Garry was replying to the comment about Leopold Mozart, noting that his time there was before the war. (I was born there too.)
I would just want to add that this mostly applies to the cities which were devastated by WW2. If you go to say southern Germany there are quite a few medieval cities to visit: Freiburg (in parts), Tübingen, Rottweil, Konstanz, Meersburg and many many of the small medieval looking villages, that were never touched by WW2. You also often will find places that tried to at least reconstruct parts of their downtown as it looked before WW2, if you however then go into the industrial or more modern parts of these towns, you'll find these Bauhaus style buildings aplenty. Just to reiterate: the Bauhaus style dominates cities, which were destroyed by WW2. Places, mostly in southern Germany, which were not touched by the war still have their medieval or Imperial look about them. I can recommend Konstanz in particular, as that place blends both styles together.
My flabber was ghasted the moment I recognized your voice. And the production value of this video is insane. - Short, concise, well written and narrated, and don’t get me started on those gorgeous 3D-Models. I’m amazed of what became of Simplicissimus.
the miljonprrgrammet in sweden was also a massive project in the 60s that was to build 1 million homes used a lot of "bauhaus" type buildings, but are now the slums/poor areas for most cities. But it did give us a lot more infrastructure. There was supposed be built more but money dissapeared in the 70s
honestly the idea of them as slums is massively exaggerated, i've lived in miljonprogrammet areas for basically my entire life and never even gave it a second thought. If anything they're generally some of the nicer places to live since the rent isn't terrifying and they're generally very car-light and have good public transport connections. Every now and then i hear a car going through the area and i'm reminded of just how quiet things are otherwise, and how miserable it must be to live in a place where you have constant traffic outside your windows.. The worst part about miljonprogrammet areas is just that they're generally extremely boring, you have some playgrounds and some grills and everything else is just mowed lawn. But this is thankfully starting to improve now that meadows are becoming popular and people start pushing for places to grow some veggies and flowers for themselves.
As an american living in Germany I wouldnt compare the cities of Germany to the cities in the US when it comes to a city built around cars. Compared to NYC, Philly, and Denver ( the only 3 major cities ive spent a lot of time in) Berlin, Munich, and Suttgart are way easier to navigate by foot and public transportation then the US cities. The roads in major German cities besides the main roads are barely big enough to fit a sedan into, there are little to no parking lots even if your willing to pay, and because of the super tiny roads the traffic is insane. Honestly for most my destinations even google with tell me it is faster by train or bus then by car (including walking time) but as for the architecture, yeah its pretty much giant grey boxes and has no identity at all
Yeah the car thing is honestly not that big of an impact compared to other factors. Just seems like OP wanted to lean on that for some reason. This was a neat video but way oversimplified and just completely glossed over major contributing factors for some reason.
I honestly think it's weird how so many people rely on cars here in my hometown. Yesterday, there was like a kilometer long line of cars and with the bike you can be anywhere in the city quicker by bike than standing in this long line. Just strange and the cars really need to be reduced in favor of cleaner faster and less obstructive transprotation. Here in Germany, places are also not as large as the US for example, making it much easier to travel to any part of the city just by bike. Else, you can just hitch a train or a bus for longer distances
@@xzy_sampletext_yzx3411 Germany in my experience just isnt made for cars. 2 lane roads with barely enough room for even 1 car, traffic on every highway, 0 parking in the city, and gas isnt cheap. Germany has done a great job with public transportation and easily one the best countries to own a bike in. Yet the amount of cars is insane compared to amount of space dedicated to cars
I spent a month in Hannover this summer, for no particular reason or with little research. I wasn't in the old town but any time I would walk around the neighborhood I would really appreciate the old architecture, so surprised to hear they are known for having left the past behind. Everything is relative though, and coming from North America, Hannover really stood out to me for it's beaty and really good bike lanes.
There is nothing more sadistic than constructing an ugly building that generations of people have to live their lives in and that generations of people in the area have to look at. It's like taking a crap in someone's garden, leaving and then the owner of the garden has to live with the smell.
That’s exactly what pissed of AH and why he sought to return to classical architected, classic dress, and classic culture. The Marxist J’s of the Weimar Republic were degenerating German identity in the 1920’s with porn, modern art, brutalist architecture, and successive economic collapse induced by interest rates causing the Frank to hyper inflate and millions of Germans to end up on the streets taking to sex work, much like what is exactly happening in America in the 2020’s. Always on the 20’s. Pattern recognition.
I’m Dutch, but have seen a lot of our eastern neighbors land, and I couldn’t agree with you more. There most definitely are some really, really beautiful parts of German cities, but, man, are there weirdly car-centric, gray and ugly parts. Finding the balance is really a key factor here. I think Berlin is doing a very fine job at improving said balance, it’s truly my favorite city in Germany, mainly because of that East-West combination of classic urban streets and modern concrete communist apartments. Anyways, nothing but love to your channel mate, keep it up 🔥
@@dezwollenaartjes grey with an A is only correct in American English which is only correct in the USA. You’re Dutch, therefore in Europe and in Europe we don’t use yank English rather just English so the only correct spelling is grey for us. Now, if you’re planning on immigrating to the USA that’s a different story but who’d make such a silly decision? So hence why I helped you with the typo. 😊
@@vboyz21 If you are not from an English speaking country you are free to choose which English you want to use. In Germany American English grammar is probably even more popular than British. Even in school we could choose which we wanted to use.
@@juanDE1703 There are still plenty of smaller cities in the Ruhrpott that are quite picturesque. The region is so dense that you don't really have to travel far to get to a beautiful place.
If new residential projects are only investment opportunities there is no incentive to waste money on making things look good since you will find residents regardless because of the housing situation.
That's where local governments step in. They can mandate public space requirements, colors of roofs or walls, greenery, road level crossings, bike lanes, bike parking, etc etc etc.
But if you intend to build in or create an upper class neighborhood with high prices, you would eventually need to at least fit the existing aesthetic or create good-looking buildings in order to maximize the closing price.
@ it’s a bit more complex than that. For example, if zoning ordinances restrict multifamily homes (apartments), the property values increase without the need for things being “good looking”.Zoning can artificially reduce supply and increase demand, which can look great for a community on paper…when oversimplified. Shanghai is an extreme, but clear example of this.
I live and grew up in Amsterdam and i can not imagine how it would be growing up in those big, very car dependent cities. Glad to live in a pedestrian/bike friendly city as Amsterdam, unlike many sadly.
If you knew nothing else you’d wonder how anyone could grow up in Amsterdam. Critical thinking has left the chat. Christ man, look outside your self absorbed bubble once in a while and put yourself in someone else’s shoes.
I grew up in a mix of both worlds in a city with 50k residents and I couldn’t imagine living in Münster which is one of the most bike friendly cities in the country, i freaking hate that city, there is no structure, the bicyclists drive around like idiots and you feel like the city tries everything to not make you drive a car instead of making it perfect for everyone, that’s why cities like Bielefeld are perfect, great public infrastructure, great roads for cars and enough space for both pedestrians and bikes to walk/drive around, not everyone has the ability to walk or ride a bike and for public transportation depending on where you want to get will take a lot longer than just drive there by yourself since you can’t place a train station everywhere and make trains or busses drive everywhere every 10 minutes
As a Dutch person living in the heart of Dresden, the infrastructure here is also very car oriented. The roads are very wide, this could easily be improved on.
you guys are pumping out so much high quality content, its crazy. I love this channel, but please don't burn yourselves out. It needs to be fun for you, most of all :)
A very good example of the duality of how to rebuild after the war is Warsaw. Where some parts of the historic center were rebuilt as best to the abilities back in the day, but then you'd just go across a street and you are in an area filled with the typical blocky houses that were so common all over the Eastern Block.
Oh how I wish this was only true for Germany. My country, Poland, hasn't built a single beautiful building in what feels like decades now. Virtually all of our urban planners - if you could even call them that - are stuck in the previous century and still ravage the urban tissue with new, multi lane roads and shopping malls surrounded by swathes of car parking. It feels like we've finally fully embraced America's car culture from the 50s. Ugly, generic apartment blocks are popping up everywhere with no limits. It's quite sad.
@@Dara-wk5ty if you think that car centric planning happens only in the east, then come to Wrocław (urząd wojewódzki, plac Grunwaldzki... just to name a few).
