Why are most city villas square?

At most, someone once called it a coffee grinder. The flat tent roofs did not exist back then; widespread were hip roofs and mansard roofs.

I still remember "coffee grinder"

Mansard roofs were rather built on single-family houses the narrower they were, in order to still have living space in the roof.

The flat tent roofs came onto some "coffee grinders" later, when their roof trusses were heavily war-damaged. Then the houses were made "rainproof" again with as little material as possible.

can you explain what you mean? I'm at a loss here.

I was talking about window formats (in the view). You can roughly divide them into three categories: portrait format (taller than wide or narrower than tall), landscape format (wider than tall and/or shallower than wide), and square (equal height and width). In this sense, I called those portrait format which are, for example, room-high but only half a meter narrow; and landscape format the room widths with the sill at chin height. By square-near I mean the formats where you have to look with reading glasses and a tape measure to distinguish them from square format. For example, 126/120 or 201/213. In my opinion, it looks worst when you "decorate" portrait (or landscape) and square-near formats directly next to each other.

Note, this is about windows. If in the floor plan next to a 9x13 long-format house there stands a square-near 5.5x6 garage, that is not disturbing.

I'm still a bit afraid of the dear Platz...

Which Platz?

On our property. I fear that it will be too close to the street, just as I would like it. But we will only see that after we have surveyed the property and been to the [Gemeinde]...

Interesting thread! We also build more "elongated," almost like the firecracker just a bit more compact.

The most f***ed up looks, in my opinion, is when you "decorate" maximum (or cross-) and square formats right next to each other.

I can't agree with that. For us, only one side of the house is really 100% symmetrical with the windows, and I like it.

I cannot agree with that.
With us, actually only one side of the house is truly 100% symmetrical with the windows, and I like it.

I don't see any contradiction there; I didn’t speak of symmetry either. Let’s take the entrance side from your avatar as an example: the front door is almost square, above it is a window in landscape format (but not extremely wide, more like 2:1). Next to the front door (closest but with some distance) follows a window in moderate portrait format (which also fits well, because the front door element consists of two vertically oriented parts). Chimney, upper window, and front door nestle against the centerline. Everything is fine. Symmetry isn’t required at all.

Thank you for the praise [emoji6]

Interesting to see how many different opinions arise here.