From Totality to Relationality: Ludwig Hilberseimer’s Superblock and the Relational Urban Form

ABSTRACT - This essay examines two interrelated concepts – the superblock and the relational urban form – through the urban studies of Ludwig Hilberseimer. It advances three arguments. First, it situates Hilberseimer’s superblock within his broader project to reform the city and its architecture through a socio-ecological framework – an effort largely overlooked in twentieth-century architectural history. Second, it repositions the superblock within the lineage of modern urban formations, emphasizing its transitional role from the implementation of the master plan toward the instrumentalization of relational form. Third, it demonstrates his superblock proposition enables relational urban formations across scales and geographies and, therefore, remains relevant to contemporary urbanism. The essay argues that Hilberseimer’s superblock is not a fixed compositional entity but a proto-relational form: a spatial system structured by interdependence, hierarchy, and part-to-whole relations. Through close analysis of texts, drawings, and diagrams, it reveals a multi-scalar framework operating across building, settlement, and regional levels. Relational urban form thus emerges as an operational principle – one that mediates scales, accommodates changes, and organizes urban transformations incrementally.