Expressionist architecture

The Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Australia is one of the mosticonic buildings in the world and one of the most recognisableexamples of Expressionist architecture.[1][2][3]

Einstein Tower in Potsdam near Berlin, 1919-22 (Erich Mendel-sohn)

Expressionist architecture was an architectural move-ment that developed in Europe during the first decades ofthe 20th century in parallel with the expressionist visualand performing arts that especially developed and domi-nated in Germany.Brick Expressionism is a special variant, that dominatesin western and northern Germany and the AmsterdamSchool in the Netherlands .The term “Expressionist architecture” initially describedthe activity of the German, Dutch, Austrian, Czech andDanish avant garde from 1910 until 1930. Subsequentredefinitions extended the term backwards to 1905 andalso widened it to encompass the rest of Europe. Todaythe meaning has broadened even further to refer to ar-chitecture of any date or location that exhibits some ofthe qualities of the original movement such as; distortion,fragmentation or the communication of violent or over-

stressed emotion.[4]

The style was characterised by an early-modernist adop-tion of novel materials, formal innovation, and very un-usual massing, sometimes inspired by natural biomorphicforms, sometimes by the new technical possibilities of-fered by themass production of brick, steel and especiallyglass. Many expressionist architects fought in World WarI and their experiences, combined with the political tur-moil and social upheaval that followed the German Revo-lution of 1919, resulted in a utopian outlook and a roman-tic socialist agenda.[5] Economic conditions severely lim-ited the number of built commissions between 1914 andthe mid-1920s,[6] resulting in many of the most impor-tant expressionist works remaining as projects on paper,such as Bruno Taut's Alpine Architecture and HermannFinsterlin's Formspiels. Ephemeral exhibition buildingswere numerous and highly significant during this period.Scenography for theatre and films provided another out-let for the expressionist imagination,[7] and provided sup-plemental incomes for designers attempting to challengeconventions in a harsh economicate.Important events in expressionist architecture include;the Werkbund Exhibition (1914) in Cologne, the com-pletion and theatrical running of the Grosses Schauspiel-haus, Berlin in 1919, the Glass Chain letters, and theactivities of the Amsterdam School. The major perma-nent extant landmark of Expressionism is Erich Mendel-sohn's Einstein Tower in Potsdam. By 1925 most of theleading architects of Expressionism such as; Bruno Taut,Erich Mendelsohn, Walter Gropius, Mies van der Roheand Hans Poelzig, along with other Expressionists in thevisual arts, had turned toward theNeue Sachlichkeit (NewObjectivity) movement, a more practical and matter-of-fact approach which rejected the emotional agitation ofexpressionism. A few, notably Hans Scharoun, continuedto work in an expressionist idiom.[8]

In 1933, after the Nazi seizure of power in Germany, ex-pressionist art was outlawed as degenerate.[8] Until the1970s scholars[9] commonly played down the influenceof the expressionists on the later International style, butthis has been re-evaluated in recent years.

1 Characteristics

Expressionist architecture was individualistic and inmany ways eschewed aesthetic dogma,[10] but it is stilluseful to develop some criteria which defines it. Though

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2 2 CONTEXT

Glass Pavilion at the Cologne Deutscher Werkbund Exhibition,1914 (Bruno Taut)

containing a great variety and differentiation, manypoints can be found as recurring in works of Expression-ist architecture, and are evident in some degree in eachof its works.

1. Distortion of form for an emotional effect.[11]

2. Subordination of realism to symbolic or stylistic ex-pression of inner experience.

3. An underlying effort at achieving the new, original,and visionary.

4. Profusion of works on paper, and models, with dis-covery and representations of concepts more impor-tant than pragmatic finished products.

5. Often hybrid solutions, irreducible to a singleconcept.[12]

6. Themes of natural romantic phenomena, suchas caves, mountains, lightning, crystal and rockformations.[13] As such it is more mineral and ele-mental than florid and organic which characterizedits close contemporary art nouveau.

7. Uses creative potential of artisan craftsmanship.

8. Tendencymore towards the gothic than the classical.Expressionist architecture also tends more towardsthe romanesque and the rococo than the classical.

9. Though a movement in Europe, expressionism is aseastern as western. It draws as much from Moorish,Islamic, Egyptian, and Indian art and architecture asfrom Roman or Greek.[14]

10. Conception of architecture as a work of art.[12]

Goetheanum in Dornach near Basel Switzerland, 1924-28(Rudolf Steiner)

2 Context

Political, economic and artistic shifts provided a contextfor the early manifestations of expressionist architecture;particularly in Germany, where the utopian qualities ofexpressionism found strong resonances with a leftist artis-tic community keen to provide answers to a society in tur-moil during and after the events of World War I.[15] Theloss of the war, the subsequent removal of Kaiser Wil-helm II, the depravations and the rise of social democ-racy and the optimism of the Weimar republic created areluctance amongst architects to pursue projects initiatedbefore the war and provided the impetus to seek new so-lutions. An influential body of the artistic community, in-cluding architects, sought a similar revolution as had oc-curred in Russia. The costly and grandiose remodellingof the Grosses Schauspielhaus, was more reminiscent ofthe imperial past, than wartime budgeting and post-wardepression.[16]

