Summary
It was in the late the 1950s—on the brink of a prospering, forward-looking era after the re-building of destroyed cities—that the term ‘Bungalow’ arrived in West-Germany, where it took on specific cultural connotations that differ from those in the Anglo-American world. Paradoxically, in Germany the term itself is understood in reference to this world until today, even if the West- German bungalow differs greatly in its architecture. The West-German bungalow marks the intersection of two global phenomena: bungalow culture and modern architecture. Its cultural significance however, can only be understood in relation to the particulars of German history. I will therefore briefly sketch a genealogy of the West- German modernist bungalow, then discuss the cultural climate and historic circumstances in 1950 and 1960s West-Germany, and finally present two examples, the Quelle™ mail-order bungalow (1963) and the Chancellor’s residence in Bonn by Architect Sep Ruf (1963-64).
Date of Original
12-1-2008
Volume
2
Issue
1
Broad Type
Article
Specific Collection
Multi: the RIT Journal of Diversity and Plurality in Design.
Notes
Note: imported from RIT’s Digital Media Library running on DSpace to the RIT Digital Institutional Repository in August 2025; Some links embedded into the PDF may not work