Polish cities are something else when it comes to ugliness and chaos. If only there was any urban planning it wouldn't be that bad but unfortunately new apartments not only are absolutely horrible (white-gray blocks of flat often needlessly fenced with plains of parking lot around) but also they lack any urban planning, so new blocks are being built literally anywhere a developer wants, mainly the cheapest ground far away from the city centre. Along with no incentive from city council to connect them with public transport this causes more and more people being forced to own and use a car everyday and the city councils even encourage that destroying more and more buildings in the centre for widening and straightening already unnecessarily wide stroads and building even more parking lots in the centre. Carbrains here are even more selfish as they park literally everywhere, be it bike paths, sidewalks or patch of greenery, doesn't matter. If this trend doesnt change Poles will be in the same situation Americans are right now. Unfortunately it doesn't seem like anything will change as politicians here are funded by developers lobby, so a change would be against their interests. The fact that people here love cars just as much as Americans and despise public transit (aka transport for the poor peasants) the government is not encouranaged to even think about any changes. We are doomed by ourselves.
I wouldn't say they are any more ugly than any other European city with modern architecture, in fact I would say that their modernism is comparatively pretty sleek and good quality when compared with places like the UK which are totally ugly and also disorganized. Even Amsterdam, if you get out of the old city center and go into a lot of the residential areas, can be pretty ugly, even uglier than anything I have seen in Germany. Of course I would prefer ornate stone masonry facades, but this is a far broader problem, Germany certainly isn't even close to the worst in this regard.
I grew up in Hamburg, and now live in a smaller town. Went to Rotterdam for a few weeks back in 2022, and it blew my mind. Tram lines, greenery, full bicycle lanes, TINY car lanes, innovative, artistic, charismatic architecture, huge open pedestrianised areas. Imagine how great life could be in Germany if cities had been laid out like Dutch ones. Would love to migrate to the Netherlands at some point.
rotterdam was car hell until very recently, as was most of the netherlands, the main point youtubers like @notjustbikes share is that cities dont have to be the way they are now, and can be upgraded and made better
German cities are terribly designed??? Really? Have you ever been in other countries? I suggest you visit a balkan country and I personally will be happy to show you myself what a terribly designed city really looks like starting with my hometown
How does your argument make this video's point any less valid? Lots of German cities are terribly designed, your city being even worse doesn't change that fact German cities could be so much better.
@@kutter_ttl6786 Maybe it doesn't but I'm so sick and tired of European and Western citizens complaining all the time about "how terrible" their cities are and them not appreciating their blessings.
@@Julia3455-r5l currently living in germany, and compare where I came from (SE Asia), German Cities were/are well built. Trainsystem sucks right now, due to poor maintenance from the past, but overall, Poor Countries are no were near this level of quality.
Fun fact: the ornaments on the 19th century Blockrandbebauung houses are cheaply made (plaster and not solid stone) and their main purpose was to increase the value of the house so that the developers would get more money back from their insurance in case of fires etc. they were ready-made and could be ordered from catalogs. This exact mindset of copying older styles with modern technology led to the bauhaus movement which wanted to develop a new style for the new technologies. Hence the minimalist (factorymade) aesthetic.
Was born and still live in Hanover. The city becomes a nightmare for every driver, 'cause the "Green-Party" controls Hanover. Everywhere are constructions sides, almost every bigger street is blocked for "construction" but for weeks or even months nothing happens. The leading party is doing an awful, radical work trying to change Hanover into a walkable or with the bike drivable city. Of course I understand, that driving a car in a bigger city is unnecessary, but even the public transportation gets worst. The buses and the metro is late, tickets get more expensive, the drivers of these vehicles are not the best, almost every month any kind of accidents happens, where sometimes even people get killed. Therefore, German cities are not only ugly, but also unorganized, a nightmare to any kind of driver and, 'cause of global politics, get more and more dangerous. Still a healthy, leader power in the world...don't think so.
No, I see it differently. If you were to ask citizens whether they would prefer a cozy old town or a district with modern buildings made of glass, steel and concrete, a majority of 90% would choose the former. That's why I don't see that as the spirit of society. I would rather say it is the spirit of the city planners and architects, but not of the citizens.
@@callsigndd9ls897 You are leaving something important out: The people after WW2 had the choice between having a roof over the head or no roof over the head. They chose the former, which necessitated no-nonsense buildings. I don't think you quite realize just how desperate the housing situation was after WW2. The spirit of society was "I don't want to be homeless".
@@no1DdC I was built in 1948 myself and know the housing shortage from my childhood. Our apartment building (a corner house) lost the fourth floor and the corner in 1943 in bombing raids. All 15 tenants in the building had to move closer together and share the remaining apartments until it was rebuilt in 1955. So you don't have to tell me what the situation was like back then, because I experienced it myself. What I meant is not the apartment buildings from the 1950s that were supposed to alleviate this housing shortage, but the glass, steel and concrete shopping monstrosities that were built in the middle of our old town in the 1970s, and that existing, perfectly repairable old buildings were demolished to make them. The old town in my city has lost all its charm since then. In the 1970s, there was already enough money to make it better. Other old towns come alive in the evenings when people go to the street restaurants and enjoy the beautiful old buildings. In my town it's dead after the shops close; absolutely no one feels comfortable unless they absolutely have to buy something in these ugly glass, steel and concrete shopping monstrosities.
@@callsigndd9ls897 Fair enough. You're completely right about all of this. Somewhat paradoxically, in Germany at least, people are now thinking that this is how city centers are supposed to look like and want to preserve it against the onslaught of online shopping. It's bizarre.
Car centric planning needs to go. Those videos about a hundred Japanese pedestrians having to stop and wait because of 5 cars really changed my perspective.
The Bauhaus movement also played a role in East Germany when it was under Communist leadership. It’s why if you travel to the former East Germany you will see a lot of Angstraum architecture.
Many big cities are not very beautiful apart from some restored areas. I recommend to visit the smaller towns and cities which are, in many of the cases amazingly beautiful
Yes, German cities have been destroyed during WW II, yes, there have been some ugly, excluding and uninviting tendencies in modern architecture, but I would definitely refrain from a generalistic judgement that German cities are overall ugly --- and that that would be a specific German phenomenon. You just have to go to neighboring Switzerland to see how they modernized some of the most beautiful old cities and towns in a very unsensitive manner without any need. There were no bombs dropped on Swiss places during WW II, they just decided to incorporate modernist architectural concepts into their city plannings... As did a lot of countries around the world. There are a lot of videos here on TH-cam that show the glorious past of US-American cities which were torn down in order to build parking lots and inner city highways. I just saw a video about how Atlantic City went down a path from America's luxurious East Cost Spa to more or less a sad ghost town. I won't deny that in every German city there are parts that don't look very nice and neat and cozy, but even some of the modernist parts near to the center of many German cities nowadays don't look that bad but rather really nice with trees and beautifully furnished public spaces building an interesting and aesthetic contrast to facades of glass. Modernist buildings are not per se ugly in every case. Some of them can really be beautiful. And not to forget that in many German cities there are still considerable numbers of historic buildings that survived WW II and provide with a connection to Germany's past. Look at Munich, Berlin, Hamburg, Hannover, Nuremberg, Leipzig, Braunschweig, Osnabrück, Münster, Erfurt, Augsburg, Karlsruhe, Frankfurt, Mainz, Rostock, Stralsund, Bremen... They don't look exact the same way they looked like before WW II, but it's simply not true to call them ugly now in total. They all show a mixture of different styles and architectural philosophies, they show their history with wounds and healings. You find a lot of very pleasant places to hang out and feel cozy and welcome there. Some of these places are historic, but some also are modern and nevertheless beautiful and embracing.
I work in a NYC architectural firm Most of the blame is energy code. It forces buildings to be squares with insulation all around it's very difficult to create interesting buildings. Zoning is also a big issue as it forces buildings to basically match all the other buildings and create large square structures
Yes, people are trying to build more beautiful buildings today, but unfortunately what was built in the 1950s to the 1980s is still standing and it really wasn't beautiful.
Unfortunately you're not quite right. Apart from the point that Germany isn't really "rich", most notably it's not big, so space is little when at the same time - and that's the primary point - it is _highly_ populated! You might wanna look up the population density of Germany. I do not know the recent numbers ad hoc, but the last time I looked, it was (rather high up) under the top 10 of the worlds most densely populated countries! Seriously! Pretty cIose to China and India. I didn't know and was quite shocked.
But, it's traitors who work for jews who control Germany because jews started and won WW2, that's why they don't make Germany great again, because it isn't controlled by the German people, only enemies.
