Friday Group: Monument + Repair

Detailed view of a floor in the Bauhaus building with clear cracks and signs of use.

Talk + discussion + film + material sample + food and drink

18 Oct 2024
6 pm

Bauhaus Museum Dessau

Accessibility +

The buildings of White Modernism appear as if time has stood still, as if they had never been destroyed, neglected, remodelled, rebuilt or repaired. Their complex history is no longer visible on the outside; they show no traces of aging, but are supposed to appear eternally young as celebrated icons. The Bauhaus buildings in Dessau are no exception.

This Friday Group is dedicated to the topic of maintaining and repairing the existing fabric, which is also becoming increasingly relevant for contemporary architecture, and asks how the preservation of historical monuments can serve as a model on the way to a “culture of repair”, to a circular economy and sustainability. Because one thing is clear: “repair” requires a great deal of effort and faces structural, legal and financial hurdles. Last but not least, this also puts expectations in terms of aesthetics to the test. The starting point is the question of how alive and visibly vulnerable the legacy of modernity can be. How should we deal with the preservation, maintenance and restoration of modernist buildings, how do we treat the original substance and a literally multi-layered heritage? How visible can interventions be? How clearly visible should traces of the repair be?

Recent repair work on and in the Bauhaus Building will be used as case studies and a basis for discussion. As part of the discussion, there will be an exchange with the protagonists involved, in which the question of what foundations and prerequisites are needed to initiate a paradigm shift towards a “culture of repair” will be explored.

Further dates >>> Living + Renovation, Fri, 8.11.2024, 6 pm

Programme

6 pm

Welcome and moderation

Barbara Steiner, Heike Brückner, Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

Traces of repair using the Bauhaus building as an example

// Intro
Dorothea Roos, Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

6:30 pm

Eternally young modernism

// Lecture
Daniela Spiegel, Professor of Monument Conservation and Building History at the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, Bauhaus University Weimar
Daniela Spiegel argues for an approach to heritage conservation that demythicises buildings and discusses the extent to which icons are also entitled to an age value, because eternal life does not necessarily mean eternal youth.

The great Repair. Practices of repair

// Film

7 pm

Homemade stone screed

// Interactive format
Marko Hersel, Dimitri Reibestein, Hersel Restoration

7:30 pm

Preservation of substance
Reuse and repair: What are the foundations and prerequisites for a culture of repair and what opportunities are available?

// Discussion with three impulses

Ulrike Wendland, Managing Director of the German National Committee for Monument Protection
Uwe Rähmer, Rähmer Restaurierung-Denkmalpflege
Peter-Paul Schepp, Frankfurter Küchenlager
Marko Hersel, Dimitri Reibestein, Hersel Restoration
Daniela Spiegel, Bauhaus University Weimar

Moderation: Dorothea Roos, Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

Food and Drink

Gut repair and/or repairing, maintaining and preserving (chewing) tools

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