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In Reserve: The Household! Historic Models and Contemporary Positions from the Bauhaus

Regina Bittner, Elke Krasny (eds.)
2016, 352 Pages
Spector Books, (Edition Bauhaus) 978-3-95905-091-3 (ISBN)

“How are we to live in a way that is healthy and economical?” This question was raised by Ernst Jahn’s series of educational films, 1926–28, which also showed the kitchen in the Gropius House, part of the Dessau Masters’ Houses ensemble, complete with all the latest domestic appliances it was equipped with. The Dessau Masters’ Houses were not only showcases of “new living” (Neues Wohnen) but also places where modern methods of housekeeping were exhibited and demonstrated. The Masters’ Houses were lived in exhibitionary machines demonstrating the gendered activities of housekeeping and, at the same time, using the house as a site of intellectual, social, and creative production. The 2015 curatorial project Haushaltsmesse (Household Trade Fair), curated by Regina Bittner and Elke Krasny, took up the issues embodied by the historical legacy of the Masters’ Houses. Contemporary architects, artists, urban practitioners, and anthropologists were invited to explore these issues on site and to realize installation-based work in the Dessau Masters’ Houses. In the face of climate change and dwindling resources, the externalized costs of running a modern household are back on the (kitchen) table. The impact of householding activities are therefore are at once local and global in dimension. This publication brings together visual documentation and texts pertaining to the 2015 Haushaltsmesse (Household Trade Fair), historical documents recontextualizing the  Masters’ Houses from today’s perspectives, and a range of new essays that grew out of a number of discursive events, such as the Household Summit, that formed part of the curatorial project.

Essays include contributions by Andrés Jaque, Estudio Sic, muf architecture/art, Basurama, Regina Bittner, Rania Ghosn, Phoebe Giannisi and Zissis Kotionis, Elke Krasny, Katherine Gibson and Maliha Safri.

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Auf Reserve: Haushalten! Historische Modelle und aktuelle Positionen aus dem Bauhaus
Regina Bittner, Elke Krasny (Hg.)
Spector Books (Edition Bauhaus) ISBN-13: 978-3959050821

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