Qualla: Moltkeviertel

Moltkeviertel: Introduction

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Volker Wagenitz, Public domain. In 1908 the city of Essen bought half a square kilometre of empty land just southeast of its main railway station. The city councillor in charge had a single idea: plan the entire district at once, as one composition. Wide streets to ventilate the air. Parks within walking distance of every front door. Tennis courts already pencilled in on the master plan. Streets named after the great architects of European history - Schinkel, Semper, Olbrich - so that residents would think about who built their world. Robert Schmidt's plan opened the Moltkeviertel between 1908 and 1914, and a hundred and twelve years later it is still doing exactly what he designed it to do.

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Image: Volker Wagenitz | Public domain

Moltkeviertel: The Reform-Era City Planner

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Es-Punkt-Ge-Punkt, CC0. Robert Schmidt was a professor and a city councillor in turn-of-the-century Essen - the city's first dedicated planner in an era when most German cities still grew by accident. He read the British garden-city literature, the Viennese debates on Camillo Sitte's urbanism, the Berli...

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Image: Es-Punkt-Ge-Punkt | CC0

Moltkeviertel: Mansions With Margins

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Moltkeplatz, Public domain. From 1908 the plots filled in. The architecture is what Germans call Reformarchitektur - a kind of disciplined reaction against ornamental historicism, simpler in mass and silhouette but still allowing significant individuality on each lot. Georg Metzendorf, Edmund Körner, and ot...

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Image: Moltkeplatz | Public domain

Moltkeviertel: An Architect's House for an Architect

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Volker Wagenitz, Public domain. On the corner of Moltkestrasse and Camillo-Sitte-Platz, Edmund Körner built his own house and studio in 1928 and 1929. The result is one of the more unusual buildings in the district - a residence and atelier that draws on both the Neues Bauen modernism then sweeping German archi...

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Image: Volker Wagenitz | Public domain

Moltkeviertel: Sculptures Under the Plane Trees

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Moltkeplatz, Public domain. In 1981 the Essen gallerist Jochen Krüper and the sculpture curator Uwe Rüth - then director of the Glaskasten Sculpture Museum in Marl - began placing major works of contemporary sculpture on the Moltkeplatz green. The list of artists is unusual for a residential square: Heinz B...

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Image: Moltkeplatz | Public domain

Moltkeviertel: A District That Outlived Its Era

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Volker Wagenitz, Public domain. Robert Schmidt's quarter survived the bombing of Essen in 1945 better than most parts of the city, and unlike many German districts of similar age it was not redeveloped during the postwar boom. A preservation statute covering most of the area has been in force since 1983, defend...

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Image: Volker Wagenitz | Public domain