IN-PERSON Barcelona. Section A

Abstract

While mapping user participation and self-building examples in the German-speaking region after 1968, I figured out the widespread diffusion of bottom-up initiatives in this territory, despite their little presence in the general architectural history books. Furthermore, I could observe that architectural magazines of this region were very active in importing foreign experiences on the empowerment of citizens in the construction of their houses. Somehow those magazines, along with many conferences, debates and workshops, acted as a strong vehicle for the translation, diffusion, assimilation, and adaptation of foreign models to the local material and social culture. From the interpretation, clash and corruption of foreign models, a specific local approach emerged. The entry points of my present research are some concrete experiences able to depict this phenomenon from a critical and historical perspective. I will present part of this ongoing research –for the first time– to an international audience. After a short introduction to the research context, my paper will focus on the historical reconstruction of the participatory and self-built experience of the collective housing designed and built in Munich by the architects Doris and Ralph Thut together with Ulrike und Lorenz Brandl, Christa und Sigfried Lederer, Dorothe und Roque Lobo, Peter Mühlbauer, Ursula and Jürgen Renne. The title of this paper –„No, we will not continue“– refers to what Doris Thut was surprisingly answering when asked why she didn’t continue working with future inhabitants’ participation and self-building after having obtained in 1979 the prestigious Deutscher Architekturprize for this building, at only 34 years. In this paper, I will try to explain the reasons concealed behind this paradoxical answer through a polyvocal historical approach. To achieve this aim, I use archival documents, do interviews with the participants and do ethnographical fieldwork.