Ernst Neufert. Bauentwurfslehre , 1936. Title page.

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NADER VOSSOUGHIAN

During the last century, studies of standardization in architecture and design have been limited by a series of elisions between wholly different vocabularies. In the work of Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Sigfried Giedion, the term standardization tends to be equated with mechanization, prefabrication, or mass production. 1 The term is often taken to describe changes in how things are made—how the use of custom-made parts gives way to interchangeable parts. In Reyner Banham’s Theory and Design in the First Machine Age (1960) and Joan Campbell’s canonic monograph on the Deutscher Werkbund (1978), standardization is conflated with typification (Typisierung ), which describes a related but ultimately distinct idea. 2 Here, I will argue that standardization must also be thought in the light of what Georges Canguilhem and Michel Foucault term, in French, “ normalisation .” 3 That is, the concept of standardization (“ Normung ” or “ Normierung ,” as it is most frequently named in German) expresses a dimension of normalisation that is frequently overlooked in architectural discourse. 4 Readers of Foucault in translation tend to treat the French word normalisation and the English normalization as interchangeable (they are not). They also tend to privilege the role that statistics play in gen - erating norms. What such perspectives tend to miss—and what this study aims to highlight—is precisely that technical standards also serve a normalizing function. Conventions that govern the dimensions of bricks also shape understandings of the body politic. To offer such a claim is to affirm the simple fact that standardization is also a plausible translation of normalisation , as Jürgen Link points out. 5 It is also to insist that technical standards are themselves “institutional[ized]” norms, as François Ewald remarks. 6 Architectural standards illustrate the unprecedented new powers that norms enjoyed in the twentieth cen - tury. They are also among the principal vehicles through which labor practices associated with Fordism, Taylorism, and energetics, their European equivalent, gained popular acceptance in interwar Germany. 7 As a case study in this exploration of standardization, I concen -

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/GREY_a_00125 by guest on 28 September 2021 K.W. Bührer and Adolf Saager. Die Organisierung der geistigen Arbeit durch “Die Brücke, ” 1911. Cover.

trate in this essay on the role that Ernst Neufert’s Bauentwurfslehre has played in normalizing the use of architectural standards. First published in 1936, this book remains a first port-of-call for most designers who rely on the metric system. 8 Along with Charles Ramsey and Harold Sleeper’s Architectural Graphic Standards (1932), it is the most important book on architectural standards ever written. 9 Its norms for vacuum cleaners, chicken coops, and bookshelves have been accepted as gospel by thousands of architects for decades. Since the 1930s, official translations have appeared in at least twenty languages. Now in its fortieth German-language edition, it is still listed as a best seller in architecture, design, and architectural theory on the German Amazon.de webpage, and numerous pirated editions circulate on the World Wide Web. On one level, the Bauentwurfslehre ’s principal function has always been to furnish builders, students of architecture, and practicing designers with a systematic and encyclopedic picture of architec - tural knowledge. As historian Gernot Weckherlin notes, it includes sample floor plans and drawings that create a “comfortable space between objects and in spaces of all kinds, at work or during periods of rest, without wasting space.” 10 The work’s earliest edition is divided into five sections: “Preparatory Work” ( Arbeitsvorbereitung ), “Design” (Entwurf ), “Construction Details” ( Bauliche Einzelheiten ), “Sculpting and Dimensioning of the Environment, Spaces and Domestic Furnishings” ( Gestaltung und Bemessung der Umgebung, der R äume und Einrichtungen ), and “Building Types” ( Geb äudekunde ). The Bauentwurfslehre includes a survey of normative construction; heat - ing, lighting, and fenestration systems; building components; and building types—for example, apartment buildings, row houses, cot - tages, schools, hostels, and dormitories; banks and high-rise apart - ments; factories, farms, and train stations. The book also contains exact measurements for a range of domestic items, from ironing boards to kitchen utensils and toilets. The Bauentwurfslehre has also always participated in normalizing the use of architectural standards. 11 For the better part of the 1920s and 1930s, Germany’s leading standards organizations (e.g., the Deutsches Institut für Normu ng, or DIN) paid only marginal attention to archi - tecture. 12 Designers were themselves resistant to the introduction of any regulating norms. The Bauentwurfslehre helped to change matters; moreover, its success has been such that the very practice of archi - tecture is now unthinkable in the absence of standards. Not only did architectural standards find their way more rapidly into DIN hand - books after World War II; standards manuals themselves became a ubiquitous fixture in architectural offices, libraries, and academic studios throughout the industrialized world (and even parts of the nonindustrialized world).

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/GREY_a_00125 by guest on 28 September 2021 Normalizing Standardization Conceptually, Neufert’s efforts to normalize the use of architectural standards were inspired by the experiments of the Munich-based group Die Brücke (not to be confused with the expression - ist artists bearing the same name). This context explains the role that design systems played in normalizing standardization and helps us under - stand the particularities of Neufert’s approach to propagating the notion of the architectural standard in Germany. Founded in 1911, Die Brücke drew together the skills of three individuals: the merchant and advertising specialist Karl Wilhelm Bührer (1861–1917); the chemist and writer Adolf Saager (1879–1949); and the Nobel Prize–winning chemist Wilhelm Ostwald (1853–1932). Die Brücke suffered from misman - agement from the beginning, and it existed for only three years. However, its importance to the history of standards in twentieth- century Germany cannot be overstated. In its own time, its activities were synonymous with the scientific, industrial, and cultural project of standardization ( Normierung ) in much the same way that the Deutscher Werkbund was with typification ( Typisierung ).13 Moreover, DIN probably owes its existence to the marketing strategies that Die Brücke introduced. According to Ostwald, Die Brücke’s central mission was to estab - lish “a specially constructed organ to unify harmoniously and effec - tively separate intellectual undertakings that emerge on isolated islands.” 14 Its members felt that overspecialization in the natural sciences threatened the course of human progress. Its aim was thus to become, as intellectual historian Thomas Hapke notes, “the cen - tral agency in which would be created a comprehensive, collabora - tively compiled and illustrated world encyclopedia on sheets of standardized format.” 15 Die Brücke dedicated itself to eliminating unnecessary expenditure of energy (a doctrine of universal effi - ciency that Ostwald and his Belgian colleague Ernest Solvay termed energetics ). To that end, it concentrated on developing standards for producing, sharing, and consuming knowledge. 16 Ostwald argued that standardization ( Normierung ) fostered socialization (Sozialisierung ) and, more specifically, that “Socialization or social formation ( Vergesellschaftung ) cannot take place in the absence of standards or coordinated conventions.” 17 Following Aristotle, Ostwald felt that socialization was linked to self-realization, that to be human was precisely to be a “social animal.” 18 Furthermore, Normierung was the force he believed would help guarantee stability and peace.

