[ { "start": 0.02, "end": 5.86, "text": "Hilbs was around, and Hilbs was still around when Mies came to America and needed" }, { "start": 5.86, "end": 8.66, "text": "to establish a faculty. My name is Kevin Harrington." }, { "start": 8.92, "end": 13.06, "text": "The bulk of my career was teaching the history of architecture in the architecture" }, { "start": 13.06, "end": 16.54, "text": "program at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago." }, { "start": 17.58, "end": 21.14, "text": "Hilberseimer was already recognized with the Highrise City," }, { "start": 21.5, "end": 22.84, "text": "the Residential City also." }, { "start": 22.84, "end": 29.6, "text": "So his Metropolis Building book came out. So I think he might have been more" }, { "start": 29.6, "end": 34.22, "text": "well-known through his writings and his critique rather than his buildings." }, { "start": 34.7, "end": 38.26, "text": "My name is Ute Poerschke. I am an architect and urban planner," }, { "start": 38.26, "end": 44.9, "text": "and I have also been an educator in Germany and the United States for the past 25 years." }, { "start": 45.72, "end": 50.0, "text": "My name is Anja Guttenberger, and this is my podcast, bauhaus faces." }, { "start": 65.34, "end": 70.1, "text": "Welcome back to a new episode of bauhaus faces. Thanks for tuning in again." }, { "start": 70.98, "end": 75.46, "text": "Before we are starting off with today's episode, I would like to thank you all" }, { "start": 75.46, "end": 77.18, "text": "from the very bottom of my heart." }, { "start": 77.46, "end": 83.36, "text": "I have just received the wrapped statistics of 2025 by Spotify for content creators." }, { "start": 83.84, "end": 87.7, "text": "Maybe you know those kinds of statistics where they give you all the numbers" }, { "start": 87.7, "end": 89.6, "text": "that you didn't know that you wanted them." }, { "start": 89.94, "end": 95.18, "text": "Anyway, I just wanted to share those numbers with you because they've really blown my mind." }, { "start": 95.34, "end": 103.24, "text": "In comparison to 2024, 999% new listeners joined bauhaus faces this year." }, { "start": 103.46, "end": 105.08, "text": "What an incredible number." }, { "start": 105.36, "end": 111.26, "text": "We are now a community of over 530 followers who have subscribed and regularly" }, { "start": 111.26, "end": 112.74, "text": "listened to bauhaus faces." }, { "start": 112.98, "end": 118.68, "text": "And that's all thanks to you because 91% of you have shared and recommended" }, { "start": 118.68, "end": 120.3, "text": "episodes of bauhaus faces." }, { "start": 120.64, "end": 124.42, "text": "You're the best community I could ever wish for. you" }, { "start": 124.42, "end": 127.48, "text": "all know by now that this project is just me and myself" }, { "start": 127.48, "end": 130.38, "text": "starting with the research and interviews going on" }, { "start": 130.38, "end": 133.6, "text": "to cutting and producing each episode and ending" }, { "start": 133.6, "end": 136.68, "text": "and publishing it and sending out a newsletter and instagram" }, { "start": 136.68, "end": 142.84, "text": "posts and of course i have my highs and my lows about it and it just so happens" }, { "start": 142.84, "end": 147.34, "text": "that whenever that is the case i receive wonderful reviews and messages on the" }, { "start": 147.34, "end": 151.78, "text": "different podcast platforms or emails with questions or suggestions for new" }, { "start": 151.78, "end": 155.86, "text": "podcast episodes Believe me, all of this keeps me going." }, { "start": 156.92, "end": 160.76, "text": "Please continue recommending bauhaus faces to fellow Bauhaus fans," }, { "start": 160.98, "end": 163.18, "text": "researchers, colleagues, friends and family." }, { "start": 163.62, "end": 167.56, "text": "Don't forget to subscribe on any major podcast platform like Spotify," }, { "start": 167.84, "end": 172.3, "text": "Apple Podcasts or YouTube or to my new newsletter, which pops up immediately" }, { "start": 172.3, "end": 175.42, "text": "when you enter the podcast website bauhaus faces dot com." }, { "start": 175.76, "end": 181.28, "text": "And if you then give me a thumbs up or five star rating, this immensely helps" }, { "start": 181.28, "end": 183.78, "text": "to cheat the algorithm of the podcast platforms." }, { "start": 183.78, "end": 188.22, "text": "So the more you recommend and the more you are giving five star ratings," }, { "start": 188.52, "end": 192.64, "text": "the more people will see bauhaus faces as a suggestion for a new podcast." }, { "start": 193.2, "end": 195.32, "text": "I've already planned new episodes" }, { "start": 195.32, "end": 200.34, "text": "for 2026 and they will be just as exciting as the last 17 episodes." }, { "start": 200.74, "end": 204.04, "text": "Here are a few names to get you a taste of what to expect." }, { "start": 204.5, "end": 209.66, "text": "The architect and designer Kat Both, the painter and best friend of T. Lux Feininger," }, { "start": 210.1, "end": 214.8, "text": "Clemens Röseler, The photographers Florence Henri and Edith Tudor-Hart." }, { "start": 215.24, "end": 221.52, "text": "The sports teacher of the Bauhaus, Karla Grosch, and the architects Hermann Bunzel and Lotte Beese." }, { "start": 222.1, "end": 228.1, "text": "Before jumping into 2026, let's turn now to the last episode of 2025," }, { "start": 228.94, "end": 233.76, "text": "for which I chose an architect and urban planner who taught at the Bauhaus and" }, { "start": 233.76, "end": 237.4, "text": "who some of you might know and some of you might never have heard of." }, { "start": 237.9, "end": 240.12, "text": "I'm talking about Ludwig Hilberseimer." }, { "start": 240.82, "end": 245.42, "text": "He became less famous for build projects than for his progressive concepts of" }, { "start": 245.42, "end": 248.52, "text": "ordering the metropolis in futuristic-like urban plans." }, { "start": 249.66, "end": 253.54, "text": "With the publication of his designs of a Residential City and a Highrise City," }, { "start": 253.76, "end": 256.9, "text": "he has earned a name for himself in the world of modern architecture." }, { "start": 257.74, "end": 261.02, "text": "Ludwig Hilberseimer only built a few of his architecture plans." }, { "start": 261.28, "end": 266.52, "text": "Only single houses for families rather than urban districts or entire cities as one would expect." }, { "start": 267.34, "end": 271.66, "text": "Even after his emigration to the US in 1938 with Miss van der Rohe," }, { "start": 271.86, "end": 275.86, "text": "who had become a lifelong friend and companion, and about whom you can also" }, { "start": 275.86, "end": 278.28, "text": "find a two-part episode on bauhaus faces." }, { "start": 278.82, "end": 283.44, "text": "Ludwig Hilberseimer published his ideas and plans in several magazines and books." }, { "start": 284.0, "end": 288.16, "text": "After being appointed as a teacher at the Bauhaus and later at the Illinois" }, { "start": 288.16, "end": 292.74, "text": "Institute of Technology, he completely immersed in his role as an educator." }, { "start": 293.56, "end": 298.74, "text": "For this episode, I asked the architect, urban plan and architecture historian" }, { "start": 298.74, "end": 303.22, "text": "Ute Poerschke, who currently teaches architectural design and technical systems" }, { "start": 303.22, "end": 306.42, "text": "integration at Penn State College of Arts and Architecture," }, { "start": 306.94, "end": 311.62, "text": "and Kevin Harrington, Professor Emeritus of Architectural History at the IIT" }, { "start": 311.62, "end": 316.88, "text": "in Chicago, to join me on bauhaus faces and help discuss Ludwig Hilberseimer's" }, { "start": 316.88, "end": 320.54, "text": "work from the early 1920s to the 1960s." }, { "start": 321.36, "end": 324.34, "text": "Since I know you can't wait for my guests to have their say," }, { "start": 324.54, "end": 326.88, "text": "we'll get started without much further ado." }, { "start": 327.44, "end": 333.86, "text": "Let's dive into a new episode of bauhaus faces and shine a light on Ludwig Hilberseimer." }, { "start": 337.2, "end": 341.56, "text": "So maybe I would first go back to his studies at the Technische Hochschule." }, { "start": 341.84, "end": 347.94, "text": "What's interesting there is that the Technical University there had the first" }, { "start": 347.94, "end": 354.94, "text": "urban planning institute in Germany that was founded by Richard Baumeister in 1890." }, { "start": 354.94, "end": 358.5, "text": "And Baumeister was still there when Hilberseimer was a student," }, { "start": 358.5, "end": 362.12, "text": "and Hilberseimer also took a class with Baumeister," }, { "start": 362.32, "end": 369.08, "text": "which is for me an indicator for Hilberseimer's interest in urban planning" }, { "start": 369.08, "end": 371.64, "text": "and urban design throughout his career." }, { "start": 371.86, "end": 375.6, "text": "So that might be one reason why he's doing that." }, { "start": 375.78, "end": 381.26, "text": "He worked in a firm in Berlin until 1914, which was also the beginning of the" }, { "start": 381.26, "end": 386.04, "text": "First World War, So there was some slowing down of productivity." }, { "start": 386.46, "end": 393.2, "text": "And then in 1919, we see a first publication of his own designs that was in" }, { "start": 393.2, "end": 396.76, "text": "a German magazine called German Art and Decoration." }, { "start": 397.14, "end": 403.02, "text": "And there we see a couple of still