Appearing between 1913 and 1934, Berlin's six Modernist housing estates, with their promise of 'light, air and sunshine' for residents, provided a welcome antidote to the gloomy tenement buildings of Wilhelmine Germany. Their clean lines made them hugely influential in 20th century architecture and town planning.

The Bauhaus art school revolutionised artistic and architectural thinking and work in the 20th century. Today, the original buildings in Weimar, Dessau and Bernau, along with museums and exhibitions, provide an insight into this formative building block of the modern age.

Built from 1911 to designs by Adolf Meyer and Walter Gropius, the subsequent star architect of the Bauhaus school, the Fagus Factory is widely regarded as the first truly modernist structure. Typical of the Neues Bauen style, the glass and steel facade and the huge, wrap-around corner windows free of supports lend the building an elegant feeling of lightness.

It is impossible to see into the future. But in 1927, whoever saw the new Weissenhof housing estate in Stuttgart found themselves in the 21st century – the concept and architecture were so groundbreaking. Two of the houses in this estate, designed by Le Corbusier, were elevated to the status of UNESCO World heritage sites in July 2016.