Archéologie du bâti. Aujourd’hui et demain
| , , ,L’archéologie du bâti, une science neuve ?
« Bauforschung » Today : Current Tendencies in Building Archaeology in Germany
« Bauforschung » aujourd'hui : tendances actuelles de l'archéologie du bâti en Allemagne
Résumé
Après un bref aperçu de la situation institutionnelle et des tendances actuelles de l'archéologie du bâtiment, cet article se concentre sur la récente discussion concernant la manière dont la Bauforschung peut aborder le patrimoine bâti moderne de l'Allemagne. Les bâtiments du XXe siècle, qui dans leur majorité s'éloignent de l'artisanat pour s'orienter vers un processus de construction plus industrialisé, exigent des approches de recherche différentes de celles du patrimoine bâti du XIXe siècle et d'avant. Que peut offrir la Bauforschung dans ce domaine ? Sommes-nous suffisamment équipés en termes de connaissances et de technique pour cette tâche ? Devrions-nous, au contraire, laisser le XXe siècle à d'autres disciplines comme l'histoire de l'architecture ? Comment pouvons-nous nous équiper de nouveaux outils et de nouvelles méthodes afin d'ajouter des connaissances précieuses à un patrimoine bâti qui est sur le point de disparaître plus rapidement que tout autre patrimoine auparavant ? Et, enfin, quels sont les défis didactiques auxquels nous sommes confrontés lorsque nous enseignons la Bauforschung des bâtiments du XXe siècle ? Ces questions seront examinées sur la base de projets sélectionnés concernant des bâtiments industriels et publics locaux des années 1910 à 1980.
Entrées d'index
Texte intégral
1The authors of this paper were asked for to comment on current issues of building archaeology, or « historische Bauforschung », in Germany. As the discipline is supported broadly by many universities, academic societies, and research institutes, and is well established in governmental institutions and as a professional private practice, the authors decided to focus on the topical question of what role « Bauforschung » can play in exploring the built heritage of modern architecture. This question has dominated a large part of recent research and discussions in Germany.
1. Traditional Building Archaeology
- 1 Schmidt H., « Bauaufnahme. Die Entwicklung der Methoden im 19. Jahrhundert », in F. Wenzel éd., Er (...)
- 2 The term itself is usually attributed to A. V. Gerkan « Die gegenwärtige Lage der archäologischen (...)
- 3 Gruben G., « Klassische Bauforschung », in Borbein A. H., Zanker P. éd., Klassische Archäologie. E (...)
- 4 Busen T., Knechtel M., Knobling C., Nagel E., Schuller M., Todt B., Bauaufnahme, München, 2016, p. (...)
- 5 Cramer J., Handbuch der Bauaufnahme. 2nd ed., Stuttgart, 1993. Petzet M., Mader G. T.,Praktische D (...)
2Summarising how « Bauforschung » has traditionally been understood in Germany is a necessary preamble. Its roots are generally seen in the « archäologische Bauforschung », i.e. research on built structures that are the subject of excavation, and that may be at least partly destroyed1. These roots correspond loosely to the terms « archéologie du bâti » and « building archaeology », whereas « Archäologische Bauforschung » is a subdiscipline of the more generic term « Historische Bauforschung »2. Stressing scholarly archaeological interest in historic periods predating the modern age, the academic discipline was characterised by a defensive attitude to contemporary developments in architecture from its origin3. Its leading academic society, the Koldewey-Gesellschaft, Vereinigung für baugeschichtliche Forschung e.V., was established in 1926 as Arbeitsgemeinschaft archäologischer Architekten. Architects like Robert Koldewey (1855-1925) or Walter Andrae (1875-1956) in the Near East, Ludwig Borchardt (1863-1938) in Egypt, Friedrich Adler (1827-1908) in Olympia, Carl Humann (1839-1896) in Pergamon, Armin von Gerkan (1884-1969) in Italy contributed substantially to ancient and classical studies through their understanding of the material and epistemic core of built structures and – maybe most widely noted – through their suggestions for scientifically plausible reconstructions. It soon became apparent how fruitful it can be to apply the method of retracing the process of design, construction, conversion and destruction by detailed survey and drawings not only to ruins, but to buildings that still stood upright and were still being used4. The reconstruction of building phases also plays an important role here, but detailed surveys became an even more indispensable foundation of building heritage conservation. In addition to its fundamental role in providing archaeological and historical insights, the practical application of building archaeology in building heritage conservation further institutionalised the focus of professional practitioners on predominantly pre-industrial objects in Germany, largely from the medieval and early modern period5. Engaging in an investigative way with the materiality of buildings and remains – the core of building archaeology as a discipline – appeared to be unproductive or unnecessary in regard to the industrial era due to the abundance of written sources from the recent past.
