Biographical Note

Hilde Weström (alternate spellings Westrom or Westroem, nee Eberle) was born in 1912 in Neisse, Upper Silesia, Germany (now part of Poland). She was one of the few women to enroll in the architectural program in 1932 at the Berlin-Charlottenburg Polytechnic Institute, where she studied under Heinrich Tessenow and Walter Andrea. Weström transferred to the Dresden Technical University in 1936. While still a student, she worked on the preservation and restoration of several churches.

After completing her studies in Dresden in 1938, Weström returned to Berlin. She established her own professional practice and married Jurgen Weström. In 1939, the first of her four children was born. Weström and her family moved to Breslau (now Wroclaw) in 1942, and returned to West Berlin at the end of World War II. She established an office and worked on designing toys and furniture. She also became involved in the evaluation and reconstruction or demolition of damaged buildings. Her interest in social housing projects was fueled by Berlin's need to rebuild after the war. Her public housing buildings were noted for their consideration for families and working mothers.

In 1952, Weström won a competition for her design of a housing project for the elderly in Berlin. In 1957, she designed a much-admired display apartment for the "City of Tomorrow" (die Stadt von Morgen) section of the international architectural exhibition "Interbau" that Berlin hosted. Over the next 30 years, Weström designed over 800 condominiums, apartment buildings, and subsidized housing units. She also entered and won numerous design competitions.

Though best known for designing functional and comfortable modern housing, Weström was interested in many facets of social building design, and in education and child development. She designed some schools, including an adaptive reuse project converting a bomb shelter into an elementary school (1950). She incorporated kindergarten and ballet spaces into social housing projects (1953). And she designed the Berlin- Zehlendorf kindergarten and music school and the Linthal school in Switzerland. She also designed housing for the elderly, student dormitories, and churches. Weström was interested in renovation and reuse of buildings as well as designing completely new structures.

Weström focused on the use of colors and forms to articulate space in all her projects. Her designs were at their most expressive when designing houses for poets and artists that incorporated their artistic goals, such as the home of Ursula Hanke-Forster, a Berlin sculptress (1964).

Weström retired in the mid 1980s, but continued to lead an active life, taking up painting and organizing a commemorative exhibition of works by her friend, artist Gerda Rotermund. Weström was a member of the BDA (Association of German Architects), GEDOK (Federation of Women Artists and Patrons of the Arts), UIFA (International Union of Women Architects), and IAWA (International Archive of Women in Architecture). In 2000, the Verborgene Museum at the Berlin-Pavilion held a retrospective exhibition of her work entitled "Hilde Weström - Structures 1947-1981."

For additional information, refer to the IAWA Database Entry for Hilde Weström.

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