Week 8 Werkbund; Expressionism

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Week 8Werkbund Expressionism
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Class Logistics
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Answers Midterm Lecture
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Werkbund Background

• Germany is unified. 1870
• AEG is formed in Berlin 1883
• Bismarck resigns. 1890.
• The spur of industrialism and Pan-German
  nationalism made the Prussian bureaucracy react
  against the philistinism of Wilhelmine Germany
  and encourage the incipient Arts and Crafts
  revival of an intrinsic German Culture.
• Peter Behrens appointed principal of Dusseldorf
  Kunstgewerbeschule. (art School) 1903.

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Deutsche Werkbund

• Founded in 1907 by Muthesias, Naumann, and
  Schmidt.
• Initial membership consisted of 12 independent
  artists and twelve craft firms.
• The individuals were Peter Behrens, Theodor
  Fischer, Josef Hoffmann, Wilhelm Kreis, Max
  Leuger, Adelbert Niemeyer, J.M. Olbrich, Bruno
  Paul, Richard Riemerschmid, J.J. Scharvolgel,
  Paul Schultze-Naumburg, and J.J. Scharvolgel.

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4 main strands of thought in germany

• Kunstgewerbeschulen direct descendent of arts
  and crafts. Belief that quality goods would be
  achieved only through a concentration on
  handicrafts.
• Highly individualistic idea of the role of
  artistic invention which held that authentic
  forms in architecture could arise only from the
  imprint of the expressive temperament. Led to
  EXPRESSIONISM.
• Materialist and down to earth. The best forms
  would be those emerging from the logical and
  direct use of new materials to solve building
  problems. FUNCTIONALISM
• Regarded the functionalist as an uncultivated
  brute, the expressionist as an irrelevant remnant
  of the cult of genius, the craftsman as an
  extinct entity unless directed to the problems of
  designing objects for mass production.

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Hermann Muthesias

• Main proponent of the fourth idea of the previous
  slide.
• Formed the Werkbund in 1907. From the start it
  was seen as being far more than a commercial
  matter. Was involved in deep probings into the
  nature of the German spirit, the role of form
  in industry and the psychic life of the nation.
• Borrowed from English Arts and Crafts the idea of
  a concern for the moral power of design to
  influence peoples lives.
• These notions were cross-bred with the ideal of
  designing for the machine and with the
  philosophical concepts derived from the German
  idealist tradition.
• The notion that it was the destiny of Germany to
  realize some higher idea in the historical scheme
  of things.

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Behrens and AEG

• Behrens was appointed head of the design for AEG
  in 1907.

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Werkbund Jahrbuch magazine
Magazine produced by Werkbund. Praised grain
elevators, etc.
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Factory for Werkbund
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Peter Behrens
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Peter Behrens
Behrens believed that industrial tasks must be
seen as the essential cultural ones of the
time. The factory thus took on a far greater
significance than it had usually possessed.
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Deutscher Werkbund

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Peter Behrens - Lamp
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AEG interior Peter Behrens. 1909
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AEG Exterior Peter Behrens. 1909
Had the character of a temple dedicated to some
industrial cult. Building needed to be open so
crane could lift unfinished turbines from one end
to other. Behrens was not expressionist, was
seeking a sober, even typical form.
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Peter Behrens - Lagerhaus
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1914 Werkbund Exhibition
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Gropius and Meyer Fagus. 1909
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Bruno Taut
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Bruno Taut Glaspavilion. Cologne. 1914
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Bruno Taut Glaspavilion. Cologne. 1914
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Bruno Taut Steel Pavilion. Leipzig. 1913
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Bruno Taut Ledigenheim Clubroom. 1919
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Nietzschean Origins of Metaphor
The beginning of the use of metaphor in this
century goes back to the early German
Expressionist Architects and had Nietzschean
origins. Architects such as Bruno Taut used to
keep notes in their sketchbooks from Friedrich
Nietzsches Thus Spake Zarathrustra. Nietzsche
described the creative act in terms of ecstatic
revelation. The expressionists and other German
architects created a series of projects evoking
mountain images because Zarathrustra lives in
the perilous solitude of the mountains.
From Poetics of Architecture. Antoniadis
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Hermann Finsterlin. Concert Hall. 1919
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Glass Architecture
In order to raise our culture to a higher
level, we are forced, whether we like it or not,
to change our architecture. And this will be
possible only if we free the rooms in which we
live of their enclosed character. This, however,
we can only do by introducing a glass
architecture, which admits the light of the sun,
of the moon, and of the stars into therooms, not
only through a few windows, but through as many
walls as feasible, these to consist entirely of
glass of colored glass. Paul Scheerbart.
Glasarchitektur, 1914
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Wassily Luckhardt. Crystal on the Sphere. 1920.
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Wassily Luckhardt. Monument to Joy 1919.
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Crystal Bruno Taut
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Crystal Bruno Taut
Bruno taut wrote an allegory called The Glass
Chain in 1919. The coorespondence involved
fourteen people. Apart from Taut, who called
himself glas, there was Gropius (Mass),
Finsterlin (Prometh), and Bruno Tauts brother,
who wrote under his own name. Taut and Scharoun
especially stressed the creative role of the
unconscious.
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Crystal Peter Behrens.Bookmark Design. 1920
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Hans Poelzig
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Hans Poelzig Grosse Schauspielhaus. Berlin. 1919
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Hans Poelzig Grosse Schauspielhaus. Berlin. 1919
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Hans Poelzig Sketch. Festspielhaus. 1920
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Hans Poelzig Light Fixture. 1920
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Hans Poelzig Water Tower Posen.
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Hans Poelzig Luban Chemical Plant. 1912
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Hans Poelzig Church. 1919
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Rudolf Steiner. Goethaenum. 1913-20
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Max Taut. Wissinger Family Tomb. 1920
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Domikus Bohm. St. Johannes Baptist. Neu-Ulm.
1921-26
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Glaspavilion - Interior
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Mendelsohn Einstein Tower
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Mendelsohn Einstein Tower
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Mendelsohn Train Station. Airport Terminal
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Hugo Haring
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Hans Scharoun
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Berlin Secession Exhibition 1923
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Hans Scharoun
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Hans Scharoun . Musikhalle. 1920
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THE END