Space and Culture

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Postcard From the German Democratic Republic: A View of the Domestic Realm
Lois Weinthal
Space and Culture 2005; 8; 325
DOI: 10.1177/1206331205277355

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 Postcard From the German
Democratic Republic

A View of the Domestic Realm

Lois Weinthal
University of Texas at Austin

The domestic interior acts as a gauge of the culture in which one lives and the objects with which
one identifies. This article examines the influence of politics and economics in the design of do-
mestic products for the home in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). The political ideals of
socialism established in the GDR under Soviet control after World War II reached the larger urban
realm through monuments and buildings but also materialized in the production of goods for the
domestic interior. The development of mass production technologies for products such as furniture
and dishware allowed for the same products to be available to all consumers to form one economic
class. The role of mass production bridged the political ideals of socialism to the physical manifes-
tation of domestic products. At present, we can look at furniture companies such as IKEA and see
a similar homogenization of interiors.

Keywords: interior design; German Democratic Republic; plastics; architecture; politics

The domestic interior acts as a reflection of an occupant as seen through personal

possessions. In turn, these possessions also reveal the political and economic system
under which one lives, which allows one access to these possessions. The construction
in 1961 and demolition in 1989 of the Berlin Wall frame the time for this inquiry into
the design of East German domestic products, in which the political agenda con-
Authors Note: This research took place with a grant from the Graham Foundation for Ad-
vanced Studies in the Fine Arts. The author wishes to thank the Dokumentationszentrums Allt-
agskultur der DDR in Eisenhttenstadt, Germany for making their archives available, and the
Grassimuseum in Leipzig for permission to photograph the exhibit Gebrauchs Gut.

space and culture vol. 8 no. 3, august 2005 325-331

DOI: 10.1177/1206331205277355
2005 Sage Publications
325

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326 s p a c e a n d c u l t u r e / a u g u s t 2 0 0 5

Figure 1. Plattenbau in the

Satellite City of Hellersdorf, Out-
side East Berlin
Source: Author.

Figure 2. Kitchen Unit From 1959 Made With Figure 3. Mass-Produced Furniture Made
Plastic Finish Lighter and Smaller to Fit Into the Scaled-Down
Source: Author. Plattenbau Apartments
Source: Author.

tributed to identity in the domestic realm. This can be found in the influence of So-
viet technology, which contributed plastic molding techniques for furniture and do-
mestic goods.

Plastics and Politics

The East German government made its political agenda visual with the construc-
tion of mass-produced housing to remedy a shortage after World War II, with the use
of prefabricated Soviet building systems (see Figure 1).
The German Democratic Republic (GDR) would also turn to the Soviet Union for
its methods of design, but now at the scale of the interior. Designs for domestic items

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 P o s t c a r d F r o m t h e G e r m a n D e m o c r a t i c R e p u b l i c 327

would include furniture, dishware, textiles,

wallpaper, appliances, and kitchen units
(see Figures 2 to 5).
The objects were mass produced with the
development of new plastics that took on
brand names such as Melafol and
Dedaplast, and they were easily stackable,
whether furniture or dishware (see Figure
6).1
Plastics in the domestic realm substi-
tuted for the limited availability of natural
resources such as wood, cotton, and metal,
which were designated for heavy industry.
The adaptation to plastics for domestic ob-
jects meant that the design of familiar ob-
jects would carry a new aesthetic, one that
was sold to the people as being modern and
superior to older materials (see Figure 7;
Rubin, 2003).

Figure 4. Mass-Produced Chair and Floor

Lamps With a Modern Appearance
Source: Author.

Plastics could take on many

forms, allowing objects to become
lighter, stackable, modular, assem-
bled, and disassembled, in addition
to having a new reflective quality in-
herent in the surface of the material.
Familiar objects such as telephones,
chairs, blenders, sewing machines,
televisions, cameras, and even the
GDRs Trabant car would be made
from plastics (see Figures 8 to 11).
Plastics, in particular, were the
bridge between the government and
domestic spheres. Within the com-
munist bloc, the Soviet Union en-
couraged economic specialization, Figure 5. Wallpaper Design From form +
and as a result, the GDR specialized zweck
in the production of plastic goods; Source: Author.
thus, the GDR received oil from the

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328 s p a c e a n d c u l t u r e / a u g u s t 2 0 0 5

Soviet Union to support its plastic industry

(Longworth, 1992, chap. 1). This ensured
that domestic goods were provided for its
citizens while instilling faith in the political
system through the offering of products.

