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Abstract(s)
The widespread narrative that all GDR-Metropolises were overwritten by a soul- and faceless socialist variant of post-war modernism must be questioned at least regarding some cities. Although whole streets were torn down in the 1960s and 1970s and history was only partially appreciated, there can be found a series of modernist buildings respecting local traditions.
Thus, regionalisms express themselves in traditional building materials – in the early 1960s most prominently in the Northeastern City of Rostock, whose brick-faced postwar buildings in the centre were recently categorized as ‘Nordmoderne’ (‘northern modernism’).
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, meanwhile, attempts have been made in Potsdam to adapt new modern structures to existing baroque and classicist buildings by materials, facade colours or vertical subdivisions of facades – in order to merge new and old buildings into a ‘harmonic’ unity.
Regarding the development of modernism in East Germany, the regionalisms mentioned above seem to have different roots. As the Haus der Schiffahrt in Rostock’s Lange Straße could be explained as late successor of the 1950s Stalinist doctrin of the ‘National Tradition’, buildings such as the Institut für Lehrerbildung or Staudenhof in Potsdam seem to be efforts to avoid increasing monotony of east-modern architecture.
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GDR Socialism Rostock Potsdam
Citation
KLUSEMANN, Christian – Regionalism in GDR-Modernism of the 1960s and 1970s in REGIONALISM, NATIONALISM & MODERN ARCHITECTURE. Proceedings. Porto: CEAA, 2018, p. 157-174