Library reconstruction at Desava by Reiner Becker

During the visit to Gropius’s school Bauhaus in Dessau, few people notice the neighboring building of the former café “Café am Bauhaus,” which was built in the spirit of East German modernism by architect Hermann Rey between 1961-62. In 1969, a single-story structure was added towards Gropiusallee, further obstructing the view of the famous interwar architectural school. In the early 1990s, the building was used as a grocery store but then fell into disrepair for many years, until at the end of February 2009, a proposal by Berlin architect Reiner Becker was presented. His design for converting the former café into a library for the Anhalt University of Applied Sciences in Dessau was ceremonially opened after a three-year realization. The building itself is not protected, but it is located in the immediate vicinity of a UNESCO monument. The main goal was to return the building to its original structure, which involved the removal of the protruding street wing. In addition to the university library, there is also a reference library of the Bauhaus Foundation in Dessau located on the upper floor.

“The appearance of the new library is derived from the original café building and connects a very restrained single-story northern wing with a magazine reading room. The overall design is deliberately reduced so as not to compete with the surrounding structures. Bauhaus is an icon of modernism, and the café 'Café am Bauhaus' corresponds with a flat roof, an inclined vertical gable wall, and the colors of 1960s architecture. However, building in such an environment should also exhibit contemporary architectural expressions. In this sense, it is a continuous construction in harmony with the already existing mass. Together with a smoothly plastered plinth in light tones and opaque greenish glazing at the upper end, without further rhythmic accentuation emphasized by rounded corners, the building leaves a prosaic yet elegant appearance. This is one of the few details in the conceptualization of the building and simultaneously responds to urban contexts, once again freeing the view of the southern gable of the Bauhaus.”