1948: Styrian Primer for Rural Construction

Under the direction of folklorist Viktor Geramb, the reactivated Association for Homeland Protection in Styria (Verein für Heimatschutz in Steiermark) released  the Styrian Primer for Rural Construction in 1946. It was designed as a normative guide for reconstruction. The handbook for “landscape-linked” construction, which was directed at building authorities, construction companies and craftspeople, had already been designed during the Nazi era and had the same character as Nazi primers for construction that were understood to be a part of the Nazi educational and disciplinary apparatus. The juxtaposition of numerous examples of “good” and “bad”, “wrong” and “right” stem from a didactic method of the Homeland Protection Movement (Heimatschutzbewegung) prior to the First World War. For decades, the book was in use as a standard work of the association, which exists until today as Verein BauKultur Steiermark (Association BuildingCulture Styria).

External Resources (in German only):

Antje Senarclens de Grancy (Hg.):

Identität – Politik – Architektur. Der „Verein für Heimatschutz in Steiermark“, Berlin 2013.