Constructing as a cultural technique. Orders of knowledge in post-war modernist architectural education in Karlsruhe

Stuttgart, Solothurn or Graz School - the term ‘school of architecture’ is repeatedly used as an identity-creating trademark in the history of design theory. In Karlsruhe, this organisational term is no longer used after the Weinbrenner School of Classicism. But can we not also speak of a specific teaching tradition here? A Karlsruhe model that - according to the thesis - defined itself through its ‘technical thinking’ focussed on construction, detail and function?

Using the estate of Egon Eiermann, the protagonist of German post-war modernism, ‘objects of knowledge’ from the archive will be scrutinised, read, researched and interpreted with a focus on ‘construction as a cultural technique’. Material inscriptions of meaning will be extracted with the aim of working out what is specific in the design thinking of the Karlsruhe model and investigating its theoretical and methodological potential for contemporary building practice.

The seminar is a co-operation between the Department of Architectural Theory and the saai.

Prof. Dr Georg Vrachliotis
Dipl.-Ing. Manuela Gantner