Prellerhaus (studio building, Dessau)

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Prellerhaus studio building in the Bauhaus complex, Dessau, south facade
Prellerhaus , east facade

The five-storey studio building in the Bauhaus building complex in Dessau was called the Prellerhaus . The name of the building was adopted when the Bauhaus moved from Weimar to Dessau from the studio building of the same name in Weimar, which is named after its builder Louis Preller .

description

In Walter Gropius' first drafts , this component was not intended, it was added later as a so-called studio building. The background to this decision by Walter Gropius was the permission, born out of necessity in the post-war period, that students could also use the studios in the Prellerhaus in Weimar to stay overnight. This combination of living and working in one room became such a successful concept at the Bauhaus that such a studio building with living space was also to be built on the new campus in Dessau. The city of Dessau also had an interest in creating living space for students at the Bauhaus and so this component was also approved by the “institute's welfare facilities”.

The building thus became the first student residence in Germany to be integrated into its university. It had an unprecedented level of comfort at an affordable price of 20 Reichsmarks per month, including cleaning and gas: over 20 square meters of living space, wall-width windows, a washing facility with running cold and warm water, a bed niche, and blankets from the Bauhaus weaving mill (the so-called baffle ceiling by Gunta Stölzl ), built -in cupboard and modern furniture - also from the Bauhaus workshops. There were 7 studios on each floor and a communal kitchen in a central aisle. The studios on the east side each had a small, protruding balcony with a low parapet, on the south side there was a circumferential balcony that could be reached from the kitchen. In the basement of the house there were showers and baths, changing rooms, a gym and an “electric washing facility”. The roof of the Prellerhaus was accessible and was available as an additional area for gymnastics exercises. All floors were connected to the kitchen on the ground floor via a food elevator.

Each floor was assigned a color by Hinnerk Scheper : The lower, blue floor was customarily intended for the students in the weaving mill; the two middle floors (red and yellow) were occupied by students from the other workshops and painting classes; Architecture students moved into the top, white floor. These apartments were of course in great demand and were given to young masters and students in higher semesters.

“The individual balconies turned out to be ideal communication stations; contact with neighbors could be established from there, by calling out, without having to seek out each other "

- Xanti Schawinsky : Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, Margret Kentgens-Craig (ed.): The Bauhaus building in Dessau 1926-1999 . 1998.

Photos by Lucia Moholy , Theodore Lux Feininger , Walter Peterhans document the sometimes happy and exuberant hustle and bustle of the students on the roof and the balconies. The structures of the east facade with the balconies were (and still are) the object of artistic recordings, for example the "dynamic spatial concepts" by László Moholy-Nagy , which challenge the viewer with unusual perspectives on the surfaces and lines. and also the famous photograph by Irene Bayer with the shadows of the balconies on the white wall.

This striking facade was artistically used as a motif in paintings, sculptures, installations, on the cover of books and as an event location.

In 1930 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe had some studios converted into large classrooms, in which Josef Albers and Wassily Kandinsky taught. During the GDR era, when the Bauhaus housed the education center of the Office for Industrial Design , one room on each floor in the Prellerhaus was converted into a shower room. In 2006 the house was renovated according to the original plans and has been available for overnight stays since then.

Known users

literature

  • Bauhaus Dessau Foundation (Ed.): Spend the night at the Bauhaus . ( Online version [PDF; accessed on August 4, 2017]).
  • Bauhaus Cooperation Berlin Dessau Weimar gGmbH (Hrsg.): Bauhaus travel diary . Weimar Dessau Berlin. Prestel, Munich London New York 2017, ISBN 978-3-7913-8244-9 .
  • Party Talk: Bauhaus A-Z . Prellerhaus. In: art - the art magazine . artspezial 100 years of Bauhaus. 2019, ISBN 978-3-652-00496-1 , pp. 90 .
  • Christiane Kruse: the bauhaus in weimar, dessau and berlin . life, works, effect. Edition Braus, 2018, ISBN 978-3-86228-173-2 .
  • Hans Engels: Bauhaus Architecture 1919–1933 . Prestel Verlag, 2018, ISBN 978-3-7913-8480-1 .
  • Jeannine Fiedler, Peter Feierabend (Ed.): Bauhaus . Könemann, 2005, ISBN 978-3-89508-600-7 .
  • Magdalena Droste: Bauhaus . Ed .: Bauhaus Archive Berlin. Taschen, 2019, ISBN 978-3-8365-6011-5 (with a historical photo of the east facade on the front page).
  • Kirsten Baumann: Bauhaus Dessau . Architecture design concept. Jovis, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-939633-11-2 (English).
  • Hans M. Wingler: The Bauhaus: Weimar, Dessau, Berlin 1919–1933 . DuMont, 2008, ISBN 978-3-8321-7153-7 .

References and comments

  1. ↑ In individual sources, the name is attributed to the landscape painter Friedrich Preller the Elder (1804–1878), who is said to have offered students accommodation that the Bauhaus students are said to have later also used. In the biographical sources on Friedrich Preller d. Ä. and also with his son, Friedrich Preller the Elder. J. (1838–1901) no such information can be found; however, the history of the Prellerhaus in Weimer is documented.
  2. ↑ a b c Walter Gropius (Ed.): Bauhaus . No. 1 . Dessau December 4, 1926 ( bauhaus-bookshelf.org [accessed February 27, 2019]).
  3. ↑ A well-known example: Bauhaus balconies with student Lou Scheper climbing a balcony in the Prellerhaus; The History of the Bauhaus Reconsidered. January 12, 2017. Retrieved February 28, 2019 . , and Bauhaus balconies in Dessau, 1927. Accessed February 28, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Irene Bayer. 1924–1928 photographer. Retrieved February 28, 2019 .
  5. ^ Preller Building at the Bauhaus Foundation, Dessau (as Lego building) . Retrieved August 4, 2017.
  6. ↑ Light projections at the Color Festival at the Bauhaus, Dessau 2011 by Sigrid Sandmann, accessed on August 4, 2017.
  7. ↑ Light projections at the 16th Bauhaus Festival 2014 . In Mitteldeutsche Zeitung , September 8, 2013, accessed on August 4, 2017.
  8. ^ Andreas Hillger: Gläserne Zeit . A Bauhaus novel. Osburg Verlag, 2013, ISBN 978-3-95510-022-3 .
  9. ^ Theresia Enzensberger: blueprint . Carl Hanser Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, 2017, ISBN 978-3-446-25643-9 .

Coordinates: 51 ° 50 ′ 22.1 ″  N , 12 ° 13 ′ 40.7 ″  E