@@FrogeniusW.G. Netherlands are twice as densely populated as germany. Also China is a laaaarge country with wide areas of completely uninhabitated wilderness
98% of architects have been brainwashed at school to adore the Bauhaus and International style...and to hate traditional architecture. When entities want to build something, architects are there ready to provide yet more boxes.
russian blocks are just something else. i watched vid about new developments in russia, those falling apart ugly high crime dirt roads, acres of 20 stories piles of concrete, in my opinion idea of high story cheaply made housing isnt as bad as it is potrait but execution of that in russia is just horrible. we have commie blocks u have commie blocks, we are not the same lmao
The situation with cars in Cologne is really interesting. Cologne overall has a great public transport with its expansive Stadtbahn (a sort of underground/tram hybrid) network, which comes every 10 minutes on most lines, and the city is already quite walkable, so in theory it shouldn't really be very car-dependent. But there are a few problems. Firstly, the Stadtbahn network hasn't really seen any major expansion into the suburbs this century. For example, if you live in Hürth-Stotzheim - which is only 7 km from Cologne city centre! - the fastest car-free option (if you don't have a bicycle) to access the nearest Stadtbahn stop (Efferen on number 18) is to walk 35-45 minutes. If you can't (or don't want to) walk and you use buses, you're looking at taking an hourly bus for a 4 minute ride, waiting 30 minutes for the connecting hourly bus, taking that for 4 minutes, waiting 7 minutes for the connecting thrice-hourly bus, and taking that for 10 minutes - for a total travel time of 45 minutes (so, basically just as long or even longer than walking), assuming none of your buses are delayed/cancelled. Then you wait 8 minutes for the Stadtbahn and get to the city centre in another 17 minutes. Depart Stotzheim at 8.27, arrive in the city centre at 9.37 - 1h10m travel time. Of course, instead of going to the Stadtbahn at Efferen, you could take the bus in the opposite direction all the way to Frechen to take the number 7 Stadtbahn - depart Stotzheim at 7.57 or 8.57 (so either half an hour earlier or later), arrive in the city centre at 8.58 or 9.58 - saving you two changes and 9 minutes travel time. Or you could do what we did in the first journey but stay on the second bus, which itself goes to the city centre, again departing Stotzheim at 8.27 and arriving in the city centre at 9.31, saving you one change and 6 minutes travel time. But whichever of these you choose, the initial bus service (or two) is still hourly, so if you miss it you're screwed. This is all because number 9 terminates at Hermeskeiler Platz; if it were expanded down to Stotzheim (the only logical place for it to go, because Frechen to the north is served by the 7, and Efferen to the south by the 18), you could be in the city centre within 20 minutes, so it would cut your travel time by two thirds. But in the absence of that, the journey by car is only 27 minutes, so obviously most people will opt for the car. The second problem is the lack of park and ride facilities. If Efferen Stadtbahn had a big free car parking facility, people from Stotzheim would drive the 10 minutes there and take the 17 minute Stadtbahn ride (resulting in basically the same travel time) to avoid dealing with the stress of city traffic and paying for expensive city centre car parks. But because finding a space at Efferen is already hard enough (with no one using it to park & ride), people *continue* to not use it as a park & ride and instead take their cars into the city. This problem is even more pronounced with suburban towns & villages that are further out than Hürth-Stotzheim. In Kerpen, 20 km from the city centre, for the least-change route (bus to Frechen then Stadtbahn to the city centre), you will sit on the circuitous bus for nearly an hour before getting to the Stadtbahn, with your total travel time to the city centre being nearly 1h40m. You can take routes with more changes to shave nearly half an hour off that journey, but the thing is, you're again relying on an hourly bus and driving to Frechen would save you a full *40* minutes (total travel time 50 minutes, compared to driving into the centre from Kerpen 40 minutes) - but again, no P+R facility at Frechen. Cologne proper (which is all nicely connected by the Stadtbahn) has a population of just over 1 million, but if you add the metro area/suburbs it adds up to almost 2 million, so basically a significant proportion of people who want to go to Cologne city centre have no convenient way of getting there other than by car. This really needs to be addressed for increased pedestrianisation to not result in a traffic nightmare!
The Bauhaus ideas hate and prohibit pitched roofs, brick or stone facades and applies decoration. Everything of the past must be prohibited; starting from ZERO was their motto. That basically leaves a concrete or glass box as the style of choice...especially on a budget.
Also ich finde diese „Angsträume“ als deutscher bisschen lächerlich um ehrlich zu sein. Habe mich in einer Stadt außerhalb Deutschlands noch nie anders gefühlt wenn ich mal mit Öffentlichen gefahren bin.
I get REALLY sad every time I see pictures/videos of the cities from before the war & compare that with today... People don't even realize what we've lost, cities that are hundreds of years old are simply gone
@@sudbenzer6603 i think that goes too far. all i want is some representation of the east and the fact that eastern cities are indeed very beautiful because they care more about restauration
Sorry but no. Germany is beautiful and they are not poorly designed. Your view is objective. I was in Berlin recently and it was one of the most beautiful cities I've been to and it had a really beautiful "layout" Love from Germany 🇩🇪
As someone living in Kernstadt in Marburg, I always wonder why the main streets are lit but not the pasestrian walkways? Although Afters 8PM the buses don’t operate and you have to walk home but still the street lights are for the car owners but not for the pedestrian who overwhelmingly use the streets after late evening but yes the bureaucracy doesn’t understands this
It's so fascinating how the people of that time reacted to those changes. My grandad was from berlin and he always told me, how smart those city planners were, that they made so broad roads in berlin for the cars and everything. He always was really happy about it. I mean, he has not lived in Berlin for over 40 years at that point ... still i had to think of him while watching this video
I moved to Germany a couple of years ago, and this is pretty spot on. So many cities or large areas within cities look like depressing, car-centric hellholes, devoid of color and humanity. Of course it doesn't look like that everywhere, but it can get quite bleak many places. 100% agree with your conclusion. Also, I feel like the ugliness and "sameness" of many German inner-city areas has become something of a meme here.
There simply was no style. The only choice we had was to build as fast as we could and as cheap as possible. Period. Results are speaking for themselves.
The thing about building codes I think is that while yes a lot of it may be inefficient in restricting housing, it also prevents many an excess of non-regulated planning. Anyone who has lived in an absolutely freezing altbau can probably see the issues
While not a German city anymore Kaliningrad (or Königsberg prior to WWII) is a perfect example of how cities went from beautiful to horrible looking after WWII
That's just the Soviet effect
even the ugliest cities in Germany are nothing compared to what the russians did to Königsberg
@@colinviola7892 why is it Russians just ruin everything they touch
The Soviets made especially ugly buildings
@PAXperMort it's way worse in West Germany bro, believe me. Frankfurt am Main ist Not liveable and all the cities directly around them too. East Germany is only a little better tho. Soviet and USA are both shit
As a person living in germany I need to add something. When you go in a train station even at night you are all alone but you also have that familiar voice calling out train delays and cancelations that makes you even more suicidal
information zu s1 nach solingen hbf uber hilden abfahrt 7.25 fallt heute aus wir bitten um entschuldigng
www.youtube.com/@heikovoice
Every time, just knowing that one of these days that voice on the loudspeaker might ask if you want to play a game
And yet they're still one of the better trainsystems compared to many other countries
Stop self censoring in the comments! You don't need to be monetized here. You can write the word "suicidal"!
Aber waren sie schon mal in Baden-Württemberg?
i agree
Big agree, I live there, in a town pretty far from the city, and it's absolutely beautiful. The video isn't false, but it applies strictly to big cities, and even those have the old town center which is extremely often absolutely stunning. Munich has both the beauty and the brutalism in its architecture, depending where you are.
Nett hier
einzige Stadt zum auslachen hier ist Pforzheim.
Scheiße hier
5:30 I can't believe how great your 3D model of the miniature street. The lights looks really as they were miniatures ones, basically a led bulb at the end of a stick.
While some deregulation of the housing code might help to increase the number of new buildings, it wouldn't make them prettier. Private developers will always (with rare exceptions) only pay for the bare minimum. As long as there is a housing shortage in the cities, tenants will move into ugly houses. From a developers perspective that means that aesthetics are optional.
100% this reason. Or, if it was just WW2 issues and regulations, we would have wonderful buildings all around Europe and US…
@@rainerpg We would not. What we now consider beautiful, the ornamentation and flourishes of pre-WW1 architecture, was deeply unpopular for many decades, considered decadent and wasteful. Even buildings that survived WW2 intact had their ornamentation deliberately removed to make them look more functional and rational. This was called "Entstuckung" or "removal of stucco" in Germany. This trend held on for much longer than the current trend of rediscovering (and clumsily replicating) older styles has, which I believe is not how we should react to the mistakes of the past. We need to find new styles, new ways of building our cities that are appropriate to our current times instead of merely trying to imitate an era that is long lost.
@@no1DdC agree, there are some uncomfortable ideas with the retvrn movement. We should aim to humanise and contextualise buildings, not just long for the return of a Kaiser.
