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I t is a demand recently heard like a mantra that education should not be a privilege but available to everyone in
our society. Yet this idea of equal opportunities is not new. The school building shown here, the Osterburken all-
day grammar school, which I myself have attended from 1978 to 1987, has been inaugurated on 8th May 1972, exactly
50 years ago. The aim of the model school was to make it possible for children in the sparsely populated Neckar-
Odenwald-Kreis region characterized by agriculture to have access to general education in the form of completing A-
levels and GCSE levels. The all-day concept was to offer the students – above all the “externals” who came from a
perimeter of approximately 30 kilometres, the best possible concept of learning, working, recreation and habitat in-
cluding a canteen, homework supervision, funding programmes and room for privacy. Dr Elmar Weiß, teacher at
the Progymnasium, became the first principal of GTO and controlled its skills for a period of 30 years. He was aware
that all-day pedagogics required a corresponding type of architecture. In September 1967, the Berlin group of archi-
tects Bassenge, Puhan-Schulz and Schreck succeeded in winning the competition held nationwide.

What is the essence of this school? – Hugo Häring Prize 1972

In 1972, the year of its inauguration, GTO was awarded with the Hugo Häring Prize. From a distance, the structure
of reinforced concrete and steel corresponds to the large forms typical of the time of the 1960s and 1970s. Seen
from close up, directly on site, the ensemble positioned at the top of the slope turns out to be a staggered se-
quence of a sports field, a sports hall and indoor swimming pool, a terraced main building as well as the former Hof vor den Werkstätten • Courtyard in front of the workshops
flat of the caretaker. The architects gave an architectural form to the social-pedagogic idea of togetherness during
the all-day operation. The heart of the school is a large, light-flooded inner courtyard. Long before the name “mar- Split-Level Aula / Ebene +1 • Split level inner courtyard / level +1
ket square”, which is nowadays used in an inflationary way, this idea had here been implemented. From the ba-
lustrade on the upper floor, everyone could keep an eye on everything. This is where the open spirit of the school
concept and its architecture is most strongly manifested. The sitting steps in front of the stage in the auditorium
are always well occupied. The transparent shed roofs covering the entire construction make the school daylight-
bright and allow experiencing the change of the weather and the seasons. Between the entrance area and the
upper floor with the class- and the subject rooms, split levels run around the inner courtyard which are accessed
via diverse stairs: the “glass house” – a generously glazed room towards the outside and the inside, the teachers’
room, the transparent secretariat, the explicitly public library adjacent to the auditorium, the canteen which is
somewhat lower, the coat racks. Everything is visible, open, and free of thresholds from a psychological point of
view – from today’s point of view, however, anything but barrier-free. Despite its size, GTO is an example of in-
tuitive orientation thanks to its clear organization. Striking, colourful signage furthermore serves as the ordering
principle. The all-day grammar school resembles a small, diversified town that, besides learning, also offers a
variety of activities in the form of working groups, the school orchestra, the choir, theatre performances and dif-
ferent sports. Model projects do, however also have the crux and the privilege to be places of experimentation.
There was a lot of testing being done at GTO. Subject to testing were, above all, the windows that could not be
opened in an initially completely air-conditioned school or partition walls that were not sound-proof. The enclo- Split-Level Eingang, Aula / Ebene -1 • Split level entrance, inner courtyard
sed upstairs classrooms evenly illuminated through the shed roofs were to assist concentrating on learning. Some
of them still exist today. The rooms on the periphery, however, have been complemented with sunny yellow glass
fronts so that an all the more stimulating, cheerful atmosphere was produced in the interplay with the skylights.
It is the variety and the different qualities of rooms, levels, light moods, visual connections, the airiness of the
inner courtyard which made the all-day operation in GTO atmospherically so diversified. In the long term, as a
former teacher and now a pensioner tells, the school had functioned very well. A special feature is also the avai-
lability of outside spaces: large or more intimate places at various levels all around the school, a sitting arena,
the sports ground, the protected table-tennis area, the courtyard in front of the workshops …

The end of an era and the beginning of a new ...

By the time of the 20th anniversary in May 1985, almost 10 million deutschmarks had already been invested. After
more than four decades of operating the school, it could no longer be ignored that, as a relict from the 1970s, the
main building needed enormous renovations as to energy, technology and construction. The question of “renovation Obergeschoss: Klassentrakt • Upper floor: classroom wing
or new building?” was thoroughly and for a long time evaluated based on assessments. In 2017, the school board of
the district made the decision in favour of an extensive refurbishment. In the end, however, the pollution loads due
to PCB (polychlorinated biphenyls) in the yellow-painted steel elements meant the end of the plan to renovate. The
pollution load, not relevant in compound form, would have become a problem as soon as it was removed. The funds
will now be invested in a new building for future generations of students. The new school is to meet the require-
ments associated with a contemporary all-day operation according to the Lernhausprinzip (Learning-house principle)
– barrier-free, digital as well as energetically-technically up-to-date. An era is coming to an end and a new one is be-
ginning. In 2020, Muffler Architekten from Tuttlingen succeeded in winning the competition for the new building of
the grammar school which we present on the following pages. In any case, the principal Regina Krudewig-Bartel is
determined to keep the GTO open spirit and to further develop it. On 7th May, the 35-year class reunion of my A-le-
vels year will take place. One more time, we will together visit “our” grammar school. Among my former fellow
students are physicians, entrepreneurs, engineers, lawyers, pharmacists … others have achieved fulfilment in non-
academic professions. The educational concept worked.

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