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Expressionist architecture

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Template:Modernarch Expressionist architecture refers to an architectural style that developed in Europe in the first part of the 20th Century, and more broadly refers to later work with a similar approach to architectural design and form. Expressionist architecture first occurred in the German speaking world as part of the pan-arts Expressionism movement and also in the Netherlands as the Amsterdam School. between c.1910 and c.1925. The style is characterised an early-Modernist adoption of novel materials, formal innovation, and very unusual massing, sometimes inspired by natural biomorphic forms, sometimes inspired by the new technical possibilities offered by mass produced brick, steel and (especially) glass. This approach developed in parallel with the German Expressionism movement in the visual arts, and some critics observe a parallel kind of emotional content.

Important events in expressionist architecture were the Werkbund Exhibition (1914) in Cologne, the completion and theatrical running of the Grosses Schauspielhaus, Berlin in 1919, the Glass Chain letters, and the activities of the Dutch Amsterdam School.

Economic conditions limited the number of built commissions in these years, so some important Expressionist works exist only on paper, such as Bruno Taut's Alpine Architecture and Hermann Finsterlin's Formspiels. Ephemeral exhibition buildings were numerous and highly significant in this period. Scenography for theatre and films provided another outlet for expressionist imagination,[1]and provided another income for architects challenging conventions. The major permanent landmark of Expressionism is Erich Mendelsohn's Einstein Tower in Potsdam.

By 1925 most of the leading architects of Expressionism like Taut and Mendelsohn and Poelzig, along with many Expressionists in the visual arts, turned toward the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) movement, a far more practical and matter-of-fact approach, to the point of renouncing their earlier experiments. A few, notably Hans Scharoun, continued to work in an expressionist idiom. A similar aesthetic can be found in later buildings such as Eero Saarinen's 1962 TWA Terminal at JFK International Airport.

File:Friedrichstrasse Mies.jpg
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's Friedrichstrasse Skyscraper Project，Berlin-Mitte, 1921


Characteristics of expressionist architecture

Though containing a great variety and differentiation, many points can be found as recurring in works of Expressionist architecture.

  1. Distortion of form for an emotional effect.[2]
  2. Subordination of realism to symbolic or stylistic expression of inner experience.
  3. An underlying effort at achieving the new, original, and visionary.
  4. Profusion of works on paper, and models, with discovery and representations of concepts more important than pragmatic finished products.
  5. Often hybrid solutions, irreducible to a single concept.[3]
  6. Themes of natural romantic phenomena, such as caves, mountains, lightning, crystal and rock formations.[4]As such it is more mineral and elemental than florid and organic which characterised its close contemporary art nouveau.
  7. Utilises creative potential of artisan craftsmanship.
  8. Tendency more towards the gothic than the classical. Expressionist architecture also tends more towards the romanesque and the rococo than the classical.
  9. Though a movement in Europe, expressionism is as eastern as western. It draws as much from Moorish, Islamic, Egyptian, and Indian art and architecture than from Italian or Greek.
  10. Conception of architecture as a work of art.[5]

Context

Political, economic and artistic shifts provided a context for expressionist architecture. Social democracy and the objectives of the Weimar republic allied with the German nation adjusting to the loss of the First World War, created a climate a reluctance to continue projects from before led to the development of new idioms. Social restructuring after the removal of the Kaiser contributed to this as well. Leftist ideas of the intelligentsia sought a similar revolution as had occurred in Russia. The costly and grandiose remodelling of the Grosses Schauspielhaus, was reminiscent of the imperial past, than wartime budgeting and post-war depression.[6]

Artistic movements that preceded expressionist architecture and continued with some overlap were the Arts and Crafts movement and Art Nouveau or in Germany, Jugendstil. Unity of designers with artisans, was a major trait of Arts and Crafts movement which extended into expressionist architecture. The frequent topic of naturalism in Art Nouveau, which was also prevalent in romanticism, continued as well, but took a turn for the more earthen than floral. The naturalist, Ernst Haeckel was known by Finsterlin[7] and shared his source of inspiration in natural forms.

