The inaugural 2008 World Monuments Fund/Knoll Modernism Prize was awarded to Brenne Gesellschaft von Architekten mbH, led by Winfried Brenne and Franz Jaschke, for its superb restoration of the former ADGB Trade Union School, a highly significant but little-known Bauhaus-designed landmark in Bernau, Germany. Rigorous architectural and historical scholarship allowed Brenne Gesellschaft von Architekten mbH to restore the building according to its original plans. The school’s purpose was to provide further education to administrators and leaders of the trade union movement on such topics as economics, management, labor law, and industrial hygiene. Its asymmetry responds to the topography of the site; it was designed to bring the surrounding forests into constant view. (Inset) Architect Hannes Meyer (1889–1954) was an ardent Marxist whose view of architecture as radically functional was informed by his political beliefs, a sensibility he brought to the Bauhaus, as head of the architecture department and then as its second director from 1928 to 1930.
© BRENNE Gesellschaft von Architekten mbH
Architects Winfried Brenne (left) and Franz Jaschke (right), partners in the firm Brenne Gesellschaft von Architekten mbH, received two awards for the ADGB project: the World Monuments Fund/Knoll Modernism Prize and the Unification of German Architects Prize. Together, Brenne and Jaschke have restored and renovated numerous Modern structures, including buildings by Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Erich Mendelsohn, Bruno Taut, and Hans Scharoun.
© BRENNE Gesellschaft von Architekten mbH
The ADGB school’s facilities were linked by the building’s most distinctive feature, an external glass corridor overlooking the countryside.
© BRENNE Gesellschaft von Architekten mbH
While the building was under East German control, it was impossible to find appropriate glass for repairs, so the light-filled glass corridor was obscured by a wooden parapet.
© BRENNE Gesellschaft von Architekten mbH
Brenne Gesellschaft von Architekten restored the original materials and reintroduced the original bright red color of the steel framing.
© BRENNE Gesellschaft von Architekten mbH
A bold external staircase and balcony wrapped around the school building in the original design. Under East German rule, the area below the stairs and balcony was walled off with concrete, concealing the graceful asymmetry of the building.
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Brenne Gesellschaft von Architekten opened up the area and restored the highly articulated steel casement windows, which open in a cascade of trapezoidal shapes.
© BRENNE Gesellschaft von Architekten mbH
Elaborately articulated steel casement windows are one of the defining features of the building.
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Under East German rule, inappropriate fixtures were installed in the refectory, the glass-block ceiling was concealed by a suspended ceiling, and the delicate steel window frames were replaced with wooden ones.
© BRENNE Gesellschaft von Architekten mbH
Brenne Gesellschaft von Architekten returned the room to its original design that beautifully integrated the interior and exterior spaces surrounding this common dining hall.
© BRENNE Gesellschaft von Architekten mbH
Working from the building’s original plans, Brenne Gesellschaft von Architekten re-created the brightly lit winter garden, whose delicately curved lines offset the rigid angles of much of the rest of the building.
© BRENNE Gesellschaft von Architekten mbH
