Capturing the atmosphere

Abstract

Sep Ruf (1908-1982) was one of the most significant architects of German post-war modernism and played a key role in the rebuilding of several cities after World War II, particularly Munich. Along with other German modernist architects and supporters of the New Building movement, Ruf sought to initiate an intellectual renewal of architecture as a foundation for the city’s reconstruction, aiming to counter the neoclassical architecture of the Third Reich with a style characterised by lightness, asymmetry, and transparency. The fluent transition between exterior and interior spaces, the considerate embedding in the existing urban context, and the combination of traditional and modern architectural elements are essential principles of Ruf’s post-war philosophy, leading to the development of a new formal language and architectural expression that captured the “spirit’s atmosphere” and reflected the changing social values of Munich’s post-war society.

This thesis analyses three case studies of Ruf‘s work during the first phase of post-war modernism from 1945 to 1963. It provides a historical and architectural analysis, as well as a socio-societal analysis based on local newspaper articles from the era, demonstrating how Ruf‘s architecture responded to various social challenges after World War II and encouraged public debates about evolving social values in the public, private, and religious domains. The construction of Munich’s first high-rise apartment building Theresienstraße (1950-51) was a low-cost social housing project, which offered high-quality living conditions to all social classes. The transparent facades and publicly accessible courtyards of the Neue Maxburg (1952-58) were emblematic of a new social and legal democratisation and stand for Munich’s reintegration into the European and international world community. The modern formal language of the church of St. Johann von Capistran (1957-60), built in the course of the Eucharistic World Congress in Munich, was a precursor of the liturgical reformation of the 1960s. Overall, this paper highlights Sep Ruf’s contribution to the development of post-war modernism and the broader social and cultural changes of the time in Munich.