The Soviet Heritage and European Modernism - Heritage ... - Icomos

146 V. Moscow – Berlin: Interchanges and Heritage of the 20th Century
Winfried Brenne
Practical Experience with the Buildings of the Avant-garde
in Berlin and East Germany
Modernism – Building in Flux
The buildings of modernism which were erected in
Germany and other European countries such as Russia
in the 1920 s mark a break with traditional architecture.
Detached wall surfaces, extensive glazing, flat roofs and
polychromatic facades, to name just a few of the characteristics
of modernism, speak their own architectural
language, which has entered the history of architecture
under the name of “classical modernism”, with its country
related variations which, for example, can be found in
Russian constructivism.
The specific characteristics of this architecture are an
expression of new urbanistic, social or aesthetic concepts.
But the buildings are also an expression of a construction
industry in flux with new construction materials, types
of construction and construction technologies which
have contributed to making the buildings of the 1920s
and 1930s an architectural language and aesthetic of their
own. Steel, glass and concrete are among the new materials
of industrial construction, based on elements (e. g.
Torkret process). A number of very different systems for
building walls and ceilings mark new tendencies in the
construction industry of this time.
Preserving Modernism
Even today, modernistic buildings are dismissed as “experimental
constructs” that must be inadequate from the
constructional and physical points of view. They are presumed
to be unrestorable because of their use or application
of technically immature construction methods and
materials. In fact, however, it has not generally been possible
to demonstrate that they are flawed or even falling
apart. My experience as architect, which in the past few
years has included commissions to restore modernistic
buildings, has suggested that the damage profiles of such
buildings are due more to faulty execution and omitted
repairs than to the materials used or the construction methods
themselves. These may have been in an experimental
stage when the buildings were erected, but today many
of them are common, proven materials and principles of
construction.
The greatest danger with restoring buildings under
monument protection arises from ignorance of the existent
substance and contradictions between technical
constructive specifications on the one hand and those of
building codes on the other. The result is frequently an
all-around remodelling with materials and constructive
solutions that have little in common with the original. The
gravest sins of construction in regard to restorations that
have been executed inadequately arise from the use of
the wrong construction materials, unprofessional restoration
and maintenance work, and exaggerated demands for
optimal thermal insulation of the buildings. The care of a
monument or historic building should always be guided
by the original; thus repairing any given part should be
preferred to reconstructing it.
Methodical Approach
I wish to present some examples from my experience in
order to illustrate the proper approach to dealing with
modernistic buildings. A methodology has been developed
for the architectural task of renovating a given historic
building. It places preparation and individual steps
for restoring the building at the centre of all activities to
be carried out, as follows:
– Case history (anamnesis)
– Concept for care of the given historic building (analysis)
– restoration of the building (therapy).
A comprehensive preliminary examination is of decisive
importance for clarifying the state of the building and,
being an interdisciplinary inventory, entails very diverse
points of view and work steps carried out in parallel. A
thorough inventory gives the architect and the technical
planners entrusted with restoring the building the information
required to evaluate the building and its contents.
This information about the existent building must all be
available before a restoration and preservation concept,
which fixes the decisions for executing individual activities,
can be drawn up. Only a restoration concept that also
lays out the new uses of the building and has been drawn
up on the basis of its inventory can provide for proper,
careful handling of the original substance of the building
as well as for new uses which are appropriate for the
conditions imposed by the building itself.
Examples from Practice
Berlin has numerous housing developments and other
housing units from the 1920’s. Their highly different urban
planning and architectural solutions bear witness to
the diversity and openess to change in subsidised housing
which then prevailed. Today, these residential buildings
not only still fulfil the important function of providing liv-
_ Heritage @ Risk Special 2006