Doors of Learning: Microcosms of a Future South Africa

In 1988, a seminar was held at the Bauhaus Dessau as part of the UN-HABITAT programme that dealt with questions of housing construction in 'developing countries'. A prefabricated building system developed by GDR architects was presented here, which was used for the first time in an education and development centre of the African National Congress (ANC) in Dakawa, Tanzania. The educational centres that have been set up in rural Tanzania since the 1970s with the support of international solidarity movements were learning and living spaces for people who had fled the brutal regime of racial segregation in South Africa. These centres were also unique sites of transnational encounters between East and West during the Cold War. Why education in particular was key to building a new democratic society is the focus of the publication.

The small and handy books, designed by the Berlin-based graphic designer Eike König, accompany the exhibitions and are also intended as practical guidebooks for the Bauhaus buildings.

148 pages, 10.6 x 14cm, paperback, Spector Books (Leipzig).