Lot 34 D

31 vintage gelatin silver prints by Arthur Köster. From 15.9 x 22.4 cm (16.4 x 22.8 cm) to 16.8 x 22.8 cm (17.4 x 23.5 cm), both portrait and landscape formats. Each with photographer's stamp on the verso, 20 prints additionally with typewritten notes on the architects and engineers resp. on the verso, 10 prints additionally with detailed typewritten notes on the architects and buildings on a label affixed to the verso.

15 vintage gelatin silver prints by Emil Leitner. From 12.7 x 18.1 cm (13.2 x 18.7 cm) to 27 x 22.5 cm, both portrait and landscape formats. Each with photographer's stamp, 12 prints additionally with notes on the buildings and architects in ink and pencil on the verso, 3 prints with typewritten notes on the buildings and architects on a label affixed to the verso.

2 typewritten letters by Emil Leitner and the 'Bau-Rundschau' journal as well as original envelope.

Further images on request

In 1931, and already greatly influenced by the Great Depression, the head of the municipal planning and building control office in Berlin Martin Wagner founded the group 'Das wachsende Haus', comprising members such as Walter Gropius, Hans Poelzig, Hans Scharoun and Max and Bruno Taut. In the same year, a competition with the same name was organised for which over 1000 designs were submitted - an indication of the lack of construction contracts in Germany at that time.
Arthur Köster and Emil Leitner's photographs show some of the 24 realised pre-fabricated homes presented in the exhibition 'Sonne, Lust und Haus für alle!' (Sun, Pleasure, and House for all!) in Berlin in 1932. The solutions shown here bear witness to the idea of the industrialisation of building implementing the simplest means of construction and prefabricated building elements. For the architects, it was important to develop low-cost houses that could be extended, to a certain extent, by the owners themselves at a later stage. The concept of “organic building”, which was to gain great significance in 1950s architecture, was already reflected in these houses while purely formal-aesthetic perspectives of the 'Neue Bauen' ('new building': a movement in German architecture and urban design in the period before the First World War up to the time of the Weimar Republic) receded into the background.