traditional designs in a formal canon," }, { "start": 403.32, "end": 409.32, "text": "like they have strict symmetries, large pitched roofs, villas with side pavilions." }, { "start": 409.5, "end": 414.68, "text": "So there's already some reduced ornamentation and a focus on volume," }, { "start": 414.68, "end": 418.88, "text": "but they're still in a kind of traditional formal canon." }, { "start": 419.44, "end": 427.72, "text": "But in 1919, I would say between 1919 and 1922, there is a reorientation of" }, { "start": 427.72, "end": 430.36, "text": "maybe many architects at that time." }, { "start": 430.56, "end": 436.08, "text": "So Hilberseimer joins the Arbeitsrat für Kunst, the Workers' Council for Art," }, { "start": 436.48, "end": 440.36, "text": "November Group. So there was the November Revolution, obviously." }, { "start": 440.62, "end": 449.26, "text": "He starts connecting to socialist artists, where I think he got a lot of inspiration also for his own work." }, { "start": 449.4, "end": 453.9, "text": "He also started writing for magazines. He became an art critic." }, { "start": 453.9, "end": 461.58, "text": "He wrote, for example, one article in 1922 about the competition for the skyscraper" }, { "start": 461.58, "end": 468.36, "text": "at Bahnhof Friedrichstraße, where he clearly positions himself that architecture is an art." }, { "start": 468.38, "end": 475.08, "text": "So he's very clear about this, that architects can also take inspiration from artists." }, { "start": 475.36, "end": 479.82, "text": "At the end, he makes a little fun also of the art. He says some competition" }, { "start": 479.82, "end": 485.1, "text": "entries do too much art and not enough architecture. So he's actually keeping" }, { "start": 485.1, "end": 488.38, "text": "a good balance on critiquing the influence of art." }, { "start": 488.84, "end": 493.38, "text": "He becomes very interested in abstract art and particular constructivism." }, { "start": 493.66, "end": 499.46, "text": "There's another article where he talks about Rodchenko and about Malevich and" }, { "start": 499.46, "end": 505.26, "text": "where he also talks about the machine and how the machine leads the way also" }, { "start": 505.26, "end": 508.0, "text": "to a new aesthetic expression for architects." }, { "start": 508.0, "end": 516.16, "text": "So that the machine requires exactness and rigor and efficiency and that architects" }, { "start": 516.16, "end": 521.1, "text": "should start expressing that also in their architecture." }, { "start": 521.1, "end": 527.72, "text": "And one of the designs from that time, 1922, 1923, maybe, is the Chicago Tribune" }, { "start": 527.72, "end": 533.2, "text": "Tower design, which is really stripped from all ornament," }, { "start": 533.8, "end": 539.72, "text": "really consists of three volumes, two sticking on one bigger volume." }, { "start": 540.54, "end": 545.42, "text": "Windows have all the same size, looks almost like paper around." }, { "start": 545.6, "end": 553.04, "text": "So he makes the argument that the windows do not punch in heavy walls anymore," }, { "start": 553.04, "end": 556.38, "text": "that they become flat with the surface." }, { "start": 556.78, "end": 561.46, "text": "And this collage of the Chicago Tribune Tower, you can see this very well," }, { "start": 561.62, "end": 569.62, "text": "how he arrives at his aesthetic expression of his drawings that we can see actually for a very long time." }, { "start": 569.72, "end": 575.12, "text": "Throughout the decades, this reduced architecture, rigorous architecture," }, { "start": 575.92, "end": 578.02, "text": "well, almost abstract architecture." }, { "start": 578.92, "end": 585.12, "text": "I think the social agenda is also very important. So that might explain his" }, { "start": 585.12, "end": 588.24, "text": "devotion to housing throughout his life." }, { "start": 588.48, "end": 594.68, "text": "So housing from the small cell or the dwelling unit up to the single family" }, { "start": 594.68, "end": 600.72, "text": "house to mid and high rise apartment blocks and up to larger configurations" }, { "start": 600.72, "end": 603.6, "text": "until then he arrives at an urban planning scale." }, { "start": 603.6, "end": 610.52, "text": "But so he's very devoted to housing, which comes certainly of the housing shortage" }, { "start": 610.52, "end": 617.32, "text": "after the war, financial crisis, and then obviously also the industrialization." }, { "start": 617.74, "end": 622.02, "text": "And as I said, the focus on the machine and the efficiency." }, { "start": 622.96, "end": 627.72, "text": "And also around that time, Hilberseimer started with urban designs." }, { "start": 627.72, "end": 635.62, "text": "So there was 1923, I think, the Residential City, and that was followed in 1924," }, { "start": 635.9, "end": 639.42, "text": "his maybe most famous scheme, the Highrise City." }, { "start": 640.45, "end": 646.51, "text": "So the Residential City was designed for 125,000 inhabitants." }, { "start": 646.79, "end": 652.41, "text": "So it was much smaller than the Highrise City, which was for one million people." }, { "start": 652.67, "end": 658.91, "text": "The Residential City was more thought as a satellite that surrounds a bigger metropolis." }, { "start": 659.79, "end": 667.17, "text": "So that might come from former discourses, Ebenezer Howard, Garden City," }, { "start": 667.41, "end": 671.99, "text": "or Unwin, where the satellite town is in focus." }, { "start": 672.23, "end": 677.89, "text": "But when Hilberseimer is in Berlin, he's talking specifically about the metropolis" }, { "start": 677.89, "end": 683.43, "text": "and that the metropolis has an expression or an aesthetics on its own." }, { "start": 683.63, "end": 692.67, "text": "So in early writings, he makes already the case that traditionally we distinguish between two city types." }, { "start": 692.83, "end": 698.29, "text": "One is more the organic city type, so curved streets and so on." }, { "start": 698.39, "end": 704.01, "text": "And then the second is the geometrically planned city, and that both city types" }, { "start": 704.01, "end": 705.65, "text": "exist throughout history." }, { "start": 705.87, "end": 710.01, "text": "But then he says the metropolis is neither nor." }, { "start": 710.37, "end": 717.69, "text": "That's a totally new type that comes from the density of the city, from the" }, { "start": 717.86, "end": 723.96, "text": "different people live in there, that the people are not any more individualistic." }, { "start": 724.58, "end": 729.96, "text": "Single-oriented or family-oriented persons, that they are more in the collective." }, { "start": 730.18, "end": 736.78, "text": "So he attaches that specifically to the metropolis and concludes from that that" }, { "start": 736.78, "end": 739.02, "text": "the metropolis needs a new scheme." }, { "start": 739.34, "end": 742.46, "text": "Both cities are in a grid." }, { "start": 742.7, "end": 747.34, "text": "The Residential City is in a much smaller scale. I think it's five floors." }, { "start": 747.68, "end": 753.52, "text": "The metropolis city has five floors for working, administration offices," }, { "start": 753.86, "end": 760.7, "text": "workshops, and then on top of these five floors are 11 floors for housing, for apartments." }, { "start": 761.06, "end": 768.48, "text": "So for the metropolis, he comes up with a stacked city, which was also a contrasting" }, { "start": 768.48, "end": 771.22, "text": "model to other models that were out there." }, { "start": 771.46, "end": 776.86, "text": "So for example, Le Corbusier did the Ville contemporaine just shortly before that." }, { "start": 777.0, "end": 783.52, "text": "And in Le Corbusier's model, there was a city center that had skyscrapers for" }, { "start": 783.52, "end": 785.04, "text": "workers and administration." }, { "start": 785.16, "end": 791.64, "text": "And this was surrounded by lower apartment blocks where people were living." }, { "start": 791.88, "end": 797.5, "text": "So people had to take transportation going in and out into the city center." }, { "start": 797.82, "end": 803.38, "text": "And Hilberseimer flipped this into a vertical model where you lived on the" }, { "start": 803.38, "end": 807.06, "text": "top floor and then you worked more on the street level." }, { "start": 807.28, "end": 811.74, "text": "So for him, this was a solution for the traffic problem." }, { "start": 811.98, "end": 814.82, "text": "Well, that was heavily discussed at that time." }, { "start": 815.73, "end": 819.45, "text": "To fully understand what Ute describes here, you must know that," }, { "start": 819.61, "end": 823.97, "text": "for the Highrise City, Hilberseimer drafted walkways high above the streets." }, { "start": 824.37, "end": 826.25, "text": "There are pavements on the roofs" }, { "start": 826.25, "end": 829.97, "text": "of lower building blocks and bridges that connect one block to another." }, { "start": 830.71, "end": 835.33, "text": "By keeping pedestrians away from the growing car traffic of the 1920s," }, { "start": 835.63, "end": 839.69, "text": "Hilberseimer sought to prevent persons from getting hurt in car accidents." }, { "start": 840.15, "end": 847.31, "text": "A two-street city, as you will. The Metropolis City was widely published immediately" }, { "start": 847.31, "end": 851.19, "text": "after Hilberseimer made these beautiful renderings." }, { "start": 851.39, "end": 855.51, "text": "And they got mostly critique at the beginning." }, { "start": 855.73, "end": 