As a rentable and habitable museum, “Taut’s Home” (German: “Tautes Heim”) makes it possible to experience the architecture of Berlin Modernism and the work of architect Bruno Taut in a truly unique way. It is part of Taut’s Horseshoe Estate (Hufeisensiedlung), built in Berlin-Britz from 1925 to 1930, which, together with five other estates, was collectively inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2008 as the “Berlin Modernism Housing Estates”.
Taut’s Horseshoe Estate was highly influential for the social housing and urban planning of the Weimar Republic. According to the credo of “light, air and sun” for all, he created a union of large housing estate and garden city – thereby offering a healthy and inexpensive alternative to cramped tenement blocks at a time when housing was in short supply. To this day, the estate – where Taut’s typical use of coloured elements in all their rich variety comes to the fore – remains fully occupied.
Taut’s Home is “a real-life experience of design history” and architecture, as designer Ben Buschfeld puts it. Together with garden designer and landscape architect Katrin Lesser, Buschfeld converted the house – which would be poorly suited for casual visitors – into a holiday rental in 2012.
Like the other buildings of the estate, the two-storey, 65 m² end-unit terraced house with garden and patio has a clear and pragmatically designed façade typical of classic modernism. Inside, the house reflects modernist ideas of living and features an outstanding amount of original finishes and fittings: door handles, floor coverings, lighting fixtures and tiled stoves have been completely restored in compliance with historic preservation standards and complemented by furniture and appointments in the style of the 1920s. With their choice of furnishings for the living room and bedrooms and fixtures for the kitchen and bathroom, Lesser and Buschfeld have also succeeded in authentically representing Taut’s pioneering ideas of a New Architecture and a New Lifestyle. Particularly impressive is their restoration of the interior colour scheme. In the Green Room (living room), Blue Room (main bedroom), and Yellow Room (study / second bedroom), Taut’s original paint colours were thoroughly researched and faithfully restored.
In 2013, Taut’s Home received the European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage (Europa Nostra Award) and the Berlin Monument Award. The house can be rented for holiday stays for up to four people. [KM/DK]
