Planning and building collectively: architectural and urban planning practices in the GDR

Abstract

The founding of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) as a socialist state in 1949 drastically changed the working methods and professions of the planners and architects. The nationalisation of the construction industry meant that they had to adapt to a reorganised institutional system based on socialist collectivisation and standardisation. Instead of private design offices, an overwhelming number of architects worked collaboratively in state-owned architectural offices, following new requirements for interdisciplinary work. Following 1990, representations of architects in the GDR were characterised by either the anonymisation of the individual or an overemphasis on individual actors to inscribe their work in the canon of architectural history. To date, no comprehensive empirical studies have contextualised the individual working conditions of architects within this regime. This study investigates the effects of nationalisation, collectivisation, and standardisation on specific planning departments by analysing two case studies. These examples provide evidence of how historical circumstances influenced local planning departments and their actors. The first case study details the work of an urban planning collective in Gera in the 1950s and 60s, while the second outlines the twenty-year-long cooperative process of constructing the socialist city centre of Suhl. Both highlight frictions but also reveal the processes of negotiation between political pressure to standardise planning and individual agency in the planning processes.