Futurism, constructivism, and Dada were transpiring at the time of expressionism and often contained similar features. However, futurism and constructivism emphasized mechination, a tendency which wasn't to take hold in Germany until the Neue Sachlichkeit. A quality of dynamic energy and exuberance exists in both the sketches of Erich Mendelsohn and futurist Antonio Sant'Elia.[8]The Merzbau by Dada artist Kurt Schwitters, with its angular, abstract form, held many expressionist characteristics.

Influence of individualists such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Antoni Gaudí also provided the surrounding climate for expressionist architecture. Portfolios of Wright were included in the lectures of Erich Mendelsohn and were well known to those in his circle.[9]Gaudi, 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.[10] Charles Rennie Mackintosh 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 exhibition in 1900.

Underlying ideas

  • Die Stadtkrone and the Cathedral of the future - Crystalline symbol of a new forthcoming religion (Socialism?). (Bauhaus manifesto)
  • Poetic ideas of a glass architecture from Paul Scheerbart
  • Utopianism
  • Artistic theories of Wassily Kandinsky
  • Emergent psychology from Sigmund Freud and Karl Jung
  • Naturalism of Charles Darwin
  • Philosophy, of Friedrich Nietzche, and Henri Bergson.
  • 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 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.

Form

Einstein Tower by Eric Mendelsohn

Form played a defining role in setting apart expressionist architecture from its immediate predecessor, art nouveau 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.[11]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."[12]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."[13]

As expressionist architecture utilised curved geometries, a recurring form in the movement is the dome. 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 and the Worpswede Käseglocke. Taut's Alpine architecture have the exotic charm of the domed pleasure palaces of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Kubla Khan. 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.[14]In their strong contrasts of lighting, used to reveal form, they seem inspired by expressionist film and the name of his 1929 book The Metropolis of Tommorrow, seems inspired by the 1927 Film, Metropolis.

Formalism was a tendency that expressionist architecture helped contribute to modernism. The work of expressionists who turned later to Neue Sachlichkeit took form as a departure but minimalized distortions. 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.

Materials

File:GlassPavilion.jpg
Glass pavilion (Glashaus) at the Werkbund Exhibition (1914) by Bruno Taut

A recurring concern of expressionist architects is materials. There was often an intention to unify the materials in a building so as to make it monolithic. Bruno Taut and Paul Scheerbart's doctrine of glass architecture is an example of this. 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 poet 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 on 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.[15]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.

Brick was used in a similar fashion, in a way that expressed the nature of the material. Bruno Taut used brick as a way to show mass and repetition in his Carl Legien Housing Estate. As in the Arts and Crafts movement, populism, naturalism, as well as other arguments[16] were attached to using brick. With its color and pointillist like visual increment, brick was to expressionism what stucco was to the international style.

Theatres and films

An example of expressionist architecture in the film set for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Europe witnessed a boom in theatrical production in the early twentieth century. In 1896 there were 302 permanent theatres in Europe, by 1926 there were 2,499.[17]Cinema, a new phenomenon only witnessed an increase in establishments, use and popularity. Many architects designed theatres for performances on the stage and film sets for expressionist films. These were defining moments for the movement, and with its interst in theatres and films, the performing arts 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 theatres of expressionist architecture are Henry van de Velde's construction of the model theatre for the 1914 Werkbund Exhibition, and Hans Poelzig'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'.[18]Not only were expressionist architects building stages, Bruno Taut composed a play intended for the theatre, Weltbaumeister.[19]

Expressionist architects were both involved in film and inspired by it. Hans Poelzig strove to make films based on legends or fairytales.[20]Poelzig designed scenographic sets for Paul Wegener's 1920 film, Der Golem. Herman Finsterlin approached Fritz Lang with an idea for a film.[21] Fritz Lang's film Metropolis demonstrates a visually progressive 'Futurist' society dealing with relevant issues of 1920's Germany in relation to labour and society. Bruno Taut 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.It featured architectural fantasias suited to each member of the Chain.[22]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 Kandinsky, 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 rigourous 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.

Dutch Expressionism - The Amsterdam School

Main article: Amsterdam School

Legacy

Saarinen's 1962 TWA Terminal

The legacy of expressionist architecture extended to later movements in the twentieth century. It had an influence on its immediate successor, modern architecture, as well as Art Deco. The New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit) art movement arose in direct opposition to expressionism. Quite a bit later, expressionist architecture was an inspiration to brutalism, deconstructivism, and organicism.

