German Architecture - Modern

Modern

The distinctive character of modern architecture is the elimination of unnecessary ornament from a building and faithfulness to its structure and function. The style is commonly summed up in four slogans: ornament is a crime, truth to materials, form follows function, and Le Corbusier's description of houses as "machines for living". It developed early in the 20th century. It was adopted by many influential architects and architectural educators. Although few "Modern buildings" were built in the first half of the century, after the Second World War it became the dominant architectural style for institutional and corporate buildings for three decades.

The initial impetus for modernist architecture in Germany was mainly industrial construction, in which the architectural design was not subjected to so much to the prevailing historicism, for example the AEG Turbine Hall in Berlin by Peter Behrens (1908–1909) and especially the Fagus Factory by Walter Gropius in Alfeld an der Leine (1911–1914). During this period (1915) there occurred the construction of the first skyscraper in Jena.

The so-called classical modernism in Germany is essentially identical to the Bauhaus, founded by Gropius in 1919, shortly after he had succeeded Henry van de Velde in Weimar as Director of the Arts and Crafts School. The Bauhaus became the most influential art and architecture school of the 20th Century development. Although at first it had no architecture department, Gropius saw in the architecture, the "ultimate goal of all artistic activity."

The Einstein Tower (German: Einsteinturm) is an astrophysical observatory in the Albert Einstein Science Park in Potsdam, Germany designed by architect Erich Mendelsohn. This was one of Mendelsohn's first major projects, completed when a young Richard Neutra was on his staff, and his best-known building.

At a time of inflation and economic hardship, the Bauhaus sought a cost-effective, functional and modern design for housing. Thus in Weimar in 1923 there arose the Haus am Horn of Georg Muche and Adolf Meyer. In 1925, a year after the nationalist parties gained a majority in the Thuringian state parliament, the Bauhaus in Weimar was shut down. That same year, in Dessau, Gropius began to build a new school, completed in 1926. The Bauhaus Dessau is by far the most famous monument of classical modern art in Germany.

The Nazis made life difficult for the Bauhaus, which tried to keep out of politics as far as possible, but when the Nazis gained power in 1932, they had to shut down. After this there was a diaspora of masters and students of the Bauhaus across the world, especially in the United States, and the Bauhaus style spread through the world, becoming known as the International Style. In 1927, one of the first and most defining manifestations of the International Style was the Weissenhof Estate in Stuttgart, built as a component of the exhibition "Die Wohnung," organized by the Deutscher Werkbund, and overseen by Mies van der Rohe. The fifteen contributing architects included Mies, and other names most associated with the movement: Peter Behrens, Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, J.J.P. Oud, Mart Stam, and Bruno Taut. The exhibition was enormously popular, with thousands of daily visitors.

The Horseshoe housing estate built in Berlin in 1930 by Bruno Taut and Martin Wagner during the Weimar Republic was an important work. A number of housing estates built in this period, particularly in Berlin, are now among the most important buildings of the modernist period, including large settlement of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (1931) by Bruno Taut, Martin Wagner, Hugo Haering, Otto Salvisberg and Alfred Grenander, Siemens and the City (1930) by Hans Scharoun, Walter Gropius, Hugo Haering, Otto Banning, Fred Forbart and Paul Henning.

There was also the Allotment Dammerstock (1930) in Karlsruhe by Gropius, as well as the Zeche Zollverein in Essen, built from 1927 to 1932 by Fritz Schupp and Martin Kremmer.

Remarkable is, that in Germany in the years between 1926 and 1940 most radio towers were built of wood, whereby the tallest was that of Transmitter Muehlacker with 190 metres. Most of these towers were destroyed at the end of war, others were demolished after World War II. The only remaining of them is Gliwice Radio Tower in Gliwice ( nowadays Poland).

The Nazi architecture (1933-1945) with main architect Albert Speer served propaganda purposes.