Erich Mendelsohn

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Erich Mendelsohn (around 1925)

Erich Mendelsohn (born March 21, 1887 in Allenstein ( East Prussia ), † September 15, 1953 in San Francisco , California ) was an important architect of the 20th century. Best known are his works from the 1920s, which can be classified as expressionist and organic architecture. With many of his sketches and completed building projects, he is also considered one of the pioneers of streamlined modernity . The Einstein Tower in Potsdam and the Mossehaus in Berlin are classics of this modern trend .

Life

Erich Mendelsohn's birthplace in Allenstein (2014)
Einstein Tower in Potsdam (2005)

Erich Mendelsohn was born in 1887 as the fifth of six children to a hat maker (Emma Esther, née Jaruslawsky) and the businessman David Mendelsohn. There are no connections to the famous Mendelssohn family . He attended the humanistic high school in Allenstein and then received a commercial training in Berlin. In 1906 he began studying economics at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich . At this time he became a member of the Zionist Association for Germany . In 1908 he began studying architecture at the Technical University (Berlin-) Charlottenburg , but two years later he moved to the Technical University of Munich , where he graduated in 1912 with the grade “cum laude”. In Munich he was influenced by Theodor Fischer , who taught there since 1907, but also through contacts with members of the Blauer Reiter and the Brücke . While still a student, Mendelsohn designed his first work - the Tahara House on the Jewish cemetery in Allenstein.

From 1912 to 1914 he worked as a freelance architect in Munich. On October 5, 1915, he married his fiancée Luise Maas, a cellist . Through her he got to know the cello-playing astrophysicist Erwin Freundlich . He was the brother of Herbert Freundlich , who as deputy director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry in Berlin-Dahlem also held a leading position in science. Freundlich pushed for an experimental confirmation of Einstein's theory of relativity through the construction of a suitable star observatory. The acquaintance with Freundlich therefore led to the commissioning of Mendelsohn to design and build the Einstein Tower. This relationship and the family friendship with the Luckenwalder hat manufacturers Salomon and Gustav Herrmann helped Mendelsohn achieve early success. From the period up to 1918, Mendelsohn is particularly familiar with a large number of sketches of factories and other large buildings, often in small format or from letters from the front to his wife.

Era of awakening - the 1920s

Hat factory in Luckenwalde (2013)
Schaubühne at Lehniner Platz in Berlin (2009)
Schocken department store in Stuttgart (tower staircase from 1928), demolished in 1960

After his return from the First World War at the end of 1918, he set up his own office in Berlin . Mendelsohn became known with the realization of the Einstein Tower and the hat factory in Luckenwalde . In 1923 Erich and Luise traveled to Tel Aviv to plan a hydropower plant in Palestine. In 1924 a booklet of the Wasmuths monthly booklet for architecture appeared about his work . On a trip to America he met the designer Norman Bel Geddes and Frank Lloyd Wright , his role model. One result of this trip was the America photo book . An architect's picture book. With 100 mostly own photos of the author , which appeared in 1926 by Verlag Rudolf Mosse and which achieved numerous editions. In the same year he founded as one of 16 architects, including Hugo Häring and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe as the driving forces, the group Der Ring , an association of progressive architects.

His office grew, and in his prime he employed up to forty people, including Jan Despotopoulos , Richard Neutra , Hans Schwippert and Ernst Sagebiel as well as Julius Posener as an intern. Mendelsohn was also able to use his professional success financially. In 1926, when he was less than forty, he bought an older villa. In 1928 the building application was submitted for his house at Am Rupenhorn on a plot of almost 3600 m², which the family moved into two years later. An elaborate publication showed the spacious home, which also housed works of art by Amédée Ozenfant , among other things . It was inevitable that the controversial Mendelsohn at the time also aroused envy of colleagues. Together with Ozenfant, Mendelsohn planned the (ultimately failed) establishment of the Académie Européenne Méditerranée in Cavalaire-sur-Mer in southern France .

During his time in Berlin, Mendelsohn could not save himself from orders. At the residential and business complex (WOGA) , Kurfürstendamm 153–156, he also took the opportunity to develop an urban planning concept. In a formally dynamic manner, it brought all the functions of a city together on a small scale on 40,000 m². After the bombing in World War II and the controversial reconstruction by Jürgen Sawade , the building ensemble is now also the venue for the well-known Schaubühne on Lehniner Platz .

