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Hobrecht, Urban Planning, and Defeating Epidemics in 19th-Century Berlin with Jan Otakar Fischer

Hobrecht, Urban Planning, and Defeating Epidemics in 19th-Century Berlin with Jan Otakar Fischer


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Can't make this time? A video recording will be sent to all participants after the seminar.

The Industrial Revolution had a catalytic effect on Berlin in the late nineteenth century. Tens of thousands of people moved to the city to work in the new factories created by companies like AEG, Siemens, and Borsig. Between 1860 and 1925 the city’s population grew from 500,000 to four million. The resulting crowding and miserable hygiene encouraged the spread of infectious disease—especially cholera—and new strategies of urban planning and engineering were required to combat it. This seminar focuses on the pioneering engineers and advocates who fought infectious diseases during the Industrial Revolution in Germany’s capital. We’ll highlight two historical figures as we learn how their efforts helped create a modern city and learn about the legacy in Berlin today.

This first character we will discuss is James Hobrecht, the engineer and creator of the famous Hobrecht Plan for the urban expansion of Berlin in 1862 and of the Radialsystem sewage network. Next up is Rudolf Virchow, the physician, pathologist, and politician, who was instrumental in making the improvement of working and living conditions of industrialized workers and their families a political priority in Germany. These two visionaries and contemporaries, working in common cause, profoundly influenced the health planning of cities in Germany and Europe, and even those further abroad, including Tokyo, Moscow, and Cairo. After Hobrecht and Virchow inaugurated their sewer and water system in 1876, Berlin never again suffered from major outbreaks of the water-borne infectious diseases associated with poverty.

Hobrecht’s legacy is still visible everywhere in Berlin: in the Mietskaserne (working-class housing tenement) neighborhoods of Berlin (Kreuzberg; Prenzlauer Berg; Pankow; etc.) that are now highly desirable and trendy, as well as in countless examples of infrastructure. Arguably, no single person did more to determine the physical layout of modern Berlin. Despite the destruction, dictatorship, and division that followed in the twentieth century, the city’s topography remains distinctly Hobrechtian today. In many ways, this fact has made the current Covid-19 pandemic more endurable because Berlin’s comfortable nineteenth-century density, abundant green space, ubiquitous balconies, decentralized urban structure, and efficient transport and water systems still create conditions well-suited for urban dwellers to ride out unexpected threats to health.

Led by an expert on urban history and design, Jan Otakar Fischer, this interactive seminar will illustrate the modern struggle to make cities safe and humane. Designed to inform curiosity as well as future travels, participants will come away with an increased appreciation for how the health infrastructure of the Industrial Revolution shaped the cities we live in today.

Jan Otakar Fischer grew up in New York City, graduated from Williams College in 1985 with Honors in the History of Ideas, and received his Master's in Architecture from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design in 1990. He has worked as an architect and academic in Berlin since 1994. Jan has been a regular contributor to a wide range of publications, including The New York Times, the Harvard Design Magazine, the International Herald Tribune, the Architectural Record, and Places magazine, writing chiefly about European architecture and urbanism. He has taught urban studies, history, sustainability, and visual culture at the IES Berlin Metropolitan Studies Program for over a decade, and has served as an invited guest critic or lecturer at several universities. From 2010-2018 he was the co-founder and Academic Director of the Northeastern University School of Architecture Berlin Program, for which he also taught architectural history and sustainable practices.

This conversation is suitable for all ages.

90 minutes, including a 30 minute Q&A.

Customer Reviews

Based on 3 reviews
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N.B. (Salt Lake City, US)
Fascinating

Love, love, loved this lecture! Excellent presentation. Fascinating history of the early history of industrialization of Berlin and subsequent epidemics caused by overcrowding and poor sanitation. The revolutionary work of Holbrect in developing Berlin’s underground sewage system, Robert Koch’s and Rudolph Virchow’s contributions are also quite interesting. Fischer’s has terrific slides depicting Berlin over time. When I visited Berlin a few years ago and noted the five story apartment buildings with inner courtyards I didn’t appreciate their historical significance. —“Mietskaserne” built in the late 1800’s to accommodate the huge increase in the working class population. Anyone who enjoyed Jon Snow’s book “the ghost map” about the cholera epidemic in London really enjoy this lecture as well. Looking forward to more talks by Fischer. Great scholar!

L
Lisa Victor (San Francisco, US)
I'll Follow Jan Fischer Anywhere!

A very well spent 90 minutes! I hadn't realized how starved I was for knowledge and learning and understanding our world. Jan makes anything fascinating, even the sewers of Berlin!

J
J ARCHER OREILLY (Brookline, US)
Be Entertained and Learn at the same time

Very interesting and well presented. The Industrial Revolution created the enviornment for epidemic disease. The reaction in various European cities helped form their physical and social development. How public health concerns shaped the architecture and urban design of cities in the 19th century.

Customer Reviews

Based on 3 reviews
100%
(3)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
N
N.B. (Salt Lake City, US)
Fascinating

Love, love, loved this lecture! Excellent presentation. Fascinating history of the early history of industrialization of Berlin and subsequent epidemics caused by overcrowding and poor sanitation. The revolutionary work of Holbrect in developing Berlin’s underground sewage system, Robert Koch’s and Rudolph Virchow’s contributions are also quite interesting. Fischer’s has terrific slides depicting Berlin over time. When I visited Berlin a few years ago and noted the five story apartment buildings with inner courtyards I didn’t appreciate their historical significance. —“Mietskaserne” built in the late 1800’s to accommodate the huge increase in the working class population. Anyone who enjoyed Jon Snow’s book “the ghost map” about the cholera epidemic in London really enjoy this lecture as well. Looking forward to more talks by Fischer. Great scholar!

L
Lisa Victor (San Francisco, US)
I'll Follow Jan Fischer Anywhere!

A very well spent 90 minutes! I hadn't realized how starved I was for knowledge and learning and understanding our world. Jan makes anything fascinating, even the sewers of Berlin!

J
J ARCHER OREILLY (Brookline, US)
Be Entertained and Learn at the same time

Very interesting and well presented. The Industrial Revolution created the enviornment for epidemic disease. The reaction in various European cities helped form their physical and social development. How public health concerns shaped the architecture and urban design of cities in the 19th century.