The Hannes Meyer Seminars at the Bauhaus Dessau (1980–1986) as a Contact Zone for Finnish and East German Architects

Abstract

This article charts transnational exchanges between East German and Finnish architects in the development of adaptive housing solutions for urban sites. It focuses on the Hannes Meyer Seminars – a series of annual international design workshops held at the Bauhaus Dessau from 1980 to 1986 – as a contact zone. The seminars challenged dominant forms of mass housing, and put forth alternative models to suit historic contexts. These exchanges went beyond previous (one-directional) material and technical exports that stretched back as far as the mid-1950s. As a result of the policy of détente in the early 1970s, relations between Finland and the GDR began to form an ever more complex and entangled network, with greater emphasis on knowledge transfer and collaboration. Formal agreements on ‘scientific and technical cooperation’ thus provided the framework for the intensification of contacts between design schools such as the College for Architecture and Civil Engineering (HAB, Hochschule für Architektur und Bauwesen) in Weimar and the Technical University Tampere. This opened a dialogue about contextual design (the adaptation of industrialised housing to the different needs and lifestyles of individual users), as well as historic settings, new tools such as CAD/CAM, sociological and historical research, and the discourse of postmodernism.