Expressionist architecture
Encyclopedia
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
visual and performing arts.
The term "Expressionist architecture" initially described the of the German, Dutch, Austrian, Czech and Danish avant garde from 1910 until ca. 1924. Subsequent redefinitions extended the term backwards to 1905 and also widened it to encompass the rest of Europe. Today the meaning has broadened even further to refer to architecture of any date or location that exhibits some of the qualities of the original movement such as; distortion, fragmentation or the communication of violent or overstressed emotion.
The style was characterised by an early-modernist adoption of novel materials, formal innovation, and very unusual massing, sometimes inspired by natural biomorphic forms, sometimes by the new technical possibilities offered by the mass production of brick, steel and especially glass. Many expressionist architects fought in World War I and their experiences, combined with the political turmoil and social upheaval that followed the German Revolution
German Revolution
The German Revolution was the politically-driven civil conflict in Germany at the end of World War I, which resulted in the replacement of Germany's imperial government with a republic...
of 1919, resulted in a utopian outlook and a romantic socialist agenda. Economic conditions severely limited the number of built commissions between 1914 and the mid 1920s, resulting in many of the most important expressionist works remaining as projects on paper, such as Bruno Taut
Bruno Taut
Bruno Julius Florian Taut , was a prolific German architect, urban planner and author active during the Weimar period....
's Alpine Architecture and Hermann Finsterlin
Hermann Finsterlin
Hermann Finsterlin was a visionary architect, painter, poet, essayist, toymaker and composer. He played an influential role in the German expressionist architecture movement of the early 20th century but due to the harsh economic climate realised none of his projects...
's Formspiels. Ephemeral exhibition buildings were numerous and highly significant during this period. Scenography
Scenography
-Usage:Whilst also aligned with the professional practice of the scenographer, it is important to distinguish the individual elements that comprise the 'design' of a performance event from the term 'scenography' which is as an artistic perspective concerning the visual, experiential and spatial...
for theatre and films provided another outlet for the expressionist imagination, and provided supplemental incomes for designers attempting to challenge conventions in a harsh economic climate.
Important events in expressionist architecture include; the Werkbund Exhibition (1914)
Werkbund Exhibition (1914)
The first Werkbund Exhibition of 1914 was held at Rheinpark in Cologne, Germany. Bruno Taut's best-known building, the prismatic dome of the Glass Pavilion of which only black and white images survive today, was in reality a brightly colored landmark. Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer designed a model...
in Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
, the completion and theatrical running of the Grosses Schauspielhaus, Berlin in 1919, the Glass Chain
Glass Chain
The Glass Chain or Crystal Chain sometimes known as the "Utopian Correspondence" was a chain letter that took place between November 1919 and December 1920. It was a correspondence of architects that formed a basis of expressionist architecture in Germany. It was initiated by Bruno Taut.-Names,...
letters, and the activities of the Amsterdam School
Amsterdam School
The Amsterdam School is a style of architecture that arose from 1910 through about 1930 in The Netherlands...
. The major permanent extant landmark of Expressionism is Erich Mendelsohn
Erich Mendelsohn
Erich Mendelsohn was a Jewish German architect, known for his expressionist architecture in the 1920s, as well as for developing a dynamic functionalism in his projects for department stores and cinemas.-Early life:...
's Einstein Tower
Einstein Tower
The Einstein Tower is an astrophysical observatory in the Albert Einstein Science Park in Potsdam, Germany built by Erich Mendelsohn. It was built on the summit of the Potsdam Telegraphenberg to house a solar telescope designed by the astronomer Erwin Finlay-Freundlich...
in Potsdam
Potsdam
Potsdam is the capital city of the German federal state of Brandenburg and part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. It is situated on the River Havel, southwest of Berlin city centre....
. By 1925 most of the leading architects of Expressionism such as; Bruno Taut, Erich Mendelsohn, Walter Gropius
Walter Gropius
Walter Adolph Georg Gropius was a German architect and founder of the Bauhaus School who, along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modern architecture....
, Mies van der Rohe and Hans Poelzig
Hans Poelzig
Hans Poelzig was a German architect, painter and set designer.-Life:Poelzig was born in Berlin in 1869 to the countess Clara Henrietta Maria Poelzig while she was married to George Acland Ames, an Englishman...
, along with other Expressionists in the visual arts, had turned toward the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity
New Objectivity (architecture)
The New Objectivity is a name often given to the Modern architecture that emerged in Europe, primarily German-speaking Europe, in the 1920s and 30s. It is also frequently called Neues Bauen...
) movement, a more practical and matter-of-fact approach which rejected the emotional agitation of expressionism. A few, notably Hans Scharoun
Hans Scharoun
Bernhard Hans Henry Scharoun was a German architect best known for designing the Berlin Philharmonic concert hall and the in Löbau, Saxony. He was an important exponent of Organic architecture....
, continued to work in an expressionist idiom.
In 1933, after the Nazi seizure of power in Germany, expressionist art was outlawed as Degenerate art
Degenerate art
Degenerate art is the English translation of the German entartete Kunst, a term adopted by the Nazi regime in Germany to describe virtually all modern art. Such art was banned on the grounds that it was un-German or Jewish Bolshevist in nature, and those identified as degenerate artists were...
. Until the 1970s scholars commonly played down the influence of the expressionists on the later International style
International style (architecture)
The International style is a major architectural style that emerged in the 1920s and 1930s, the formative decades of Modern architecture. The term originated from the name of a book by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, The International Style...
, but this has been re-evaluated in recent years.
Characteristics
Expressionist architecture was individualistic and in many ways eschewed aesthetic dogma, but it is still useful to develop some criteria which defines it. Though containing a great variety and differentiation, many points can be found as recurring in works of Expressionist architecture, and are evident in some degree in each of its works.- Distortion of form for an emotional effect.
- Subordination of realismRealism (arts)Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
to symbolic or stylistic expression of inner experience. - An underlying effort at achieving the new, original, and visionary.
- Profusion of works on paper, and models, with discovery and representations of conceptConceptThe word concept is used in ordinary language as well as in almost all academic disciplines. Particularly in philosophy, psychology and cognitive sciences the term is much used and much discussed. WordNet defines concept: "conception, construct ". However, the meaning of the term concept is much...
s more important than pragmatic finished products. - Often hybrid solutions, irreducible to a single concept.
- Themes of natural romantic phenomena, such as caves, mountains, lightning, crystal and rock formations. As such it is more mineral and elemental than florid and organic which characterized its close contemporary art nouveauArt NouveauArt Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...
. - Utilises creative potential of artisanArtisanAn artisan is a skilled manual worker who makes items that may be functional or strictly decorative, including furniture, clothing, jewellery, household items, and tools...
craftsmanship. - Tendency more towards the gothicGothic architectureGothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
than the classicalClassical architectureClassical architecture is a mode of architecture employing vocabulary derived in part from the Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, enriched by classicizing architectural practice in Europe since the Renaissance...
. Expressionist architecture also tends more towards the romanesqueRomanesque architectureRomanesque architecture is an architectural style of Medieval Europe characterised by semi-circular arches. There is no consensus for the beginning date of the Romanesque architecture, with proposals ranging from the 6th to the 10th century. It developed in the 12th century into the Gothic style,...
and the rococoRococoRococo , also referred to as "Late Baroque", is an 18th-century style which developed as Baroque artists gave up their symmetry and became increasingly ornate, florid, and playful...
than the classical. - Though a movement in Europe, expressionism is as easternEastern world__FORCETOC__The term Eastern world refers very broadly to the various cultures or social structures and philosophical systems of Eastern Asia or geographically the Eastern Culture...
as westernWestern worldThe Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
. It draws as much from Moorish, IslamicIslamic architectureIslamic architecture encompasses a wide range of both secular and religious styles from the foundation of Islam to the present day, influencing the design and construction of buildings and structures in Islamic culture....
, EgyptianAncient Egyptian architectureThe Nile valley has been the site of one of the most influential civilizations which developed a vast array of diverse structures encompassing ancient Egyptian architecture...
, and IndianIndian architectureThe architecture of India is rooted in its history, culture and religion. Indian architecture progressed with time and assimilated the many influences that came as a result of India's global discourse with other regions of the world throughout its millennia-old past...
art and architecture as from RomanRoman architectureAncient Roman architecture adopted certain aspects of Ancient Greek architecture, creating a new architectural style. The Romans were indebted to their Etruscan neighbors and forefathers who supplied them with a wealth of knowledge essential for future architectural solutions, such as hydraulics...
or GreekArchitecture of Ancient GreeceThe architecture of Ancient Greece is the architecture produced by the Greek-speaking people whose culture flourished on the Greek mainland and Peloponnesus, the Aegean Islands, and in colonies in Asia Minor and Italy for a period from about 900 BC until the 1st century AD, with the earliest...
. - Conception of architecture as a work of art.
Context
Political, economic and artistic shifts provided a context for the early manifestations of expressionist architecture; particularly in Germany, where the utopian qualities of expressionism found strong resonances with a leftist artistic community keen to provide answers to a society in turmoil during and after the events of World War I. The loss of the war, the subsequent removal of Kaiser Wilhelm II, the depravations and the rise of social democracy and the optimism of the Weimar republicWeimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
created a reluctance amongst architects to pursue projects initiated before the war and provided the impetus to seek new solutions. An influential body of the artistic community, including architects, sought a similar revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
as had occurred in Russia. The costly and grandiose remodelling of the Grosses Schauspielhaus, was more reminiscent of the imperial past, than wartime budgeting and post-war depression.
Artistic movements that preceded expressionist architecture and continued with some overlap were the arts and crafts movement
Arts and Crafts movement
Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...
and art nouveau
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...
or in Germany, jugendstil. Unity of designers with artisans, was a major preoccupation of the Arts and Crafts movement which extended into expressionist architecture. The frequent topic of naturalism in art nouveau, which was also prevalent in romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
, continued as well, but took a turn for the more earthen than floral. The naturalist, Ernst Haeckel
Ernst Haeckel
The "European War" became known as "The Great War", and it was not until 1920, in the book "The First World War 1914-1918" by Charles à Court Repington, that the term "First World War" was used as the official name for the conflict.-Research:...
was known by Finsterlin and shared his source of inspiration in natural forms.
