http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9527-7090
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ABSTRACT
For decades, German Democratic Republic (GDR) architecture was seen as parochial and dictated by the Soviets, yet increasing scholarly interest has generated a picture of debates and specific practices that were embedded in the global process of expansion and crisis of Modernism. Meanwhile, and influenced by the East-West conflict, competing concepts of modernization and national identity arose in the so-called Third World, initiating multifarious cultural transfer processes. This article analyses to what extent the architects from the GDR – a country whose building practice was increasingly shaped by the principles of industrial prefabrication – have played a part in regional contexts and construction methods. It also asks what their role was in international organizations such as Union Internationale des Architects and UNESCO, which promoted their practical engagement abroad. The subject raises issues of possible freedom of action in creative design and fusion processes, but also of bureaucratic constrictions and international relationships ending in unexpected conflicts. The examples outline the field of activities that stretches from pure blueprint delivery for a memorial competition to long-standing work on location when planning whole neighbourhoods. Furthermore, the article examines how the challenges of international planning impacted building culture within the GDR itself.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
ORCID
Andreas Butter http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9527-7090
Notes on contributor
Dr Andreas Butter, born in 1963 in Dessau, Saxony-Anhalt, is an art historian, specialised in the field of 20th century architecture. He has worked as a freelance expert for the monument authorities of Berlin and Brandenburg and author/curator for the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation. Since 2007 Butter teaches at the IES Chicago/Berlin. In his PhD thesis (publ. 2006 “Neues Leben, neues Bauen“) he explored the field of early modernist approaches in East Germany. Since 2010 Butter has worked for the IRS Erkner; in 2014 he was appointed as senior researcher in the project “Public spaces between planning and appropriation”, followed in 2015 by “Historical authenticity and the urban landscape“ and “The car oriented city, as an area of conflict”. The substantial founds in the collection and the institute’s contact to East German architects inspired him to conceive the actual project on East German architectural export.
Notes
1 Interview with Karlheinz Schlesier, 9 April 2014.
2 For further details as his subsequent positions at the Bauakademie and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) building department, see Weber, “Karlheinz Schlesier,” 198f.
3 Schwenkel, “Affective Solidarities,” 280.
4 Ibid. and Schwenkel, “Traveling Architecture,” 162f.
5 I refer another text by Castillo, “Promoting Socialist Cities.” See also Stanek, “Introduction: The ‘Second World’s’ Architecture.”
6 See Castillo, “Promoting Socialist Cities.”
7 Hong, “Through a Glass Darkly,” 45.
8 A political strategy conceived by West German Social Democrat leaders since 1963 and implemented after 1969, aiming at military de-escalation, humanitarian improvements, and even a convergence with the East depending on shared interests.
9 Hain, “Kolonialarchitektur?,” 101.
10 Butter, Neues Leben, neues Bauen, 328ff.
11 Hartung, “Zur Spezifik des Modernen,” 32 and 38.
12 See Urban, Neo-historical East Berlin, 9f.
13 The reports of the congresses and seminars document the unifying role of the general guidelines and programmes. See, for example: UIA ed. Vth congress of the International Union of Architects and Seminar on Public Health Institutions.
14 Statements of East German delegates and resolutions at the Cuba congress 1963 were printed in a special brochure and presented at the 9th plenary session of the building academy in 1963. See: UIA ed. UIA-Kongress 1963.
15 Kosel was a member of the SED central committee, vice secretary of Housing and Urban Development, short time director of the Bauakademie and 1977–1984 delegate for HABITAT.
16 The East German designation: Rat für Gegenseitige Wirtschaftshilfe (RGW).
17 Kosel, “Die Erfahrungen,” 11/12 and “Industrialisierung,” 13–15.
18 Kosel, “Industrialisierung,” 14.
19 Ibid., 5–6.
20 See Lembcke, preface, in: UIA-HABITAT Berlin-Rostock 1988, 5.
21 See the report on the working group ‘Wohnkomplex’, Deutsche Bauakademie, ed., UIA-Kongress 1963, 18ff.
22 See UIA-HABITAT Berlin-Rostock 1988.
23 IRS Erkner, archive, A_1, Nr. 88.
24 See Hinkel, Auszug aus Nubien and Tempel ziehen um.
25 Schulte, “Friedrich Hinkel”.
26 ‘ … kein sehr leichtes Land, aber meins’, from the song ‘Das Land meiner Wahl’, written by Kurt Demmler.
