About Bauhandwerk

Bauhandwerk

Bauhandwerk is the leading German trade media brand for the construction craft — the execution-oriented professional magazine and digital platform for the owners of craft businesses, master craftsmen and women, and technicians who work across trades in new construction, interior finishing and renovation. Published by Bauverlag BV GmbH in Gütersloh, it positions itself as the practical information source for the trades that actually build: every issue presents the "Baustelle des Monats" — the construction site of the month — portraying an outstanding building in a process-oriented way. Its topic sections cover drywall construction, plaster and stucco, thermal insulation composite systems and paint, insulation, building protection, adhesive bonding and sealing, windows and doors, and renovation and restoration. With the daily updated website bauhandwerk.de and its newsletter, the brand combines the print magazine's craft-practice authority with continuous digital coverage.

Overview

The construction craft is the industry's execution level: the plasterers, drywall builders, painters, tilers, insulation contractors, and facade specialists who translate plans and products into finished buildings. Their daily reality is the building site — the interfaces between trades, the material behavior under real conditions, the detail solutions that decide whether a building lasts. Bauhandwerk addresses this readership with a deliberately execution-oriented editorial concept: the professional magazine for the craft business owners and master craftsmen who work across trade boundaries in interior finishing and renovation, the segment where Germany's building stock is renewed and where the craft's expertise concentrates.

The magazine's structure follows the craft trades' working reality. The "Baustelle des Monats" — the construction site of the month — gives every issue its anchor: an outstanding building presented process-oriented, showing how the trades sequenced their work, solved the details, and handled the site's specific challenges. The topic rubrics mirror the trades' material world: Trockenbau (drywall), Putz und Stuck (plaster and stucco), WDVS and Farbe (thermal insulation composite systems and paint), Dämmung (insulation), Bautenschutz (building protection), Kleben und Dichten (adhesive bonding and sealing), Fenster und Türen (windows and doors), Sanieren und Restaurieren (renovation and restoration). The Betriebsführung section addresses the business side: the safety and health coordination (SiGeKo), the employee protection, and the management of the craft businesses. The Bauverlag's positioning statement makes the brand's rank explicit: bauhandwerk is the leading brand for specialist information for the craft business owners, master craftsmen and technicians who work across trades in new construction, interior finishing and renovation. That claim rests on the title's distinctive editorial posture. Unlike the architecture press, which treats the building as the design object, and unlike the industry press, which treats the building as the product application, Bauhandwerk treats the building as the craft's work — the site where the trades' knowledge, the materials' behavior, and the sequencing of the works determine the result. The construction-site-of-the-month format embodies this: a building is not reviewed for its architecture but examined for its execution — how it was built, by whom, in what order, with what solutions. This execution lens makes the magazine the interface between the manufacturers' product information and the craftsmen's application knowledge, and between the standards' requirements and the site's practical reality.

History

Bauhandwerk is one of the Bauverlag's established craft titles — the Gütersloh publishing house that has specialized in construction information for decades, with its portfolio spanning the architecture magazine Bauwelt, the DBZ Deutsche BauZeitschrift, dach+holzbau, and the craft titles. The magazine was developed for the craft trades' growing cross-trade reality: the interior finisher who must understand insulation, moisture protection, and fire safety; the facade specialist who navigates energy regulations and design; the renovation craftsman who works in the monument-protected building stock. As Germany's construction shifted from new construction toward building in stock — the energetic renovation of the existing buildings, the monument preservation — the execution-oriented craft information became the industry's critical resource, and Bauhandwerk built its authority on it.

The brand's development tracked the industry's material and regulatory transformations: the thermal insulation composite systems (WDVS) becoming the facade standard, the drywall construction's technical sophistication, the building protection's system thinking (the coordinated waterproofing assemblies), and the sustainability and circularity agenda entering the craft's daily work. The digital expansion — bauhandwerk.de as the daily news portal, the newsletter as the industry's briefing — complemented the print magazine's site-of-the-month authority with the continuous flow. Through the construction industry's cycles, from the new-construction booms to the renovation-dominant present, Bauhandwerk has remained the craft trades' professional companion.

Coverage and Content

The magazine's content follows the craft trades' material and site reality. The construction-site reportage — the "Baustelle des Monats" — shows the exemplary projects in their execution: the rammed-earth walls in the Hellerlecht open-air museum, the 24-meter-high room scaffolding for the Kohlrabizirkus dome renovation in Leipzig, the attic conversion in the historic Villa Michels, the listed concrete facade renovation of the Braunschweig city hall. These are process stories: how the trades sequenced the work, what the materials demanded, where the interfaces caused trouble and how they were solved.

The material and technique coverage addresses the trades' core knowledge: the WDVS design series (the Iron technique with mineral lightweight plaster), the building-protection system thinking (why earth-contact waterproofing only works as a system), the crack assessment (crack width, dynamics, and consequential damage), the knee protection selection for craftsmen. The business-management coverage treats the craft businesses' organizational reality: the SiGeKo (safety and health coordination) not as site policeman but as the crafts' benefit, the employee protection, and the digital tools (the 3D measurement, the AI projects, the building-code bot). The trade-fair and event coverage documents the industry's gatherings — the denkmal trade fair with MUTEC in Leipzig, the Knauf working days, the digitalBAU forums where the Bauverlag presents its lecture program. The product coverage presents the manufacturers' innovations relevant to the trades' daily work.

Organization and Ownership

Bauhandwerk is published by Bauverlag BV GmbH, the Gütersloh-based specialist publisher for construction information, headquartered at Friedrich-Ebert-Straße in Gütersloh. The managing directors are Michael Voss and Boris Schade-Bünsow. The editor responsible for bauhandwerk.de is Thomas Wieckhorst; Michaela Podschun edits both bauhandwerk and the sister title dach+holzbau. The Bauverlag's portfolio context — Bauwelt, DBZ Deutsche BauZeitschrift, BundesBauBlatt, dach+holzbau, BFT INTERNATIONAL, AT Mineral Processing — gives the craft title the publishing house's cross-media and event infrastructure.

Commercially, Bauhandwerk follows the B2B trade-press model: subscriptions from the craft businesses, advertising from the building-materials manufacturers whose products the readers specify and apply — the plaster and mortar systems, the drywall systems, the insulation and facade systems, the tools and workwear — plus the newsletter and online advertising. The readership — the craft business owners, master craftsmen and technicians working across trades in interior finishing and renovation — is the construction execution level's concentrated professional audience, the trades whose material decisions shape Germany's buildings.

Digital Presence

The brand's digital home is bauhandwerk.de, the daily updated trade portal carrying the news flow — the construction-site stories, the trade-fair coverage (denkmal, Knauf working days, digitalBAU), the company news (from the Heck-to-Rockwool renaming to the manufacturer innovations), and the topic sections (Betriebsführung, Sanierung, Ausbau, Fassade, Bautenschutz) that mirror the print magazine's rubrics. The newsletter delivers the industry's updates to the readers' inboxes — the current issue's highlights, the new products, and the event announcements. The portal integrates with the Bauverlag's digital ecosystem: the media information, the reader service, and the publisher's event and shop offerings.

On social media, the brand maintains the craft community's channels. The digital strategy follows the trade-press logic: the print magazine for the execution-oriented craft reading — the construction site of the month, the material and technique features — the portal for the daily news flow, and the newsletter for the regular briefing. As the construction craft's leading information brand, Bauhandwerk connects the building site with the publishing house: the trades that build Germany's buildings and the magazine that documents, analyzes, and supports their work — in print and online, issue after issue.