Umbauhaus

Imagine a journey around the world, where you meet 28 stimulating figures from the fields of architecture, marketing, politics and industrial design to discuss possible alternatives for restoring the Director's House built for Walter Gropius in Dessau. Matthias Hollwich and Rainer Weisbach have just been on one such journey - a trip that dramatically altered their own views and opinions. The search for answers to questions regarding modernizing Modernism itself led to a process of modernizing their own ideas, hastening the departure from preconceived viewpoints and sensitizing them for new associations between the Gropius House, Modernism, today\'s society and their own tasks. The result is video interviews, the edited video, project concepts, processes, further developments and this book: UmBauhaus. The video and book represent a brainstorming session on updating Modernism, an injection of plurality, inspiration and entertainment in an otherwise extremely monotone environment of debates and discussions on the subject. UmBauhaus does not offer any clear answers, but rather poses many questions, themselves derived from the individual contributions or the very structure and layout of the book itself. The authors have deliberately taken a risk in mixing highbrow with popular culture, and theory with banal practice. The book is thus similar to a rap through historical events - a combination that is at once a sign of the times and a confrontation with reality. And is it possible nowadays to debate restoration without including the phenomenon of plastic surgery? If Mike and Matt want to look like Brad Pitt (as in MTV's I want a famous face) then this is linked with the desire to resurrect the Bauhaus Director's House. Undertake a journey with this book. Drop your predetermined views and draw your own conclusions. This book is a call to experiment with our own ideas and an attempt at generating new results from a debate, a project and a process. "Whoever wins is modern!" - Otto Rehhagel