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 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.

First identified at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in 1925, Art Deco 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 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 can be seen as a Transatlantic equivalent of European expressionism.

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 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 took a turn for the expressionist in his brutalist phaze, but more so in his Notre Dame du Haut. Another mid-century modern architect to evoke expressionism was Eero Saarinen. His TWA Terminal at JFK International Airport has an organic form, as close to Herman Finsterlin's Formspiels as any other, save Jorn Utzon's Sydney Opera House.

Expressionistic Architecture today is an evident influence in Deconstructivism, the work of Santiago Calatrava, and the organic movement of Blobitecture.

Timeline

1900

Paris Métro Porte Dauphine station enclosed edicule by Hector Guimard.
  • Reactions to Art Nouveau 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 Nietzsche

1905

1907

1908

  • Adolf Loos publishes his essay/manifesto "Ornament and Crime" which rejects ornamentation in favour of abstraction.

1909

1910

1911

File:Poelzig-water tower 1911.jpg
Upper Silesia Tower in Posen - Later to become a water tower. Designed by Hans Poelzig in 1911

1912

  • Hans Poelzig designs a chemical plant in Luban with strongly expressively articulated brick massing.
  • Wassily Kandinsky publishes Über das Geistige in der Kunst, ("Concerning the Spiritual in Art")
  • Work of the Amsterdam School starts with the cooperative-commercial Scheepvaarthuis (Shipping House), designed by Johan van der Mey

1913

1914

File:430px-Aktion 1914.jpg
Front page of 'Die Aktion' from 1914 with illustration by Egon Schiele
  1. Normative form (Typisierung) - Behrens, Gropius, and,
  2. Will to form (Kunstwollen) - Taut, Van de Welde

1915

1917

  • Michel de Klerks starts building the Het Schip the third and most accomplished apartment buildings at Spaarndammerplantsoen, for the Eigen Haard development company in Amesterdam[1]. Work is completed in 1921.
  • Bruno Taut publishes Alpine architecture.
Amsterdam: Het Schip by Michel de Klerk in 1917

1918

  • Adolf Behne 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 School elucidated in the Wendingen (Changes) magazine.
  • November - Arbeitsrat für Kunst (Worker's Council for the Arts), founded by Bruno Taut and Adolf Behne. 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 Kunst 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 Kunst declares its basic aims in Bruno Tauts Architeckturprogramm. It calls for a new 'total work of art', to be created with active participation of the people.
  • Bruno Taut publishes Die Stadtkrone.

1919

File:Grossesschauspielhaus.jpg
Interior of the Grosses Schauspielhaus, Berlin by Hans Poelzig in 1919

1920

  • February 26, the film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari premiered at the Marmorhaus in Berlin.
  • Hans Poelzig declares affinity with the Glass Chain. He designs sets for The Golem.
  • Solidarity of the Glass Chain is broken. Final letter written by Hermann Finsterlin. Hans Luckhardt recognises the incompatibility of free unconscious form and rationalist prefabrication and moves to Rationalism.
  • Taut maintains his Scheerbartian views. He publishes ‘Die Auflösung der Städt' (The dissolution of the city) in line with Kropotkinian anarchist socialist tendencies. In common with the Soviets, it recommends the break up 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

Walter Gropius's 1921 Monument to the March Dead
  • Taut is made city architect of Magdeburg and fails to realise a municipal exhibition hall as the harsh economic realities of the Weimar republic become apparent and prospects of building a ‘glass paradise’ dwindle.
  • Walter Gropius designs the Monument to the March Dead[2] in Weimar. It is completed in 1922 and inspires the workers' 'Gong' in the 1927 film, Metropolis by Fritz Lang.
  • Frülicht loses its impetus.
  • Eric Mendelsohn visits works of the Dutch Wendingen 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.
  • Eric Mendelsohn’s Berliner Tageblatt opens. Construction is complete on the Einstein Tower. 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 Snellerbrand and Hendrikus Wijdeveld. Einstein himself visits and declares it ‘organic’.
  • Mendelsohn designs a hat factory in Luckenwalde. 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 Leningrad textile mill of 1925 and anticipates the banding in his department stores in Breslau, Stuttgart, Chemnitz and Berlin from 1927 and 1931.
  • Hugo Häring and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe submit a competition entry for a Friedrichstrasse office building. It reveals an organic approach to structure and is fully made of glass.