Artistic movements that preceded expressionist archi-tecture and continued with some overlap were the artsand crafts movement and art nouveau or in Germany,jugendstil. Unity of designers with artisans, was a majorpreoccupation of the Arts and Crafts movement whichextended into expressionist architecture. The frequenttopic of naturalism in art nouveau, which was also preva-lent in romanticism, continued as well, but took a turnfor the more earthen than floral. The naturalist, ErnstHaeckel was known by Finsterlin[17] and shared his sourceof inspiration in natural forms.The Futurist and constructivist architectural movements,and the dada anti-art movement were occurring concur-rently to expressionism and often contained similar fea-tures. Bruno Taut’s magazine, Frülicht included construc-tivist projects, including Vladimir Tatlins Monument tothe Third International.[18] However, futurism and con-structivism emphasizedmechination,[19] and urbanism[20]

tendencies which were not to take hold in Germany un-til the Neue Sachlichkeit. Mendelsohn is an exceptionwhose work bordered on futurism and constructivism. Aquality of dynamic energy and exuberance exists in boththe sketches of Erich Mendelsohn and futurist AntonioSant'Elia.[21] The Merzbau by Dada artist Kurt Schwit-ters, with its angular, abstract form, held many expres-

3

sionist characteristics.Influence of individualists such as Frank Lloyd Wrightand Antoni Gaudí also provided the surrounding contextfor expressionist architecture. Portfolios of Wright wereincluded in the lectures of Erich Mendelsohn and werewell known to those in his circle.[22] Gaudí was also bothinfluenced and influencing what was happening in Berlin.In Barcelona, there was no abrupt break between the ar-chitecture of art nouveau and that of the early 20th cen-tury, where Jugendstil was opposed after 1900, and hiswork contains more of art nouveau than that of say BrunoTaut. The circle of der Ring, did know about Gaudí,as he was published in Germany, and Finsterlin was incorrespondence.[23] Charles Rennie Mackintosh shouldalso be mentioned in the larger context surrounding ex-pressionist architecture. Hard to classify as strictly artsand crafts or art nouveau, buildings such as the Hill Houseand his Ingram chairs have an expressionist tinge. Hiswork was known on the continent, as it was exhibited atthe Vienna Secession exhibition in 1900.

3 Underlying ideas

Many writers contributed to the ideology of expression-ist architecture. Sources of philosophy important to ex-pressionist architects were works by Friedrich Nietzsche,Søren Kierkegaard,[24] and Henri Bergson.[25] BrunoTaut’s sketches were frequently noted with quotationsfrom Nietzsche,[26] particularly Thus Spoke Zarathustra,whose protagonist embodied freedoms dear to the ex-pressionists; freedom to reject the bourgeois world, free-dom from history, and strength of spirit in individual-ist isolation.[26] Zarathustra’s mountain retreat was an in-spiration to Taut’s Alpine Architecture.[27] Henri Van deVelde drew a title page illustration for Nietzsche’s EcceHomo.[28] The author Franz Kafka in his The Metamor-phosis, with its shape shifting matched the material insta-bility of expressionist architecture[29] Naturalists such asCharles Darwin, and Ernst Haeckel contributed an ideol-ogy for the biomorphic form of architects such as HermanFinsterlin. Poet Paul Scheerbart worked directly withBruno Taut and his circle, and contributed ideas basedon his poetry of glass architecture.Emergent psychology from Sigmund Freud and Karl Jungwas important to expressionism. The exploration of psy-chological effects of form and space[30] was undertakenby architects in their buildings, projects and films. BrunoTaut noted the psychological possibilities of scenographicdesign that, “Objects serve psychologically to mirror theactors’ emotions and gestures.”[30] The exploration ofdreams and the unconscious, provided material for theformal investigations of Hermann Finsterlin.Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries philosophiesof aesthetics had been developing, particularly throughthe work of Kant and Schopenhauer and notions of the

1824, Caspar David Friedrich's Das Eismeer (The Sea of Ice)

1921, Walter Gropius's Monument to the March Dead

sublime. The experience of the sublime was supposedto involve a self-forgetfulness where personal fear is re-placed by a sense of well-being and security when con-fronted with an object exhibiting superior might. Atthe end of the nineteenth century the German Kunst-wissenschaft, or the “science of art”, arose, which wasa movement to discern laws of aesthetic appreciationand arrive at a scientific approach to aesthetic experi-ence. At the beginning of the twentieth century Neo-Kantian German philosopher and theorist of aestheticsMax Dessoir founded the Zeitschift für Ästhetik und all-gemeine Kunstwissenschaft, which he edited for manyyears, and published the work Ästhetik und allgemeineKunstwissenschaft in which he formulated five primaryaesthetic forms: the beautiful, the sublime, the tragic, theugly, and the comic. Iain Boyd Whyte writes that whilst“the Expressionist visionaries did not keep copies of Kantunder their drawing boards. There was, however, in thefirst decades of this century [20th] a climate of ideas thatwas sympathetic to the aesthetic concerns and artistic pro-duction of romanticism.[31]

