During the second annual meeting of the SPP 2255 in Dessau-Roßlau, the participants also visited on October 13, 2022 various historical constructions in the Dessau-Mitte industrial park in the course of a field trip prepared by Axel Schuhmann (Anhalt University of Applied Sciences). One of its preserved halls made a particular impression on the participants, yet there was hardly any information available about it – for example on the construction period or the planners responsible.
Subsequent research led to a surprising discovery: the building is a supposedly lost work by the architect and designer Peter Behrens (1868-1940), an exceptionally important figure for the development of modern architecture.
Developed in cooperation with the Berlin steel construction company Breest & Co., the building had been originally designed as a “Power Machines Hall” for the 1910 World’s Fair in Brussels. After the end of the exhibition, the structure had been relocated to Dessau, where it subsequently served as a loading hall for the company G. Polysius behind new facades designed by a local architect.
To the best of our knowledge, the Power Machines Hall was the first building in which Behrens devoted himself intensively to the design of the engineering-determined interior of an industrial building. This building therefore served as a decisive basis for the subsequent development of modern industrial architecture, both for Breest & Co. and for Peter Behrens himself. In addition, with Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, two later directors of the Bauhaus – whose former Dessau premises are less than a kilometer away from the hall – had been employed in Behrens’ studio exactly at that time.
The rather coincidental “rediscovery” of this key work of modern architecture vividly demonstrates the urgent need for improved knowledge of our historical construction heritage – a main goal of SPP 2255. Roland May and Axel Schuhmann report in detail on the history, significance and subsequent use of this special construction heritage structure in the current issue of the journal Denkmalpflege in Sachsen-Anhalt.