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Ostwald and his collaborators from Die Brücke specifically lamented the fact that intellectual research lacked the quantitative standards that technical or economic work enjoyed—that it lacked the same global breadth–and they were particularly eager to coordinate and control the production of information as it circulated in and between offices, schools, government agencies, and private citizens, not just in scientific laboratories: “If one wants to organize, one can only do so if one first intervenes in the unification and coordination of the most everyday, common and thus also least reflective functional routines,” Ostwald writes. 19 Of its many undertakings, Die Brücke’s most successful was its effort to develop a system for standardizing the dimensions of paper. 20 Paper, Die Brücke realized, fosters the circulation of capital (think paper currency). Paper contributes to the circulation of ideas (through books, libraries, mail systems, etc.) but is also an infra - structure that links disparate industries and economies. Die Brücke’s so-called Weltformate (world formats) paved the way for the release of the A series paper formats (DIN 476) in 1922, which stand as the Urnorm against which all other standards in Germany are still mea - sured. The formats are based on the metric unit (the largest format (A0) is one square meter) and share the same proportions (1: √2) at all sizes. Furthermore, larger formats yield smaller ones by being folded in half along their longer dimension. According to Ostwald, standard paper formats would contribute to the creation of a more harmonious culture: “Every glance into the contemporary library affords the artistic eye an offensive spectacle [Schauspie l],” he writes. “The stylistic and unruly range of book sizes, which are held together without any thought to systematic or organizational principles, is nothing but barbarism, a symbol of an inferior culture and will be viewed as such by any impartial observer.” 21 According to Jan Tschichold, standard formats would also make companies more efficient. They allow for the “simultane - ous printing in different sizes, leading to better use of machine time[.]” They aid the tradesman because “fewer paper sizes . . . save space in stock rooms.” They assist the manufacturer because “price lists will be shorter and simpler,” “the number of different printing and paper machines required will be less,” and “the number of uncut sheets and roll-widths will be decreased.” 22 Historically, the A series formats probably did economize print - ing costs. More important, however, is what their commercial suc - cess did to DIN’s image in the broader sweep of German society: prior to the release of the A series paper formats, DIN’s influence was largely confined to the engineering industries that the German War Ministry had worked to rationalize during the course of World War I. Little popular awareness of its mission existed outside

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/GREY_a_00125 by guest on 28 September 2021 the applied sciences, and the respect it com - manded among members of the general public was limited at best. Afterward, however, the climate changed dramatically, albeit gradually. Germans became accustomed to seeing A4 sheets of paper in almost all spheres of public life, which acclimated them to the idea that stan - dards could be introduced in other industries as well. This visibility inspired greater general trust in DIN and helped to create the context and climate that was necessary for other DIN-sanc - tioned standards to proliferate. 23 Visibility also blunted the criticisms of Normierung that had been voiced by the Jugendstil wing of the Deutscher Werkbund .24 DIN’s economistic and efficiency-laced rhetoric gave standardization an air of inevitability or necessity. The power of A4 paper was abundantly clear to Walter Porstmann, the individual officially responsible for inventing A series paper. An engineer by training, he served as Ostwald’s research assistant from 1912 to 1914, precisely when the latter was most active with Die Brücke . Porstmann is best known today for his efforts to popularize Kleinschreibung (decapitalizing nouns in written and printed German) in Weimar Germany. 25 However, he also needs to be appre - ciated for grasping the new markets that standard paper sizes cre - ated: he fully anticipated that paper standards would likely create a mass market for standard-dimension binders, folders, file cabinets, and bookshelves. Moreover, in 1923 he opened Fabriknorm GmbH (the name translates roughly as “Factory Standard, Inc.”) in order to exploit this possibility. Fabriknorm’s advertising literature reflects this point, which is also made evident in the products the company ultimately produced. 26 Neufert, too, appreciated the significance of the standard paper sizes. Paper standards are the first set of standards discussed in the first edition of the Bauentwurfslehre . Porstmann’s Normformate (1930) appears as the first entry in the bibliography at the end of the book. In the opening pages of the Bauentwurfslehre , Neufert makes the astounding remark that paper dimensions are essential and oper - ative knowledge for the architect: “standard [paper] formats consti - tute the basis for the dimensions of furniture used for writing and record keeping. These are also constitutive of the dimensions of spaces. . . . Exact knowledge of standard [paper] formats ( =DIN formats) is . . . important for the builder.” 27 Over the course of his career, Neufert’s professional admiration for Porstmann led to their personal friendship, which is reflected in the letters they exchanged. 28

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/GREY_a_00125 by guest on 28 September 2021 Schnellentwerfen Neufert learned from his encounter with the new paper formats that rapid circulation of infor - ma tion (i.e., the decentralization of access to information) can foster the standardization of knowledge (i.e., the concentration of the production of information). Neufert termed his own information-centered design model “Schnellentwerfen ” or “rapid design,” and he conceived it while serving as an instructor at the Staatliche Bauhochschule in Weimar. The Bauhochschule was founded in 1926 as the suc - cessor to the Weimar Bauhaus, and its instructors included Otto Bartning (who also served as director of the school) and Cornelis van Eesteren. 29 The school’s mission was, like that of its predecessor, one of uniting craft and industry, and for that reason courses addressed the technological and com - mercial aspects of design in addition to its formal, aesthetic, and structural dimensions. Rapid design specifically involved training students in visualiz - ing and solving any given architectural problem quickly and effi - ciently; it recalled the French academic practice of starting every buildable design with an esquisse , an “outline” or “sketch.” 30 However, rapid design was unique in encouraging students to model their designs after normative “types” ( Typen ); it also regulated and routinized design to an unprecedented degree. As architectural his - torian Gernot Weckherlin notes, solutions produced in the course tended to be based on “a standard card-index box of ‘typical’ design solutions. [Neufert’s] idea was to develop a standard library from experiences made by the active building atelier, from questions of the building owners and his students’ own expert skills in the design studio.” 31 Students were tasked with designing a building that accom - modated an assigned program in less than three hours. Submissions typically had to include schematic designs, plans, and interior lay - outs and were reviewed and critiqued collectively. Participants were invited to develop their submissions further in the light of the com - ments they received. The 1929 academic catalogue of the Staatliche Bauhochschule states, Monday, 29 October 1928. 8 in the morning. The instructor of the course speaks about the class of buildings known as “schools” and develops a series of economic, organizational, and spatial questions out of their pedagogical and human meaning that are based on examples of executed buildings

