BREMEN.
103
There are whole streets of these small one-family cottages in Bremen, alike
in the old districts and the new, and they give to the town so clear an impress
that comparison with other German towns is impossible.
In the streets of quite modern construction, houses intendel for two
families are more common ; but the size of the tenements and the general
scheme of the rooms are much the same as in the older houses. Here,
too, the street door opens into a corridor, beyond which lies the kitchen,
which either gives access to the back yard, or, if the house have a basement,
to a balcony. The two or three living and bedrooms run through from
front to back, the " good room ” facing the street, and the centre room,
should one exist, being, as before, lighted from the corridor, though the existing
building regulations proscribe this room. On the upper floor there is one room
extra above the corridor, making a tenement of three or four small rooms and
a kitchen. Occasionally the rooms alongside the corridor, both upstairs and
downstairs, are intercommunicable. Should there be an attic the space is divided
between the tenants, and the same applies to the cellar where it exists. A double
house of this type cost its owner £439, though now worth more, and its two
tenements were let for £12 10s. each per annum. Where there is a basementstory
its rooms may form a separate tenement, or they may be allotted to the
tenements above. It is not uncommon for a tenant on the ground floor to have
his kitchen in the basement, and here may at times be found a wash-house which
serves for all the house. In one house of the kind visited £6 10s. per annum
was paid for a basement tenement consisting of a living-room, a kitchen, and
a dark pantry ; and in another £8 15s. was paid for two rooms and kitchen
below and a room above. The conveniences are found within the house or in
the backyard, according to the age of the property. The following are the
proportions of rooms in typical two-story houses of modern date :—" Good
room ” or parlour, 12 feel 6 inches deep, 10 feet 9 inches wide, and 10 feet
6 inches high ; large bedroom, same measurement ; small bedroom, 10 feet
9 inches by 6 feet 6 inches by 10 feet 6 inches ; kitchen, 7 feet 10 inches by
7 feet 10 inches by 10 feet 6 inches. Many of the houses in these modern
working-class streets have small gardens in front and not uncommonly
verandahs as well, in both respects imitating the one-family houses of the
middle classes. The usual building material is either good red or yellow brick
or common brick plastered and painted a light colour.
A peculiarity of the housing of Bremen are the “ Gänge "or" Passages ”
found both in the Old or Hew Towns, but principally in the latter, where the
more primitive and more dilapidated of the “ Passages ’’ are found. Some of
the " Passages ” consist of double rows of cottages, and others are built in single
rows, the windows of one row looking on the back walls of the next, and
invariably they are very narrow, 5 feet being no uncommon width. Occasionally
a " Passage " is reached from a street which is in itself not much wider than a
" Passage," or in architecture superior to it. Thus Great Krummen Street
leads into “Small Krummen Street,” and out of "Small Krummen Street”
issue several typical "Passages,” one of them being 5 feet wide, though
consisting of a double row of cottages. Some of the Passages are blind
alleys, while others are connecting links between parallel streets ihe houses
in these "Passages” are nearly all single-family houses, and, being back to
back, the conditions of light and ventilation are not favourable, though they
Would be much more unhealthy than they are, except foi the fact that most of
the buildings are low. _ , . . . , ,
The fabric is of brick or half-timber work, and, as a rule, is in an advanced
state of decay. The internal arrangements are, for the most part, primitive in
the extreme. The door leads into a space which is neither corridor nor kitchen
yet which serves for both. On the other side of the ground floor will be found
a living-room (sometimes dignified by the name “good room ) and a bedroom,
seldom well lighted—not only because neighbours houses are only a lew feet
away, but because the rooms are low and the windows proportionately small.
Upstairs, beneath a high-pitched roof, is the attic, bare to the ti es, and serving as
a spare bedroom and general store place. In the larger of these ‘ Passage houses
the three lateral room arrangement already referred to (the middle room lighted
from the corridor or kitchen) sometimes prevails, and the attic is divided
into two apartments. The water supply is outside in the Passage, and one
