Mart Stam, Weissenhofsiedlung, Germany, Stuttgart, 1927 (view from google)

Mart Stam (Martinus Adrianus Stam) is the youngest architect who participated to the construction of the Weissenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart in 1927 with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, Hans Scharoun and others. Its location is am Weißenhof 24–28 in the north east of this exhibition area.

This construction was made with the intention to build more with less and to avoid any kind of waste. It is furnished in accordance with the idea of functionalism.

Weissenhofsiedlung represented a new type of building exhibition. For the first time fully functional experimental buildings were erected that would later on serve as “regular” lease apartments. The Weissenhofsiedlung is considered one of the most important monuments of the “Neues Bauen” movement. It was created in 1927 as a building exhibition of Deutsche Werkbund and was funded by the City of Stuttgart. None of the subsequent expositions by Deutsche Werkbund achieved a comparable international charisma. Despite significant destruction during World War II, the ensemble of buildings today represents highly valued cultural heritage of the 20th century with early works of architects who shaped modern architecture. In some special way, Weissenhofsiedlung represents the social, aesthetic and technological changes following the end of World War I. Using the programmatic title “Die Wohnung” (The Housing), this Werkbund exposition demonstrated the renunciation from habitats characterized by pre-industrial periods.

Bibliography:

Karin Kirsch, The Weissenhofsiedlung, Stuttgart: Experimental Housing Built for the Deutscher Werbund, Stuttgart, 1927. Fellbach: Edition Axel Menges, 2013.

References:

weissenhof

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Reviewed by:

Alexandra Niedermayr, Alexandre Maurel, Martin Charachon, Sonja Schneider (March 2017)