The Futurist
Futurist architecture
Futurist architecture is an early-20th century form of architecture characterized by anti-historicism and long horizontal lines suggesting speed, motion and urgency. Technology and even violence were among the themes of the Futurists. The movement was founded by the poet Filippo Tommaso...
and constructivist
Constructivism (art)
Constructivism was an artistic and architectural philosophy that originated in Russia beginning in 1919, which was a rejection of the idea of autonomous art. The movement was in favour of art as a practice for social purposes. Constructivism had a great effect on modern art movements of the 20th...
architectural movements, and the dada
Dada
Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
anti-art movement were occurring concurrently to expressionism and often contained similar features. Bruno Taut's magazine, Frülicht included constructivist projects, including Vladimir Tatlin
Vladimir Tatlin
Vladimir Yevgrafovich Tatlin was a Russian and Soviet painter and architect. With Kazimir Malevich he was one of the two most important figures in the Russian avant-garde art movement of the 1920s, and he later became the most important artist in the Constructivist movement...
s Monument to the Third International. However, futurism and constructivism emphasized mechination, and urbanism tendencies which were not to take hold in Germany until the Neue Sachlichkeit. Mendelsohn is an exception whose work bordered on futurism and constructivism. A quality of dynamic energy and exuberance exists in both the sketches of Erich Mendelsohn and futurist Antonio Sant'Elia
Antonio Sant'Elia
Antonio Sant'Elia was an extremely influential Italian architect.-Life:Antonio Sant'Elia was born in Como, Lombardy. A builder by training, he opened a design office in Milan in 1912 and became involved with the Futurist movement...
. The Merzbau by Dada artist Kurt Schwitters
Kurt Schwitters
Kurt Hermann Eduard Karl Julius Schwitters was a German painter who was born in Hanover, Germany. Schwitters worked in several genres and media, including Dada, Constructivism, Surrealism, poetry, sound, painting, sculpture, graphic design, typography and what came to be known as...
, with its angular, abstract form, held many expressionist characteristics.
Influence of individualists such as Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
and Antoni Gaudí
Antoni Gaudí
Antoni Gaudí i Cornet was a Spanish Catalan architect and figurehead of Catalan Modernism. Gaudí's works reflect his highly individual and distinctive style and are largely concentrated in the Catalan capital of Barcelona, notably his magnum opus, the Sagrada Família.Much of Gaudí's work was...
also provided the surrounding context for expressionist architecture. Portfolios of Wright were included in the lectures of Erich Mendelsohn and were well known to those in his circle. Gaudí, was also both influenced and influencing what was happening in Berlin. In Barcelona, there was no abrupt break between the architecture of art nouveau and that of the early 20th century, where Jugendstil was opposed after 1900, and his work contains more of art nouveau than that of say Bruno Taut. The circle of der Ring, did know about Gaudí, as he was published in Germany, and Finsterlin was in correspondence. Charles Rennie Mackintosh
Charles Rennie Mackintosh
Charles Rennie Mackintosh was a Scottish architect, designer, watercolourist and artist. He was a designer in the Arts and Crafts movement and also the main representative of Art Nouveau in the United Kingdom. He had a considerable influence on European design...
should also be mentioned in the larger context surrounding expressionist architecture. Hard to classify as strictly arts and crafts or art nouveau, buildings such as the Hill House and his Ingram chairs have an expressionist tinge. His work was known on the continent, as it was exhibited at the Vienna Secession
Vienna Secession
The Vienna Secession was formed in 1897 by a group of Austrian artists who had resigned from the Association of Austrian Artists, housed in the Vienna Künstlerhaus. This movement included painters, sculptors, and architects...
exhibition in 1900.
Underlying ideas
Many writers contributed to the ideology of expressionist architecture. Sources of philosophyPhilosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
important to expressionist architects were works by Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
, Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was a Danish Christian philosopher, theologian and religious author. He was a critic of idealist intellectuals and philosophers of his time, such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel...
, and Henri Bergson
Henri Bergson
Henri-Louis Bergson was a major French philosopher, influential especially in the first half of the 20th century. Bergson convinced many thinkers that immediate experience and intuition are more significant than rationalism and science for understanding reality.He was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize...
. Bruno Taut's sketches were frequently noted with quotations from Nietzsche, particularly Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None is a philosophical novel by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, composed in four parts between 1883 and 1885...
, whose protagonist embodied freedoms dear to the expressionists; freedom to reject the bourgeois world, freedom from history, and strength of spirit in individualist isolation. Zarathustra's mountain retreat was an inspiration to Taut's Alpine Architecture. Henri Van de Velde drew a title page illustration for Nietzsche's Ecce Homo. The author Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...
in his The Metamorphosis
The Metamorphosis
The Metamorphosis is a novella by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915. It is often cited as one of the seminal works of short fiction of the 20th century and is widely studied in colleges and universities across the western world...
, with its shape shifting matched the material instability of expressionist architecture Naturalists such as Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
, and Ernst Haeckel
Ernst Haeckel
The "European War" became known as "The Great War", and it was not until 1920, in the book "The First World War 1914-1918" by Charles à Court Repington, that the term "First World War" was used as the official name for the conflict.-Research:...
contributed an ideology for the biomorphic form of architects such as Herman Finsterlin. Poet Paul Scheerbart
Paul Scheerbart
Paul Karl Wilhelm Scheerbart was an author of fantastic literature and drawings. He was also published under the pseudonym Kuno Küfer and is best known for the book Glasarchitektur ....
worked directly with Bruno Taut and his circle, and contributed ideas based on his poetry of glass architecture.
Emergent psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
from Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
and Karl Jung was important to expressionism. The exploration of psychological effects of form and space was undertaken by architects in their buildings, projects and films. Bruno Taut noted the psychological possibilities of scenographic design that, "Objects serve psychologically to mirror the actors' emotions and gestures." The exploration of dreams and the unconscious, provided material for the formal investigations of Hermann Finsterlin.
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
had been developing, particularly through the work of Kant
KANT
KANT is a computer algebra system for mathematicians interested in algebraic number theory, performing sophisticated computations in algebraic number fields, in global function fields, and in local fields. KASH is the associated command line interface...
and Schopenhauer and notions of the sublime
Sublime (philosophy)
In aesthetics, the sublime is the quality of greatness, whether physical, moral, intellectual, metaphysical, aesthetic, spiritual or artistic...
. The experience of the sublime was supposed to involve a self-forgetfulness where personal fear is replaced by a sense of well-being and security when confronted with an object exhibiting superior might. At the end of the nineteenth century the German Kunstwissenschaft, or the "science of art", arose, which was a movement to discern laws of aesthetic appreciation and arrive at a scientific approach to aesthetic experience. At the beginning of the twentieth century Neo-Kantian German philosopher and theorist of aesthetics Max Dessoir
Max Dessoir
Max Dessoir was a German philosopher and theorist of aesthetics.Dessoir was born in Berlin. He earned doctorates from the universities of Berlin and Würzburg...
founded the Zeitschift für Ästhetik und allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft, which he edited for many years, and published the work Ästhetik und allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft in which he formulated five primary aesthetic forms: the beautiful, the sublime, the tragic, the ugly, and the comic. Iain Boyd Whyte writes that whilst "the Expressionist visionaries did not keep copies of Kant under their drawing boards. There was, however, in the first decades of this century [20th] a climate of ideas that was sympathetic to the aesthetic concerns and artistic production of romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
.
Artistic theories of Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky was an influential Russian painter and art theorist. He is credited with painting the first purely-abstract works. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics...
, such as Concerning the Spiritual in Art, and Point and Line to Plane were centerpieces of expressionist thinking.
Form
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...
or Jugendstil. Henry Van de Velde was able to shift his buildings away from ornament and like others at the time, into formal concepts of individualism and symbolic representation. While art nouveau had an organic freedom with ornament, expressionist architecture strove to free the form of the whole building instead of just its parts. Examples of this are evident in the paper projects of the movement, as well as in its built works. Hermann Finsterlin's Formspiels depict the form of buildings turned into organic amorphous massings. Bruno Tauts Alpine Architecture depicts luminescent structures whose entire fabric is moved towards a crystalline form. An example of a built expressionist project that is inventive formally is Erich Mendelsohn's Einstein Tower. This sculpted building shows a relativistic and shifting view of geometry. Devoid of applied ornament, Form and space are shaped in fluid concrete to express concepts of the architect and the building's namesake. Mendelsohn had a powerful sense of form, exhibited in the Einstein Tower but also in his numerous sketches. "In his sketches, which were unrelated to any commission, Mendelsohn thought in terms of volume and only secondly in terms of function." Expressionist contemporary, Antoni Gaudí, was able to deviate from art nouveau's ornamental nature to make "large sculptural masses that appear as coherent formal statements."
As expressionist architecture utilised curved geometries, a recurring form in the movement is the dome
Dome
A dome is a structural element of architecture that resembles the hollow upper half of a sphere. Dome structures made of various materials have a long architectural lineage extending into prehistory....
. The interior of the Grosses Schauspielhaus was domed. Hermann Finsterlin's Formspiels are a form of asymmetric, anthropomorphic domes. Many of the works of Bruno Taut were also domed, such as the Glass Pavilion
Glass Pavilion
The Glass Pavilion, built in 1914 and designed by Bruno Taut, was a prismatic glass dome structure at the Cologne Deutscher Werkbund Exhibition. The structure was a brightly colored landmark of the exhibition, and was constructed using concrete and glass. The concrete structure had inlaid colored...
and the Worpswede
Worpswede
Worpswede is a municipality in the district of Osterholz, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated in the Teufelsmoor, northeast of Bremen. The small town itself is located near the Weyerberg hill. It has been the home to a lively artistic community since the end of the 19th century, with over 130...
Käseglocke. Taut's Alpine architecture have the exotic charm of the domed pleasure palaces of Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...
's Kubla Khan
Kubla Khan
Kubla Khan is a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, completed in 1797 and published in Christabel, Kubla Khan, and the Pains of Sleep in 1816...
. Curved architecture requires a curved covering, so expressionist architecture's roofs were often domes. Another expressionist motif was the emphasis on either horizontality or verticality for dramatic effect, influenced by new technologies such as cruise liners and skyscrapers.
Form as revealed by law was depicted in an expressionist light by Hugh Ferris. His illustrations of the New York City 1916 zoning ordinance had an expressionist quality in their rendering. They were published in Germany, in the magazine Baukunst in 1926. In their strong contrasts of lighting, used to reveal form, they seem inspired by expressionist film. The name of Ferris' 1929 book The Metropolis of Tomorrow, seems inspired by the 1927 Film, Metropolis.
