Discussion “Reload Oeco–Architektur” – 50 Years of the International Werkbund Talks Darmstadt

November 13, 2025
from 6 p.m. in the
Auditorium of the Department of Design
Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences
Olbrichweg 10, 64287 Darmstadt

Discussing:
Martin Schmitz, Anke Mensing + Special Guests including Felix Dölker, Su Korbjuhn, Alexander Stumm, and students from Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences and Lübeck University of Applied Sciences.

Fifty years ago, Lucius Burckhardt, the first chairman of the German Werkbund (1976–83), founded the International Werkbund Talks Darmstadt. This format provides a forum for renowned architects and planners to discuss the foundations of a “different architecture”—an architecture that is radically participatory, ecological, and regionally focused. It thus stands in opposition to both classical modernism and postmodernism.

The event serves as a prologue to the exhibition project „Agents of Ecological Architecture: Lucius Burckhardt and the Werkbund,“ which critically examines the theses put forward at that time and aims to update them for the Bauwende. The exhibition, with its extensive accompanying program, opens in March 2026 in Frankfurt at the premises of the Werkbund Hessen. (Stay tuned)

A collaboration between Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences, Lübeck University of Applied Sciences, and the Werkbund Hessen.

The poster image is an interpretation of the cover of the publication Deutscher Werkbund (ed.): Oeco-Architektur. Bauen mit der Natur (Eco-Architecture: Building with Nature), Darmstadt 1979. Design: Felix Dölker