Publications I Architecture

2017 (Together with Christian Hiller, Alexandra Nehmer and Anh-Linh Ngo)

Whether Trump or Brexit, FPÖ or AfD: right-wing populist parties and movements are mobilizing worldwide against globalization – and against universalism. Their success is also linked to justified criticism of the social upheavals caused by neoliberalism and financial capitalism. However, the crisis phenomena of modernization are merely addressed rhetorically by the populists in order to promote particularism and nation-state egoism. The coalescence of the global community and the hard-won universal values of modernity in terms of civil liberties, equality and solidarity are coming under attack. This trend reversal is taking place at a time when problems such as climate change and migration are calling for greater international cooperation.

With this issue, which, like our March 2016 issue Can Design Change Society? was produced as part of the projekt bauhaus, we want to paint a differentiated picture of universalism. To this end, we take a critical look at the architectures of globalization: above all, we are referring to the structures of globalized supply chain capitalism, which ensure the worldwide exploitation of resources and labour and the universal circulation of capital and goods, while mobility proves to be a privilege of the rich part of the world's population. This raises the question of alternative thought models for a migratory world society, which calls for new cosmopolitan norms (Seyla Benhabib) and a 'right to the world' beyond the borders of nation states. In the slipstream of the critical discourse on the universalism of modernity, globalized capitalism has developed a selective universalism: While rules that facilitate economic exploitation – such as patents, copyrights and industry standards – enjoy almost universal application, inequality is constitutive of contemporary capitalism in other areas of law, such as labor rights, environmental protection and tax laws. It is precisely the selective linking and decoupling of areas of different regulatory regimes that is fundamental to today's global economic system. It would therefore be wrong to attribute the current crisis solely to an excess of universalism.

The issue shows that architecture occupies a neuralgic point at which the forces of globalization and local self-determination are negotiated. Hardly any other discipline is so well suited – and at the same time so obliged – to tackle today's challenges and help shape a universal right to the world.

ISBN-10: 3035617244
ISBN-13: 9783035617245
Price: €29.95

Hannes Meyer, Walter Gropius' successor as Bauhaus director (1928-1930), was the subject of much controversy. This book clears up gross misrepresentations that run through Bauhaus historiography and provides many unknown facts about the political biography of the architect and socialist. The person and work of Hannes Meyer crystallize a fundamental debate on the difficult, still pressing question of how architecture can contribute to a better common life.

The first part of this book documents Hannes Meyer's Bauhaus concept with reprints of historical publications from three decades. The second part analyzes the further development of Meyer's ideas and the debate about them in various parts of Europe and America since the late 1920s. In this way, the important line of tradition of an architecture engagée is traced, ranging from the American Left to the Italian Rationalists and the HfG Ulm, and in parallel from the Soviet avant-garde to Czechoslovak post-war modernism, the HAB Weimar and the Bauhaus Foundation in Dessau.

ISBN-10: 3959051506
ISBN-13: 978-3959051507
Price: € 32.00

Today, we all complain about an overabundance of restrictive standards. So it seems time to dedicate an issue of ARCH+ to standardized architecture. This issue deals with the role of the norm in architecture, and this in several senses: as a process of technical standardization, as disciplinary standardization and as biopolitical normalization. This three-step approach shows that the debate about the norm is by no means merely technical, but rather has a fundamental social significance.

This is precisely the argument put forward by Maria Muhle in this issue when she looks at Michel Foucault's "social" interpretation of the norm. Foucault plays a central role in the discourse on the norm, as it was him who turned its understanding on its head, so to speak: Following the philosopher of science Georges Canguilhem, he stated that the norm does not work by acting on an already existing reality, but must first create this reality itself. This is the only way to properly understand an essential characteristic of the norm, its expansive, sprawling mechanism of action.

We can therefore not deal with the norms and the problems they create, as can be observed in major projects such as BER airport, by trying to reduce their number or even abolish them. Instead, we need to focus on the conflicts that standards claim to regulate, be they of a technical, social, economic or political nature. Only then can we understand the architecture of the norm and deal with it productively. This issue, which was produced in collaboration between ARCH+ and the Department of Theory of Architecture and Design at the University of Kassel, makes a significant contribution to this.

