Social engagement - Peter Hubner's design of the Waldorf school in Cologne, Germany

Architectural Review, The, Feb, 1999 by Peter Blundell Jones

Organic forms and user involvement make Peter Hubner's new school in Cologne a socially and environmentally responsive haven for learning.

Peter Hubner's architecture is most obviously green in its grass-roofs, untreated timber, and passive solar heating (AR July 1998), but it is also green at a deeper level in terms of social and psychological engagement. The recently completed Waldorf school at Cologne was planned around Rudolf Steiner's holistic philosophy: anthroposophy. This is reflected not only in the kinds of rooms and general spatial layout, but in the demonstration of how the building interacts with the elements, and the inclusion in fitting-out of craftwork by staff and pupils.

Hubner's first job for the anthroposophists was the Morgenstern School, Reutlingen (AR March 1987). Short of money, they approached him for his known skill with low budgets and recycled materials, but they soon found an architect sympathetic to their beliefs and ready to work open-mindedly with them, accepting for example Steiner's ideas about symbolism and colour. The Morgenstern's success led to an invitation to undertake the larger school at Cologne.

The project grew, with Hubner spending about two days per month in Cologne over the four years of the design and build process. He claims that the initial design sessions were the most critical, for a strong idea had to be found on which the attention of the group could be concentrated, an idea to focus enthusiasm and transmit it to others. In this case it was the notion of a centrally-planned main building drawn emblematically as a rose with five petals. This image combined the social centrality of the meeting hall, the beauty of a natural symbol and the significance of the numerical progression 5/10/20 which is at once the growth principle of the rose and the generative geometry of the building.

Waldorf schools exist across Germany, privately run but with state subsidy for some pupils. Although the children take the usual state exams, some like the Morgenstern even dedicating themselves to reversing failures from the state system, the educational goal remains much broader. The anthroposophists try to bring out the whole individual in an integrated way, physically, mentally and ethically, following a path of development advocated by Steiner. The curriculum therefore includes strong elements of arts and crafts, music and drama, as well as academic subjects. There are extensive workshops, and in every school the performance of eurythmy - a kind of dance - has a central role, not only as a discipline to link mind and body, but also as an exchange of communication between performer and audience. Performing before others is regarded as essential for social development and self-confidence, so Waldorf schools are built around a theatrical auditorium as hierarchical centre. This refers back to the original developed by Steiner at the Goetheanum in Dornach, with a linear layout and formal proscenium.

The Waldorf school in Cologne had already existed for 17 years, but was housed in the rented buildings of a former state school. The arrangement could not continue, and there was in any case need for expansion. Since the school authorities had no capital, money was borrowed against personal guarantees from parents, an important if largely invisible form of participation. The construction of new buildings also meant defining the school's architectural identity for the first time, and this was an issue that the anthroposophists took unusually seriously. All too often these days, institutional buildings are seen in terms of square metres of floor-space or financial assets on the balance sheet, but the school staff and parents recognized the deeper issues: that the organization of a building reflects and determines social relationships, for example, and that the qualities of space and light in a classroom affect the learning of children. It was important to get such things right besides making a positive image of the kind of world in which they wanted to live.

A site was acquired on the periphery of Cologne in a working-class housing area called Chorweiler. A brave new world from the 1960s, it is dominated by broad highways, tall blocks of flats, and a pedestrianized shopping mall, though on the other side of the school site some old meadows persist. The choice of location was encouraged by the relatively low price of land.

The new school consists of two buildings, each developed around one of the two largest social rooms: the auditorium and the sports hall. Both are placed to the north of the generous site with car parking behind them, leaving the southern area free for a sizeable landscaped garden. Orientated to the north-western boundary, the sports hall faces its open glazed front south-east to enjoy some winter solar gain. The auditorium on the other hand had to be blind, a black box for performances, so it runs north from the centre of the main school block engulfed by the main volume and surrounded by other rooms. Between the two buildings runs a street-like space, which must be traversed to arrive at the east-facing main entrance. An area of circular paving with some perimeter seating - an outdoor room - terminates this street, mediating between the two buildings and marking the transition into the garden area. This is as yet the most evident gesture by landscape architect Christof Harms, but the rest of the garden will unfold as plants gradually mature.