Federal school of the General German Trade Union Federation

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Georg-Waterstradt-Bau, around 1952

The former federal school of the General German Trade Union Federation is a complex of teaching and administrative buildings in the north of Bernau near Berlin in the Bernau-Waldfrieden district . It was designed by the architect Hannes Meyer together with Hans Wittwer and Bauhaus students, built between 1928 and 1930 and has been a listed building since 1977 . In July 2017, the federal school was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

architecture

concept

Meyer planned a building complex that is additively composed of individual structures and fits into the landscape. In 1928 he wrote in the bauhaus magazine: “This school can rightly appear relaxed. The shortest ways to get together are not to be created through shortened corridors, but through the opportunity to be on friendly terms. The result: Not a concentric accumulation of building dimensions, but an eccentric loosening of the components. ” The design arose directly from the function diagrams that Meyer had developed for the school. All lounges were oriented towards the landscape, towards the nearby lake. This created a strong connection to nature and optimal tanning of the 60 double rooms was achieved.

Meyer not only designed a form, a vessel , to take up teaching, but also conceived a completely new, socio-educational organization of coexistence, which found its expression in architecture. This clearly shows his strong tendency towards socialist ideals.

Reception building and auditorium

The entrance to the school was from Wandlitzer Strasse and a concrete access road branching off there with a round driveway. The reception building looks like the entrance to a factory site, Meyer played with the corresponding motifs. The three chimneys of the heating system and the block-like cube of the auditorium dominated the picture. In front of it were garages, a glass cabin for the porter and a delivery ramp for the kitchen area. Meyer placed the systems necessary for the functioning of the house prominently in the entrance area and played with motifs from the working class.

Immediately behind the entrance area, the public houses are set up, which in total result in a square floor plan . In the middle is the also square assembly hall. This form should be an expression of the unity, the unity of a community. It is a windowless room, the strong introversion allows maximum concentration on what is happening. Sophisticated technology supported the lecturer: at the push of a button, the light band could be reduced, the lighting dimmed and three wall elements on the front side hung with maps and diagrams could be moved. The front of the room was covered with silver cellophane , so that the speaker appeared as a “lecturing silhouette” in front of a white square. The administration buildings were lined up around the auditorium to the west, the kitchen to the south and the dining room, lounge and leisure rooms to the east. The recreation rooms were oriented to the southeast and allow a view over a pond and the outdoor pool of the facility. In contrast to the auditorium, these facilities were designed in such a way that they allowed the mind to wander and the mind to relax.

Further functional buildings

Residential wing (north side)
Residential wing (south side)

The rest of the facility is accessed from one hip over the entire length by means of a covered glass corridor. To the south are the five residential wings, to the north you had a clear view of the landscape. The corridor follows the course of the terrain and thus has a gradient of five meters. The recessed edges of the living quarters form niches that serve as communication and lounges. Meyer created not only an access , but also a public space that can also be used as a movement zone in rainy weather. Colored light signals in the corridor provided a means of orientation. Each residential wing was assigned a color (e.g. red), which was then further differentiated on the individual floors (e.g. carmine, vermilion, pink).

Each of the three floors of the residential wing had five twin rooms. The 120 guests were divided into groups of 10, who stayed together for study, sports, games and meals. The aim was to create a sense of community and to allow dynamic group processes to run as smoothly as possible. The fifth wing accommodated the sick, guest speakers and the staff.

Teaching building

Sports hall, above three classrooms

The school wing is farthest away from the road. On the first floor there were two seminar rooms, a reading room and the gym. The long corridor ends in a staircase and an arcade that opens up the upper floor. There are three classrooms there, which, like the auditorium, were equipped with technical finesse. You get daylight from two opposite rows of windows; an inwardly inclined ceiling distributes the light into the depth of the room. Here, too, the view is restricted in order to facilitate concentration.

Residential houses and sports facilities

The teachers and staff lived with their families right next to the school. They were housed in separate houses so that they could have an independent family life. The houses are oriented towards the street, all have a terrace and form the counterpart to the structure of the school wing.