- 6 e.g. Markgraf M. éd., Archäologie der Moderne. Sanierung Bauhaus Dessau, Berlin, 2006. Huse N. éd. (...)
3However, the preservation of modern architecture has become significantly more relevant in recent years, both in architectural practice and academia. The Bauhaus centennial doubtless played a key role, but the rising need to make buildings from the post-war period more energy efficient, together with the current construction boom in Germany, has put a lot of pressure on buildings from the second half of the 20th century. It also became apparent that not only is our understanding of modern architecture and construction still limited, but the basic sources of contemporary architectural history – written and oral documentations, blueprints, models, and sketches – are often misleading or insufficient. As demonstrated by prominent examples6, a thorough and better understanding about how to deal with our recent past requires the established methods and instruments of building archaeology. Suddenly, the discipline has become engaged in a historic period which quite a few representatives had rejected not so long ago.
2. Building Archaeology and Modern Architecture
- 7 Schwarting A., Die Siedlung Dessau-Törten. Rationalität als ästhetisches Programm, Dresden, 2010.
4The potential contribution of building archaeology in exploring the built heritage of modern architecture thus became the subject of discussion relatively late, and therefore all the more urgent. In 2018, the Koldewey-Gesellschaft dedicated its biennial conference in Braunschweig to reconsidering the challenges and opportunities of its own discipline for structures from after 1950 (Wie forschen ? Chancen und Grenzen der Bauforschung an Gebäuden nach 1950, Braunschweig, May 9-13, 2018). Though individual contributions had specifically referred to the topic before7, this conference marked the first time recent building heritage was considered an adequate subject for general discussion among building archaeologists. Many more conferences, lecture series, projects and publications could be named.
5The necessity to protect, to study, and to preserve outstanding and representative examples from the last century is unanimously accepted among experts, albeit not among the public. In 2019, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), Germany’s central self-governing research funding organization, set up a priority program to research the built heritage from about 1880 to 1970 (SPP 2255 Kulturerbe Konstruktion – Grundlagen einer ingenieurwissenschaftlich fundierten und vernetzten Denkmalpflege für das bauliche Erbe der Hochmoderne). Since 2018 the DFG has also funded the research network Bauforschung für jüngere Baubestände (1945+), of which one of the authors is a member.
- 8 Spiegel D., Urlaubs(t)räume des Sozialismus. Zur Geschichte der Ferienarchitektur in der DDR, Berl (...)
- 9 Herbote A., Knufinke U., « Das Stufenhochhaus in Wolfsburg (P. Baumgarten, 1967). Methodische Frag (...)
- 10 Cf. for additional perspectives on this topic Mohn C., « Bauforschung : Quellen über den Bau », on (...)
6What still needs to be established, however, is what the discipline of building archaeology specifically can contribute to our understanding of the built heritage of the recent past, beyond its support for building conservation. When looking at the immense output from recent research on modern building heritage, « Historische Bauforschung » appears to be an obvious part of the historiography of architecture. Closer scrutiny reveals, however, that not all of this research is « Bauforschung » in the traditional sense. The methods of art and architectural history and cultural studies are often found in the oral or written publications produced by building archaeologists on modern buildings in Germany8. But completely new methods are also being added to the toolbox9. The aim of this paper is not to rate the applied methods, but to define them more closely10.
3. Documentation
7Material culture studies, which include building archaeology, are seen as the essential counterpart to the analysis of written sources. Until the end of the 20th century the latter were seen as sources superior to the remains themselves, and generally trustworthy ; material remains were consulted primarily when texts were lacking. Today we know that different sources often tell a different story, thus material remains are considered not as auxiliary but as sources in their own right.
- 11 Bruschke A. éd., Bauaufnahme in der Denkmalpflege, Stuttgart, 2005.
8The discipline of building archaeology has generally laid great stress on precise documentation. Surveyors have to work more accurately than the original planners and builders to understand how the latter worked, where they erred, and how the building was later transformed by man and nature. Since surveying tools have been improving constantly since the 17th century, surveyors have had an advantage over those original builders, though sometimes a rather small one, such as in the case of the classical Greek builders. Generally, though, the surveying tools of building archaeology correspond to the instruments used for architectural planning in the last two centuries. This is a reason for the strong engagement of trained architects in the discipline. The drawing board was the essential device for the conception and realization of modern architectural design as well as the archaeologic survey and reconstruction alike. Today’s digital surveying instruments, however, with the growing tendency of generating point clouds, are quite detached from the current vector-based computer-aided design tools of architectural practice, and even more so from the drawing board. The process of measurement on site became extensively automated. The measurement, documentation, observation, evaluation, and understanding of the object – once a coherent process of synthetisation – became separate assignments for specialists11. Though the measured results of a digital survey can be of unprecedented geometrical accuracy, resulting in unprecedented quantities of data, to become useful in planning and for historic investigation they must be translated and given structure.
