Building design theory

The book Bauentwurfslehre by Ernst Neufert is a standard work that deals with standardization and construction planning in the design phase. This collection of standards, dimensions and spacing areas is illustrated on the basis of detailed sample drawings, which range from the ergonomics of the human environment, through specific requirements of various construction tasks, to building typological considerations of a general nature. The book was conceived as an aid for students and architects and as a guide for building owners and planners.

In 1936 the book was published for the first time by Ullstein Verlag under its imprint Bauwelt -verlag in Berlin and later updated and revised several times. The 42nd edition was published in 2018. Until 1986 Ernst Neufert headed the editorial department himself, which his son Peter later continued within the Planungs AG Neufert Mittmann Graf Partner. The building design theory has been translated into 18 languages and is now published almost worldwide.

The building design theory has a circulation of over 300,000 copies in Germany and over 500,000 copies in the rest of the world, making it one of the most successful architecture books of the 20th century.

Reference should be made here to Ernst Neufert's “Bauordnungslehre”, published from 1943 onwards. The dimensional system dealt with there represents a detailed extension of the building design theory and forms the basic requirement for DIN 4172 (dimensional system in building construction). The “regulated measure” cited in the subtitle of the building regulations is nothing else than the basic dimension / module declared by Vitruvius in his treatise “ De architectura libri decem ” as the basis of architectural design. In the illustrations on the titles of his work, Ernst Neufert already refers to the " homo bene figuratus " presented by Vitruvius , the proportion figure of the well-formed human being (Homo quadratus and Homo circularis); man is therefore the measure of all things. All dimensions in the ancient civilizations , antiquity , the Middle Ages , the Renaissance , up to the present day, are based on anthropometric measurement series (feet, cubits ... meters = 3 feet).

criticism

The sometimes somewhat exaggerated accuracy with which Neufert even describes the dimensions of animals such as the “ Belgian giant with an upright ear” often contributed to the amusement of experts. Nonetheless, building design theory - also known as “der Neufert” - has been a fundamental instrument in everyday engineering and architectural work since it was first published.

literature

Ernst Neufert: Building regulations. Handbook for rational building, according to a regulated measure, 3rd edition, Frankfurt / Berlin 1961

Ernst Neufert, Johannes Kister: Building design theory. Basics, standards, regulations on plant, construction, design, space requirements, spatial relationships, dimensions for buildings, rooms, facilities, devices with people as dimensions and goals; Handbook for construction professionals, builders, teachers and students; with tables . 41st, revised and updated edition, Vieweg + Teubner, Wiesbaden 2016, ISBN 978-3-658-09938-1

Gernot Weckherlin: BEL. On the systematics of architectural knowledge using the example of Ernst Neufert's building design theory. Wasmuth, Tübingen, 2017, ISBN 978-3-8030-0798-8 .

Nader Vossoughian: Standardization Reconsidered: Normierung in and after Ernst Neufert's Bauentwurfslehre (1936). In: Gray Room 54, Winter 2014, pp. 34–55.

Thilo Hilpert : Human Signs: Ernst Neuferts BEL and BOL, Le Corbusier's Modulor, Design Basics Between 1936 and 1943, in Thilo Hilpert: Century of Modernity - The Century of Modernity, Architecture and Urban Development, Essays and Texts, Springer Vieweg, Wiesbaden 2015, ISBN 978 -3-658-07042-7 , pp. 189-199.

swell

Walter Prigge (Ed.): Ernst Neufert. Standardized building culture in the 20th century . Edition Bauhaus Dessau. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1999, ISBN 3-593-36256-2

Web links

Building design theory on the Neufert Foundation website

References and comments

^ Building design theory 1961, p. 15 and ill. P. 29.
↑ On the development of anthropometric series of dimensions and thus on the prehistory of Neufert's building design and building regulations: Gerd Braun: Vom Bît Hilani zum Palas der Wartburg. An architectural-historical study on design methodology and type formation from antiquity to the high Middle Ages, Volume I-III, Mainz 2018. ISBN 978-3-96176-027-5 .

[1] Building design theory 1961, p. 15 and ill. P. 29.

[2] On the development of anthropometric series of dimensions and thus on the prehistory of Neufert's building design and building regulations: Gerd Braun: Vom Bît Hilani zum Palas der Wartburg. An architectural-historical study on design methodology and type formation from antiquity to the high Middle Ages, Volume I-III, Mainz 2018. ISBN 978-3-96176-027-5 .