1922

1923

Chilehaus by Fritz Höger in 1923
File:Goetheanumfront.jpg
Goetheanum by Rudolph Steiner in 1923
  • Bauhaus 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 Zeitgeist. 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 Itten, to be replaced with the, then constructivist, László Moholy-Nagy.
  • Chilehaus in Hamburg by Fritz Höger.
  • Walter Gropius 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.
  • Rudolph Steiner designs second Goetheanum after first was destroyed by fire in 1922. Work commences 1924 and is completed in 1928.
  • Michel de Klerk dies and the style of the Amsterdam School effectively dies with him.

1924

  • Germany adopts the Dawes plan. Architects more inclined to produce low-cost housing than pursue utopian ideas about glass.
  • Hugo Häring designs a farm complex. It uses expressive pitched roofs contrasted with bulky tectonic elements and rounded corners.
  • Hugo Häring 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.

1925

1926

  • Founding of the architectural collective Der Ring 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 Castle

1927

Anzeiger-Hochhaus Hannover by Fritz Höger, 1927

1928

1930

1931

  • Completion of 'The house of Atlantis' in Böttcherstraße (Bremen).
Böttcherstraße

1940

1950

1960

  • Expressionism reborn without the political context as Fantastic architecture.
  • Rebuilding of the Berlin Philharmonic in 1963 by Hans Scharoun.
Berlin Philharmonic by Hans Scharoun

Notable Expressionist architects

Notes

  1. ^ Pehnt, p. 163
  2. ^ Taut, Die Stadtkrone 1919 p. 87, quote "Architecture is art and ought to be the highest of the arts. It consists exclusively of powerful emotion and addresses itself exclusively to the emotions."
  3. ^ Pehnt, p.20
  4. ^ Pehnt, p.19, Taut's mention of "earth-crust architecture" and what Poelzig deemed, "Important to remodel the earth's surface sculpturally."
  5. ^ Pehnt, p.20
  6. ^ Pehnt, p. 16
  7. ^ Pehnt, p.97
  8. ^ Pehnt, p. 119
  9. ^ Pehnt, p.117
  10. ^ Pehnt, p.59
  11. ^ Pehnt, p.55
  12. ^ Pehnt, p.119
  13. ^ Pehnt, p. 58
  14. ^ Pehnt p.217
  15. ^ Pehnt, p.121
  16. ^ Pehnt, p.127 quote "Moral and sometimes even irrational arguments were adduced in favor of building in brick"
  17. ^ Pehnt, p.16
  18. ^ Pehnt, p.16
  19. ^ Pehnt, p. 163
  20. ^ Pehnt, p.164
  21. ^ Pehnt, p.163
  22. ^ Pehnt, p.163

Bibliography

  • Banham, Reyner (1972). Theory and Design in the First Machine Age. Third edition. Praeger Publishers Inc.
  • Frampton, Kenneth (2004). Modern architecture - a critical history. Third edition. World of Art. ISBN 0500202575
  • Jencks, Charles (1986). Modern Movements in Architecture. Second Edition. Penguin. ISBN 01400099638
  • Pehnt, Wolfgang (1973). Expressionist Architecture. Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0500340587
  • Sharp, Dennis (1966). Modern Architecture and Expressionism. George Braziller: New York.
  • Whyte, Iain Boyd ed. (1985). Crystal Chain Letters: Architectural Fantasies by Bruno Taut and His Circle. The MIT Press.
  • http://www.archpedia.com/Styles-Expressionist.html
  • http://tigger.uic.edu/~victor/reviews/scheerbart.pdf
  • http://andybleck.com/photo_industry_1910_2.html

Original German Page

de:Expressionismus (Architektur)

Expressionist architecture is an almost exclusively German phenomenon which started at the end of World War I and lasted until the end of the 1920's. Adolf Behne had described Bruno Tauts architecture as being Expressionist in the magazine Pan. Many of the architects had previously been exponents of Art Nouveau and were members of the Deutscher Werkbund. Most later went on to become Modernists.

