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04/19/2018 | Pressemitteilung

Bauhaus arcade houses in Dessau: connection leads to Detroit

The urban planning concept for the arcade houses in Dessau - recently designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site - goes back to Bauhaus teacher Ludwig Hilberseimer. This is one of the results of a research project, the interim status of which the scientists involved informed today (April 19) in Dessau. Via Hilberseimer, there is a direct connection between the Dessau buildings and the legendary Lafayette Park in Detroit. Kassel architecture professor Philipp Oswalt, head of the project, proposes to add a prototype of the low-rise buildings planned by Hilberseimer 90 years ago, but which remained unrealized, to the arcade houses.

Image: University of Kassel
Photo collage for the proposal of a replica of the growing house of Ludwig Hilberseimer in Dessau Törten, property Mittelbreite 12

Oswalt, professor at the University of Kassel and former director of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, together with project partners from the Universities of Weimar and Halle, the HBK Dresden and the Wohnungsgenossenschaft Dessau eG as the owner of the apartments, provided information on the findings to date of the research project on the history and original condition of the arcade houses in Dessau-Törten. In addition to the history of the development, there are also new findings on the original condition of the apartments: For example, the interior of the apartments was apparently much simpler than previously assumed. Archaeological excavations also yielded findings on the original design of the outdoor facilities.

Researchers from the University of Kassel were able to prove, among other things on the basis of diploma certificates, that the overall planning goes back to the Bauhaus teacher Ludwig Hilberseimer (1885 - 1967). It envisaged three-quarters apartments in a condensed, single-story low-rise design. While these plans remained largely unrealized in Dessau, Hilberseimer realized the prototype of a low-rise building a short time later in Berlin. At the end of the 1950s, he then implemented his ideas together with Mies van der Rohe in the pioneering Lafayette Park project in Detroit/USA. The research group now proposes to realize the Berlin prototype next to one of the Laubengang houses.

The arcade houses in Dessau-Törten, which have hardly been researched so far, are the most important and, apart from the destroyed Nolden House, the only realized building project of the Bauhaus department of the historical Bauhaus. They manifest the Bauhaus concept of combining research-based teaching with practice, and of working on and implementing practical design tasks in the classroom. At the same time, the arcade houses are an important contribution to the debate at the time about housing for the subsistence level and to the urban planning debate about modern forms of development. Realized after the outbreak of the Great Depression in 1930, they represent the beginning of a new phase of modern building: out of a conscious rejection of the formal and stylistic conventions of building that had by then become entrenched, the Bauhaus director at the time, Hannes Meyer, and the teachers and students involved sought a consistent orientation towards economy and use, which led, among other things, to the use of local building materials (brick), new technologies (such as central apartment heating, garbage chutes), and modern, communal apartment typologies.

In July 2017, the Laubenganghäuser in Dessau-Törten were inscribed on the UNESCO Bauhaus World Heritage List along with the Bundesschule des Allgemeinen Deutschen Gewerkschaftsbundes in Bernau.

The three-year research project "The portico houses in Dessau-Törten. Reconstruction and Analysis of the Planning, Construction and Utilization History of the Bauhaus Dessau Project under the Direction of Hannes Meyer" is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the State of Saxony-Anhalt and actively supported in many ways by the Wohnungsgenossenschaft Dessau eG as owner. Under the direction of the University of Kassel, the Bauhaus University Weimar (measurement), the Martin Luther University Halle (archaeological investigations) and the Dresden University of Fine Arts (restoration investigations) are involved. 

 

 

More information about the subprojects and contact persons:

Archaeological investigations

Up to now, there was hardly any information available on the early structuring and use of the exterior of the arcade houses. Neither are construction-period plans available, nor do the available sources - private photographs, interviews with contemporary witnesses, historical invoices, and aerial photographs  -  provide satisfactory clues about the (early) design of the outdoor facilities. Therefore, archaeological excavations took place in April 2018 in the outdoor facilities of the pergola house Peterholzstrasse 48, recording the remains of the historic property fencing, a children's playground, a laundry area, and a water tapping point presumed in the ground, as well as investigating the parcelling and individual use of the back garden by the tenants.

In the first two weeks, it was already possible to obtain numerous clues about the structure of the grounds. Among other things, the relics of a radio antenna mast for long-wave reception and the water tapping point could be documented in situ. In comparison with the historical documentation, these features can be addressed as being from the construction period and thus represent an example of modern archaeology par excellence. The richly recorded find material also illustrates the almost 90-year history of the use  and design of the facilities by various actors against the background of a repeatedly changing zeitgeist.

It is planned to carry out further archaeological investigations in the area between the house and the street in 2019 as part of future modernization measures.

 

Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Institute for Art History and Archaeologies of Europe

Seminar for Archaeology of the Middle Ages and Modern Times, Prof. Dr. Tobias Gärtner

 

Processing period: January - September 2018


Contact:

Felix Rösch (Project Management)

Email: felix.roesch[at]praehist.uni-halle[dot]de

Tel.: 0177-5571472

 

 

Restorative investigations

The aim of the work is to record the surfaces of all structural and built-in parts of the five arcade houses from the point of view of restoration. On site, the graduate student will record the color, texture, structure, and facture (=work trace/indication of the type of craftsmanship) for each surface.

Work on the object is done with the aid of scalpel, magnifying glasses, daylight lamps, NCS color fan and UV radiation. The results are compared with primary sources from the archives (hist. photos, construction-period invoices/cost quotations), recorded photographically and processed on the PC. On the basis of samples taken, the composition of the materials is subsequently determined in the laboratory, also for a large part of the painting materials and also for the mortars used on the building, in order to know the "recipe" for suitable repair materials in the future, in order to be able to make a digital visualization of the building-period appearance and also in order to be able to show (in the museum apartment) the reconstruction of the historic paintings -not only in terms of the color tone- but also in terms of the suitable material and the suitable craftsmanship technique.