862.37, "text": "There's one article by Hugo Hering where he says that it's frightening, this scheme." }, { "start": 862.37, "end": 870.23, "text": "And so I think that Hilberseimer very quickly tried to discuss this as an abstract" }, { "start": 870.23, "end": 873.45, "text": "scheme, as an abstract demonstration project." }, { "start": 873.67, "end": 878.21, "text": "He also critiqued it then later in his life, I think in the 60s," }, { "start": 878.23, "end": 881.71, "text": "he said that he made a necropolis and not a metropolis." }, { "start": 881.71, "end": 888.35, "text": "Is, although I find that the verticality of the city makes total sense to me" }, { "start": 888.35, "end": 894.09, "text": "and the renderings, I'm specifically as an architect, I'm super drawn to them." }, { "start": 894.25, "end": 901.83, "text": "So they have a very specific aesthetics of the machine that I find express the time very strongly." }, { "start": 901.97, "end": 907.91, "text": "I think maybe the one thing where the point of critique that made sense to me" }, { "start": 907.91, "end": 910.01, "text": "is that there's no nature in there, right?" }, { "start": 910.17, "end": 913.53, "text": "So there is no parks, no trees." }, { "start": 914.55, "end": 917.17, "text": "So Hilberseimer made that strong" }, { "start": 917.17, "end": 922.23, "text": "self-critique himself that he said that vegetation is missing there." }, { "start": 923.03, "end": 926.99, "text": "And so that might be how he further then developed other schemes," }, { "start": 926.99, "end": 929.61, "text": "that this was a driver for doing that." }, { "start": 930.97, "end": 936.01, "text": "The omission of plants throughout the overall planning reinforces the futuristic" }, { "start": 936.01, "end": 937.51, "text": "look of the Highrise City." }, { "start": 938.33, "end": 942.75, "text": "A \"necropolis,\" to stress again the term Hilberseimer himself used to describe" }, { "start": 942.75, "end": 946.17, "text": "his imaginative urban plan many years later." }, { "start": 947.21, "end": 952.29, "text": "I think Hilberseimer was already recognized with his schemes." }, { "start": 952.65, "end": 958.41, "text": "So with the Highrise City, the Residential City also, he has published already" }, { "start": 958.41, "end": 965.61, "text": "books. His Metropolis Building book came out, where he also showed designs of himself." }, { "start": 965.85, "end": 971.73, "text": "So I think he might have been more well-known through his writings and his critique" }, { "start": 971.73, "end": 973.17, "text": "rather than his buildings." }, { "start": 973.93, "end": 979.77, "text": "But at the beginning of his early career, he also built a few houses, especially in Berlin." }, { "start": 980.75, "end": 986.81, "text": "Hilberseimer realized a simple apartment building in 1925-27 in the Berlin district" }, { "start": 986.81, "end": 992.29, "text": "Tryptow. three single-family houses in Zehlendorf in the 1930s and a commercial" }, { "start": 992.29, "end": 994.05, "text": "building called Rheinlandhaus." }, { "start": 994.55, "end": 999.39, "text": "Only the Rheinlandhaus from 1927 that he planned with the architect Heinrich" }, { "start": 999.39, "end": 1002.47, "text": "Kosina is interesting to have a closer look at, I think." }, { "start": 1003.37, "end": 1009.23, "text": "In comparison to his residential buildings, this house reveals all the refinements of new building." }, { "start": 1010.29, "end": 1015.01, "text": "Situated on the intersection of Belle-Alliance-Straße, which is today Mehringdamm," }, { "start": 1015.19, "end": 1019.85, "text": "and Teltower Straße, the architects designed a two-story building with a ground" }, { "start": 1019.85, "end": 1022.17, "text": "floor nearly completely made of glass." }, { "start": 1022.67, "end": 1027.65, "text": "The windows on the first floor were all the same size and division except from" }, { "start": 1027.65, "end": 1029.85, "text": "the one directly over the entrance of the building." }, { "start": 1030.59, "end": 1035.05, "text": "There, a glass door seems to give entry to the bent terrace that functioned" }, { "start": 1035.05, "end": 1037.49, "text": "as a roofing over the entrance door at the same time." }, { "start": 1038.05, "end": 1043.47, "text": "The curved shape of the terrace reiterates the curve that the building takes at this intersection." }, { "start": 1044.64, "end": 1050.06, "text": "There is just very little white-washed concrete, and the multiple windows make" }, { "start": 1050.06, "end": 1052.32, "text": "the whole building look bright and airy." }, { "start": 1053.12, "end": 1057.2, "text": "It reminded me a lot of Erik Mendelssohn's commercial and housing district at" }, { "start": 1057.2, "end": 1060.02, "text": "Lehniner Platz in Berlin-Tiergarten from 1928." }, { "start": 1061.14, "end": 1064.86, "text": "Hilberseimer's residential buildings, the apartment blocks and the single-family" }, { "start": 1064.86, "end": 1068.8, "text": "houses, all of them lack the refined grandeur of the Rheinland House." }, { "start": 1069.34, "end": 1073.66, "text": "All of them are very simple houses, barren of any superfluidity." }, { "start": 1074.64, "end": 1080.22, "text": "And that is exactly what Hilberseimer strived for. In his publication \"Großstadtbauten,\"" }, { "start": 1080.32, "end": 1082.74, "text": "(Metropolis Buildings), from 1925," }, { "start": 1083.06, "end": 1088.32, "text": "he stressed that, in future, architects will have to refrain from decorating" }, { "start": 1088.32, "end": 1092.3, "text": "buildings externally or imposing a monumental mask on them." }, { "start": 1092.74, "end": 1098.44, "text": "They must forget all the formal baggage. For them, the economy of a train carriage" }, { "start": 1098.44, "end": 1103.04, "text": "or an ocean liner is more exemplary than the decorative scheme of any style." }, { "start": 1103.04, "end": 1108.5, "text": "They must find solutions to new tasks that are not based on the principles of" }, { "start": 1108.5, "end": 1111.44, "text": "the past, but on the principles of the present." }, { "start": 1112.78, "end": 1116.22, "text": "A wonderful example, although it has already been demolished," }, { "start": 1116.54, "end": 1121.76, "text": "is Hilberseimer's detached two-story house for the 1927 Weißenhof Estate in Stuttgart." }, { "start": 1122.32, "end": 1126.9, "text": "The architect was one of 16 modern architects who were invited by the German" }, { "start": 1126.9, "end": 1131.16, "text": "Werkbund to design houses for the exhibition Die Wohnung, the apartment." }, { "start": 1132.1, "end": 1135.76, "text": "Among them were well-known architects like Ludwig Mies van der Rohe," }, { "start": 1135.96, "end": 1138.32, "text": "Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, Peter" }, { "start": 1138.32, "end": 1140.98, "text": "Oud and Bruno Taut, all of them colleagues" }, { "start": 1140.98, "end": 1145.42, "text": "of Ludwig Hilberseimer, who dealt with the housing problem and the existential minimum." }, { "start": 1147.16, "end": 1151.56, "text": "Hilberseimer's house was a very simple, small cube made of hollow brick blocks." }, { "start": 1151.86, "end": 1156.24, "text": "It was situated right next to an apartment building by Le Corbusier and Pierre" }, { "start": 1156.24, "end": 1161.92, "text": "Jeanneret that is today a visitor center and the only accessible building on the Weißenhof Estate." }, { "start": 1162.92, "end": 1166.88, "text": "Like all of the other buildings of the Weißenhof Estate, Hilberseimer's" }, { "start": 1166.88, "end": 1169.36, "text": "house too was an experimental model house." }, { "start": 1170.34, "end": 1174.2, "text": "As it has been demolished and today there is a rather ugly apartment building" }, { "start": 1174.2, "end": 1179.36, "text": "with a pitched roof and four garages there, I would like to take a closer look at it for a second." }, { "start": 1180.62, "end": 1185.86, "text": "Fortunately, the German Werkbund produced the catalogue for the Weissenhof exhibition in 1927." }, { "start": 1186.36, "end": 1190.88, "text": "In it, there are several interior and exterior photos of Hilbers-Almershaus" }, { "start": 1190.88, "end": 1193.9, "text": "and a description of it by the architect himself." }, { "start": 1194.68, "end": 1199.42, "text": "And, again, very fortunate for me, there are institutions in Germany," }, { "start": 1199.62, "end": 1204.78, "text": "like the University of Heidelberg, that constantly invest in publishing archival material online." }, { "start": 1206.05, "end": 1209.77, "text": "The digital library of this university is a real treasure trove," }, { "start": 1209.93, "end": 1215.27, "text": "where you can find several magazines and newspapers from the Weimar Republic online, for free." }, { "start": 1215.73, "end": 1220.23, "text": "That is open share at its best. Of course, for all of you who don't know that" }, { "start": 1220.23, "end": 1224.53, "text": "source yet, and who could make use of it for research, I will put a link in" }, { "start": 1224.53, "end": 1225.93, "text": "the show notes of this episode." }, { "start": 1226.73, "end": 1231.35, "text": "Let's get back to Hilberseimer's house from 1927. In the catalog," }, { "start": 1231.53, "end": 1234.01, "text": "he described the two-story building quite extensively." }, { "start": 1234.01, "end": 1238.55, "text": "On the main floor, Hilberseimer wrote, there were two bedrooms," }, { "start": 1238.79, "end": 1244.29, "text": "a living room with a terrace, a