International Bauhaus summer school "HOME IS EVERYWHERE"

In 1932, Martin Wagner organised the competition ‘The Growing House’. ‘Growing’ stood for ‘natural building’, a form of building which would offer an adjustment strategy in times of abrupt swings from crisis to boom. This idea was conceived when the building industry went into crisis after ‘the Golden Twenties’. The competition was followed by an exhibition of model houses which presented solutions to those on a low-income who dreamed of their own home: houses which were flexible enough to adapt to shifting economic conditions and a constant change in family structures, and needed a minimum of resources to do so. The global financial market crisis of 2008 has internationally almost analogous consequences. The collapse of the property market placed many homeowners with mortgages in a desperate position. In addition, different mobility options and flexibility demands have a severe impact on today’s living conditions. New combinations of sedentariness and mobility, migration and living can be observed, which go hand in hand with changes in space use and spatial requirements. Dessau, the Bauhaus city, is a good example of this development. Today, Dessau is not only affected by out-migration and shrinkage, and a loss of value on the property market associated with it, but with new nationally and transnationally oriented institutions a mobile class has evolved which commutes between the large urban centres Berlin, Leipzig, Hamburg and Frankfurt and the big small town. The second international Summer School invites young students from various disciplines to come to Dessau and take part in an idea contest on site. Starting from the ‘Growing House’ from 1932, fantasies shall be developed of four different kinds of a multi-local living in Dessau.