Price: 22,00 €

Nowhere else in Germany is there such a density of magnificent and at the same time fatal post-war modernist buildings as in the Northern Ruhr region: newly created cities and city centers, experimental residential structures, structural engineering experiments, innovative mobility concepts and much more. One example of this Ruhr modernism is the former secondary school in Marl, which was transformed into "Marschall 66" for the summer of 2017. One hundred students, vocational school pupils, teachers and artists transformed the building, which had been empty for eight years, into a temporary museum for Skulptur Projekte Münster 2017. During the program 100 Hours of Brutalism, it became an ideas laboratory, discourse platform, architecture workshop and hotel for a short "summer of utopia".

ISBN-10: 373760486X
ISBN-13: 978-3737604864
Price: €18.00

In recent years, Argentinian artist Tomás Saraceno has become internationally renowned for his vision of cloud cities – flying structures that can be walked on by people and are virtually inhabitable. Flying Plaza presents a conceptually important series of works in which wind power and solar radiation are used to fly and hover. This active form of flying spatial structures opens up new questions about people's relationship to nature, the cosmos and the weather and thus addresses essential topics of human existence in the Anthropocene.
The publication presents not only the group of works, but also the artistic practice at Studio Saraceno in the form of a working journal: the projects here are in continuous progress, in a dynamic evolutionary process of realization. Never completed, but never just a draft.

ISBN-10: 9783959050296
ISBN-13: 978-3959050296
Price: €28.00

Whether Trump or Brexit, FPÖ or AfD: right-wing populist parties and movements are mobilizing worldwide against globalization – and against universalism. Their success is also linked to justified criticism of the social upheavals caused by neoliberalism and financial capitalism. However, the crisis phenomena of modernization are merely addressed rhetorically by the populists in order to promote particularism and nation-state egoism. The coalescence of the global community and the hard-won universal values of modernity in terms of civil liberties, equality and solidarity are coming under attack. This trend reversal is taking place at a time when problems such as climate change and migration call for greater international cooperation.

With this issue, which, like our March 2016 issue Can Design Change Society? was produced as part of the projekt bauhaus, we want to paint a differentiated picture of universalism. To this end, we take a critical look at the architectures of globalization: above all, we are referring to the structures of globalized supply chain capitalism, which ensure the worldwide exploitation of resources and labour and the universal circulation of capital and goods, while mobility proves to be a privilege of the rich part of the world's population. This raises the question of alternative thought models for a migratory world society, which calls for new cosmopolitan norms (Seyla Benhabib) and a 'right to the world' beyond the borders of nation states. In the slipstream of the critical discourse on the universalism of modernity, globalized capitalism has developed a selective universalism: While rules that facilitate economic exploitation – such as patents, copyrights and industry standards – enjoy almost universal application, inequality is constitutive of contemporary capitalism in other areas of law, such as labor rights, environmental protection and tax laws. It is precisely the selective linking and decoupling of areas of different regulatory regimes that is fundamental to today's global economic system. It would therefore be wrong to attribute the current crisis solely to an excess of universalism.

The issue shows that architecture occupies a neuralgic point at which the forces of globalization and local self-determination are negotiated. Hardly any other discipline is so suited – and at the same time so obliged – to tackle today's challenges and help shape a universal right to the world.

Price: 22,00 €

When Dessau was bombed in the spring of 1945, the Director's House and the Master's House Moholy-Nagy were also reduced to rubble. After the Dessau master house estate – the epitome of the artists' colony in the 20th century – was restored to its original state in the 1990s, a debate began about the reconstruction of the two houses destroyed in the war. In 2010, with the advice of the English star architect David Chipperfield, it was decided not to rebuild the Gropius and Moholy-Nagy master houses on a 1:1 scale, but to reconstruct them using contemporary means. And so they have now been rebuilt in an innovative reduction and abstraction of the respective original house according to designs by the Berlin office Bruno-Fioretti-Marquez. This volume describes the eventful history of the Dessau master house estate and presents the reconstructed buildings for the first time in book form with photographs by Armin Linke and Heidi Specker.

