New Masters’ Houses
by Bruno Fioretti Marquez (2014)
After the Bauhauslers moved out in 1932, the Masters’ Houses were radically transformed by modifications. Gropius House and Moholy-Nagy House were destroyed in an air raid in the final days of WWII. In the GDR era a single-family home with a pitched roof was erected on the foundations of Gropius House, but this was demolished again later.
Architecture of imprecision
The gaps left behind in the ensemble of buildings were closed in 2014. A historically accurate reconstruction was rejected; Berlin-based architects Bruno Fioretti Marquez (BFM) created an ‘architecture of imprecision’ for the two demolished buildings. This evokes a deliberate sense of oscillation between specific historic state and reinterpretation.
Reopening ceremony
On 16 May 2014 Joachim Gauck, President of the Federal Republic of Germany, opened the new Dessau Masters’ Houses to the public. Internally, they demonstrate their distinctness. Emerging from the residential architecture designed by Walter Gropius in 1926 is an open spatial structure, which is used for exhibitions. Artist Olaf Nicolai has designed an installation for both buildings, which is inspired by Moholy-Nagy’s theories and in which abstraction and figuration interact. The Colour of Light (2014) links the texture of the render with the effects of daylight.