For physical exercise, there was a sports field and an outdoor pool with a 50-meter swimming lane on the site .

reception

The building is considered to be one of the most important works by the architects of the Bauhaus . Alongside the Bauhaus in Dessau, it is the largest Bauhaus project.

history

competition

The property is outside of Bernau and was 6.2 hectares in size. It was a clearing between pine forests with a small lake, an idyllic landscape, very quiet and slightly hilly. In 1928 the area was leased by the ADGB .

In 1928 the ADGB announced a limited competition to build the school among six architects. The building was intended to provide training and recreation for union officials. According to the tender, the house should become a "model example of modern building culture ", on the one hand to show the workers the gratitude of the ADGB, on the other hand the building should serve as a role model. The workers, mostly coming from the poorest of backgrounds, should feel for themselves what modern living can mean, should get to know the goals and methods of modern living culture. 120 workers should find accommodation there for four weeks each. The following subjects were offered: study of the trade union movement, business administration, economics, insurance and labor law, social policy, industrial hygiene. The space program included 60 twin rooms, rooms for teachers, guest speakers, staff and patients. There should be several seminar and lecture rooms, lounges and a gym for further training. A large park was used for recreation. In addition there were the dining room, kitchen, administration and the houses of the teachers.

Hannes Meyer, director of the Bauhaus Dessau , prevailed with his design against Max Berg , Alois Klement , Willy Ludewig , Erich Mendelsohn and Max Taut .

construction

General plan of the school area with identification of the various construction phases

Hannes Meyer and Hans Wittwer , his long-time employee and head of the construction department at the Bauhaus, were in charge of the planning and construction . The foundation stone was laid on July 29, 1928. Construction of the school began on August 22. The topping-out ceremony was celebrated on May 15, 1929 . As a result, numerous deficiencies emerged, such as cold and overheating due to planning errors, faults due to the use of untried building materials such as cork-linoleum floors and drafts, and leaky basements due to execution errors.

1930-2001

The school was inaugurated on May 4, 1930, and could then be used for three years by the ADGB for the training and further education of union officials.

On May 2, 1933, the trade union school was occupied by the SA and later converted into a Reichsschule of the NSDAP (popularly also called Reichsführererschule ) and the DAF . In 1936, a leadership school for members of the SS , SD and Gestapo was established . Conferences on National Socialist politics were held in the school, and branch offices of the RSHA were housed here. In the summer of 1939 the SS practiced the “Polish attack on the Gleiwitz transmitter ” in preparation for the attack on Poland .

After the end of the war , the buildings were used by the Red Army as a military hospital from spring 1945 until the Soviet military administration handed them over to the FDGB's federal executive committee in 1946 . From May 2, 1947, the FDGB used the school, which was renamed the “Fritz Heckert” trade union college in 1951 .

Example of an extension after the war

In the 1950s, the ensemble was expanded according to plans by the architect Georg Waterstradt . In 1977 the entire complex was given the status of monument protection by the GDR .

After the fall of the Wall , on May 4, 1990, the association “Baudenkmal bundesschule Bernau” was founded, with the aim of preserving the ensemble. From October 1990, a Bernau eV training and meeting center that had emerged from the university tried to offer employee-oriented further training here. However, the DGB saw no possibility of resuming central trade union education at this location. After temporary administration of the ensemble by the Treuhand , the state of Brandenburg entered into the heritable building contract with the city of Bernau in 1993 . From September 1991 to August 1998 the ensemble was used as a university of applied sciences for public administration .

2001 to 2005

On September 1, 2001, the Berlin Chamber of Crafts became the new owner and user of the monument . In spring 2002, preparations began for the renovation and reconstruction , which began in spring 2003 and lasted until 2005, and in some cases until 2007. The architects involved were Brenne Gesellschaft von Architekten mbH , the landscape architects Landschaft Planen & Bauen , Pichler Ingenieure and the Thomas engineering office . Nine companies from the federal state of Brandenburg and Berlin carried out the individual work.

The extensions from the 1950s have been used as a school by the city of Bernau since 2004.

