At the colony Törten in Dessau-Roßlau then Bauhaus director Walter Gropius created a cost-efficient row house settlement in 1926-28. Its goal was was to realize the intentions of the Bauhaus architecture in a practical experiment: cost-efficient, functional realization of light flats.
Altogether 314 row houses were built in Dessau Törten, either in a semi-detached way or in groups of four to eleven houses. Vertical and Horizontal lines of windows structure the façades. Being affordable residential properties with a garden for self-sufficiency, they offered an alternative to the apartment buildings in the inner cities.
The originally uniform appearance of the buildings has partially been lost today. The buildings have changed over the decades due to conversions and their changing inhabitants.