Formalism was a tendency that expressionist architecture helped contribute to modernism. Kandinsky postulated in 1912 that form was an expression of content and in many instances form itself was the content. The work of expressionists who turned later to Neue Sachlichkeit took form as a departure but minimalized distortion of form. Peter Behrens, Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe and others took on a normative form (with some exceptions), using orthogonal geometries to suggest other architectural concepts, based on regularity of geometry.
Materials
Monolith
A monolith is a geological feature such as a mountain, consisting of a single massive stone or rock, or a single piece of rock placed as, or within, a monument...
ic. The collaboration of Bruno Taut and the utopian poet Paul Scheerbart attempted to address the problems of German society by a doctrine of glass architecture. Such utopianism can be seen in the context of a revolutionary Germany where the tussle between nationalism and socialism had yet to resolve itself. Taut and Scheerbart imagined a society that had freed itself by breaking from past forms and traditions, impelled by an architecture that flooded every building with multicolored light and represented a more promising future. They published texts on this subject and built the Glass Pavilion at the 1914 Werkbund exhibition. Inscribed around the base of the dome were aphoristic sayings about the material, penned by the Scheerbart.
- "Coloured glass destroys hatred","Without a glass palace life is a burden","Glass brings us a new era, building in brick only does us harm"- Paul Scheerbart, inscriptions on the 1914 Werkbund Glass Pavilion
Another example of expressionist use of monolithic materials was by Erich Mendelsohn at the Einstein Tower. Not to be missed was a pun on the towers namesake, Einstein, and an attempt to make the building out of one stone, Ein stein. Though not cast in one pour of concrete (due to technical difficulties, brick and stucco were used partially) the effect of the building is an expression of the fluidity of concrete before it is cast. 'Architecture of Steel and Concrete' was the title of an 1919 exhibition of Mendelsohn's sketches at Paul Cassirer's gallery in Berlin.
Brick was used in a similar fashion to express the inherent nature of the material. Josef Franke
Josef Franke
Josef Franke was a German architect. He created a number of sacred and secular buildings, in the Ruhrgebiet, particularly in Gelsenkirchen...
produced some characteristic expressionist churches in the Ruhrgebiet in the 1920s. Bruno Taut used brick as a way to show mass and repetition in his Berlin Housing Estate "Legien-Stadt". In the same way as their Arts and Crafts movement predecessors, to expressionist architects, populism, naturalism, and according to Pehnt "Moral and sometimes even irrational arguments were adduced in favor of building in brick". With its color and pointillist like visual increment, brick became to expressionism what stucco later became to the international style.
Theatres and films
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
production in the early twentieth century. In 1896 there were 302 permanent theatres in Europe, by 1926 there were 2,499. Cinema
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
, witnessed a comparable increase in its use and popularity and a resulting increase in the number of picture houses. It was also able to provide a temporary reality for innovative architectural ideas.
Many architects designed theatres for performances on the stage and film sets for expressionist films
German Expressionism
German Expressionism refers to a number of related creative movements beginning in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin, during the 1920s...
. These were defining moments for the movement, and with its interest in theatres and films, the performing arts
Performing arts
The performing arts are those forms art which differ from the plastic arts insofar as the former uses the artist's own body, face, and presence as a medium, and the latter uses materials such as clay, metal or paint which can be molded or transformed to create some physical art object...
held a significant place in expressionist architecture. Like film, and theatre, expressionist architecture created an unusual and exotic environment to surround the visitor.
Built examples of expressionist theatres include Henry van de Velde
Henry van de Velde
Henry Clemens Van de Velde was a Belgian Flemish painter, architect and interior designer. Together with Victor Horta and Paul Hankar he could be considered one of the main founders and representatives of Art Nouveau in Belgium...
's construction of the model theatre for the 1914 Werkbund Exhibition, and Hans Poelzig
Hans Poelzig
Hans Poelzig was a German architect, painter and set designer.-Life:Poelzig was born in Berlin in 1869 to the countess Clara Henrietta Maria Poelzig while she was married to George Acland Ames, an Englishman...
's grand remodelling of the Grosses Schauspielhaus. The enormous capacity of the Grosses Schauspielhaus enabled low ticket prices, and the creation of a 'peoples theatre'. Not only were expressionist architects building stages, Bruno Taut wrote a play intended for the theatre, Weltbaumeister.
Expressionist architects were both involved in film and inspired by it. Hans Poelzig strove to make films based on legend
Legend
A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude...
s or fairy tale
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
s. Poelzig designed scenographic sets for Paul Wegener
Paul Wegener
Paul Wegener was a German actor, writer and film director known for his pioneering role in German expressionist cinema.-Stage and early film career:...
's 1920 film, Der Golem
The Golem: How He Came Into the World
The Golem: How He Came Into the World is a 1920 silent horror film by Paul Wegener. It was directed by Carl Boese and Wegener, written by Wegener and Henrik Galeen, and starred Wegener as the golem. The script was adapted from the 1915 novel The Golem by Gustav Meyrink...
. Space in Der Golem was a three dimensional village, a life-like rendering of the Jewish ghetto of Prague. This contrasts with the setting of the Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, which was painted on canvas backdrops. Perhaps the latter was able to achieve more stylistic freedom, but Poelzig in Der Golem was able to create a whole village that "spoke with a Jewish accent."
Herman Finsterlin approached Fritz Lang
Fritz Lang
Friedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang was an Austrian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute...
with an idea for a film. Fritz Lang's film Metropolis demonstrates a visually progressive 'Futurist' society dealing with relevant issues of 1920s Germany in relation to labour and society. Bruno Taut designed an unbuilt theatre for reclining cinema-goers. Bruno Taut also proposed a film as an anthology for the Glass Chain, entitled Die Galoschen des Glücks(The Galoshes of Fortune) with a name borrowed from Hans Christian Andersen
Hans Christian Andersen
Hans Christian Andersen was a Danish author, fairy tale writer, and poet noted for his children's stories. These include "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," "The Snow Queen," "The Little Mermaid," "Thumbelina," "The Little Match Girl," and "The Ugly Duckling."...
. On the film, Taut noted, "an expressionism of the most subtle kind will bring surroundings, props, and action into harmony with one another." It featured architectural fantasias suited to each member of the Chain. Ultimately unproduced, it reveals the aspiration that the new medium, film, invoked.
Abstraction
The tendency towards abstraction in art corresponded with abstraction in architecture. Publication of Concerning the Spiritual in Art in 1912 by Wassily KandinskyWassily Kandinsky
Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky was an influential Russian painter and art theorist. He is credited with painting the first purely-abstract works. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics...
, his first advocacy of abstraction while still involved in the Blau Reiter phaze, marks a beginning of abstraction in expressionism and abstraction in expressionist architecture. The conception of the Einstein Tower by Erich Mendelson was not far behind Kandinsky, in advancing abstraction in architecture. By the publication of Kandinsky's Point and Line to Plane in 1926 a rigorous and more geometric form of abstraction emerged, and Kandinsky's work took on clearer and drafted lines. The trends in architecture are not dissimilar, as the Bauhaus was gaining attention and expressionist architecture was giving way to the geometric abstractions of modern architecture.
Brick Expressionism
- see main article Brick ExpressionismBrick ExpressionismThe term Brick Expressionism describes a specific variant of expressionist architecture that uses bricks, tiles or clinker bricks as the main visible building material...
Brick
A brick is a block of ceramic material used in masonry construction, usually laid using various kinds of mortar. It has been regarded as one of the longest lasting and strongest building materials used throughout history.-History:...
s, tile
Tile
A tile is a manufactured piece of hard-wearing material such as ceramic, stone, metal, or even glass. Tiles are generally used for covering roofs, floors, walls, showers, or other objects such as tabletops...
s or clinker brick
Clinker brick
Clinker bricks are partially vitrified brick stones used in the construction of buildings.Clinkers are burnt under temperatures so high that the pores of the fuel property are closed by the beginning sinter process. Thus they are considerably denser and therefore heavier than regular bricks...
s as the main visible building material. Buildings in the style were erected mostly in the 1920s. The style's regional centres were the larger cities of Northern Germany
Northern Germany
- Geography :The key terrain features of North Germany are the marshes along the coastline of the North Sea and Baltic Sea, and the geest and heaths inland. Also prominent are the low hills of the Baltic Uplands, the ground moraines, end moraines, sandur, glacial valleys, bogs, and Luch...
and the Ruhr area
Ruhr Area
The Ruhr, by German-speaking geographers and historians more accurately called Ruhr district or Ruhr region , is an urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With 4435 km² and a population of some 5.2 million , it is the largest urban agglomeration in Germany...
, but the Amsterdam School
Amsterdam School
The Amsterdam School is a style of architecture that arose from 1910 through about 1930 in The Netherlands...
belongs to the same category.
Amsterdam's 1912 cooperative-commercial Scheepvaarthuis (Shipping House), is considered the starting point and prototype for Amsterdam School work: brick construction with complicated masonry, traditional massing, and the integration of an elaborate scheme of building elements (decorative masonry, art glass, wrought-iron work, and exterior figurative sculpture) that embodies and expresses the identity of the building. The School flourished until about 1925.
The great international fame of German Expressionism is not related to German Brick Expressionist architects, but to German Expressionist painters like Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was a German expressionist painter and printmaker and one of the founders of the artists group Die Brücke or "The Bridge", a key group leading to the foundation of Expressionism in 20th century art. He volunteered for army service in the First World War, but soon suffered a...
, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff was a German expressionist painter and printmaker, and a member of Die Brücke.-Life and work:...
, Emil Nolde
Emil Nolde
Emil Nolde was a German painter and printmaker. He was one of the first Expressionists, a member of Die Brücke, and is considered to be one of the great oil painting and watercolour painters of the 20th century. He is known for his vigorous brushwork and expressive choice of colors...
, Max Beckmann
Max Beckmann
Max Beckmann was a German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor, and writer. Although he is classified as an Expressionist artist, he rejected both the term and the movement...
, Vasily Kandinsky and his German friends in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
around 1908, and so on.
Legacy
New Objectivity
The New Objectivity is a term used to characterize the attitude of public life in Weimar Germany as well as the art, literature, music, and architecture created to adapt to it...
(Neue Sachlichkeit) art movement arose in direct opposition to expressionism. Expressionistic architecture today is an evident influence in deconstructivism
Deconstructivism
Deconstructivism is a development of postmodern architecture that began in the late 1980s. It is characterized by ideas of fragmentation, an interest in manipulating ideas of a structure's surface or skin, non-rectilinear shapes which serve to distort and dislocate some of the elements of...
