Good evening, everyone:

I’m visiting Augsburg, Germany – just outside of Munich – this week for the 500th anniversary of what is Europe’s first “social housing” project: the Fuggerei. I’ve been asked to contribute remarks to their celebration on both Friday night and on Saturday afternoon. I thought you might like to see what I propose to say.

The Fuggerei is a complex of some 200 homes located in the heart of Augsburg.  It was founded in 1522 by the Fugger family. It sought to provide the laborers of the town, together with their families, a safe, healthful, and – essentially – free home. It has built out its supports over time – creating what we in the States might call supportive housing. Over the entire 500 years, the Fugger family has continued to provide the Fuggerei’s funding, creating a Foundation dedicated to its support.

We’ll celebrate the event in two parts. On Friday night, I’ll speak after Count Fugger, the Bavarian governor, the Mayor of Augsburg, and the German Secretary of Transportation; we’ll then have a panel discussion. On Saturday afternoon, the Commissioner of the European Union, Ursula Van Der Leyden will give a talk on the New European Bauhaus, which has been heavily influenced by the Fuggerie. I’ll then give a brief talk trying to tie her remarks to our experiences in America; little bit of a challenge to do in ten minutes, but we’ll see . . . . . Commissioner VanDer Leyden, Count Fuger, and I will then do another panel.

So, here’s the Friday night talk – a bit hard to read unless read together with the Saturday version – I’ll reproduce that tomorrow night.

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"A Tapestry of Connection: Part I, The Social Elements of Home”

Guten Abend.

It is an honor to be here tonight to celebrate and honor five centuries of the Fuggerei.  

The Fuggerei set the pattern and the standard five hundred years ago for understanding home as a way for residents to locate themselves in – and connect to – the world. It stands for the power of enduring concurrence: introducing multiple community elements into a place – not as convenient add-ons, but as essential components of an integrated whole – and committing to sustain and improve that place over time.

The Influence of Fuggerei’s Principles and Practices

At the heart of the Fuggerei – that which has enabled it to endure over the last five centuries and influence so much of contemporary thought – is, therefore, a conception of not just the home, but also of the person, and what a person needs to flourish. This is truly what it means to design places – communities – that center human needs and values.

That essence is captured in the Fuggerei’s eight clearly described elements – elements that have guided the Fuggerei through its long history. For the purposes of simplicity in my remarks tonight and tomorrow, I’ve collapsed those eight into five principles and recast them slightly – I hope I haven’t done too much violence in the process.

I’ll discuss two of those principles tonight, and three tomorrow, and offer an example of how each has exerted enduring influence on the practices of other communities beyond Augsburg.

Five Principles of Fuggerei

The five are:

1. Designing at the human scale;

2. Embracing environmental sustainability and harmony with the natural environment;

3. Celebrating artisanship;

4. Creating places to strengthen social connection, bridge across difference, and connect to one’s history;

5. Ensuring that the community’s least fortunate residents have the supports they need to live full and productive lives.

This evening, I’ll start with the last two elements – not to confuse you, but because I think it’s the last two elements – social connection and family supports – that give the Fuggerei its exceptional and enduring resonance.

Element 4: Social Connection

In the early years of the 20th Century, the United States chose a misguided – and ultimately destructive – path in how we understood the home and the person.  We created a mental model in which the family unit was seen as radically independent and self-sustaining rather than as embedded in the richly interconnected, reciprocal networks of community.

Our policies and our built environment followed suit.  We favored landuse policies rewarding low-density, sprawl, and isolation . . . we over-invested in communities that kept people separated from critical supports and the opportunities for easy interaction . . . we permitted the forces of the private marketplace to dominate housing and community development, often leaving the public realm to wither.  

The principles of the Fuggerei model telegraphed with crystalline clarity that something very different was possible.  And, slowly, during the last fifty years, we in the United States have started to return to what the Fuggerei has understood and practiced for five hundred years: that humans, families, communities, and cultures flourish through respectfully crafted tapestries of connection.  