Home Design Magazines

Design magazines in the GDR would pro-

mote new furniture on the basis of modular
components that could be matched to other
parts for easy assembly to form chairs, sofas,
beds, tables, and cabinets. To promote this,
design magazines were published in the
GDR, such as form + zweck, that kept readers
in the design industry up to date on current
methods of mass production along with
2
GDR design principles and aesthetics. Addi-
tional magazines, such as Kultur im Heim,
showed occupants how their interiors could
be decorated with new modern furniture and
textiles.
Figure 6. Advertisement for Furniture With Paradoxically, much of the furniture and
Melafol Plastic Finish From Konsum-Versand-
kitsch objects from the GDR have become
handel Catalog, 1965
exceedingly popular over time. In trendy an-
Source: Author photograph taken from catalog
in the archive at Dokumentationszentrums Allt-
tique stores located in the former East Berlin,
agskultur der DDR in Eisenhttenstadt. the value of GDR products has increased,
and many have become collectors items. Ob-
jects that were of no value in 1990 have now
become commodities. In the more than 15
years to reflect since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the history and theory of industrial de-
sign in the GDR have become topics addressed in books such as Penti, Erika und Bebo
SherKlassiker des DDR-Designs. In addition, GDR design that included industry,
furniture, and textiles became a topic of exhibition for the Grassi Museum in Leipzig,
which now holds a collection of these products.
By investigating the political and social changes Germany has undergone, it is pos-
sible to use the interior as a gauge of how an individual identifies with his or her home,
surroundings, or heimat (homeland). It is within the home that one can find the an-
swer to the origins of products in the larger political and economic realms.

Conclusion

This project focuses on one case study in which a political and economic position
kept an unyielding grip on the goods produced. As a result, a uniform identity was es-

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P o s t c a r d F r o m t h e G e r m a n D e m o c r a t i c R e p u b l i c 329

Figure 7. GDR Furniture

Takes on New Forms With
Plastic, Such as This Egg Chair
From 1968, Which Opens and
Closes; Plastic Furniture
Shows a New Aesthetic, One
That Cannot Be Made as Eas-
ily With Natural Materials
Source: Author.

Figure 8. Mass-Produced
Light Fixtures Starting From
the 1960s
Source: Author.

Figure 9. Blenders: Domestic

Appliances Now Made of
Plastic
Source: Author.

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330 s p a c e a n d c u l t u r e / a u g u s t 2 0 0 5

tablished both in
the cityscape
and in the do-
mestic realm. At
present, this re-
search asks how
globalization
due to politics
and economics
is affecting the
domestic realm.
Currently, we
face a similar sit-
uation in which
furnishings are
mass produced Figure 10. A Range of Televisions Made of Plastic
and made avail- Source: Author.
able globally,
such as by the
Swedish com-
pany IKEA. It
leaves us asking if communal identity is replacing individual identity. Ironically, a
poster advertisement for IKEA with the German singer Nina Hagen is seen in front of
a series of GDR Plattenbau housing units (see Figure 12). An example of communal
identity can be found by simply looking at a collection of IKEA catalogs from various
countries. The catalog format and images are the same for Germany, Russia, and the
United States, with the only obvious differences being language and currency.
The fall of the Berlin Wall marked a turning point in Germanys history when it
went from a divided country to a unified one. Although the formerly separate coun-
tries are now unified, visible differences remain not only in the urban landscape but
also within the private
domestic interior as citi-
zens once again accli-
mate to a new political
and economic regime.
The discarding of GDR
furniture after the fall of
the Berlin Wall has now
made room for the next
style of mass-produced
modern furniture to
move in, made globally
available by IKEA.

Figure 11. The GDRs Trabant (Trabi) Car

Source: Author.

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 P o s t c a r d F r o m t h e G e r m a n D e m o c r a t i c R e p u b l i c 331

Notes

1. Consumer catalogs in the GDR such as

Centrum and Konsum-Versandhandel adver-
tised domestic products that included the GDR
brand names Melafol and Dedaplast, the equiva-
lents of Bakelite and Nylon. A collection of these
catalogs can be found at the Dokumentation-
szentrums Alltagskultur der DDR in Eisenht-
tenstadt.
2. Issues of the GDR design journal form +
zweck combine text and images that support a
socialist intent in the design and production of
goods. Specifically, see Kelm (1970).

References

Rubin E. (2003, October 4). Polymerized social-

Figure 12. IKEA Advertisement With Nina Hagen
Located in Front of Plattenbau Housing in East
Berlin.
ism: Plastic consumer goods, aesthetic consensus,
and questions of soft power in the GDR, 1958-
1975. Paper presented at East Germany Revis-
ited: Second East German Studies Conference,
Berlin, Germany.
Kelm, M. (1970). form + zweck, 74.
Longworth, P. (1992). The making of Eastern Eu-
rope. New York: St. Martins.

Lois Weinthal is an assistant professor in the School of Architecture at the University of

Texas at Austin, where she teaches architectural interior design. Her research and design proj-
ects focus on home, homeland, and identity. A recent design project includes an exhibit in the
Berlin Friedrichstrasse U6 Bahnhof train station of collage images whereby vintage postcards
of East Berlin are inserted into current panoramic views showing the westernization of East
Berlin.

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