Hans Scharoun’s Geschwister-Scholl school in Lünen as a vehicle for societal reform in post-war Germany

Following the Second World War, German society sought to comprehensively reform itself. Children – through what, where and how they learned – were central to this process, and the occupying Allied powers regarded the transformation of schools as the best way for young Germans to alienate themselves from the Nazi past and to support a new democratic state structure. This essay explores architecture’s role in this reorientation by focussing on the Geschwister-Scholl school in Lünen, one of two schools designed by Hans Scharoun in the late-1950s. There is an evident compatibility between Scharoun’s design philosophy, including giving architectural form to pedagogical process, and aspects of German educational reform, particularly in his emphasis on spatial configuration as a determinant of social behaviour. The essay therefore investigates educational reform in both West Germany and the German Democratic Republic, where curriculum reform was also pursued with radically different means, to radically different ends.