Doors of Learning. Microcosms of a Future South Africa (Bauhaus Taschenbuch 27)

In 1988, a seminar was held at the Bauhaus Dessau as part of the UN-HABITAT programme that dealt with questions of housing construction in ‘developing countries’. A prefabricated building system developed by GDR architects was presented here, which was used for the first time in an education and development center of the African National Congress (ANC) in Dakawa, Tanzania.

The educational centers that have been set up in rural Tanzania since the 1970s with the support of international solidarity movements were learning and living spaces for people who had fled the brutal regime of racial segregation in South Africa. These centers were also unique sites of transnational encounters between East and West during the Cold War.

Why education in particular was key to building a new democratic society is the focus of the publication.