@@no1DdC I do think those old cities centers look a lot nicer than my commie blocks (southern romania) but housing is already too expensive and forcing developers to create neoclassical buildings based on some city level design guidelines would only increase costs and bureaucracy, even if you do remove some of that older ornamentation to make them look less decadent. I honestly don't know what the solution to either of those problems is (somewhat ugly housing that's also unaffordable) but it's definetely not getting rid of regulation regarding fire safety and parking space size like this video seems to suggest lmao.
Profit-maximizing private developers will always (with bureaucratic exceptions) build what customers want.
German cities might be ugly, but your graphics are beautiful fern
similar to poland, both germany and poland architecture got ripped apart, its only show not ww2 but universal truth wars destroys valuable treasure, good luck germany from poland
Fern rizz
@@dmk-dv3vq As a German, I interrailed through Poland this year and cannot say that about Danzig, Breslau, Krakau, Warsaw and Posen. They were indeed beautiful. We should start together an architectural revolution - back to beauty! Love from Germany
Yes, it makes sense to me
German cities are ugly because you bombed the shit out of us.
Honestly, as far as I know, German cities aren't as ugly as they show it
That's what I was thinking.
I've been to Berlin. It's definitely as ugly as they show it.
depends where u are. In the north u finde most of the ugly cities
@@someonesilence3731 yeah mostly but not everything. Also Berlin is a very bad example, for example Munich or Hamburg are much prettier.
Slava SAUERKRAUT 🥓🥙
As an American who has recently relocated to Germany full time, I find this video incredibly timely! Me and my wife have spent the better half of this year looking for a flat which is the catalyst that made me wonder and discuss this very topic. It exists, and will vary by location, but it is actually quite challenging to find a place that is newer & modern, or, older but has some charm and character to it (never mind the fact that finding a place, in general, is quite difficult at the moment).
Thank for this incredibly informative and well presented video!
If you locate full-time you're immigrating or an expat (if you never plan to become a German citizens and/or renounce your American citizenship). Relocate only happens when you're still in the same country you were born in.
- a fellow yank immigrant in Spain
How did you manage to live in Germany?? As a fellow American, it feels impossible
@@babybatliss I got married to a German citizen and was able to move here on a family reunion visa. Basically…I got lucky lol.
Why not go to Austria
It’s fascinating to see how urban design has evolved, but there’s also an interesting counter-example from East Germany. Many historic buildings that were heavily damaged during WWII remained largely untouched during the GDR era, almost as if frozen in time. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, these buildings were beautifully restored, and now city centers like Stralsund shine in their former glory. It’s a remarkable transformation that highlights the value of preserving and revitalizing historic architecture.
Weren't there a few cases of mayors in the future GDR surrendering to the Soviets without a fight, and thus sparing their historic city centers from destruction?
@@andyjay729 Yes. My home town Halle was one of those barely destroyed cities. At least by war. The GDR then tore down whole blocks to build a highway through the city. Others were left untouched, as @devopslp stated. But many of them went beyond repair :(
They then were replaced by concrete sovjet buildings in the GDR time or went to parking lots after that.
I doubt, that this is a "GDR" thing, but a small city thing. Stralsund was just irrelevant during WWII. It is stunningly beautiful, though.
Rostock, where I was born, was bombed two or three times. But cities with a similar size as Rostock or Stralsund will look pretty as well. Marburg or Heidelberg come to mind. On the other hand, you got Dresden, which was ruthlessly and efficiently reconstructed.
The weirdest thing the GDR did, was just not repairing or reconstructing churches, but declaring them as memorials against wars in the 60s. They did that to the Nikolaikirche, which was hit by a bomb, in Rostock... and famously to the Frauenkirche in Dresden. The reconstructions only started after reunification.
"Public restroom" is the most accurate description of Bauhaus architecture that I've ever heard.
Precisely 😌👌
Beauty is objective, no matter what people tell you. Depressing housing leads to depressed people.
Found the German 🙄
@@rjp2755 There are studies on what Hans stated. What does this have to do with his supposed nationality?
It might not be "objective", but there is a strong consensus when it comes to beauty.
"The earth is round" objective.
"Killing people is bad" subjective, yet for over 90% of the cases of someone being killed there will be consensus.
100% accurate!!!!
@@shracc I think a more accurate statement would be "Some factors influencing beauty are objective"
An example for me would be depth. Beautiful things have some variety of depth. Doesn't matter if as a visual illusion (e.g. flat marble) or as actual depth.
The first Bauhaus building is great at this. It's oviously not as decorated as the older stucco buildings. But, contrary to the ugly blocks you see sometimes in cities, with the roof, that reaches over the walls and the corner rooms protruding outwards a bit it still has a bit of depth. What's better between the two is subjective. But both are better than the flat-roofed, single-colour, windows almost flat to the facade Cubes, where the only depth you get is if somebody opens a window. The latter feels like a cheap, bad version of Bauhaus.
Feeling like i got premium when fern makes a video
Cool
3rd time i saw this comment in a fern video
why am i on all the comments
Slava HEINEKEN 🍻
premium auf gomme
8:58 - "in other countries" - literally showing a frame of the German City Rostock with the tram - just a 3 minutes walk from my apartment :D
Great video, as always!
It's RostoCk but you're completely right. It indeed shows the "Neuer Markt" area with the town hall. Wouldn't have expected to see my hometown in this video and honestly would not have noticed it without your comment :D
@@thisisnotahandle93 Yeah, I missed the C on my keyboard - sorry :D
Very insightful and educational video, Fern!
Describing them as 'ugly' and 'Angstraum' is spot-on!
I lived in Apolda, near Weimar where the Bauhaus school started.
In the northwestern part of town, there are these 'Bauhausen' buildings that have a dry, almost docile atmosphere.
During the day, walking through these areas it makes you feel isolated from the world around you, as if the buildings are completely empty.
At night, there's you can almost feel the eyes as they follow, which is unsettling.
It was quite a gnarly experience overall.
However, the contrast brought by the lively pubs, cozy cafes, and lush town center made the place truly feel like home.
As a German I agree with almost everything.
But when you leave the big citys like Munich, Frankfurt, Berlin etc. you will find an endless amount of small citys which still have the pre war architecture. This citys and the vilages on the countryside show the beauty of medieval design.
Berlin hat extrem viel Vorkriegsarchitektur zu bieten. Nur eben keine geschlossenen Altstädte mehr, weil zerbombt. Gerade in Berlin steht noch überraschend viel von der Gründerzeitbebauung, entgegen dem weitläufigen Klischee, Berlin sei extrem hässlich. Stimmt eigentlich gar nicht, Berlin hat immer noch viele Alleen, viel Grün, viel Wasser und viel Gründerzeitbebauung. Nur meistens eben nicht an den Plätzen, wo Touristen hinkommen. Alex, Hauptbahnhof, Potsdamer Platz, Zoo, Friedrichstraße sind alle von Nachkriegsarchitektur geprägt, da bewegen sich die Menschenmassen. Abseits dessen gibt es unglaublich viele schöne Straßen, Plätze und Orte in Berlin.
Medieval architecture and neo-classical/neo-baroque will always be the best of human achievement. Brutalist and minimalist architecture is as depressing as the people that praise and inhabit it. I pity them.
Kinda shoked that you didn't explain WW2 to increase watch time like other TH-camrs
i was ready to hit the skip 10 secs button so hard.
Other TH-camrs would have explained the history of housing going back to the cave days.
it's German, they are known for their efficiency. /s
What would have been there to explain in relation to the topic? It was war, lots of bombs fell, whole city quarters were reduced to rubble, doesn't everyone watching the video already know that? Or maybe that's just me projecting something that's just "obvious" to someone living in Germany onto people from other countries to whom it might not be obvious
"In the very probable case you have never heard the story of WWII before: There was this Austrian painter with the mustache. I cannot name him, because then the video will get demonetized."
"... five story buildings..."
"...stretch the buildings up to 30 stories..."
Well, that escalated quickly.
...and they were ugly & sterile before they expanded in height 😅
Good video. However one nit-pick: I think it looks weird that at 9:31 (and later on in the vid) the bike-symbols on the ground are backwards. They should be facing the bikers who are riding on the left side.
Maybe they were AI-generated
ADHD kicking in
@@PatNeedhamUSA no they were not. This is obviously 3D Animation with a lot of focal blur. The designer just made a mistake which is likely considering the amount of CGI shots in this video
Bro if this video was posted before my business case competition I legit would have won💀
At 10:03 you mention 3,700 construction codes, actually we have reached 20,000 construction codes (Bauvorschriften) in 2024.