27 Graffunder, “Neues Botschaftsgebäude,” 726–35.
28 A documentation of Dietmar Kuntzsch’s design at his own collection.
29 A crucial role was played by the Weimar school of architecture (HAB). Until the mid-1980s, more than 400 foreign students, mostly from developing countries, received their diplomas and more than 70 earned doctorates, the projects often related to their home countries. The intention to strengthen a systematic approach led to the establishment of a Department of Building in the Tropics in 1985, headed by Hans-Ulrich Mönnig (born 1943). The institute also provided special knowledge for GDR architects who were involved in export projects and organised courses abroad, as in Hanoi, Havana, and Aden. See: Tropenbaubriefe 1 and 2.
30 An international debate on the transfer of architectural knowledge, urbanism, and building technology from the socialist states to the ‘developing countries’ during the Cold War period was initiated by Łukasz Stanek at the ETH Zürich some years ago under the title of ‘south of east west’. For further details, see: www.south-of-eastwest.net.
31 Mostly Federal Archive, Berlin, DE 4/23088 and 2 MF, and IRS Erkner, membership files of the East German Architects Association with personal project lists.
32 Interview with Horst P. Schoebel, 27 March 2012.
33 This impression was dominating, when the author frequently interviewed foreign assignment veterans. See also Mosler, Zwischen Dschungel, Taiga, Savanne.
34 Wentker, Für Frieden und Völkerfreundschaft?, 170ff.
35 To investigate how the aspiration of new social practices was connected with the architecture, how models of a paternalistic superimposed or an independent minded modernization took place will be one of the main issues of a recently started IRS Erkner research project, also including a comprehensive project database. See: https://leibniz-irs.de/en/research/projects/project/gdr-architecture-abroad-projects-actors-and-cultural-transfer-processes/.
36 Pisternik, Raeschler, and Rebetzky, Chronik Bauwesen, 36; blueprints at Bundesarchiv Berlin, DH-1 Plan/48 and 49.
37 Frank, Lessons from the Past, academia.edu.
38 This more general use of the term, labelling states in a crisis region, must not be confused with the same-named coalition of African countries.
39 Ibid., 57.
40 Weise’s draft of the Auschwitz is kept at IRS Erkner, archive, legacy of Rudolf Weise. See: www.digipeer.de/index.php?sf=0&al=auschwitz.
41 The Santiago project is kept at the IES Erkner, archive, legacy of Werner Rösler. See: www.digipeer.de/index.php?id=711641464.
42 Documentation courtesy by Martin Wimmer.
43 Neuber, Abuja, die neue Hauptstadt Nigerias, 107–12; Schwarzbach, Bauten und Projekte, 14–29.
44 Interview with Heinz Schwarzbach, June 2013.
45 See the examples of international projects: VE BMK Kohle und Energie, Betriebsteil Industrieprojektierung Berlin, ed. 20 Jahre Industrieprojektierung Berlin.
46 Information given by Karlheinz Schlesier, the location visited by the author in 2008.
47 Hillmann, “Bürobauten vom Typ Leipzig.” According to Hillmann, the GDR sold between 100 and 150 houses of this type to Poland after 1975.
48 Soviet price increases onward 1974 and delivery restrictions set up in 1981 did not diminish the East German commitment to these developing projects but forced them to intensify the cooperation with Western Germany, Wentker, Für Frieden und Völkerfreundschaft?, 164f.
