It is not about to set yourselve a monument

Santa Monika pausing her travel from and back to Dortmund nearby the Henrichenburg boat lift. (Jens Stachowitz)

Last friday (2010-07-09) two friends of mine had a festivity on the “Santa Monika” to celebrate 2o years of working together in their own architect´s and urban planner´s office »Post & Welters« in Dortmund, Germany. Both I know since we first worked together in the 80th, the time we did our years as journeymen learning from the masters and wandering around to build up our experience in the profession. Hartmut Welters I met in the office of the architect and urban planner Franz Pesch (today professor in Stuttgart, Germany) and Norbert Post I met in te office of the architect and urban planner Peter Zlonicky (Munich, Germany; today professor emeritus and still working intensely as an consultant).

There would be a lot to tell about those four masters in the field of architecture and town planning and about which pathes they choose within their journeys and about how their profession shifted to the current appereance too. Here I only will mention their approach to their tasks that is the same as mine as a facilitator and that is part of the base of our professional and personal friendship: Satisfy the desires of your customers and realize social values at the same time! – It is not about to set yourselve a monument.

Tilman Harlander (professor in Stuttgart, Germany) said in his keynote during the festivity: “There are architects that are proud of their work and love it most when it is photographed in the moment it is freshly build up or – even better – when it is shown as an architecture model. But in the moment the users appropriate the building those architects feel disappointed because of the changes the users cause due to their everyday usage.” Henry Beierlorzer (freelance urban planner, Witten, Germay) pointed out something like following during his laudatory speech: “For Hartmut and Norbert it is a gratification making plans with their customers, make them beeing a part of the planning-team and use their knowledge and insights to produce a building or a city quarter that fits to their customers needs.” In the same time they try to connect the building or the city quarter to their surroundings and try to meet the environmental requirements in the best manner they can do.

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