Das ist korrekt
Oh well
20,000 (in English)
@@JesusFriedChrist Fixed it
20.000...... muss man sich mal vorstellen...
In my opinion Berlin is a very beautiful and well designed city. The urban planning is really good, there are wide sidewalks everywhere with a great amount of pedestrian roads that act as small plazas, there are many green spaces, mass transportation is really efficient, roads are wide and well maintained reducing the traffic. An other great thing about Berlins urban planning is that everything has the right dimensions from the sidewalks to the space for green and trees between the road and to the road itself that has sufficient dimensions for lanes and parking spaces. Also minimal buildings are not as dystopian as you claim, for me minimalism gives a clean and calm vibe compared to the typical north European Renaissance architecture or Baroque, which can be really overwhelming sometimes. As long as the building is well designed in harmony with the environment and properly maintained it can be beautiful even if it’s just a simple square with windows. Also we don’t have to look all things with negativity, glass buildings can also “store” heat in cold days reducing the consumption of electricity for heating ( also in my opinion the look cool and futuristic). Anyways the video was really nice 👌🏼
exactly. Berlin is an amazing city. I don't know what these people are talking about. It beats any city in US hands down.
@Truth is that Americans build their cities slightly different from North-Western Europeans. Europeans tend to have more walkable cities with historical centres and wall to wall mixed zone buildings. Americans from the other hand lack in historical centres (since all their cities are relatively “new”), their cities are mostly based on cars with huge roads and infinite parkings rather walk-bike or mass transportation, while commercial and residential are mostly divided there . It’s a different urban planning style that in both cases can bring a beautiful result. In my opinion I would rather live in Miami or in some Californian city rather in Berlin although I really like Berlin and I believe it’s a great city ( maybe it’s due to the climate rather than the cities themselves 😅).
@@most_wanted_gsxr4221 walkability is non-negotiable for me. I lived both continents. Us cities are killing Americans. Especially as malls shut down, there are fewer and fewer places for people to go out and just be around others.
Ein Musterbeispiel ist die Stadt Görlitz, dort findet man alle Architekturstile. Diese Stadt blieb fast unzerstört, wurde aber nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg durch das Potsdamer Abkommen geteilt, so dass der östliche Teil heute zu Polen gehört und Zgorzelec heißt.
I binged all of your vids, and then went over to Hoog and I'm currently binging those. Absolutely love all of your content. Keep it up guys :)
Areas in middle germany like Erfurt, Halle and Leipzig still do look like the portrayed stereoptype of old architecture. There are huge quarters in heavily bombed cities like Berlin or Hamburg that look fine as hell.
This is indeed true, but it is notable that many of those quarters have been rebuilt to resemble what was there previously. The most notable example of this is the historic city Centre of Dresden.
There are other examples of this as well. Take Rothenburg ob der Tauber, the medieval small city that shows up on basically every „places to visit in Germany“ list. Large parts of the historic city Centre have also been destroyed during heavy bombings in WWII. However, the city was aware of the significance of their medical appearance and rebuilt the entire city to strongly resemble what was there before
WWI: Wrong turn
WWII: Angry man gets rejected from art school
WWIII: TH-camr insults German cities.
German* TH-camr insults German cities 😂
To be fair German cities were also ugly before ww2 you can look at many images that show they were not at all ornamented like Fern shows but only a few houses here and there with others plain façades with no decoration. Other countries that got their cities destroyed by Germany WW1 then in WW2 unlike Germany rebuilt them as good as they could
@@ommsterlitz1805 they were certainly not
@@Nobody_Cares913 look it up compared to the European standard they were ugly and i'm not talking about Vienna and Paris they didn't meet the standard of cities like Budapest
@@ommsterlitz1805 that's super subjective
As a German I can tell you that my home town of Augsburg was almost completely destroyed by allied areal bombing.
There are regular bomb findings during construction to this day. Sometimes the bombs are so large that huge areas need to be evacuated for safe disposal.
And yet cars have done far more damage over the decades.
Only the city center remains mostly intact and is still pretty, but everything in the periphery is a car centric mess almost as bad as the US
Modern architecture and car centric city planning is a plague.
That's the city where Mozart's dad was born. It was probably way prettier back then
Well, it hadn't been bombed.
@@garryferrington811 stop the missinformation please.
I do live here, you know.
Try this on Wikipedia and educate yourself:
Bombing_of_Augsburg_in_World_War_II
wiki/Messerschmitt_AG
It really isn't that hard to come by the necessary sources. WW2 is well documented.
Everybody is entitled to an opinion, but with that comes the ability to make a fool of yourself as well.
So keep that in mind when jsut making stuff up.
@@Youbetternowatchthis I believe Garry was replying to the comment about Leopold Mozart, noting that his time there was before the war. (I was born there too.)
@@JohnBurkhertJr oh. I think you might be right.
I hadnt even read that first comment.
If so I am the idiot now, I suppose.
I hate how impressed I am by the smooth and natural ad integration.
Should not be this way with any let alone educational content…
@@0xbenedikt do you see the amount of effort and research they put in their videos?
They have to finance this one way or another.
I would just want to add that this mostly applies to the cities which were devastated by WW2. If you go to say southern Germany there are quite a few medieval cities to visit: Freiburg (in parts), Tübingen, Rottweil, Konstanz, Meersburg and many many of the small medieval looking villages, that were never touched by WW2.
You also often will find places that tried to at least reconstruct parts of their downtown as it looked before WW2, if you however then go into the industrial or more modern parts of these towns, you'll find these Bauhaus style buildings aplenty.
Just to reiterate: the Bauhaus style dominates cities, which were destroyed by WW2. Places, mostly in southern Germany, which were not touched by the war still have their medieval or Imperial look about them. I can recommend Konstanz in particular, as that place blends both styles together.
My flabber was ghasted the moment I recognized your voice. And the production value of this video is insane. - Short, concise, well written and narrated, and don’t get me started on those gorgeous 3D-Models. I’m amazed of what became of Simplicissimus.
the miljonprrgrammet in sweden was also a massive project in the 60s that was to build 1 million homes used a lot of "bauhaus" type buildings, but are now the slums/poor areas for most cities. But it did give us a lot more infrastructure. There was supposed be built more but money dissapeared in the 70s
honestly the idea of them as slums is massively exaggerated, i've lived in miljonprogrammet areas for basically my entire life and never even gave it a second thought.
If anything they're generally some of the nicer places to live since the rent isn't terrifying and they're generally very car-light and have good public transport connections. Every now and then i hear a car going through the area and i'm reminded of just how quiet things are otherwise, and how miserable it must be to live in a place where you have constant traffic outside your windows..
The worst part about miljonprogrammet areas is just that they're generally extremely boring, you have some playgrounds and some grills and everything else is just mowed lawn. But this is thankfully starting to improve now that meadows are becoming popular and people start pushing for places to grow some veggies and flowers for themselves.
As an american living in Germany I wouldnt compare the cities of Germany to the cities in the US when it comes to a city built around cars. Compared to NYC, Philly, and Denver ( the only 3 major cities ive spent a lot of time in) Berlin, Munich, and Suttgart are way easier to navigate by foot and public transportation then the US cities. The roads in major German cities besides the main roads are barely big enough to fit a sedan into, there are little to no parking lots even if your willing to pay, and because of the super tiny roads the traffic is insane. Honestly for most my destinations even google with tell me it is faster by train or bus then by car (including walking time) but as for the architecture, yeah its pretty much giant grey boxes and has no identity at all
Yeah the car thing is honestly not that big of an impact compared to other factors. Just seems like OP wanted to lean on that for some reason. This was a neat video but way oversimplified and just completely glossed over major contributing factors for some reason.
US cities weren't built around cars. They were bulldozed for cars.
I honestly think it's weird how so many people rely on cars here in my hometown. Yesterday, there was like a kilometer long line of cars and with the bike you can be anywhere in the city quicker by bike than standing in this long line. Just strange and the cars really need to be reduced in favor of cleaner faster and less obstructive transprotation. Here in Germany, places are also not as large as the US for example, making it much easier to travel to any part of the city just by bike. Else, you can just hitch a train or a bus for longer distances
@@xzy_sampletext_yzx3411 Germany in my experience just isnt made for cars. 2 lane roads with barely enough room for even 1 car, traffic on every highway, 0 parking in the city, and gas isnt cheap. Germany has done a great job with public transportation and easily one the best countries to own a bike in. Yet the amount of cars is insane compared to amount of space dedicated to cars
@@ArtXV- Is Germany really such a bad country?
I didn't expect this.
