An unusual cover adorns our June issue. Instead of elegant architecture, we see a pile of stones. The cover picture is a suggestive snapshot from the German Pavilion in Venice. It opened last Friday and focuses on Germany as a country of migration in response to the refugee crisis.
The German Pavilion thus makes an important contribution to broadening society’s understanding of the current migration processes. It addresses the architectural and urban planning implications of the fact that Germany is also a country of immigration – whether we like it or not.
Baumeister, in collaboration with the curators of the German Pavilion, is also dedicated to this topic. We present the eight central theses by journalist Doug Saunders, which also form a core part of the exhibition in the Giardini in Venice. In advance, the Baumeister editorial team spoke to Doug Saunders about his theses.
In an exclusive essay, the curators, a team from the Deutsches Architekturmuseum in Frankfurt led by director Peter Cachola Schmal and curator Oliver Elser, explain the concept of the pavilion – and the title of their exhibition, “Making Heimat”. The essay also provides an insight into the radical implementation of the concept, which represents one of the biggest interventions in the history of the German Pavilion.