Hufeisensiedlung

thumb|right|Central building structure of the "Horseshoe" The Hufeisensiedlung ("Horseshoe Estate") is a housing estate in Berlin, built in 1925–33. It was designed by architect Bruno Taut, municipal planning head and co-architect Martin Wagner, garden architect Leberecht Migge and Neukölln gardens director Ottokar Wagler. In 1986 the ensemble was placed under German heritage protection. On 7 July 2008 it was inscribed as one of six estates that constitute the Berlin Modernism Housing Estates World Heritage Site.

== Historical background == At the beginning of the 20th century Berlin was growing dramatically. From 1850 to the end of the 1920s its population had roughly doubled every 25 years. It was not only the cultural heyday of the Golden Twenties which caused a rapid increase in population, but also the advance of industrialisation and the end of the First World War. Groß-Berlin (Greater Berlin), which had only come about in 1920 through the amalgamation of several districts in the city and its suburbs, was doing full justice to its name. At 3.8 million people, the number of inhabitants not only exceeded today's population but also made Berlin the third-largest metropolis in the world at that time after New York and London.