Steel, glass, concrete – the Bauhaus Building was celebrated as the agent of a new idea of architecture. Since then, the Bauhaus Building has occupied a key position in the narratives of modern architectural history. Today, window fragments, plaster remnants, pipes and tubes in the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation's construction research archive tell the story of the production, use, ageing and destruction of this building. The conference takes the tension between these narrative spaces as the starting point for an international debate. It examines the ideologies and knowledge regimes that contributed to the formation of the modern architectural narrative. And, looking at the events and activities of buildings, it also proposes a change of perspective in the discipline: from objects to processes to the ecologies of building in the present.

The conference thus aims to reveal new perspectives on the narratives of modern architecture. The term „matter“ has various connotations. Matter in the sense of asking about current cultural and social relevance but also matter as a physically material activity that includes its processual and mutable qualities. The international conference sees itself rather as an invitation to negotiate approaches to contemporary building practices in dialogue with the controversial modern architectural heritage of the Bauhaus.

The programme consists of lectures, panel discussions, building lectures and walks. The English-language conference will be simultaneously translated into German.

A joint project of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation and Anhalt University of Applied Sciences.

Regina Bittner, Dorothea Roos, Stephan Pinkau and Elke Beyer will moderate. 
With architecture scholars, historians and practitioners: Santiago del Hierro, Karola Dierichs, Kim Förster, Kathleen James Chakraborty, Hannah le Roux, Katie Llyod Thomas, Philipp Misselwitz, Simon Mitchell, Monika Motylińska, Robin Rehm, Robert Stock, Florian Wüst, Albena Yaneva

Further information: bauhaus-dessau.de

<i>Programme Discourse | Cracks | Narrative
29.1. – 31.1.2026</i>

Thu, 29 January 2026
Opening
>> Bauhaus Building

6 pm
Welcome

6:10 pm
film collage
Introduction by Florian Wüst (film curator, Berlin)

6:30 – 8:00 pm
Keynote lecture
Albena Yaneva (Politecnico di Torino)

From 8 pm
Get-together at café-bistro at the Bauhaus
 
<i>Fri, 30 January 2026
All-day conference
>> Bauhaus Building + Bauhaus Museum Dessau</i>

10 am –  12 pm
Panel 1 – Building materials: Media of modernity
Presentations and discussion
Moderated by Regina Bittner and Dorothea Roos (Bauhaus Dessau Foundation)
Speakers:
Kathleen James-Chakraborty (University College Dublin)
Robin Rehm (ETH Zürich)
Simon Mitchell (Oslo School of Architecture)

12:00 – 1:30 pm
Lunch break
Bauhaus Building

1:30 – 3:30 pm
Panel 2 – Architecture of the construction industry
Presentations and discussion
Moderated by Stephan Pinkau (Anhalt University of Applied Sciences)
Speakers:
Kim Förster (University of Manchester)
Katie Lloyd Thomas (Newcastle University)
Monika Motylińska (Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space)

4:30 pm
Coffee break
Bauhaus Museum Dessau
5 pm
film collage
Introduction by Florian Wüst (film curator, Berlin)

5:30 – 7:30 pm
Panel 3 – Building as assemblage
Panel discussion with statements
Moderated by Elke Beyer (Anhalt University of Applied Sciences)
With
Karola Dierichs, Robert Stock (Cluster of Excellence Matters of Activity, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
Santiago del Hierro (Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador)
Philipp Misselwitz (TU Berlin/Bauhaus Earth)
Hannah le Roux (University of Sheffield)

From 7:30 pm
Reception
 
<i>Sat, 31 January 2026, 10 am – 1 pm
Site visits: Dessau-Törten and Building Research Archive</i>