Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
FIGURE 3
Rimpl's rendering of the main plaza for Hermann Göring Works City (“Die Kunst
in Dritten Reich,”
Die Baukunst,
April 1939)
In a Nazi-sponsored architectural journal, at the behest of Hitler, Rimpl
laid out his plans and justifications for the Salzgitter project (figure 3).
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Commissioned explicitly to preserve the rural character of the area as well
as a sense of the natural environment within the heavily industrialized land-
scape, Rimpl faced an ultimate challenge to the tension in National Social-
ist ideology between nature and technology.
The architectural styles Rimpl used in Salzgitter tended to be eclectic,
selected for pragmatic reasons rather than consistency. Thus, the principal
public buildings—the
Volkshalle
and the Nazi headquarters (figure 4)—
were in the symbolic Speer style of neo-classical giantism; the factories
adapted the efficient glass-and-steel construction of the International Style
(Rimpl's firm employed many former
Bauhäusler
). The workers' homes,
15,000-20,000 of which were planned for the overall area, exemplified the
traditional vernacular style of German housing.
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What unified the whole was an overarching organic concept, reflecting
the holism and organicism at the core of Nazi ideology.
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Like Speer, Rimpl
regarded architecture as both a practical and a symbolic art. Hence, his plans
for the Nazi technology town can be read not only as a literal blueprint but
also as a set of signs and symbols. Specifically, Rimpl's plans embodied the
notion of the “body politic,” a metaphorical comparison of the town plan