Artistic theories of Wassily Kandinsky, such asConcerning the Spiritual in Art, and Point and Line toPlane were centerpieces of expressionist thinking.[32]

4 5 THEATRES AND FILMS

4 Materials

Catholic parish church “Heilig-Kreuz” at Gelsenkirchen by JosefFranke, 1927–1929

A recurring concern of expressionist architects was theuse of materials and how they might be poetically ex-pressed. Often, the intention was to unify the materialsin a building so as to make it monolithic. The collabo-ration of Bruno Taut and the utopian poet Paul Scheer-bart attempted to address the problems of German soci-ety by a doctrine of glass architecture. Such utopianismcan be seen in the context of a revolutionary Germanywhere the tussle between nationalism and socialism hadyet to resolve itself. Taut and Scheerbart imagined a soci-ety that had freed itself by breaking from past forms andtraditions, impelled by an architecture that flooded everybuilding with multicolored light and represented a morepromising future.[33] They published texts on this subjectand built the Glass Pavilion at the 1914 Werkbund exhi-bition. Inscribed around the base of the dome were apho-ristic sayings about the material, penned by Scheerbart.

“Coloured glass destroys hatred”,"Without aglass palace life is a burden”,"Glass bringsus a new era, building in brick only does usharm”- Paul Scheerbart, inscriptions on the1914 Werkbund Glass Pavilion.[18]

Another example of expressionist use of monolithic ma-terials 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 onestone, Ein stein.[34] Though not cast in one pour of con-crete (due to technical difficulties, brick and stucco wereused partially) the effect of the building is an expressionof the fluidity of concrete before it is cast. 'Architectureof Steel and Concrete' was the title of an 1919 exhibi-tion of Mendelsohn’s sketches at Paul Cassirer’s galleryin Berlin.Brick was used in a similar fashion to express the inherentnature of the material. Josef Franke produced some char-acteristic expressionist churches in the Ruhrgebiet in the1920s. Bruno Taut used brick as a way to show mass andrepetition in his Berlin Housing Estate “Legien-Stadt”. Inthe same way as their Arts and Crafts movement prede-cessors, to expressionist architects, populism, naturalism,and according to Pehnt “Moral and sometimes even ir-rational arguments were adduced in favor of building inbrick”.[35] With its color and pointillist like visual incre-ment, brick became to expressionism what stucco laterbecame to the international style.

5 Theatres and films

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

Europe witnessed a boom in theatrical production in theearly twentieth century. In 1896 there were 302 perma-nent theatres in Europe, by 1926 there were 2,499.[16]Cinema witnessed a comparable increase in its use andpopularity and a resulting increase in the number of pic-ture houses. It was also able to provide a temporary real-ity for innovative architectural ideas.[30]

Many architects designed theatres for performances onthe stage and film sets for expressionist films. These weredefining moments for the movement, and with its interestin theatres and films, the performing arts held a significantplace in expressionist architecture. Like film, and theatre,expressionist architecture created an unusual and exoticenvironment to surround the visitor.Built examples of expressionist theatres include Henry

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van de Velde's construction of the model theatre for the1914Werkbund Exhibition, and Hans Poelzig's grand re-modelling of the Grosses Schauspielhaus. The enormouscapacity of the Grosses Schauspielhaus enabled low ticketprices, and the creation of a “people’s theatre”.[16] Notonly were expressionist architects building stages, BrunoTaut wrote a play intended for the theatre, Weltbaumeis-ter.[7]

Expressionist architects were both involved in film and in-spired by it. Hans Poelzig strove to make films based onlegends or fairy tales.[36] Poelzig designed scenographicsets for Paul Wegener's 1920 film Der Golem. Space inDer Golemwas a three-dimensional village, a lifelike ren-dering of the Jewish ghetto of Prague. This contrasts withthe setting of the Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, which waspainted on canvas backdrops.[37] Perhaps the latter wasable to achieve more stylistic freedom, but Poelzig in DerGolem was able to create a whole village that “spoke witha Jewish accent.”[36]

Herman Finsterlin approached Fritz Lang with an idea fora film.[7] Fritz Lang’s film Metropolis demonstrates a vi-sually progressive 'Futurist' society dealing with relevantissues of 1920s Germany in relation to labour and soci-ety. Bruno Taut designed an unbuilt theatre for reclin-ing cinema-goers.[38] Bruno Taut also proposed a film asan anthology for the Glass Chain, entitled Die Galoschendes Glücks(The Galoshes of Fortune) with a name bor-rowed from Hans Christian Andersen. On the film, Tautnoted, “an expressionism of the most subtle kind willbring surroundings, props and action into harmony withone another”.[39] It featured architectural fantasias suitedto each member of the Chain.[7] Ultimately unproduced,it reveals the aspiration that the new medium, film, in-voked.

