Review

The Destroyed City Was My Chance

From the Collection: Hilde Weström on her 100th birthday

Hilde Weström (born on Oct. 31, 1912), together with Ilse Balg or Vera Meyer-Waldeck, is one of the few female architects who successfully participated in the reconstruction of Berlin after the war.

One of the first women accepted into the Bund Deutscher Architekten in 1948, she founded her own firm in 1949. She then participated in numerous competitions together with colleagues such as Wils Ebert, Werner Düttmann, or Paul Baumgarten. Her wide-ranging oeuvre, which she created until her retirement in 1981, shows Weström’s engagement with a present marked by transformation and the foundational principles of new construction. Her untiring commitment to a social, individually adaptable living has made her widely known. In 1957, her designs for model apartments were presented as pioneering at the exhibition „Die Stadt von Morgen”, part of „Internationale Bauaustellung” Berlin. Selected photographs, drawings, and models from the architect’s own papers alongside loans from the Verborgenes Museum and private collections will provide insights into the life and work of this unusual pioneer of architecture. Hilde Weström died on Feb. 10, 2013 in Berlin.