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from the period. Then the instructor selects a few narrowly focused tasks and develops the following program in collabo - ration with the audience: A new building for the Bauhochschule is to be designed on a recently visited building site. Training workshops and residential studios are to be attached to it. The spatial requirements are known to the students. Three hours of intensive labor. Then the designs are collected. On the next morning, the instructor proceeds through the reviewed submissions on the epidiascope with specific issues in mind, and every designer must discuss and defend his or her proposal on an impromptu basis. This is followed by a sharp critique—first from one’s class - mates, then from the instructor, just as one will later have to do when one becomes an architect and has to defend one’s ideas before an actual builder. The design is then reworked during one’s free time over the following weeks. 32 Three points from this passage warrant emphasis. The first is that rapid design aimed to simulate the pressures faced by the modern architect in professional practice. That is, it was meant as a critique of liberal models of architectural education that divorced design from the machinations of the marketplace. Second, it was a way of teaching architecture to many people simultaneously; it presumed that architectural design could be taught to crowds of students in a lecture-based setting with the aid of an epidiascope. Finally, it was a method for routinizing architectural design. Rapid design institu - tionalized the values of efficiency associated with the doctrine of energetics; it subordinated design to the exigencies of program, priv - ileged the empirical over the psychological, and planimetric repre - sentation over perspectival rendering. Rapid design enforced conformity in the workplace: as one photograph suggests, students were issued “standard” drafting tables—all of which were evenly spaced like rectangular blocks in a mathematical grid—and used identical tools (standard-issued T squares, triangles, drawing uten - sils, etc.). The first edition of the Bauentwurfslehre advances the goals of rapid resign through a variety of means. It emphasizes a Cartesian understanding of architectural space, one that privileges the Loosian idea of space as enclosure. 33 Like rapid design, the book’s goals are practical and not just theoretical: to merge bauen (building) and entwerfen (design) (hence the book’s title, Bau-entwurfslehre ). Neufert’s objective was to make architectural practice both more rou - tine and more accessible. His book offers detailed instructions about how to draw and cut paper, noting, for example, that the “middle finger

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/GREY_a_00125 by guest on 28 September 2021 should never press under the pencil,” that charcoal utensils should always be held perpendicularly to the sheet of paper, and that draw - ing paper should be secured using standard, conical-shaped tacks. 34 The Bauentwurfslehre also stresses speed and efficiency, in accor - dance with the principles of the New Typography—which insists that, to use Tschichold’s formulation, “as a rule, we no longer read quietly line by line, but glance quickly over the whole, and only if our interest is awakened do we study it in detail.” 35 The volume was designed so that it can be read “in a state of distraction,” to use Walter Benjamin’s language. 36 The architect can consult it as a seri - ous reference guide or simply browse. Headings are arranged asym - metrically and in boldface print to facilitate quick referencing. Abbreviations and acronyms are included wherever possible to economize the use of space. Individual drawings are numbered sequentially in the interest of guiding the reader’s eye, as well as assuring narrative coherence. Words are interspersed with pictorial signs in order to reduce sentence lengths and hence also accelerate the transmission of meaning. Illustrations resemble comic book– style caricatures, probably to make reading less taxing. Plans and elevations are of uniform dimensions (though not necessarily at uni - form scale), which facilitates comparative analysis. Column widths are short, which minimizes eye movement. Graphic conventions (for drawings and page layouts both) are kept constant, assuring consis - tency. Human figures are included in many of the drawings to com - municate scale and proportion. The drawings are all monochromatic, thus easing the reading of line weights. The entire text appears in a sans serif font, which, according to the prevailing wisdom of the time, was supposed to improve legibility. The Bauentwurfslehre also “teaches” design in a way that pro - motes time-, energy-, and money-saving habits. Its many plans, ele -

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/GREY_a_00125 by guest on 28 September 2021 Opposite: Ernst Neufert. vations, and perspectives are easily traced or copied—they almost Bauentwuerfslehre , 1936. invite plagiarism—presumably to reduce labor costs. Its coverage of Dimensional standards building types is encyclopedic, which simplifies the research for household rooms [Wirtschaftsräume ]. process. (One does not have to spend time poring over specialized Above: Ernst Neufert. standards manuals.) Its contents are classified typologically, which Bauentwuerfslehre , 1936. eases the task of translating program into form. Its comments about Dimensional standards individual buildings tend to be analytical rather than descriptive, for drafting rooms [Zeichenräume ]. which reduces the interpretive responsibilities of the reader. It advises use of the Golden Section, which eases determination of a building’s proper scale and proportion. It offers dimensional stan - dards for organic and inorganic matter alike—for people as well as for vacuum cleaners—which permits the architect to design multi - ple buildings for many people simultaneously. Because its drawings are never geographically contextualized, they can be generalized and repurposed more readily. All drawings in the book conform to the prevailing DIN standards of the period, which expedited relations between designers and manufacturers. The book acclimated architects to the notion that DIN could serve as an authority on design-related matters and also helped broaden DIN’s audience: “The German Committee on Standards made available their norm sheets, which are selectively interwoven,” Neufert comments in the preface to the first edition. 37 Because the book is compact—printed on standard A4 sheets— it was cheap to print and could be carried anywhere: office, school, or job site. Because it focuses on the role of health in architecture (i.e., on questions of speed and hygiene), it eliminates the time that might have been lost to the problem of distinguishing “good” archi - tecture from “bad.” The book notes that one should always use a toilet with a deep basin “because here the feces will drop into the water without leaving any odor.” 38 The temperature in a morgue