dining room and a kitchen with a handover, an office and a toilet." }, { "start": 1244.81, "end": 1248.95, "text": "On the partially outfitted lower floor was the entrance, a toilet," }, { "start": 1249.11, "end": 1254.47, "text": "laundry and drying rooms, a pantry, the heating room, a bedroom and a room for a maid." }, { "start": 1255.35, "end": 1258.97, "text": "The kitchen and the bedrooms were equipped with fitted wardrobes," }, { "start": 1259.23, "end": 1263.63, "text": "therefore reducing the functional furniture needed only to tables, chairs and beds." }, { "start": 1264.49, "end": 1268.49, "text": "In the first page of his writings, Hilberseimer stressed that." }, { "start": 1277.71, "end": 1282.05, "text": "He furthermore stated that An apartment should enable comfortable," }, { "start": 1282.31, "end": 1287.03, "text": "practical living that meets all needs while taking up as little space as possible." }, { "start": 1287.47, "end": 1292.25, "text": "The size and number of rooms depend on the needs that absolutely must be met." }, { "start": 1292.77, "end": 1297.07, "text": "No part of the room, not even the smallest, should remain unused." }, { "start": 1298.01, "end": 1301.71, "text": "He also explained that the future should be apartment buildings that," }, { "start": 1301.91, "end": 1306.85, "text": "like a hotel, have communal areas that are being stripped of any personal character" }, { "start": 1306.85, "end": 1310.33, "text": "and they should not still be based on the detached house type." }, { "start": 1310.81, "end": 1315.83, "text": "I found that quite interesting because this explains Hilberseimer's earlier urban plans." }, { "start": 1316.03, "end": 1320.73, "text": "His understanding is that it will be more desirable for families to live in" }, { "start": 1320.73, "end": 1325.51, "text": "detached houses outside of the city rather than in apartment buildings in the city." }, { "start": 1325.89, "end": 1328.01, "text": "That, according to Hilberseimer," }, { "start": 1328.21, "end": 1332.07, "text": "will be a place for single persons and childless couples in the future." }, { "start": 1333.15, "end": 1338.57, "text": "His writing in the Weißenhof Estate catalogue from 1927, as well as his model" }, { "start": 1338.57, "end": 1343.91, "text": "house there, foreshadow Hilbers-Imos concerns as an urban planner and as an" }, { "start": 1343.91, "end": 1345.63, "text": "educator at the Bauhaus." }, { "start": 1347.13, "end": 1354.39, "text": "Hans Wittwer left in 1929, and immediately then, in the following semester," }, { "start": 1354.53, "end": 1355.67, "text": "Hilberseimer took over." }, { "start": 1356.77, "end": 1362.17, "text": "I don't know why Hannes Meyer selected Hilberseimer or if there was somebody" }, { "start": 1362.17, "end": 1363.87, "text": "else that he asked before." }, { "start": 1364.13, "end": 1369.11, "text": "However, I think that he was actually a good match for Meyer, I would say." }, { "start": 1369.63, "end": 1372.97, "text": "So on the one hand, Hilberseimer was known through his writings." }, { "start": 1372.97, "end": 1377.83, "text": "He was well-networked, so he knew the Berlin avant-garde." }, { "start": 1378.05, "end": 1379.83, "text": "He was just well-networked there." }, { "start": 1380.07, "end": 1388.71, "text": "He also had this social ethos, emphasizing the collective, so that is very close to Hannes Meyer." }, { "start": 1389.39, "end": 1394.49, "text": "And then Hannes Meyer also always emphasized the scientific approach to design" }, { "start": 1394.49, "end": 1398.05, "text": "and the exactness and scientific rigor." }, { "start": 1398.41, "end": 1405.33, "text": "And that is what Hilberseimer also emphasized. So I think there's a lot between" }, { "start": 1405.33, "end": 1407.99, "text": "the two to get attracted to each other." }, { "start": 1409.78, "end": 1415.62, "text": "There was a big shift between his metropolis studies on an urban level," }, { "start": 1415.62, "end": 1421.2, "text": "as well as the building types for the metropolis, and then when he starts teaching at the Bauhaus." }, { "start": 1421.64, "end": 1425.12, "text": "Well, Dessau is not a metropolis, so that's the first thing." }, { "start": 1425.28, "end": 1431.22, "text": "He starts thinking about other settlements other than the metropolis." }, { "start": 1431.68, "end": 1438.28, "text": "Maybe the Wohnstadt, the Residential City, comes back here. there when he arrives at the Bauhaus." }, { "start": 1438.58, "end": 1444.78, "text": "Not only does he give a lot to the Bauhaus by starting urban planning under" }, { "start": 1444.78, "end": 1449.78, "text": "Mies then, but I think he also gets a lot of inspiration and new ideas when" }, { "start": 1449.78, "end": 1453.4, "text": "he moves to the Bauhaus and starts teaching at the Bauhaus." }, { "start": 1453.58, "end": 1459.82, "text": "So density didn't play a role in Dessau, which definitely was an issue in his" }, { "start": 1459.82, "end": 1461.8, "text": "metropolis city design." }, { "start": 1462.1, "end": 1466.04, "text": "He was experimenting with mixed height buildings." }, { "start": 1466.36, "end": 1470.54, "text": "So there is an early scheme that he published in the Bauhaus magazine," }, { "start": 1470.54, "end": 1475.68, "text": "where he has five-story buildings next to 10-story buildings." }, { "start": 1476.02, "end": 1480.74, "text": "And the five stories are for families and the 10 stories are for singles and" }, { "start": 1480.74, "end": 1483.82, "text": "for childless couples. So he starts mixing." }, { "start": 1484.16, "end": 1488.64, "text": "And it is known that he got involved in the Törten Estate." }, { "start": 1488.78, "end": 1496.08, "text": "And there's this side drawing with the access balcony houses that face south," }, { "start": 1496.34, "end": 1499.5, "text": "and then different types of single-family housing." }, { "start": 1499.84, "end": 1506.84, "text": "And one of them is the L-shape, and then a townhouse style, and then lone standing" }, { "start": 1506.84, "end": 1508.56, "text": "detached single-family houses." }, { "start": 1508.94, "end": 1515.22, "text": "And so he was involved in the development of these different building types." }, { "start": 1515.8, "end": 1520.34, "text": "That way, Hilberseimer strived to bring some more density to Dessau and the" }, { "start": 1520.34, "end": 1523.82, "text": "co-living of different types of people and houses in one district." }, { "start": 1524.36, "end": 1529.26, "text": "The detached houses were planned on 200 square meters plots of land and they" }, { "start": 1529.26, "end": 1530.84, "text": "would have been modularly extendable" }, { "start": 1530.84, "end": 1534.48, "text": "when needed or when the financial situation of the family improved." }, { "start": 1534.96, "end": 1539.3, "text": "However, only the apartment buildings with balcony access were built in the end." }, { "start": 1539.86, "end": 1545.48, "text": "In 2020, though, the University of Kassel and the Anhalt Werkbund realized with" }, { "start": 1545.48, "end": 1549.24, "text": "students one of these houses at the place where it was originally planned for," }, { "start": 1549.48, "end": 1552.04, "text": "next to the balcony access houses, in Dessau." }, { "start": 1552.88, "end": 1557.6, "text": "They used the more detailed plans of the so-called Growing House (das" }, { "start": 1557.6, "end": 1562.3, "text": "Wachsende Haus) that Ludwig Hilberseimer had developed for the 1932 exhibition" }, { "start": 1562.3, "end": 1567.62, "text": "\"Sonne, Luft und Haus für alle\" (Sun, Air and House for Everyone) in Berlin." }, { "start": 1568.3, "end": 1572.38, "text": "Here, one model house, including the interiors, was actually constructed." }, { "start": 1574.0, "end": 1578.1, "text": "The L- or arrow-shaped house made of wood consists of two rooms." }, { "start": 1578.3, "end": 1581.44, "text": "One is 5 meters long, the other one is 6 meters long." }, { "start": 1581.76, "end": 1584.76, "text": "At the tip of the L, the exact corner was deleted." }, { "start": 1585.6, "end": 1588.38, "text": "Instead, a terrace was supposed to find its place here." }, { "start": 1589.06, "end": 1591.64, "text": "If you'd like to know what the house would have looked like," }, { "start": 1591.8, "end": 1594.52, "text": "I will link you a video of that project in the show notes." }, { "start": 1594.68, "end": 1598.52, "text": "It's really interesting to see how Hilberseimer's urban plan would have looked" }, { "start": 1598.52, "end": 1601.18, "text": "like in reality, on a smaller scale though." }, { "start": 1602.38, "end": 1608.24, "text": "For me, maybe the most interesting part is he was hired to replace Hans Witwer." }, { "start": 1608.58, "end": 1615.38, "text": "And Hans Wittwer was instrumental at the Bauhaus. He was teaching many of the" }, { "start": 1615.38, "end": 1622.54, "text": "architecture courses, and he was also heavily involved in building the trade union school in Bernau." }, { "start": 1623.16, "end": 1629.8, "text": "And themes that Hilberseimer took up, I can see already in the trade union" }, { "start": 1629.8, "end": 1631.44, "text": "school, for example. So..." }, { "start": 1631.66, "end": 1637.74, "text": "Just giving you maybe one or two examples, the Trade Union School is not strictly" }, { "start": 1637.74, "end": 1640.24, "text": "north-south or east-west to the cardinal directions." }, { "start": 1640.24, "end": 1646.5, "text": "It is turned 45 degrees to the cardinal directions, which then