„Eine richtige Architektin“: Emilie Winkelmann und ihre Bauten für berufstätige Frauen in Berlin und Potsdam

Abstract

Emilie Winkelmann (1875–1951) was the first woman to open an architectural practice in the German Reich. Realised at a time crucial for the professional establishment of women, her work sheds light on built manifestations of emancipatory efforts. Contacts with the bourgeois women’s movement in Berlin made possible commissions with which Winkelmann was able to turn her attention to new building types that involved housing for single women across the generations. Just before World War I, she created the “Haus in der Sonne” (1913 –1914), a residential facility for female pensioners in Potsdam-Babelsberg. Shortly afterwards, a dormitory for female students, the Victoria-Studienhaus (1914 –1915), was built according to her plans in Berlin-Charlottenburg in close vicinity to the Technical University. Both buildings, that are the focus of this chapter, demonstrate consequences of the liberalisation of the educational and professional system.