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should always stand between two and twelve degrees centigrade (“frost expands the corpses and can cause them to burst,” Neufert writes). 39 Sinks should never be installed in bedrooms, because they “disturb the furnishings, are noisy, and cause dirtiness and wetness.” 40 Binary categories are used to organize rooms—they are implicitly designated as either public or private, wet or dry, female or male, domestic or professional, work-related or recreational, consumption- based or production-oriented—which simplifies the task of pro - gramming spaces. Neufert extends Die Brücke’s logic of efficiency through an engage - ment with the work of the leading exponents of the Existenzminimum and scientific management. He describes Alexander Klein’s time- motion studies as effective space-planning tools, instructive for anyone aiming to achieve maximum efficiency with minimal means. He depicts Fred Forbat’s spatially minimal “House Boat for the Weekend” as a model for purposeful residential design, one that uti - lizes space-saving innovations such as the Pullman bed. He praises Mies van der Rohe’s contribution to the 1931 Berlin Building Exhibition for its attentiveness to structure and the environment. And he casts Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky’s Frankfurt Kitchen as an exemplary (if flawed) cooking space. Neufert’s book thus reproduces and even magnifies the sexual biases that shaped the agendas of the New Frankfurt. Both privilege patriarchy by actively desocializing, mechanizing, and ultimately isolating female labor. They also cast the family as the atomic “unit” of the domestic sphere, with the mother cast as the invisible “engine” of the interior and the father as the face of its exterior. 41 The Bauentwurfslehre’s initial “translation” of standard paper formats was only partly successful. Admittedly, it transformed perceptions of standards within the architectural community. Its first printing, from March 1936, sold out in a matter of weeks (the same holds for the second and third printings, at least according to its author). 42 The book appealed to the National Socialists’ desire for racial purity (Neufert’s efforts to root his dimensional norms in a the - ory of the “well-proportioned man” finds parallels in propaganda films such as Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia , released the same year). The Bauentwurfslehre also helped advance the cause of total war, which militarized civilian life in Germany: 9,000 small businesses were shut down, the age limit for drafting women into the war was raised from forty-five to fifty-five, and 400,000 women were moved from domestic service jobs to war-related positions. 43 According to Paul Virilio, total war abolished the “protective fringes of national realities; what used to happen on linear fronts, now happens in the interior.” 44 Similarly, the Bauentwurfslehre strengthened the state’s oversight of design practice. Neufert’s publisher ( Bauwelt-Verlag )

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/GREY_a_00125 by guest on 28 September 2021 was convinced of this point and suggests as much in its opening remarks to the 1944 edi - tion of the Bauentwurfslehre .45 This was likely also something that Albert Speer realized, which helps explain why he appointed Neufert to the position of Beauftragter für Normungsfragen in 1938. As Speer notes in his preface to the Bauordnungslehre (BOL ), Neufert’s equally influential 1943 “sequel” to the Bauentwurfslehre : Total War requires the concentration of all powers in the construction industry as well. Thoroughgoing centralization, for the pur - pose of economizing technical powers and building mass production systems, is the prerequisite for improving productivity, which is necessary for the purpose of con - quering our current construction tasks. With this new order, one can hardly rely on arbitrary mea - surements of building components and on the parliamentary deliberations of participating manufacturing organizations. Rather, one must establish a building order [ Bauordnung ] in the broadest sense of the word, with a firm hand and with the collaboration of industry, in order to ease the work of the man - ufacturer, the planner, and the builder in equal measure, and to achieve the appropriate integration of building components. Professor Neufert, who dedicates himself to this important task as my Representative for Standardization in the Building Industry, offers here the first documentation of his collaboration with progressive and active economic groups and factories. 46 Despite the foregoing remarks, the Bauentwurfslehre did not have the same resounding impact that standard paper formats had had: its earliest editions did not succeed in normalizing the use of stan - dards among architects, nor did it win DIN’s confidence. As Neufert remarks in the BOL , During the [First] World War, the Normenlehre by Porstmann appeared . . . which is as relevant today as it was then. After the [First] World war, the standard numbers . . . were established, which as an overarching proportional system unified the pro - portions of individual standards. . . . Since then, a very large literature on standards has emerged, which actually encompass all technical areas save that of design and construction. 47

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/GREY_a_00125 by guest on 28 September 2021 The fact that DIN did not embrace the standardization of architecture was a particular source of personal disappointment for Neufert: “In the massive text Introduction to DIN Standards . . . only 2½ pages in the 6th edition were allotted to me. In the previous edition build - ing standards were not mentioned even once,” he notes. 48 Over the course of the 1940s, these setbacks prompted Neufert to rethink the entire project of the Bauentwurfslehre , his very approach to the teaching of rapid design. The results of that effort were pub - lished in, among other texts, the Bauordnungslehre and the 1944 edition of the Bauentwurfslehre . Taken together, these two texts doc - ument Neufert’s ongoing effort to address the weaknesses of the first edition of the Bauentwurfslehre . They also represent a rethinking of the “lessons” of standard paper formats.

From Standard-Format Paper to the Standard-Format Brick In the Bauordnungslehre , Neufert asserts that the proportional systems governing standard paper formats could also be used to explain the ordering principles that underlie the designs of canonic Renaissance buildings: “The fact that [A series] standard paper for - mats can be halved while still maintaining their aspect ratio, which Dr. Porstmann achieved through his efforts, carries, among other things, the advantage that it contributes to the overwhelming adop - tion of standard paper formats abroad.” He continues, For the standardization of the building industry, this system of halving [ Hälftelungsreihe ] is equally important; it is just that it has not been as influential in the building designs of the last decades, which were rule(less), as it was in classical times. A particularly good example from that period is the plan of a palazzo by the famous Renaissance architect, A.B. Palladio. . . . Here the rooms around the entrance hall are arranged spa - tially so that every room is ½ as large as the one preceding it. 49 Later in the same book, he suggests that some of the same principles that led to the development of standard-format paper could be used to reform the construction industry. In these pages he theorizes what might be termed the “standard-format brick.” Although in this dis - cussion Neufert does not draw a specific parallel with standard paper formats, the parallel is implied: the A0 paper format is one square meter in area. Similarly, Neufert takes as his departure point the idea that all bricks ought to have dimensions that are multiples of one meter—they needed to conform to what he calls the “Octametric System.” As Jean-Louis Cohen notes, this system suggests “a com - plete world based on norms derived from the subdivision of the meter into eight basic modules of 12.5 centimeters, whence the notion of the ‘octametric’ norm.” 50 Neufert’s bricks have a length of

