Dieter Bankert

Dieter Bankert (* 18th July 1938 in Leipzig ) is a German architect , city planner and painter and architects . After 25 years of work in East Berlin's structural engineering combine in the GDR era, during which he helped shape numerous large buildings, Bankert moved to Dessau in 1988 and took on tasks in the Bauhaus, which was rebuilt in 1977 . After the political change , several employees of the Bauhaus founded the Projektgesellschaft mbH am Bauhaus , where Bankert was able to continue his architectural planning. At the same time he went into business for himself together with a partner.

Life and development to become an architect

Bankert studied architecture at the Technical University of Dresden . After graduating in 1962, he joined the VEB Bau- und Montagekombinat Ingenieurhochbau Berlin (IHB) and began working for Hermann Henselmann as a member of the Berlin-Projekt collective . Together with other planners such as Manfred Prasser or Heinz Graffunder , he was involved in many large construction projects in the city center.

Dieter Bankert was married, his then wife Barbara, née Mehlig from Dresden , was also an architect. (Barbara Bankert was a district architect in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen for some time and is said to have been the model for the representation of the bathers of a mosaic mural at a bricked-up entrance to the ticket booth of the Orankesee outdoor pool , completed in 1974.) The couple lived in one in the 1980s Single-family house in Berlin-Niederschönhausen , Heinrich-Mann-Straße 24.

When the GDR government planned an intensive expansion of science and technology in the late 1960s with the establishment of large research centers, Dieter Bankert submitted sketches for a futuristic auditorium maximum and for a Mathematical-Natural-Scientific-Technical Center (MNTZ) planned in Berlin-Friedrichsfelde for a skyscraper in the mathematics section in the silhouette of a bell curve . The lofty plans were soon abandoned and the center never realized.

Longest part of the facade of the Palace of the Republic, view 1977, realized according to a design by Bankert

In 1972/1973 the Bankert collective designed and implemented a new brewhouse for the reconstructed Schultheiss brewery on Indira-Gandhi-Straße . His team was also involved in the redevelopment of Alexanderplatz , the design of residential buildings in the Nikolaiviertel , the design of the Gendarmenmarkt , the planning of animal buildings in the Berlin Tierpark , the Palast der Republik , the Charité high-rise and the new Friedrichstadt-Palast (1981–1984; Foyer, auditorium) significantly involved. But Bankert also provided planning sketches for the design of the East Berlin development areas outside the center (e.g. a star-shaped district center for Berlin-Marzahn , 1977).

In parallel to his daily work, Dieter Bankert took part in architecture competitions, also abroad. He submitted designs for a traveling theater in London (tender by the Union Internationale des Architects ) as well as for the CTK (Czech Press Agency) in Prague . He even sketched modern buildings for the design competitions for the Cuban town of Playa Girón and for the redesign of the city center of Sofia .

After the Ministry of Building of the GDR and the Bauakademie established the Center for Design in the renovated Bauhaus building in Dessau in 1988 , they were looking for a leading architect. Dieter Bankert, who was still planning new residential buildings in Berlin's Friedrichstrasse , received this post and moved to Dessau.

In the magazine Bauwelt there is a draft for the building and the interior of a new convention center in Tokyo from 1989.

Bankert was a member of the Association of German Architects in the GDR.

After German reunification , Bankert continued his work at the Bauhaus Dessau until the end of the 1990s and was also happy to guide visitors through the new building.

At the same time, Bankert founded his own architecture office in Dessau and looked for like-minded people. They concentrated on work in the federal states of Saxony-Anhalt and Saxony . His first partner was Jaqueline Lohde , from the mid-2010s he teamed up with Anne-Barbara Sommer , and they soon got married. They carry out renovations, reconstructions, conversions, additions and new buildings together and take part in design competitions.

Bankert / Sommer also follow developments in the center of Berlin “from a distance”. After the Palace of the Republic was demolished, they and three other architecture studios participated in the design of a Europeum (2006), a building that, in their opinion, should be dedicated to “an intensive study of European culture”. Only a few “European” basic ideas were ultimately incorporated into the Humboldtforum project, which is now under construction .

Large parts of Bankert's drafts, documents, images and photos have been in the archive of the Leibniz Institute for Spatial Social Research (IRS) in Erkner since 2014 .

Dieter Bankert is a member of the Saxony-Anhalt Chamber of Architects .

Bankert's preferred construction methods

Until 1990

Brewhouse on Indira-Gandhi-Straße

In most cases it was a cultural or industrial building. For this, Dieter Bankert liked to use prestressed concrete in combination with prefabricated parts or with individual swinging components. For example, the brewery's 1970 brewhouse, which also houses the control center, is a single-aisle hall, held by 18-meter long trusses. The outer shell consists of aluminum panels, in the upper area a continuous row of windows lets daylight into the system. After the turnaround and the brewery's multiple changes of ownership, this hall was rebuilt so that an opening was created in the middle part facing the street, in which a fan shop with large windows at street level was built.

In principle, Bankert follows the triangular formula he created, “form function structure”.

In the circle of his colleagues, Dieter Bankert was and is considered to be particularly versatile and demonstrates a strong visionary power.

Since 1990

Since the expanded technical possibilities, Bankert has been using modern construction technologies and building materials, but has remained largely true to his striving for particularly dynamic designs.

Significant buildings realized with Bankert's co-design

1972/73: Brewhouse of the Schultheiß brewery in Berlin
1973–76: Facade of the Palace of the Republic with an honorary gallery in Berlin
1979–1983: Hotel Sofitel in Berlin-Mitte, Charlottenstrasse 50–52, near Gendarmenmarkt

Foyer of the (new) Friedrichstadt-Palast

1981–1984: New Friedrichstadt-Palast

1991: Extension of the town hall in Dessau

2010: Design and execution of a memorial for the Jewish cemetery in Wörlitz

2013/14 Old Brewery in Dessau, Elisabethstrasse: renovation

around 2013: Refurbishment of the primary school and the after-school care building in Dessau, Friederikenstrasse

2013: Design of five exhibition containers for the Landeskirche Anhalt (one container per church district) for the Kirchentag in Hamburg

2017: Application to build a synagogue in Dessau; an extension to the cantor house (a "cuboid with tent roof") for less than a million euros in construction costs. The former Jewish prayer house was burned down on the night of the pogrom in 1938.

Works exhibitions

1972–1976: Two art exhibitions abroad, organized by the GDR Center for Art Exhibitions (the former Institute for Foreign Relations (ifa), which has been reunited since 1990 ). Designs by Wolf R. Eisentraut , Heinz Graffunder, Karl-Ernst Swora , Günter Kunert , Manfred Prasser, Heinz Aust and Dieter Bankert were on view

September to October 2009: Dieter Bankert "Drawings - Painting - Architecture" ... hungry for the magic that ARCHITECTURE can do ... in the orangery of the Anhaltische Gemäldegalerie; organized and supervised by the Anhaltischer Kunstverein Dessau

2013: Exhibition Brau-Art in Dessau with pictures by various artists in the old brewery

January to March 2016: Dieter Bankert's utopias
Since the 2010s, the IRS in Erkner has been organizing regular exhibitions of projects by various architects and artists. In January 2016 the show Die Utopien des Dieter Bankert was opened in the exhibition pavilion of the IRS. Pictures, sketches and drawings from the GDR era and later could be seen here. Photos and models demonstrated buildings built according to Bankert's plans, and drafts of unrealized structures were also on display.