Mehringplatz and Hedemannstraße with ARCH+: On Social Housing [German]

Discussion and tour with Alexander Hoff (architectural historian), Frank Seehausen (architect/art historian) and Niloufar Tajeri (architect/architectural theorist)

1,550 flats, a retirement home with 87 residential units, a youth centre, a day-care centre and commercial space: this is what Werner Düttmann realised between 1966 and 1975 from the urban development plan drawn up by his teacher Hans Scharoun. The original plan only envisaged office and administrative buildings for the reconstruction of Mehringplatz, which had been destroyed in the Second World War. Just a little further on, Düttmann built a residential complex of around 300 units on Hedemannstrasse between 1973 and 1975—their design was always based first and foremost on the needs of its residents. Alexander Hoff, Frank Seehausen and Niloufar Tajeri discuss the optimal floor plans of yesterday and today.

Alexander Hoff is an architectural historian and staff member of Deutsche Welle in Berlin. He studied art history, classical archaeology and European ethnology in Mainz and Berlin, and works as a freelance author, curator and assessor of historical monuments with a focus on post-war modernist architecture.

Frank Seehausen is an architect and art historian who works at the Bayerischen Landesamt für Denkmalpflege (Bavarian State Office for Monument Protection) and as a lecturer, freelance author and curator specialising in architecture and architectural photography. He has released publications on post-war modernist architecture, architectural photography, and the movement and direction of observers in architecture and urban planning.

Niloufar Tajeri is an architect and architectural theorist who lives in Berlin and teaches at the Institut für Geschichte und Theorie der Architektur und Stadt (GTAS) at TU Braunschweig. She was a fellow at the Akademie Schloss Solitude and works, among other things, on large post-war residential buildings and their transformation. She is the co-editor of publications including Nights of the Dispossessed. Riots Unbound (2021) and Kleine Eingriffe. Neues Wohnen im Bestand der Nachkriegsmoderne (2016).

This series of events was conceived and organised in cooperation with the magazine ARCH+.

Due to the limited number of participants, we kindly ask you to register for this event. You can register online on the exhibition website wernerduettmann.de two weeks before the event.

Note: The current distance and hygiene regulations apply, as well as a general mask obligation. The obligation to test is waived.