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/GREY_a_00125 by guest on 28 September 2021 twenty-four centimeters and a width of eleven-and-one-half centimeters (with one centimeter allotted for joint thickness along each axis). 51 With the joint, the so- called Octametric Brick with Standard Brick Thickness ( Oktametersteine in Normalsteindicke ) has a thickness of seven-and-one-half centimeters, the Hollow-Core Octametric ( Oktameter- Hohlstein ) Brick is twelve-and-one-half centimeters thick, and the Octametric Riemchen (Oktameterriemchen ) Brick is six-and-one-quarter centimeters thick. 52 The uses of the Octametric System are many—it was devised to reduce fabrication costs, expedite the design and construc - tion process, and enforce cooperation between private owners. One particular Ernst Neufert. Bauordnungslehre , application, however, stands out: it permits one to estimate the 1943. “Brick Formats dimensions of a given space by counting the number of bricks that [Ziegelformate ] of the Earth’s run vertically or horizontally across it. Octametric bricks create grids Leading Countries.” that can help regulate the placement of objects at all scales and loca - tions. The bricks open up the possibility that the arrangement and design of furnishings, rooms, and domestic appliances can be ascer - tained with the precision that only a coordinate system can furnish. They are thus media —that is, tools of communication—as well as materials , instruments of construction. They are intended as instru - ments for regulating—and not just building—buildings. As architec - tural historian Gerd Kuhn notes, through the Octametric System a “systematic grid” was estab - lished. . . . In order to show the applicability of the “systematic grid,” Neufert added to his publications on the Octametric System countless applied examples and detailed studies. A considerable advantage is now that . . . with furniture “the determination of location measurements” can be carried out and integrated into the systematic grid. This he makes clear in an ideal and typical way using the example of a child’s room. 53 The invention of the octametric brick is also evidence of the fact that Neufert never abandoned his preoccupation with rapid design. Rapid design, which relies on a catalogue of standards, centralized the production of information. Like the Octametric System, it also decentralized the dissemination of information. Rapid design boiled design down to a few basic principles; it used discrete measurements that are easy to communicate and document and that make bricks

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/GREY_a_00125 by guest on 28 September 2021 cheaper; and it broadened the man - date of standardization as well. Just as the DIN hoped standard paper formats would become the world’s premier currency of knowl - edge (and they did), Neufert’s hope was that octametric bricks would become the preeminent “medium” of design and construction. In a number of ways, he succeeded as well. First, his brick masonry standards became an official DIN standard, one that is still widely used in Germany today. The development of these bricks led to the creation of “the DIN 4172 standard for Maßordnung (dimen - sional ordering),” as Jean-Louis Cohen notes. 54 Second, countless building components are in compliance with Neufert’s octametric standards. Thus, just as the standard-format sheet of paper yielded a standard-format binder, the octametric brick has given us—to cite but one example— an octametric door. The Octametric System also had a profound impact on the subse - quent history of the Bauentwurfslehre itself. In particular, it prompted Neufert to introduce new norms—and to revise older ones. He reconsidered the dimensions of his “well-proportioned” man, for instance, so as to make it compatible with his octametric standards. Kuhn notes, While the shoulder height of a “well-built person” stood at 1.43 meters in the first edition of the Bauentwurfslehre , the shoul - der measurement went up to 1.50 meters in the 1944 edition, even if the height of this figure remained at 1.75 meters. There are comparatively still further modifications to be determined, for example with the arm radius. This revision in measurement can only be explained by the fact that Neufert had adjusted his “well-proportioned person” to accommodate the “rule mea - surements” of his Octametric System. 55 My own analysis of these texts corroborates Kuhn’s observations: all the bodily measurements in the 1944 and 1959 editions are based on the twelve-and-one-half-centimeter unit. The 1944 edition of the Bauentwurfslehre states that the minimum horizontal clearance that a standard man facing a wall needs is thirty-seven-and-one-half centimeters, down from forty centimeters in the 1936 edition; and

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the amount of space one needs to pass horizontally between two walls is measured to be sixty-two-and-one-half centimeters, up from sixty centimeters. In the 1959 edition, two men holding umbrellas over their heads are estimated to need 2.375 meters of horizontal clearance, whereas a woman carrying a hand basket needs eighty- seven-and-one-half centimeters. All of these measurements are divisible by the octameter.

Standardization Reconsidered Systems for regulating the dimensions of paper transformed the physical design of information during the 1920s. The “rules” that dictate the design of A4 paper paved the way for standard envelope, file cabinet, and bookshelf sizes. Similarly, systems for regulating the design of buildings transformed the “building” of the designer. Normierung was an educational tool (an instrument of socialization, to use Ostwald’s language) if ever there were one. Moreover, the Bauentwurfslehre bears out this fact. Not only did it normalize the use of DIN standards among architects; it also helped advance the practice of rapid design. In broader terms, standardization must itself be understood as a process that transforms the subject and not just the object. Standardization participates in shaping our thoughts and not just our things. Over the course of the twentieth century, it increased the designer’s dependency on handbooks and manuals, which central - ized and homogenized the production of architectural knowledge. It stimulated the spread of design systems, which regulated archi - tectural decision-making across multiple scales. It routinized the activities of the designer, which enforced time-saving work habits. It allowed the architect to exploit economies of scale, which fostered vertical integration. It reimagined the “art of building” (Vitruvius) as a system for organizing and arranging dimensional norms, which interpolated the architect as a kind of “computer”—that is, as some - one who calculates, computes, and organizes. Finally, it anticipated the phenomenon of digital design, which replaces the drafting table with the programmable “black box”—that is, the computer interface that reduces the architectural drawing to a series of algo - rithmic protocols. 56 Standardization is also linked to normalization, at least to the extent that both express social—and not just technological—aims and aspirations. Both participate in the design of design through encyclopedias and handbooks as well as schools and universities. Both use “invisible” tools and technologies in an effort to coordinate, which is to say rationalize, how consumers and producers interact across time and space. The history of standardization is thus the history of the institu -

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/GREY_a_00125 by guest on 28 September 2021 tionalization , even fetishization, of normalization; it is a story that maps the uncanny power of standards-issuing organizations such as DIN. The fact that A4 paper became the twentieth century’s “stan - dard” standard is a product of the complex ways in which the design, organization, and production of knowledge have been inti - mately interwoven. That Neufert’s own experiments in developing “standard format” bricks took place against the backdrop of the Second World War also confirms that the normalization of architec - tural standards is closely tied to the militarization of the nation-state: both involved the economization of the usage of all available energy (both human and nonhuman) in a radical way. This is not to suggest that the Bauentwurfslehre is a politically reactionary text—or, for that matter, that standardization is necessarily an instrument of war. On the contrary, the project of Normierung only intensified once the Nazis fell from power. Acknowledging these connections is to insist that power, planning, and design are intimately linked, and that any study that aims to inventory their relationship in twentieth-century culture must take account of the rise of standards organizations generally and handbooks such as the Bauentwurfslehre more specif - ically. Such a project not only helps disentangle the commodity fetishes that underwrite much of the scholarship on standardization; it affords one a view of the fantasies that persist about it in contem - porary design.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/GREY_a_00125 by guest on 28 September 2021 Notes I thank the Grey Room editors for their outstanding editorial feedback. I am also grateful to Keller Easterling, whose “Extrastatecraft” seminars at the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht inspired this study. All translations are by the author unless otherwise noted.

