Pinnable

Next year, in 2027, it will be a century since the 1927 exhibition of the Deutscher Werkbund, an international showcase of modern architecture, took place in Stuttgart. The exhibition Die Wohnung presented new ways of living by proposing innovative, functional & affordable housing, exemplifying an admiration for scientific rationale & economic, prefabricated construction. Its centrepiece was the Weissenhof Estate, a purpose-built housing estate where all references to former styles were verboten, comprising twenty-one avant-garde buildings by seventeen architects, among them Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, and J.J.P. Oud. Today, the Weissenhof Estate stands as a prominent example of early modernism.

The foremost of the eleven buildings on the estate that survived the ravages of time is the iconic Le Corbusier House, one of two neighbouring structures designed by Le Corbusier & his cousin Pierre Jeanneret, which today houses the Weissenhof Museum. The museum, originally a semi-detached house for two middle-class families & their respective maids, focuses on the history of the Weissenhof Estate and on the house itself. Further notable buildings are Citrohan House, also by the Jeanneret cousins, two apartment blocks, one by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and one by Peter Behrens, two rows of terraced houses, the first by J.J.P. Oud and the second by Mart Stam, and the detached single-family home by Hans Scharoun. These houses are not open to visitors, but they can be seen from the streets on a tour of the estate.

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