- 12 https://www.bauforschung-bw.de/, last retrieved Aug. 2020.
- 13 https://baureka.online/, last retrieved Aug. 2020.
9More and more, individual investigations and results are collected in digital databases, thereby making them available online, like the Datenbank Bauforschung/Restaurierung12 provided by the Landesdenkmalpflege Baden-Württemberg. What is still missing is an online platform that uses the potential of digital work for cross-project evaluation, which would enhance the quality of building research in transdisciplinary research contexts. The aim of the recently launched baureka project13, a joint undertaking by researchers from RWTH Aachen and TU Berlin, is to develop a comprehensive digital platform for such networking of historical building research.
- 14 Langenberg S., « Zur Erhaltung des nicht Haltbaren », in Franz B., Scheuermann I. éd., Das Digital (...)
10Even though the methodological changes caused by digitalisation apply to historic building research of all periods, their effects on modern architectural heritage are substantial. If historic images and plans are already providing an abundance of information, then the process of a state-of-the-art building survey of an individual object – the results of which have to be downscaled, reorganised, and reduced in any case – seems to be unnecessary. Some have rightly suggested that the task at hand should concern the archive of historic documents – the preservation, digitalization and making available of historic drawings, building plans or digital design tools and programs14. However, the discipline of building archaeology has always been built upon the understanding of the built environment as an archive and source of information of its own right. The potentials of building archaeology in regard to the architectural remains of the last century derive not from new digital opportunities but from the specific conditions and questions about which this heritage is challenging us. The issues, which will ultimately be illustrated through ongoing studies and research projects, are as follows : 1) the quality of industrial production, 2) the often hidden details of construction, 3) the phenomenon of the building as a machine, 4) the challenge of mass and magnitude, and 5) the abundance of auxiliary sources.
4. Challenges of Recent Built Heritage
4.1. Quality of industrial production
11One characteristic trait of modern architecture appears to be its rational and industrial production: repetitive constructive processes with an expanding rate of serial pre-fabrication, standardisation, and employment of machine-work instead of craftsmanship. However, building archaeology has been developed to retrace craftsmanship, which more often than not happened entirely on the construction site. The mason’s chisel marks on marble masonry relate the entire life story of each block, and sometimes flakes and even discarded or lost tools have been found on site. Industrialised building production, in contrast, has to be assessed in recognition of the machines, protocols, and processes involved and therefore of dispersed processes.
- 15 For modern inter-war architectural surfaces, cf. Hammer I., « Modern Movement Materiality. Remarks (...)
12What is the precise quality of this process at an individual site at a particular time ? As the examples of interwar modern architecture reveal, not everything that looks industrial and rationalist is actually machine-made and reproducible15. Contrary to common understanding, traditional craftsmanship had its purposes in the production of the modern heritage, though the ways and means changed. Challenged by a not quite industrial heritage, one of the tasks of building archaeology is to reach a more differentiated understanding of the profound transformations of the building sector during the last century by disclosing the traces of individuality of human involvement. This can be achieved by the discipline’s traditional tools in collaboration with historical methods.
4.2. The hidden details of construction
13Approaching the historic building as a primary source allows us to expand our knowledge of material history and construction history. The basis of this approach is to retrace construction processes – the way building materials were amassed and used on site as well as how they were altered and how they aged. The methods of a building survey were developed to specifically document accessible structures such as timber roofs, where an on-site analysis with a few simple tools allows us to make an assembly drawing of each joint. In modern architecture, however, structural elements and details of construction are often hidden beneath cladding or refined smooth surfaces.
14Fair-faced reinforced concrete, the hallmark of building production at the middle of last century, is a case in point. Detecting the position and current state of metal reinforcement requires instruments and methods – electromagnetic induction, pulse velocity tests, rebound hammer tests, etc. – seldom used in an archaeological building survey. The same goes for the material composition and concrete carbonation, which usually will require chemical analysis. It is clear that building archaeology again becomes an interdisciplinary project in such cases, a combination of the expert knowledge and methods of structural engineering, materials science, conservation-restoration, and so on. But with a focus on construction processes, methods based on traditional ways of surveying can also add a new perspective.
4.3. The building as a machine
- 16 Banham R., The Architecture of the Well-tempered Environment, London, 1969.