6 Abstraction

The tendency towards abstraction in art correspondedwith abstraction in architecture. Publication of Concern-ing the Spiritual in Art in 1912 by Wassily Kandinsky,his first advocacy of abstraction while still involved inthe Blau Reiter phaze, marks a beginning of abstrac-tion in expressionism and abstraction in expressionistarchitecture.[32] The conception of the Einstein Tower byErich Mendelson was not far behind Kandinsky, in ad-vancing abstraction in architecture. By the publicationof Kandinsky’s Point and Line to Plane in 1926 a rigor-ous andmore geometric form of abstraction emerged, andKandinsky’s work took on clearer and drafted lines. Thetrends in architecture are not dissimilar, as the Bauhauswas gaining attention and expressionist architecture wasgiving way to the geometric abstractions of modern ar-chitecture.

7 Brick Expressionism

see main article Brick Expressionism

The term Brick Expressionism (German: Backsteinex-pressionismus) describes a specific variant of expression-ism that uses bricks, tiles or clinker bricks as the main vis-ible building material. Buildings in the style were erectedmostly in the 1920s. The style’s regional centres were thelarger cities of Northern Germany and the Ruhr area, butthe Amsterdam School belongs to the same category.Amsterdam’s 1912 cooperative-commercialScheepvaarthuis (Shipping House) is consideredthe starting point and prototype for Amsterdam Schoolwork: brick construction with complicated masonry,traditional massing, and the integration of an elaboratescheme of building elements (decorative masonry,art glass, wrought-iron work, and exterior figurativesculpture) that embodies and expresses the identity ofthe building. The School flourished until about 1925.The great international fame of German Expressionismis not related to German Brick Expressionist architects,but to German Expressionist painters like Ernst Lud-wig Kirchner, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Emil Nolde, MaxBeckmann, Wassily Kandinsky and his German friendsin Munich around 1908, and so on.

8 Legacy

The legacy of expressionist architecture extended to latermovements in the twentieth century. It had an influenceon its immediate successor, modern architecture, as wellas Art Deco. The new objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit) artmovement arose in direct opposition to expressionism.Expressionistic architecture today is an evident influencein deconstructivism, the work of Santiago Calatrava, andthe organic movement of blobitecture.Many of the founders and significant players in expres-sionist architecture were also important in modern ar-chitecture. Examples are Bruno Taut, Hans Scharoun,Walter Gropius, and Mies Van der Rohe. By 1927Gropius, Taut, Scharoun and Mies were all building inthe international style and participated in the WeissenhofEstate. Gropius andMies are better known for their mod-ernist work, but Gropius’ Monument to the March Dead,and Mies’ Friedrichstrasse office building projects are ba-sic works of expressionist architecture. Le Corbusierstarted his career in modern architecture but took a turnfor a more expressionist manner later in life.

8.1 Art Deco

First identified at the Exposition Internationale des ArtsDécoratifs et Industriels Modernes in 1925, art deco

6 9 TIMELINE

Douglas Cardinal’s National Museum of the American Indian inWashington, D.C..

shares some characteristics of expressionism and is likelyto have been influenced directly by the Expressionistmovement - particularly the activities of the WeimarBauhaus - and more generally with the factors and politicsthat influenced both movements at the time, such as so-cialism and mechanisation. In common with art nouveauand expressionism they are interested in decorative ef-fects that break with the past and reflect a newmodernity.The bold use of zigzag and stepped forms, and sweepingcurves and chevron patterns. Newmaterials are employedin new ways such as glass, aluminum, and stainless steel.Later examples of Art Deco, particularly in New Yorkcan be seen as a Transatlantic equivalent of European ex-pressionism.

8.2 Neo Expressionism

The influential architectural critic and historian, SigfriedGiedion in his book Space, Time and Architecture (1941)dismissed Expressionist architecture as a side show in thedevelopment of functionalism. In the middle of the twen-tieth century, in the 50s and 60s, many architects begandesigning in a manner reminiscent of expressionist archi-tecture. In this post war period, a variant of expression-ism brutalism had an honest approach to materials, thatin its unadorned use of concrete, was similar to the useof brick by the Amsterdam School. The designs of LeCorbusier took a turn for the expressionist in his brutalistphase, but more so in his Notre Dame du Haut. In Mex-

