The Houses with Balcony Access in Dessau-Törten. Reconstruction and analysis of the planning, construction and usage history of the project of the Bauhaus Dessau under the direction of Hannes Meyer

• Applicant: Professor Philipp Oswalt
• Subject Area: Architecture, Building and Construction History, Construction Research, Sustainable Building Technology
• Term: from 2016 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 316920114

The to date little-researched Houses with Balcony Access in Dessau-Törten are the most important and - apart from the demolished Haus Nolden - the only building project realised by the building department of the historic Bauhaus. They manifest the Bauhaus concept of combining research-based education with practice and of processing and realising practical design tasks in the classroom. At the same time the Houses with Balcony Access are an important contribution to the then current debate concerning housing for the subsistence minimum and the debate about modern urban typologies. Built after the onset of the Great Depression in 1929/1930, they represent the start of a new phase of modern architecture: Based on a conscious rejection of the meanwhile firmly established formal and stylistic conventions, Meyer and the teachers and students involved in the project sought a consistent orientation towards efficiency and usage, which among other things led to the use of local building materials, the application of new technologies and modern, collective housing typologies. The first part of the research project will reconstruct the progression of the urban development concept for the expansion of the Dessau-Törten Estate. This will cover the controversial formation of political will as well as the design conception. The latter will involve an investigation of Hannes Meyers influence and, especially, Ludwig Hilberseimers role. The only partly realised estate is the first practical example of the concept of a mixed development, formulated shortly before by Hilberseimer. This at the time completely new concept not only contributed significantly to the debate on new building typologies, but was also defining for Hilberseimers further career (e.g. project Lafayette Park in Detroit, 1956). The second part of the research project turns toward the object planning, for which the Bauhaus building department was responsible. It will examine which teachers and students played a part in this and which idea and concepts influenced the development process. How were design and architecture taught? How was the practice of design and construction conceived in the building department, and which other Bauhaus departments participated in the project? Which understanding of architecture and which educational concept were reflected here? The third part of the research project focuses on the history of reception and construction: How was the project received by the users, by the city of Dessau and in professional circles? How was the building used, altered and restored during its decades of use up to the present day? Sources of information consulted in order to answer this last question will include not only archival documentation, but also the users and the building itself. Users will be questioned in structured interviews and information will be sourced from a site survey of one of the buildings, building restoration research and archaeological excavations.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigators: Professor Dr.-Ing. Andreas Schwarting; Professor Thomas Will