15However, the ruptures of modernity also challenge our core understanding of buildings. Just as the modern built environment comprises traffic and service infrastructures, the modern house comprises modern building services and installations. In the architectural legacy of the past century, traditional boundaries between structure, envelope, design and technical installations tend to blur. Building services, installations and technical facilities form a primary characteristic of modern architecture. Not only has the house become a « machine for living in », to borrow Le Corbusier’s term, but the purpose of architecture, aligned with developments in building physics and climatization, has become the production of a « well-tempered environment », as Reyner Banham put it16. Some high-tech buildings from the second part of last century consist of nothing but services. The phenomenon of buildings as machines also appears in our industrial heritage. Industrial buildings, often located on the fringes of historic city centres, are prone to be transformed into interchangeable shells for new uses after they are cleared of the technical facilities for which they were built. Their documentation and research is of the greatest urgency, as installations within them are usually the first elements to be exchanged and altered. Already, a great number of exceptional modern buildings work with air ventilation and heating systems that are completely different from those initially designed, the historic appliances and indoor climate condition never to be understood. Especially in light of current demands for energy efficiency, a better understanding of this part of our building history will be of future significance. (fig. 1)

Fig. 1. Overhead radiation heating under a suspended ceiling in the Bauschule (Faculty of Architecture), OTH Regensburg, early 1950s. The system was produced by Stramax ; the company was taken over in 1973 and its archive is lost. During a student project, the opening was made in order to study the system, which was disconnected long ago, and to assess its potential function in a new climate-control concept for the building (Students Philipp Eichhorn & Sarah Thiel, supervised by Joachim Wienbreyer. Photo Philipp Eichhorn, OTH 2018).
16While this paradigm shift has long been established in architectural history and theory, building archaeology of the recent past has yet to develop the means to verify it on site. The more traditional approaches of building archaeology focus on structural elements and designed surfaces, rather than the complexity of pipes, air and water movements, filters, ventilators, diffusers, switches, lights, and other installations – and the specific atmospheres they create or accommodate. Building archaeology is well equipped to call attention to and document these facilities, to understand how they are interwoven with the building as well as how they were used and altered over time. But interdisciplinary cooperation with building physicists, service engineers, historians of technology, and contemporary witnesses will be necessary to accommodate these characteristics in future surveys.
4.4. The challenge of mass and magnitude
- 17 Hassler U., « Zur polytechnischen Tradition der Bauforschung », in Hassler U. éd., Bauforschung. Z (...)
17Another issue at stake in recent building heritage is the challenge of mass and magnitude – in other words, the task of selection. Just as in building heritage conservation, building archaeology is confronted with the vast size, inaccessibility, and speed of mutability of modern architecture. Accordingly, Uta Hassler postulates, the future research questions of building archaeology will be concerned with the building stock as a whole, to assess the dynamics of changes and transformations of the built environment as a « cultural archive »17. The modelling of spatial and temporal transformations of the building stock – to make up the balance of the « survivors » and the losses – should, in her view, be brought together with the transmission, reconstruction, and historical understanding of building knowledge. Databases obviously come into play here, but we will need to rethink building surveys, even at the scale of individual buildings, which are – still – not only preserved in a high number but also often huge in size.
4.5. The abundance of auxiliary sources
- 18 Renn J., Osthues W., Schlimme H. éd., Wissensgeschichte der Architektur, 3 vol., Berlin, 2014.
18Last but not least, building archaeology of the recent past is confronted with inconsistent and contradictory sources and levels of verification. Typically, the quantity of available archival information – drawings, images, and texts – is much greater for younger than for older buildings. Prior to the early modern period, architectural drawings were rarely made at all, but from the Renaissance onwards plans, sections, etc., became indispensable tools in the building trade18. Industrial fabrication did not diminish the number of drawings that were considered necessary on a building site, but rather increased it.
19It is common practice among building archaeologists to consult written sources as auxiliary ones, useful only after the archaeologist has become familiar with the main source, the building itself, by measuring and documenting it. Thus we withstand the temptation of putting too much trust in the written word, even if the building is telling another story. In cases where an almost complete archive is at hand, however, another procedure must be developed. The necessary selection process should take into account any information the archive can provide. What is already well documented by archived plans and only needs to be verified or falsified ? Which technical installations have been altered and can point the researcher to the building’s original inner life ? Where do interesting constructions hide ?
5. Current Projects
20The following studies show ways how these five challenges can be approached. Besides some references to colleagues, we take the opportunity to introduce current projects of graduates and post-graduates, each representing one or more of the above-mentioned issues.
- 19 She is a graduate from the Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule Regensburg (OTH Regensburg) and cur (...)
- 20 Kreß F., Das Buch der Zimmerleute. Ein Handbuch für alle in der Ausbildung befindlichen und vorang (...)