Vitra Design Museum, by Frank Gehry, 1989

ico, in 1953, German émigré Mathias Goeritz, publishedthe “Arquitectura Emocional” (Emotional architecture)manifesto where he declared that “architecture’s principalfunction is emotion.” [40] Modern Mexican architect LuisBarragán adopted the term that influenced his work. Thetwo of them collaborated in the project Torres de Satélite(1957–58) guided by Goeritz’s principles of Arquitec-tura Emocional. Another mid-century modern architectto evoke expressionismwas Eero Saarinen. A similar aes-thetic can be found in later buildings such as Eero Saari-nen's 1962 TWA Terminal at JFK International Airport.His TWA Terminal at JFK International Airport has anorganic form, as close to Herman Finsterlin’s Formspielsas any other, save Jørn Utzon's Sydney Opera House. Itwas only in the 1970s that expressionism in architecturecame to be re-evaluated in a more positive light. Morerecently still, the aesthetics and tactility of expression-ist architecture have found echo in the works of EnricMiralles, most notability his Scottish Parliament build-ing, deconstructivist architects such as Zaha Hadid andDaniel Libeskind, as well as Canadian Aboriginal archi-tect Douglas Cardinal.[41][42]

9 Timeline

9.1 1900

• Reactions to Art Nouveau impelled partly by moralyearnings for a sterner andmore unadorned style andin part by rationalist ideas requiring practical justifi-cation for formal effects. Art Nouveau had however,opened up a language of abstraction and pointed tolessons to be learned from nature.[43]

• August 25, 1900, death of Friedrich Nietzsche

1905

• Formation of the Dresden Die Brücke expressionistart movement.

1907

9.2 1910 7

• The poet Paul Scheerbart independently offers aScience fiction image of Utopian future.

1908

• Adolf Loos publishes his essay/manifesto “Orna-ment and Crime” which rejects ornamentation infavour of abstraction.

1909

• The New Munich Artist’s Association, Neue Kün-stlervereinigung München is established by WassilyKandinsky and others in Munich.

9.2 1910

• Publication in Berlin of the journals, Der Sturm byHerwarthWalden andDieAktion by Franz Pfemfertas counterculturemouthpieces against theDeutscherWerkbund.

1911

• Hans Poelzig sets up practice in Breslau. Designsa water tower for Posen (now: Poznań, Poland),described by Kenneth Frampton as a certain DieStadtkrone image, and an office building which ledto the architectural format of Erich Mendelsohn'slater Berliner “Mosse-Haus” in 1921.[43]

• Wassily Kandinsky resigns chairmanship of theNeue Künstlervereinigung München.

• Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer (architect) buildthe Fagus Factory, Alfeld an der Leine.

• Der Blaue Reiter forms and has first exhibits inMunich, and Berlin

1912

• Hans Poelzig designs a chemical plant in Lubań withstrongly expressively articulated brick massing.

• Wassily Kandinsky publishes Über das Geistige inder Kunst, (“Concerning the Spiritual in Art”)

• Work of the Amsterdam School starts with thecooperative-commercial Scheepvaarthuis (ShippingHouse), designed by Johan van der Mey

1913

• Michel de Klerk starts work on the first of threeapartment buildings at Spaarndammerplantsoen,Amsterdam the last to be completed in 1921.

• Rudolf Steiner commences work on the firstGoetheanum. Work is completed in 1919.

• PederVilhelm Jensen-Klint wins design competitionfor Grundtvig’s Church in Copenhagen, Denmark.

1914

Front page of 'Die Aktion' from 1914 with illustration by EgonSchiele

• Paul Scheerbart publishes Glasarchitecktur

• Cologne Werkbund exhibition demonstrates ideo-logical split between:

1. Normative form (Typisierung) - Behrens, Gropius,and,

2. Will to form (Kunstwollen) - Taut, van de Velde

1915

• Death of Paul Scheerbart.

• Franz Kafka publishes The Metamorphosis

1917

• Michel de Klerk starts building the Het Schip thethird and most accomplished apartment buildings atSpaarndammerplantsoen, for the Eigen Haard de-velopment company in Amesterdam . Work is com-pleted in 1921.

8 9 TIMELINE

• Bruno Taut publishes Alpine architecture.

1918

• Adolf Behne expands the socio-cultural implicationsScheerbarts writings about glass.

• Armistice – Republican revolution in Germany. So-cial Democrats form Workers and Soldiers Coun-cils. General strikes.

• Free expression of the Amsterdam School eluci-dated in the Wendingen (Changes) magazine.

• November - Arbeitsrat für Kunst (Worker’s Coun-cil for the Arts), founded by Bruno Taut and AdolfBehne. They model themselves consciously onthe Soviets and attach a leftist programme to theirUtopian and Expressionist activities. They demand;1. A spiritual revolution to accompany the politicalone. 2. Architects to form ‘Corporations’ bound by‘mutual aid’.

• November - Novembergruppe formed only to mergewith Arbeitsrat für Kunst the following month. Itproclaims; 1. Creation of collective art works. 2.Mass housing. 3. The destruction of artistically val-ueless monuments (This was a common reaction ofthe Avant Garde against the elitist militarism thatwas perceived as the cause of World War I).

• December - Arbeitsrat für Kunst declares its basicaims in Bruno Tauts Architeckturprogramm. It callsfor a new 'total work of art', to be created with activeparticipation of the people.

• Bruno Taut publishes Die Stadtkrone.

