This article forms part of the Decorative and Applied Arts Encyclopedia, a master reference hub providing a structured overview of design history, materials, movements, and practitioners.
Der Ring was an association of modern architects established in Berlin in 1926. It brought together designers concerned with contemporary building problems, but its members did not all design in the same way. Understanding the group requires attention to their professional cooperation as well as the differences between their buildings.
Hugo Häring and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe were central to its formation. Architekturzentrum Wien’s account traces their earlier Zehnerring association to 1923–1924 and records Häring as Der Ring’s secretary in 1926. The organisation belongs to the history of Neues Bauen, the movement for new approaches to building in interwar Germany.
Der Ring as a working association
An archival record offers a concrete view of the group’s activity. The Akademie der Künste preserves a circular from Häring to Ring members dated 30 September 1926. Its catalogue describes disagreements between the Werkbund and Der Ring over fee arrangements for sixty housing units in Stuttgart, together with a draft letter to the city.
This was more than an abstract preference for clean lines. Architects also needed to negotiate commissions, professional terms and relationships with public authorities. The catalogue records that practical discussion; it should not be mistaken for a complete transcription of the surviving correspondence.
Häring later represented Der Ring at the founding of the Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne in La Sarraz in 1928, according to Architekturzentrum Wien. The connection places the association within wider architectural debate without making it identical to CIAM or the Bauhaus.
Different meanings of function
MoMA’s account of Häring’s Gut Garkau project draws a useful distinction. Mies sought simple spaces with broad possibilities of use, while Häring developed forms around particular activities and requirements. Both could discuss architectural fundamentals without arriving at the same spatial solution.
Häring’s organic functionalism treated form as something to discover through the building’s purpose. The Gut Garkau farmhouse drawing in MoMA’s collection is a project, dated 1922–1926. The museum notes that the cowshed and barn were built, while the farmhouse shown in the drawing was not. A design proposal and a completed building provide different kinds of evidence.
Siemensstadt: shared project, varied buildings
Berlin’s Siemensstadt housing estate provides a built setting for comparing several architects associated with the group. The official heritage record names Otto Bartning, Fred Forbát, Walter Gropius, Hugo Häring, Paul Rudolf Henning and Hans Scharoun among its principal designers.
The buildings are not interchangeable. Gropius’s repeated units and angular outlines contrast with Häring’s curved balconies and warmer materials. Bartning’s long boundary block helps define and shelter the estate’s interior. These choices show how questions of light, outdoor space and housing layout could produce different forms within a shared development.
Dates also need care. The heritage record distinguishes the early construction from Henning’s later work in 1933–1934 and other subsequent additions. A date for the whole listed ensemble does not mean every component was designed or completed at once.
Architecture and the applied arts
Several Ring members also worked on interiors, furniture or other designed objects. Those individual practices are relevant to the wider history of modern design. They do not, by themselves, establish a collective Der Ring furniture programme or prove that the association directly caused every later development in lighting, textiles or household products.
The useful connection is between building, use and the design of everyday surroundings. It is best explored through documented projects and identified objects, with authorship and dates attached to each example.
The opening interior image is retained as an illustration. Its building, architect and connection to Der Ring have not been established, so it should not be read as a documented work by the association.
Further reading: furniture design and lighting design.
Sources and provenance
Historical evidence consulted: MoMA, Gut Garkau project record825.2005; Architekturzentrum Wien, Hugo Häring biography; Akademie der Künste, Ring14catalogue via Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek; Landesdenkmalamt Berlin, Siemensstadt heritage record09040492. Links appear in the relevant discussion. The original archival correspondence has not been transcribed for this article.
The earlier version listed OpenAI, ChatGPT (2024). This records its prior generation provenance and is not a historical source for the revised claims.
