Number / distribution of outdoor lamps for square house approx. 9.40m x 9.40m

Most houses used to be plain, very simple, and extremely small

That's not quite true! Even the simplest farmhouses or barns had masonry decorative elements in the cornice and above windows and doors, or plastered window frames and surrounds... even the settlement houses of the 1950s. Just look at the industrial architecture of the Gründerzeit and turn of the century! You could call them industrial palaces. Today, plain halls and office buildings are erected... cheap and practical (like everything else). No matter how ugly the industrial buildings look in their surroundings.

Whoever modernizes a simple old house with history in such a way that the idea and history become visible will reveal a special charm. Whether it is a simple typical half-timbered house here in the Bergisches Land or a simple brick house from the Lower Rhine or a poor neighborhood house in Lübeck. Behind the seemingly plain dreariness there is always history. Those who look closely will recognize and feel some of it in most old houses. Will it be the same later with our square-meter-price-optimized plastered techno-cubes? Some architectural fashions are much more short-lived than a "simple old house." Just think of the concrete-sins residential-shopping-blocks of the seventies.

Our little houses were plain and small. People had to struggle to get enough to eat. It was a poor area. Even if the houses had decorations, one should consider who lived there. A few more heads than the classic family with 2 children, and there was also a side job that was carried out somewhere in the house. Very few could afford a fancy villa. Although the first occupancy was often by poor workers, a family in one room, often still renting a bed, sometimes only a sleeping place so that the houses were lived in dry. Back then it was different. No social benefits, very low wages and working conditions — hands didn’t cost anything.

With us, the little houses were plain and small. People had to fight to get enough to eat. It was a poor area.
Even if the little houses had decorations, one should keep in mind who lived there. A few more heads than the classic family with 2 children, and there was also a side job that was carried out somewhere in the little house.

Very few could afford a fancy villa. Although the first occupancy, often poor workers, a family in one room, sometimes even a bed rented out, sometimes only a sleeping place so that the houses were lived in dry.

Back then it was different. No social benefits, very low wages and working conditions, hands cost nothing.

But the poverty of the residents was often not reflected in the architecture. The best example are the Gründerzeit and Jugendstil houses in the workers' districts in the cities. All tenement blocks had elaborately designed facades in the front buildings (even then from the catalog), the apartments on the first two floors were elaborately decorated on ceilings and walls (in some houses all floors had ceiling stucco). Of course, there were also shabby small farm cottages or factory settlements. But in general, value was placed on “pretty” architecture, whether villa or tenement block. Today everything is built ugly, whether villa or “tenement block”... square, practical, good.

All tenement barracks had elaborately designed facades on the front buildings (even if already from the catalog back then)

Time for an Adenauer quote: "you know more than I do" :)

Then just google Wohnungselend Industrialisierung. It's all just a facade. Or take a city tour in Vienna with the SPÖ.