by: Robert Hauer Santos Assoc. AIA
Event: Restoration of Bauhaus Building
Location: Museum of Modern Art, 07.09.08
Speakers: Winfried Brenne & Franze Jaschke — Partners, Brenne Gesellschaft von Architekten (Berlin)
Moderator: Barry Bergdoll — Philip Johnson Curator of Architecture and Design, Museum of Modern Art
Organizers: The World Monuments Fund with support from Knoll
The external staircase and balcony that wrapped around the ADGB Trade Union School was walled off with concrete under East German rule (left). Brenne Gesellschaft von Architekten restored the original building to appear as intended in 1930.
Courtesy wmf.org
One of the successes of the Bauhaus school was the completion of the ADGB Trade Union School in Bernau, Germany. The building marked commercial and architectural success for the influential functionalist school. Designed by Bauhaus Director Hannes Meyer and architect Hans Wittwer, it became one of the most significant completed Bauhaus projects. Sited near Berlin in the former East Germany, its condition was for many years unknown and its existence almost forgotten by the West.
The 1930 building complex, consisting of administration, classroom, dormitory, refectory, and gymnasium space, was unlike other Bauhaus buildings of the time. Built out of butter-toned brick and stretches of red steel-framed glazing and glass block, it stood apart from the white-walled buildings associated with the Bauhaus style. In the dormitories, walls were color-coded according to floor and building — yellow, green, blue, and red.
When the project to restore the ADGB School began, these details were submerged beneath layers of architectural debris added by two totalitarian regimes. The National Socialist Party and the German Democratic Republic consecutively enclosed the complex’s broad glass walls beneath layers of brick and paint. The school was gradually surrounded with new buildings designed in the modern classical style favored by the itinerant regimes.
Rediscovering the colors locked beneath the additions was key to rehabilitating the school. The partners of Berlin’s Brenne Gesellschaft von Architekten, Winfried Brenne and Franz Jaschke, took an archeological approach to unearthing the hidden layers. Demolishing walls had to be carried out with care as clues constantly emerged about the design philosophy and how the building was originally finished. Sifting through original documentation, they re-oriented the complex to return to its original functional intent.
For the office of Brenne Gesellschaft, confronting a historic puzzle proved to be an ongoing challenge. Many original details featured construction methods and materials no longer available, requiring in-depth research on how to reproduce them. Facing budgetary constraints and constant new discoveries, the architects were continually involved in the process of evaluating information and creating solutions on the fly.
The inaugural World Monuments Fund/Knoll Modernism Prize, awarded for the preservation of modern architecture as part of the Modernism at Risk Initiative, was awarded to the Berlin firm for their work in revitalizing the ADGB School, representing a new focus on the forgotten challenges facing Modern buildings.
Robert Santos, Assoc. AIA, is a junior architect at Gruzen Samton Architects.