leads to rooms" }, { "start": 1646.5, "end": 1649.72, "text": "that are oriented to southeast or southwest." }, { "start": 1650.2, "end": 1656.22, "text": "And that, in a couple of years only, becomes a favorite orientation for Hilberseimer." }, { "start": 1656.48, "end": 1662.08, "text": "So the metropolis city is strictly north-south city. The Residential City is" }, { "start": 1662.08, "end": 1663.6, "text": "a strictly north-south city." }, { "start": 1663.88, "end": 1670.22, "text": "And he starts experimenting more with different orientations when he comes to the Bauhaus." }, { "start": 1670.38, "end": 1673.18, "text": "And in the trade union school, it's already there." }, { "start": 1673.6, "end": 1677.84, "text": "Another topic, for example, in the trade union school, it has the teacher wing." }, { "start": 1678.06, "end": 1683.44, "text": "So the teachers lived in L-shaped single-family houses." }, { "start": 1683.78, "end": 1690.34, "text": "And the L-shaped building became a favorite building type for Hilberseimer in the following years." }, { "start": 1690.6, "end": 1694.46, "text": "And also in Chicago, he proposed the L-shaped building." }, { "start": 1694.72, "end": 1698.08, "text": "So he proposed a single-story L-shaped building." }, { "start": 1698.3, "end": 1701.22, "text": "And in the trade union school, there's a double height." }, { "start": 1701.44, "end": 1706.68, "text": "But what the L-shaped building does is that you can orient your rooms into different" }, { "start": 1706.68, "end": 1709.14, "text": "directions, into southeast and southwest." }, { "start": 1709.44, "end": 1714.22, "text": "So the model is already there, and Hilberseimer could study that." }, { "start": 1714.46, "end": 1719.42, "text": "And maybe a third one is Hilberseimer started with his orientation studies" }, { "start": 1719.42, "end": 1722.04, "text": "and his solar angle studies at the Bauhaus." }, { "start": 1722.76, "end": 1726.82, "text": "And Hans Wittwer did this before him. And when we look at the competition drawings" }, { "start": 1726.82, "end": 1733.42, "text": "of the trade union school, where each competition board has at the side these orientation studies," }, { "start": 1733.64, "end": 1741.02, "text": "almost to justify that the entire scheme of the school is based on solar orientation." }, { "start": 1741.02, "end": 1745.28, "text": "So it was already in the competition boards and Hilberseimer," }, { "start": 1745.91, "end": 1750.55, "text": "because he had to replace Wittwer's teaching, he had to pick up his teaching," }, { "start": 1750.75, "end": 1752.91, "text": "also his solar orientation teaching." }, { "start": 1753.19, "end": 1759.27, "text": "So there was already a lot that he could get inspiration from and that he then," }, { "start": 1759.45, "end": 1765.81, "text": "in his Hilberseimer style, systematized and got to a more abstract level, if you will." }, { "start": 1766.75, "end": 1773.89, "text": "I think from the solar orientation studies, he expanded this to bigger settlements" }, { "start": 1773.89, "end": 1776.07, "text": "and then to more urban planning." }, { "start": 1776.35, "end": 1782.87, "text": "But that starts in the single room and the best orientation of an apartment" }, { "start": 1782.87, "end": 1786.07, "text": "that then leads to a good urban planning." }, { "start": 1786.07, "end": 1792.09, "text": "I think where he might have influenced the students is his drawing style," }, { "start": 1792.45, "end": 1800.67, "text": "these renderings that are so precise, line drawings, and you cannot really distinguish" }, { "start": 1800.67, "end": 1803.77, "text": "what is Hilberseimer drawing and what is a student drawing." }, { "start": 1803.77, "end": 1811.99, "text": "He also looked into wind directions, which in a way mainly came down to placing" }, { "start": 1811.99, "end": 1815.25, "text": "housing settlements away from factories." }, { "start": 1815.67, "end": 1820.75, "text": "So on the one hand, a separation of working and dwelling, but also a separation" }, { "start": 1820.75, "end": 1828.27, "text": "when it comes to bad fumes that the housing shouldn't be placed in the fume" }, { "start": 1828.27, "end": 1830.77, "text": "axis of larger factories." }, { "start": 1830.77, "end": 1838.01, "text": "Just to explain that there's a big shift from his first phase in Berlin to the" }, { "start": 1838.01, "end": 1839.99, "text": "second phase at the Bauhaus." }, { "start": 1841.21, "end": 1845.89, "text": "In the end, the Bauhaus in Berlin, now a private architecture institute of Mies" }, { "start": 1845.89, "end": 1848.11, "text": "van der Rohe, was more closed than open." }, { "start": 1848.71, "end": 1852.91, "text": "During the three months that Mies was negotiating with the Nazis the conditions" }, { "start": 1852.91, "end": 1857.25, "text": "on which the Bauhaus could be reopened, he organized several excursions for" }, { "start": 1857.25, "end": 1861.37, "text": "the remaining students to explore buildings by fellow modern architects and" }, { "start": 1861.37, "end": 1863.27, "text": "by his role model, Karl Friedrich Schinkel." }, { "start": 1863.85, "end": 1866.61, "text": "Kevin Harrington describes this era of change." }, { "start": 1867.47, "end": 1870.79, "text": "There's a letter in the Hilberseimer papers at" }, { "start": 1870.79, "end": 1874.25, "text": "the Art Institute in Chicago in which Hilberseimer talks" }, { "start": 1874.25, "end": 1877.53, "text": "about sitting in a cafe across the street" }, { "start": 1877.53, "end": 1882.65, "text": "from the Chancellery in Berlin where Mies had gone to sit on what he said was" }, { "start": 1882.65, "end": 1887.11, "text": "a bench that was about six inches wide and then had made to wait most of the" }, { "start": 1887.11, "end": 1891.87, "text": "day until the Nazi functionary who was in charge of allowing the Bauhaus to" }, { "start": 1891.87, "end": 1895.95, "text": "stay open or not and arresting or not arresting members of the faculty." }, { "start": 1896.61, "end": 1900.93, "text": "That Hilberseimer sat in that cafe fearful that Mies would be abducted and" }, { "start": 1900.93, "end": 1907.41, "text": "imprisoned, and also very, very impressed by Mies's courage in doing this." }, { "start": 1907.47, "end": 1910.59, "text": "And I gathered from the letter that this is not something Mies did once." }, { "start": 1910.65, "end": 1916.71, "text": "He had to several times go, and as you know, the outcome of that is the Bauhaus" }, { "start": 1916.71, "end": 1920.89, "text": "was permitted to reopen, and then Mies said, let's open up the Champagne." }, { "start": 1921.29, "end": 1924.31, "text": "We're closing the Bauhaus because we cannot operate it." }, { "start": 1924.31, "end": 1930.73, "text": "And that act of moral courage that Hilberseimer records tells us at least as" }, { "start": 1930.73, "end": 1935.49, "text": "much about Hilberseimer as it does about Mies and their attitude toward the" }, { "start": 1935.49, "end": 1936.77, "text": "regime in which they were living." }, { "start": 1937.41, "end": 1942.23, "text": "And when Mies had his private practice in Berlin after the Bauhaus had closed," }, { "start": 1942.83, "end": 1944.85, "text": "Hilbs was around, and Hilbs was" }, { "start": 1944.85, "end": 1949.53, "text": "still around when Mies came to America and needed to establish a faculty." }, { "start": 1949.83, "end": 1954.53, "text": "And it was the three Germans and then two Americans who had studied at the Bauhaus" }, { "start": 1954.53, "end": 1959.39, "text": "who were handy because they could translate for these German speakers as they learned English." }, { "start": 1959.85, "end": 1964.69, "text": "Mies is the one who decided to invite Hilberseimer and Peterhans to this country." }, { "start": 1965.47, "end": 1972.47, "text": "And from the time Mies got to Chicago, IIT became actually a school that was co-educational." }, { "start": 1972.95, "end": 1977.99, "text": "It did not segregate on the basis of race or religion. And that was the founding" }, { "start": 1977.99, "end": 1979.87, "text": "character of the school, too." }, { "start": 1980.29, "end": 1985.21, "text": "That meant that they were coming to a place that had officially an open mind" }, { "start": 1985.21, "end": 1988.79, "text": "in a city that is an incredibly diverse city." }, { "start": 1988.97, "end": 1993.05, "text": "And the School of Architecture has benefited from that over and over." }, { "start": 1993.05, "end": 1999.21, "text": "And I think those kind of personal choices that had been made by Mies and Peterhans" }, { "start": 1999.21, "end": 2005.31, "text": "and Hilberseimer brought together a kind of similarity of attitude toward the world around them." }, { "start": 2005.49, "end": 2011.21, "text": "And Mies wanted a school in which one could study how to build," }, { "start": 2011.29, "end": 2016.47, "text": "that was Mies's job, where and the nature of the place where you built," }, { "start": 2016.67, "end": 2019.19, "text": "city planning, that was Hilberseimer's job." }, { "start": 2019.19, "end": 2024.03, "text": "And the idea that Baukunst should eventually have real Kunst in it," }, { "start": 2024.21, "end": 2025.51, "text": "which was Peterhans' job." }, { "start": 2026.21, "end": 2030.25, "text": "Baukunst meant that you begin with building and then if you build really," }, { "start": 2030.37, "end": 2032.53, "text": "really well, then it can become art." }, { "start": 2033.75, "end": 2038.53, "text": "For those of you who don't