, the work of Santiago Calatrava
Santiago Calatrava
Santiago Calatrava Valls is a Spanish architect, sculptor and structural engineer whose principal office is in Zürich, Switzerland. Classed now among the elite designers of the world, he has offices in Zürich, Paris, Valencia, and New York City....
, and the organic movement of blobitecture
Blobitecture
Blobitecture from blob architecture, blobism or blobismus are terms for a movement in architecture in which buildings have an organic, amoeba-shaped, bulging form...
.
Many of the founders and significant players in expressionist architecture were also important in modern architecture. Examples are Bruno Taut, Hans Scharoun, Walter Gropius, and Mies Van der Rohe. By 1927 Gropius, Taut, Scharoun and Mies were all building in the international style
International style (architecture)
The International style is a major architectural style that emerged in the 1920s and 1930s, the formative decades of Modern architecture. The term originated from the name of a book by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, The International Style...
and participated in the Weissenhof Estate. Gropius and Mies are better known for their modernist work, but Gropius' Monument to the March Dead, and Mies' Friedrichstrasse office building projects are basic works of expressionist architecture. Le Corbusier started his career in modern architecture but took a turn for a more expressionist manner later in life.
Art Deco
First identified at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels ModernesExposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes
The International Exposition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts was a World's fair held in Paris, France, from April to October 1925. The term "Art Deco" was derived by shortening the words Arts Décoratifs, in the title of this exposition, but not until the late 1960s by British art critic...
in 1925, art deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
shares some characteristics of expressionism and is likely to have been influenced directly by the Expressionist movement - particularly the activities of the Weimar Bauhaus - and more generally with the factors and politics that influenced both movements at the time, such as socialism and mechanisation. In common with art nouveau
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...
and expressionism they are interested in decorative effects that break with the past and reflect a new modernity. The bold use of zigzag and stepped forms, and sweeping curves and chevron patterns. New materials are employed in new ways such as glass, aluminium and stainless steel. Later examples of Art Deco, particularly in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
can be seen as a Transatlantic equivalent of European expressionism.
Neo Expressionism
Sigfried Giedion
Sigfried Giedion was a Bohemia-born Swiss historian and critic of architecture....
in his book Space, Time and Architecture (1941) dismissed Expressionist architecture as a side show in the development of functionalism
Functionalism (architecture)
Functionalism, in architecture, is the principle that architects should design a building based on the purpose of that building. This statement is less self-evident than it first appears, and is a matter of confusion and controversy within the profession, particularly in regard to modern...
. In the middle of the twentieth century, in the 50s and 60s, many architects began designing in a manner reminiscent of expressionist architecture. In this post war period, a variant of expressionism brutalism
Brutalist architecture
Brutalist architecture is a style of architecture which flourished from the 1950s to the mid 1970s, spawned from the modernist architectural movement.-The term "brutalism":...
had an honest approach to materials, that in its unadorned use of concrete, was similar to the use of brick by the Amsterdam School. The designs of Le Corbusier
Le Corbusier
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier , was a Swiss-born French architect, designer, urbanist, writer and painter, famous for being one of the pioneers of what now is called modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930...
took a turn for the expressionist in his brutalist phase, but more so in his Notre Dame du Haut
Notre Dame du Haut
Informally known as "Ronchamp", the chapel of Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp , completed in 1954, is one of the finest examples of the architecture of Franco-Swiss architect Le Corbusier and one of the most important examples of twentieth-century religious architecture.-History:Notre Dame du Haut...
. In Mexico, in 1953, German émigré Mathias Goeritz
Mathias Goeritz
Mathias Goeritz - August 4, 1990 in Mexico City) was a well-known Mexican painter and sculptor of German origin...
, published the "Arquitectura Emocional" (Emotional architecture) manifesto where he declared that "architecture's principal function is emotion." Modern Mexican architect Luis Barragán
Luis Barragán
Luis Barragán Morfin was a Mexican architect. He was self-trained.-Early life:Educated as an engineer, he graduated from the Escuela Libre de Ingenieros in Guadalajara in 1923 and was self-trained as an architect.After graduation, he travelled through Spain, France , and...
adopted the term that influenced his work. The two of them collaborated in the project Torres de Satélite
Torres de Satélite
The Torres de Satélite are located in Ciudad Satélite, in the northern part of Naucalpan, Mexico. One of the country's first urban sculptures of great dimensions, had its planning started in 1957 with the ideas of renowned Mexican architect Luis Barragán, painter Jesús Reyes Ferreira and...
(1957–58) guided by Goeritz's principles of Arquitectura Emocional. Another mid-century modern architect to evoke expressionism was Eero Saarinen
Eero Saarinen
Eero Saarinen was a Finnish American architect and industrial designer of the 20th century famous for varying his style according to the demands of the project: simple, sweeping, arching structural curves or machine-like rationalism.-Biography:Eero Saarinen shared the same birthday as his father,...
. A similar aesthetic can be found in later buildings such as Eero Saarinen
Eero Saarinen
Eero Saarinen was a Finnish American architect and industrial designer of the 20th century famous for varying his style according to the demands of the project: simple, sweeping, arching structural curves or machine-like rationalism.-Biography:Eero Saarinen shared the same birthday as his father,...
's 1962 TWA Terminal
TWA Flight Center
The TWA Flight Center or Trans World Flight Center, opened in 1962 as a standalone terminal at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport .for Trans World Airlines...
at JFK International Airport. His TWA Terminal at JFK International Airport has an organic form, as close to Herman Finsterlin's Formspiels as any other, save Jørn Utzon
Jørn Utzon
Jørn Oberg Utzon, , AC was a Danish architect, most notable for designing the Sydney Opera House in Australia. When it was declared a World Heritage Site on 28 June 2007, Utzon became only the second person to have received such recognition for one of his works during his lifetime...
's Sydney Opera House
Sydney Opera House
The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in the Australian city of Sydney. It was conceived and largely built by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, finally opening in 1973 after a long gestation starting with his competition-winning design in 1957...
. It was only in the 1970s that expressionism in architecture came to be re-evaluated in a more positive light. More recently still, the aesthetics and tactility of expressionist architecture have found echo in the works of Enric Miralles
Enric Miralles
Enric Miralles Moya was a Spanish Catalan architect. He graduated from the School of Architecture of Barcelona at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya in 1978. After establishing his reputation with a number of collaborations with his first wife Carme Pinós, the couple separated in 1991...
, most notability his Scottish Parliament building
Scottish Parliament Building
The Scottish Parliament Building is the home of the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood, within the UNESCO World Heritage Site in central Edinburgh. Construction of the building commenced in June 1999 and the Members of the Scottish Parliament held their first debate in the new building on 7...
, deconstructivist architects such as Zaha Hadid
Zaha Hadid
Zaha Hadid, CBE is an Iraqi-British architect.-Life and career:Hadid was born in 1950 in Baghdad, Iraq. She received a degree in mathematics from the American University of Beirut before moving to study at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London.After graduating she worked...
and Daniel Libeskind
Daniel Libeskind
Daniel Libeskind, is an American architect, artist, and set designer of Polish-Jewish descent. Libeskind founded Studio Daniel Libeskind in 1989 with his wife, Nina, and is its principal design architect...
, as well as Canadian Aboriginal
Aboriginal peoples in Canada
Aboriginal peoples in Canada comprise the First Nations, Inuit and Métis. The descriptors "Indian" and "Eskimo" have fallen into disuse in Canada and are commonly considered pejorative....
architect Douglas Cardinal
Douglas Cardinal
Douglas Joseph Cardinal, OC is a Canadian architect.Born of Métis and Blackfoot heritage, Cardinal is famous for flowing architecture marked with smooth lines, influenced by his Aboriginal heritage as well as European Expressionist architectureIn 1953, he attended the University of British...
.
19001900 in architectureThe year 1900 in architecture involved some significant events.-Buildings:* July 19 - The Paris Métro opens, with entrances designed by Hector Guimard in 1899.* Antoni Gaudí begins work on the Parc Güell, which he works on for the next fourteen years....
- Reactions to Art NouveauArt NouveauArt Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...
impelled partly by moral yearnings for a sterner and more unadorned style and in part by rationalist ideas requiring practical justification for formal effects. Art Nouveau had however, opened up a language of abstraction and pointed to lessons to be learned from nature. - August 25, 1900, death of Friedrich NietzscheFriedrich NietzscheFriedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
1905
1905 in architecture
The year 1905 in architecture involved some significant events.-Buildings:* Euville City Hall, in Euville, France, is designed by Georges Biet and Eugène Vallin, with stained glass by Jacques Gruber.* Stoclet House, Brussels by Josef Hoffmann....
- Formation of the DresdenDresdenDresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
Die BrückeDie BrückeDie Brücke was a group of German expressionist artists formed in Dresden in 1905, after which the Brücke Museum in Berlin was named. Founding members were Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Later members were Emil Nolde, Max Pechstein and Otto Mueller...
expressionist art movement.
1907
1907 in architecture
The year 1907 in architecture involved some significant events.-Buildings:* Casa Milà and Casa Batlló in Barcelona, designed by Antoni Gaudí are completed....
- The poet Paul ScheerbartPaul ScheerbartPaul Karl Wilhelm Scheerbart was an author of fantastic literature and drawings. He was also published under the pseudonym Kuno Küfer and is best known for the book Glasarchitektur ....
independently offers a Science fictionScience fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
image of Utopian future.
1908
1908 in architecture
The year 1908 in architecture involved some significant events.-Buildings:*April 6 - The foundation stone of Knox College, Otago, is laid....
- Adolf LoosAdolf LoosAdolf Franz Karl Viktor Maria Loos was a Moravian-born Austro-Hungarian architect. He was influential in European Modern architecture, and in his essay Ornament and Crime he repudiated the florid style of the Vienna Secession, the Austrian version of Art Nouveau...
publishes his essay/manifesto "Ornament and Crime" which rejects ornamentation in favour of abstraction.
1909
1909 in architecture
The year 1909 in architecture involved some significant events.-Buildings:* AEG Turbine Factory in Berlin, designed by Peter Behrens is completed....
- The New Munich Artist's Association, Neue Künstlervereinigung MünchenNeue Künstlervereinigung MünchenThe Neue Künstlervereinigung München e.V , formed in 1909 in Munich around Wassily Kandinsky, and prefigured Der Blaue Reiter, the first modernist secession which is regarded as a forerunner and pathfinder for Modern art in 20th century Germany.-Historical background:The founding members were:...
is established by Wassily KandinskyWassily KandinskyWassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky was an influential Russian painter and art theorist. He is credited with painting the first purely-abstract works. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics...
and others in MunichMunichMunich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
.
