Eiermann's legacy: architecture or burden of memory?
Participants in the seminar on architectural journalism write about the legacy of the architect Egon Eiermann.
In the seminar "Urban development typologies - architecture journalism workshop: We write about architecture", students at the Chair of Urban District Planning deal with architectural journalism. The seminar is led by editor and building historian Ulrich Coenen. The seminar is aimed at Master's students of architecture and civil engineering.
During the summer semester, the 17 participants researched under supervision and wrote journalistic articles on topics relating to architecture, urban planning and monument preservation. They practiced various forms of journalistic presentation such as interviews, architectural criticism and specialist book reviews.
One of the tasks during the semester was dedicated to the architect Egon Eiermann. Probably the most important and influential architect of the German post-war period, he taught at the Faculty of Architecture at today's KIT from 1947 until his death in 1970. A lecture hall and a street in Karlsruhe bear his name today.
In their reports, the students investigated the question of how present Eiermann still is at the faculty today. They also critically examined whether it is appropriate to name a lecture hall and a street after an architect who laid the foundations for his later success during the so-called Dritte Reich.
Here you can read three reports from different perspectives.
Luna Baumgärtner
Eiermann's legacy: architecture or a burden of memory?
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Eiermann is a symbol of post-war modernism for Karlsruhe, but for students he is often just a name on a sign. Is the honor still justified?
It's Monday morning at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. The entrance area of the architecture building is bustling with activity. Students with coffee cups and half-open backpacks are pushing their way to the Egon-Eiermann lecture hall. His nameplate hangs next to the door, but hardly anyone looks at it. "Eiermann? Who was that actually?" someone mumbles. Most people just shrug their shoulders and enter the lecture hall. The name is left behind - unnoticed and yet the question echoes in the room.
Egon Eiermann (1904-1970) shaped German architecture in the post-war period like no other. Between 1933 and 1945, he laid the foundations for his later success in the young Federal Republic of Germany. His works, from the German Pavilion in Brussels to administrative and industrial buildings, combine functional clarity with elegant lightness. They are characterized by glass, steel and open spaces. His buildings appear almost transparent, a counter-design to the heavy, prestigious architecture of the Nazi era. His own home in Baden-Baden also reflects these principles. A hillside house with differentiated views, light-flooded rooms, a clear structure and meticulously designed details. Eiermann taught as a professor at the Faculty of Architecture in Karlsruhe from 1947 and shaped generations of students over more than two decades.
However, Eiermann's career was not without its problems. During the Nazi era, he accepted commissions for industry and the Wehrmacht in Berlin. He was not politically active, but his work for the regime raises moral questions. His involvement in the major propaganda exhibition "Give me four years' time!" at the Berlin exhibition grounds in 1937 is viewed critically. There, the Nazi regime staged the supposed successes of Hitler's first years in power. Architecture and design served as a means of visually reinforcing the propagandistic message. Eiermann's construction of a barracks is also one of the controversial projects. In contrast to his industrial and factory buildings, where he remained true to his modern, functional style, here he adapted to the requirements of the Nazi regime and deviated from his own style. This contradiction shows the ambivalence of his career, as he adapted to his clients on the one hand and adhered to a modern architectural language on the other.
The decision to accept commissions reflected a common practice. Like many of his contemporaries, he put his conscience on the back burner and adapted to the regime's framework conditions. Career and survival were in conflict with ethical distance. Eiermann was not an ideologue like Albert Speer, but an architect who accepted commissions in order to secure his office. This ambivalence still characterizes the discussion about appropriate remembrance today.
At KIT, his legacy remains present and omnipresent. Anyone who walks through the rooms of the faculty inevitably sits on his stools, uses his tables or enters the lecture hall that bears his name. And yet: many young students have hardly any idea who is behind the name. This raises the question: should a lecture hall still bear his name or is such hero worship still justified today? His name is also visible in the cityscape of Karlsruhe. With Egon-Eiermann-Allee, the city honors an architect who had a decisive influence on post-war modernism. The naming shows that his role is perceived as identity-forming beyond the KIT and makes the discussion about the appropriate handling of his legacy even more complex.
Lisa Alberti, a Master's student of architecture, says that she hardly knew Eiermann before her studies and that he didn't play a major role in her Bachelor's degree. "I just accepted the lecture hall. Does the name still fit? Yes, probably." For her, it remains more of a name on chairs, racks and next to the lecture hall.
