Sennestadt

Sennestadt is a district in the South-East of the German city of Bielefeld in North Rhine-Westphalia. With some 21,000 residents, it is renowned as a remarkable feat of urban planning. The satellite town of Sennestadt was created in the 1950s, in the heathlands and grasslands of the former municipality of Senne II, in accordance with the designs of the urban planner, Hans Bernhard Reichow, and it was primarily intended for post-war displaced persons and refugees. The town’s many distinctive urban planning features have attracted international attention.

The area in which the present district is situated was originally called Heepen-Senne (also Heepensenne or Heeper Senne) and it belonged to the County of Ravensberg. From 1346 onwards, it belonged to the County of Berg and, from 1647 onwards, to Brandenburg-Prussia. From 1813 onwards, Heepen-Senne was given the name "Senne II" and from 1816 onwards, it became a municipality in the District of Bielefeld.

On 15 February 1956 the Regional Authority of Westphalia-Lippe, the District of Bielefeld and the Municipality of Senne II founded the company, Sennestadt GmbH, in order to realise the award-winning plans of the architect and urban planner, Hans Bernhard Reichow. The goal was to build a new satellite town "on the green meadows" that was primarily intended for post-war refugees and displaced persons. Reichow's design was based on the "organic urban planning" of which he was a proponent, a form of urban planning that was inspired by the laws of nature and which strove for a decentralised city with plenty of greenery that provided a decent standard of living. Sennestadt GmbH purchased the necessary site, measuring around 400 hectares, provided the financial resources, developed the site and sold it to investors and eager developers. The first homes were occupied in 1958 and the new satellite town was essentially completed by the mid-1960s.

The Municipality of Senne II, which was part of the Administrative District of Brackwede, became the City of Sennestadt by charter dated 27 April 1965. In the context of the municipal reforms in Greater Bielefeld, Sennestadt – together with the rest of the District of Bielefeld – was amalgamated with the City of Bielefeld on 1 January 1973. In Sennestadt there was fierce opposition to the amalgamation. However, the legal objections to the local government reforms codified in the Bielefeld Act – which went all the way to the German Constitutional Court – were to no avail.

Pursuing his concept of "organic urban planning" and an "organic urban landscape", the planner and architect, Hans Bernhard Reichow, used the features of the landscape – the protected area of Bullerbachtal and a gravel pit that was created while the Autobahn was being built – in order to subdivide the new town, which held a German Grünes Kreuz (‘Green Cross’), into three boroughs: the Südstadt (‘South City’), the Weststadt (‘West City’) and the Oststadt (‘East City’). Sports fields were built on the site of the gravel pit, while a municipal park was built in Bullerbachtal. Reichow's requirement, that an urban model should incorporate all areas of life, tied in with the reformist concepts for society and living that characterised urban planning at the start of the 20th century. The buildings were supposed to be geared towards the rhythms of life and the modes of behaviour of their residents. In addition, the planners took the term "urban landscape" to mean a cityscape that neither closed itself off, as in the medieval city, nor sprawled outwards into the surrounding landscape, as in modern cities.

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