In the western part of divided Germany, bitter complaints were increasingly heard as early as the 1960s about the monotonous architecture of satellite townships, the faceless industrial and business districts on the periphery of the cities, and the ill-considered construction marring the inner cities. There was talk of the “bleakness” (Alexander Mitscherlich) of the country’s inner cities before an urban development concept focusing on preservation of a city’s existing architecture and character was accorded political and social priority in the mid-1970s.

Architectural and urban development sins of at least equal magnitude were committed during this time in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). Valuable old buildings which had survived the war - most of them located in the inner cities - were razed. The scarce resources earmarked for residential construction were used to build massive precast concrete slab housing developments on the fringes of the cities. With the exception of a few reconstructed buildings (such as the Semper Opera House in Dresden) and new structures (such as the Five-Gable House in Rostock), architects had too little opportunity to successfully implement a style of architecture in keeping with the times.