1. See, for example, Henry-Russell Hitchcock Jr., Modern Architecture: Romanticism and Reintegration (New York: Payson and Clarke, 1929), 192–193. See also, Sigfried Giedion, Mechanization Takes Command: A Contribution to Anonymous History (New York: W.W. Norton, 1975), 32. 2. Reyner Banham, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age (Cambridge: MIT, 1980), 72; and Joan Campbell, The German Werkbund : The Politics of Reform in the Applied Arts (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978), 57–68. 3. Georges Canguilhem, Le normal et le pathologique (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France , 1991); and Michel Foucault, Il faut défendre la société (Paris: Gallimard, 1997). 4. In this essay, Normung and Normierung are used interchangeably. For a nuanced discussion of their historical and semantic differences, see Jürgen Link, Versuch über den Normalismus: Wie Normalität Produziert wird (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht , 2006). 5. See Jürgen Link and Mirko Hall, “From the ‘Power of the Norm’ to ‘Flexible Normalism’: Considerations after Foucault,” Cultural Critique 57 (Spring 2004): 15. France’s official standardizing body is known as the Association Française de Normalisation . 6. François Ewald, “Norms, Discipline, and the Law,” Representations 30 (Spring 1990): 149. 7. For a discussion of energetics, see Anson Rabinbach, The Human Motor: Energy, Fatigue, and the Origins of Modernity (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990), 179–182. For a treatment of Taylorism and modern archi - tecture in France, see Mary McLeod, “‘Architecture or Revolution’: Taylorism, Technocracy and Social Change,” Art Journal 43, no. 2 (1983): 132–147. For a dis - cussion of Taylorism and its impact on architecture culture in the United States, see Michael Osman, “Regulation, Architecture and Modernism in the United States, 1890–1920” (Ph.D. diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2008). 8. For practical reasons, I treat the first and third editions of the Bauentwurfslehre interchangeably. Although not ideal, this is probably warranted. The only difference between the two (according to Neufert) is that in the second and third editions the “section titled ‘Construction Management’ has been lengthened by four pages.” Ernst Neufert, Bauentwurfslehre , 3rd ed. (Berlin: Bauwelt-Verlag, 1936), 3. 9. For a historical overview of Ramsey and Sleeper’s book, see George Barnett Johnston, Drafting Culture: A Social History of Architectural Graphic Standards (Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2008). 10. Gernot Weckherlin, “ B.au E.ntwurfs L.ehre: Zur Systematisierung des Architektonischen Wissens,” in Ernst Neufert: Normierte Baukultur im 20. Jahrhundert , ed. Walter Prigge (Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 1999), 313–328. 11. Mine is not the first reading of Neufert’s work that draws upon the writings of Foucault and Canguilhem. See, for example, Ute Gerhard and Jürgen Link, “‘Normativ’ oder ‘normal’? Diskursgeschichtliches mit Blick auf das ‘Neue Bauen,’” in Ernst Neufert , 313–328; and John Harwood, “The Interface: Ergonomics and the Aesthetics of Survival,” in Governing by Design: Architecture, Economy, and

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/GREY_a_00125 by guest on 28 September 2021 Politics in the Twentieth Century , ed. Aggregate (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012). 12. DIN has assumed a number of different names from the time it was founded in 1917; it started as the Normenausschuss der deutschen Industrie and was renamed the Deutscher Normenausschuss in 1926, assuming its current name in 1975. For the purposes of simplicity, I use DIN throughout this essay. 13. That Die Brücke was well known in graphic design circles during the 1920s is evident from Jan Tschichold’s remarks in Die neue Typographie . See Jan Tschichold, The New Typography: A Handbook for Modern Designers , trans. Ruari Mclean (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998), 96–97. 14. “. . . die einzelnen geistigen Produktionen, die gleichsam auf getrennten Inseln entstehen, durch ein dafür besonders geschaffenes verbindendes Organ zu harmonischer und dadurch wirksamer Arbeit zu vereinigen. ” Wilhelm Ostwald, Der energetische Imperativ (Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft , 1912), 244. 15. Thomas Hapke, “Roots of Mediating Information: Aspects of the German Information Movement,” in European Modernism and the Information Society: Informing the Present, Understanding the Past , ed. Boyd Rayward (London: Ashgate, 2008), 314. 16. See Markus Krajewski, Paper Machines: About Cards and Catalogs, 1548–1929 , trans. Peter Krapp (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011), 116. 17. “ Und Sozialisierung oder Vergesellschaftung kann nicht stattfinden ohne die Zugrundelegung von Normen , von übereinstimmenden Konventionen .” Wilhelm Ostwald, “ Normen,” in Der Verkehr: Jahrbuch des Deutschen Werkbundes 1914 (Jena: Eugen Diederichs , 1914), 77. 18. Aristotle offers his “social animal” thesis in book 1 of the Politics . See Ernest Barker, ed. and trans., The Politics of Aristotle (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1958), 1–38. 19. “Wenn man organisieren will, so kann man dies immer nur dadurch ausfüh - ren, daß man zunächst eine Einheit und Koordination in den alleralltäglichsten, häufigsten und daher mit dem geringsten Nachdenken bedachten Funktionen ein - treten läßt .” Ostwald, Der energetische Imperativ , 17. 20. The history of the standardization of paper in Germany probably began in the late-eighteenth century, when Georg Christoph Lichtenberg first advanced the notion that a constant ratio (namely, 1 :√2) could govern the dimensions of all books. See Robin Kinross, Modern Typography: An Essay in Critical History (London: Hyphen, 2004), 31. 21. “Jeder Blick in eine gegenwärtige Bibliothek gewährt dem künsterlischen Auge ein geradezu beleidigendes Schauspiel. Die stil- und regellose Mannigfaltigkeit der Büchergrößen, die durch keinen durchgehenden oder organischen Gedanken zusammengehalten wird, ist nichts als eine Rohheit, ein Zeichen mangelnder Kultur und wird von jedem Unbefangenen als solche empfunden. ” Ostwald, “Normen,” 82. 22. Tschichold, 99–100. Tschichold reports that he is directly quoting DIN’s manual Formate und Vordrucke (1926) when he offers these remarks. 23. For a history of DIN, see Thomas Wölker, Entstehung und Entwicklung des deutschen Normenausschusses 1917 bis 1925 (Cologne: Beuth Verlag, 1992). 24. See, for example, August Endell, “ Die Strasse als künstlerisches Gebilde,” in Der Verkehr , 18–23. It needs to be stressed here again that the challenges posed by Normierung were likely only of secondary importance to the Deutscher Werkbund. Indeed, the famous row between Muthesius and van de Velde concerned itself with

