growing up modern

Book, published by Birkhäuser in 2021

What was it like to grow up in a Modernist residence? Did these radical environments shape the way that children looked at architecture later in life?

The authors conducted interviews with people who were the first to spend their childhoods in avant-garde domestic spaces, uncovering both serene and poignant memories. The recollections range from the ambivalence of philosopher Ernst Tugendhat who lived in the famous Mies van der Rohe house in Brno (1930) to the fond reminiscing of the youngest daughter of the Schminke family, who still dreams of her Hans Scharoun-designed ship-like villa in Löbau (1933). The book provides a refreshing perspective on these icons of Modernism.

Contemporary atmospheric photography offers an original view of the well-known buildings, also including Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation in Marseille (1953) and J. J. P. Oud’s row houses at the Weissenhof Estate in Stuttgart (1927). The photographs capture the mood of the architecture and were taken to resonate with the childhood memories of their inhabitants.

Publisher: Birkhäuser
Project management: Ria Stein
Production: Heike Strempel

Graphic design, layout and typesetting: Miriam Bussmann
Copy editing: Jayne Kelley

Support:
New York State Council for the Arts (NYSCA) grant with The Architectural League of New York (fiscal sponsor)
Elise Jaffe + Jeffrey Brown
Faculty Fellowship, University at Buffalo SUNY Humanities Institute
Lawrence B. Anderson Award, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

ISBN 978-3-0356-1905-8
Also available in German as Kinder der Moderne
ISBN 978-3-0356-2167-9

Available at bookstores and through Bookshop.org and Amazon

Material from the book will form the basis of three related exhibitions at the Weissenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart, Germany (October 2021), the Unité d’Habitation in Marseille, France (January 2022) and the Villa Tugendhat in Brno, Czech Republic (March 2022).