ISBN: 9783944669618
Price: €40.00

Clear methods are helpful for measuring and evaluating the "performance" of buildings – this applies to both the planning and use phases. Although most planners and operators want to achieve the goals of energy efficiency, cost-effectiveness and sustainability of buildings with a high level of user satisfaction, the evaluation of the planning decisions considered for this purpose is challenging. It is not so easy to assess what is actually achieved with certain concepts and specific measures and what the economic consequences are.

The book "Performance of Buildings" explains the basics and methods of a well-founded measurement and evaluation of building performance. Findings from many research and demonstration projects illustrate the performance concept. In practical examples, characteristic values and reference values for planning and building operation are clearly presented. A comprehensive appendix presents practical planning and evaluation tools and refers to generally accessible sources of information.

In this book, scientists from various research disciplines and experts from planning practice provide an insight into the methods and possible applications of building performance assessment. It also shows how the performance concept can be seamlessly integrated into the idea of integral planning and into the practice of facility management.

ISBN: 978-3-8462-0302-6
Price: €59.00

This training manual is designed as a learning aid for the upcoming examination to become a building energy consultant. It also serves to review and update the specialist knowledge of energy consultants who passed their exam some time ago. The changes to the EnEV 2014 and the BAFA Guideline 2012 on energy-saving advice have been incorporated into the current edition.

Divided into individual topics (e.g. heat transfer, moisture protection, sound insulation), you will initially find around 200 questions. Following each chapter, the answers are explained with numerous additional notes. Colored illustrations, graphics and overviews further illustrate and demonstrate the subject matter.

ISBN: 978-3-8462-0302-6
Price: €39.80

The façade component, which is important from both a design and structural point of view, is of particular importance in energy-related refurbishment.

The guideline serves to qualitatively and quantitatively assess measures for the façade-related refurbishment of non-residential buildings and to estimate their cost-effectiveness. In addition to the effect of energy efficiency measures in the façade area, the authors also address sound insulation and air quality and provide planning and implementation tips.

In this book, the types of façades and buildings examined (office buildings, schools, sports halls and hotels) are presented and the basic planning principles are explained and the content is explored in greater depth. Modernization recommendations for selected cases are provided in a clear and searchable electronic format (CD-ROM / integrated in e-book).

ISBN: 978-3-8167-9200-0
Price: €45.00

The 2015 annual question of "projekt bauhaus" and thus this issue have deliberately put aside the important question of the content of a transformation in order to focus entirely on the question of what role design – and thus also the designer – can play in this, i.e. how the question of change can be viewed methodically. In addition, the focus was limited to examples from traditional industrialized countries in order to initially address the opportunities and challenges of their own social context. In the 2017 issue, however, we take a closer look at the architectures of globalization.

The treatment of the first annual question on the social impact of design is structured into four thematic areas. The first chapter is dedicated to the "models of change" that are pursued with design. The other three focus on the central tasks of design. The second chapter is dedicated to "shaping attention". This is because shaping society is not limited to the shaping of everyday life, but begins with the question of how attention is structured and how thinking and social debates are configured. The question arises as to how perceptions in everyday life and society, debates, desires and decision-making situations are shaped.The third chapter is dedicated to "shaping the self". Societies not only shape individuals, but individuals also constitute societies with their practices. With the crisis of social utopias and the emergence of new possibilities for self-measurement, self-management and self-optimization, the individual has become the focus of creative attention. Finally, the fourth chapter is dedicated to the "shaping of situations" and thus to those areas in which design most directly articulates ideas of everyday social life.

In each chapter, basic models of action in design are briefly presented in synopses and usually explored in greater depth with selected projects. In the fourth chapter in particular, these are only selected exemplary models that need to be supplemented by others, while the final chapter – based on a contribution by Reinhold Martin – places the previously presented approaches in the context of current professional practice and social developments. The project examples outline the two extreme poles of affirmation and utopia.