Since 2006

With the completion of the renovation work, the entire monument ensemble was named Hannes Meyer Campus in honor of one of its planners. The restored and refurbished main building (new name Meyer-Wittwer-Bau ) has served as a seminar and course hotel since 2007 on behalf of the Berlin Chamber of Crafts, operated by the International Federation . Other buildings built earlier are used by the Barnim Gymnasium . In addition, new buildings have been added. The entire school education on the Hannes Meyer campus is now called BarnimWissensZentrum (as of 2018). The Brandenburg State Youth Welfare Office was located in one of the historic buildings until 2013.

The preserved outdoor pool was renovated by the city of Bernau from 2009 and reopened on May 23, 2014.

A request for the inclusion of the ensemble in the world heritage of UNESCO was provided in 2016, together with other Bauhaus sites; UNESCO discussed this at its 2017 meeting in Krakow. On July 9, 2017, she finally declared the Federal School a World Heritage Site.

In 2007 the renovation received the Brandenburg Architecture Prize and the association behind it received the Brandenburg Building Culture Prize / Initiative Prize in 2015.

literature

  • Magdalena Droste: Bauhaus 1919–1933 Berlin, 1998 ISBN 3822822221 .
  • Hans M. Wingler: Bauhaus , Bramsche, 1975.
  • Claude Schnaidt: Hannes Meyer , Teufen, CH, 1965.
  • Ulrich Brinkmann: Back to Meyer and Wittwer , articles in the construction world , Jg .: 99, No. 8, 2008, pp 16-25. ISSN  0005 to 6855 .
  • Jan Gympel: Surprisingly in good condition. Former Federal School of the ADGB, Bernau ; Article in the magazine Metamorphose BAUEN IM BESTAND , No. 2, 2008, pp. 52–59.
  • Wolfgang Benz (ed.): The fate of the ADGB federal school in the Third Reich. Reichsführer-school, school of the security service of the SS, branch of the Reich Main Security Office , Verein Baudenkmal Bundesschule Bernau eV, Bernau 2007.
  • Heinz Germany : The library of the federal school of the General German Trade Union Federation (ADGB) in Bernau (1930–1933). History, existence, whereabouts, tradition. In: Yearbook for Research on the History of the Labor Movement, Issue II / 2003, pp. 84–100.

Web links

Commons : ADGB Schule Bernau  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wolfgang Richter (April 12, 2002) Fifth Life for the Bauhaus Monument , in New Germany . Retrieved April 25, 2019
  2. ^ Magdalene Droste: Bauhaus. 1919-1933 . Ed .: Bauhaus Archive, Berlin. Taschen Verlag, Cologne 2013, ISBN 978-3-8228-4999-6 , pp. 191 ff .
  3. ↑ Homepage bauhaus.de
  4. ^ A b Claude Schnaidt: Hannes Meyer (Teufen, CH, 1965); Page 40
  5. ↑ Monument - tour - dining room. From: bauhaus-denkmal-bernau.de, accessed on November 24, 2019.
  6. ^ Magdalena Droste: bauhaus 1919–1933 , Berlin, 1998; Page 193
  7. ↑ 1000 ways around Berlin. Map book and hiking guide ; Ullstein-Verlag, Berlin; P. 42 and p. 87; no year
  8. ↑ Yasemin Shooman: The SD school in Bernau as a training location for the attack on Poland , in: Wolfgang Benz (see list of literature), pp. 119-136.
  9. ↑ Construction site sign
  10. ↑ Incunable of the Bauhaus school in Bernau is inaugurated. Former ADGB federal school completely restored. German Foundation for Monument Protection, October 11, 2007, archived from the original on October 17, 2007 ; Retrieved August 26, 2012 .
  11. ↑ Website of the International Federation with information on the course hotel in Bernau-Waldfrieden ( Memento from December 22, 2015 in the web archive archive.today )
  12. ^ Website of the Barnim-Gymnasium with the location Bernau-Waldfrieden , accessed on December 18, 2011.
  13. ↑ Extract from the minutes of the meeting; (PDF)
  14. ↑ World cultural heritage for the federal school in Berkunau . on: rbb -online, accessed on July 9, 2017.
  15. ^ Federal School of the General German Trade Union Federation (ADGB) , Visit Berlin.

Coordinates: 52 ° 42 ′ 23.5 "  N , 13 ° 32 ′ 38.5"  E