...With the exhibition Profitopolis or the Condition of the City the Werkbundarchiv - Museum der Dinge, Berlin, reflect on the arguments of 1971 in the 2024 we became, on the paths from then to now, on the role of the Deutsche Werkbund then, since and now, and thereby enable space for reflections and considerations on not only why our contemporary cities are as they are, but possible ways forward in context of our cities and those who inhabit them... Or rather a framework for the exhibitions Profitopolis or the Condition of the City, for it is, they are, very much two presentations in one: the first a brief tour through the (hi)story of urban and spatial planning in Germany since the formation of the Deutsche Werkbund in 1907, a formation, as oft noted in these dispatches, initiated by a coalition, an amalgamation, of architects, designers and manufacturers as a response to the poor quality, and even poorer global reputation, of German industrial production of the period, a period when Made in Germany was an insult; a tour that through making stops at moments either undertaken by the Werkbund, by leading Werkbundler or in context of the positions of the Werkbund, such as, for example, the 1909 Hellerau garden city, the 1927 Weissenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart, the post 1939-45 War plans for rebuilding Berlin, or the large scale 1960s/70s high-rise housing estates Märkische Viertel in West-Berlin and Fennpfuhl in Ost-Berlin, develops an argument that whatever else the Deutsche Werkbund is and was since 1907 it was always about responding to social realities and questions of the built environment and of individuals and society in that built environment...