19101910 in architectureThe year 1910 in architecture involved some significant events.-Buildings:* Casa Milà in Barcelona, designed by Antoni Gaudí is completed.* The Renauld Bank in Nancy, designed by Émile André and Paul Charbonnier, is completed....
- Publication in Berlin of the journals, Der SturmDer SturmDer Sturm was a magazine covering the expressionism movement founded in Berlin in 1910 by Herwarth Walden. It ran weekly until monthly in 1914, and became a quarterly in 1924 until it ceased publication in 1932....
by Herwarth WaldenHerwarth WaldenHerwarth Walden was a German Expressionist artist and art expert in many disciplines...
and Die AktionDie AktionDie Aktion was a German literary and political magazine, edited by Franz Pfemfert and published between 1911 and 1932 in Berlin-Wilmersdorf; it promoted literary Expressionism and stood for left-wing policies...
by Franz PfemfertFranz PfemfertFranz Pfemfert was a German journalist, editor of Die Aktion, literary critic, politician and portrait photographer. Pfemfert occasionally wrote under the pseudonym U. Gaday...
as counterculture mouthpieces against the Deutscher WerkbundDeutscher WerkbundThe Deutscher Werkbund was a German association of artists, architects, designers, and industrialists. The Werkbund was to become an important event in the development of modern architecture and industrial design, particularly in the later creation of the Bauhaus school of design...
.
1911
1911 in architecture
The year 1911 in architecture involved some significant events.-Buildings:* May 23 – New York Public Library Main Branch, built by architects John Carrere and Thomas Hastings, is officially opened....
- Hans PoelzigHans PoelzigHans Poelzig was a German architect, painter and set designer.-Life:Poelzig was born in Berlin in 1869 to the countess Clara Henrietta Maria Poelzig while she was married to George Acland Ames, an Englishman...
sets up practice in Breslau. Designs a water tower for Posen (now: PoznańPoznanPoznań is a city on the Warta river in west-central Poland, with a population of 556,022 in June 2009. It is among the oldest cities in Poland, and was one of the most important centres in the early Polish state, whose first rulers were buried at Poznań's cathedral. It is sometimes claimed to be...
, Poland), described by Kenneth FramptonKenneth FramptonKenneth Frampton , is a British architect, critic, historian and the Ware Professor of Architecture at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University, New York....
as a certain Die StadtkroneDie StadtkroneDie Stadtkrone or City Crown is a concept of Urban planning put forward by German expressionist architects, and particularly championed by Bruno Taut in the early part of the 20th century...
image, and an office building which led to the architectural format of Erich MendelsohnErich MendelsohnErich Mendelsohn was a Jewish German architect, known for his expressionist architecture in the 1920s, as well as for developing a dynamic functionalism in his projects for department stores and cinemas.-Early life:...
's later Berliner "Mosse-Haus" in 1921. - Wassily KandinskyWassily KandinskyWassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky was an influential Russian painter and art theorist. He is credited with painting the first purely-abstract works. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics...
resigns chairmanship of the Neue Künstlervereinigung MünchenNeue Künstlervereinigung MünchenThe Neue Künstlervereinigung München e.V , formed in 1909 in Munich around Wassily Kandinsky, and prefigured Der Blaue Reiter, the first modernist secession which is regarded as a forerunner and pathfinder for Modern art in 20th century Germany.-Historical background:The founding members were:...
. - Walter GropiusWalter GropiusWalter Adolph Georg Gropius was a German architect and founder of the Bauhaus School who, along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modern architecture....
and Adolf Meyer (architect)Adolf Meyer (architect)Adolf Meyer was a German architect. A student and employee of Peter Behrens, Meyer became the office boss of the firm of Walter Gropius around 1915 and a full partner afterwards. In 1919 Gropius appointed Meyer as a master at the Bauhaus, where he taught work drawing and construction technique...
build the Fagus FactoryFagus FactoryThe Fagus Factory , a shoe last factory in Alfeld on the Leine in Germany, is an important example of early modern architecture. Commissioned by owner Carl Benscheidt who wanted a radical structure to express the company's break from the past, the factory was designed by Walter Gropius and Adolf...
, AlfeldAlfeldFor the town in the district of Nürnberger Land, see Alfeld, Bavaria.Alfeld is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located on the Leine river in the district of Hildesheim and on the German Framework Road.-History and main sights:...
an der Leine. - Der Blaue ReiterDer Blaue ReiterDer Blaue Reiter was a group of artists from the Neue Künstlervereinigung München in Munich, Germany. The group was founded by a number of Russian emigrants, including Wassily Kandinsky, Alexej von Jawlensky, Marianne von Werefkin, and native German artists, such as Franz Marc, August Macke and...
forms and has first exhibits in MunichMunichMunich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, and Berlin
1912
1912 in architecture
The year 1912 in architecture involved some significant events.-Buildings:* December 26 - Manchester Opera House, in Manchester, England, opens as the New Theatre, designed by Richardson & Gill with Farquarson.-Awards:...
- Hans PoelzigHans PoelzigHans Poelzig was a German architect, painter and set designer.-Life:Poelzig was born in Berlin in 1869 to the countess Clara Henrietta Maria Poelzig while she was married to George Acland Ames, an Englishman...
designs a chemical plant in LubańLubanLubań is a town in southwest Poland north of the Jizera Mountains on the Kwisa river, with 22,137 inhabitants . Situated within the historic Upper Lusatia region, it today belongs to the Lower Silesian Voivodeship...
with strongly expressively articulated brick massing. - Wassily Kandinsky publishes Über das Geistige in der Kunst, ("Concerning the Spiritual in Art")
- Work of the Amsterdam SchoolAmsterdam SchoolThe Amsterdam School is a style of architecture that arose from 1910 through about 1930 in The Netherlands...
starts with the cooperative-commercial Scheepvaarthuis (Shipping House), designed by Johan van der MeyJohan van der MeyJohan Melchior van der Mey was a Dutch architect best known for the landmark Scheepvaarthuis building in Amsterdam located at Prins Hendrikkade, 1012....
1913
1913 in architecture
The year 1913 in architecture involved some significant events.-Buildings:* February 1: Grand Central Terminal, rebuilt, re-opens in New York City, United States.* Sinaia train station in Sinaia, Romania....
- Michel de KlerkMichel de KlerkMichel de Klerk was a Dutch architect.He was one of the founding architects of the movement Amsterdam School. Early in his career he worked for other architects, including Eduard Cuypers. Of his many outstanding designs, very few have actually been built...
starts work on the first of three apartment buildings at Spaarndammerplantsoen, AmsterdamAmsterdamAmsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
the last to be completed in 1921. - Rudolf SteinerRudolf SteinerRudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner was an Austrian philosopher, social reformer, architect, and esotericist. He gained initial recognition as a literary critic and cultural philosopher...
commences work on the first GoetheanumGoetheanumThe Goetheanum, located in Dornach , Switzerland, is the world center for the anthroposophical movement. Named after Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the center includes two performance halls , gallery and lecture spaces, a library, a bookstore, and administrative spaces for the Anthroposophical...
. Work is completed in 1919.
1914
1914 in architecture
The year 1914 in architecture involved some significant events.-Buildings:* August 15 - The Panama Canal opens.* Helsinki railway station, designed by Eliel Saarinen is opened.* Basilique du Sacré-Cœur, Paris, designed by Paul Abadie is completed....
- Paul Scheerbart publishes Glasarchitecktur
- Cologne Werkbund exhibitionWerkbund Exhibition (1914)The first Werkbund Exhibition of 1914 was held at Rheinpark in Cologne, Germany. Bruno Taut's best-known building, the prismatic dome of the Glass Pavilion of which only black and white images survive today, was in reality a brightly colored landmark. Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer designed a model...
demonstrates ideological split between:
- NormativeNorm (sociology)Social norms are the accepted behaviors within a society or group. This sociological and social psychological term has been defined as "the rules that a group uses for appropriate and inappropriate values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. These rules may be explicit or implicit...
form (Typisierung) - Behrens, Gropius, and, - Will to form (Kunstwollen) - Taut, van de Velde
1915
1915 in architecture
The year 1915 in architecture involved some significant events.-Buildings:* April - The Hiroshima Prefectural Commercial Exhibition, designed by Jan Letzel, is opened. Today, it is known as the Hiroshima Peace Memorial.-Awards:...
- Death of Paul Scheerbart.
- Franz KafkaFranz KafkaFranz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...
publishes The MetamorphosisThe MetamorphosisThe Metamorphosis is a novella by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915. It is often cited as one of the seminal works of short fiction of the 20th century and is widely studied in colleges and universities across the western world...
1917
1917 in architecture
The year 1917 in architecture involved some significant events.-Buildings:*The Het Schip housing scheme designed by Michel de Klerk in Amsterdam is started.*The Lister County Courthouse is started in Solvesborg, Sweden...
- Michel de KlerkMichel de KlerkMichel de Klerk was a Dutch architect.He was one of the founding architects of the movement Amsterdam School. Early in his career he worked for other architects, including Eduard Cuypers. Of his many outstanding designs, very few have actually been built...
s starts building the Het SchipHet SchipHet Schip is an apartment building in the Spaarndammerbuurt district of Amsterdam, built in the architectural style of the Amsterdam School of Expressionist architecture. It is the single most important example of this style of architecture, using the Brick Expressionism version.The building was...
the third and most accomplished apartment buildings at Spaarndammerplantsoen, for the Eigen Haard development company in Amesterdam http://archimon.bravepages.com/noord-holland/amsterdamschip.html. Work is completed in 1921. - Bruno Taut publishes Alpine architecture.
1918
1918 in architecture
The year 1918 in architecture involved some significant events.-Buildings:* Hallidie Building is built in San Francisco. Designed by Willis Polk. Credited as the first glass curtain wall building....
- Adolf BehneAdolf BehneAdolf Behne was a critic, art historian, architectural writer, and artistic activist. He was one of the leaders of the Avant Garde in the Weimar Republic....
expands the socio-cultural implications Scheerbarts writings about glass. - Armistice – Republican revolution in Germany. Social Democrats form Workers and Soldiers Councils. General strikes.
- Free expression of the Amsterdam SchoolAmsterdam SchoolThe Amsterdam School is a style of architecture that arose from 1910 through about 1930 in The Netherlands...
elucidated in the WendingenWendingenWendingen was an art magazine that appeared from 1918 to 1932. It was a monthly publication aimed at architects and interior designers. The booklet was published by Amsterdam publisher Hooge Brug and it was a mouthpiece for the architect association Architectura et Amicitia. . The chief editor was...
