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The Siedlung Margarethenh�he, mostly only called Margarethenh�he, is considered as Germany's first garden city with regards to the architecture (not because of the co-operative concept) and forms the centre of Essen's district Margarethenh�he, where in 7.529 people (Status: 31.12.2005) live on an area of 147,09 hectare.
The estate itself is seen as a good example for humane habitation and has 935 buildings and�3092 accommodation units, which are administrated by the Margarethe Krupp-Stiftung�on 115 hectare of which 50 hectare wooded land have been determined as irreclaimable.Picture Copyright : http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Marga_haeuser1.jpg
History
The area used to belong originally to the district R�ttenscheid, which was in 1905 incorporated into the city of Essen. The first houses on the hill were completed in 1910, so the residents were Essen citizens right from the start. The Margarethenh�he was donated in 1906�by Margarethe Krupp on the occasion of her daughter's Bertha wedding and built from 1906�to 1938 by the architect Georg Metzendorf, a member of the Deutscher Werkbund.�It was exempt from all building regulations by government decree during construction as only once before the garden city Dresden-Hellerau.
The estate,�heavily damaged in the 2nd World War, was restored to its historical form after the war.�From 1962�to 1966 and from 1971�to 1980 the Margarethenh�he II was built south of the first estate; architectonically in parts inferior and especially in the last construction phase the building of high-rise buildings, social problematically. According to the foundation these house set 'a clear artistic contrast to the old� Margarethenh�he'. To correct the social, technical and aesthetic problems of Margarethenh�he II, a redevelopment was started in 1987 to 'clearly raise the public appreciation of the newer estate Margarethenh�he'.

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The Margarethenh�he I on the other hand was listed in the same year. A model apartment, furnished by the Essen Ruhrland Museum lets the visitor visualise the original design of the residential units and make him realise 'the living cultural importance of the monument Margarethenh�he with its variable type layouts also from�the inner-perspective'.
At times a small artist colony also existed at Margarethenh�he; its most important guest was the photograph�Albert Renger-Patzsch. This colony was resolved by the National Socialists; only a ceramic workshop still exists at the Margarethenh�he. It has moved by now to the pit Zollverein.
�Picture Copyright : http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Marga_haeuser2.jpg

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The architectonic homogeneity of the estate goes back on a trick of cost saving: the houses were not to look identically but to design every building individually would have broken the financially framework. That is why� Metzendorf drafted a set of elements that were again and again� recombined. The houses look different but stay stylistically uniformed.
Since its founding to the present the Margarethenh�he has been managed by the "Margarethe Krupp-Stiftung f�r Wohnungsf�rsorge". Even though the managed residential property was actually intended for the 'low-income classes', the Margarethenh�he I has changed today into a high-end residential area. In the city this is mostly related to nepotistic estate-intern clique, who preferred its own family members. The panel has also been blamed at times of racist allocation politics as the percentage of foreigners is very low in comparison to urban average, especially in estate� I. In any case living at the Margarethenh�he I is especially sought-after despite the noticeable confined living circumstances. Today there is also a primary school and four kindergartens available.
Picture�Copyright : http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Marga_markt.jpg�This article is based on the article from http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essen-Margarethenh%C3%B6he the free Encyclopedia Wikipedia and is under� http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU-Lizenz_f%C3%BCr_freie_Dokumentation . In� Wikipedia is a�http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Essen-Margarethenh%C3%B6he&action=history available.