Arthur Korn (architect)

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Arthur Korn 1964

Arthur Korn (born June 4, 1891 in Breslau ; † November 14, 1978 in Vienna ) was a German architect , urban planner and author . Together with his office partner, the civil engineer Siegfried Weitzmann , he was one of the representatives of the New Building in the 1920s .

Life

Arthur Korn studied under Bruno Paul in 1909 and 1911 at the teaching institute of the Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin . In 1922 he started his own business in Berlin with the civil engineer Siegfried Weitzmann . This successful collaboration between architect and civil engineer lasted until Korn's emigration . From 1922 Korn was secretary of the Novembergruppe artists 'association , since 1924 a member of the architects' association “ Der Ring ” and since 1928 of the CIAM .

Since he was Jewish , Korn had to flee from the National Socialists to Yugoslavia in 1935 , and two years later to London . There he became a member of the Modern Architectural Research Group (MARS Group). He now devoted himself exclusively to urban planning and taught at the Architectural Association School from 1945 to 1965 .

plant

architecture

One of Arthur Korn's most important buildings was designed for an urban planning environment in which the tension between traditional and contemporary-modern architecture became particularly clear: it was the expansion of the Westend residential area towards the south-west of Berlin in 1910 . This example clearly shows the aesthetic, social and cultural paradigm shift that influenced architecture after the end of the German Empire and competed with the traditional understanding of architecture.

Arthur Korn, Dr. Abraham, state 2015
Arthur Korn, Kopp & Joseph drugstore, state 2015

The new building area, now called Neu-Westend , was laid out in the course of the conception and construction of Heerstraße around 1910. The planned division of this area into large parcels with villa-like buildings began at the same time, and one of the first houses was the Warnholtz house by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe , built in 1914/1915 on a 10,000 m² plot of land. Like all houses there, it was built in the conservative Berlin style typical of the time, following Schinkel's classicism: Kaiser Wilhelm II personally had the building plans presented to him for approval, as these buildings were located on an important, representative new main axis of Berlin's urban planning.

In the years after 1920, buildings of avant-garde architecture - such as the villas Benda, Goldstein and Wasservogel by Arthur Korn - were added. The change in upper-class living culture could be studied in this limited area from the mid-1920s, so that the discourse between conservative and modern-minded architecture enthusiasts could ignite on the basis of the buildings available here. Arthur Korn's buildings were accordingly discussed both positively and negatively. It is interesting that not only was there an aesthetic debate, but that the pragmatic aspects of New Building were also discussed. As early as 1926 - a few years after the house was completed - Arthur Korn's Haus Benda was exemplarily explained that an adequate structural quality cannot be achieved with the new flat roof and concrete aesthetics: The clearly recognizable moisture damage was instrumentalized in order to criticize the formal aesthetic Example from the camp of homeland security style advocates and architects to put another argument aside. The still existing Dr. Abraham in Berlin-Zehlendorf, also a flat roof building, still stands today in an architectural setting that reveals the innovative strength of Arthur Korn's architecture at the time.

Arthur Korn executed various residential and utility buildings in and around Berlin until 1932, which clearly show his architectural style. Its then extraordinarily new and modern architecture, which confidently structured the building in exciting, contrasting, clearly defined and decor-free volumes, is still impressive today. The generously dimensioned Villa Goldstein at Arysallee 2 in Berlin's Westend from 1924 has a remarkably modern architecture. In addition, this building, but especially the bathhouse in the garden, shows a constructive language of forms that must have appeared spectacularly new not only at the time: the symmetry in harmony with the clearly stylized language of form is reminiscent of archaic temple buildings such as that of the Indians, their transformation, for example can also be found at the same time in Frank Lloyd Wright's Storer House . The emphatically artistic and non-conformist form-finding points to Richard Neutra's or Louis I. Kahn's projects, and the utopian constructivism of Russian avant-garde architecture ( El Lissitzky ) can also be heard in this adjoining building. He planned the gardens and fountains connecting the architectural elements together with Rudolf Belling , primarily known as a sculptor - who was responsible for the artistic design of the fountain - and Richard Neutra, who designed the garden.

His utility buildings such as the Julius Fromm rubber goods factory in Berlin-Köpenick and the Hermann Guiard & Co. shoe factory in Burg near Magdeburg are characterized by a clearly structured functionality whose well-balanced proportions and functionalist use of materials emphasize the modern practicality of these buildings.