(Changes) magazine. - November - Arbeitsrat für KunstArbeitsrat für KunstThe Arbeitsrat für Kunst was a union of architects, painters, sculptors and art writers, who were based in Berlin from 1918 to 1921...
(Worker's Council for the Arts), founded by Bruno TautBruno TautBruno Julius Florian Taut , was a prolific German architect, urban planner and author active during the Weimar period....
and Adolf BehneAdolf BehneAdolf Behne was a critic, art historian, architectural writer, and artistic activist. He was one of the leaders of the Avant Garde in the Weimar Republic....
. They model themselves consciously on the Soviets and attach a leftist programme to their Utopian and Expressionist activities. They demand; 1. A spiritual revolution to accompany the political one. 2. Architects to form ‘Corporations’ bound by ‘mutual aid’. - November - Novembergruppe formed only to merge with Arbeitsrat für KunstArbeitsrat für KunstThe Arbeitsrat für Kunst was a union of architects, painters, sculptors and art writers, who were based in Berlin from 1918 to 1921...
the following month. It proclaims; 1. Creation of collective art works. 2. Mass housing. 3. The destruction of artistically valueless monuments (This was a common reaction of the Avant Garde against the elitist militarism that was perceived as the cause of World War I). - December - Arbeitsrat für KunstArbeitsrat für KunstThe Arbeitsrat für Kunst was a union of architects, painters, sculptors and art writers, who were based in Berlin from 1918 to 1921...
declares its basic aims in Bruno TautBruno TautBruno Julius Florian Taut , was a prolific German architect, urban planner and author active during the Weimar period....
s Architeckturprogramm. It calls for a new 'total work of art', to be created with active participation of the people. - Bruno Taut publishes Die StadtkroneDie StadtkroneDie Stadtkrone or City Crown is a concept of Urban planning put forward by German expressionist architects, and particularly championed by Bruno Taut in the early part of the 20th century...
.
1919
1919 in architecture
The year 1919 in architecture involved some significant events.-Buildings:* Grosses Schauspielhaus by Hans Poelzig opened in Berlin* McMahon Building, better known as the World's littlest skyscraper, by J.D...
- Spring manifesto of Arbeitsrat für KunstArbeitsrat für KunstThe Arbeitsrat für Kunst was a union of architects, painters, sculptors and art writers, who were based in Berlin from 1918 to 1921...
is published. Art for the masses. Alliance of the arts under the wing of architecture. 50 artists, architects and patrons join lead by Bruno TautBruno TautBruno Julius Florian Taut , was a prolific German architect, urban planner and author active during the Weimar period....
, Walter GropiusWalter GropiusWalter Adolph Georg Gropius was a German architect and founder of the Bauhaus School who, along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modern architecture....
and Adolf BehneAdolf BehneAdolf Behne was a critic, art historian, architectural writer, and artistic activist. He was one of the leaders of the Avant Garde in the Weimar Republic....
. - April - Erich MendelsohnErich MendelsohnErich Mendelsohn was a Jewish German architect, known for his expressionist architecture in the 1920s, as well as for developing a dynamic functionalism in his projects for department stores and cinemas.-Early life:...
, Hannes MeyerHannes MeyerHans Emil "Hannes" Meyer was a Swiss architect and second director of the Bauhaus in Dessau from 1928 to 1930.-Early work:...
, Bernard HoetgerBernard HoetgerBernhard Hoetger was a German sculptor, painter and handicrafts artist of the Expressionist movement....
, Max TautMax TautMax Taut was a German architect.- Biography :Max Taut was born in Königsberg, the younger brother of Bruno Taut. He, his brother and Franz Hoffman formed Taut & Hoffman, an architecture firm in Berlin, In the 1920s, Max Taut was particularly known for his office buildings for trade unions...
and Otto BartningOtto BartningOtto Bartning was a Modernist German architect, architectural theorist and teacher. In his early career he developed plans with Walter Gropius for the establishment of the Bauhaus. He was a member of Der Ring...
stage exhibition called 'An Exhibition of Unknown Architects'. Walter GropiusWalter GropiusWalter Adolph Georg Gropius was a German architect and founder of the Bauhaus School who, along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modern architecture....
writes the introduction, now considered to be a first draft for the BauhausBauhaus', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
programme published later in the month. Called for a ‘Cathedral of the Future’, to unify the creative energy of society as in the Middle Ages. - BauhausBauhaus', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
established and begins expressionist phase, to last until 1923. - Adolf BehneAdolf BehneAdolf Behne was a critic, art historian, architectural writer, and artistic activist. He was one of the leaders of the Avant Garde in the Weimar Republic....
publishes Ja! Stimmen des Arbeitsrates für Kunst in Berlin (Yes! Voices from the art Soviet in Berlin). - Spartacist revolt ends the overt activities of Arbeitsrat für KunstArbeitsrat für KunstThe Arbeitsrat für Kunst was a union of architects, painters, sculptors and art writers, who were based in Berlin from 1918 to 1921...
. The group starts the first Utopian letter of the Glass ChainGlass ChainThe Glass Chain or Crystal Chain sometimes known as the "Utopian Correspondence" was a chain letter that took place between November 1919 and December 1920. It was a correspondence of architects that formed a basis of expressionist architecture in Germany. It was initiated by Bruno Taut.-Names,...
by Bruno Taut. They are joined by previously peripheral architects; Hans LuckhardtHans LuckhardtHans Luckhardt – October 8, 1954 in Bad Wiessee) was a German architect and the brother of Wassili Luckhardt, with whom he worked his entire life. He studied at the University of Karlsruhe with Hermann Billing and was a member of the Novembergruppe, the Arbeitsrats für Kunst, and the Glass Chain...
, Wassili LuckhardtWassili LuckhardtWassili Luckhardt was a German architect. He studied at the Technical University of Berlin and Dresden. Luckhardt and his brother Hans worked closely together for most of their lives...
and Hans ScharounHans ScharounBernhard Hans Henry Scharoun was a German architect best known for designing the Berlin Philharmonic concert hall and the in Löbau, Saxony. He was an important exponent of Organic architecture....
. The letters demand; 1. Return to medieval integration of the building team. 2. Irregular form. 3. Facetted form. 4. Glass monuments. - Opening of the Grosses Schauspielhaus by Hans Poelzig in Berlin. Hanging pendentive forms create a ‘luminous dissolution of form and space’.
- Bruno TautBruno TautBruno Julius Florian Taut , was a prolific German architect, urban planner and author active during the Weimar period....
launches the magazine Frühlicht (Early Light). - Bruno TautBruno TautBruno Julius Florian Taut , was a prolific German architect, urban planner and author active during the Weimar period....
and Hans ScharounHans ScharounBernhard Hans Henry Scharoun was a German architect best known for designing the Berlin Philharmonic concert hall and the in Löbau, Saxony. He was an important exponent of Organic architecture....
stress the creative importance of the FreudianSigmund FreudSigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
unconsciousUnconscious mindThe unconscious mind is a term coined by the 18th century German romantic philosopher Friedrich Schelling and later introduced into English by the poet and essayist Samuel Taylor Coleridge...
. - Hans PoelzigHans PoelzigHans Poelzig was a German architect, painter and set designer.-Life:Poelzig was born in Berlin in 1869 to the countess Clara Henrietta Maria Poelzig while she was married to George Acland Ames, an Englishman...
is made chairman of the Deutscher WerkbundDeutscher WerkbundThe Deutscher Werkbund was a German association of artists, architects, designers, and industrialists. The Werkbund was to become an important event in the development of modern architecture and industrial design, particularly in the later creation of the Bauhaus school of design...
. - Design work starts on Piet KramerPiet KramerPieter Lodewijk Kramer was a Dutch architect, one of the most important architects of the Amsterdam School ....
s De Dageraad. Construction is completed in 1923. Mendelsohn see it as more structural than the work of Hendrikus Wijdeveld.
19201920 in architectureThe year 1920 in architecture involved some significant events.-Buildings:*The Cenotaph in London, designed by Edwin Lutyens, is completed.*The Legislative Building in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada is completed.-Awards:...
- February 26, the film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari premiered at the Marmorhaus in Berlin.
- Hans PoelzigHans PoelzigHans Poelzig was a German architect, painter and set designer.-Life:Poelzig was born in Berlin in 1869 to the countess Clara Henrietta Maria Poelzig while she was married to George Acland Ames, an Englishman...
declares affinity with the Glass Chain. He designs sets for The GolemThe Golem: How He Came Into the WorldThe Golem: How He Came Into the World is a 1920 silent horror film by Paul Wegener. It was directed by Carl Boese and Wegener, written by Wegener and Henrik Galeen, and starred Wegener as the golem. The script was adapted from the 1915 novel The Golem by Gustav Meyrink...
. - Solidarity of the Glass Chain is broken. Final letter written by Hermann FinsterlinHermann FinsterlinHermann Finsterlin was a visionary architect, painter, poet, essayist, toymaker and composer. He played an influential role in the German expressionist architecture movement of the early 20th century but due to the harsh economic climate realised none of his projects...
. Hans Luckhardt recognises the incompatibility of free unconscious form and rationalist prefabrication and moves to RationalismRationalismIn epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...
. - Taut maintains his Scheerbartian views. He publishes ‘Die Auflösung der Städt' (The dissolution of the city) in line with KropotkinPeter KropotkinPrince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin was a Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, economist, geographer, author and one of the world's foremost anarcho-communists. Kropotkin advocated a communist society free from central government and based on voluntary associations between...
ian anarchist socialist tendencies. In common with the SovietSoviet (council)Soviet was a name used for several Russian political organizations. Examples include the Czar's Council of Ministers, which was called the “Soviet of Ministers”; a workers' local council in late Imperial Russia; and the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union....
s, it recommends the breakup of cities and a return to the land. He models agrarian communities and temples in the Alps. There would be 3 separate residential communities. 1. The enlightened. 2. Artists. 3. Children. This authoritarianism is noted in Frampton as although socialist in intent, paradoxically containing the seeds of the later fascism.
1921
1921 in architecture
The year 1921 in architecture involved some significant events.-Buildings:* The Einstein Tower near Potsdam, Germany, designed by Erich Mendelsohn is completed.* Berliner Tageblatt designed by Erich Mendelsohn is opened....
