House of the Year
Deutsches Architekturmuseum presents the “Houses of the Year” – the winner being a corrugated iron house.
What would a dream house look like? An imposing villa in spacious grounds, perhaps with a pool and a sea or mountain view? Far from it! The jury of prominent experts in the “Houses of the Year – the Best Single-Family Homes” competition took a conscious decision to reject such residences, “dismissing from the outset all submissions that were intended merely to show off“, explains the well-known architect Meinhard von Gerkan. His fellow jury member Nils Holger Moormann, a product designer and furniture manufacturer, sees the “true art of the architect in restraint”. In 2016, a modest corrugated iron house on a narrow left-over plot of land in a Munich suburb won the first prize, which is worth 10,000 euros.
“Disciplined use of the lowest-cost materials”
The jury, which was chaired by Peter Cachola Schmal, director of Deutsches Architekturmuseum in Frankfurt am Main, was “delighted by the disciplined use of the lowest-cost materials (corrugated iron, screed, timber panels), which turns thrift into a noble art: a prime example of simplicity for small budgets.” The particular accomplishment of the prize-winner Guntram Jankowski from “werk A architektur” in Berlin was that he “achieved the gratifyingly successful integration of the house into the environment through the use of a uniform material for the entire shell of the building (roof and walls) and the clever use of vertical windows to divide up the facade”.
Jury member Wolfgang Bachmann, a journalist, has identified one trend over the years that the competition has been running: “It is becoming evident that those who commission an architect are learning to love materials and details that previously were only accepted by fans of purist modernism; I’m thinking here of exposed concrete, cement flooring, untreated timber, rusty steel, glass balustrades.” Another trend has also been confirmed this year – the jury’s liking for simplicity. Back in 2015, the competition was won by a barn conversion.
“Houses of the Year” exhibition until 20 November 2016 at Deutsches Architekturmuseum, Frankfurt