know who Walter Peterhans was, here's a quick recap." }, { "start": 2039.21, "end": 2043.07, "text": "Peterhans was a professional photographer from Berlin, was appointed to the" }, { "start": 2043.07, "end": 2047.61, "text": "Bauhaus by Hannes Mayer in 1929 to set up the newly founded photography department." }, { "start": 2048.07, "end": 2053.45, "text": "He was best known by his students for his meticulous staging and lighting of still lives." }, { "start": 2053.97, "end": 2058.29, "text": "Some of his students became really prolific in this art and could earn a living" }, { "start": 2058.29, "end": 2062.87, "text": "as advertisement photographers from it, some of them even during their studies at the Bauhaus." }, { "start": 2063.73, "end": 2067.49, "text": "Among them were Grete Stern, Ellen Auerbach and Etel Fodor-Mittag." }, { "start": 2068.01, "end": 2072.31, "text": "After his emigration to the US, together with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Ludwig" }, { "start": 2072.31, "end": 2076.63, "text": "Hilberseimer, to set up the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago," }, { "start": 2077.05, "end": 2081.71, "text": "he introduced his visual training program for students that was roughly based" }, { "start": 2081.71, "end": 2084.93, "text": "on the preliminary courses by Josef Albers at the Bauhaus." }, { "start": 2085.77, "end": 2087.73, "text": "He further developed the course" }, { "start": 2087.73, "end": 2091.57, "text": "into a perfect preparation for the later architecture studies at IIT." }, { "start": 2092.31, "end": 2096.59, "text": "Maybe you are a frequent listener of bauhaus faces? Then you might have heard" }, { "start": 2096.59, "end": 2100.63, "text": "Peterhans' name before in the bonus episodes about the Ulm School of Design," }, { "start": 2100.83, "end": 2104.85, "text": "the HFG Ulm, with Martin Mäntele, head of the HFG Archive." }, { "start": 2105.11, "end": 2110.13, "text": "The first director of the HFG, the Bauhaus student and later architect and artist" }, { "start": 2110.13, "end": 2114.41, "text": "Max Bill, about whom I've already published an episode on bauhaus faces with" }, { "start": 2114.41, "end": 2119.83, "text": "his widow Angela Thomas, had asked Peterhans to come and teach his visual training at the HFG." }, { "start": 2119.83, "end": 2126.11, "text": "In August of 1953, it was Peterhans who taught the very first course ever at" }, { "start": 2126.11, "end": 2129.51, "text": "the HFG Ulm to lay the foundation for the following courses." }, { "start": 2130.29, "end": 2136.35, "text": "Until his death in 1960, Peterhans stayed at the IIT and taught his visual training." }, { "start": 2138.36, "end": 2144.26, "text": "Peterhans was enormously influential, enormously important, the idea of proportion" }, { "start": 2144.26, "end": 2147.12, "text": "and drawing and how to make all of that work." }, { "start": 2147.36, "end": 2152.34, "text": "The first problem that Peterhans gave his students in the visual training sequence," }, { "start": 2152.54, "end": 2155.36, "text": "which is a course he developed for me, said IIT," }, { "start": 2156.18, "end": 2163.02, "text": "was, here's a board, two black lines of different widths, and they were usually" }, { "start": 2163.02, "end": 2166.28, "text": "specified, need to intersect at right angles." }, { "start": 2166.92, "end": 2170.64, "text": "Just arrange on that board the two lines." }, { "start": 2171.68, "end": 2176.84, "text": "First of all, the students had to learn how to cut a piece of black paper to" }, { "start": 2176.84, "end": 2181.24, "text": "be visually perfectly parallel in one width and then another." }, { "start": 2181.74, "end": 2184.82, "text": "Then they had to start thinking about, okay, how do I place this?" }, { "start": 2185.3, "end": 2188.5, "text": "And what happens when I place first one and then the other?" }, { "start": 2188.84, "end": 2192.48, "text": "Should the wider one be the vertical one or the thinner one be the vertical" }, { "start": 2192.48, "end": 2194.06, "text": "one, all of these things." }, { "start": 2194.22, "end": 2198.34, "text": "And they then began to say, okay, here's a proportionate relationship between" }, { "start": 2198.34, "end": 2203.18, "text": "the board itself, the overall figure with the intersection of lines," }, { "start": 2203.22, "end": 2207.26, "text": "and then the four individual white spaces that were created." }, { "start": 2207.44, "end": 2211.26, "text": "And then after all of this was done, the students began to realize," }, { "start": 2211.44, "end": 2212.98, "text": "what if this is a perspective?" }, { "start": 2213.32, "end": 2217.28, "text": "What if that intersection is projecting out toward me or is projecting away?" }, { "start": 2217.48, "end": 2218.86, "text": "I'm looking at three dimensions." }, { "start": 2219.14, "end": 2224.3, "text": "And so all of those steps that go on. And believe me, Peterhans is the one" }, { "start": 2224.3, "end": 2226.6, "text": "who's teaching the studio, but Hilbs is around." }, { "start": 2228.3, "end": 2232.56, "text": "Students were taught how to sit on the stool, how to lay out their parallel" }, { "start": 2232.56, "end": 2237.0, "text": "rule, how to sharpen their pencil, then what line weight meant." }, { "start": 2237.48, "end": 2241.42, "text": "And Uta was talking about Hilberseimer's concern with the elegance of the drawings." }, { "start": 2241.6, "end": 2246.64, "text": "This is something that kids at IIT had before they'd even been proposed with the idea of a building." }, { "start": 2247.14, "end": 2250.88, "text": "And so drawing is at the core of their first year. In their second year," }, { "start": 2251.1, "end": 2255.64, "text": "at the core, and Hilberseimer is present in this, Hilberseimer is part of the curriculum." }, { "start": 2256.14, "end": 2260.54, "text": "Students are asked to do a dwelling house made out of brick." }, { "start": 2261.24, "end": 2266.6, "text": "It's easy, and the students learn, oh, framing a window or framing a door is kind of fun." }, { "start": 2266.76, "end": 2270.3, "text": "And then they discover how hard it is to go around a corner." }, { "start": 2270.78, "end": 2275.8, "text": "And that marvelous lesson in architecture that you can solve for the inside" }, { "start": 2275.8, "end": 2281.48, "text": "corner, or you can solve for the outside corner, but you cannot solve for both at the same corner." }, { "start": 2282.26, "end": 2288.82, "text": "IIT kids had boxes of little wooden bricks, the proper proportions of a regular building brick." }, { "start": 2289.04, "end": 2291.28, "text": "In English, it's two by four by eight inches." }, { "start": 2291.72, "end": 2296.54, "text": "They would discover that as they did that with their hands, with the material." }, { "start": 2296.78, "end": 2300.08, "text": "And then sometimes they'd go outside with real bricks and start to do this and" }, { "start": 2300.08, "end": 2302.0, "text": "start to see what it was like to put them together." }, { "start": 2302.3, "end": 2306.18, "text": "And so this quality of the materiality of what they were doing," }, { "start": 2306.18, "end": 2309.08, "text": "that is what Hilberseimer asked them to think about." }, { "start": 2310.28, "end": 2314.74, "text": "When in third year students start the city planning sequence," }, { "start": 2315.04, "end": 2320.44, "text": "they already have control of their pencil, control of their boards," }, { "start": 2320.62, "end": 2321.88, "text": "control of their materials." }, { "start": 2322.26, "end": 2325.96, "text": "And so then Hilbs can start to ask them, how do we make a city?" }, { "start": 2326.66, "end": 2333.24, "text": "And then you take that knowledge of abstraction and then apply it to how a building" }, { "start": 2333.24, "end": 2334.7, "text": "works, how a dwelling works." }, { "start": 2334.88, "end": 2338.6, "text": "And then how do you put dwellings together and then how you put lots of dwellings" }, { "start": 2338.6, "end": 2342.2, "text": "together. And do you spread them out horizontally or do you make them rise vertically?" }, { "start": 2342.54, "end": 2345.24, "text": "All of these kinds of issues that Ud has been talking about," }, { "start": 2345.46, "end": 2349.36, "text": "that Hilbs was already thinking about and already thought about very thoroughly," }, { "start": 2349.68, "end": 2356.56, "text": "were present in what he brought to the school at IIT and is something that was" }, { "start": 2356.56, "end": 2361.66, "text": "a key component of what students were doing and learning at the school." }, { "start": 2363.66, "end": 2368.64, "text": "Hilbs became the most influential teacher in the building." }, { "start": 2368.94, "end": 2373.52, "text": "First in the Alumni Hall and then where the school had been taught in the Art" }, { "start": 2373.52, "end": 2377.02, "text": "Institute, that it was moved on campus and then it was moved into Crown Hall." }, { "start": 2377.97, "end": 2385.99, "text": "And in every case, what the students were learning was how to build and how" }, { "start": 2385.99, "end": 2388.19, "text": "to build really, really well." }, { "start": 2388.67, "end": 2392.27, "text": "And Hilbs was as much a part of this as anything else." }, { "start": 2392.49, "end": 2396.95, "text": "People said to me many times, well, you have to understand, this is really Hilbs' school." }, { "start": 2397.29, "end": 2399.21, "text": "Because he was there every day." }, { "start": 2399.65, "end": 