The Architects*

In the 1980s, a distinctly East German engagement with postmodernism developed in the GDR—even though it was forbidden to call it that there. Its leading figures belonged to a bohemian subculture that emerged in the shadow of a repressive state that was increasingly losing its authority.
One of them was the architect Michael Kny. As part of a collective led by Wolf-Rüdiger Eisentraut, he and his partner Thomas Weber designed several buildings for the new center of Marzahn in the 1980s. Within the framework of standardized construction, they sought their own forms and deviated from the GDR’s standard buildings by using unusual combinations of industrially manufactured components.
Kny also served as the inspiration for Peter Kahane’s DEFA feature film Die Architekten (1989/90). The film tells the story of a young architect whose major project fails due to bureaucracy and economic constraints, and traces the various stages of this failure right into his private life. The film exemplifies the crisis in the GDR’s construction industry and, through striking imagery, depicts a city caught between a prefabricated concrete metropolis and a bohemian neighborhood in the midst of a declining GDR. The exhibition Die Architekten takes film and the building complex as its starting point and brings together architecture, film, photography, and art. Historical documents, models, and photographs are juxtaposed with Wenke Seemann’s artistic collages of large housing estates, Sonya Schönberger’s video interviews with participants, Ulrich Wüst’s portrait series, and Michael Kny’s painting Breughel’s Babylon, completed by the artist. Together, they reveal a network of ideas, friendships, and artistic practices whose traces extend into the present.

Opening: September 12, 2026, 5:00 p.m.