198
DRESDEN.
Instead of eight rooms as on the ground floor, the first and each succeeding
floor has nine rooms (the extra room comprising the space corresponding to the
entrance passage on the ground floor), and these are usually divided into three
three-roomed tenements, or occasionally into one four-roomed, one three-roomed
and one two-roomed tenement. Over the fourth floor is the loft, part of which
is divided into as many small compartments as will allow a separate one,
used as a box-room or lumber-room, for each tenant. The undivided part of
the loft space is fitted up as a place in which the various families can dry their
laundry. The whole of the cellarage is divided into compartments, each tenant
being entitled to one (with a separate lock and key), which is generally used
for the stowage of fuel or potatoes. On each landing are three water-closets
with flushing tanks, and the water supply is in every case in the kitchen and
not on the landing as in the older houses. All rooms on the same floor are of
the same height from floor to ceiling. The following are the actual heights
from floor to ceiling of rooms in a house selected at random in the Erlenstrasse, a
modern street of the better sort largely inhabited by working-class families :—
Ground floor ...
First and Second floors
Third floor
Fourth floor
10 feet 3 inches.
10 „ 5 „
10 „ 1 „
All rooms are well supplied with light and air through windows communicating
direct with the open air.
The rent charged for the same amount of house-room varies somewhat
according to the position of the tenement. As a rule tenements on the first,
second and third floors are preferred to those on the ground or fourth floors.
Thus in the house just referred to, four rooms on the ground floor can be had for
£17 per annum (6s. 6(7. per week), while the corresponding tenement on the
first floor costs £20 (7s. 8d. per week). For the three-roomed tenements,
consisting in each case of one front room separated from two back rooms by a
corridor, the rents paid are :—
1st floor ... ... £14 per annum (os. 5d. per week).
2nd „ £15 „ „ (5s. 9d. „ „ ).
3id ,, ... ... £lo ,, ,, (5s. 9dm ,, ,, ).
4th ,, ... ... £13 5s. ,, (os. 1 (7. ,, ,, ).
In these tenements the kitchen, which is at the back, is usually long
and narrow (about 14 feet by 6J feet) ; the bedroom, which is also at the
back, measures some 14 feet by 13 feet, and the living room, which is in the
front, some 16 feet by 13 feet. The second, third and fourth floors of this
house have each a three-roomed tenement of which all the rooms are in front.
On entering one of these tenements one finds one’s self in a small vestibule
6 feet by 5^ feet, with a door on the right admitting to the living room
(16 feet by 13 feet), a door on the left admitting to the bedroom (16 feet by
7 feet), and a door in front admitting to the kitchen (10 feet by 5J feet).
The rents charged for these tenements are :—
2nd floor ... ... £14 per annum (5a. 5d. per week).
3rd „ £12 10a. „ (4a. 10(7. „ „ ).
4th „ £12 „ (4a. 8(7. „ „ ).
In many of the best quarters of the town, where the line of houses frontino*
the street is exclusively occupied by middle-class tenants, there stands behind
that line a second and sometimes even a third parallel row of buildings not
visible from the street, and occupied almost entirely by working-class families.
The width of the space separating the one row from the other is equal to the
depth of the row, so that ample provision is made for light and air. The back
rows of houses are known as Hinterhäuser or Hintergebäude and are reached
from the street by passage-ways wide enough and high enough to admit fireengines
in case of need. The Strehlenerstrasse, in one of the best quarters of
the town, furnishes a good example of this style of utilizing deep building sites.
The contrast between the working-class tenements in the inner town and
those in the outlying and modern quarters will, perhaps, have been made
sufficiently clear by what has been said. The accommodation in the outer town
is much superior. There a dwelling without its own corridor or vestibule