- 21 Kupfer C., Der Betonbauer, 4 vol., Berlin, 1938.
21The retracing of construction processes of modern buildings and their original disposition is a research trajectory followed by several scholars, who combine comprehensive on-site documentation and surveys with thorough archival research. For example, Meltem Çavdar, a junior scholar at the Technische Universität München (TUM),19 is applying 3D photogrammetry, 3D laser scanning, and structured light scanning to measure and represent the imprints of timber formwork on board-marked exposed concrete surfaces, including their slight inaccuracies. Her project reveals the reasons for the differences in concrete surface quality from the middle of last century, such as material, construction methods, different skill levels of workers, and production processes of formworking (figs. 2-3). The analysis and assessment of the construction methods of timber formwork – often used in complex structures that no longer exist but which have left traces for us to study – will provide new insights about the historic development of timber construction and carpentry. In Germany, the first major reference guide for timber formwork construction for reinforced concrete arose from this trade. In 1926, the master carpenter Fritz Kreß, author of technical textbooks and founder of a vocational school for carpentry in Tübingen-Lustnau, dedicated a long chapter to formwork in the first edition of his seminal publication on carpentry, which was reprinted in several editions well after the middle of last century20. A first manual for concrete builders (Lehrgang für Betonbauer) was published in 1930 in the form of worksheets, and in 1938 Carl Kupfer, a civil engineer, published Der Betonbauer21, the first comprehensive technical textbook on concrete construction. Çavdar’s extensive study shows that all these textbooks on concrete construction focus primarily on formwork, relying on older publications about carpentry. In the post-war period, questions of timber formwork construction continued to appear in vocational publications for concrete builders until prefabricated panel systems gradually replaced board formwork in the 1970s.

Fig. 2. The third atelier of sculptor Herrmann Rosa in Munich, which he built in fair-faced concrete between 1960 and 1968 (Photo Meltem Çavdar, TUM 2020).

Fig. 3. A reconstruction of the formwork for one of the outer walls of the atelier (Student work by Nazanin Ghaem Maghami, supervised by Meltem Çavdar, TUM 2020).
- 22 Buggert D., Helmenstein C., « St. Engelbert in Köln-Riehl - Form und Funktion », INSITU, 9/2 (2017 (...)
22Daniel Buggert, currently teaching at the University of Cologne, is concentrating on the iconic church of St. Engelbert in Cologne-Riehl, built in 1932 according to a design by the German ecclesiastical architect Dominikus Böhm. The church’s eight parabolic vaulted caps rise above a circular ground plan and join to form a star dome. The vaulted double-curved concrete shells form the interior and exterior of the church at the same time. Buggert’s project provides a structural analysis of these concrete shells, a historical construction innovation at the time the church was built. He also examines the church’s below-ground level, which was never executed according to plan, and it was transformed to a bunker soon after completion. Buggert’s research will make the spatial links between the individual areas understandable, which will enable an analysis of the building's functionality as a community center22.
- 23 Kayser C., Kifinger P., « Hinter der Kulisse - Zur Baugeschichte des « Zeppelinfelds » auf dem Reic (...)
23Overcoming common prejudices and premature assumptions through the means of a detailed study of material remains is evident in the recent study by Christian Kayser, who is based in Munich, of the remains of the former main rally grounds of the national-socialist regime in Nuremberg, used between 1933 and 1938 and developed according to a design by Albert Speer and Walter Brugmann. The buildings that remain are prototypes of Nazi architecture, allegedly designed to last a millennium. However, as the survey by Kayser and his team exposes in clear detail, the grandstands were just simple timber constructions clad in natural stone23. What looks like traditional architecture on a monumental scale was produced through industrial means, with an eye to cost efficiency and thus prefabrication.
- 24 Emminger A., Cottier Y., Crespo C., Harutyunyan E. éd., IACOBUS+/2018, Regensburg, 2019.
24Morgane Müller and Sibel Erhan, two master’s students at the OTH Regensburg, are currently examining the Regensburger Stadtlagerhaus, a specialized warehouse for the storage of grain. It was built between 1910 and 1911 as a state-of-the-art, multi-storey concrete construction in the then new Luitpoldhafen on the Danube. In 1935 and 1939, two vertical concrete tower silos were added at the quoins24. The original technical equipment was so well designed that much of it was used until 2018, when the building was closed as a warehouse, and is therefore declared part of the historical monument (fig. 4). Due to the city of Regensburg’s plans to transform the storeys of the central building into workspace for creative industries, the study focuses on this older part, which measures roughly 60 by 25 meters. Building archaeology in this case works as an analytic interface between architectural and technical history : neither the building nor the equipment can be understood without the other.