Price: € 18.00

"Vision in Motion", László Moholy-Nagy's last book, was published in 1947, one year after his death in Chicago. It is an extension of the legendary publication "The New Vision", which was published in 1938 and refers to the teaching methods of the Bauhaus in Dessau. "Vision in Motion" was created at the Institute for Design in Chicago and provides an insight into the work of the institute that Moholy-Nagy headed. He uses an interdisciplinary approach for his book, using exemplary images and his own texts to explain the interrelationship between art and technology. Today, "Vision in Motion" reads like a school of vision from the first half of the 20th century, containing all the artistic processes that shaped film, photography, painting, literature and the sciences. After 65 years, László Moholy-Nagy's groundbreaking work is now being published in German for the first time.

ISBN-10: 3944669320
ISBN-13: 978-3944669328
Price: €42.00

Beyond the Bauhaus, the City of Dessau was a culmination of industrial modernism. During the 13 years of the Nazi regime, the city experienced an incomparable rise and fall that still characterizes it today. Dessau was an armaments metropolis, Gau capital and company town of the Junkers aircraft and engine factories as well as the main production site for the poison gas Zyklon B, which was used to kill hundreds of thousands of people in the concentration camps. This volume tells the contradictory story of the Bauhaus city under National Socialism. It looks back at the contexts of the devastation and focuses on the destruction of modernism as well as its destructive potential. 39 photographs by the French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, who captured the return of the forced laborers in Dessau in June 1945 with his camera, round off the picture of this era with many previously unpublished photos by him.

ISBN-10: 9783944669571
ISBN-13: 978-3944669571
Price: €34.00

The Bauhaus building in Dessau, designed by Walter Gropius in 1926, is the built manifesto of a design and educational revolution. Today, it is regarded worldwide as the symbol of white modernism par excellence. But what makes this style-defining building so special? How did Gropius manage to play with transparency, lightness and color? How has the building been used and how has it changed in the decades since its opening? This architectural guide looks behind the striking curtain wall and literally under the skin of the building, revealing mostly overlooked facets of the famous building. In short chapters, the book takes the reader on a tour of the Bauhaus building and its history, inviting them to visit and rediscover.

ISBN: 978-3-940064-71-4
Price: €9.90

Despite the upcoming 100th anniversary of the founding of the legendary school of design, Bauhaus is still very much alive and relevant today. The concept of quality continues to stand for elegant and progressive architecture, art and design objects. At the same time, the only 14 years of its existence (1919-1933) were a politically and economically turbulent time: founded immediately after the shock of the First World War, celebrated during the up-and-coming 1920s, only to come to an abrupt end in the chaos of the Great Depression and repression by the Nazis. This richly illustrated book presents all the places where traces of the historical movement can be found. The journey leads via Weimar and Dessau to Berlin and presents the well-known architectural works as well as the museum collections in these cities with historical and current photos. Buildings that have received less attention to date are also mentioned, such as the church in Gelmeroda, which inspired the painter Lyonel Feininger. This clever travel and architecture book invites you to discover the Bauhaus today.

(German edition: ISBN 978-3-8321-9411-6, English edition: ISBN 978-3-8321-9412-3)
ISBN: 978-3-7913-8244-9
Price: €19.95

While politicians still claim that rural regions will not be abandoned, the reality in sparsely populated areas has long since changed. Schools are being closed, bus routes are being shut down, there is a lack of medical care, the technical infrastructure is becoming increasingly expensive and there is a lack of cultural activities. Out of necessity, residents are beginning to address quality of life issues themselves. Area pioneers are getting involved in water, gas and electricity supply, transport, health, education, leisure and culture. New forms of cooperation are emerging between civil society and state authorities. But where both fail, the democratic community is in danger. The book analyzes the status quo of rural regions, outlines concepts for a new spatial policy, presents a dozen practical projects and leads a debate with spatial pioneers, politicians, scientists and artists: With texts by Tina Veihelmann, with project contributions by Atelier van Lieshout and with photo contributions by Werner Mahler, Frank Schinski (OSTKREUZ).