Matthias Zöller, honorary professor for professional detailed planning at the Faculty of Architecture and building expert, who studied at KIT himself, takes a completely different view. He particularly emphasizes Eiermann's architectural attitude: "Eiermann did not want hero worship. His architecture was light, transparent, functional, completely different from the heavy Nazi architecture. It is appropriate to remember him, but not as a hero. It's about his architecture, not about moral exaltation". He refers to the historical reality. Many architects from Eiermann's generation accepted commissions in the Nazi state, not out of conviction, but out of necessity. According to Zöller, they were therefore apolitical, they wanted to build. Remembrance is important, says Zöller, but a distinction must be made between commemoration and hero worship. For him, the name next to the lecture hall is therefore not a glorification, but a historical anchor.
Julian Knopp, junior architect and former student at KIT, also brings in another perspective. He was initially unaware of the connection between the Nazi era and Egon Eiermann, which is why he simply accepted the name of the lecture hall. At the same time, he raises the question of whether it is still appropriate to name lecture halls after architects: "Does it really always have to be architects, or could lecture halls be named after something else? After all, a smaller lecture hall on the upper floor doesn't have a recognized architect's name either."
Eiermann's influence is subtle, but noticeable. Furniture, tables, chairs in the rooms, such as the "Grüne Grotte" lecture hall. All small testimonies to an architect who thought down to the last detail. His idea of modern architecture continues to have an impact in teaching and practice. For the city of Karlsruhe, Eiermann is a symbol of German post-war modernism. For students, he often remains a name on a sign, while for the faculty he is a teacher and thus part of its identity. A figure who made the break with Nazi architecture visible.
The debate about the naming shows that remembrance is important, but hero worship is problematic. Eiermann's works combine aesthetics with pragmatism, showing an architect who consciously embedded his architecture in the reality of his time and sought a balance between moral standards and professional practice.
But the question remains: Is it still appropriate today for Karlsruhe and the KIT to bear his name so prominently? Perhaps what is needed is not so much a renaming as more context. A reference in the lecture hall, a small exhibition, a discussion during studies. So that the name becomes a piece of history that can not only be overlooked, but also understood.
Because Egon Eiermann is neither a pure hero nor a mere follower. He is a symbol of the ambivalence that the culture of remembrance must endure: admirable in his work, problematic in parts of his biography, and for this very reason a name that should inspire reflection.
Finn Jäger
A silence that raises questions
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The case of Egon Eiermann and the question of responsibility
The lecture has already begun. Slightly late, I enter the Egon Eiermann lecture hall through the back entrance. I find a seat in the last row, sit down and let my gaze wander around the room. On the way here, I pass the Eiermann desks in the drawing room. Clear lines, familiar, almost austere. Unlike in my usual civil engineering rooms, every detail here seems to have been designed with aesthetics in mind. Reduced forms, quiet elegance. The desks seem like a reminder of what Eiermann taught here as a professor back then: beauty as a necessity, not an add-on.
Eiermann's career was presented in a previous lecture. I remember that he was one of the most important German architects of the 20th century. Born near Berlin, he studied architecture at the TH Berlin-Charlottenburg. Even his early buildings up to 1930 bore a clear modernist signature. From 1931, Eiermann made a name for himself with his own architectural practice in Berlin. In keeping with the spirit of the times, his residential buildings of those years mostly had a flat pitched roof, but they remained freer and more modern in their clear formal language than the Heimatschutz architecture typical of the time.
After the lecture, I picked up Ulrich Coenen's book Eiermann in Mittelbaden, which examines Eiermann's work during and after the Nazi era in detail. Among other things, Coenen devotes himself to the years 1933 to 1945.
After the National Socialists came to power, even a modern architect like Eiermann had to find his way. Eiermann therefore concentrated on industrial buildings and private residences, where the scope for design remained somewhat greater. However, this in no way meant that Eiermann was in opposition to the regime. Contrary to some legends, he was not a resistance fighter against the Nazis, but rather came to terms with the power structure.
Research now clearly emphasizes that Eiermann, like many Germans at the time, put his conscience aside in order to remain professionally successful. In 1937, for example, he worked on the large propaganda exhibition "Give me four years' time", an exhibition of the regime's achievements. He drew the line less at the question of who he was building for or for what purpose, but rather at the artistic justifiability of his designs. Eiermann's main field of activity in the Third Reich was industrial construction, where modern objectivity was tolerated as long as it served the goals of the regime. In summary, Eiermann laid the professional foundations for his later fame in West Germany between 1933 and 1945, at the cost of moral compromises.