2402.73, "text": "Mies had a practice. He showed up after lunch." }, { "start": 2402.89, "end": 2407.75, "text": "And as far as I understand, there were never fewer than two martinis at Mies' lunch." }, { "start": 2407.97, "end": 2411.07, "text": "So that when he got to campus and said, well, what's happening," }, { "start": 2411.33, "end": 2414.13, "text": "he was talking to a limited number of people." }, { "start": 2414.23, "end": 2418.79, "text": "He did his administrative job and he dealt with his graduate students principally." }, { "start": 2419.07, "end": 2424.33, "text": "So Hilbs was the person that people saw every day because Hilbs was there in" }, { "start": 2424.33, "end": 2427.17, "text": "the morning when they arrived on campus for their other courses," }, { "start": 2427.39, "end": 2430.97, "text": "in the afternoon when they were in studio, and in the evening when they were" }, { "start": 2430.97, "end": 2433.19, "text": "doing their drawings or making their models." }, { "start": 2433.43, "end": 2436.07, "text": "So Hilbs was this constant, constant presence." }, { "start": 2436.69, "end": 2441.23, "text": "And there are photographs of Hilbs with his students. And there seems to be" }, { "start": 2441.23, "end": 2444.37, "text": "a kind of easy affability among them." }, { "start": 2444.91, "end": 2448.57, "text": "Hilbs liked students. And the students liked Hilbs." }, { "start": 2448.87, "end": 2453.59, "text": "And that was, I think, enormously important and helpful in the school." }, { "start": 2453.83, "end": 2457.03, "text": "And some of the kids then decided, I want to be a city planner." }, { "start": 2457.27, "end": 2460.57, "text": "And in their fourth and fifth year, they could concentrate on city planning" }, { "start": 2460.57, "end": 2465.01, "text": "with Hilbs. But they also could continue in the architecture sequence." }, { "start": 2465.61, "end": 2472.21, "text": "That's a short way of characterizing what I see as Hilbers' importance to Mies' program at IIT." }, { "start": 2472.89, "end": 2476.77, "text": "It is quite impressive that after his immigration to the U.S." }, { "start": 2476.91, "end": 2483.35, "text": "And while working as an educator at IIT, Ludwig Hilberseimer continued to publish books as a critic." }, { "start": 2483.67, "end": 2487.97, "text": "The first one is called The New City and was published in 1944." }, { "start": 2488.59, "end": 2490.11, "text": "This is Ute Poerschke again." }, { "start": 2491.33, "end": 2497.19, "text": "His first book that came out when he was in the U.S. was in 1944, The New City." }, { "start": 2497.77, "end": 2504.45, "text": "And in that book, it's kind of a summary of all the studies that he did at the Bauhaus." }, { "start": 2504.85, "end": 2511.03, "text": "So there you see the mixed settlements. There you see his solar studies of single" }, { "start": 2511.03, "end": 2517.03, "text": "rooms, his graphs, how much sun comes into a room when you have different orientations." }, { "start": 2517.03, "end": 2522.53, "text": "So things that he had published already in Germany during his Bauhaus times," }, { "start": 2522.77, "end": 2526.83, "text": "they are densified in this book in 1944." }, { "start": 2528.26, "end": 2533.08, "text": "He likely worked on this book after the Bauhaus was closed until his immigration." }, { "start": 2533.6, "end": 2539.36, "text": "He had a German draft, but then it took several years to get this translated." }, { "start": 2539.9, "end": 2545.9, "text": "And then there's a whole series of books that he wrote on the contemporary city, the new architecture." }, { "start": 2546.16, "end": 2552.32, "text": "He published regularly and continually, and that act of academic scholarship," }, { "start": 2552.32, "end": 2555.68, "text": "if you will, seems to have been at the core of what he wanted to do." }, { "start": 2555.68, "end": 2560.04, "text": "He did not seem to be particularly interested in actual practice." }, { "start": 2560.42, "end": 2562.42, "text": "He was involved with some projects." }, { "start": 2562.88, "end": 2566.84, "text": "At IIT, Hilbs' presence is an observer, as a critic." }, { "start": 2567.14, "end": 2570.36, "text": "He did not have any kind of direct creative role." }, { "start": 2570.64, "end": 2577.28, "text": "At Lafayette Park, he did, and he was involved with the determination of laying" }, { "start": 2577.28, "end": 2578.7, "text": "down the original concept," }, { "start": 2578.96, "end": 2582.22, "text": "that is to say, or Mies, I'm sure, is the one who presented it," }, { "start": 2582.38, "end": 2587.4, "text": "but You want a space that is largely self-contained, and in Detroit," }, { "start": 2587.58, "end": 2590.34, "text": "the site allows you to have a self-contained space," }, { "start": 2590.56, "end": 2597.16, "text": "that has a mix of low, mid, and high-rise buildings, which came over time." }, { "start": 2597.24, "end": 2601.12, "text": "And this is something that Hilbs was proposing earlier on and that disappeared." }, { "start": 2601.42, "end": 2605.58, "text": "For instance, in none of Hilbs' plans that I've studied, this includes the courtyard" }, { "start": 2605.58, "end": 2610.18, "text": "houses that Meese created for Lafayette Park that are among the most beautiful things there." }, { "start": 2610.18, "end": 2615.96, "text": "And then the townhouse buildings, the two-story buildings that are all over" }, { "start": 2615.96, "end": 2621.36, "text": "the site, those you could easily say are from the vocabulary of Hilberseimer." }, { "start": 2622.33, "end": 2627.23, "text": "How I understand the history of the Lafayette Park, there are some early sketches" }, { "start": 2627.23, "end": 2630.35, "text": "of Hilberseimer of the entire layout." }, { "start": 2630.79, "end": 2635.85, "text": "So maybe the one thing that really survived is that green belt in the middle" }, { "start": 2635.85, "end": 2638.75, "text": "where the school is implemented." }, { "start": 2638.97, "end": 2645.27, "text": "But in this early sketch or early sketches, we see the settlement units that" }, { "start": 2645.27, "end": 2648.21, "text": "he came up with in the 1930s already." }, { "start": 2648.21, "end": 2655.59, "text": "So we see the L-shape single-family house, and then we see the high-rise apartment building." }, { "start": 2655.79, "end": 2659.37, "text": "And we see a nice orientation towards southeast." }, { "start": 2659.95, "end": 2665.17, "text": "So Hilberseimer always preferred the southeast over the southwest," }, { "start": 2665.17, "end": 2670.03, "text": "because in the southwest, the bedrooms get really warm before you go to bed." }, { "start": 2670.31, "end": 2676.87, "text": "So these sketches exist. When I was there, it's actually a beautiful area," }, { "start": 2676.87, "end": 2682.09, "text": "and the landscape is one of the strongest pieces, I find," }, { "start": 2682.57, "end": 2687.35, "text": "where the parking is slightly lowered so that when you walk," }, { "start": 2687.51, "end": 2691.93, "text": "they are somehow tacked in the ground, how the trees are planted." }, { "start": 2691.99, "end": 2694.87, "text": "This works so beautifully with the architecture." }, { "start": 2696.25, "end": 2700.39, "text": "As some of the people who worked on the project in Mies' office said to me once," }, { "start": 2700.61, "end": 2705.07, "text": "we came in one day and Hilbs' plan was gone, and Mies had a new plan." }, { "start": 2705.55, "end": 2711.63, "text": "But I don't think you can point to Hilbs having a hand in an actual building." }, { "start": 2711.87, "end": 2719.05, "text": "And I don't see any evidence that Hilbs had his hand in a direct way. Now, let me back up a sec." }, { "start": 2719.61, "end": 2724.13, "text": "Many people who worked in Mies' office said that Hilbs often came to the office" }, { "start": 2724.13, "end": 2728.73, "text": "in the late afternoon. And I can't imagine them not talking about architecture." }, { "start": 2729.09, "end": 2733.55, "text": "So there may be ways, silent ways, that neither Meese nor Hilbs is going to" }, { "start": 2733.55, "end": 2737.79, "text": "write down, oh, this corner could be better if, or something like that." }, { "start": 2737.99, "end": 2742.33, "text": "I don't know of anything that points to that kind of direct influence." }, { "start": 2742.33, "end": 2748.83, "text": "But that it was there, that Mies was a person who admired and respected Hilbs throughout." }, { "start": 2749.11, "end": 2751.39, "text": "There's no doubt in my mind about that." }, { "start": 2751.73, "end": 2757.69, "text": "It seems to me what's really going on in the relationship between the two figures." }, { "start": 2757.99, "end": 2762.79, "text": "That's adherence to general principles and then figuring out," }, { "start": 2762.99, "end": 2765.03, "text": "okay, this is this problem." }, { "start": 2765.47, "end": 2771.65, "text": "And Hilbs, I think, is the general principles guy. Mies is the specific big problem guy." }, { "start": 2773.51, "end": 2776.93, "text": "We don't have examples of Hilbs' architecture to look at." }, { "start": 2777.13, "end": 2779.13, "text": "The very few photographs of Hilbs'" }, { "start": 2779.25, "end": 2782.93, "text": "buildings that I've seen are not as proportionally elegant as Mises are." }, { "start": 2783.19, "end": 2788.63, "text": "They're simply buildings, and they make a point, but they don't make you say," }, { "start": 2788.65, "end": 2791.81, "text": "oh, in the way that Mises' buildings can