Residential building Kranichsteiner Straße

The location in which architect Ernst Balser (1893-1964) had this residential complex built in 1926-27 was quite challenging: the plot on Kranichsteiner Strasse in Sachsenhausen is trapezoidal in shape and has a slope both from east to west and from south to north. Balser's design for this double slope: two two-storey residential buildings are adjoined by a third, four-storey section; all the houses are clad in dark red brick. This design is rounded off in the truest sense of the word by the "round corner" towards the road junction. If you look closely, you will discover a little gimmick that Balser used to structure his buildings in terms of color: the horizontal bed joints are kept in a comparatively striking light grey-ochre tone. The vertical butt joints, on the other hand, are the same shade of red as the clinker bricks and therefore literally disappear.