Heimatschutz Architecture

Heimatschutz architecture, also called Heimatschutzstil or Heimatstil, is a German and Swiss architectural movement that sought a path toward modernity rooted in local and regional building traditions, rejecting both historicist imitation and Art Nouveau ornament. It took shape around 1904, when the Deutsche Bund fur Heimatschutz was formally established in Dresden, and the style was built from 1904 until 1945, with some construction continuing to about 1960, chiefly in East Prussia, Bavaria, Switzerland and other German-speaking regions. Buildings in the style used materials appropriate to their locality, such as brick in northern Germany and wood in Alpine areas, and incorporated traditional features like arches, columns and turrets in simplified, reduced form rather than reproducing historical styles in ornamental detail. The movement was a reformist reaction against the urbanization brought by the Industrial Revolution and was applied to settlements, houses, gardens, industrial buildings, churches and monuments, with postwar examples including the rebuilt Freudenstadt Market Square of 1950 and Munster's Prinzipalmarkt, reconstructed from 1947 to 1958.