- Taut is made city architect of MagdeburgMagdeburgMagdeburg , is the largest city and the capital city of the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Magdeburg is situated on the Elbe River and was one of the most important medieval cities of Europe....
and fails to realise a municipal exhibition hall as the harsh economic realities of the Weimar republicWeimar RepublicThe Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
become apparent and prospects of building a ‘glass paradise’ dwindle. - Walter GropiusWalter GropiusWalter Adolph Georg Gropius was a German architect and founder of the Bauhaus School who, along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modern architecture....
designs the Monument to the March Deadhttp://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1162/1526381043320796;jsessionid=n_5xJRMLsgMegIOfxT in WeimarWeimarWeimar is a city in Germany famous for its cultural heritage. It is located in the federal state of Thuringia , north of the Thüringer Wald, east of Erfurt, and southwest of Halle and Leipzig. Its current population is approximately 65,000. The oldest record of the city dates from the year 899...
. It is completed in 1922 and inspires the workers' gong in the 1927 film MetropolisMetropolis (film)Metropolis is a 1927 German expressionist film in the science-fiction genre directed by Fritz Lang. Produced in Germany during a stable period of the Weimar Republic, Metropolis is set in a futuristic urban dystopia and makes use of this context to explore the social crisis between workers and...
by Fritz LangFritz LangFriedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang was an Austrian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute...
. - Frülicht loses its impetus.
- Erich MendelsohnErich MendelsohnErich Mendelsohn was a Jewish German architect, known for his expressionist architecture in the 1920s, as well as for developing a dynamic functionalism in his projects for department stores and cinemas.-Early life:...
visits works of the Dutch WendingenWendingenWendingen was an art magazine that appeared from 1918 to 1932. It was a monthly publication aimed at architects and interior designers. The booklet was published by Amsterdam publisher Hooge Brug and it was a mouthpiece for the architect association Architectura et Amicitia. . The chief editor was...
group and tours the Netherlands. He meets the rationalists JJP Oud and W M Dudek. He recognises the conflict of visionary and objective approaches to design. - Erich MendelsohnErich MendelsohnErich Mendelsohn was a Jewish German architect, known for his expressionist architecture in the 1920s, as well as for developing a dynamic functionalism in his projects for department stores and cinemas.-Early life:...
's MossehausMossehausMossehaus is an office building on 18-25 Schützenstrasse in Berlin, renovated and with a corner designed by Erich Mendelsohn in 1921-3.The original Mosse building housed the printing press and offices of the newspapers owned by Rudolf Mosse, mainly liberal newspapers such as the Berliner Tageblatt...
opens. Construction is complete on the Einstein TowerEinstein TowerThe Einstein Tower is an astrophysical observatory in the Albert Einstein Science Park in Potsdam, Germany built by Erich Mendelsohn. It was built on the summit of the Potsdam Telegraphenberg to house a solar telescope designed by the astronomer Erwin Finlay-Freundlich...
. It combines the sculptural forms of Van de Weldes Werkbund Exhibition theatre with the profile of Taut's Glashaus and the formal affinity to vernacular Dutch architecture of Eibink and Snellebrand and Hendrikus Wijdeveld. Einstein himself visits and declares it ‘organic’. - Mendelsohn designs a hat factory in LuckenwaldeLuckenwaldeLuckenwalde is the capital of the Teltow-Fläming district in the German state of Brandenburg. It is situated on the Nuthe river north of the Fläming Heath, at the eastern rim of the Nuthe-Nieplitz Nature Park, about south of Berlin...
. It shows influences of the Dutch expressionist De Klerk, setting dramatic tall pitched industrial forms against horizontal administrative elements. This approach is echoed in his LeningradSaint PetersburgSaint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
textile mill of 1925 and anticipates the banding in his department stores in Breslau, StuttgartStuttgartStuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
, ChemnitzChemnitzChemnitz is the third-largest city of the Free State of Saxony, Germany. Chemnitz is an independent city which is not part of any county and seat of the government region Direktionsbezirk Chemnitz. Located in the northern foothills of the Ore Mountains, it is a part of the Saxon triangle...
and Berlin from 1927 and 1931. - Hugo HäringHugo HäringHugo Häring was a German architect and architectural writer best known for his writings on "organic architecture", and as a figure in architectural debates about functionalism in the 1920s and 1930s, though he had an important role as an expressionist architect.A student of the great Theodor...
and Ludwig Mies van der RoheLudwig Mies van der RoheLudwig Mies van der Rohe was a German architect. He is commonly referred to and addressed as Mies, his surname....
submit a competition entry for a Friedrichstrasse office building. It reveals an organic approach to structure and is fully made of glass.
1922
1922 in architecture
The year 1922 in architecture involved some significant events.-Buildings:* The Wrigley Building in Chicago, Illinois, United States is completed.* Construction of The Los Angeles Central Library in Los Angeles, California, United States is begun....
- Ludwig Mies van der RoheLudwig Mies van der RoheLudwig Mies van der Rohe was a German architect. He is commonly referred to and addressed as Mies, his surname....
publishes a glass skyscraper project in the last issue of Frülicht. - The film Nosferatu by F.W. Murnau is released.
1923
1923 in architecture
The year 1923 in architecture involved some significant events.-Buildings:* June 23 - Stockholm City Hall, designed by Ragnar Östberg, is opened.* Chilehaus in Hamburg, designed by Fritz Höger, is completed.-Events:...
- BauhausBauhaus', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
expressionist phase ends. Standard arguments for the reasons for this are 1. Expressionism was difficult to build. 2. Rampant inflation in Germany changed the climate of opinion to a more sober one. Jencks postulates that the standard arguments are too simplistic and instead argues that 1. Expressionism had become associated with extreme utopianism which in turn had been discredited by violence and bloodshed. Or 2. Architects had become convinced that the new (rationalist) style was equally expressive and more adequately captured the ZeitgeistZeitgeistZeitgeist is "the spirit of the times" or "the spirit of the age."Zeitgeist is the general cultural, intellectual, ethical, spiritual or political climate within a nation or even specific groups, along with the general ambiance, morals, sociocultural direction, and mood associated with an era.The...
. There is no large disagreements or public pronouncements to precipitate this change in direction. The only outwardly visible reaction was the forced resignation of the head of the basic Bauhaus course, Johannes IttenJohannes IttenJohannes Itten was a Swiss expressionist painter, designer, teacher, writer and theorist associated with the Bauhaus school...
, to be replaced with the, then constructivist, László Moholy-NagyLászló Moholy-NagyLászló Moholy-Nagy was a Hungarian painter and photographer as well as professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by constructivism and a strong advocate of the integration of technology and industry into the arts.-Early life:...
. - ChilehausChilehausThe Chilehaus is a ten-story office building in Hamburg, Germany. It is an exceptional example of the 1920s Brick Expressionism style of architecture...
in Hamburg by Fritz Höger. - Walter GropiusWalter GropiusWalter Adolph Georg Gropius was a German architect and founder of the Bauhaus School who, along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modern architecture....
abandons expressionism and moves to rationalism. - Bruno and Max Taut begin work on government funded low cost housing projects.
- Berlin secession exhibition. Mies van der Rohe and Hans and Wassili Luckhardt demonstrate a more functional and objective approach.
- Rudolf SteinerRudolf SteinerRudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner was an Austrian philosopher, social reformer, architect, and esotericist. He gained initial recognition as a literary critic and cultural philosopher...
designs second GoetheanumGoetheanumThe Goetheanum, located in Dornach , Switzerland, is the world center for the anthroposophical movement. Named after Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the center includes two performance halls , gallery and lecture spaces, a library, a bookstore, and administrative spaces for the Anthroposophical...
after first was destroyed by fire in 1922. Work commences 1924 and is completed in 1928. - Michel de KlerkMichel de KlerkMichel de Klerk was a Dutch architect.He was one of the founding architects of the movement Amsterdam School. Early in his career he worked for other architects, including Eduard Cuypers. Of his many outstanding designs, very few have actually been built...
dies and the style of the Amsterdam SchoolAmsterdam SchoolThe Amsterdam School is a style of architecture that arose from 1910 through about 1930 in The Netherlands...
effectively dies with him.
1924
1924 in architecture
The year 1924 in architecture involved some significant events.-Buildings:* The Chilehaus in Hamburg, Germany is completed.* Rietveld Schröder House in Utrecht, Netherlands-Awards:...
- Germany adopts the Dawes planDawes PlanThe Dawes Plan was an attempt in 1924, following World War I for the Triple Entente to collect war reparations debt from Germany...
. Architects more inclined to produce low-cost housing than pursue utopian ideas about glass. - Hugo HäringHugo HäringHugo Häring was a German architect and architectural writer best known for his writings on "organic architecture", and as a figure in architectural debates about functionalism in the 1920s and 1930s, though he had an important role as an expressionist architect.A student of the great Theodor...
designs a farm complex. It uses expressive pitched roofs contrasted with bulky tectonic elements and rounded corners. - Hugo HäringHugo HäringHugo Häring was a German architect and architectural writer best known for his writings on "organic architecture", and as a figure in architectural debates about functionalism in the 1920s and 1930s, though he had an important role as an expressionist architect.A student of the great Theodor...
designs Prinz Albrecht Garten, residential project. Whilst demonstrating overt expressionism he is preoccupied with deeper inquiries into the inner source of form. - Foundation of Zehnerring group.
- June 3, Death of Franz Kafka.
- Hermann Finsterlin initiates a series of correspondence with Antoni GaudíAntoni GaudíAntoni Gaudí i Cornet was a Spanish Catalan architect and figurehead of Catalan Modernism. Gaudí's works reflect his highly individual and distinctive style and are largely concentrated in the Catalan capital of Barcelona, notably his magnum opus, the Sagrada Família.Much of Gaudí's work was...
.
1925
1925 in architecture
The year 1925 in architecture involved some significant events.-Buildings:*The Mount Pleasant Library opens in Washington, DC, designed by Edward Lippincott Tilton*The Bauhaus moves to a building in Dessau, designed by Walter Gropius....
- Hans PoelzigHans PoelzigHans Poelzig was a German architect, painter and set designer.-Life:Poelzig was born in Berlin in 1869 to the countess Clara Henrietta Maria Poelzig while she was married to George Acland Ames, an Englishman...
abandons expressionism and returns to crypto-classicism. - Zehnerring group becomes Der RingDer RingDer Ring was an architectural collective founded in 1926 in Berlin. It emerged out of expressionist architecture with a functionalist agenda. Der Ring was a group of young architects, formed with the objective of promoting Modernist architecture. It took a position against the prevailing...
