Architekt und Architekturhistoriker
Architecture, Ethics, and the Erosion of Collective Responsibility Within the framework of postwar social-contract architecture, contemporary minimalism appears not as a neutral stylistic preference but as a symptom of a broken ethical horizon. Its widespread appeal marks a decisive shift away from architecture’s former role as a material agent of collective obligation and toward a …
Weiterlesen "The Architecture of Low Obligation: Minimalism in a Post-Welfare Society"
For much of the twentieth century, architecture was widely understood as a cultural practice in the strong sense of the term. Buildings were not merely shelters or infrastructures; they were carriers of collective values, spatial condensations of political ambition, social ideals, and shared futures. This assumption has become increasingly fragile. The recurrent diagnosis that architecture …
It is one of the great paradoxes of twentieth-century architecture: that the buildings which appeared most austere and raw — the massive concrete structures of the 1950s to 1970s — were in fact realized with an extraordinary degree of care, precision, and craft. In an age of economic boom, growing labor costs, and expanding workers’ …
Weiterlesen "The Hands That Built the Future: On Craftsmanship and the Paradox of Brutalism"
Every culture is haunted by the question of origins. Where does authenticity begin? For America, two figures answer in remarkably parallel ways—one with words, the other with buildings. Ralph Waldo Emerson, the philosopher of Self-Reliance, and Frank Lloyd Wright, the architect of organic modernism, never met across time, yet their work speaks like two voices …
Weiterlesen "The Architecture of Self-Reliance: Emerson’s Philosophy in Wright’s Buildings"
Between Architecture and Exile Sérgio Ferro’s path defies linearity. Trained in Brazil under João Vilanova Artigas, he entered the optimism of modernism—only to confront its contradictions. His exile in France, his turn to painting, and his refusal to practice architecture all mark a life shaped by fracture and resistance. Brasília’s Hidden Violence What defined Ferro …
Abendvortrag Frei Otto – Von der Seifenhaut zur gebauten Architektur Martin Kunz, Südwestdeutsches Archiv für Architektur und Ingenieurbau (saai) 25. September 2025, 19.00 Uhr, Hällisch-Fränkisches Museum (Medienraum), Schwäbisch Hall. Der Eintritt ist frei. Der Vortrag von Herrn Martin Kunz führt in die visionäre Entwurfsarbeit von Frei Otto (1925-2015) ein. Als ausgewiesener Kenner des Nachlasses beleuchtet …
Weiterlesen "Abendvortrag: Frei Otto – Von der Seifenhaut zur gebauten Architektur"
When we speak about Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, we usually think of the great canonical works: the Barcelona Pavilion, the Tugendhat House, the Seagram Building. His reputation rests on a clarity of form that seems timeless, as if it had always been there. But the journey that led him to this stripped-down, almost ascetic …
Weiterlesen "Mies Before Modernism: Detours and First Steps"
Architecture as Ethical Terrain Carmen Belmonte’s edited volume A Difficult Heritage. The Afterlives of Fascist-Era Art and Architecture is less a catalogue of monuments than a meditation on what happens when ideology hardens into stone. For those of us trained to read architecture not only as form but also as cultural instrument, the book offers …
Pier Luigi Nervi, einem der innovativsten und einflussreichsten Ingenieure des 20. Jahrhunderts, verdanken wir den überaus eleganten Entwurf für das zu Beginn der 1930er Jahre in Florenz errichtete Stadion Berta. Mittlerweile wurde an dem Stadion immer wieder gebaut und verändert, um es den sich wandelnden Bedürfnissen des Entertainmentzeitalters anzupassen. In Stadio Artemio Franchi umbenannt, ist …
Ulrike Gawlik, who has already made an important contribution to Italian studies with her dissertation on the Italian landscape architect Raffaele De Vico (published 2012), now broadens the view with her post-doctoral thesis to the quite mutual influences of Italy and Germany in the 'saddle period' around 1930. In her new book she delves into …
Luigi Monzo 