HISTORY REPORT

NAME - GAURAV WAMAN PEDNEKARROLL NO. – 27YEAR - 3RD YEAR B.ARCH.SUBJECT – HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE – IIISEM - 1ST SEMEBERCOLLEGE - N.D.M.V.P. CANS

AR. HANNES MEYER(November 18, 1889 – July 19, 1954)

“Building is just organization: social, technical, economic and physical organization.” 

Bauhaus and German modernism The Bauhaus was first founded by Walter Gropius in Weimar. In spite of its name, and the fact that its founder was an architect, the Bauhaus during the first years of its existence did not have an architecture department. Nonetheless, it was founded with the idea of creating a "total" work of art in which all arts, including architecture, would eventually be brought together. The Bauhaus later became one of the most influential currents in modern design, Modernist architecture and art, design and architectural education.The Bauhaus had a profound influence upon subsequent developments in art, architecture, graphic design, interior design, industrial design, and typography

The paradox of the early Bauhaus was that, although its manifesto proclaimed that the ultimate aim of all creative activity was building, the school did not offer classes in architecture until 1927.

AR. HANNES MEYER

Hannes Meyer was one of the most important architects of New Architecture movement of the 1920s. During his brief term in office as the second Bauhaus director, he gave the institution new impulses that had a lasting influence on important aspects of the Bauhaus’s reception and animated the topical debates. His theory, which emphasised the social aspects of design, was widely criticised and poorly received.Hannes Meyer, the son of an architect, began his architectural career in 1905 with training as a mason and construction draughtsman in Basel. He also attended construction courses at the vocational school there. This was followed by sojourns in Berlin, staying with the architects Albert Fröhlich and Johann Emil Schaudt. He then studied housing construction in the English town of Bath. In 1916, he became the office manager for the Munich architect Georg Metzendorf, for whom he worked on the planning of the Krupp Margarethenhöhe housing estate in Essen.

AR. HANNES MEYER was a Swiss architect and second director of the Bauhaus inDessau from 1928 to 1930.

BIOGRAPHY OF HANNES MEYER

1905-1919 - School of applied arts, mason apprenticeship in Basel, various levels of architectural training and employment in Berlin design offices, becomes self-employed architect in 1919

1919 -1924-First important responsibilities in cooperative housing development, Freidorf Estate in Basel

1926 - Joint office with Hans Wittwer in Basel, significant competition designs 1926-27

1927 - Appointment as head of the architectural department at the Bauhaus in Dessau by Walter Gropius

1928 - Bauhaus director, participation in the competition for the ADGB Trade Union School Bernau bei Berlin (joint design with Hans Wittwer), first prize and commission (end of April 1928), with their design of the school building Hannes Meyer and Hans Wittwer create one of modernism’s most significant architectural works

1930 - fDismissal for political reasons, Hannes Meyer departs for the Soviet Union with seven students, employed as a teacher at the Moscow School of Architecture and Civil Engineering (WASI), director positions in several architectural firms, culminates in involvement in the newly-formed architectural academy

1936 - Return to Switzerland, few opportunities for architectural activities

1939 - Appointment in Mexico and head of the newly founded Institute for Urban Development and Planning, followed by various activities in the design sector

1949 - Return to Switzerland

Meyer's design philosophy is reflected in the following quote :-1. SEX LIFE2. SLEEPING HABITS3. PETS4. GARDENING5. PERSONAL HYGIENE6. WEATHER PROTECTION7. HYGIENE IN THE HOME8. CAR MAINTANNANCE 9. COOKING10. HEATING11. EXPOSURE TO THE SUN12. SERVICES

these are the only motives when building a house. We examine the daily routine of everyone who lives in the house and this gives us the functional diagram - the functional diagram and the economic programme are the determining principles of the building project."(Meyer, 1928)

SEX LIFE SLEEPING HABBITS PETS

GARDENING PERSONAL HYGIENE WEATHER PROTECTION

HYGIENE IN THE HOME CAR MAINTAINANCE COOKING

HEATING EXPOSURE TO THE SKY SERVICES

Palace of the League of Nations

 Original plans for a competition design for the ‘Palace of the League of Nations’, Geneva, 1927: assembly hall, floor plans for the basement and ground floor

In their design for the Palace of the League of Nations, Hannes Meyer and Hans Wittwer were guided by the nature and goals of the League of Nations, founded in 1920. Its central concerns were the establishment of a public sphere and transparency for resolving international problems, and the maintenance of peace.

