Kiosk

The Kiosk at the Masters’ Houses was the only building in Dessau to be designed by the third Bauhaus director, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The suggestion to build a refreshment kiosk at this location came from the town planning office of the city of Dessau. It sold alcohol-free drinks, sweets, tobacco, and postcards.

The white building’s distinctive roof juts out from the two-metre-high wall enclosing the residential quarters of the Bauhaus masters to the east. Behind the wall, from the garden of the Gropius House, the Kiosk cannot be seen. Although the idea for the building came from Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the architectural drawing was completed by his student Eduard Ludwig. A clever detail was the opening towards the street: the window, originally made of steel, was on sliding rollers, so that it could be pushed sideways to disappear completely into the wall.

The Kiosk survived the war more or less undamaged. However, in 1970 it was demolished and replaced by a fence.

With the refurbishment of the Masters’ Houses by the Bruno Fioretti Marquez office from Berlin, completed in 2014, the Kiosk also returned, albeit in a contemporary interpretation and with changed materials. After more than 70 years, the Kiosk reopened in June 2016.