Edition Bauhaus 46
The New Masters’ Houses in Dessau, 1925–2014
Debates, Positions, Contexts.
During the bombardment of Dessau in March 1945, the Masters’ House ensemble was hit, leaving Walter Gropius’s Director’s House and the Moholy-Nagy House in ruins. The restoration of the group of buildings to its original state provoked a lively debate in the 1990s about how to deal with the two “missing” houses. In 2010, in consultation with English architect David Chipperfield, the decision was taken to reconstruct the Gropius and Moholy-Nagy Masters’ Houses using contemporary resources. As a result, the two buildings can today be viewed not as 1 : 1 reconstructions but rather as innovative abstractions based on designs drawn up by the Berlin firm Bruno Fioretti Marquez Architekten. This book delineates the eventful history of the Dessau Masters’ Houses from the initial planning phase in 1925 to the moment of their reopening in 2014 — it is the first time the different architectural, cultural historical, and preservationist positions have been encapsulated in a single volume. The controversy-filled debates are complemented by photographs taken by Heidi Specker and Armin Linke.
Edited Bauhaus Dessau Foundation
Texts by: Regina Bittner, Donatella Fioretti, Florian Heilmeyer, Ingolf Kern, Monika Lüttich, Pepe Marquez, Monika Markgraf, Werner Andreas Schwarting, Wolfgang Thöner, Ulrike Wendland, Thomas Will et al.
Graphic design: Christian Lange und Ibrahim Öztaş
Layout: 352 pages, numerous b&w and colour illustrations, hardcover
Languages: English and German
Spector Books, Leipzig
2017ISBN 978-3-944669-61-8 (de)
ISBN 978-3-944669-73-1 (en)€ 40 book trade
€ 34 Designshop Bauhaus Dessau