Deutscher Werkbund > members

The founding membership of the craftsmen’s association Deutscher Werkbund read like a "Who's Who" of prominent designers and personalities of the 1910s and 1920s. These luminaries were architects and planners who later built what would become Berlin’s World Heritage housing estates. Among them were Bruno Taut , Martin Wagner , Leberecht Migge , Ludwig Lesser , Otto Rudolf Salvisberg , Hans Scharoun , Walter Gropius , Hugo Häring , Otto Bartning , Fred Forbat as well as the partly involved planers Max Taut and Heinrich Tessenow. As a pan-German organisation, the Werkbund sought discourse with other champions of the New Building style such as Frankfurt's urban planning director Ernst May, under whose direction similar housing estates were created. It can generally be assumed, however, that virtually all key initiators of Modernism and New Building were familiar with their colleagues and followed their work closely.

The Werkbund's relaunch after the Nazi era was widely praised, with backing by key figures of post-war Modernism and political leaders of the newly founded Federal Republic of Germany including the first West German Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, and the country’s first President, Theodor Heuss. Today's association in the German capital, the Deutscher Werkbund Berlin (DWB), counts nearly 300 members.

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