KOCHENHOFSIEDLUNG VS WEISSENHOFSIEDLUN

WEISSENHOFSIEDLUN

The Weißenhofsiedlung was revolutionary in the process of establishing an “international style” of modernism and the use of mass media and communication for the dissemination of its ideals throughout the world.

KOCHENHOFSIEDLUNG - 1933

However, many German architects opposed the highly acclaimed exhibition and answered the modernist movement with another large-scale housing exhibition in 1933 known as the Kochenhofsiedlung. German architects such as Paul Schmitthenner and Paul Bonatz held ideals of traditionalist styles that they felt most preserved Germanic culture. Their buildings consisted of standardized wooden structures with saddleback roofs arranged in a highly rigid grid.

Surprisingly, Nazi Germany used architecture in its propaganda towards the horrific ethnic cleansing of World War II. In order to make an argument against the modernism movement as being detrimental to German tradition and more importantly an infiltration of patrimony at the hands of Semitics, the Nazis found potential in relating the modernist ideals found at Weißenhofsiedlung to the villages found in Jerusalem.  In a post card titled “Arab Village”, middle-eastern entourage is superimposed on a photograph of the modernist housing exhibition.

"Arab Village"