"While still engaged in the 'Total War', German architects were seamlessly involved in the reconstruction of the Federal Republic after 1945," writes Coenen.
After the end of the war, Egon Eiermann found his way back into professional life surprisingly quickly, an indication of the extent to which his modern attitude was now reinterpreted positively. The fact that Eiermann was able to be so active again in such a short space of time was also due to the fact that he did not appear to be politically incriminated. He had not been a prominent Nazi architect and was able to credibly claim that he had only built during the Third Reich, but not spread ideology. He was therefore seen by many as the right man for reconstruction. In fact, Eiermann became "the man of the hour" in post-war Germany and advanced to become an icon of West German reconstruction in the 1950s and 1960s. Eiermann was seen by many as the guardian of modern, human architecture, far removed from the monumental buildings of the National Socialists.
In Karlsruhe, Eiermann became a formative teaching personality. With his jovial, optimistic and at the same time demanding teaching style, he quickly made the architecture faculty one of the most popular in the country.
The official KIT website has its own article on Egon Eiermann. It briefly states: "From 1931 to 1945, he worked as an independent architect in Berlin." Nothing more is said about these years.
Sitting here, I get the feeling that there is little interest in taking a critical look at Eiermann's past. My gaze wanders around the room, but there is no plaque, no notice, no explanatory sentence that addresses his work during the Nazi era. Instead, there is a silence that raises questions. It is precisely here that we realize how difficult it is for us to accept history in all its nuances. After the Nazi era, creative architects were divided into two camps. On the one hand, the heroes of modernism, whose clear forms were interpreted as a hidden protest, almost as a secret rebellion against the regime. On the other side, the representatives of the classical style, labeled as loyal to the system, as offenders of conviction who had to be punished or silenced.
I lean over to the person sitting next to me and quietly ask about her painting by Egon Eiermann. Carolin Stolz, an architecture student, replies that she had already studied him the previous year and continued her research out of interest. This is how she became aware of the problem. Previously, she had only associated Eiermann with his architectural style. She was disappointed that more was not being done to critically classify him, although, according to Stolz, this could certainly be done without questioning his outstanding achievements.
Anabel Rilling, also an architecture student, turns around from the row in front of us, somewhat taken aback. She didn't know that at all. She had never encountered Eiermann in the Nazi context during her studies, if at all, then only in passing, and in the conventional narrative as a rebel of modernism. However, this chapter never really played a role. She thinks it would be an exciting approach that would deserve much more attention within the faculty, even if she can't think of a concrete framework in which this could be implemented at the moment.
"Why name a lecture hall after him at all?" Stella Huck, an architecture student, asks. At the beginning of her studies, she also studied Eiermann and his history out of personal interest. Her studies did not teach her anything in this regard. She sees this as a clear omission. For her, this reveals a fundamental problem in architecture: all too often, the work is separated from the creator.
The lecture is over, but I haven't noticed much; my thoughts continue to revolve around the question of how Eiermann's work and his past intertwine. As I pack my bag, I remember my late grandfather Franz Josef Palm, who also became a successful architect in the post-war period. Too young to be able to build under the National Socialists, he was nevertheless conscripted and had to fight on their side in the war as a young bicycle courier. In the post-war period, he also benefited from his modern building style and was able to build a new life for himself and his family. Like many of his generation, he had to find his place in a world that had to reinvent itself after the great shock.
But how did my grandfather see the role of responsibility back then? Did he admire Eiermann? Was he aware of his work under National Socialism? And if so, would he have condemned it?
And anyway, from today's perspective, are we allowed to pass judgment on a time when even the attempt to maintain a morally "correct" stance was easily punished with death? With these thoughts in mind, I leave the lecture hall and on my way out, my gaze lingers one last time on the Eiermann desks, which unfortunately have no answer in their flawless function. All that remains is their graceful appearance.
