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Stuttgart hope to the world heritage title
The Weissenhof settlement in Stuttgart is already a monument of architecture. Now two houses of the star architect Le Corbusier for the world heritage site title by the UNESCO stand.
Among architecture fans, you are no longer a secret: the two Le Corbusier houses in the Weissenhof settlement in Stuttgart. While other settlement houses are inhabited, in 2002, drafted in the semi-detached house of Le Corbusier is a Museum. It shows true to the original, as the architect of the Modern the house in 1927. Last year the exhibition attracted over 26,000 visitors. Eleven percent more than in 2014, which was also a record year, so the Museum Director Anja Krämer. Even more attention for your Museum they hoped for from the world-heritage-title: “It is a Chance to win in addition to architecture fans and visitors that are interested only on the verge of architecture and Design in the late 1920s.”
From art Nouveau to the “living machine”
For the world heritage title, the city of Stuttgart is involved together with the German Commission for UNESCO since 2002. Le Corbusier and 16 well-known architect colleagues such as Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe built on the Killesberg in Stuttgart model homes for a modern life. That was in 1927. Their Credo: no frills, the Bay and the architecture of the art Nouveau style, with air, light, and functionality. With the Weißenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart was not less than the redefinition of the architecture of the Modern Germany.
A single – family detached and semi-detached house of Le Corbusier became icons of architectural history. In Stuttgart, he won the first of his five points of a new architecture, which made him later one of the most important architects of the International Modern: There is industrially produced a long window, instead of solid walls, he chooses a frame made of steel-reinforced concrete poles used as the supporting construction. Consistently, he uses the flat roof with a roof terrace as a self-contained, leafy floor.
For the Museum, the Interior of the house was reconstructed:
Inside the house, sliding doors and easy-to-currency to be converted end furnishings allow the habitat, alternating on day and night functions. The home as a practical, functional “machine for Living” series for the masses to produce. It was a radical Aesthetic that was functional Housing instead of traditional citizenship. “The two buildings implied way of life, the animated Controversy called forth,” Herbert Medek, head of the local monument protection authority in Stuttgart.
Third start to the world heritage
Le Corbusier died in 1965. Le Corbusier was his name, actually his name was Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris. Born in Switzerland, is now regarded as one of the most influential architects of the 20th century. Century. Not only in Germany, but on four continents, his buildings stand. UNESCO-Germany’s application is therefore part of a community, of the international application. He gathered 17 of Le Corbusier buildings in France, Germany, Argentina, Japan, Belgium, Switzerland, and India on the current nomination list of the UNESCO.
Le Corbusier also urban planners was – he designed the Indian city of Chandigarh
They all struggle with the challenges of this application. Because, after two rejected Try 2009 and 2011, you occur for the third Time. “It goes to the outstanding universal value of the works of Le Corbusier in the architecture of the 20th century. Century, ought to be made,” says Katja Roman, spokesperson for the German Commission for UNESCO.
Time, there were fundamental doubts about the application that relied on a series instead of singular monuments. Changes of the structural state of preservation of individual buildings was critical. Also as the countries with the sites wanted to handle it, not convinced the world heritage Committee so far.
Decision of the world heritage Committee open
In 2016, the applicant may proceed with a fundamentally revised nomination in the race: “The 17 sites were selected because they reflect the history of architecture for over half a century in a unique way,” said Romans. Symbolically they were for some of the Central concepts of modern architecture on a global level. As conducive to the success of the first participation of India, is seen to be another non-European state,” Medek of the Stuttgart-based monument protection authority, his hope.
The revised international community, the request has to convince the International Denkmalrat ICOMOS. He has made its recommendation, the candidate in the UNESCO list of heritage of humanity. This is seen as a positive sign.
However, the UNESCO world heritage Committee is independent from the vote of the ICOMOS. And so it remains exciting, whether Germany soon with a 41. World heritage is allowed to decorate the facility. Until the 17th century. July will decide the UNESCO in Istanbul.