Ernst Neufert.

Bauentwurfslehre, 1936.
Title page.

34 doi:10.1162/GREY_a_00125
 Standardization
Reconsidered: Normierung
in and after Ernst Neufert’s
Bauentwurfslehre (1936)
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 normalisation and
the English word normalization as interchangeable (they are not).
They also tend to privilege the role that statistics play in generating
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 plausi-
ble 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
century. 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-

Grey Room 54, Winter 2014, pp. 34–55. © 2014 Grey Room, Inc. and Massachusetts Institute of Technology 35
 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. Along with Charles Ramsey
and Harold Sleeper’s Architectural Graphic Standards (1932), it is
the most important book on architectural standards ever written.8 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.” 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 Räume
und Einrichtungen), and “Building Types” (Gebäudekunde). 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.9 For the better part of the 1920s and
1930s, Germany’s leading standards organizations (e.g., the Deutsches
Institut für Normung, or DIN) paid only marginal attention to archi-
tecture.10 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 into DIN handbooks 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 nonin-
dustrialized world).

36 Grey Room 54
 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-cen-
tury 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).11 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.” 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 “the
central agency in which would be created a comprehensive, collab-
oratively compiled and illustrated world encyclopedia on sheets of
standardized format.” 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. 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.”12 Following Aristotle, Ostwald
felt that socialization was linked to self-realization, that to be human
was precisely to be a “social animal.”13 Furthermore, Normierung
was the force he believed would help guarantee stability and peace.

Vossoughian | Standardization Reconsidered: Normierung in and after Ernst Neufert’s Bauentwurfslehre (1936) 37
 Walter Porstmann, DIN Buch 1:
Normformate, 1930. Cover.

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.
Of its many undertakings, Die Brücke’s most successful was its
effort to develop a system for standardizing the dimensions of
paper.14 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
[Schauspiel],” 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.”15 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.”16
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
almost entirely 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

38 Grey Room 54
 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.17 Visibility also
blunted the criticisms of Normierung that
had been voiced by the Jugendstil wing of the
Deutscher Werkbund.18 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.19 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.20
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.” 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.21

Vossoughian | Standardization Reconsidered: Normierung in and after Ernst Neufert’s Bauentwurfslehre (1936) 39
Schnellentwerfen
Neufert learned from his encounter with the new
paper formats that rapid circulation of informa-
tion (i.e., the decentralization of access to
information) can foster the standardization of
knowledge (i.e., the concentration of the produc-
tion 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.22 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.”23
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.” 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 catalog 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

40 Grey Room 54
Werner Gräff, ed. Staatliche
Bauhochschule Weimar, 1929.
Example of student work from
Neufert’s Schnellentwerfen
course; on the upper-left corner
of the page, students at work.

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 a 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.
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 market place. 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 and emphasizes a Cartesian
understanding of architectural space, one that privileges the Loosian
idea of space as enclosure.24 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

Vossoughian | Standardization Reconsidered: Normierung in and after Ernst Neufert’s Bauentwurfslehre (1936) 41
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.
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.”25 The volume was
designed so that it can be read “in a state of distraction,” to use
Walter Benjamin’s language.26 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-

42 Grey Room 54
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
for household rooms building types is encyclopedic, which simplifies the research
[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.
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.” The temperature in a morgue

Vossoughian | Standardization Reconsidered: Normierung in and after Ernst Neufert’s Bauentwurfslehre (1936) 43
 Ernst Neufert. Bauentwurfslehre,
1936. Dimensional standards for
the human [der Mensch].

should always stand between two and twelve degrees centigrade

(“frost expands the corpses and can cause them to burst,” Neufert
writes). Sinks should never be installed in bedrooms, because they
“disturb the furnishings, are noisy, and cause dirtiness and wetness.”
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 rooms.
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.
The Bauentwurfslehre’s initial “translation” of standard paper
formats was only partly successful. On the one hand, 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). 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. 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.” Similarly, the Bauentwurfslehre strengthened the state’s
oversight of design practice. Neufert’s publisher (Bauwelt-Verlag)

44 Grey Room 54
 was convinced of this point and suggests as
much in its opening remarks to the 1944 edi-
tion of the Bauentwurfslehre. 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
purpose of economizing technical powers
and building mass production systems, is
the prerequisite for improving productiv-
ity, which is necessary for the purpose of
conquering 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 colla-
boration with progressive and active economic groups and
factories.
On the other hand, the Bauentwurfslehre did not have the same
resounding impact that standard paper formats had had: it did not
succeed in normalizing the use of standards 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.

Vossoughian | Standardization Reconsidered: Normierung in and after Ernst Neufert’s Bauentwurfslehre (1936) 45
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 2 ½ pages
in the 6th edition were allotted to me. In the previous edition build-
ing standards were not mentioned even once,” he notes.
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.
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.”27 Neufert’s bricks have a length of

46 Grey Room 54
 twenty-four centimeters and a width of
eleven-and-one-half centimeters (with
one centimeter allotted for joint thickness
along each axis). 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.
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
Leading Countries.” run vertically or horizontally across it. Octametric bricks create grids
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 countess 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.
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 catalog 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

Vossoughian | Standardization Reconsidered: Normierung in and after Ernst Neufert’s Bauentwurfslehre (1936) 47
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. 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.
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

48 Grey Room 54
Ernst Neufert. Bauordnungslehre,
1943. “Octametric Bricks
[Oktametersteine] and Standard
Format.”

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.28
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-

Vossoughian | Standardization Reconsidered: Normierung in and after Ernst Neufert’s Bauentwurfslehre (1936) 49
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.

50 Grey Room 54
 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: 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

Vossoughian | Standardization Reconsidered: Normierung in and after Ernst Neufert’s Bauentwurfslehre (1936) 51
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: 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

52 Grey Room 54
 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: A Handbook for
Modern Designers, trans. Ruari McLean (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
California Press, 1998), 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. [new paragraph] 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, December 18, 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: [new paragraph] 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 durchgearbeitet.” Werner
Gräff, ed., Staatliche Bauhochschule Weimar (Weimar: Verlag Staatliche
Bauhochschule, 1929), 8.

Vossoughian | Standardization Reconsidered: Normierung in and after Ernst Neufert’s Bauentwurfslehre (1936) 53
 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. [NEW PARAGRAPH]
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. [NEW PARAGRAPH] PROFESSOR ERNST NEUFERT,
DER SICH ALS MEIN BEUFTRAGTER FÜR NORMUNGSFRAGEN IM BAUWESEN DIESER VERANTWOR-
TUNGSVOLLEN AUFGABE WIDMETE, LEGT HIER DEN ERSTEN NIEDERSCHLAG SEINER ZUSAMME-
NARBEIT 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-

54 Grey Room 54
 heitlichen, richtig stufen und so in zweckmäßige Beziehungen bringen. [new para-
graph] 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 2 ½ 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. [new paragraph] Ein besonders gutes Beispiel aus die-
ser Zeit zeigt der Grundriß eines Palazzos des bekannten Renaissancearchitekten
A.B. Palladio [new paragraph] 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: Harvard University Press, 2000), 284–289.

Vossoughian | Standardization Reconsidered: Normierung in and after Ernst Neufert’s Bauentwurfslehre (1936) 55