Hardt-Waltherr Hämer was not only an architect and university lecturer and instrumental in saving the student village Schlachtensee. He was much more: he was an inventor of cautious urban renewal, a theatre builder, erected the theatre in Ingolstadt and the Paderhalle in Paderborn, built his first work, the Schifferkirche in Ahrenshoop, until his 90th birthday, and was above all one of the initiators of a change in strategy in dealing with the built city and its historic quarters. “A future for our past” was the motto of the first European Year of Monument Protection in 1975 – and the densely built-up neighbourhoods in Berlin-Kreuzberg, Wedding and Charlottenburg should also have a future. Together with tenants, district activists and planners, Hämer set about a different approach to the city and a cautious further development of historically grown quarters. As co-director of the International Building Exhibition (IBA-Alt), following his understanding of inner-city development, he suggested new solutions for very liveable neighbourhoods and made it possible to stabilise neighbourhood communities. As vice-president of the Academy of Arts, he and Walter Jens were largely responsible for the unification process of the two academies in East and West. Hämer died in Ahrenshoop on 27 September 2012.
The 100th anniversary of his birth on 13 April 2022 is the occasion for a festive event in the student village Schlachtensee, which was one of Hämer’s last places of work, along with the renovation of the Ingolstadt Theatre and the Schifferkirche in Ahrenshoop.