(b Frankfurt am Main, 27 July 1886; d Hamburg, 12 Sept 1970). German urban planner, architect and writer. He was educated in London at University College (1907–8) and at the Technische Hochschule in Darmstadt (1908–10). After military service in Darmstadt he returned to London where he worked (1910–12) for Raymond Unwin. His work with Unwin was important for shaping his views on housing and planning, and in encouraging a sympathy for the social reforming attitudes that underlay Unwin’s views. In 1912 May returned to study under Theodor Fischer in Munich at the Technische Hochschule (1912–13), but his attempts to establish a private practice in Frankfurt were cut short by World War I. In 1918 May became architect to a non-profit housing organization in Silesia, Schlesische Heimstätten. Working on small rural developments there he was able to develop further the garden city ideas that he had explored with Unwin. In the plan for Breslau submitted for a competition in 1919, he abandoned the established system of stepped density zoning and proposed instead to accommodate the city’s new growth in a number of self-contained satellite communities, linked to the existing centre by tram or rail.

• May, Ernst (1886-1970)
  • Africa, §VI, 1(vi)(b): Western architecture: Modernism
  • Deutsche Gartenstadtgesellschaft
  • Parker & Unwin, §3: Later independent careers
  • Urban planning, §V, 4: c 1890–1945: Functionalism
  • collaboration
    • Schuster, Franz
  • groups and movements
    • International Style
    • Ring, Der
  • staff
    • Lubetkin, Berthold
    • Stam, Mart
  • teachers
    • Fischer, Theodor
  • works
    • Germany, §II, 7(i): Architecture, 1900–39
    • Germany, §II, 7(ii): Architecture, after World War II
    • Rationalized construction, §2(ii): Prefabrication: The housing problem
    • Schmidt, Hans