1919

• Spring manifesto of Arbeitsrat für Kunst is pub-lished. Art for the masses. Alliance of the arts un-der the wing of architecture. 50 artists, architectsand patrons join lead by Bruno Taut, Walter Gropiusand Adolf Behne.

• April - Erich Mendelsohn, Hannes Meyer, BernardHoetger, Max Taut and Otto Bartning stage exhibi-tion called 'An Exhibition of Unknown Architects’.Walter Gropius writes the introduction, now consid-ered to be a first draft for the Bauhaus programmepublished later in the month. Called for a ‘Cathedralof the Future’, to unify the creative energy of societyas in the Middle Ages.

• Bauhaus established and begins expressionist phase,to last until 1923.

• Adolf Behne publishes Ja! Stimmen des Arbeitsratesfür Kunst in Berlin (Yes! Voices from the art Sovietin Berlin).

• Spartacist revolt ends the overt activities ofArbeitsrat für Kunst. The group starts the firstUtopian letter of the Glass Chain by Bruno Taut.They are joined by previously peripheral archi-tects; Hans Luckhardt, Wassili Luckhardt and HansScharoun. The letters demand; 1. Return to me-dieval integration of the building team. 2. Irregularform. 3. Facetted form. 4. Glass monuments.

• Opening of the Grosses Schauspielhaus by HansPoelzig in Berlin. Hanging pendentive forms createa ‘luminous dissolution of form and space’.

• Bruno Taut launches the magazine Frühlicht (EarlyLight).

• Bruno Taut and Hans Scharoun stress the creativeimportance of the Freudian unconscious.

• Hans Poelzig is made chairman of the DeutscherWerkbund.

• Design work starts on Piet Kramers De Dageraad.Construction is completed in 1923. Mendelsohn seeit as more structural than the work of HendrikusWi-jdeveld.

9.3 1920

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's Friedrichstraße Skyscraper Project,Berlin-Mitte, 1921

9.3 1920 9

• February 26, the film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligaripremiered 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 let-ter written by Hermann Finsterlin. Hans Luckhardtrecognises the incompatibility of free unconsciousform and rationalist prefabrication and moves toRationalism.

• Taut maintains his Scheerbartian views. He pub-lishes ‘Die Auflösung der Städt' (The dissolution ofthe city) in line with Kropotkinian anarchist socialisttendencies. In common with the Soviets, it recom-mends the breakup of cities and a return to the land.He models agrarian communities and temples in theAlps. There would be 3 separate residential com-munities. 1. The enlightened. 2. Artists. 3. Chil-dren. This authoritarianism is noted in Frampton asalthough socialist in intent, paradoxically containingthe seeds of the later fascism.

1921

• Taut is made city architect of Magdeburg and failsto realise a municipal exhibition hall as the harsheconomic realities of the Weimar republic becomeapparent and prospects of building a ‘glass paradise’dwindle.

• Walter Gropius designs the Monument to the MarchDead in Weimar. It is completed in 1922 and in-spires the workers’ gong in the 1927 filmMetropolisby Fritz Lang.

• Frülicht loses its impetus.

• Erich Mendelsohn visits works of the DutchWendingen group and tours the Netherlands. Hemeets the rationalists JJP Oud and WMDudek. Herecognises the conflict of visionary and objective ap-proaches to design.

• Erich Mendelsohn's Mossehaus opens. Construc-tion is complete on the Einstein Tower. It com-bines the sculptural forms of Van de Weldes Werk-bund Exhibition theatre with the profile of Taut’sGlashaus and the formal affinity to vernacularDutch architecture of Eibink and Snellebrand andHendrikus Wijdeveld. Einstein himself visits anddeclares it ‘organic’.

• Mendelsohn designs a hat factory in Luckenwalde.It shows influences of the Dutch expressionist DeKlerk, setting dramatic tall pitched industrial formsagainst horizontal administrative elements. This ap-proach is echoed in his Leningrad textile mill of1925 and anticipates the banding in his departmentstores in Breslau, Stuttgart, Chemnitz and Berlinfrom 1927 and 1931.

• Hugo Häring and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe sub-mit a competition entry for a Friedrichstrasse officebuilding. It reveals an organic approach to structureand is fully made of glass.

1922

• Ludwig Mies van der Rohe publishes a glassskyscraper project in the last issue of Frülicht.

• The film Nosferatu by F.W. Murnau is released.

1923

Chilehaus by Fritz Höger in 1923

• Bauhaus expressionist phase ends. Standard argu-ments for the reasons for this are 1. Expression-ism was difficult to build. 2. Rampant inflation inGermany changed the climate of opinion to a moresober one. Jencks postulates that the standard argu-ments are too simplistic and instead argues that 1.Expressionism had become associated with extremeutopianism which in turn had been discredited byviolence and bloodshed. Or 2. Architects had be-come convinced that the new (rationalist) style wasequally expressive andmore adequately captured theZeitgeist. There is no large disagreements or publicpronouncements to precipitate this change in direc-tion. The only outwardly visible reaction was theforced resignation of the head of the basic Bauhaus

10 9 TIMELINE

course, Johannes Itten, to be replaced with the, thenconstructivist, László Moholy-Nagy.

