The 100 Home
by Rochus Aust

This is a publication of half-truths and superficial knowledge. Both on the part of the author and on that of the protagonists. And of course entirely so on this page (4). The knowledge that has been incorporated can be found when referring to anything from the Encyclopaedia Britannica to Wikipedia; at no point was it the object of desire here. More so the lack of knowledge, false knowledge, projected knowledge, the knowledge we wished we had, as it left room for all kinds of speculation and stubbornly contradicts official propaganda (or maybe the propaganda knowledge) and refuses to be taken in by it. (Guardians of the grail, beware!)

This is a publication of iconic negation. 100 years of Bauhaus are not a hundred years of Bauhaus, Bauhaus does not equal Bauhaus and it certainly is not a style. An idea, so it is said, in order to further mythologise the myth and extend the spheres in a godlike fashion (or maybe just to put a spoke into the nimble wheels of the Dutch?). In light of the baseness of gods, the perfection of the imperfect or the salvation of the opportunists the scientists might furrow their brows, the press officers might get secret panic attacks and the amateurs cold feet. And in the end it transpires that even black-and-white will not suffice. For the officials were certainly not prepared to express their opinions outside the (imposed?) interpretations. And therefore it does not seem too ludicrous that some private individuals living in a Bauhaus give their love for all things iconic as their primary motivation and, even more ludicrous: that they even feel this way. Basking in the public interest, they almost perish in the sweltering heat (not just in Detroit) every day. Is the Bauhaus (retrospectively) so successful in Germany because it had never set its sights on starting a revolution?

This is a publication of incompleteness. The selection of locations in the ranking of architectural globalisation was entirely based on intuitive, organisational criteria and, at times, strongly influenced by the most banal events like flight schedules or airlines declaring bankruptcy as well as budgetary conditions. Nonetheless we managed to talk to the one hundred people who really wanted to say something. Statistically it is of course fatal that those who did not want a voice were not heard. But this should not be detrimental to the end result (if there even is one). To the contrary as there is no end result other than maybe the fact that the architecture of life is significantly stronger than one hundred years of ‘iconic architecture’. People love these buildings (which ones?) and at the same time rebel against them, physically as much as mentally. In order to get one hundred to talk, considerably more had to be visited. And in the end, there were a few more than that, which are published here (and the some in addition, who had something to say but did not want their picture taken etc.). In this respect we are looking at finished product that is doubly incomplete, as much in its statistical relevance as its technical number, which leaves us, all smug, with the iconic number: 100 (q.e.d.)

This is a publication of blurriness. You will not find any names of architects here (other than the unavoidable ones). The blurriness of the Bauhaus (we do not even celebrate such simple progressions like international style), the blurring of singular and plural, the blurring of gender (it house, she flat, he work) and the fuzziness of picking words that take sides – all together this creates a crystal clear image of 100 people in 78 locations in 17 cities in the year 2019 who, for their part, are linked to, linked by and at times delinked from the vagueness of celebration: one hundred years of blurriness between creation and inheritance.