"Totally modern". The Weissenhof Estate (Weissenhofsiedlung) and the modern concept of temporality
Exemplary for experimental modernism and built in just a few months, the Weißenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart was constructed in 1927. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was the artistic director. A total of twenty-one buildings were created by sixteen architects. After losses in the war, eleven of them are still preserved today. They are listed as historical monuments. Spellbound and overwhelmed, one stands today, a good hundred years after their completion, in front of the white buildings of the Weißenhofsiedlung, especially after their last restoration in accordance with the preservation order. The Weißenhofsiedlung reveals its own model of the temporality of modernity. Modern is when the newest has the potential to become a classic over time, only to save what was once the newest as a classic into the future, as the basis for the processes of future identity formation.With the centennial of the Weißenhofsiedlung coming soon up we understand that what is modern can only be determined in retrospect. However, with a good hundred years of hindsight, it must also be said that not all the buildings of the Weißenhofsiedlung live up to the claim of absolute modernity. Thus, the buildings of Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius come into focus. Both architects built two buildings in the Weißenhofsiedlung.
Keywords: Weißenhof, future classic, immanente temporality, modern.