Fig. 4. One of six corn lofts in the Regensburger Stadtlagerhaus (1910-1911), with their original conductor pipes. Their openings penetrate the floors and can still be closed and opened manually (Photo Ulrike Fauerbach).
25Like in most cases, the building was never erected precisely as planned, as a thorough inspection of the site and the archives revealed. What is more, the building has been altered over time according to use and technical innovation ; for example, a vertical silo has been transformed into a dust collector unit. Therefore, the original plans can only be seen as one historical source among others, not an adequate document of the current situation. Obviously, an all-encompassing building survey at a scale of 1:20 would be inefficient ; choices had to be made about what to document and in what level of detail. The building will be measured by computer-aided survey along a vertical segment that is repeated throughout the building, a repetitiveness typical of industrial architecture. This exemplifying survey can then be copied, vetted and thus completed.
- 25 Compare, for example, the survey in Gisbertz O., Hoyer S., « Über das alte und das neue Bauen - Zu (...)
26If a building can be likened to a human body, then its technical equipment may be equated to its organs, and special methods of study apply to different functions. The flow and storage of grain can be documented abstractly, to account for movement through the different levels and sections of the warehouse until the grain left the building. For the elements of equipment that penetrate the fabric of the building, however, a traditional building survey is an efficient method for accessing their functionality25. In other cases, radiography may be more appropriate. Individual pieces of equipment, such as weighing machines, conveyors, etc., need the expertise of technical historians.
27Uncovering the empirical know-how of the builders of modern architecture is at the centre of another research project at TUM, which will for the first time provide an overview of the projects of the renowned façade construction company Josef Gartner. Founded as a metal workshop in 1868 in the small town of Gundelfingen an der Donau in Bavaria, in 1939 the company constructed the monumental aluminium doorways for the atelier of the Nazi sculptor Josef Thorak near Munich according a design by Albert Speer. In the economic boom of the post-war years, building upon its expertise in aluminium, the family-owned business grew into a leading specialist for curtain wall façades on an international scale. Façades by Gartner cover a huge number of engineering and architectural icons of the second part of last century, such as the SAS Hotel in Copenhagen, the Lloyd’s Building in London, the Hypo Tower in Munich and the Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong, as well as the current company headquarters of Apple and Uber. The company’s success was due in large part to their engineering expertise, constant technological improvements, logistical and assembly know-how, and well-established personal connections to leading architects.
28For recent building heritage conservation, a better understanding of these historic façades and their construction is of utmost importance for ongoing renovation and repair work. Also, the large number of objects clad by Gartner, about 1,300 between 1955 and 1985 in Germany alone, necessitates a comprehensive review and valuation of the objects worthy of preservation. Rouven Grom, a researcher at TUM, is currently working on a geo-referenced online finding aid for the façades. The inventory will for the first time provide an overview of the historic development and proliferation of curtain wall façades on a broad empirical basis. So far, the inventory is mostly based on archival sources, in stark contrast to most inventories of modern buildings. Usually, these are based on contemporary periodicals and literature, perpetuating past self-assessments in doing so. Though it would be challenging to survey at least one of the high-rises in the course of the project, this can hardly be achieved. Instead, the project concentrates on small, specific construction details on site which allow for a comparative analysis of different but related specimen, as well as for an evaluation of significant steps within the production and assembly processes (fig. 5). Just as in Çavdar’s project, the epistemological object of building archaeology is not the singular structure, but the variety of similar cases.

Fig. 5. The differences between on-site findings and specifications provided in contemporary periodicals and publications, as exemplified by the prototypical curtain-walled administration buildings of Deckel Maschinenfabrik in Munich of 1962, by architect Walter Henn and façade by Josef Gartner (Grom, TUM 2019).
- 26 Markgraf M., « Welterbestätte Weimar-Datenbank historischer Bauelemente », in World Heritage Sites (...)
29Another form of inventory with strong links to building archaeology in Germany can be seen in several attempts to establish archives of modern building materials, approaches which often develop at the institutes for building heritage conservation but with ties to research as well. The Bauforschungsarchiv at the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, for example, provides for the ongoing substitution of original contemporary material in the conservation and repair of the UNESCO world heritage site26.
- 27 Kögl L., Neufeld T., Das Uhren- und Reglerhaus des ehemaligen städtischen Gaswerks in Regensburg, (...)
