Canon · Early 20th Century & the Modern Movement (1900–1945)

Fritz Schumacher's Federplan for Hamburg

1919–1921 · Germany · Western Europe · Regional & polycentric planning · Planned by Fritz Schumacher
Fritz Schumacher's Federplan (1919): the feather-shaped scheme for the natural development of the organism Hamburg, with radial building axes separated by green wedges.
Fritz Schumacher's Federplan (1919): the feather-shaped scheme for the natural development of the organism Hamburg, with radial building axes separated by green wedges. · public-domain (author died 1947; 70 years p.m.a. expired) — credit BSW/BUKEA via hamburg.de · Fritz Schumacher, 1919; image courtesy BSW / BUKEA, Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg (original held by Staatsarchiv Hamburg)

Core idea

Feather-shaped scheme of radial settlement axes with green wedges kept open between them

Why it matters

Pioneering green-wedge/axial model for structuring an organic city-region

Description

Drawn up from 1919 by Hamburg's Oberbaudirektor Fritz Schumacher, the Federplan ('feather plan') is named for its feather-like form: building was concentrated along radial settlement axes fanning out from the city centre along existing rail and traffic routes. The wedge-shaped spaces between the axes were to be kept free of construction and reserved as residential green and open spaces, linking the dense city to the landscapes of the Elbe, the Alster valley and the surrounding geest. Schumacher treated Hamburg as the 'natural centre' of its region and structured growth organically rather than as a closed ring, extending the scheme out to neighbouring towns and districts such as Bergedorf.

Significance

The Federplan is an early and influential example of axial, green-wedge regional structuring, anchoring open green corridors as an integral part of a metropolitan growth plan. It shaped German Stadterweiterung and regional-planning thinking and stands alongside other interwar axial visions for ordering the growth of a city-region around radial development and intervening green space.

What became of it

Only partially realised in Schumacher's lifetime, the plan's radial-axis-and-green-wedge logic endured: it was developed into Hamburg's landscape-axis and 'Green Network' (Grünes Netz) system from the 1980s onward and is still cited as the foundational concept for the city's green structure and metropolitan development today.

Sources

Open it on the interactive timeline →
hub.toekom.st — History of Urbanism · an interactive timeline of 850 planned cities across 6,000 years.