Emigration in 1933

As a Jew , he was forced to emigrate to England in the spring of 1933 after the National Socialist “ seizure of power ” . His not inconsiderable fortune was later confiscated by the National Socialists, on September 30, 1933, he saw himself excluded from the German Werkbund and on December 11th from the Prussian Academy of the Arts . In England he started an office partnership with Serge Chermayeff , which lasted until the end of 1936. From 1934 he planned for the Weizmann couple and began a series of projects in Palestine . Mendelsohn had known Chaim Weizmann , who later became Israel's first President, for a long time . In 1935 he opened an office in Jerusalem . During this time, icons of the international style emerged in Palestine, especially in the urban landscape of Jerusalem developing towards the west: the Villa Schocken (for the department store owner and publisher Salman Schocken , for whom he had already designed a number of department stores in Germany), the Schocken Library , his studio in a converted windmill, all three in Rechavia . He also designed the Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus in the east of the then undivided city and other buildings. After he had already closed his London office, he took British citizenship in 1938 and changed his first name to Eric.

Mendelsohn lived in the USA from 1941 to 1953. Until the end of World War II, he had to limit himself to lectures and publications there, as he did not have US citizenship. Nevertheless, during this time he worked in an advisory capacity to the US government . Under his guidance, the so-called German Village , a realistic replica of Berlin tenement barracks , was built on the Dugway Proving Ground test site in Utah in 1943 . Various high-explosive and incendiary bombs were tested for their effect on the special design. In 1945 he settled in San Francisco . After that he realized a few more projects, mainly for various Jewish communities. In 1953 Mendelsohn died of cancer.

Appreciations

In memory of Erich Mendelsohn, memorial plaques were dedicated to him in his native Allenstein and some of his places of work.

Erich Mendelsohn Foundation

On September 6, 2009, the Erich Mendelsohn Foundation was founded in Berlin with an architecture symposium, which is dedicated to researching the life and work of the German-Jewish architect. The founder of the foundation is the Berlin architect Helge Pitz , who restored some of Mendelsohn's buildings. The foundation is based in the Landhaus Bejach in Berlin-Steinstücke, designed by Erich Mendelsohn .