30In their master’s thesis at the OTH Regensburg, Ludwig Kögl and Tobias Neufeld investigated the Uhren- und Reglerhaus of Regensburg’s former municipal gasworks, built in 191027. The building housed gas meters, pressure regulators and other mechanisms through which the gas had to pass before it was stored, but none of those mechanisms have been preserved. This investigation focused on the ferroconcrete construction of the gasworks, particularly the truss, which is slender for its early age and shows signs of static fatigue. Electromagnetic induction, a non-destructive test procedure, revealed that the number and position of the reinforcement bars and stirrups did not always correspond to the reinforcement drawing, probably owing to unforeseen circumstances during the building process. It seems that the design of the ferroconcrete construction in question was inspired by the principles of timber construction. In some junctions the engineer planned more rebar than the concrete volume allowed for. The project thus demonstrates how the preservation of the planning documents does not supersede a detailed survey and that archival studies and building archaeology complement each other.
6. Conclusion
31Building archaeology has gained new fields of activity. Research on 20th-century architecture has brought the discipline into closer contact with its interdisciplinary network and opened up new fields of cooperation. What is more, an unexpected association has become apparent. Only in our field is the term « Bauforschung » limited to historic studies in the sense of building archaeology. From the beginning of the 20th century, the generic term « Bauforschung » denoted something quite different : research into buildings and construction projects by civil engineers, with a focus on rationalization, industrialization, efficiency and modernization. With the new interest in our recent built heritage, we are inspired to integrate the methods and instruments of engineering science in our historical research, bringing together « Ingenieurwissenschaftliche Bauforschung » and « Historische Bauforschung ».
32However, this transformation does not question the temporal perspective of building archaeology. The more we engage in the material remains of the recent past, the more we begin to comprehend it as singular and historically significant. Building archaeology is also undergoing a development comparable to that of our neighbouring discipline, field archaeology, which is relying less on actual excavation and is discovering, by the use of archaeometry, new layers of materiality instead. The available tools reach deeper and farther, revealing a multitude of layers – not only of materiality, but of planning, production, and learning.
Notes
1 Schmidt H., « Bauaufnahme. Die Entwicklung der Methoden im 19. Jahrhundert », in F. Wenzel éd., Erhalten historisch bedeutsamer Bauwerke. Baugefüge, Konstruktionen, Werkstoffe (SFB 315, Universität Karlsruhe TH), Jahrbuch 1986, p. 23-69.
2 The term itself is usually attributed to A. V. Gerkan « Die gegenwärtige Lage der archäologischen Bauforschung in Deutschland », Zentralblatt der Bauverwaltung, 44 (29 Oktober 1924), p. 375-sqq., republished in A. V. Gerkan, Von antiker Architektur und Topographie, Stuttgart, 1959, p. 9-13.
3 Gruben G., « Klassische Bauforschung », in Borbein A. H., Zanker P. éd., Klassische Archäologie. Eine Einführung, Berlin, 2000, p. 251-279 - http://www.koldewey-gesellschaft.de/fileadmin/user_upload/gg.pdf, last retrieved Aug. 2020.
4 Busen T., Knechtel M., Knobling C., Nagel E., Schuller M., Todt B., Bauaufnahme, München, 2016, p. 9-11.
5 Cramer J., Handbuch der Bauaufnahme. 2nd ed., Stuttgart, 1993. Petzet M., Mader G. T.,Praktische Denkmalpflege, Stuttgart-Berlin-Köln, 1995.
6 e.g. Markgraf M. éd., Archäologie der Moderne. Sanierung Bauhaus Dessau, Berlin, 2006. Huse N. éd., Mendelsohn. Der Einsteinturm. Die Geschichte einer Instandsetzung, Stuttgart-Zürich, 2000.
7 Schwarting A., Die Siedlung Dessau-Törten. Rationalität als ästhetisches Programm, Dresden, 2010.
8 Spiegel D., Urlaubs(t)räume des Sozialismus. Zur Geschichte der Ferienarchitektur in der DDR, Berlin, 2020.
9 Herbote A., Knufinke U., « Das Stufenhochhaus in Wolfsburg (P. Baumgarten, 1967). Methodische Fragen an ein Objekt vor seinem Verlust », in von Kienlin A., Quatember U, Kurapkat D., Mohn C. éd., Bericht über die 50. Tagung für Ausgrabungswissenschaft und Bauforschung vom 9. bis 13. Mai 2018 in Braunschweig, Dresden, 2018. Cf. also the contribution of O. Gisbertz and Hoyer to this conference.
10 Cf. for additional perspectives on this topic Mohn C., « Bauforschung : Quellen über den Bau », online : https://denkmalpraxismoderne.de/bauforschung-quellen-ueber-den-bau/; last retrieved Aug. 2020.
11 Bruschke A. éd., Bauaufnahme in der Denkmalpflege, Stuttgart, 2005.
12 https://www.bauforschung-bw.de/, last retrieved Aug. 2020.
