By Peter Ahrends

Peter Ahrends traces the lives and careers of three generations of architects –
his grandfather Bruno and father Steffen alongside his own work with the
celebrated practice of Ahrends Burton & Koralek. While all three Ahrends were
born in Berlin, political, cultural and economic circumstances led them to take
very different directions, but within those complex paths lie fascinating threads
and connections.
Part personal memoire, part critical reflection, Ahrends’ book examines how the
interplay of chance circumstances and external forces – not least the rise of
Nazism in 1930s Germany and Apartheid-era South Africa – came to shape
the lives of his grandfather and father as well as his own life. Moving on to cast a
broad perspective across ABK’s diverse work, he identifies themes that arose from
the partners’ shared preoccupations and came to characterise their approach,
from square plan forms and daylighting to entrances and bays.
Among hitherto unseen archive material brought to light in the book is a series
of fluent drawings, made by Bruno during his internment on the Isle of Man,
proposing the replanning of Douglas in the Bauhaus idiom.