Making Room for a Washing Machine
Iris Dullin-Grund, wearing a light-coloured dress, is standing beside a huge model of the GDR City of Neubrandenburg. She leans forward while pointing at the new suburban area of Datzeberg. The huge model almost fills the whole room, dividing the chief city architect from her audience – four men sitting, partly leaning forward, apparently listening to the architect with unwavering concentration.
Neubrandenburg, around 1975: Iris Dullin-Grund explaining the model of a new residential area of Neubrandenburg, the Datzeberg. Credits: Photo Hans Wotin.
The photo was taken around 1975 in Dullin-Grund’s architectural office in Neubrandenburg. [1] Since 1970, she was chief city architect, the highest position an architect could achieve in the GDR. [2] When she started to get involved with city planning, the construction of new suburban areas in the East had already begun, and the plan was to continue in the same direction. [3] Dullin-Grund saw this expansion as highly problematic: ‘In the end, next to the historic centre, there would be a gigantic, undifferentiated new housing development without orientation, without a centre, without character.’ [4]
Therefore, Dullin-Grund proposed another approach: her development plan envisioned the historical city centre as heart of the expanding city, while the residential areas would settle within sight on the surrounding plateaus. Instead of a uniform repetitive large housing area, each new residential neighbourhood would be given its own unique character and distinctive views. Instead of levelling the land, she worked along the contour lines, (Dullin-Grund 89) giving the buildings their curved shape, which can be seen in the photo, where she is perhaps pitching her proposal to colleagues or the government.
In her city planning, Dullin-Grund paid great attention to microplanning in urban design, which primarily benefited working women. For example, the workplaces were to be located close to the housing estates so that women could ride their bicycles to work. On their way to school, children would not encounter busy roads, and there would be kindergartens en route so that older children could take their younger siblings with them, further unburdening their mothers. [5]
Dullin-Grund’s agenda was to make life easier for women balancing the roles of housewife and employee, and she thought through even the smallest details; for example, she was committed to making space available for washing machines in the scant rooms of the slab buildings. [6]
Iris Dullin-Grund had to defend each of her ideas and justify her decisions, because as a young woman she was not taken as seriously as her male colleagues. Her agency was to learn what arguments would win over the government and her primarily male colleagues, to be able to pursue her real interests: the greatest quality of living possible for the residents, with a special emphasis on women.
Image Credit: Photo Hans Wotin.
1. Dullin-Grund, Iris. Geschichte einer Architektin: Visionen und Wirklichkeit. Mein Buch, 2004: 108.
2. Petra Lohmann, ‘Stadtarchitektin im Sozialismus: Iris Dullin-Grund’ in Frau Architekt: seit mehr als 100 Jahren: Frauen im Architekturberuf : over 100 years of women in architecture. Ed. Christina Budde et al. (Tübingen: Wasmuth, 2017) 197.
3. She was appointed to rebuild and expand the city of Neubrandenburg, 80% of which had been destroyed during World War II, and which was to grow by at least 50% in the coming decades. Krahn, Franz. “Ein Bezirk Mit Zwei Hauptstädten?” Neues Deutschland. 25 August 1966; Lohmann, Petra. “The Architect Iris Dullin-Grund in Films of divided Germany.” Ideological Equals: Women Architects in Socialist Europe 1945-1989. Eds. Mariann Simon and Mary Pepchinski. Routledge, 2017. 172–73, Link.
4. Dullin-Grund, Iris. Geschichte einer Architektin: Visionen und Wirklichkeit. Mein Buch, 2004: 88
5. Iris Dullin-Grund: PLATTENKÖPFE – Iris Dullin-Grund, 2019, 9:30 to 10:15 Link.
6. By that time, washing machines were not standard in GDR households, but Dullin-Grund saw the potential that they eventually would be. (Dullin-Grund 90–91).