“How nice that you are all here and we wish you a really nice evening here in the building forum,” says Dr. Muriel Kim Helbig, President of the TH Lübeck, the ceremony in front of around 170 invited guests. The event on May 30, 2022 is the starting point of the festival week to mark the 125th anniversary of the construction industry in Lübeck. Under the motto “From master to master”, the genesis of the construction qualification from the historic Lübeck building trades school to today’s TH Lübeck is celebrated. In addition, the civil engineering department will present its vision for the future.
Building tradition in Lübeck
The mayor of the Hanseatic city of Lübeck, Jan Lindenau, looks far back into the past. Building in Lübeck was as early as the 13th century, albeit more according to the “learning by doing” principle. Institutionalization took place in 1896 with the founding of the building trades school. On his birthday, the mayor presents a facsimile of the official Senate resolution on the founding and equipment of the construction school.
Many thanks for many cooperations, many thanks for many inspiring impulses that have advanced the city and many thanks for the existing cooperations. We are pleased that TH Lübeck is located in the middle of our growing city, says Lindenau.
Joachim Heisel, senior professor of the department, brings 200 years of history to life. He outlines the development from the Freyen drawing school to today’s TH Lübeck. In particular, Heisel emphasizes the great importance of the design and technical components for what was then Lower Germany. You can find the complete chronicle at: www.th-luebeck.de/125-years-building-in-luebeck.
Highly attractive location for construction
But not only the past, but also the present and the future of the construction industry in Lübeck are discussed:
“At the TH Lübeck we combine the construction industry in its depth and breadth. To this day we are proud of the interdisciplinary cooperation, international cooperation and regional roots.”, says Helbig, this has an impact on the entire federal territory, but especially on Schleswig-Holstein. “We are dependent on proven expertise and sufficient specialists in architecture and construction.” But Helbig also sees potential for development: two professorships for another master’s degree and drawing rooms are on the department’s wish list.
Oliver Grundei, State Secretary for Science and Culture, takes note of the wishes and congratulates the department. “The department was and is always close to practice,” praises the State Secretary. In particular, he positively emphasizes the coordination of the courses with each other, the quality of the research and the transfer.
The construction industry in Lübeck has always succeeded in getting the best out of the changing conditions. In this way, a highly attractive location for the construction industry has developed in Lübeck. I wish the Faculty of Civil Engineering that it continues to shape the change with so much passion and commitment.
Shaping the future with responsibility: New Lübeck Bauwesen
Stephan Wehrig, Dean of the department, takes up the constant change in his subsequent lecture: “We try to give the requirements of climate change, resource consumption, demographic change and digitization an appropriate, sustainable and identity-creating form”.
Frank Schwartze, Vice President of the Lübeck University of Applied Sciences and Professor of Urban Planning, emphasizes in his lecture on “New Lübeck Construction” the responsibility of the discipline.
We claim that we design our environment as a built environment – spatially, aesthetically and structurally. We are the architects of the Anthropocene, the man-made environment.
Schwartze explains that three elements should be decisive in the future actions of the department: the building stock, transformation and innovation. Students do not learn to choose the easier way of demolition, but to work with the existing buildings and to evaluate them in their complexity. In order to master the transformation, Schwartze emphasizes that, in addition to technical skills, conflicts must also be understood and endured and their creative power used for new ideas. New transdisciplinary teaching and learning concepts, such as the real building laboratory, are intended to turn students into experts in transformation. The innovation can be not only technical, but also cultural in nature. “The creative cooperation of the disciplines leads to urgently needed innovations for a sustainable and climate-friendly transformation of our built environment,” explains Schwartze.
The subsequent appointment of Dietmar Walberg as an honorary professor is consistent with this vision of the future. The proven expert for sustainable housing receives his certificate of appointment from the President.
The ceremony was accompanied by the saxophone ensemble of the non-profit music school Lübeck under the direction of Lilija Russanova.
The ceremony is the start of the week-long festival program with specialist symposiums, laboratory visits, the Lübeck construction day, factory exhibitions, inaugural lectures, live broadcasts for the Solar Decathlon Europe and much more. You can find the complete program at www.th-luebeck.de/125-years-building-in-luebeck.
Of the Department of Civil Engineering at the Technical University of Lübeck is one of the most qualified locations for the construction industry in northern Germany and, with its bachelor’s and master’s courses, enables internationally recognized studies. In teaching, research and transfer, he deals with a wide range of topics between people, nature, buildings, sustainability, climate protection, needs-based and healthy living spaces and urban structures. Around 1,200 students are enrolled in eight courses in the department.