So, I want to quickly offer a few examples of how the fourth and fifth Fuggerei principles –social connection and family support – are being incorporated into contemporary developments in the United States.  

Creating places to strengthen social connection, bridge across difference, and connect to one’s history.

The fourth of my five Fuggerei principles is the importance of creating places to strengthen social connection, bridge across difference, and connect to one’s history.

The most fundamental element of the Fuggerei – the streets - carry a powerful social resonance, reminding us that people develop and thrive in tandem with neighbors, and through them with the wider world.

Consider a design feature as simple as the Fuggerei apartments all opening to the street – where the ebb and flow of life’s daily routines plays out, generating and continually reinforcing a sense of shared community.

That sense of connection is reinforced by the Fuggerei’s historical museums, which draw a clear thread between the living conditions of the past, the crisis of World War II, and the challenges and opportunities of the present.  Weaving a tapestry of shared identity across generations and life experiences from the threads of history.

As I said, we in the United States have struggled mightily with this idea of social sinews – indeed, we have far too often taken the opposite tack. My nation’s history is replete with reprehensible examples of the government constructing streets – or more precisely, highways – to separate and divide Black neighborhoods from access to work, from parks and public amenities, and from commercial activity.

We are, however, finally moving in the right direction – embracing the principles of the Fuggerei. Let me offer just one example.

At the northeast corner of our nation’s capital, a project is emerging called the 11th Street Bridge Project. Built on the site of an outdated car and truck bridge, the project seeks to tie together the affluent neighborhood on the west bank of the Anacostia River and the traditional African American neighborhood on the east side:

Like the streets of the Fuggerei, the Bridge transforms a place of passage into a community gathering place for people of all ages, economic classes, and backgrounds – encouraging the residents to expand their understanding of who their neighbors might be.

Element 5: Ensuring that the community’s least fortunate residents have the supports they need to live full and productive lives.

Turning to the fifth of my principles, the Fuggerei has ensured that the community’s least fortunate residents have the supports they need to enjoy full and productive lives.

The Fuggerei is grounded in the proposition that as individuals move beyond the immediately accessible realm of home, of nature, of craft, and of neighborhood, they often need additional supports to realize their potential, or to sustain their engagement with the wider community.

We have only recently made our peace with that idea in the United States, too often falling back on the tired and misguided notion that individuals must find their way to a better life on their own, without outside assistance.  But we have – however belatedly – come around to the Fuggerei perspective and are increasingly embracing the idea that helping individuals succeed is indeed the business of others – the government, to be sure, but also neighbors, friends, and social institutions.

A particularly powerful example of that ethic was launched fifty years ago in New York City. Called the Harlem Children’s Zone, it is a neighborhood of some 97 city blocks in which every young person has access to a suite of high-quality, interconnected supports in every dimension of their lives – from early childhood development to primary school . . . from health care to job training  . . . from recreation programs to arts and culture.

Conclusion

Although we in the United States have too frequently fallen short of the Fuggerei’s standards – it is indeed a shame that the two examples I’ve shared this evening are standouts, rather than the norm – we have also seen an increasing number of successes.  Over the course of 500 years, we’re learned that even as communities make missteps, the power of the Fuggerei principles enables those missteps to be recognized, re-oriented, and aimed toward a truer translation and adaptation of the Fuggerei principles to contemporary conditions.

Indeed, we have come to see that designing at a human scale . . . respecting the natural environment . . . elevating arts and craft . . . forging shared culture . . . and providing supportive services are essential elements of our understanding of home – indeed, they are every bit as essential as four sound walls and a roof.

There could be no greater honor than to celebrate with you the clarity of vision . .  the persistence . . . the durability . . . and the quiet dignity .  . . that began here five hundred years ago.

Congratulations to you all. I very much look forward to continuing this conversation with you tomorrow.

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