The construction of public buildings in post-war Germany was motivated by the desire to wipe the slate clean and create a new sense of national identity. The architectural legacy of West Germany after 1949, which is characterised by stones, glass and concrete, illustrates this search for an identity and testifies to the social transformation of that era.

Involved early on in the efforts to rebuild Germany after the war, the architect Bruno Lambert turned his focus to public buildings. From his office in Düsseldorf, where he worked alongside Günter Behnisch up until 1959, he designed city halls, community centres and administrative buildings. Making a name for himself as a specialist in school and university buildings, he tried to balance the interests of building owners and users and to create a harmonious link between scale and setting.

The architectural historian Alexandra Apfelbaum has studied Bruno Lambart’s estate and created the first comprehensive inventory of his completed and his planned building projects between 1949 and 1990. Apart from serving as an impressive reference work, her book also gives an account of Bruno Lambart’s life and of his architectural ideas in the context of his time.

Having passed away in 2014 at the age of ninety, Bruno Lambart’s architectural œuvre of around 540 completed and planned buildings sheds a new light on West Germany’s architectural legacy.