Threatened with demolition, celebrated as icons of brutalism: Gerd and Magdalena Hänska’s Mäusebunker and the Hygieneinstitut—designed by Hermann Fehling and Daniel Gogel—make for an idiosyncratic pairing. This volume explores the different architectural principles underlying these closely situated buildings, unpacking the intense debate concerning their preservation and questions surrounding their potential reuse, as well as appraising their economic and cultural value to the borough of Steglitz, Berlin. The enduring design influence and power of these concrete structures are explored here using the architects’ historical documents alongside contemporary artistic contributions, including photographs by Kay Fingerle that offer an intimate view of the buildings’ interiors rarely afforded to the public.

• Documents the construction and use of two major brutalist buildings in West Berlin
• Features photographies by Kay Fingerle and artistic contributions by b+, Alexis Dworsky, Andreas Fogarasi, FORWARD Planung und Forschung, Lothar Hempel, ludwig heimbach architektur, make_shift, Julian Rosefeldt, Tracey Snelling, and Cecilia Vincent
• Based on the successful exhibition Mäusebunker & Hygieneinstitut: Versuchsanordnung BERLIN (BDA Galerie Berlin, 2020)

Ludwig Heimbach is an architect based in Cologne and Berlin. He was the curator of the Mäusebunker & Hygieneinstitut: Experimental Setup BERLIN exhibition held at the BDA Galerie in Berlin in 2020, as well as at the IUAV for the 17th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice in 2021. Heimbach has been a member of the Deutscher Werkbund since 2008, the Bund Deutscher Architektinnen und Architekten (BDA) since 2009, and the Architectural Design Association of Nippon (ADAN) since 2017. In addition to working at his own firm, he teaches at several universities and was the artist in residence at the Goethe-Institut’s Villa Kamogawa in Kyoto in 2016.