This design, which received third prize, envisaged a two-part architectural body linked with a multiple-storey bridge. The assembly chamber complex featured a hall capable of seating 2,600 people, the oval ground-plan of which was covered with a dome and surrounded by four floors of foyers and meeting-rooms, as well as the general secretariat offices and the press office.The secretariat complex was to consist of a 24-storey tower with an adjoining low building which was to house additional assembly rooms, a library with reading rooms and a book depository. The building’s transport links were to involve non-intersecting one-way traffic.

ADGB Trade Union School

The ADGB Trade Union School was a complex of teaching and administrative buildings in the north of Bernau in a forested area just outside Berlin (Bernau bei Berlin), Germany, constructed for the former General German Trade Union Federation (ADGB). It was designed by the Bauhaus architect Hannes Meyer with his partner Hans Wittwer between 1928-1930, at which time Meyer was the director of the Bauhaus school in Dessau.The former ADGB School is a preeminent, but little-known example of Bauhaus-designed architecture.

CONCEPT The architecture reflects the teachings intrinsic to the Bauhaus ideologies and is a 'paradigmatic example of functional architecture'.The functionality taking precedent over anything else, the school was stripped back of any unnecessary decoration. Meyer's design is composed of separate, individual structures that come together cohesively in the surrounding landscape. The design came directly from the functional diagrams that Meyer had developed where all the lounges are oriented towards the landscape and the nearby lake.

The reception building bares a resemblance to the entrance of a factory site, which keeps in line with the purely functionalist design. There are three chimneys which constitute the heating system and are accompanied by a block-like cube of the auditorium, creating a dominating entrance scene to the complex.Immediately behind the entrance are the public buildings, positioned to create a square plan, which is exacerbated by the square auditorium in the middle. This form is intended to create an expression of unity, the unity of a community.

The auditorium is a windowless room, the strong introversion allowing maximum concentration on the action. Sophisticated technology supported the lecturers: A push-button would reduce the light band and dim the lights, while all three wall elements at the front hung with maps and graphs were moveable.

Around the auditorium lined the administration building to the west, while south and east was the kitchen, dining room, sun room and recreation rooms together. The restrooms were opposite to the auditorium. All of these facilities were designed so that they allowed a digression of thought, and a relaxation of the mind.

Balcony Access Houses

Hannes Meyer and the Bauhaus Dessau Architectural Department (Design), Balcony Access Houses, TörtenExpansion of the Dessau-Törten Settlement, Laubenganghaus, 1929-30Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin

With the construction of the second phase of the Törten Estate, the Bauhaus’s department of architecture entered into its first collaborative building project.

hree study cells formed by the students took on the design and development planning of the estate – a mixed development of single-family and rental properties – under the direction of Hannes Meyer and other teachers in the architecture department such as Hans Wittwer and Ludwig Hilberseimer. However, Meyer (in collaboration with 12 students) was to build only five Balcony Access Houses before his dismissal.  Houses before his dismissal. Each of

the three-storey buildings houses 18 flats, each with 2.5 rooms on 47 square metres with self-contained central heating, fitted kitchen and bathroom. Access to the flats is facilitated by staircase towers and balconies running along the north façade. The balconies that were planned for the south façade were not built for cost reasons.

Competition design for the Petersschule, Basel

Hannes Meyer, Hans Wittwer and building course Bauhaus Dessau (design), Competition design for the Petersschule, Basel, 1926Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

Hannes Meyer and Hans Wittwer’s entry in the architecture competition for the Petersschule building in the old town of Basel was rejected in 1926 in the first round. However, its radical character, which embraced every element of New Objectivity, made it the most important of all the designs submitted.