• Chilehaus in Hamburg by Fritz Höger.

• Walter Gropius abandons expressionism and movesto rationalism.

• Bruno and Max Taut begin work on governmentfunded low cost housing projects.

• Berlin secession exhibition. Mies van der Rohe andHans and Wassili Luckhardt demonstrate a morefunctional and objective approach.

• Rudolf Steiner designs second Goetheanum afterfirst was destroyed by fire in 1922. Work com-mences 1924 and is completed in 1928.

• Michel de Klerk dies and the style of the AmsterdamSchool effectively dies with him.

1924

• Germany adopts the Dawes plan. Architects moreinclined to produce low-cost housing than pursueutopian ideas about glass.

• Hugo Häring designs a farm complex. It uses ex-pressive pitched roofs contrasted with bulky tectonicelements and rounded corners.

• Hugo Häring designs Prinz Albrecht Garten, resi-dential project. Whilst demonstrating overt expres-sionism he is preoccupied with deeper inquiries intothe inner source of form.

• Foundation of Zehnerring group.

• June 3, Death of Franz Kafka.

• Hermann Finsterlin initiates a series of correspon-dence with Antoni Gaudí.[44]

1925

• Hans Poelzig abandons expressionism and returns tocrypto-classicism.

• Zehnerring group becomes Der Ring. Hugo Häringis appointed secretary.

• Max Brod publishes Franz Kafka’s The Trial

• Eugen Schmohl completes the Borsig-Tower inBerlin-Tegel

• Buildings completed in 1925

• Borsig-Tower in Berlin-Tegel

1926

• Founding of the architectural collective Der Ringlargely turns its back on expressionism and towardsa more functionalist agenda.

• Wassily Kandinsky publishes Point and Line toPlane.

• Max Brod publishes Franz Kafka’s The Castle

1927

• Anzeiger-Hochhaus, Hanover by Fritz Höger

• Release of Fritz Lang's Metropolis.

• Weissenhof Estate is built in Stuttgart. Expres-sionist architects, Taut, Poelzig, Scharoun, build ininternational style.

• Buildings completed in 1927

• Anzeiger-Hochhaus Hannover by Fritz Höger, 1927

1928

• Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne(CIAM) convenes in Switzerland. Hugo Häringfails to move consensus away from Le Corbusierscall for rationalism towards an organic approach.Finally the Scheerbartian vision is eclipsed as thenon-normative ‘place’ orientated approach is castaside.

• The Großmarkthalle at Frankfurt (by Martin El-saesser) is completed.

• Chapel of the Cemetery of Glienicke/Nordbahn(Germany) is completed. Architect: Paul Poser

9.4 1930

1931

• Completion of 'The house of Atlantis’ in Böttcher-straße (Bremen).

1938

• After Nazi seizure of power, expressionist art wasoutlawed as degenerate art.

1937

• Design of Hallgrímskirkja in Reykjavík, Iceland byGuðjón Samúelsson.

9.7 1960 11

Chapel of Cemetery in Glienicke/Nordbahn

Böttcherstraße

9.5 1940

• The Berlin Philharmonic concert hall is destroyed in1944 during World War II.

9.6 1950

• Le Corbusier constructs Notre Dame du Haut sig-naling his postmodern return to an architectural ex-pressionism of form. He also constructs the Unitéd'Habitation, which emphasizes the architectural ex-pression ofmaterials. The brutalist use of béton brut(reinforced concrete) recalls the expressionist use ofglass, brick, and steel.

9.7 1960

• Expressionism reborn without the political contextas Fantastic architecture.

• Rebuilding of the Berlin Philharmonic in 1963 byHans Scharoun.

• Church of The Highway by Giovanni Michelucci isinaugurated in Italy.

10 Expressionist architects of the1920s

• Adolf Behne

• Hermann Finsterlin

• Antoni Gaudí

• Walter Gropius - early period

• Hugo Häring

• Fritz Höger

• Michel de Klerk

• Piet Kramer

• Carl Krayl

• Erich Mendelsohn

• Hans Poelzig

• Hans Scharoun

• Rudolf Steiner

• Bruno Taut

11 Famous Expressionist buildingssince the 1950s

• JFK International Airport in New York, TWA Ter-minal, 1956-62 (Eero Saarinen)

• Berlin Philharmonic, 1956-63 (Hans Scharoun)

• Berlin Philharmonic, inside

• Yoyogi National Gymnasium in Tokyo, 1964(Kenzo Tange)

• Finlandia Hall in Helsinki, 1971 (Alvar Aalto)

• Sydney Opera House, 1957-73 (Jorn Utzon)

• Lotus Temple, 1986 (Fariborz Sahba)

• Vitra Fire Station inWeil amRhein, 1994 (ZahaHa-did)

12 14 NOTES

• Jewish Museum in Berlin, 1989-99 (Daniel Libe-skind)

• Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, 2003(Frank Gehry)

• Walt Disney Concert Hall, inside

• Auditorio de Tenerife, Canary Islands, 2003(Santiago Calatrava)

12 Forerunner of Expressionist ar-chitecture

• Casa Milà in Barcelona, 1905-12 (Antoni Gaudi)

• Roof of Casa Milà in Barcelona

13 External Links

Fostinum: German Expressionist Architecture

14 Notes[1] Statement of Values for Sydney Opera House National

Heritage Listing.

