Rediscovery
 
Renewed interest in the Garden Realm began in the mid-sixties. There were individual calls for a return to the culture of the Garden Realm, and practical


 

reactivation of its structural and landscape legacies was initiated by reconstruction and conservation measures. The aim was essentially to develop a tourist area. At the same time, in connection with the modernization of the GDR during the sixties the appropriation of those historical epochs which were categorized as progressive, as belonging to the heritage of the German Democratic Republic, played an increasingly important role. Similar motivation can be seen in the reinstatement of the Bauhaus which began at the same time.
The Garden Realm, on the whole reduced to Wörlitz, was accorded the status   of   a   special    destination   for  

excursions and a recreational area. This status was retained despite the fact that the Garden Realm was also declared a monument to landscape design in the eighties, and was incorporated in regional development planning until 1998, i.e. even after the GDR had ceased to exist. In 1998 a concept for part of the Garden Realm was adopted, once again linking cultural and economic aims in an integrated master plan.
 

 
The effects of industrialization on the Garden Realm were first underlined by Hirsch in the eighties: "Today's visitors can still gain a clear impression of the original design even though there have naturally been losses here too over the course of time and in particular due to industrialization of the area along the middle reaches of the Elbe River." (Hirsch 1987, 158) This perception of the consequences of industrialization concentrated one-sidedly on the destructive dimension of industry.
 
The effects of industrialization on the Garden Realm were first underlined by Hirsch in the eighties: "Today's visitors can still gain a clear impression of the original design even though there have naturally been losses here too over the course of time and in particular due to industrialization of the area along the middle reaches of the Elbe River." (Hirsch 1987, 158) This perception of the consequences of industrialization concentrated one-sidedly on the destructive dimension of industry.
There is a tendency to neglect the fact that industrialization is inherently also a utopia of prosperity and emancipation and, for this reason, it is not fitting to just count the losses. Industrial modernism consistently follows the path set by the Enlightenment. However, with the industrial redesign of the Garden Realm in this century, industrial modernism which aims to free the individual from cultural and natural bonds directs itself against its own sources. With the rising consumption of resources, growing inefficiency and the reaching of ecological limits in the region, industry itself is becoming history as this century draws to a close. The major processes of deindustrialization in the nineties are an expression of this new development. As historical remains with all their inherent contradictions, the Garden Realm and industry are becoming the foundation of a living environment which must now be redesigned.
Today's task is putting the Garden Realm and industrialization into the context of development as an expression of historical processes of modern society. Yet to culturally process these immense contradictions as related aspects of the development process of Western culture without negating them still requires extensive theoretical and practical reappraisal. The Industrial Garden Realm project is to be understood as a building block and an experiment towards this goal.
 
1989
 
It goes without saying that the date of the International Walter Gropius-Seminar II was pure coincidence and that there was no way of knowing that it would concur with events which made history, i.e. with the fall of the Berlin Wall (November 9, 1989). Nevertheless, the date of the seminar does seem to reflect a certain necessity. Focus on the subject of the city marks the beginning of a process of self-reflection by the Bauhaus and its claim to once again be an institution of intervention in social processes and space. Radical changes were already in the offing prior to 1989: 'perestroika' in the Soviet Union and other Eastern bloc countries came to symbolize these transformations. The Bauhaus was responding to an issue of central social significance at the right time. The cities of the GDR provided insights into the structures of policies which had obviously failed.
"As a relatively independent social organism the city is a microcosm of society. Hence, the condition of our cities is also a reflection of the condition of our society. … questions of identity, of cultural heritage, of preservation and of building and design take on entirely new dimensions as the responsibility of cities, i.e. of those who inhabit them. This is a development for which cities and above all their governing institutions are not prepared.
If, however, it is intended that cities soon become a reflection of a better, democratic, cultured, socialist society (and, indeed, an initial source of hope of irreversible renewal), this is where we now need to focus our attention and concentrate all our efforts: on creating a new condition and a new image." (Kuhn 1989)
 
The plans of the GDR leadership to solve the social housing problem by mass producing apartments not only led to the cultural and physical ruin of cities, but also placed intolerable strains on the national economy. The visions of a socialist city had fallen victim to political will and ruthless pragmatism. The Bauhaus responded to this conflict by presenting the task of developing an integrated concept for the city of the future with corresponding industrial and environmental policies at the International Walter Gropius-Seminar II in 1989: "The 100-year phase of modern planning for extensive development (urban growth), which is now drawing to a close, and the emerging transition to intensification (redevelopment of inner-city areas) require a fundamental reassessment and reorientation of planning of the city as a whole and of its center." (Invitation to the Walter Gropius Seminar in 1989)
 
Dessau was chosen as a location for studying interrelated urban development issues. And this was the case, not only because the second site of the historical Bauhaus' activities had virtually exclusively been related to buildings for Dessau, but also due to the fact that Dessau displayed a large number of what are considered the typical features and conflicts of an industrial city:
 
- the center, destroyed in the war and redeveloped with scattered large blocks, had lost its identity;
- sprawling development of the periphery (mainly large prefabricated residential units);
- inner-city wastelands;
- decay of residential areas dating from pre-war times;
- large-scale transportation structures;
- population migration;
- unoccupied apartments;
- environmental pollution caused by traffic and industry. (Cf. Gaube, Stein, Sioda 1990, 16ff.)
 
The work of the Gropius-Seminar was structured around the question of a design idea for the city. A first group studied the consequences for inner-city development resulting from structural changes in science and technology as well as in the organization of production and work. The second group examined the consequences for inner-city development arising from the goals of ecological urban renewal as well as preservation and utilization of the landscape advantages of areas surrounding the city. The third group formulated syntheses of the conclusions reached by the first two groups. The focus was on consequences for the development of the inner city arising from the requirements of urban culture and the urban public domain.
 
