The Bauhaus connection: Roosevelt housing has German roots

BY LINDA DeNICOLA
Staff Writer

Roosevelt resident Michael Ticktin presents a history of Roosevelt to Monika Markgraf, research director of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation in Germany, during a recent visit.

Roosevelt resident Michael Ticktin felt right at home while visiting Dessau, Germany, in February. He saw the same flat-roofed, boxy houses there that are so characteristic of his hometown.

Ticktin was in Germany to visit his son-in-law’s family and went with them to Dessau, to visit one of the original Bauhaus buildings. The building, with its boxy shape, glass walls and other unconventional design features, became a symbol of the modernist movement in early 20th century architecture, furnishings and other implements of home life.

But the Bauhaus approach wasn’t just an innovative German architectural movement. It embodied educational programs that advocated equal educational opportunity for women.

The progressive movement encouraged women to engage in construction projects and wear pants while working, at a time when women were just beginning to shed rib-crushing corsets and long skirts that dragged in the dirt. Students, including women, were encouraged to live in dormitories and take part in physical education programs.

All of this was very unusual in the 1920s. The Bauhaus interdisciplinary approach to contemporary design tried to find solutions to the problems of life in the industrial era.

There is a good reason for the similarity in architecture between the two cities so far apart geographically.

Dessau, in eastern Germany, is the home of the Bauhaus-Dessau Foundation, while Roosevelt, originally called Jersey Homesteads, was designed as a Bauhaus-style community made of cinder blocks with overhanging, flat roofs.

Now a historic district listed on the state and national historic registers, Jersey Homesteads represented the convergence of three movements: Benjamin Brown’s vision of a cooperative community of Jewish garment workers and farmers; the town design principles of Sir Ebenezer Howard and the English Garden City movement; and the building design principles developed by the Bauhaus.

Ticktin went to Dessau recently to present the research director with Roosevelt’s 50th anniversary commemorative book.

"They are interested in documenting the worldwide influence of the Bauhaus movement," Ticktin said.

Ticktin, a New York City native and graduate of Princeton University, moved to Roosevelt in 1972. But he doesn’t live in a Bauhaus. He lives up a dirt road on a hill surrounded by woods, in a two-story house he designed.

Most of his neighbors live in Bauhaus-style one or two-story buildings. Just down the street is the glass-walled Bauhaus design factory that was part of the original cooperative community.

The Millstone Valley Chorus, a chapter of Sweet Adelines International, rehearsed recently for their regional spring competitions. The groups specialize in four-part barbershop harmony. They will perform in the “Sounds of Spring” at West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South on April 18.

The Bauhaus, which means house of building, was founded in Weimar in 1919 under the leadership of Walter Gropius. It flourished in Germany during the period of the Weimar Republic, between the end of the World War I and the beginning of the Nazi dictatorship.

How the Bauhaus design came to be used in a tiny town in New Jersey is an interesting story.

The declared purpose of the design movement was to bring together all artistic disciplines, crafts and manual trades in order to create a new "art of building" that would benefit society and improve the lives of working people.

The two-square mile borough of Roosevelt was built to improve the lives of garment workers. It was established in 1935 as one of the 99 New Deal communities by the Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration.

It was the ninth largest of the planned communities, carved out of acreage that was formerly part of Millstone. The historic district consists of 249 structures, including six 19th and 20th century farmhouses and 151 buildings constructed as part of the Jersey Homesteads program.

Ticktin scoffs at a persistent rumor that the flat-roofed houses in Roosevelt were unsuitable for a moist climate and had been sent to the wrong community.

"I am amused at the thought that anyone would ever make up the preposterous story that the Jersey Homesteads houses were designed for a desert climate like Arizona, rather than for a climate such as ours, which is very similar to that of Germany," he said."

Gropius designed and built the Trten Estates in Dessau, a 314-unit development of houses for working people that were built with pre-cast concrete walls and roofs, between 1926 and 1928.

"This project clearly foreshadows the Jersey Homesteads project that was designed by a German-educated architect, Alfred Kastner, and built here 10 years later," he said.

In 1923, the flat-roofed experimental "Haus am Horn," designed by the artist Georg Muche, was constructed in Weimar. This house, listed along with the other Bauhaus buildings, on the UNESCO World Heritage List, has the block construction and flat, overhanging roofs that give the Jersey Homesteads houses their distinctive appearance, Ticktin said.

In 1925, it was necessary for political reasons for the Bauhaus to leave Weimar. Gropius accepted the offer of a new home in the industrial city of Dessau. The city of Dessau, then under Social Democratic control, provided a site and financial support for the construction of the Bauhaus building. The building, with its glass walls and other unconventional design features, became a symbol of the modernist movement in architecture.

In Dessau, the Bauhaus focused on mass production of housing, furniture and home furnishings. The existence of the Bauhaus in Dessau came to an end in 1932, when the Nazis came to power in Dessau and in the State of Anhalt, which was then the capital.

The Nazis thought of all modernism as decadent and hated the Bauhaus. They wanted to destroy the building, but decided instead to use it for their own purposes after destroying the glass walls.

They wanted to destroy the flat-roofed Trten dwellings as well, but because of a housing shortage they settled for building their own housing project with steeply pitched "German" roofs on nearby blocks.

During World War II, Dessau, the site of the Junkers aircraft factory, was heavily bombed by the British and American air forces and 86 percent of the buildings were destroyed. The Bauhaus building was severely damaged, but only 25 of the Trten homes were destroyed.

In the 1970s, the government of the former German Democratic Republic, with American financial assistance, began the reconstruction of the Bauhaus building.

The building was rededicated in 1976, on the 50th anniversary of its opening. It was placed under the control of the new Bauhaus-Dessau Foundation in 1994, following the reunification of Germany.

In 1999, the foundation inaugurated a new college, intended to be a continuation of the progressive educational tradition of the original school. The Bauhaus also sponsors programs on planning and urban design in Europe and is playing a significant role in the redevelopment of the cities of Eastern Germany.

"I would also like to mention that one of the Trten houses has been retained in its original form and is used as the headquarters of the Moses Mendelsohn Society," Ticktin said.

Moses Mendelsohn, who was born in Dessau in 1728, was a philosopher who began the process of bringing German Jews into full participation in German life. He was the grandfather of the composer Felix Mendelsohn.

The work of the society is part of Dessau’s commemoration of its destroyed Jewish community.

Although most of the houses in Dessau have been added to or otherwise modified, the one change that is not permitted is alteration of the roofs, Ticktin said.

Roosevelt has no ordinances against changing the roofs or even tearing down one of the houses, he said. Many of the roofs have been changed, but only one house in Roosevelt has been demolished, said Ticktin.

Roosevelt is unique in Monmouth County. It is even unique in the state, but the Bauhaus design can be seen in various experimental projects around the world.

Every year, the Bauhaus buildings in Dessau attract many visitors who have seen the style in other places and are interested in what is still considered functional and modern design.