ISBN: 978-3-940064-58-5
Price: € 25.00

Brownfield sites and vacant buildings quickly become particularly lively places in many cities: clubs and bars, start-up companies and the art scene, migrant economies and informal markets, leisure uses and nightlife settle in these places that urban planning and the real estate market are initially unable to develop. It is often here that innovative cultural production and a lively public sphere can be found. The Urban Catalyst research team has devoted several years to these unplanned phenomena in five European countries, analyzing more than just their hidden logic. Building on its own involvement in several projects, Urban Catalyst describes ways in which processes of the informal can find their way into urban design and what urban planners can learn from intermediate users.

With guest contributions from Azra Ak amija, Kees Christiaanse, Margaret Crawford, Jesko Fezer, Arnold Reijndorp, Saskia Sassen and other authors. With projects from Amsterdam, Basel, Berlin, Halle, Leipzig, London, Rome, Vienna, Zagreb and other cities.

ISBN-10: 3869222441
ISBN-13: 978-3869222448
Price: €38.00

The Israeli kibbutzim represent a form of collective coexistence that is unique in the world. Their origins lie in the Zionist vision of young European Jews who hoped for a new, independent existence in the Promised Land. However, the new settlements were not only a field of social experimentation for a different way of living together in community, but also a field of design for modern architecture. Young architects and planners brought the ideals and methods of New Building from Europe to Palestine and had a lasting impact on the design language of the kibbutzim. Among them were Arieh Sharon, Shmuel Mestechkin and Munio Gitai Weinraub, three graduates of the Dessau Bauhaus. They took the progressive ideas of the school with them to Palestine, and through their architectural work the ideals of the kibbutz movement and the Bauhaus found a unique synthesis.

ISBN-10: 3940064440
ISBN-13: 978-3940064448
Price: €9.90

Despite the upcoming 100th anniversary of the founding of the legendary school of design, Bauhaus is still very much alive and relevant today. The concept of quality continues to stand for elegant and progressive architecture, art and design objects. At the same time, the only 14 years of its existence (1919-1933) were a politically and economically turbulent time: founded immediately after the shock of the First World War, celebrated during the up-and-coming 1920s, only to come to an abrupt end in the chaos of the Great Depression and repression by the Nazis. This richly illustrated book presents all the places where traces of the historical movement can be found. The journey leads via Weimar and Dessau to Berlin and presents the well-known architectural works as well as the museum collections in these cities with historical and current photos. Buildings that have received less attention to date are also mentioned, such as the church in Gelmeroda, which inspired the painter Lyonel Feininger. This clever travel and architecture book invites you to discover the Bauhaus today.

(German edition: ISBN 978-3-8321-9411-6, English edition: ISBN 978-3-8321-9412-3)
ISBN: 978-3-7913-8244-9
Price: €19.95

The massive decline of population and the economic structural change have presented the cities of Saxony-Anhalt with major challenges over the last 20 years. As part of the International Building Exhibition Stadtumbau (Urban Redevelopment) 2010, 19 cities have realized innovative projects over the last eight years and thus formulated exemplary solutions for how shrinking cities can be designed.

The book provides a comprehensive overview of the working methods and results. Numerous participants as well as independent experts and critics have their say. A historical review and a fundamental description of urban developments over the last two decades not only show the causes of the shrinking processes and the initial situation for the IBA, but also draw a portrait of the country. Three scenarios on the topics of city, landscape and climate outline issues and possible developments for Saxony-Anhalt up to the year 2050.

With the IBA, Saxony-Anhalt has created a laboratory for the city of tomorrow whose issues are of international relevance.

ISBN: 978-3-86859-100-2
Price: €39.80

Since its foundation 90 years ago in Weimar, the Bauhaus has been repeatedly instrumentalized by a wide variety of groups. In addition to the well-known disputes within the Bauhaus, the reception of this icon of modernism by the outside world also produced contradictory, even opposing positions: socialists, communists, National Socialists, Stalinists, capitalists, cold warriors, student revolutionaries and dissidents each created different images of the Bauhaus in the course of German identity constructions. With a large number of essays, the publication raises the question of the fundamental conflicts that the Bauhaus legacy still entails today. It also sheds light on how an avant-garde can run the risk of becoming a tradition or a mere "façade" through formalization and musealization.

ISBN-10: 3775724540
ISBN-13: 978-3775724548
Price: €20.00