The article offers a comparative analysis of architectural education in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) during the 1950s–1980s, interpreted as two pedagogies of modernism. Drawing on normative documents (StuPO, Prüfungsordnungen, Lehrpläne), archival sources, and professional journals, the study reconstructs the institutional and pedagogical models that shaped the training of architects on both sides of divided Germany. The research demonstrates that in the FRG an engineering-humanist model emerged – grounded in studio autonomy, individual authorship, and a culture of critique (Kritik) – whereas in the GDR a polytechnical model developed, integrating design education with industrial practice and collective creativity. By the 1970s–1980s, a partial convergence of the two systems became evident, particularly around themes of urban planning, building physics, and energy efficiency. The article concludes that these two pedagogies of modernism derived from a shared German rationalist tradition and exerted a decisive influence on the reform of architectural education after 1990, leading to the establishment of the contemporary two-tier BA/MA structure in Germany.
Irina Gofman (Tue,) studied this question.
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