Symposium: Roland Rainer in Con­text

To understand the current design and political function of the city it is essential to know the historical background and to understand developments in their historical context.

To accompany the exhibition ‘Roland Rainer (Un)Disputed’

The architect and urban planner Roland Rainer has had a lasting impact on the development of Vienna and on Austrian architecture. His unwavering pursuit of his career under changing political conditions testifies to an elasticity and readiness to adapt that should not remain undiscussed. Because of his private and professional network, his life and work must be viewed beyond the borders of Austria and in a European context. At the symposium Roland Rainer in Context, qualified experts on the subject make an important contribution to placing Rainer’s work in a supra-regional and transnational context during the Nazi years and after 1945. Also to be addressed are Rainer’s sphere of activity and the socio-political responsibility he bore as a representative of his profession. Both his personal involvement with the network of Hitler’s architects and then later the German urban planners of the reconstruction years, as well as the continuity of his planning concepts before and after 1945 are worth reinvestigating. In doing so, above all the political dimension of the leitmotifs of urban planning in the democratisation after 1945 requires investigation.

PROGRAMME

Sat 20.10.2018, Az W Podium 9:30–10:15

Welcome address: Angelika Fitz, Eva Blimlinger

Introduction: Ingrid Holzschuh and Monika Platzer

1. Theme: The Life and Work of a Functional Elite before and after 1945

10:15–11:30 Waltraud Indrist (Vienna): Gaps in the Biography of Roland Rainer. New Sources (1936–1963) Ingrid Holzschuh (Vienna): Unknown Projects from the Early Work of Roland Rainer

11:30–11:45 Break

11:45–13:00 Ralf Dorn (Darmstadt): Continuity and Breaks — The Architect and Urban Planner Rudolf Hillebrecht before and after 1945 Ulrich Höhns (Hamburg): Architect Cäsar Pinnau (1906–1988): Rich Façades. On the Work of a Traditionalist Modernist Moderated by Monika Platzer

13:00–14:30 Lunch break

2. Theme: Urban Development and Architecture as Applied Political Policy

14:30–15:45 Gottfried Pirhofer (Vienna): Roland Rainer, or Where Rejecting The City Led Monika Platzer (Vienna): On the Trail of a Delayed Publication: Die gegliederte und aufgelockerte Stadt (The Structured and Dispersed City)

15:45–16:15 Break

16:15–17:30 Jörn Düwel (Hamburg): Deutsche Akademie für Städtebau, Reichs- und Landesplanung. Commissions, Projects and Stakeholders Harmut Frank (Hamburg): Comments on Urban Development Prose Moderated by Ingrid Holzschuh

Followed by Panel discussion: Learning from the Past? Eva Blimlinger, Wilfried Posch, Rudolf Schicker, Martha Schreieck, Eva Rubin, Snezana Veselinovic Moderated by Angelika Schnell

Concept: Ingrid Holzschuh, Monika Platzer