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The Architecture of Freie Universität

Plans for Freie Universität’s core area in Dahlem followed the university campus model developed in Britain and the U.S.A.

Feb 25, 2011

The Henry Ford Building was completed in 1954 and re-opened in 2007 after two years of renovation.

The Henry Ford Building was completed in 1954 and re-opened in 2007 after two years of renovation.
Image Credit: Bernd Wannenmacher

Edwin Redslob, the second rector of Freie Universität, wrote the following about it in 1963: "Specialization on the one hand and grouping on the other are the consequences for the architecture, a complex which combines a wealth of individual buildings and itself forms an overall unity." This was something new for Germany. Until then, the dominant ethos had been that of monumental main buildings, sited as centrally as possible in the city.

The Dahlem campus, with its institutes accommodated in old villas and in research buildings once used by the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, gained a central focus in the 1950s, in the form of the Henry Ford Building and the Library. They were soon added to, with the Dining Hall (Mensa I) and the buildings of the Department of Economics and Social Sciences, all erected in a contemporary, functional and elegant style. The years that followed saw the construction of more buildings as the Dahlem university area expanded. Sites were also found further afield, such as the Veterinary Science Department in Düppel, at the beginning of the 1950s, and the grounds of the former Teacher Training College in Lankwitz for Earth Sciences and for Communication Studies in

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