. Hugo HäringHugo HäringHugo Häring was a German architect and architectural writer best known for his writings on "organic architecture", and as a figure in architectural debates about functionalism in the 1920s and 1930s, though he had an important role as an expressionist architect.A student of the great Theodor...
is appointed secretary. - Max BrodMax BrodMax Brod was a German-speaking Czech Jewish, later Israeli, author, composer, and journalist. Although he was a prolific writer in his own right, he is most famous as the friend and biographer of Franz Kafka...
publishes Franz Kafka's The TrialThe TrialThe Trial is a novel by Franz Kafka, first published in 1925. One of Kafka's best-known works, it tells the story of a man arrested and prosecuted by a remote, inaccessible authority, with the nature of his crime revealed neither to him nor the reader.Like Kafka's other novels, The Trial was never... - Eugen Schmohl completes the Borsig-Tower in Berlin-Tegel
1926
1926 in architecture
The year 1926 in architecture involved some significant events.-Buildings:* Frankfurt kitchen designed by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky* Jackling House designed by George Washington Smith* Mausoleum of Yugoslavian Soldiers in Olomouc designed by Hubert Aust...
- Founding of the architectural collective Der RingDer RingDer Ring was an architectural collective founded in 1926 in Berlin. It emerged out of expressionist architecture with a functionalist agenda. Der Ring was a group of young architects, formed with the objective of promoting Modernist architecture. It took a position against the prevailing...
largely turns its back on expressionism and towards a more functionalist agenda. - Wassily Kandinsky publishes Point and Line to Plane.
- Max Brod publishes Franz Kafka's The CastleThe CastleThe Castle is a novel by Franz Kafka. In it a protagonist, known only as K., struggles to gain access to the mysterious authorities of a castle who govern the village for unknown reasons...
1927
1927 in architecture
The year 1927 in architecture involved some significant events.-Buildings:*Weissenhof Estate in Stuttgart, designed by a team led by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is completed.*Battersea Power Station in London, designed by Giles Gilbert Scott....
- Anzeiger-Hochhaus, Hanover by Fritz Höger
- Release of Fritz LangFritz LangFriedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang was an Austrian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute...
's Metropolis. - Weissenhof EstateWeissenhof EstateThe Weissenhof Estate is a housing estate built for exhibition in Stuttgart in 1927...
is built in StuttgartStuttgartStuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
. Expressionist architects, Taut, Poelzig, Scharoun, build in international styleInternational style (architecture)The International style is a major architectural style that emerged in the 1920s and 1930s, the formative decades of Modern architecture. The term originated from the name of a book by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, The International Style...
.
1928
1928 in architecture
The year 1928 in architecture involved some significant events.-Buildings:* First Dymaxion House is designed by Richard Buckminster Fuller....
- Congrès International d'Architecture ModerneCongrès International d'Architecture ModerneThe Congrès internationaux d'architecture moderne – CIAM was an organization founded in 1928 and disbanded in 1959, responsible for a series of events and congresses arranged around the world by the most prominent architects of the time, with the objective of spreading the principles of the Modern...
(CIAM) convenes in Switzerland. Hugo HäringHugo HäringHugo Häring was a German architect and architectural writer best known for his writings on "organic architecture", and as a figure in architectural debates about functionalism in the 1920s and 1930s, though he had an important role as an expressionist architect.A student of the great Theodor...
fails to move consensus away from Le CorbusierLe CorbusierCharles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier , was a Swiss-born French architect, designer, urbanist, writer and painter, famous for being one of the pioneers of what now is called modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930...
s call for rationalism towards an organic approach. Finally the Scheerbartian vision is eclipsed as the non-normative ‘place’ orientated approach is cast aside. - The GroßmarkthalleGroßmarkthalleThe Großmarkthalle , located in the Ostend of Frankfurt am Main, was the city's main wholesale market, especially for fruit and vegetables. It was closed on June 4, 2004...
at FrankfurtFrankfurtFrankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
(by Martin ElsaesserMartin ElsaesserMartin Elsaesser was a German architect and professor of architecture. He is especially well known for the many churches he built...
) is completed. - Chapel of the Cemetery of Glienicke/NordbahnGlienicke/NordbahnGlienicke/Nordbahn is a municipality in the Oberhavel district, in Brandenburg, Germany. It ls located right north of Berlin.-Landscape:Glienicke/Nordbahn is located on the northern outskirts of Berlin. The addition "Nordbahn" is based on the proximity to the 19th century-built railway line...
(Germany) is completed. Architect: Paul Poser
19301930 in architectureThe year 1930 in architecture involved some significant events.-Buildings:* June 9 – The Chicago Board of Trade Building, designed by Holabird & Roche opens....
19311931 in architecture
The year 1931 in architecture involved some significant events.-Buildings:* July 1 - Rebuilt Milano Centrale railway station opens in Italy....
- Completion of 'The house of Atlantis' in Böttcherstraße (Bremen).
1938
1933 in architecture
The year 1933 in architecture involved some significant events.-Buildings:*Completion of the Myer Emporium renovation, on Bourke Street, Melbourne....
- After Nazi seizure of power, expressionist art was outlawed as degenerate artDegenerate artDegenerate art is the English translation of the German entartete Kunst, a term adopted by the Nazi regime in Germany to describe virtually all modern art. Such art was banned on the grounds that it was un-German or Jewish Bolshevist in nature, and those identified as degenerate artists were...
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19401940 in architectureThe year 1940 in architecture involved some significant events.-Buildings:*The Timişoara Orthodox Cathedral, in Timişoara, Romania, is completed.*The Raleigh Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida is built by Lawrence Murray Dixon....
- The Berlin Philharmonic concert hall is destroyed in 1944 during World War II.
19501950 in architectureThe year 1950 in architecture involved some significant events.-Buildings:*Alas Building completed in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The tallest building in Buenos Aires between 1950 and 1996, surpassed by the Le Parc tower....
- Le Corbusier constructs Notre Dame du HautNotre Dame du HautInformally known as "Ronchamp", the chapel of Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp , completed in 1954, is one of the finest examples of the architecture of Franco-Swiss architect Le Corbusier and one of the most important examples of twentieth-century religious architecture.-History:Notre Dame du Haut...
signaling his postmodernPostmodern architecturePostmodern architecture began as an international style the first examples of which are generally cited as being from the 1950s, but did not become a movement until the late 1970s and continues to influence present-day architecture...
return to an architectural expressionism of form. He also constructs the Unité d'HabitationUnité d'HabitationThe Unité d'Habitation is the name of a modernist residential housing design principle developed by Le Corbusier, with the collaboration of painter-architect Nadir Afonso...
, which emphasizes the architectural expression of materials. The brutalistBrutalist architectureBrutalist architecture is a style of architecture which flourished from the 1950s to the mid 1970s, spawned from the modernist architectural movement.-The term "brutalism":...
use of béton brutBéton brutBéton brut is architectural concrete left unfinished or roughly-finished after pouring and left exposed visually. The imprint of the wood or plywood forms used for pouring is usually present on the final surface....
(reinforced concrete) recalls the expressionist use of glass, brickBrickA brick is a block of ceramic material used in masonry construction, usually laid using various kinds of mortar. It has been regarded as one of the longest lasting and strongest building materials used throughout history.-History:...
, and steelSteelSteel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...
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19601960 in architectureThe year 1960 in architecture involved some significant events.-Buildings:* January 13 - Shamakhi Astrophysical Observatory officially opened in Shamakhi, Azerbaijan....
- Expressionism reborn without the political context as Fantastic architectureFantastic architectureFantastic architecture is an architectural style featuring attention grabbing buildings. Such buildings can be considered as works of art, and are normally built purely for the amusement of its owner....
. - Rebuilding of the Berlin Philharmonic in 1963 by Hans Scharoun.
- Church of The Highway by Giovanni Michelucci is inaugurated in Italy.
Notable Expressionist architects
- Adolf BehneAdolf BehneAdolf Behne was a critic, art historian, architectural writer, and artistic activist. He was one of the leaders of the Avant Garde in the Weimar Republic....
- Hermann FinsterlinHermann FinsterlinHermann Finsterlin was a visionary architect, painter, poet, essayist, toymaker and composer. He played an influential role in the German expressionist architecture movement of the early 20th century but due to the harsh economic climate realised none of his projects...
- Antoni GaudíAntoni GaudíAntoni Gaudí i Cornet was a Spanish Catalan architect and figurehead of Catalan Modernism. Gaudí's works reflect his highly individual and distinctive style and are largely concentrated in the Catalan capital of Barcelona, notably his magnum opus, the Sagrada Família.Much of Gaudí's work was...
- Walter GropiusWalter GropiusWalter Adolph Georg Gropius was a German architect and founder of the Bauhaus School who, along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modern architecture....
- early period - Hugo HäringHugo HäringHugo Häring was a German architect and architectural writer best known for his writings on "organic architecture", and as a figure in architectural debates about functionalism in the 1920s and 1930s, though he had an important role as an expressionist architect.A student of the great Theodor...
- Fritz Höger
- Michel de KlerkMichel de KlerkMichel de Klerk was a Dutch architect.He was one of the founding architects of the movement Amsterdam School. Early in his career he worked for other architects, including Eduard Cuypers. Of his many outstanding designs, very few have actually been built...
- Piet KramerPiet KramerPieter Lodewijk Kramer was a Dutch architect, one of the most important architects of the Amsterdam School ....
- Carl KraylCarl KraylCarl Christian Krayl was a German architect and artist of the early twentieth century, who was associated with several of the leading avant-garde art movements of German Expressionism....
- Erich MendelsohnErich MendelsohnErich Mendelsohn was a Jewish German architect, known for his expressionist architecture in the 1920s, as well as for developing a dynamic functionalism in his projects for department stores and cinemas.-Early life:...
- Hans PoelzigHans PoelzigHans Poelzig was a German architect, painter and set designer.-Life:Poelzig was born in Berlin in 1869 to the countess Clara Henrietta Maria Poelzig while she was married to George Acland Ames, an Englishman...
- Hans ScharounHans ScharounBernhard Hans Henry Scharoun was a German architect best known for designing the Berlin Philharmonic concert hall and the in Löbau, Saxony. He was an important exponent of Organic architecture....
- Rudolf SteinerRudolf SteinerRudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner was an Austrian philosopher, social reformer, architect, and esotericist. He gained initial recognition as a literary critic and cultural philosopher...
- Bruno TautBruno TautBruno Julius Florian Taut , was a prolific German architect, urban planner and author active during the Weimar period....