Year Zero to Economic Miracle: Hans Schwippert and Sep Ruf in Postwar West German Building Culture

We welcome Lynnette Widder to the AA Bookshop to celebrate the launch of this new publication.

West German architecture underwent a phase of intense productivity and transformation between 1949 and 1964, when architectural practice aspired to calibrate social, material and political norms through design. At the centre of these changes were Hans Schwippert and Sep Ruf – two architects who shared political, religious and professional allegiances. Schwippert, the architect of the new Bonn parliament, worked to align economic redevelopment and a burgeoning consumer goods industry with design. Ruf, to whom Schwippert directed the commission for West Germany’s first World’s Fair pavilion, found ways to master architectural construction amidst both scarcity and largess.

With photographs, drawings and previously unpublished documents, this book introduces these architects to an English-language audience. Author Lynnette Widder is an architectural historian, practicing architect and associate professor at Columbia University.

Widder will be joined by renowned British architect Tony Fretton and Professor Nick Bullock of King's College, Cambridge who will introduce and discuss the book.

Launch Price: £50

RRP: £60