Edmund Collein

Collein studied architecture at the Technische Hochschule Darmstadt before moving to Dessau in 1927 to attend the Bauhaus, where he took the preliminary course under László Moholy-Nagy. He subsequently studied in the carpentry workshop with Marcel Breuer and Josef Albers and attended classes with Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky and Joost Schmidt, before joining the architecture and interior design department under Hannes Meyer. After graduating from the Bauhaus in 1930, he worked in several architectural offices, including in Vienna, Munich and Berlin. Following military service and captivity during the Second World War, he returned to Berlin in 1945 and worked for the municipal authorities. In 1950 he was among the authors of the Sixteen Principles of Urban Design, which became the principal model for urban planning in the GDR until 1955. From 1951 he was Professor of Urban Planning and Vice-President of the Deutsche Bauakademie, becoming an influential figure in the planning and reconstruction of East German cities.

László Moholy-Nagy / Wassily Kandinsky / Josef Albers / Paul Klee / Hannes Meyer