Peter Behrens

1868-1940

Germany

The international reform in architecture and industrial arts in Germany

related to the question of national identity
Torn between the desire to return to pre-industrial roots and
modernisation as the condition of competing commercially
The Deutscher Werkbund crucial in artistic and cultural reform
It grew out of the German Arts and Crafts movement
Founded in 1907 to accelerate the integration of art and industry at
national a level
12 architects and 12 companies initially
Aim: to produce high-quality goods for mass consumption
The organisation!s areas of activity: general propaganda (publishing,
exhibitions, congresses); the education of the consumer (lectures); the
reform of product design (industrialists to employ artists)

The role of the artist needed to be redefined to assimilate machine

production

Instead of William Morris! artist-craftsman ("hands-on! physical

involvement with materials) the artist becomes "form giver!

In the design of machine products "form! or Gestalt should take

precedence over function, material and technique

This came as a consequence of developments in

philosophy/aesthetics (Kant onwards: "art as an autonomous
system!; neoplatonic philosophy)

Hermann Mathesius (18611927) derived in relation to

Gestalt the idea of Typisierung
(typification): the establishment
of standard or typical forms
"Mass production =
standardisation!
But !type" is not just a standard
- it is also a Platonic universal
Opposed by Van de Velde,
Gropius, etc., who didn!t see
the artist as a specialist in "pure
form! but an individualistic
maker of style
Both directions modern - the
first one in its abstraction,
the latter in its compatibility
with market capitalism

Peter Behrens

Began career as a
painter
1903-07 as the
director of the School
of Arts and Crafts in
Duesseldorf abandons
Jugendstil in favour of
classicism, in parallel
with the emergence of
the idea of Gestalt
within the Werkbund
From 1905 designs a
number of buildings in
a geometrical,
Romanesque style
1908 AEG Pavilion for
the Shipbuilding
Exposition in Berlin

In 1907 appointed
as the design
consultant and
architect for AEG;
work includes
logos, consumer
products, buildings
- perfect
manifestation of
Mathesius!s ideal
of collaboration
between the artist
and big industry

He brought to it his
experience as the
Jugendstil designer
of the Darmstadt
colony 1899-1903

AEG Turbine Factory, 1908-09, Berlin

Neo-classical, immobile, monumental, while attempting to reflect
the machine age
"In the age of speed, forms should be distinct, surfaces flush! the critics point out that his buildings reflect immobility and mass
Metaphor: factory as a Greek temple
Contradictions between appearance and reality in structure: part
symbolic, part literal
Two systems: the outer (columns) and the inner (surfaces)
Buttresses create a sense of mass and stability but are actually
thin membranes and perform no structural role
Despite discrepancies, the building is "a very effective
representation of industrial power! Colquhoun