I spent a month in Hannover this summer, for no particular reason or with little research. I wasn't in the old town but any time I would walk around the neighborhood I would really appreciate the old architecture, so surprised to hear they are known for having left the past behind. Everything is relative though, and coming from North America, Hannover really stood out to me for it's beaty and really good bike lanes.
And Hannnover is famous for it's car-dependant infrastructure and "dullness". lol.
There is nothing more sadistic than constructing an ugly building that generations of people have to live their lives in and that generations of people in the area have to look at. It's like taking a crap in someone's garden, leaving and then the owner of the garden has to live with the smell.
That’s exactly what pissed of AH and why he sought to return to classical architected, classic dress, and classic culture. The Marxist J’s of the Weimar Republic were degenerating German identity in the 1920’s with porn, modern art, brutalist architecture, and successive economic collapse induced by interest rates causing the Frank to hyper inflate and millions of Germans to end up on the streets taking to sex work, much like what is exactly happening in America in the 2020’s. Always on the 20’s. Pattern recognition.
@NarasimhaDiyasena interesting choice of pfp 🤔
the time, effort and research spent making these graphics and videos is mindblowing. I wait for videos from fern and is one of the initial viewers.
Hello from Hanover. :D
I immediately thought of Michael Ende's Momo when you mentioned 'grey and cars' at the beginning...
Bro has not visited Balkan countries
Communism enters the chat
He will get heart attack if he see Indian cities 😂
Or the USA
I’m Dutch, but have seen a lot of our eastern neighbors land, and I couldn’t agree with you more. There most definitely are some really, really beautiful parts of German cities, but, man, are there weirdly car-centric, gray and ugly parts. Finding the balance is really a key factor here. I think Berlin is doing a very fine job at improving said balance, it’s truly my favorite city in Germany, mainly because of that East-West combination of classic urban streets and modern concrete communist apartments.
Anyways, nothing but love to your channel mate, keep it up 🔥
* grey 😄
@ both are correct, no one knows why
@@dezwollenaartjes grey with an A is only correct in American English which is only correct in the USA. You’re Dutch, therefore in Europe and in Europe we don’t use yank English rather just English so the only correct spelling is grey for us. Now, if you’re planning on immigrating to the USA that’s a different story but who’d make such a silly decision? So hence why I helped you with the typo. 😊
@@vboyz21 If you are not from an English speaking country you are free to choose which English you want to use. In Germany American English grammar is probably even more popular than British. Even in school we could choose which we wanted to use.
@@pdote the EU strictly uses English not American. So yeah you can learn whichever but only one version is correct in Europe.
Bombs, cars, and don't forget the third tragedy. Modern architects.
The architects are hamstrung by costs and bureaucracy
Looks like you didn't watch until the end.
Postmodernism was a mistake.
And all 3 are connected by the same group at the top...
What cars have to do with building designs
Not just Germany, they do it all over the world. They do it on purpose.
The animations are on a whole new level! This is truly incredible. Thank you fern, for providing such exclusive content for everyone, for free.❤
When people from Northrhine-Westphalia think that the whole country looks like their state:
True...
When people from Germany's south have never been north:
@fern-tv True...specially in the Ruhrgebiet...thats the ugliest part of germany.
@@juanDE1703 There are still plenty of smaller cities in the Ruhrpott that are quite picturesque. The region is so dense that you don't really have to travel far to get to a beautiful place.
When people with a Porsche logo do not know how Stuttgart looks
fern uploads:
Me: *Time for an 11 minute break from life*
If new residential projects are only investment opportunities there is no incentive to waste money on making things look good since you will find residents regardless because of the housing situation.
There are all sorts of grants and municipal codes for architectural design and appearance. It just depends on the city and zoning.
That's where local governments step in.
They can mandate public space requirements, colors of roofs or walls, greenery, road level crossings, bike lanes, bike parking, etc etc etc.
@@udishomer5852 they do for small stuff but big investors? nah they can build all the commie blocks they want.
But if you intend to build in or create an upper class neighborhood with high prices, you would eventually need to at least fit the existing aesthetic or create good-looking buildings in order to maximize the closing price.
@ it’s a bit more complex than that. For example, if zoning ordinances restrict multifamily homes (apartments), the property values increase without the need for things being “good looking”.Zoning can artificially reduce supply and increase demand, which can look great for a community on paper…when oversimplified.
Shanghai is an extreme, but clear example of this.
Great video and graphics!! We need more cool walkable towns all over the world again!
thanks for the Louisiana shoutout from amongst the worst traffic areas in all of Louisiana 8:02
Am I smelling a #NotJustBikes collab??
No u are coping
@@sefamimiabbo272coping from what exactly?😂
Coping with car-centrism, maybe.
I live and grew up in Amsterdam and i can not imagine how it would be growing up in those big, very car dependent cities. Glad to live in a pedestrian/bike friendly city as Amsterdam, unlike many sadly.
It is a headache. Do not recommend unless u really like menial driving
If you knew nothing else you’d wonder how anyone could grow up in Amsterdam. Critical thinking has left the chat. Christ man, look outside your self absorbed bubble once in a while and put yourself in someone else’s shoes.
What the fuck???
I grew up in a mix of both worlds in a city with 50k residents and I couldn’t imagine living in Münster which is one of the most bike friendly cities in the country, i freaking hate that city, there is no structure, the bicyclists drive around like idiots and you feel like the city tries everything to not make you drive a car instead of making it perfect for everyone, that’s why cities like Bielefeld are perfect, great public infrastructure, great roads for cars and enough space for both pedestrians and bikes to walk/drive around, not everyone has the ability to walk or ride a bike and for public transportation depending on where you want to get will take a lot longer than just drive there by yourself since you can’t place a train station everywhere and make trains or busses drive everywhere every 10 minutes
@ Well written.
German cities aren't terribly designed, modern buildings are. Stop building ugly architecture. Look at the transformation of Dresden!
Did you even watch the video?
@@spieo Even the german version as well
As a Dutch person living in the heart of Dresden, the infrastructure here is also very car oriented. The roads are very wide, this could easily be improved on.
@streetscaping so you missed the point then? It’s not about perception of beauty and especially not about building design…
you guys are pumping out so much high quality content, its crazy. I love this channel, but please don't burn yourselves out. It needs to be fun for you, most of all :)
German city planning student here, I totally agree on that regulations part. The bureaucracy here makes it sooooo difficult
A very good example of the duality of how to rebuild after the war is Warsaw. Where some parts of the historic center were rebuilt as best to the abilities back in the day, but then you'd just go across a street and you are in an area filled with the typical blocky houses that were so common all over the Eastern Block.
Showcase quarters for propaganda vs. where most people actually lived.
@@no1DdC Mindless smooth brain nurtured by tons of american propaganda be like:
Oh how I wish this was only true for Germany. My country, Poland, hasn't built a single beautiful building in what feels like decades now. Virtually all of our urban planners - if you could even call them that - are stuck in the previous century and still ravage the urban tissue with new, multi lane roads and shopping malls surrounded by swathes of car parking. It feels like we've finally fully embraced America's car culture from the 50s.
Ugly, generic apartment blocks are popping up everywhere with no limits.
It's quite sad.
here in Cracow architecture is (imo) absolutely beautiful, while Warsaw's is not... like the new museum next to PKiN
U must live in Eastern Poland then
@@Dara-wk5ty if you think that car centric planning happens only in the east, then come to Wrocław (urząd wojewódzki, plac Grunwaldzki... just to name a few).
literally my thoughts about my city and I'm from kyiv😭
Polish cities are something else when it comes to ugliness and chaos. If only there was any urban planning it wouldn't be that bad but unfortunately new apartments not only are absolutely horrible (white-gray blocks of flat often needlessly fenced with plains of parking lot around) but also they lack any urban planning, so new blocks are being built literally anywhere a developer wants, mainly the cheapest ground far away from the city centre. Along with no incentive from city council to connect them with public transport this causes more and more people being forced to own and use a car everyday and the city councils even encourage that destroying more and more buildings in the centre for widening and straightening already unnecessarily wide stroads and building even more parking lots in the centre. Carbrains here are even more selfish as they park literally everywhere, be it bike paths, sidewalks or patch of greenery, doesn't matter. If this trend doesnt change Poles will be in the same situation Americans are right now. Unfortunately it doesn't seem like anything will change as politicians here are funded by developers lobby, so a change would be against their interests. The fact that people here love cars just as much as Americans and despise public transit (aka transport for the poor peasants) the government is not encouranaged to even think about any changes. We are doomed by ourselves.
