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Exquisite function:
While the Hansa district today
stands as an architectural monument near the Berlin Tiergarten,
at the time of Interbau 57, it was a
model for what “the city of tomorrow“ could be, or should have been.
From the individual buildings designed by world-renown architects
to the functional structure of the
urban landscape to the presentation
of fully-furnished model apartments;
everything stood as a sign for a new
shaping of residential and living
styles, intending to lend West-German post-war society a fresh face.
The emphasis on tomorrow is thus
connected to the wiping out of the
youngest, national socialistic yesterday.
What is no longer to be seen with
a mere glance at the facades and
park areas, is the vehemence of
the aesthetic instructions from the
1950´s which were conveyed to a
wide public. Modern urban planning
and design were intended to have
an effect on all things – on family
and community ideals, as well as on
ideas of order and purity.
Starting points for Dorit Margreiter´s investigation of the Hansaviertel were the special exhibition “the
city of tomorrow” (“die stadt von
morgen”) as well as the furnished
model homes of the Interbau 57. In a
filmstudio Margreiter set up various
in teriors of living spaces that could
function as either past or current
options for living in the Hansaviertel. Accompanied by a film script,
the montage of diverse voices forms
a ficticious narrative that moves
through an abstract timeline.
Extracted from the website of Dorit Margreiter
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The Englishwomans Domestic Magazine, 1852