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/GREY_a_00125 by guest on 28 September 2021 typification ( Typisierung ) and not standardization ( Normierung ), as is commonly believed. This is not to say Normierung was not among the Werkbund’s concerns. Its leadership (Behrens and Muthesius most specifically) had close affiliations with Die Brücke, as Ostwald notes in his autobiography. They were also involved with the Ausschuß für Bauwesen , which was a subcommittee within the Normenausschuss der deutschen Industrie (which eventually became known as DIN). However, claims that the Werkbund were the driving force behind debates about standardization are mostly untrue, particularly when compared to the contributions of Die Brücke. See 40 Jahre Baunormung 1917 –1957; 10 Jahre Fachnormenausschuss Bauwesen im Deutschen Normenausschuss 1947 –1957 (Bamberg: Fachnormenausschuss Bauwesen im Deutschen Normenausschuss, 1957), 6 –7; see also, Wilhelm Ostwald, Lebenslinien: Eine Selbstbiographie , vol. 3 (Berlin: Klasing & Co., 1927), 299. 25. See Walter Porstmann, Sprache und Schrift (Berlin: Verlag des Vereins Deutscher Ingenieure , 1920). See also, Robin Kinross, “Introduction to the English- Language Edition,” in Jan Tschichold, The New Typography , xxxi. 26. See, for example, Büronormung: Heft 1 (Holzmöbel) (n.p.: Fabriknorm GmbH, 1928). 27. “Normformate bilden heute die Grundlage für die Abmessungen der Schreibmöbel, und Schriftgutbehälter. Diese wiederum sind mitbestimmend für die Abmessungen der Räume. “Genaue Kenntnis der Normformate (=DINformate) ist daher für den Baumeister wichtig.” Neufert, Bauentwurfslehre , 3rd ed., 12. 28. See, for example, Ernst Neufert to Walter Porstmann, 18 December 1944, in the private collection of Bernd Freese. 29. See Dörte Nicolaisen, Das andere Bauhaus: Otto Bartning und die Staatliche Bauhochschule Weimar, 1926–1930 (Berlin: Kupfeergraben , 1996). 30. See Donald Drew Egbert, The Beaux-Arts Tradition in French Architecture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980), 11–35. 31. Gernot Weckherlin, “Ernst Neufert’s Architect’s Data: Anxiety, Creativity and Authorial Abdication,” in Architecture and Authorship , ed. Tim Anstey et al. (London: Black Dog Publishing, 2007), 151. 32. “Montag, den 29. Oktober 1928. Früh 8 Uhr. Der Leiter des Kurses spricht über die Gebäudegattung ‘Schulen’ und entwickelt aus ihrem pädagogischen und menschlichen Sinn wirtschaftliche, organisatorische und räumliche Fragen an Hand von Beispielen ausgeführter Bauten der jüngsten Epoche. Dann wählt der Leiter eine enger begrenzte Aufgabe und entwickelt gemeinsam mit dem Hörern das Programm: Für ein vor kurzem besichtigtes Baugelände ist der Neubau der Bauhochschule zu entwerfen. Es sind Lehrwerkstätten und Wohnateliers anzuschliessen. Der Raumbedarf ist den Studierenden bekannt. 3 Stunden Zeit zu intensiver Arbeit. Dann werden die Entwürfe eingesammelt. Am nächsten Morgen: Der Leiter führt die inzwischen durchgesehenen Blätter nach einem gewissen Zusammenhang am Epidiaskop vor und jeder Verfasser muß seinen Entwurf in freier Rede erläutern und verteidigen (denn eine scharfe Kritik—erst der Mitstudierenden, dann des Leiters—setzt ein) wie ja auch später im Beruf der Architekt eine Gedanken dem Bauherrn gegenüber zu vertreten hat. Der Entwurf wird in den freien Stunden der darauffolgenden Woche durchgear - beitet. ” Werner Gräff, ed., Staatliche Bauhochschule Weimar (Weimar: Verlag Staatliche Bauhochschule, 1929), 8.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/GREY_a_00125 by guest on 28 September 2021 33. For a discussion of “ Raum ” in German modernism, see Adrian Forty, Words and Buildings: A Vocabulary of Modern Architecture (New York: Thames and Hudson, 2000), 256–275. 34. “Mittelfinger nicht unter den Stift drücken. ” Neufert, Bauentwurfslehre , 3rd ed., 21 . 35. Tschichold, 64. 36. Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” in Illuminations , ed. Hannah Arendt, trans. Harry Zohn (New York: Schocken Books, 1968), 239. 37. “Der Deutsche Normenausschuß stellte die Normenblätter zur Verfügung, die auszugsweise in gekürzter oder gedrängter Form eingeflochten sind.” Neufert, Bauentwurfslehre , 3rd ed., 3. 38. “Als Abort im Bad sollte man den Tiefspülabort vorziehen, weil hier der Kot sofort geruchlos im Wasser untertaucht.” Neufert, Bauentwurfslehre , 3rd ed., 122. 39. “Der Wärmestand im Leichenhaus ≥2° –≥12°, nie darunter, weil Frost die Leichen ausdehnt und sprengen kann .” Neufert, Bauentwurfslehre , 3rd ed., 271. 40. “Waschbecken in Schlafzimmern sind zu meiden, sie stören die Einrichtung, sind geräuschvoll und die Umgebung wird bespritzt und beschmutzt.” Neufert, Bauentwurfslehre , 3rd ed., 123. 41. For a more elaborate discussion of the sexual politics of the Bauentwurfslehre , see Kerstin Dörhöfer, “ Der ‘männliche’ Blick in der Bauentwurfslehre ,” in Ernst Neufert , 159–167. For an analysis of gender, modernism, and the Frankfurt Kitchen, see Susan R. Henderson, “A Revolution in the Woman’s Sphere: Grete Lihotzky and the Frankfurt Kitchen,” in Architecture and Feminism , ed. Debra Coleman et al. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996), 221–253. 42. Ernst Neufert, Bauentwurfslehre , 3rd ed., 3. 43. Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich at War (New York: Penguin Books, 2008), 656. 44. Paul Virilio, “The Suicidal State,” in The Virilio Reader , ed. James Der Derian (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1998), 34. 45. Ernst Neufert, Bauentwurfslehre , 11th ed. (Berlin: Bauwelt-Verlag, 1944), 5. 46. “DER TOTALE KRIEG ZWINGT ZUR KONZENTRATION ALLER KRÄFTE AUCH IM BAUWESEN . WEITGEHENDE VEREINHEITLICHUNG ZUR EINSPARUNG TECHNISCHER KRÄFTE UND ZUM AUFBAU RATIONELLER SERIENFERTIGUNG IST DIE VORAUSSETZUNG ZU EINER LEISTUNGSSTEIGERUNG , DIE ZUR BEWÄLTIGUNG UNSERER GROSSEN BAUAUFGABEN ERFORDERLICH IST . “BEI DIESER NEUORDNUNG KONNTE MAN EBENSOWENIG VON ZUFÄLLIG VORHANDENEN ABMESSUNGEN DER BAUTEILE AUSGEHEN UND DURCH PARLAMENTARISCHES VERHANDELN DER BETEILIGTEN HERSTELLERGRUPPEN DIE NORMENABMESSUNGEN BESTIMMEN , SONDERN MAN MUSSTE MIT FESTER HAND UNTER MITARBEIT DER INDUSTRIE ZUERST EINE BAUORDNUNG IM WEITESTEN SINNE DES WORTES AUFBAUEN , DIE DEM PLANER , DEM HERSTELLER UND DEN MÄNNERN AM BAU IN GLEICHER WEISE DAS ARBEITEN ERLEICHTERT UND DIE PASSFÄHIGKEIT DER TEILE UNTEREINANDER GEWÄHRLEISTET . “PROFESSOR ERNST NEUFERT , DER SICH ALS MEIN BEUFTRAGTER FÜR NORMUNGSFRAGEN IM BAUWESEN DIESER VERANTWORTUNGSVOLLEN AUFGABE WIDMETE , LEGT HIER DEN ERSTEN NIEDERSCHLAG SEINER ZUSAMMENARBEIT MIT DEN FORTSCHRITTLICHEN UND AKTIVEN WIRTSCHAFTSGRUPPEN UND FIRMEN VOR .” Albert Speer, preface to Ernst Neufert, Bauordnungslehre , ed. Albert Speer (Berlin: Volk und Reich Verlag, 1943), 3. 47. “Im Weltkrieg entstand auch die Normenlehre von Porstmann . . . die heute noch so aktuell ist wie dazumal. Nach dem Weltkrieg wurden die Normungszahlen . . . gefunden, die als übergeordnetes Maßsystem die Maße der Normenteile verein -

