TO GIVE AWAY / TIME WARP TO THE 50S

It's fall, the clouds hang gloomily in the sky and drive everyone who doesn't want to get wet into their houses. We hurry too – only on the steps of a house entrance I notice two thick, black, bound books. “TO GIVE AWAY.” I don't want them to get wet too, I think, and pack them up.

I didn't know this magazine from before, but they are two collected editions of Baukunst und Werkform from 1957 and 1958. My father taught me that there are often answers in history. Plus, they smell and feel amazing. When I had a bit of time this year, I finally got around to studying them.

“Architecture is a self-portrait of time” – I don't know who wrote this quote, but it's true. The interesting thing is that in Germany, they often innovate without giving the respective period its deserved dignity. The architecture magazine celebrates the trends, the era and the objects of the 1950s – things that today are often labeled as “outdated” and quickly replaced by something new. We could actually learn from our neighboring countries how to treat the past with love.

I had to catch up on the history of this country in museums and documentaries, but in the 1950s, thinking Germany experienced a unique time: reconstruction. At the same time as the economic miracle, society was mourning the loss of talent that had been driven out by the Nazi regime or lost during the war. The avant-gardism of modernism emerged and manifested itself in art and design.

I am happy to go into detail to share my insights with you, dear community. The first thing I noticed were the cool display panels! Printed on high-quality paper, manufacturers such as Osram, Geberit and Miele advertise their then ground-breaking products. Rapidographs – which I used myself during my studies! Mipolam PVC flooring is celebrated for its unique qualities! Some of my customers would like to have it replaced today, although current circular looks are not that far away.

Materials such as plastic and especially glass are experiencing their golden age in architecture: curved glass, distortion-free glass surfaces, load-bearing glass blocks, insulating glass, foldable glass – corrosion-free and translucent, they serve many projects as a means of providing more light and transparency. However, when it comes to materials, we do not talk about their properties at all. The origin, production and decay of building materials are not an issue – back then people live and build in an eternal bubble of the affluent now.

I was most impressed by the individual sections on construction projects. For example, you could follow the competition process for the Phoenix-Rheinrohr AG administration (the Dreischeibenhaus) in Düsseldorf 😍! 22 architects submitted designs, which were judged. Design thinking was even used as part of the competition: It was stipulated that the final design should evolve through iterations on function and use. The findings on office buildings at the time were also very exciting!

Baukunst und Werkform dedicated a separate magazine issue to the reconstruction of Cologne – with a corresponding mood, songs and jokes, with trains over destroyed bridges and, of course, new demands on the spared building fabric. The magazine takes you on an excursion into how the city was redesigned: “Tomorrow it (the city) will be designed by a different hand, and this will happen from generation to generation.”

Objects such as the new theater building, Gürzenich, department store, but also solutions for tight urban planning through to residential buildings – and my long-time favorite, the “Wegschnapp” on the banks of the Rhine – all bear the signature of the reconstruction period. These works tell stories and deserve to be appreciated.

I keep these volumes deep in my library – the universe wanted me to find them. And we learn to face the past with dignity and not with fear or shame – and take our learnings with us. Never again is now, and the future is now too, folks. You can't think anything away and you can't plan anything 100% – there is what there is and we have to deal with it. Courageous, innovative, but not ignorant – from the heart, and less from the head or the Excel spreadsheet. That's how it feels. And if it feels like that for you too – then you're not alone ❤️.