It was from these syntheses, and the accentuation of planning primarily argued in cultural terms, that the idea of the Industrial Garden Realm developed. Industry compatible to the city was to be retained as a decisive locational factor in order to avert destructive, extensive reindustrialization. The Bauhaus Dessau played a key conceptual role. Three major cultural projects within a space of ten years were planned to mediate the process of renewal. The first was the "Bauhaus City of Dessau" project which was intended to focus attention on the international significance of Dessau and at the same time to demonstrate the special role played by Bauhaus in the reconstruction of the city; the second was the "Dessau Industrial City" project and the third the "Dessau Garden Realm" project.
 
From today's point of view, this formulation also contains a mixture of critical reflection on the particular approach to modernization adopted by the GDR, with hopes for reform as well as a belief in progress based on the effect of new technologies. An ambivalence which is also contained in the theoretical approach.
The attempt to renew Modernism in the GDR found expression in the "concept of functionalism". Programmatic approaches to the theory of architecture and design were formulated at the universities in Weimar and East Berlin and were adopted by the newly constituted Bauhaus after 1987: "Functionalism presupposes flexible production. The socio-cultural requirements and the natural and historical conditions individualize the location to such an extent that no universal standard corresponds to them. If the necessary degree of divergence varies from building project to building project, subordinating the means to the end is such a fundamental functionalist principle that available building technology constitutes what is admittedly a recognized design factor, but must permit variable solutions with regard to concrete conditions. The 'classic' form of industrialization, standardized mass production on the level of large units such as blocks and segments is untypical of urban and settlement development with their extensive needs for geographic, social, cultural and historical distinctions, and is only to be understood as historically limited technology used to overcome the shortage of housing. Functionalism relies on technological progress in interest of a flexible type and a great degree of efficiency in mass production. It seeks economical solutions on the basis of freely programmable (computer-aided) manufacturing. However, what is specific to building methods is the availability of all technological levels - from the simplest manual task to computer control - for potential technical solutions. Manual and high-tech solutions converge in the flexibility and the correspondingly high density of organization and decision-making which are peculiar to building production, whereas mass-produced products of the reproductive kind constitute exceptions, interim solutions or magnitudes below architectural units. Functionalism treats elements and semi-finished parts as products, but buildings as original places." (Weber 1988, 67)
The attempt to compensate for the mistakes of 'historical' Modernism in an appropriate manner was closely related with modernization debates of the eighties in the West, which propagated new technologies. (Cf. Leborgne, Lipietz 1990, 109f.) Furthermore, two trends of the urban planning discussion of the seventies and eighties were formative for the 1989 Gropius-Seminar and influenced the subsequent development of the Industrial Garden Realm both as a concept and in actual practice: namely, on the one hand, orientation to the "city serving the needs of the market", i.e. seeing the city primarily as a product and a location for investments - with appropriate marketing - and, on the other hand, orientation to cultural and participatory urban renewal of the kind already successful in a number of cities (Bologna, Rotterdam, Salzburg, Berlin/West, etc.). (Cf. Heinz 1990, 9f.; AG Stadterneuerung 1990; Bodenschatz 1998, 315)
Discussion topics at the seminar ranged from a program of cultural work as well as project-based planning as a break with the "linear perpetuation of a quantitative industrial growth process" to thought on "the simultaneous existence of fundamentally different space-time systems of production" (Mertens 1989, remarks on the result of group 1) as a contribution to innovative economic promotion. Debate focused on both a social and ecological imperative which was intended to reinforce the city's new democratic forces of self-determination in the face of a 'dog-eat-dog society' and set fundamental ecological standards. (Cf. Böhme et al 1989, results of group 2)
However, as a presentiment - or as a satire of their own hopes - a counter-scenario also came into being. From today's point of view, it sharply illustrates which problems existed in the East German cities in 1989, and which course Dessau and other towns would have taken. This counter-scenario was entitled: "What will happen if nothing happens?" The following were predicted:
 
- "further migration of young and able members of the work force;
- virtual absence of investment in economic development projects;
- continued existence of a provincial atmosphere in which innovation and renewal have little hope of flourishing;
- too few attempts to establish international contacts in the fields of business, culture and politics;
- increased deterioration of non-material living conditions;
- and, ultimately, disappearance of the city to the point of insignificance… ." (Schmidt 1989)
 
Recollection of these predictions protects against idealization and blindness in view of the deindustrialization which has taken place in the nineties.
 
In 1990, a viable conception for the Industrial Garden Realm as well as for transformation of the Bauhaus itself emerged from the original concept outlines. The "Provisional Ideas on Cultural Urban Renewal in Dessau" (Bodenschatz 1990) provided stimulus for the concept published in the fall of the same year (cf. project report Industrial Garden Realm 1990, 5f.). This concept also drew on the cooperative contacts established in 1989/90 with the successor organizations of the International Building Exhibition ("IBA Alt") in West Berlin and the Emscher Park International Building Exhibition in the Ruhr area, with the Technical University in Berlin and with other European projects concerned with regional renewal, such as those in Glasgow/Scotland and Silesia/Poland.
 
A development which had become plainly visible by the mid-nineties began in the summer of 1990: on the one hand, large-scale closure of traditional industries and, on the other hand, new settlement of industries, albeit on a small scale.
At the same time, the entire ecological drama became visible, bearing out the conclusion reached by the 1987 Brundtland-report. Dessau Bitterfeld is, according to the report, prototypical of a global problem facing industrial society. The consequences of over one hundred years of industrialization form the basis of new concepts - even in the case of complete deindustrialization, industry will remain an integral part of future tasks of economic, political and cultural debate.