Construction in demolition. Investigating post-war architecture in west Germany thanks to buildings pulling down

The paper proposes a review of a specific constructive system revealed in housing reconstruction in West Germany. The first reconstruction legislation oriented the production of social housing towards the application of a soft pre-fabrication and standardization. It’s happened according to the process of normalization started in Germany in the early XX century. A case of study, a social housing complex in Bonn, pulled down in 2014, has been a precious testimonial for that. The demolition has constituted an unique opportunity to investigate the constructive features. The three story building has been realized in order to obtain in a short time a temporary headoffice for the “Finanzamt” of Bonn. So the istitution and the company adopted a timber-frame construction in prefabricated wall panels. This patent permits the realization of more than 100 m2 per day. But the investigation on the object has not been aimed just on the recognition of the constructive characteristics. The studies revealed a strictly connection between the design, the identification of a building typology and the studies and the practices during the World War II. The authors devote much space to some examples of significant images of the constructive survey and especially delegate to them, and to the captions, the exposure of interesting construction system.