The results of the study of the inventory in the museum apartment differ from what has been presented since the 1990s for the interiors as a building-period version. In all likelihood, the building-period design turned out to be plainer. Final results will be available in September 2018.

The results will be used, among other things, in the redesign of the model apartment at Peterholzstraße 40 planned by the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation (scheduled for implementation by the end of 2018).

 

 

Dresden University of Fine Arts

Art technology, conservation and restoration class

of mural painting and architectural coloration, Prof. Dr. Phil. Dott. Thomas Danzl;

Processing period End of October 2017 until beginning of July 2018.

 

Contact:

Marthe Meyer, graduate student (thesis).

Email: marthe90[at]web[dot]de

 

Measurement:

From March 12-23, 2018, eleven students from the Bauhaus University Weimar, under the guidance of a tutor and two project managers, measured the Peterholzstraße 48 portico house, including the associated washhouse. In doing so, they encountered great courtesy from the tenants, without whose consent they would not have been able to view the entire house. In order to inconvenience the residents as little as possible, they decided to work in the apartments with a laser scanner, which meant that the work in the apartments could be completed more quickly. All other areas, such as facades, stairwells, site plan, etc., were surveyed with a total station. Photogrammetrically rectified photos will also supplement the elevation drawings. In particular, elements from the construction period were drawn in greater detail on a larger scale. For example, the steel window in the washhouse. However, individual building-period elements of the arcade houses are archived in the Bauhaus Foundation's component archive, where the students were able to draw eleven components (windows, doors, railings, cupboard, etc.) in detail in hand measurements.

The evaluation of the measurement data has been completed, and now the final drawings are being made. The plans will then be available for research, for the preservation of historical monuments and for the owner for future measures on the building.

Based on the measurements and further examinations of the building, various archival documents and interviews with residents, the University of Kassel will then determine the original condition of the houses and depict them in 2 and 3 dimensions.

 

Bauhaus University Weimar

Faculty of Architecture, Chair of Historic Preservation and Building History, Prof. Dr. Hans-Rudolf Meier

Processing period: January to May 2018

 

Contact: Marten Becker and Iris Engelmann (project management)

mobile: 0176 45 66 91 55

e-mail: marten.becker[at]uni-weimar[dot]de

 

Project management and research building history

A team of 5 university lecturers, two research assistants and one research assistant and one student assistant each researches the history of planning, construction and use. Among other things, influences, authors and other participants are identified as well as the original condition of the buildings and the structure and organization of the Bauhaus teaching under Hannes Meyer.

Source material from more than 20 archives in Germany, Switzerland, Denmark and the USA was obtained and its evaluation begun. Four residents of the arcade houses, some of whom spent their childhood there, were interviewed, and room books and photo documentation of three of the five arcade houses were prepared. A three-day international symposium on Hannes Meyer's pedagogy was held in March, the results of which will be published in the Bauwelt-Fundamente series by the end of the year.

 

Focus innovation mixed-use development:

The realization of the 5 Laubengang houses in 1929/1930 took place within the framework of an overall plan for a mixed-use development that included ¾ apartments in a condensed, single-story low-rise design. The research of the University of Kassel proves, among other things on the basis of diploma certificates, that this conception goes back to the Bauhaus teacher Ludwig Hilberseimer, who had developed it step by step at the Bauhaus from the end of 1928 onwards, based on the idea of social mixing and the possibility of choosing housing types.  Hilberseimer was able to realize a prototype of the flat construction method, which remained unrealized in Dessau-Törten, two years later as part of the legendary exhibition "The Growing House" in Berlin. After the war, the collective around Hans Scharoun tried to realize Hilberseimer's invention of mixed-use development in Berlin-Friedrichshain, but this also remained only a fragment. But at the end of the 1950s, Hilberseimer was finally able to realize this idea as part of the legendary Lafayette Park Detroit project, the precursor of which, so far little noticed, stands in Dessau-Törten.

 

Design/ Build

The research group proposes to realize again the prototype of Hilberseimer's Growing House directly next to one of the arcade houses on the property Mittelbreite 12, which is owned by the city of Dessau-Roßlau, on the one hand to illustrate the idea of the overall planning and on the other hand to refer to the important line of tradition in the history of modernism that started here. Taking up the concept of Hannes Meyer's building theory, the project should be realized with students as a design/build project. The building should serve as an exhibition building and can be equipped with a small exhibition on the topic.

 

University of Kassel
Department of Architectural Theory and Design, Prof. Philipp Oswalt

Processing time: November 2016 - October 2019

 

Contact

Philipp Oswalt

Email: oswalt[at]asl.uni-kassel[dot]de

Tel: 0151-19600092

 

 

Owner

The research project was initiated by the owner, who has made the work possible and supported it in many ways since the beginning (contact with tenants, access to examination of the buildings, access to documents, provision of rooms, and much more).

 

The Wohnungsgenossenschaft Dessau, as the owner of the five arcade houses, has supported and promoted the research project from the beginning. We see this research project as a basis for the modernization projects planned for the future.

 

Contact

Housing cooperative Dessau eG

Chairman of the board Mr. Nicky Meißner

Wolfgangstrasse 30

06844 Dessau-Roßlau

Tel.:   0340 / 260 22 100

Tel.:   0173 / 386 62 731

E-mail:  n.meissner[at]wg-dessau[dot]de