Xinyue Yu
Egon Eiermann between architecture and the past
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Karlsruhe's view of Egon Eiermann
The spring of 1958 in Brussels was optimistic and no longer as gloomy as the war years before. Visitors streamed onto the grounds of the World Exhibition through glass passages and stopped in front of the German pavilion. They saw no monumental stone columns and no heroic reliefs, but two floating cuboids made of steel and glass. The construction by Egon Eiermann and Sep Ruf appeared light and open. The sunlight penetrated unhindered into the interior. The international press spoke of transparency, openness and a new spirit. Only 13 years earlier, Germany had been reduced to rubble. Now it presented itself as a modern and peaceful player on the world stage. But the question remained as to whether this glass shell really created clarity or whether it concealed what should not be seen.
From Brussels to Karlsruhe
Back in Karlsruhe, where Egon Eiermann taught for almost twenty years as a professor at what was then the Technical University, now the KIT, his name can be found here at every turn. In the architecture building, you sit in the Egon Eiermann lecture hall, and if you travel to the west of the city, you will walk or cycle along Egon-Eiermann-Allee at some point. For many students, this is as natural as the streetcar or the canteen, but hardly anyone thinks about the architect's biography.
Voices from the campus
An architecture student from Karlsruhe has studied Eiermann intensively. He emphasizes that Eiermann was not a member of the NSDAP. He did carry out commissions under the National Socialist system, even under Albert Speer, but almost all architects at the time worked for the regime. However, his architecture was clearly different from the propagandistic architecture of the National Socialists. Instead of massive monuments, Eiermann created functional and minimalist buildings with open forms. For him, Eiermann is comparable to Le Corbusier, both are controversial, both are influential. He therefore finds it appropriate that a lecture hall and a street bear his name. At the same time, it is important not to conceal his role during the Nazi era.
An art history student takes a similar, but more cautious view. She says it is fine as long as people also learn that Eiermann had a past with the Nazi era. Architecture and history should not be separated from each other.
Another architecture student emphasizes that she has hardly had any contact with Eiermann. She was not surprised by his proximity to the Nazi system, as many architects were involved in this period. It is important not to trivialize this past. She suggests putting up an information board near the lecture hall that also shows this side of his biography.
A student of stagecraft is much more critical. She did not know Eiermann before, but finds it strange that lecture halls and streets are named after someone who worked under the Nazi system. This should not be forgotten.
Return to Eiermann
The voices show how complex the view of Eiermann is. For some, he is a modernist architect, for others a name that raises questions. In Karlsruhe, he remains visible: in everyday life, on street signs, on the door to the lecture hall. This is precisely why the question arises particularly clearly here: What does remembrance mean today? And how openly are we prepared to deal with its shadows?
Commentary: Paths and sequences of remembrance
Egon Eiermann's post-war architecture conveyed an image of transparency and openness with glass façades, but at the same time concealed parts of the past. This tension between showing and concealing also characterizes the culture of remembrance.
In Germany, an abstract form of commemoration has become established. The Jewish Museum in Berlin with its sharp incisions and the Holocaust memorial with its endless concrete blocks speak through emptiness, darkness and absence. Nothing is explained, and this is precisely what creates an impact.
In China, on the other hand, the focus is on directness. The Nanjing Massacre Memorial displays photos of the victims, personal objects and bones. The Museum of Unity 731 also confronts visitors with the horror without detours. No metaphors, no hiding, but an unsparing clarity.
However, remembrance not only takes different forms, but also follows different sequences. Remembrance, accusation and subsequent fading are all stages in dealing with the past. The decisive factor is the order in which they appear. A perpetrator country must first honestly commemorate and publicly accuse before it can move on to reassurance and neutralization.
Japan is a counter-example. It lacks a comprehensive culture of remembrance for foreign victims, aggression is played down in the classroom and war criminals are even honored at the Yasukuni Shrine. Germany, on the other hand, has developed an attitude that is internationally regarded as exemplary, because architecture and education combine accusation and remembrance.
Two ways of remembering, two ways of dealing with history. Abstraction can force reflection, directness makes the horror inevitable. But remembrance must never be comfortable. It must remain uncomfortable, otherwise history becomes a backdrop and thus a danger for the future.
Eiermann's best-known residential building: The Karlsruhe architecture professor built the villa for his own family in Baden-Baden between 1959 and 1962. He lived there until his death in 1970.
There is only one building by Egon Eiermann in Karlsruhe city center. It is the former experimental power plant of the TH Karlsruhe, built between 1951 and 1956, and is located on the south campus of the KIT grounds.
The Burda Moden publishing building in Offenburg was built in two phases from 1953 to a design by Egon Eiermann.