Senior Projects Spring 2012
Title
Plattenbau: Between Condemnation and Fascination, Understanding the Turbulent History of Industrial Domestic Architecture in Germany since 1900
Date of Submission
Summer 2012
Academic Program
Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literature
Project Advisor 1
Stephanie Kufner
Project Advisor 2
Noah Chasin
Abstract/Artist's Statement
The word Plattenbau in Germany today has strong associations to the former East German regime. Throughout the 1970s until the state’s collapse in 1990, hundreds of thousands of prefabricated panel apartments were erected annually throughout the GDR as part of state policy to “solve the housing question by the year 1990”. However, prefabricated panel construction has existed since the early 1900s. In order to appropriately assess the role that these buildings could potentially play in society today, it is essential to understanding the turbulent reception of prefabricated domestic architecture throughout history. Plattenbau construction methods have always been linked to social, political, economic, and aesthetic issues, and for this reason have remained historically stuck between condemnation and fascination
Distribution Options
Access restricted to On-Campus only
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Recommended Citation
O'Brien, Lianna, "Plattenbau: Between Condemnation and Fascination, Understanding the Turbulent History of Industrial Domestic Architecture in Germany since 1900" (2012). Senior Projects Spring 2012. Paper 56.
digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_s2012/56