Abstract

Abstract: The lecture title refers to Helmut Kohl’s promise to construct “blossoming landscapes” in the former DDR after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The lecture deals with parallels in the political history of the Bauhaus and its successor institutions from 1919 until today. Especially institutions of design education dedicated to the ideas of “Modernity” like the Bauhaus and its continuation in Ulm were always under constant political attack. Each time, extreme right wing reactionary German politicians succeeded in having these schools closed. Finally the lecture tries to argue that “Blossoming Landscapes” are the result of intellectual and not of material “properties” of a society.

Biography: Professor Jacoby is a German architect and educator. He is director of Dessau Institute of Architecture (DIA) at Anhalt University of Applied Science, located at the Bauhaus of Dessau, Germany and was Regnier Chair of the Department of Architecture, Kansas State University. He received MA degree from Cambridge and an architectural degree from ETH , Zurich. His special interest lies in sacred architecture and the history and theory of architecture.