STUTTGART. 
469 
Another adjunct to many working-class and other tenements in 
Stuttgart, which somewhat ameliorates the overcrowding which high rents 
create, is the so-called “ alcove.” This is a windowless ante-room, generally 
entered from a proper living or bedroom, or lying between two such rooms. 
Its darkness and absence of independent ventilation make it unsuitable for 
use as a bedroom, though a bed will as often as not be found in it, 
together with domestic superfluities, in the form of furniture and lumber, 
for which space cannot be found elsewhere. The presence of an alcove 
in a house is a decided practical advantage, though it does not make any 
serious difference to the rent. To a tenement of three and generally of two 
rooms belongs also an attic store room, known as a “ Kammer ” or 
“Bühnenkammer,” or a portion of cellar, though sometimes both these 
appurtenances go together. Attic rooms are occasionally separated from each 
other by plastered walls, and lighted by separate skylights in the roof, but as a 
rule they are merely portions of a large loft, divided by lath partitions, and 
only useful as storage spaces, or at best for washing and drying clothes. 
But these features of the Stuttgart tenement must be regarded as pecu 
liarities father than as creating a special type of dwelling. A typical working- 
class dwelling cannot be said to exist here, for the devices to which builders and 
tenants have been compelled to resort in their endeavour to husband all available 
space have destroyed individuality of structure. For example, corridors are 
universal, and rooms do not open direct upon the landing, but it is a common 
arrangement for two tenements to be approached from the same corridor and even 
for one kitchen to be used by two households, to the disadvantage of domestic 
privacy. In the case of such double tenements one suite of rooms may be 
found on each side of the corridor, to the front and back respectively, or the 
rooms may be apportioned to the tenants without regard to contiguity, and 
simply with a view to obtaining the best possible rents. Where rooms lie 
together, however, they generally open into each other. 
Like so many large German towns which are still passing through the 
transition caused by the industrial development of recent years, Stuttgart has 
an “Old Town” (Altstadt), and it is here that the nearest approach to the 
English idea of slums will be found. The courtyards are small, dirty and 
present evidence of neglect and decay. The buildings themselves are dilapi 
dated, the approaches dark and forbidding, the stairs narrow, rickety, and 
treacherous, the rooms generally low, small, and abandoned to tenants of the 
poorer sort, who pay disproportionately high rents for their inferior and meagre 
accommodation. The sanitary conditions of much of this property are beyond 
remedy, in spite of by-laws and building police, and the only hope for the 
health of the “ Old Town ” area is in a more wholesale clearance than has yet 
taken place. A single room in this decayed part of the town costs from 
3s. 6<A to os. per week, the higher figure including as a rule a small 
kitchen, and the lower figure the joint use of one with another tenant. 
A tenement of two rooms with kitchen costs from 5s. to 7s., and one of three 
rooms with kitchen 7s., 8s., and 9s., according to the quality of the 
accommodation. The “ Old Town ” is generally regarded by social reformers 
as the darkest spot in the housing arrangements of Stuttgart, and present 
efforts are directed far more towards ending than mending it. Already the 
Association for the Welfare of the Working Classes has, with the co-operation 
of the municipal authorities, purchased and demolished a number of the 
worst houses and has replaced them by smaller buildings, containing shops 
below and dwellings above, in which modern requirements as to space, light, 
ventilation, and hygienic conditions generally are fully met, and this policy will 
be continued so far as the society’s opportunities and resources allow. 
On the other hand, the modern working-class houses of Stuttgart are as a 
rule substantially built, and though less attention is paid to external decoration 
than in some other large towns their appearance is far from being inhospitable. 
The houses of more recent construction especially have spacious approaches — 
entrance-lobbies, stairs, and landings—and their rooms, besides being lofty, are 
not infrequently made bright and cheerful by neat cornices of plaster or stencil 
work. The stairs are generally of wood, though many are of stone as far as 
the second floor or even higher. In Stuttgart, too, the balcony—here called