I wouldn't say they are any more ugly than any other European city with modern architecture, in fact I would say that their modernism is comparatively pretty sleek and good quality when compared with places like the UK which are totally ugly and also disorganized. Even Amsterdam, if you get out of the old city center and go into a lot of the residential areas, can be pretty ugly, even uglier than anything I have seen in Germany. Of course I would prefer ornate stone masonry facades, but this is a far broader problem, Germany certainly isn't even close to the worst in this regard.
Hab den Spaß hier abonniert als fern noch unter 20k Abos hatte. Musste gerade schockiert feststellen dass es schon 2,2 Millionen sind
I grew up in Hamburg, and now live in a smaller town. Went to Rotterdam for a few weeks back in 2022, and it blew my mind. Tram lines, greenery, full bicycle lanes, TINY car lanes, innovative, artistic, charismatic architecture, huge open pedestrianised areas. Imagine how great life could be in Germany if cities had been laid out like Dutch ones. Would love to migrate to the Netherlands at some point.
Until you realise how empty everything is there. Artistic is by light years not at all.
rotterdam was car hell until very recently, as was most of the netherlands, the main point youtubers like @notjustbikes share is that cities dont have to be the way they are now, and can be upgraded and made better
I didn’t want to come back to the US after living in Germany for over four years. Everything just makes sense in Deutschland
German cities are terribly designed??? Really? Have you ever been in other countries? I suggest you visit a balkan country and I personally will be happy to show you myself what a terribly designed city really looks like starting with my hometown
How does your argument make this video's point any less valid? Lots of German cities are terribly designed, your city being even worse doesn't change that fact German cities could be so much better.
@@kutter_ttl6786Well, it's about the definition of terrible. One can tolerate a bunch of grey blocks from Stalins time and for the next it's horror.
@@kutter_ttl6786 Maybe it doesn't but I'm so sick and tired of European and Western citizens complaining all the time about "how terrible" their cities are and them not appreciating their blessings.
@@RomMor2 Where are you from? Are you German?
Is Germany really that bad? I am confused.
@@Julia3455-r5l currently living in germany, and compare where I came from (SE Asia), German Cities were/are well built. Trainsystem sucks right now, due to poor maintenance from the past, but overall, Poor Countries are no were near this level of quality.
It's not just German cities, it's most cities. Sad state of reality these days.
true. We need to completely redo most cities
Yes, ever since jews started and won WW2, they've ruined the west...
Fun fact: the ornaments on the 19th century Blockrandbebauung houses are cheaply made (plaster and not solid stone) and their main purpose was to increase the value of the house so that the developers would get more money back from their insurance in case of fires etc. they were ready-made and could be ordered from catalogs.
This exact mindset of copying older styles with modern technology led to the bauhaus movement which wanted to develop a new style for the new technologies. Hence the minimalist (factorymade) aesthetic.
Thank you Simplicissimus and Hoog for this channel. Y'all are the Goats
I have seen some of you old houses in Germany very beautiful Greetings from Denmark 🇩🇰
the jab at hoog was so funny and unexpected from this normally no bullshit kinda channel
7:25 Country boy here who have never been in a situation like this. This was an eye opener.
Was born and still live in Hanover. The city becomes a nightmare for every driver, 'cause the "Green-Party" controls Hanover. Everywhere are constructions sides, almost every bigger street is blocked for "construction" but for weeks or even months nothing happens. The leading party is doing an awful, radical work trying to change Hanover into a walkable or with the bike drivable city. Of course I understand, that driving a car in a bigger city is unnecessary, but even the public transportation gets worst. The buses and the metro is late, tickets get more expensive, the drivers of these vehicles are not the best, almost every month any kind of accidents happens, where sometimes even people get killed.
Therefore, German cities are not only ugly, but also unorganized, a nightmare to any kind of driver and, 'cause of global politics, get more and more dangerous. Still a healthy, leader power in the world...don't think so.
Amazing content and presentation ❤
0:24 that's look like gmod city
Architecture reflects the spirit of society, in this case: demoralization.
Unsurprisingly, people weren't all that happy shortly after WW2.
No, I see it differently. If you were to ask citizens whether they would prefer a cozy old town or a district with modern buildings made of glass, steel and concrete, a majority of 90% would choose the former. That's why I don't see that as the spirit of society. I would rather say it is the spirit of the city planners and architects, but not of the citizens.
@@callsigndd9ls897 You are leaving something important out: The people after WW2 had the choice between having a roof over the head or no roof over the head. They chose the former, which necessitated no-nonsense buildings. I don't think you quite realize just how desperate the housing situation was after WW2. The spirit of society was "I don't want to be homeless".
@@no1DdC I was built in 1948 myself and know the housing shortage from my childhood. Our apartment building (a corner house) lost the fourth floor and the corner in 1943 in bombing raids. All 15 tenants in the building had to move closer together and share the remaining apartments until it was rebuilt in 1955. So you don't have to tell me what the situation was like back then, because I experienced it myself. What I meant is not the apartment buildings from the 1950s that were supposed to alleviate this housing shortage, but the glass, steel and concrete shopping monstrosities that were built in the middle of our old town in the 1970s, and that existing, perfectly repairable old buildings were demolished to make them. The old town in my city has lost all its charm since then. In the 1970s, there was already enough money to make it better. Other old towns come alive in the evenings when people go to the street restaurants and enjoy the beautiful old buildings. In my town it's dead after the shops close; absolutely no one feels comfortable unless they absolutely have to buy something in these ugly glass, steel and concrete shopping monstrosities.
@@callsigndd9ls897 Fair enough. You're completely right about all of this. Somewhat paradoxically, in Germany at least, people are now thinking that this is how city centers are supposed to look like and want to preserve it against the onslaught of online shopping. It's bizarre.
Bro should visit India, he'll know what terrible design is
You cannot compare anything to India
... and dirt, rubbish, cows, smog ...
Yuck
Fern out here making Netflix look cheap, These videos are outstanding. Inspiring me so much
If I recall correctly Gropiusstadt became a hotspot over time,at the beginning it was quite a middle class housing.
Car centric planning needs to go. Those videos about a hundred Japanese pedestrians having to stop and wait because of 5 cars really changed my perspective.
conclusion: don't start wars...
We start wars in other countries. If karma ever catches up to us...
The Bauhaus movement also played a role in East Germany when it was under Communist leadership. It’s why if you travel to the former East Germany you will see a lot of Angstraum architecture.
It would be more accurate if the older house on the thumbnail would fly an Imperial German Flag
Many big cities are not very beautiful apart from some restored areas. I recommend to visit the smaller towns and cities which are, in many of the cases amazingly beautiful
You certainly haven't seen much of the world if you consider German urban planning "ugly".
Now now, it's not a competition. All of it can be ugly
Yes, German cities have been destroyed during WW II, yes, there have been some ugly, excluding and uninviting tendencies in modern architecture, but I would definitely refrain from a generalistic judgement that German cities are overall ugly --- and that that would be a specific German phenomenon. You just have to go to neighboring Switzerland to see how they modernized some of the most beautiful old cities and towns in a very unsensitive manner without any need. There were no bombs dropped on Swiss places during WW II, they just decided to incorporate modernist architectural concepts into their city plannings... As did a lot of countries around the world. There are a lot of videos here on TH-cam that show the glorious past of US-American cities which were torn down in order to build parking lots and inner city highways. I just saw a video about how Atlantic City went down a path from America's luxurious East Cost Spa to more or less a sad ghost town.
I won't deny that in every German city there are parts that don't look very nice and neat and cozy, but even some of the modernist parts near to the center of many German cities nowadays don't look that bad but rather really nice with trees and beautifully furnished public spaces building an interesting and aesthetic contrast to facades of glass. Modernist buildings are not per se ugly in every case. Some of them can really be beautiful. And not to forget that in many German cities there are still considerable numbers of historic buildings that survived WW II and provide with a connection to Germany's past. Look at Munich, Berlin, Hamburg, Hannover, Nuremberg, Leipzig, Braunschweig, Osnabrück, Münster, Erfurt, Augsburg, Karlsruhe, Frankfurt, Mainz, Rostock, Stralsund, Bremen... They don't look exact the same way they looked like before WW II, but it's simply not true to call them ugly now in total. They all show a mixture of different styles and architectural philosophies, they show their history with wounds and healings. You find a lot of very pleasant places to hang out and feel cozy and welcome there. Some of these places are historic, but some also are modern and nevertheless beautiful and embracing.
I work in a NYC architectural firm
Most of the blame is energy code. It forces buildings to be squares with insulation all around it's very difficult to create interesting buildings.
Zoning is also a big issue as it forces buildings to basically match all the other buildings and create large square structures
In other words, because buildings are actually meant to serve its function rather than just to look good?