49 Billhardt and Jacobs, Die Drushba-Trasse.
50 Wurbs, “Aufbau des ANC-Entwicklungszentrums Dakawa,” 51–4.
51 IRS Erkner, archive, A_1, Nr. 88.
52 Dagne, Das entwicklungspolitische Engagement der DDR in Äthiopien, 48.
53 See entry of Ulrich Müther: http://deu.archinform.net/arch/21347.htm.
54 Corts, “Müthers Freilichtmuseum,” 7.
55 See Seeböck, Schwünge in Beton.
56 Information provided by Tanja Scheffler, who examines Schilles’ work on behalf of the German Architecture Museum (DAM), Frankfurt am Main.
57 Hirschfelder, “Bauten der DDR im Ausland,” 544–5; Bräuer and Schulze, “Ngambo,” 36–9; Scholz, “Sansibar,” 736–41.
58 Wimmelbücker, “Architecture and City Planning,” 407–32. For a broader context, particularly concerning the East–West competition in Africa, see Avermaete, “Neues Bauen in Afrika,” 387–405.
59 Wimmelbücker, ibid., 427.
60 Wimmelbücker, ibid., 421, writes, that the Revolutionary Council originally had decided to build up to 10 floors.
61 See Scholz, “Sansibar,” 736ff. and Bochow, “Bauen in Tansania,” 742–9.
62 Information given by Mr Sam Sin, at that time interpreter for the German crew in Hamhung. Today, he lives in Germany and has completed a Dissertation about the Hamhung project in 2016.
63 Hong, “Through a Glass Darkly,” 56ff.
64 Interview with Heinz Willumat, 26 June 2012.
65 The typology, quite popular around 1930 – best-known examples by Hannes Meyer, Dessau Törten – was chosen in East Germany only a few times, specially around 1950. A singular and urban dominant example was built in Dessau in 1964–1965, when Karlheinz Schlesier, latter member of the Vinh-team, was working for the municipal planning administration.
66 Union der Freundschaftsorganisationen, ed., Spuren der Geschichte.
67 Wolfgang Krieger, former member of the Vinh team, created a small presentation shown at a Vinh-veterans reunion on 9 June 2012, stating that the GDR applied its experience ‘schematical and uncritical’ to Vietnam.
68 Wimmelbücker, “Architecture and City Planning,” 415 and statement by Heinz Willumat on 26 June 2012.
69 Schwenkel, “Traveling Architecture,” 167ff.
70 Peilin, Recollections, 58ff. The location visited by the author in 2014.
71 Krüger and Stich, “Wohnungsneubau,” 473.
72 Brandes, DDR-Architekten in Mosambik.
73 See Schwenkel, “Affective Solidarities,” 280ff. and the Vietnamese publication Union der Freundschaftsorganisationen, ed., Spuren der Geschichte.
74 Interview with Dietmar Kuntzsch on 1 June 2012 who also provided the pictures of the draft.
75 Kuntzsch, “Bilder aus London,” 21–3.
76 Léglise, “Ein Theater für Gastspiele,” 5–11.
77 Interview with Karlheinz Schlesier, 9 April 2014.
78 Paulick, “Einige Bemerkungen,” 479–81; Paulick, “Einige weitere Bemerkungen,” 224–5.
79 Schoebel et al., “Eine Wettbewerbsarbeit für den Libanon,” 373–6.
80 Paulick, “Einige weitere Bemerkungen,” 224; Entwurfsbüro für Industriebau II, “Schilfzellstoffwerk Rumänien,” 12–13.
81 Response: Schönrock, “Ist unsere Architektur zu aufwendig?,” 167.
82 Schoebel and Altenkirch, “Hängende Dächer,” 146–9. In 1961, Schoebel moved to West Germany, later was sent to the USA by Siemens.
83 Flierl, “Kritisch Denken,” 26ff.
84 Henn, Industriebau.
85 Interview with Walter Henn, November 1998.
86 Stanek, “Introduction: The ‘Second World’s’ Architecture,” 302.
87 Scheffler, Vom schnellen Scheitern.
88 Hirsh, Post-Modern Architectural Exchanges.
89 See also Scheffler, Vom schnellen Scheitern.