I admit- I'm a lover of simplicity. Especially when it comes to architecture. As much as I enjoy the romantic atmosphere of an old city- an old building is an old building and copying it will never be work. Therefore to me architecture as much as a pieces of art is always a child of it's time (free quoted after Wassily Kandinsky). The children of the 1920s in Europe are the utopic ideas of artists dreaming of a new social system and a reorientation of the political system during the world wars. Inspired by concrete art, it didn't take long until their paintings and istallations materialized in simple, cubistic, pratical houses.
An example for the realization of the "Garden City" Idea is found in Stuttgart. Here Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, Hans Sharoun and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe builded their ideal houses during the Bauhaus' Exhibition "Die Wohnung". They tried to solve the social problems which Europe was facing, such as lack of living space and the wide spread of Tuberculosis through their Design of the living space their houses provide. As inherit to any utopistic idea not all of their ideas were really successful and provided space where people actually enjoyed living, but at the end the overall style created in the Weißenhaus-Siedlung became the leading design maxime for the "international style", which spreaded all over the world and whoms influences last until today.
I visited the beautiful city of Stuttgart and brought you back some pictures of those amazing houses, all "perfect in form" not yet in function.
All Pictures are taken by Christopher Wesser.
