New Objectivity (architecture)
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The New Objectivity (a translation of the German Neue Sachlichkeit, sometimes also translated as New Sobriety) 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 (New Building). The New Objectivity remodeled many German cities in this period.
Werkbund and Expressionism
The earliest examples of the style date to before the First World War, under the auspices of the
Effects of De Stijl and Constructivism
The turn from Expressionism towards the more familiarly Modernist styles of the mid-late 1920s came under the influence of the Dutch avant-garde, particularly
Early houses and estates
Perhaps the earliest examples of the 'New Building' in Germany were at the 1922 Bauhaus exhibition, Georg Muche's Haus am Horn, and in the same year, Gropius/Meyer's design for Chicago's Tribune Tower competition. However, the fullest early exploration of a new, non-expressionist avant-garde idiom was in the 1923–24 'Italienischer Garten' in Celle by Otto Haesler.
This was the first Modernist Siedlung (literally "settlement", though
New Frankfurt
The major expansion of this came with the appointment of
However, their advanced techniques often alienated the building profession, much of whom were made superfluous by the lack of ornament and speed of construction. May would also employ other architects in Frankfurt such as
Functionalism and the Minimum Dwelling
The architects of the New Objectivity were eager to build as much cost-effective housing as possible, partly to address Germany's postwar housing crisis, and partly to fulfill the promise of Article 155 of the 1919 Weimar Constitution, which provided for "a healthy dwelling" for all Germans. This phrase drove the technical definition of Existenzminimum (subsistence dwelling) in terms of minimally-acceptable floorspace, density, fresh air, access to green space, access to transit, and other such resident issues.
At the same time there was a massive expansion of the style across German cities. In Berlin, architect-planner Martin Wagner worked with the former Expressionists Bruno Taut and Hugo Häring on colourful developments of flats and terraced houses such as the 1925 Horseshoe Estate, the 1926 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' (Onkel-Toms-Hütte) and the 1929 'Carl-Legien-Siedlung', through the auspices of the Trade Unionist building society GEHAG. Taut's designs featured controversially modern flat roofs, humane access to sun, air and gardens, and generous amenities like gas, electric light, and bathrooms. Critics on the political Right complained that these developments were too opulent for 'simple people'. The progressive Berlin mayor Gustav Böss defended them: "We want to bring the lower levels of society higher." Similar experiments in municipal socialism such as the Viennese Gemeindebau were more stylistically eclectic, so Frankfurt and Berlin's authorities were taking a gamble on public approval of the new style.
Elsewhere, Karl Schneider designed Estates in
Spread of the New Objectivity
A leftist, technologically oriented wing of the movement had formed in Switzerland and the Netherlands, the so-called ABC Group. It was made up of collaborators of El Lissitzky such as Mart Stam and Hannes Meyer, whose greatest work was the glassy expanse of the Van Nelle Factory in Rotterdam. The clean lines of the New Objectivity were also being used for schools and public buildings, by May in Frankfurt, in Hannes Meyer's ADGB Trade Union School in Bernau and Max Taut's Alexander von Humboldt School in Berlin, as well as police administration and office buildings in Berlin under Martin Wagner. Cinemas, which would be very influential on Streamline Moderne picture palaces, were designed by Erich Mendelsohn (Kino-Universum, now Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz, Berlin, 1926) and Hans Poelzig (Kino Babylon, Rosa-Luxemburg-Strasse, Berlin, 1928–29) A composite style that used the new forms with more traditional masonry building was developed by Poelzig with his Haus des Rundfunks in Berlin and IG Farben Building in Frankfurt, and by Emil Fahrenkamp in his undulating Berlin Shell-Haus. Meanwhile, Erich Mendelsohn's architecture had developed into a 'dynamic functionalism' for commerce, seen in his curvaceous department stores such as the Columbus-Haus in Berlin (demolished in the 1950s) and in the Schocken Department Stores, in Stuttgart (demolished in the 1960s) Chemnitz and Wrocław. In Munich Robert Vorhoelzer and Robert Poeverlein founded the "Bayerische Postbauschule" and built many modernist post offices while the architectural mainstream of 1920s and 1930s Munich still preferred the nostalgic "Heimatstil".
The
Dispersal and exile
Important work within Germany continued into the early 1930s, particularly the Ring's Siemensstadt Estate in Berlin, which was planned by Hans Scharoun as a more individual and humane version of the 'existence minimum' residential housing formula. But the political mood turned uglier through that time, with open hostile press, and direct pressure on Jewish and/or Social Democratic architects to leave the country. Many prominent German modernists went to the Soviet Union. Since 1920, Moscow had been the site of the Russian state-run art and technical school, a close parallel to the Bauhaus, Vkhutemas, and there had been significant cultural connection through the cross-fertilization of El Lissitzky. Russia had colossal plans for entire cities of worker housing, and an eye on acquiring German expertise. Ernst May, Stam, and Schütte-Lihotzky moved there in 1930 to design New Towns like Magnitogorsk, with Hannes Meyer's so-called 'Bauhaus Brigade' and Bruno Taut soon to follow.
But the Russian experiment was over almost before it started. Working conditions proved hopeless, supplies impossible to get, and the labor unskilled and uninterested. Stalin's acceptance of the "retrograde"
Others would leave Germany for Japan, or for the sizable German-exile community in Istanbul. Major architects in the modernist community ended up as far afield as Kenya, Mexico, and Sweden.
Others left for the Isokon Project and other projects in England, then eventually to the United States, where Gropius, Breuer and Berlin city planner Martin Wagner would educate a generation of students at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
More popularly, in the United States, the publication of
Characterization of
Gallery
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Bruno Taut, Onkel-Toms-Hütte, Berlin
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The "Rudolf Mosse Publishing House" altered by Erich Mendelsohn in 1923. Jerusalemer St., Berlin
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Erich Mendelsohn, Petersdorff Store, Wrocław
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Department Store by Hans Poelzig, Wrocław
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Kino Babylon, Berlin. Designed 1928-29 by Hans Poelzig
Notes
- Neu-Jerusalem (Berlin)in forms of the New Objectivity.
References
- Banham, Reyner, "Theory and Design in the First Machine Age"
- Droste, Magdalena, "Bauhaus"
- Frampton, Kenneth "Modern Architecture: a critical history
- Gropius, Martin, "International Architecture"
- Henderson, Susan R., "Building Culture: Ernst May and the New Frankfurt Initiative, 1926-1931"
- Pevsner, Nikolaus, "Pioneers of Modern Design"
- Teige, Karel "The Minimum Dwelling"
External links
- Detailed Photo Profile of the New Objectivity[permanent dead link]
- Bauhaus-Archiv in Berlin
- Mies in Berlin-Mies in America
- Britz/Hufeisensiedlung in Berlin by Bruno Taut & Martin Wagner (with drawings and photos)
- Images of Ernst May's Frankfurt at Art & Architecture
- Guardian article on the Frankfurt kitchen
- Fostinum: German Modernism and Neues Bauen