@fanniinnanetguy653
You wish.. zoning is the exact opposite of function, it's all about complying with code. It's the biggest obstacle to convenience
Nice and informative video❤
May i suggest posting videos of the electronics installation and first flight as well? I'm sure to learn something :)
I still live in a historic stucco house from 1900. What I like most about it is the tall ceiling. Perfect for a loft bed.
Germany is a rich country and no longer needs quick easy housing after the devastation of world war 2. You guys can be beautiful again you know.
Yes, people are trying to build more beautiful buildings today, but unfortunately what was built in the 1950s to the 1980s is still standing and it really wasn't beautiful.
Now we need quick and easy housing because 'the market' did its thing for 30 years.
Unfortunately you're not quite right.
Apart from the point that Germany isn't really "rich", most notably it's not big, so space is little when at the same time - and that's the primary point - it is _highly_ populated! You might wanna look up the population density of Germany. I do not know the recent numbers ad hoc, but the last time I looked, it was (rather high up) under the top 10 of the worlds most densely populated countries! Seriously! Pretty cIose to China and India. I didn't know and was quite shocked.
But, it's traitors who work for jews who control Germany because jews started and won WW2, that's why they don't make Germany great again, because it isn't controlled by the German people, only enemies.
@@FrogeniusW.G. Netherlands are twice as densely populated as germany. Also China is a laaaarge country with wide areas of completely uninhabitated wilderness
98% of architects have been brainwashed at school to adore the Bauhaus and International style...and to hate traditional architecture. When entities want to build something, architects are there ready to provide yet more boxes.
As student of architecture is completely true. We are forced to design only this kind of architecture. If not you will fail a subject :)
As Russian i can say that our cities are already ugly since soviet union
But your women are 😋🤤
russian blocks are just something else. i watched vid about new developments in russia, those falling apart ugly high crime dirt roads, acres of 20 stories piles of concrete, in my opinion idea of high story cheaply made housing isnt as bad as it is potrait but execution of that in russia is just horrible. we have commie blocks u have commie blocks, we are not the same lmao
Its for similar reasons
Without the USSR housing programme, people would've lived in huts with outside toilet sheds, so I don't get the point...
@@Mr.Speedy30 I love Russian women. They're best of the Slavs!
The situation with cars in Cologne is really interesting. Cologne overall has a great public transport with its expansive Stadtbahn (a sort of underground/tram hybrid) network, which comes every 10 minutes on most lines, and the city is already quite walkable, so in theory it shouldn't really be very car-dependent. But there are a few problems.
Firstly, the Stadtbahn network hasn't really seen any major expansion into the suburbs this century. For example, if you live in Hürth-Stotzheim - which is only 7 km from Cologne city centre! - the fastest car-free option (if you don't have a bicycle) to access the nearest Stadtbahn stop (Efferen on number 18) is to walk 35-45 minutes. If you can't (or don't want to) walk and you use buses, you're looking at taking an hourly bus for a 4 minute ride, waiting 30 minutes for the connecting hourly bus, taking that for 4 minutes, waiting 7 minutes for the connecting thrice-hourly bus, and taking that for 10 minutes - for a total travel time of 45 minutes (so, basically just as long or even longer than walking), assuming none of your buses are delayed/cancelled. Then you wait 8 minutes for the Stadtbahn and get to the city centre in another 17 minutes. Depart Stotzheim at 8.27, arrive in the city centre at 9.37 - 1h10m travel time.
Of course, instead of going to the Stadtbahn at Efferen, you could take the bus in the opposite direction all the way to Frechen to take the number 7 Stadtbahn - depart Stotzheim at 7.57 or 8.57 (so either half an hour earlier or later), arrive in the city centre at 8.58 or 9.58 - saving you two changes and 9 minutes travel time. Or you could do what we did in the first journey but stay on the second bus, which itself goes to the city centre, again departing Stotzheim at 8.27 and arriving in the city centre at 9.31, saving you one change and 6 minutes travel time. But whichever of these you choose, the initial bus service (or two) is still hourly, so if you miss it you're screwed.
This is all because number 9 terminates at Hermeskeiler Platz; if it were expanded down to Stotzheim (the only logical place for it to go, because Frechen to the north is served by the 7, and Efferen to the south by the 18), you could be in the city centre within 20 minutes, so it would cut your travel time by two thirds. But in the absence of that, the journey by car is only 27 minutes, so obviously most people will opt for the car.
The second problem is the lack of park and ride facilities. If Efferen Stadtbahn had a big free car parking facility, people from Stotzheim would drive the 10 minutes there and take the 17 minute Stadtbahn ride (resulting in basically the same travel time) to avoid dealing with the stress of city traffic and paying for expensive city centre car parks. But because finding a space at Efferen is already hard enough (with no one using it to park & ride), people *continue* to not use it as a park & ride and instead take their cars into the city.
This problem is even more pronounced with suburban towns & villages that are further out than Hürth-Stotzheim. In Kerpen, 20 km from the city centre, for the least-change route (bus to Frechen then Stadtbahn to the city centre), you will sit on the circuitous bus for nearly an hour before getting to the Stadtbahn, with your total travel time to the city centre being nearly 1h40m. You can take routes with more changes to shave nearly half an hour off that journey, but the thing is, you're again relying on an hourly bus and driving to Frechen would save you a full *40* minutes (total travel time 50 minutes, compared to driving into the centre from Kerpen 40 minutes) - but again, no P+R facility at Frechen.
Cologne proper (which is all nicely connected by the Stadtbahn) has a population of just over 1 million, but if you add the metro area/suburbs it adds up to almost 2 million, so basically a significant proportion of people who want to go to Cologne city centre have no convenient way of getting there other than by car. This really needs to be addressed for increased pedestrianisation to not result in a traffic nightmare!
The Bauhaus ideas hate and prohibit pitched roofs, brick or stone facades and applies decoration. Everything of the past must be prohibited; starting from ZERO was their motto. That basically leaves a concrete or glass box as the style of choice...especially on a budget.
i thought my "small" hometown (around 80k people) looks ugly and outdated, but yesterday i went to dortmund...fkin hell that city is disgusting.
As a german, I agree. It's actually really interesting to learn more about why German cities look the way they do
Also ich finde diese „Angsträume“ als deutscher bisschen lächerlich um ehrlich zu sein. Habe mich in einer Stadt außerhalb Deutschlands noch nie anders gefühlt wenn ich mal mit Öffentlichen gefahren bin.
Ich auch nicht.
Having Aaron Finch at 4ra events brings a spark of trust and high-caliber sportsmanship
I get REALLY sad every time I see pictures/videos of the cities from before the war & compare that with today...
People don't even realize what we've lost, cities that are hundreds of years old are simply gone
very sad that not one single east-german city was mentioned
Berlin?
@@kkrhst does not count
good point! confirms again the assumption that FERN are privileged people from west germany.
@@sudbenzer6603 i think that goes too far. all i want is some representation of the east and the fact that eastern cities are indeed very beautiful because they care more about restauration
@@bluishgentian3756 give us then some examples? I live in Magdeburg and it doesn’t seem like to be
Do not let this guy ever see a Turkish city or a picture of it. Ever.
True lol
Sorry but no. Germany is beautiful and they are not poorly designed.
Your view is objective.
I was in Berlin recently and it was one of the most beautiful cities I've been to and it had a really beautiful "layout"
Love from Germany 🇩🇪
As someone living in Kernstadt in Marburg, I always wonder why the main streets are lit but not the pasestrian walkways? Although Afters 8PM the buses don’t operate and you have to walk home but still the street lights are for the car owners but not for the pedestrian who overwhelmingly use the streets after late evening but yes the bureaucracy doesn’t understands this
It's so fascinating how the people of that time reacted to those changes. My grandad was from berlin and he always told me, how smart those city planners were, that they made so broad roads in berlin for the cars and everything. He always was really happy about it.
I mean, he has not lived in Berlin for over 40 years at that point ... still i had to think of him while watching this video
I moved to Germany a couple of years ago, and this is pretty spot on. So many cities or large areas within cities look like depressing, car-centric hellholes, devoid of color and humanity. Of course it doesn't look like that everywhere, but it can get quite bleak many places. 100% agree with your conclusion. Also, I feel like the ugliness and "sameness" of many German inner-city areas has become something of a meme here.
The major cities were bombed to the ground in WW2. New buildings were built in an ugly style.
There simply was no style. The only choice we had was to build as fast as we could and as cheap as possible. Period. Results are speaking for themselves.
This is better than the toilet episode
The thing about building codes I think is that while yes a lot of it may be inefficient in restricting housing, it also prevents many an excess of non-regulated planning. Anyone who has lived in an absolutely freezing altbau can probably see the issues
Very well done. Sums it up in my opinion.