This course will provide an architectural history of housing in Berlin, focusing on how debates about design and urban planning have intersected with questions of economics, building technologies, changing demographics, and social protests throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Among the course topics will be the rise and critique of the Mietskasernen in the c. 1890s, the experiments in social housing and modernist design in the interwar period, the housing discourses of East and West Berlin during the period of division, and improvised and illegal housing practices from the 1980s through the early 2000s. In addition to readings and lectures, the course will include visits to key sites in Berlin, including the Hufeisensiedlung (Bruno Taut, 1925–33), the “Wohnenpaläste” (c. 1953–55) and Plattenbauten (c. 1963–64) along Stalinallee/Karl-Marx-Allee, and sites related to the 1987 International Building Exhibition.
The course meets for the first time in person on November 29!
- Course owner: Laura Novosel
- Course owner: Emily Pugh