do." }, { "start": 2792.13, "end": 2796.17, "text": "So the fact that there would be low-rise buildings in both is fine." }, { "start": 2796.41, "end": 2800.99, "text": "The high-rise buildings that are on the perimeter, that would be something that" }, { "start": 2800.99, "end": 2803.25, "text": "Hilbs would suggest and that are there, in fact." }, { "start": 2803.25, "end": 2807.49, "text": "And then the open spaces for play, the suppressed parking," }, { "start": 2807.85, "end": 2812.21, "text": "the school that students could walk to, all of that, and the small shopping" }, { "start": 2812.21, "end": 2816.73, "text": "center on a main highway, all of that is part of the mix that Hilbs would have" }, { "start": 2816.73, "end": 2820.39, "text": "been talking about and that Meese and his team then achieved." }, { "start": 2820.81, "end": 2824.05, "text": "And then, of course, the drawings for all of this were made by Caldwell." }, { "start": 2824.05, "end": 2829.31, "text": "Now, Caldwell had worked for a number of architects in Chicago," }, { "start": 2829.51, "end": 2830.33, "text": "our landscape architects." }, { "start": 2830.53, "end": 2834.29, "text": "He'd worked for Jens Jensen as a young man, a very fine Danish foreign landscape" }, { "start": 2834.29, "end": 2837.13, "text": "architect who was important in the parks in Chicago." }, { "start": 2837.51, "end": 2842.45, "text": "Then he studied briefly at Taliesin. Then he came to IIT toward the end of World" }, { "start": 2842.45, "end": 2849.33, "text": "War II and earned a master's degree in a couple of years in a very short time and was hired to teach." }, { "start": 2850.19, "end": 2855.81, "text": "And Caldwell is the person who Mies had been looking for, I think it's fair to say." }, { "start": 2856.09, "end": 2859.01, "text": "As you know, Mies admired and" }, { "start": 2859.01, "end": 2864.43, "text": "understood Schinkel's understanding of the landscape in his architecture." }, { "start": 2864.77, "end": 2870.67, "text": "And so when Caldwell shows up for Mies, it's that he's got the guy who knows" }, { "start": 2870.67, "end": 2873.69, "text": "landscape, and Hilber Seimer did as well." }, { "start": 2873.69, "end": 2880.05, "text": "Caldwell's presence in Mies' work is extraordinary, whether it's Lafayette Park" }, { "start": 2880.05, "end": 2884.55, "text": "or the IIT campus or just about any place else that he worked." }, { "start": 2885.74, "end": 2891.62, "text": "Also, the drawings that really make people think of Hilberseimer as a great" }, { "start": 2891.62, "end": 2898.38, "text": "designer are the drawings that Caldwell made of his plans for cities," }, { "start": 2898.58, "end": 2900.78, "text": "the one Chicago expanding to Chicago," }, { "start": 2901.28, "end": 2904.14, "text": "the whole series of sites in California." }, { "start": 2904.7, "end": 2906.76, "text": "Hilberseimer obviously was the one who was thinking about this." }, { "start": 2907.22, "end": 2911.86, "text": "Caldwell was the one who made the landscape not a sort of thing in which somebody" }, { "start": 2911.86, "end": 2915.6, "text": "comes in with the little tree stamp and goes bonk, bonk, bonk on a site," }, { "start": 2915.74, "end": 2916.9, "text": "and then we've got trees." }, { "start": 2917.78, "end": 2922.04, "text": "Caldwell understood that the trees in relation to the building were truly key." }, { "start": 2922.98, "end": 2927.56, "text": "And this begins to show up. And as you start to look at these drawings that" }, { "start": 2927.56, "end": 2930.34, "text": "Caldwell made, they're now with the CCA in Montreal mostly." }, { "start": 2930.72, "end": 2933.5, "text": "They're some of the most beautiful drawings, period." }, { "start": 2934.14, "end": 2941.48, "text": "It's so clear that all three of them, Hilbs, Caldwell, Meese," }, { "start": 2941.74, "end": 2945.34, "text": "understood that importance in create an environment." }, { "start": 2946.95, "end": 2950.93, "text": "Hilbs did not build a practice in city planning or urban design," }, { "start": 2951.19, "end": 2958.27, "text": "but no one, and again, because Tilbersheimer in this country seems to become a quite private person." }, { "start": 2958.81, "end": 2961.93, "text": "Students I've spoken to said that he had no idea where he lived." }, { "start": 2962.05, "end": 2963.77, "text": "He was just in school all the time." }, { "start": 2964.23, "end": 2970.55, "text": "And there are a couple of letters in the Hilb archive from a girlfriend who" }, { "start": 2970.55, "end": 2973.95, "text": "wrote angrily that he wasn't paying enough attention to her," }, { "start": 2974.33, "end": 2980.53, "text": "which again implies that he had other things to do, that other things were more" }, { "start": 2980.53, "end": 2982.89, "text": "important to him than a personal relationship." }, { "start": 2983.27, "end": 2988.45, "text": "So that also seems to me to describe a person who had discovered," }, { "start": 2988.65, "end": 2994.53, "text": "I'm an academic, I write, I teach, and he did all of that and did that with" }, { "start": 2994.53, "end": 2995.89, "text": "significant influence." }, { "start": 2996.07, "end": 2998.13, "text": "That's part of why we're talking about him today." }, { "start": 2998.57, "end": 3004.73, "text": "Many of his students were very successful. This is one of the ways in which you measure a scholar." }, { "start": 3005.15, "end": 3009.35, "text": "Where do they place their best students? Many of them went to universities." }, { "start": 3009.57, "end": 3014.05, "text": "Many of them became leading figures in the planning departments of their city," }, { "start": 3014.21, "end": 3015.13, "text": "their region, their state." }, { "start": 3015.35, "end": 3021.79, "text": "So Hilberseimer had influence in that way, but he did not desire to actually" }, { "start": 3021.79, "end": 3024.11, "text": "build or see his ideas achieved." }, { "start": 3025.8, "end": 3029.78, "text": "Ludwig Hilberseimer's design for a Residential City and for a Highrise City" }, { "start": 3029.78, "end": 3033.6, "text": "from the early 1920s were frowned upon by his contemporaries," }, { "start": 3033.64, "end": 3038.94, "text": "and he even himself later admitted that the omittance of parks and trees in" }, { "start": 3038.94, "end": 3041.84, "text": "his plans resulted in an uneasy feeling." }, { "start": 3042.14, "end": 3045.44, "text": "This derisive surrounding made of concrete and glass, though," }, { "start": 3045.82, "end": 3050.94, "text": "is also what made it stand out, and suggested a new solution to the very real" }, { "start": 3050.94, "end": 3053.52, "text": "housing shortage of the 1920s metropolis." }, { "start": 3054.34, "end": 3060.1, "text": "At this point, though, no one had expected that apartment skyscrapers would soon become reality." }, { "start": 3060.94, "end": 3065.74, "text": "After the emigration to the US, in the 1950s, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe," }, { "start": 3065.82, "end": 3067.84, "text": "advised and partly planned by Ludwig" }, { "start": 3067.84, "end": 3071.8, "text": "Hilberseimer, realized multiple such high-rise apartment buildings." }, { "start": 3073.28, "end": 3077.76, "text": "Hilberseimer was a very private person. Until today, there is hardly anything" }, { "start": 3077.76, "end": 3080.36, "text": "known about the private side of Ludwig Hilberseimer." }, { "start": 3080.58, "end": 3085.56, "text": "Even his longtime relationship to the Bauhaus textile designer Otti Berger is slightly unclear." }, { "start": 3086.06, "end": 3090.22, "text": "It's quite interesting, though, what researcher Judith Raum found out about it." }, { "start": 3090.38, "end": 3094.86, "text": "And if you are curious now, I recommend listening to my episode on bauhaus faces" }, { "start": 3094.86, "end": 3097.5, "text": "about Otti Berger with Judith Raum right now." }, { "start": 3098.48, "end": 3103.16, "text": "Ludwig Hilberseimer, who everyone, staff and students at the IIT still lovingly" }, { "start": 3103.16, "end": 3108.84, "text": "call \"Hilbs\" – like Kevin did in this episode – is still present at the university." }, { "start": 3109.46, "end": 3115.14, "text": "Every year, the architecture program of the IIT and the Mii Society in Chicago" }, { "start": 3115.14, "end": 3121.36, "text": "celebrate winter solstice as Hilb's Day, as a celebration of light and movement." }, { "start": 3122.08, "end": 3125.6, "text": "Is there a better way to be remembered? I don't think so." }, { "start": 3126.26, "end": 3130.88, "text": "As always, I will link the relevant information about this episode and the podcast" }, { "start": 3130.88, "end": 3134.38, "text": "episodes on Otti Berger and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in the show notes." }, { "start": 3135.12, "end": 3138.84, "text": "If you liked this episode or another episode of bauhaus faces," }, { "start": 3139.2, "end": 3144.84, "text": "please don't forget to subscribe and rate on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube." }, { "start": 3145.3, "end": 3149.92, "text": "And recommend it to your friends, family and colleagues. Don't forget to subscribe" }, { "start": 3149.92, "end": 3154.64, "text": "to my new podcast newsletter on Bauhausfaces.com to stay up to date about new" }, { "start": 3154.64, "end": 3156.3, "text": "episodes of bauhaus faces." }, { "start": 3156.82, "end": 3163.84, "text": "And now, there's nothing left to say, but tune in next time for a new episode of bauhaus faces." } ]