The history of the IBA exhibition - Internationale Bauaustellung - began in 1901, when the artists' settlement in Darmstadt was created under its auspices, built according to the general plan of J. M. Olbrich and reflected the views on architecture and urban planning advanced for that time.
Even more famous was the second edition of the IBA, which was included in the exhibition of the German Werkbund in 1927 in Stuttgart - it was the village of Weissenhof, where the best European architects, who worked in the mainstream of the Modern movement, designed houses.
Also famous was the 1957 IBA in West Berlin, known as the Interbau: then, in the bombed-out Hanseatic Quarter, a residential area with apartment buildings of Walter Gropius, Oscar Niemeyer, Alvar Aalto, Le Corbusier was created.
There were also exhibitions in 1989 and 1999 dedicated to the problems of urban tissue restoration.
Hamburg now has two sites allocated for the construction of modern city blocks by 2013 - along the Schleusengraben in the Bergedorf district and on the Kaufhaus canal in the Biennehafen harbor. In the first case, we are talking about the reconstruction of a zone of historical buildings according to the master plan of the Mekano workshop. In the second, commissioned by BIG and the Berlin office Topotek 1, it is planned to include a completely new quarter in the urban fabric, reflecting the achievements of modern urban planning and ideas for shaping the urban environment of the near future.
The individual buildings will be shaped by other architects, but the general layout of BIG has given their general configuration.
On a 1.6 hectare site, it is planned to erect low-rise buildings polygonal in plan, arranged in a slightly offset checkerboard pattern. Each house will have a roof sloped at one angle or another so that it does not violate the skyline of the entire area. Such a roof profile will open up maximum access to sunlight in the apartments and protect them from street noise. At first glance, the chaotic arrangement of courtyards and inner-quarter passages will allow the townspeople to both easily cross this zone and stop there for rest and communication.
Homes will be of one of three types: conventional apartment buildings, end-to-end town houses, and small complexes where housing will be combined with offices and small businesses. This will achieve the diversity and versatility of the development, which, in turn, will provide constant revitalization in the side streets and courtyards of the quarter.