Hardt-Waltherr Hamer (13 April 1922 - 27 September 2012) was a German architect. He is considered the father of careful urban renewal. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts (HfbK), today Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) Berlin and at the State School of Architecture (today Bauhaus University) in Weimar. He cooperated with Hans and Wassilii Luckhardt in Berlin from 1949 to 1953 and from 1953 to 1957 with Gerhard Weber in Frankfurt am Main. From 1959 to 1985 he collaborated with his wife Marie-Brigitte Hamer. Important assignments were the planning and execution of the Stadttheater Ingolstadt (1961-1966) and the local Katharinen-Gymnasium (1967-1970).

Urban Renewal

Hamer initially engaged as part of a pilot project in the Berlin redevelopment area fountain street in the district Wedding from 1968. From 1972 to 1980 he worked on the urban renewal in the redevelopment area Klausenerplatz (SCK) in Berlin-Charlottenburg. From 1979 to 1985, Hamer was the planning director of the International Building Exhibition IBA Berlin 1987, responsible for the area of the so-called IBA with the focus on the cautious urban renewal of Kreuzberg. The contradictions of the traditional renovation and housing policy had been most strongly revealed at this time, with vacancies, demolition, housing shortages and squats on the one hand, speculation, displacement of the population and arrogant power politics on the other. Formulated in 1982 and confirmed in March 1983 by the Berlin House of Representatives " 12 Principles of Careful Urban Renewal" documented the farewell of the Berlin restructuring policy of the land and clear-cutting rehabilitation and move to a democratically organized small-scale urban renewal, taking into account grown structural and social structures. The 'Twelve Principles' were approved in 1983 by the Berlin House of Representatives and transferred by Kreuzberg to the rest of the redevelopment areas of West Berlin. They formed the basis of the "Senate Urban Renewal Guidelines" adopted by the Berlin Senate on August 31, 1993.

Hamer was one of the committed members of the Stadtforum Berlin, founded in 1991 . Together with four other international planning offices, Hardt-Waltherr Hamer was commissioned in 1992 to develop city ideas for Berlin as part of the Stadtforum. Under his leadership, an interdisciplinary working group (Bruno Flierl, Hardt-Waltherr Hamer, Erhart Pfotenhauer, Krista Tebbe, Peter Zlonicky) worked out the concept of a 'city contract'. What was meant by this was a city and social contract related to Rousseau's contrat social for a consensus-building development of the converging metropolis Berlin, booming over the course of years according to forecasts of that time.

In continuation of the work for the IBA, Hamer founded the STERN Gesellschaft der cautious urban renewal mbH in 1986. He was from 1986 to 1997 their partners and managing directors. Today, STERN is primarily a restructuring agent in several districts of Berlin, but also operates nationwide as a restructuring agency. STERN was u. a. In 1996 commissioned a feasibility study to investigate the further usability of the former KdF- Sea Prora on Rugen. From 1995 to 2003 Hardt-Waltherr Hamer was chairman of the scientific advisory board of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation and in 1998 its acting director.