Colours could change the world. They could make our streets seem friendlier, warmer and more festive. But as it is, we have settled for boring soup, cream and pudding colours that rob the houses of any physicality.

Source: BR "Unter unserem Himmel" , 1982

Hide behind high, ugly fences. Wire mesh always looks like a makeshift that is rusting away. Worst of all are fences that have been thrown together. Made of several materials. And hunter's fence.

Source: BR "Unter unserem Himmel", 1981

Front doors are like a handshake. You know who you are dealing with at the first encounter. People have always attached great importance to the front door as long as it was important to them to show friends and neighbours that they are welcome.

Source: BR "Unter unserem Himmel", 1981

A roof is not a lid. It is the fifth and sixth wall of the house. The most visible: material, colour, its shape, its pitch, its dimensional relationship to the structure below, the superstructures, chimney and dormer, skylights and solar cells.

Source: BR "Unter unserem Himmel", 1980

"Windows are the eyes of a house," said the old master builders. Dieter Wieland shows [...] what makes old windows so beautiful and pleads for good proportions when renovating and building.

Source: BR "Unter unserem Himmel", 1979

For centuries, the hedge was the original form of field and pasture boundaries. Nothing has shaped the old cultivated landscape like this kilometer-long network of mostly thorny and fruit-bearing shrubs: beauty, biodiversity and ecological benefits.

Source: BR "Unter unserem Himmel", 1993

A clearcut is sweeping through the country. But it's not just the big schemes like the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal that are decimating the greenery in Germany. Never before have farms and villages stood so naked in the landscape.

Source: BR "Unter unserem Himmel", 1983

A devastating stocktaking in 1975: "Villages and farms have changed alarmingly to their disadvantage. Lack of understanding, bad taste, a bleak offer of industrial mass-produced goods have made building in the countryside bleak and uniform."

Source: BR "Unter unserem Himmel", 1975

The village of Weibersbrunn - a glaring example of historical misplanning and the centuries of hardship in the Spessart region until modest prosperity with Rhine-Main industry arrived.

Source: BR "Unter unserem Himmel", 1975

Redevelopment or destruction, inns or department stores, apartments or offices, people or cars? Dieter Wieland saw the old town of Landshut in danger in the early 1970s. His film caused a lot of excitement and discussion. 

Source: BR "Unter unserem Himmel", 1973