The urban district of Sennestadt in the south-east of the independent city of Bielefeld in North Rhine-Westphalia has around 21,000 inhabitants and stands out due to its special urban development.
The large housing estate Sennestadt was built from 1956 to around 1965 in the heath and meadow landscape of the former municipality of Senne II as a planned city according to the designs of the city planner Hans Bernhard Reichow, primarily for expellees and refugees. Conceived at the time as a car-friendly city, the concept of “organic urban architecture”, which had been criticized in the meantime, regained topicality.
Sennestadt is on the northern edge of the Senne. The district is bordered on the north by the main ridge of the Teutoburg Forest and on the west by the Autobahn 2. The Menkhauser Bach forms a natural border with the Lippe district in the east. The border between the County of Ravensberg and the Principality of Lippe ran here as early as the Middle Ages. Other streams such as the Dalke, the Strothbach, the Sprungbach and the Hasselbach drain the area following the natural gradient in a south-westerly direction towards the Ems. The landscape is partly characterized by sand dunes. Since the 19th century, the wooded areas of Sennestadt have increasingly been designated as protection zones for drinking water production.
Source: Wikipedia