[2] Carbone, Nick (26 March 2011). “World Landmarks GoDark in Honor of Earth Hour”. TimeMagazine. Retrieved28 January 2013.

[3] “3D illuminations light up the Sydney Opera House forVivid Sydney”. The Independent. 9 May 2011. Retrieved28 January 2013.

[4] Stallybrass and Bullock, p.301-392 -entry by John Willett

[5] Jencks, p.59

[6] Sharp, p.68

[7] Pehnt, p.163

[8] Pehnt, p.203

[9] Most notably Nikolaus Pevsner

[10] Sharp p.166

[11] Taut, Die Stadtkrone 1919 p.87, quote “Architecture is artand ought to be the highest of the arts. It consists exclusivelyof powerful emotion and addresses itself exclusively to theemotions.”

[12] Pehnt, p.20

[13] Pehnt, p.19, Taut’s mention of “earth-crust architecture”and what Poelzig deemed, “Important to remodel theearth’s surface sculpturally.”

[14] Sharp p.119

[15] Sharp, p.9

[16] Pehnt, p.16

[17] Pehnt, p.97

[18] Sharp, p.95

[19] Sharp, p.110

[20] Pehnt, p.169

[21] Pehnt, p.119

[22] Pehnt, p.117

[23] Pehnt, p.59

[24] Sharp, p.3

[25] Pehnt, p.34

[26] Pehnt, p.41

[27] Pehnt, p.42

[28] Sharp, p.5

[29] Sharp, p.6

[30] Pehnt, p.167

[31] Benson, p118

[32] Sharp, p.18

[33] Benson p.100

[34] Pehnt, p.121

[35] Pehnt, p.127

[36] Pehnt, p.164

[37] Pehnt, p.166

[38] Pehnt, p.168

[39] Taut, Die Gläserne Kette, p.49

[40] Mathias Goeritz, “El manifiesto de arquitectura emo-cional”, in Lily Kassner, Mathias Goeritz, UNAM, 2007,p. 272-273

[41] The Canadian Encyclopedia

[42] The Canada Council for the Arts

[43] Frampton

[44] Archinform

13

15 Bibliography• Rauhut, Christoph and Lehmann, Niels (2015):Fragments of Metropolis Berlin Hirmer Publishers2015, ISBN 978-3777422909

• Alfirevic, Djordje (2012). Expressionism as TheRadical Creative Tendency in Architecture. Arhitek-tura i urbanizam, no.34: 14–27.

• Alfirevic, Djordje (2011). Visual Expression in Ar-chitecture. Arhitektura i urbanizam, No.31: 3–15.

• Banham, Reyner (1972). Theory and Design in theFirst Machine Age. Third edition. Praeger Publish-ers Inc. ISBN 0-85139-632-1

• Bletter, Rosemarie Haag (Summer 1983),"Expres-sionism and the New Objectivity,” Art Journal, 43:2(Summer 1983), pp. 108–120.

• Bletter, Rosemarie Haag (March 1981). “The In-terpretation of the Glass Dream: Expressionist Ar-chitecture and the History of the Crystal Metaphor,“JSAH” (Journal of the Society of ArchitecturalHistorians), vol. 40, no. 1 (March 1981): 20-43.

• Benson, Timothy. O. (et al.); Dimenberg, Ed-ward (2001-09-17). Expressionist Utopias: Par-adise, Metropolis, Architectural Fantasy (Weimarand Now: German Cultural Criticism). Universityof California Press. ISBN 0-520-23003-5.

• Frampton, Kenneth (2004). Modern architecture - acritical history. Third edition. World of Art. ISBN0-500-20257-5

• Jencks, Charles (1986). Modern Movements in Ar-chitecture. Second Edition. Penguin. ISBN 0-14-009963-8

• Pehnt, Wolfgang (1973). Expressionist Architecture.Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0-500-34058-7

• Sharp, Dennis (1966). Modern Architecture and Ex-pressionism. George Braziller: New York. OCLC180572

• Oliver Stallybrass, and Alan Bullock (et al.) (1988).The Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought (Paper-back). Fontana press. p. 918 pages. ISBN 0-00-686129-6.

• Whyte, Iain Boyd ed. (1985). Crystal Chain Letters:Architectural Fantasies by Bruno Taut andHis Circle.The MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-23121-2

14 16 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

16 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

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