Finally, he also devoted himself to interior design tasks such as furnishing the travel agency of Intourist GmbH , located on Unter den Linden in Berlin, and - here, interior design and exterior architecture that transforms the existing building flow into one another - the sensationally elegant redesign of the drugstore Kopp & Joseph on Kurfürstendamm in Berlin. The facade design he realized on the old building still exists today in a revised form, the interior has been lost. Due to the changes, the well-proportioned elegance and modernity of the facade can unfortunately only be guessed at. For example, in the door area outside there was a glass showcase that - when the drugstore was open - was rolled out of the door recess and the facade axis and now stood perpendicular to the passing pedestrians: this functional highlight served both the unmistakable presentation of the goods and as a signal for the modernity of the important Berlin drugstore Kopp & Joseph .

Architectural theory

In his essay Analytical and Utopian Architecture , published in 1923 in the avant-garde art magazine Das Kunstblatt in Potsdam, there are illustrations of some of his projects. Arthur Korn wrote: “Architecture, as sensible as the machine, like the subway train - the air cabin, the body. inconspicuously collective. ” Rashly interpreted, Le Corbusier's often abbreviated term" living machine " sounds here . Korn, however, gives ideal architecture an ambivalent character by explaining in the following paragraph: “But one can only live in an impersonal Sachhaus if the need is met by the symbolic art form that the organism feels and asks: on which bases (. ..) is the construction. How do the light surfaces sit in it (...). How does the building stand in relation to the near and far surroundings, to the air (...) How does the whole get significance to the smallest and how does the whole become a cell of the larger community. How does the whole thing grow into a landscape and human symbol. The faceless solution is insufficient. The American, straightforward, rational city is deadly. ” Because “ an analytical structure from the last secrets of matter, construction, cell organization and traffic is an indispensable prerequisite. It is the foundation, nothing less - and nothing more. But then it is up to art to create the complete work completely original, as if it had just come into the world. ” For him, a “ secret ” of good architecture is that “ razor-sharp analytical construction and that born in the realm of the unconscious Cut utopia in one point, as if the unconscious genius in us was repeating the creative process all over again on a higher, unknown level. "

Another important contribution to the theory of architecture by Arthur Korn is his writing Glass in Buildings and as an Object of Use : Here he uses many contemporary buildings from the 1920s to explain the importance of glass for the particular direction of modern architecture, which he saw himself as a representative. According to Korn, the "New Objectivity" is a type of architecture, also through the conscious use of glass, which gives everyday architecture the opportunity to be beautiful, truthful and versatile at the same time.

Reception in the Third Reich

The increasingly dogmatizing conservatism in architecture in the Third Reich meant that the buildings of architectural modernism no longer corresponded to the zeitgeist and were accordingly no longer valued. One example is the former Villa Goldstein, which was sold two years after its completion and rededicated as the house of the German gymnastics association : a new building for the German gymnastics association was built when the adjacent Olympic site was expanded . Integrated into the German Sports Forum , not far from Villa Goldstein, there was a counter-design built according to the ideas of the National Socialist architectural aesthetics. The realization of the much discussed New Building in the style of Arthur Korn and the Bauhaus School was now unthinkable until the end of the Second World War - it was only in the post-war years that Berlin and Germany were able to reconnect with modern architecture.

rating

Arthur Korn's oeuvre, which, according to its own admission, was supposed to bring the “analytical construction” , the “machine man” and the “symbol and fire sign in us” , the “anarchic-artistic” into harmony, only partially has the aesthetic dogmas of National Socialism, survived the years of World War II and the evolution of architectural taste over the course of the 20th century. Nevertheless, his work must surely be counted among the important early indicators and initiators of the international modern architecture that emerged in the early 1920s.

Buildings (selection)

  • 1922–1924: Villa Goldstein , since 1926 "House of the German Gymnastics Association", in Berlin-Westend , Arysallee 2 (war damaged, demolished around 1957)
  • 1923: Krüger house in Berlin-Westend
  • 1924: Benda residential building in Berlin-Westend
  • 1924: Factory building of the Hermann Guiard & Co. shoe factory in Burg near Magdeburg , Blumenthaler Landstrasse
  • 1924: House for Dr. Krojanker in Burg near Magdeburg, Straße der Einheit
  • 1924: Residence for Fritz Wasservogel in Berlin-Westend, Länderallee / Bayernallee (demolished around 1970)
  • 1925: Interior fittings and facade design of the photo optics shop Fromm & Co. in Berlin, Memhardstrasse 4 (destroyed by the war)
  • 1926: Remodeling of the office building of the Berlin Guard and Locking Company in Berlin
  • 1927–1928: Residence for Dr. med. Martin Abraham in Berlin-Zehlendorf , Beerenstrasse
  • 1928: Interior fittings and facade design of the Kopp & Joseph shop in Berlin, Kurfürstendamm 35
  • 1929–1930: Interior of the Intourist travel agency (Intourist GmbH) in Berlin, Unter den Linden 62–68
  • 1930–1931: New construction of the Julius Fromm rubber goods factory in Berlin-Köpenick , Friedrichshagener Strasse (destroyed in the war)

