Instructor(s): Prof. Christiane Weber

The lecture, which extends over 2 semesters, offers an introduction to the history of European architecture.

Instructor(s): Christian Vöhringer, Baris Wenzel

Frei Otto, one of the most important architects of the 20th century, has left a lasting mark on the world of architecture with his innovative and visionary buildings.

The Pritzker Prize winner and his team demonstrated 70 years ago with lightweight constructions how material-saving, precise and efficient construction is possible - a topic that seems more important than ever today. On the occasion of the upcoming 100th anniversary of his birth, his work will be re-examined and suitable, creative and effective communication strategies will be sought for next year's celebrations.

This seminar examines selected Frei Otto projects and their potential relevance to current challenges. In developing strategies for publicising the results, we would like to develop concepts for - for example - social media, websites, QR codes and apps, and work them out in an impromptu manner.

Instructor(s): Simon Paulus

With the title ‘World Heritage Site’, UNESCO recognises evidence of human cultural achievements that are particularly worthy of protection and preservation and that have an exceptional universal value for the whole of humanity. In most cases, these are architectural achievements that mark artistic or technological highlights in the history of human civilisation. It is therefore all the more remarkable that in the last two nomination rounds, two new World Heritage sites were added to the list, both of which are rather inconspicuous architectural testimonies: The relics of the once flourishing medieval Jewish culture in ‘Ashkenaz’ (the Jewish term for the original central settlement area of the communities in Germany), which have been preserved in Erfurt and in the so-called ShUM cities of Speyer, Worms and Mainz.

Against the backdrop of growing anti-Semitism, such cultural artefacts are particularly well suited to understanding and communicating Jewish history and culture as an integral and shared part of our society. Especially from the perspective of architecture and urban planning history, the examination of these cultural artefacts provides new perspectives on the development of our cities and the protagonists, mechanisms and processes that determined the development of the city and the emergence of the respective architectural phenomena. In the seminar, these phenomena will be examined and analysed more closely in the context of their development. Excursions are planned to Schwäbisch Gmünd and a visit to the World Heritage Sites in Erfurt, where it will be possible to vividly convey the close links between Jewish settlement and cultural history and the structure, architecture and topography of the city. Against this background, aspects of the ‘Critical Heritage Studies’ currently propagated in the specialist community will also be critically reflected upon and discussed.

Instructor(s): Dietlinde Schmitt-Vollmer

The aspects of collecting and exhibiting have changed over the course of history from the cabinet of curiosities, the private cabinet of curiosities, manorial collections to the bourgeois educational centre of the 19th century and today's event venue.

The seminar deals with the historical development of museum construction in the context of social changes and looks at the demands and possibilities of the conversion and further utilisation of existing architecture.

Museum buildings from the 19th and 20th centuries will be analysed under typological and technical aspects. How did these early ‘prototypes’ function and what social factors were behind the museum building boom of the late 20th century? Which developments are still relevant today?

Another focus is on the conversion of existing buildings into museums and the expansion of exhibition complexes. Examples include the Castelvecchio Museum by Carlo Scarpa, the Architecture Museum in Frankfurt, the Tate Modern by Herzog & de Meuron in London and the Ruhr Museum in the Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex.

The seminar will also discuss spatial experiences, visitor guidance and exhibition concepts. 

Instructor(s): René Heusler, Maria Saum

The building turnaround challenges us to stop constructing new buildings and instead to utilise the potential of existing buildings. This presents architects with major challenges: How can we assess what a historic building can still achieve? What information do I need? Where can I find it? How do I organise the planning material? How do I recognise damage and what renovation measures are appropriate? In the seminar, we will try out methods of contemporary inventory recording (from Disto to 3D scans, from hand sketches to point clouds) and apply them to a historical building as part of a workshop lasting several days.  Excursions and guest lectures will provide an insight and overview of the current state of the art technology available to us today for recording existing buildings.

Instructor(s): Dietlinde Schmitt-Vollmer

The seminar deals with concepts of utopias in an architectural and urban planning context and looks at outstanding visionary architectural projects. The different approaches of these unrealised or built plans, which were intended to liberalise the coexistence of people in future communities or to regulate and control them more strongly through urban planning, will be discussed.

Beginning with the literary origins of Plato and Thomas Moore's ‘Utopia’, the seminar will focus on actually built planned cities of the Renaissance, such as Palma Nova, utopian living communities such as Charles Fourier's Phalanstère in the 19th century, the garden city concept of Ebenezer Howard, the Monte Veritá of the life reformers, Buckminster Fuller's plan to dome over Manhattan, The Walking City by Archigram, the Clusters in the Air by the metabolist Arata Isozaki and others.

Purely technically motivated visions of the future, dystopia and science fiction are also addressed and an attempt is made to relate them to current utopian approaches.