13 https://baureka.online/, last retrieved Aug. 2020.
14 Langenberg S., « Zur Erhaltung des nicht Haltbaren », in Franz B., Scheuermann I. éd., Das Digitale und die Denkmalpflege, Jahrestagung 2016, Arbeitskreise Theorie und Lehre der Denkmalpflege, Weimar, 2017, p. 48-55.
15 For modern inter-war architectural surfaces, cf. Hammer I., « Modern Movement Materiality. Remarks to Meaning and Methods of Preservation », in Croé A., Ruijters J. éd., Preservation of Monuments and Culture of Remembrance - Using the Example of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Heerlen, 2016, p. 43-58.
16 Banham R., The Architecture of the Well-tempered Environment, London, 1969.
17 Hassler U., « Zur polytechnischen Tradition der Bauforschung », in Hassler U. éd., Bauforschung. Zur Rekonstruktion des Wissens, Zürich, 2019, p. 81-122.
18 Renn J., Osthues W., Schlimme H. éd., Wissensgeschichte der Architektur, 3 vol., Berlin, 2014.
19 She is a graduate from the Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule Regensburg (OTH Regensburg) and currently a doctoral researcher at the Technische Universität München (TUM), supported by a select graduate fellowship of the Wüstenrot Stiftung.
20 Kreß F., Das Buch der Zimmerleute. Ein Handbuch für alle in der Ausbildung befindlichen und vorangeschrittene Zimmerleute und Techniker, Lustnau-Tübingen, 1926.
21 Kupfer C., Der Betonbauer, 4 vol., Berlin, 1938.
22 Buggert D., Helmenstein C., « St. Engelbert in Köln-Riehl - Form und Funktion », INSITU, 9/2 (2017), p. 283-296.
23 Kayser C., Kifinger P., « Hinter der Kulisse - Zur Baugeschichte des « Zeppelinfelds » auf dem Reichsparteitaggelände in Nürnberg », INSITU, 9/1 (2017), p. 115-134.
24 Emminger A., Cottier Y., Crespo C., Harutyunyan E. éd., IACOBUS+/2018, Regensburg, 2019.
25 Compare, for example, the survey in Gisbertz O., Hoyer S., « Über das alte und das neue Bauen - Zum Werk für Industrie und Wissenschaft von Walter Henn », INSITU, 2 (2016), p. 269-282.
26 Markgraf M., « Welterbestätte Weimar-Datenbank historischer Bauelemente », in World Heritage Sites of the 20th Century - Gaps and Risks from a European Point of View (Beiträge zur Denkmalpflege in Berlin 30 und ICOMOS - Hefte des deutschen Nationalkomittees XLVI), Berlin, 2008.
27 Kögl L., Neufeld T., Das Uhren- und Reglerhaus des ehemaligen städtischen Gaswerks in Regensburg, Regensburg, 2019 (unpublished master‘s thesis).
Table des illustrations
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Légende | Fig. 1. Overhead radiation heating under a suspended ceiling in the Bauschule (Faculty of Architecture), OTH Regensburg, early 1950s. The system was produced by Stramax ; the company was taken over in 1973 and its archive is lost. During a student project, the opening was made in order to study the system, which was disconnected long ago, and to assess its potential function in a new climate-control concept for the building (Students Philipp Eichhorn & Sarah Thiel, supervised by Joachim Wienbreyer. Photo Philipp Eichhorn, OTH 2018). |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/artehis/docannexe/image/26352/img-1.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 1,0M |
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Légende | Fig. 2. The third atelier of sculptor Herrmann Rosa in Munich, which he built in fair-faced concrete between 1960 and 1968 (Photo Meltem Çavdar, TUM 2020). |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/artehis/docannexe/image/26352/img-2.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 774k |
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Légende | Fig. 3. A reconstruction of the formwork for one of the outer walls of the atelier (Student work by Nazanin Ghaem Maghami, supervised by Meltem Çavdar, TUM 2020). |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/artehis/docannexe/image/26352/img-3.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 406k |
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Légende | Fig. 4. One of six corn lofts in the Regensburger Stadtlagerhaus (1910-1911), with their original conductor pipes. Their openings penetrate the floors and can still be closed and opened manually (Photo Ulrike Fauerbach). |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/artehis/docannexe/image/26352/img-4.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 414k |
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Légende | Fig. 5. The differences between on-site findings and specifications provided in contemporary periodicals and publications, as exemplified by the prototypical curtain-walled administration buildings of Deckel Maschinenfabrik in Munich of 1962, by architect Walter Henn and façade by Josef Gartner (Grom, TUM 2019). |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/artehis/docannexe/image/26352/img-5.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 796k |
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