Fonts (selection)

  • Analytical and utopian architecture. In: Das Kunstblatt , year 1923, issue 11/12.
  • Modern street advertising . In: Die Form, 1926, issue 12.
  • Metal and glass . In: Metallwirtschaft, 1928, issue 29.
  • Glass in construction and as a commodity. , Ernst Pollak-Verlag, Berlin-Charlottenburg, 1929.

literature

  • Dennis Sharp (Ed.): Planning and architecture. Essays presented to Arthur Korn. London 1967.
  • Die Bauwelt , year 1926, issue 36.
  • Winfried Nerdinger : The Goldstein Villa. In: Rudolf Belling's Goldstein Fountain and Constructivism in Berlin 1918–1925. Berlin 1981, pp. 156-190.
  • Andreas Zeese: The forgotten modern age. Arthur Korn, architect, urbanist, teacher (1891–1978). Life and work of a Jewish avant-garde in Berlin and London. Dissertation, University of Vienna, 2010.
  • Paul Westheim: Reference to Arthur Korn. In: Das Kunstblatt , year 1923, issue 11/12, pp. 334–335.
  • James Stevens Curl (Ed.): Oxford Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. Oxford 1999, p. 421.

Web links

Commons : Arthur Korn (architect)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Winfried Nerdinger: The Goldstein Villa. In: Rudolf Belling's Goldstein Fountain and Constructivism in Berlin 1918–1925. Berlin 1981, pp. 156-190.
  2. ↑ Markus Jäger: The Warnholtz House by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe 1914/15. In: Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte , 65th year 2002, p. 123ff.
  3. ↑ Markus Jäger: The Warnholtz House by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe 1914/15. In: Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte , 65th year 2002, p. 126ff.
  4. ↑ On the weekends, passers-by interested in architecture gathered in front of Villa Goldstein and discussed the building (according to Rudolf Steiger, 1923/24 an employee at Korn and Weitzmann, in his memoirs): Rudolf Steiger: My recollections of Arthur Korn, Berlin 1923-24 in Planning and architecture: Essays presented to Arthur Korn , pp. 143-145, Ed. Dennis Sharp, London 1967
  5. ^ Paul Westheim: Reference to Arthur Korn. In: Das Kunstblatt , year 1923, issue 11/12, pp. 334–335.
  6. ↑ Edgar Wedepohl in: Wasmuths monthly books for architecture , issue 6/1926.
  7. ↑ Korn, Arthur ( Memento from June 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ↑ Winfried Nerdinger: The Goldstein Villa. In: Rudolf Belling's Goldstein Fountain and Constructivism in Berlin 1918–1925. Berlin 1981, pp. 156-190.
  9. ↑ Oxford Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture , Ed. James Stevens Curl, p. 421, Oxford 1999
  10. ↑ Arthur Korn: Analytical and utopian architecture. In: Das Kunstblatt , November / December 1923, pp. 336–339.
  11. ^ Ernst Pollak-Verlag, Berlin-Charlottenburg, 1929
  12. ↑ Arthur on glass in construction and as a commodity , quoted in 'Glas im Bau' - a phrophetic book in Planning and architecture: Essays presented to Arthur Korn , p. 131 ff, Ed. Dennis Sharp, London 1967
  13. ↑ Arthur Korn: Analytical and utopian architecture. In: Das Kunstblatt , November / December 1923, p. 339.
  14. ↑ Götz Aly , Michael Sontheimer : FROMMs. How the Jewish condom manufacturer Julius F. fell among the German robbers. Frankfurt am Main 2009, pp. 69, 114, 116-117.
personal data
SURNAME Korn, Arthur
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German architect, urban planner and author
DATE OF BIRTH June 4, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH November 14, 1978
Place of death Vienna