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/GREY_a_00125 by guest on 28 September 2021 heitlichen, richtig stufen und so in zweckmäßige Beziehungen bringen. “Inzwischen ist eine große Normenliteratur entstanden, die eigentlich alle technischen Gebiete umfaßt mit Ausnahme des Bauwesens.” Neufert, Bauordnungslehre , 10. 48. “ In dem massenweiseaufgelegten Heft ‘Einführung in die DIN-Normen . . . wurden mir in der über 200 Seiten dicken Schrift am Schluß vor der ‘Textilwirtschaft’ in der 6. Auflage 2½ Seiten zur Verfügung gestellt. In den vorher - gehenden Auflagen wurde die Baunormung nicht einmal erwähnt.” Neufert, Bauordnungslehre , 10. 49. “Die fortgesetzte Halbierungsmöglichkeit der Normenblätter unter gleichem Seitenverhältnis, die Dr. Porstmann s. Zt. durchsetzte, hat nicht zuletzt, neben anderen einleuchtenden Vorteilen, zur überwältigenden Durchsetzung dieser Formatordnung auch in außerdeutschen Ländern beigetragen. . . . Für die Normung im Bauwesen ist diese Hälftelungsreihe genau so wichtig, nur trat sie in der ‘regel’losen Bauplanung der letzten Jahrzehnte nicht so stark in Erscheinung wie in den klassischen Bauepochen. “Ein besonders gutes Beispiel aus dieser Zeit zeigt der Grundriß eines Palazzos des bekannten Renaissancearchitekten A.B. Palladio. “Hier sind die Räume um die Eingangshallen in den Raumfolge auf beiden Seiten so gestaltet, daß jeder folgende Raum ½ so groß ist wie der vorhergehende Raum.” Neufert, Bauordnungslehre , 23–24. 50. Jean-Louis Cohen, Architecture in Uniform: Designing and Building for the Second World War (Paris: Editions Hazan and the Canadian Centre for Architecture, 2011), 310. 51. Cohen, 310. 52. Neufert, Bauordnungslehre , 358. 53. Gerd Kuhn, “Die Spur der Steine: Norm-Ziegel, Oktametersystem und ‘Maszstab Mensch,’” in Ernst Neufert , 346. 54. Cohen, 310. 55. Kuhn, “ Die Spur der Steine,“ 352. 56. Today, standards underpin the design of computer-aided design, building- information modeling, and other such software applications. Moreover, the rapid assimilation of these and other tools over the last twenty years would likely not have been possible without texts such as the Bauentwurfslehre . The project of standard - ization is intimately tied to what Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri term informa - tionization . Furthermore, standardization and informationization are both the progeny of an encyclopedic project whose beginnings can be traced back to the Enlightenment. For a discussion of informationization, see Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), 284–289.

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