Architecture of the Past versus Contemporary Design: Postwar Reconstruction as a Reflection on Construction

Abstract

Reconstruction or re-construction? Post-war reconstruction in the 20th century in Europe was the chance to reflect on therelationship between architecture of the past and contemporary projects, and to bring into the building practice all the theoretical speculations conducted up to that point around the themes past/present, tradition/modernity. The debatewas particularly intense in Germany, where the magnitude of the devastation put technicians and intellectuals in front ofthe problem of the recovery of urban life. At first, the early post-war years were exclusively dedicated to the urgency - among huge financial difficulties - to provide citizens with a roof and minimum standards, as well as to save and rebuild those buildings which, if left in ruins and exposed to the weather, would become inexorably lost. Afterwards the architects, both modernists and traditionalists, were called upon to take a position on the architectural heritage of the past; they had to reflect on techniques, language, traditional forms of the building, considering them according to the altered sensitivity (modern Kunstwollen) of the 20th century. From this point on, different positions developed in Germany around the theme of reconstruction, with two extremes: on the one hand the “retrospective reconstructions” (reproposal of the image of ancient buildings), on the other hand the so-called “interpretative reconstructions” (in this case, the reading and understanding of the ruin becomes the starting point for the new architectural design, also paying attention to the relationship with the urban fabric). Hans Döllgast’s and Joseph Wiedemann’s works in Munich belong to this latter position. In their reconstructions, the ruin is distilled down to its architectural substance and the decoration is reformulated in rigorously simplified shapes. This attitude allows them to bring out the constructive rationality of the building, where tectonic logic becomes architectural language.