Program 17 - 19.10.2025

still in planning, details to follow

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Friday, 17.10.2025:
Vernissage and Opening

• 18.00 - 18:15: Greetings and brief introduction to the topic
• Opening of the special exhibition "From design training to Nazi propaganda - the tenant magazines of EINFA and GEHAG 1930-1939": The exhibition is dedicated to the monthly tenant magazines published by EINFA from 1930-1939. This was part of the GEHAG housing association and reflects the upheavals in the politics of the company, which emerged from the left-wing political spectrum. Until mid-1933, the magazines focused on house and garden, appropriate furnishings and healthy living. After GEHAG was brought into line, the layout changed first, and later the content as well, so that more and more Nazi propaganda found its way into the magazine.
• 19:30 / Evening program: Film screening(s) on the World Estates Estates

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Saturday, 18.10.2025:
Guided tours, book presentation, keynote event

• 11.00 - 13.00: Group tours with different focuses and guides:
  The guided tours last around one and a half to two hours and are dedicated to the topics of "Life in the World Heritage Site" as well as aspects of building, contemporary, social, cultural, urban and architectural history. If there is greater demand, thematically focused, target group-specific or English-language tours are also possible.
• 13.15 - 14.00: Guided tours by curators; end of tour with opportunity to visit the TAUTES HEIM rentable museum, by operators Katrin Lesser and Ben Buschfeld
• 14.00 - 15.30: Book presentation TAUTES HEIM - Story & Details. Details and participants for this part of the event to be announced - Alternatively: Opportunity for self-organized snacks and/or a visit to the permanent and special exhibition in the Hufeisensiedlung information station
• 16:00: Keynote lecture or talk on "100 years of Neues Bauen in Berlin" (local venue: possibly Hufeisensiedlung information station, Gutshof Britz or nearby - details, speakers and/or participants to be announced)
• Afterwards: get together

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Sunday, 19.10.2025:
Public symposium

• 9.30 - 10.00 a.m.: Arrival at the conference venue (possibly Kulturstall Britz - details to be announced)
• 10.00 - approx. 18.30: Symposium "100 years of the Hufeisensiedlung"
  The symposium is divided into different, approx. 1-hour thematic sections, each with 4-5 image and specialist presentations:
  • Section I: Context and urban history
  • Section II: Stakeholders during the construction period
  • Section III: Rediscovery
  • Section IV: Life today
• There will be breaks and space for discussion during the program. The event is aimed at residents and the general public. Residents of similar ensembles are also very welcome. The conference venue is the Kulturstall on the grounds of the neighboring Gutshof Britz; a temporary exhibition on the six "Estates of Berlin Modernism" World Heritage sites will be shown at the conference venue.

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On the subject

100 years of the Horseshoe Estate

Six "Estates of Berlin Modernism" were jointly declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008. This title means that they are considered to have "outstanding universal value for the history of mankind". Wow, but is it just simple housing? To answer this question, it helps to look at history and our own needs today. The six Estates were created in response to the housing shortage that was rampant in many European cities at the beginning of the 20th century. They established higher hygienic standards and new forms of relaxed urban development. Even today, these Estates are popular residential areas - and are rightly regarded as Berlin's most important contribution to architectural history. Many questions were asked and answered here at the time - some of which still concern us today, such as: "How do we want to live?", "What constitutes good housing?", "What can architecture and urban planning contribute to this?", "How can better hygienic conditions be created?", "How can good neighbourliness be stimulated?", "How do I counter the constant threat of monotony in serial construction?" or "How can new, convincing concepts be implemented financially, organizationally and politically?"

Of these six World Heritage-listed ensembles, the Hufeisensiedlung is not only the largest, but also the most famous and the most challenging in terms of monument preservation. Even at the time of its construction, the large housing estate in Neukölln-Britz functioned as a divided "showplace". Two political camps and their respective sponsored housing associations, GEHAG and DEGEWO, competed here. Under the direction of Bruno Taut, the chief architect appointed by the GEHAG housing association, new forms of urban development were tested in the Hufeisensiedlung and components were developed that can be found in all kinds of parts of the city today. The urban development in Britz scaled the qualities of the garden city concept originating in England with simple terraced houses and lots of greenery and combined these with urban multi-storey housing, which could be built in series and in large numbers to save costs. 

The estate, grouped around the iconic 350-metre-long horseshoe row that gives it its name, is also an instructive mirror of the controversies and upheavals of later decades. Not only the discourse on urban development in the early 20th century can be traced here, but also the policy of conformity practiced by the Nazi state and the economic-liberal spirit of the late 1990s and its consequences.

Following the sale of GEHAG in 1998, the terraced housing stock was converted into individual ownership across the board. This massive challenge for the homogeneous preservation of the ensemble led to numerous initiatives, projects and publications that were initiated and developed by the residents and have endured ever since, thus setting an example for comparable complexes in terms of practiced participation, monument preservation and mediation. They will also be reported on during the conference and the tours.

Further information on the World Heritage Site and the settlement:

• Estates.de
• Estates.de/hufeisensiedlung

Organizer

Association of Friends and Sponsors of
Hufeisensiedlung Berlin-Britz (FFHBB e.V.)
c/o Infostation Hufeisensiedlung
Fritz-Reuter-Allee 44, 12359 Berlin

Curation and organization

Ben Buschfeld, buschfeld.com - graphic and interface design / Tautes Heim / Triennial der Modernism / FFHBB e.V. / KulturerbeNetz.Berlin / Docomomo Germany / Deutscher Werkbund
buschfeld.com | tautes-heim.de | LinkedIn
Office +49 (0)30-25922963

Promoted by

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Further events

• 650-years-britz.info/

Aerial photo (Photo: Ben Buschfeld)

Life in the settlement (private archive)

Privatization (Photo: Ben Buschfeld)

Café + exhibition (Photo: Katrin Lesser)

Bruno Taut's early work (public domain)

Tenant magazines 1930/33 (private archive)

Unesco World Heritage Site (Photo: Ben Buschfeld)

Rentable museum (Photo: Tautes Heim)

Construction phase I around 1926 (public domain)

Postcard 1960s (private archive)

Foundation of an association (Photo: FFHBB)

Guided tour of the monument (Photo: Katrin Lesser)