New Bauhaus Master Houses

Part of the Bauhaus school complex in Dessau also included the masters' houses for teachers. The house for the director stood alone in a pine forest, while the remaining three duplexes for teachers had identical floor plans and had to squeeze into smaller plots. However, during World War II, Gropius' house was destroyed along with half of the house for László Moholy-Nagy. While the remaining duplexes were reconstructed and returned to their original state fifteen years ago, long discussions have taken place concerning the fate of the demolished houses, debating whether they should be identical replicas or, conversely, whether the houses should be a contemporary statement. The newly opened masters' houses by the Berlin studio Bruno Fioretti Marquez are considered too restrained by one group of critics and too radical by another. In the restoration of László Moholy-Nagy's duplex, it was possible to replicate the neighboring masters' houses, but sufficient documentation for Gropius' house has not survived. The authors of the winning project primarily aimed for "urban renewal" of the complex. They attempted to find an optimal balance between the original appearance and contemporary use for the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation. From a distance, visitors may sense how the entire complex of masters' houses once looked, but upon closer inspection, everyone can clearly recognize that this is definitely a contemporary structure. The architects themselves wanted to “clearly distinguish between the original and the restored through the choice of materials, texture, and drastic reduction of details.”
Both houses are cast from insulating concrete. The glazing of the window openings aligns framelessly with the façade. The internal layout differs diametrically from the original state. Some of the rooms have heights of up to three stories, which corresponds to their future use for hosting exhibitions, concerts, lectures, and the expansion of the documentation center.