Characteristics

Unlike Modernist architecture, expressionist architecture used rounded and serrated forms.

Brick was typical used for expressionist buildings. Concrete was also used. Around 1920, new building materials were being experimented with in a number of styles. The possibilities of curved forms particularly interested the expressionists. At the Einstein Tower in Potsdam, it was planned that concrete should be used. It was actually consructed in brick and then plastered over - probably because construction of the formwork would have been too great a problem.

The movement is remarkable for the synthesis of the arts in nearly all buildings and Interior design. Frequently sculpture was included in Relief. Also, silent films offered an outlet for architectural fantasies. Hans Poelzig designed the sets for the 1920 film "Golem".

  • Many expressionist designs remained unbuilt utopias.

Architects and Buidlings

For most architects Expressionism was a relatively short phase in their careers. This applies, for example to Hans Poelzig who later turned to Modernist architecture. The Grosses Schauspielhaus in Berlin was the first building of the style. The drip-like interior became particularly famous.

1920-1921 Erich Mendelsohn builds, probably the most famous expressionist building: Einstein tower in Potsdam-Babelsberg.

Even Bauhaus projects such as the Sommerfield residence "Haus Sommerfeld" in Berlin by Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer were very expressionistically styled in the 1920s. The house was planned as an expressionistic synthesis of the arts. Gropius and Meyer worked very closely with the wood carver Jost Schmidt and the stained glass craftsman Josef Albers.

The Chilehaus in Hamburg by Fritz Höger or 1922-1924 influenced the Anzeiger-Hochhaus in Hannover in 1927-1928. The anthropologist centre building Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland built between 1924-1928 for Rudolf Steiner, exhibits very strong influences of expressionism. Bernhard Hoetger worked as a sculptor in Worpswede on the Böttcherstraße until 1931.

Outside of Germany, the Amsterdam School with the work of Michel de Klerk was of significance. After World War I and the expressionist architect group Glass Chain of Bruno Taut, Hans Scharoun established The Ring. His later buildings, such as the famous Philharmonie in Berlin (1956-1963), with organic architecture demonstrates Scharouns expressionist past.

Further expressionist architecture or buildings with an expressionistic resemblance:

Original Polish Page

Unedited translation from http://www.poltran.com/pl.php4

Ekspresjonizm Direction in architecture about features modernist - equal, as well as with modernism contradictory, in lats (summers; years) in Europe 1910-1935 developing (spread out), equivalent have in united states too, where usually defined takes place as article Deco. Strong enhancement of vertical direction was for characteristic ekspresjonizmu or horizontal, creation of dynamic form for induction of impression strzelistości, modernity, if (or) building functions in that speed. It dry artistic (plastic; vivid) forms from nature as well as it refer to gothic elements. First of all, movement (traffic) spread out in germany eksresjonistyczny, besides, certain meaning in holland achieving and countries of central Europe. Correspondence round presented main organization of expressionist & # 257 Die Gl; them ( serne Kette. Glass chain ), in (to) 1919 by members of advices of (councils of) artists concentrated around zawiązany Brunona Tauta. Letters (lists) were published by under nicknames Tauta. Ideas of expressionists were factorial < strong > utopijne and anarchistic, were tied with faith to power architecture glass house sprawczą and revolution. Crown of city had to become main architectonic motive - kind great center culture. Cities had substitute become (stay) loose housing estates, inhabitants had to be related with nature which (who) strictly. It was emerged from mid-year change 20 ekspresjonizmu. Style so called opływowy, called dynamic style too, referring to modern forms of cars, aircraft, but especially transatlantyków. Framer , functional project designs (projection) recognizing (regard) requirement, this way, they wanted to transmit pop-up form with their apprehension of programs buildings and typologii.

See also

Bibliography

Wolfgang Pehnt: Die Architektur des Expressionismus. Hatje Cantz Verlag, 1998, ISBN 3-7757-0668-2

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