“The first and at the same time the largest workers’ colony in the Ostmark”. The Zabikowo suburban housing estate as an example of urban planning in the service of the German colonisation policy

Abstract

The housing estate in Zabikowo, near Poznan, was constructed between 1905 and 1909 as a realisation of the idea of German internal colonisation and one of the leading propaganda undertakings initiated by the Royal Prussian Settlement Commission with the aim of intensifying Germanisation of the land of the Province of Posen (now Poznan). Zabikowo was to be a model planning and architectural complex, a model for worker-rural settlements which would combine the agricultural character of a suburban settlement with the income opportunities offered by the developing industrial centre. This places it in the broad context of the reception of Ebenezer Howard’s concept of garden cities. No less important role in its planning and construction was also played by the concern, noticeable in the urban planning of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, for creating convenient living conditions raising the hygienic standard of life of the inhabitants and the use of planning possibilities in order to arrange the space contributing to the strengthening of social ties between the settlers. Investigating the history of this project is therefore a case study, demonstrating both the ideological aspect and the urban and architectural solutions used, documenting the process of colonisation of the eastern borderlands of the German Reich supervised by the state administration.