Realized works

  • House of Cleaning ( Bet Tahara ) and gardener's house on the Jewish cemetery in Seestrasse, Allenstein (East Prussia) (today ul. Zyndrama z Maszkowic, Olsztyn, Warmia-Masuria) (1911–1913)
  • Workers' settlement of the Luckenwalder Bauverein, Luckenwalde (1919–1920)
  • Garden pavilion of the Herrmann family, Luckenwalde (1920)
  • Reconstruction of the administration building of Hausleben-Versicherung, Berlin (1920)
  • Einstein Tower (observatory on Telegraphenberg ) in Potsdam, 1920–1922 (building), 1921–1924 (technical facilities). The building, which in its expressionist form suggests concrete as a building material, was largely bricked up and then plastered. Mendelsohn attributed this to delivery problems, but it is believed that problems in creating the formwork were the real reason for the choice of material.
  • Double villa on Karolingerplatz, Berlin (1921–1922)
  • Hat factory Friedrich Steinberg, Herrmann & Co. , Luckenwalde (1921–1923) with strict, angular shapes; curved steel girders (reinforced concrete frame trusses) were used for the first time; the dyer's extractor and ventilation shaft was hat-shaped
  • Conversion and expansion of the Rudolf Mosse publishing house ( Mossehaus ), Berlin (1921–1923)
  • Weichmann silk house , Gleiwitz, Silesia (1922)
  • House Dr. Sternefeld, Berlin-Westend (1923–1924)
  • Pelzhaus CA Herpich Sons , Berlin (1924–1929)
  • Schocken department store , Nuremberg (1925–1926)
  • Lodge to the three patriarchs, Tilsit (1925–1926)
  • Planning of the reconstruction of the “Red Banner” textile factory in Leningrad (1925–1927), only the power plant construction (1926) in Pionerskaja Ulica was carried out according to Mendelsohn's plans; constructivist industrial architecture and one of the main monuments of the Leningrad avant-garde
  • Expansion and renovation of the Cohen & Epstein department store, Duisburg (1925–1927)
  • Country house for Curt Bejach in Berlin-Steinstücke at Bernhard-Beyer-Straße 12 (1926–1927), 1930 location for the UFA classic Die Drei von der Gasstelle
  • Schocken department store , Stuttgart (1926–1928). The department store, which was damaged in the Second World War, but was restored to working order, which together with the Tagblatt tower opposite by Ernst Otto Oßwald (1924–1928) formed an impressive ensemble of modern architecture, was released for demolition by the city of Stuttgart in 1960 under international protest. in favor of today's department store building (Galeria Kaufhof, formerly Merkur, then Horten) by Egon Eiermann
  • Reconstruction of the house of German clothing, "Deukonhaus", Berlin, Markgrafenstrasse (1927)
  • Exhibition pavilion for the Rudolf Mosse publishing house at the " Pressa " in Cologne (1928)
  • Rudolf Petersdorff department store in Breslau (1927–1928)
  • Residential and business complex (WOGA) on Berlin's Kurfürstendamm 153–156; built from 1927 to 1931 in the New Objectivity style , inside Berlin's largest cinema "Universum" at the time, today: Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz
  • Jewish cemetery in Königsberg, East Prussia (1927–1929), destroyed after 1945
  • Schocken department store (today: State Museum of Archeology) in Chemnitz , 1927–1930, known for its arched front with horizontal ribbon windows
  • Own house, Am Rupenhorn , Berlin (1928–1930)
  • Row of houses, Berlin, Cicerostraße (1928)
  • House of the German Metalworkers' Association ( IG Metall ) in Berlin-Kreuzberg (1928–1930)
  • Columbushaus , Potsdamer Platz, Berlin (1931–1932), on behalf of the property owner Wertheim , demolished in 1957 (not to be confused with the Columbia-Haus in Berlin-Tempelhof )
  • Jewish Youth Center, Essen (1930–1933)
  • Doblouggården department store, Oslo, Norway (built in 1932 by Rudolf Emil Jacobsen based on plans by Mendelsohn)
  • Bachner department store, Mährisch Ostrau , 1932–1933
  • De La Warr Pavilion , Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex (1934)
  • Nimmo House, Chalfont St. Giles, Buckinghamshire, England (1933-1935)
  • Cohen House, Chelsea, London (1934-1936)
  • Gilbey commercial building, London Borough of Camden, London (1935–1936)
  • Villa Weizmann, Rechowot near Tel Aviv (1935–1936)
  • Villa and Library Salman Schocken , Jerusalem (1934–1936)
  • Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1934-1940)
  • Hadassah University Hospital, Jerusalem (1934–1939)
  • Anglo Palestine Bank ( Bank Leumi ), Jerusalem (1936–1939)
  • Government Hospital (named after Rambam in 1948 ), Haifa (1937–1938)
  • Synagogue B'Nai Amoona, St. Louis (1946–1950), no longer used as a synagogue since 1985/1986, but as a municipal cultural center by the COCA (Center of Creative Arts) in St. Louis.
  • Maimonides Hospital, San Francisco (1946–1950)
  • Park Synagogue , Cleveland, Ohio (1946–1953)
  • Russell House, San Francisco (1947–1951)
  • Emanu-El Synagogue, Grand Rapids, Michigan (1948–1954)
  • Mount Zion Synagogue, St. Paul (1950–1954)

Writings by Erich Mendelsohn

America (1926)
New House - New World (1932)
  • America. An architect's picture book. Mosse, Berlin 1926. As reprint : Vieweg, Braunschweig 1991, ISBN 3-528-08743-9 .
  • Russia - Europe - America. An architectural cross-section. Rudolf Mosse Buchverlag, Berlin 1929. Supplemented as reprint by the English texts from the estate of Erich Mendelsohn: Birkhäuser, Basel / Berlin / Boston 1989, ISBN 3-7643-2279-9 (Basel…), ISBN 0-8176-2279- 9 (Boston).
  • The overall work of the architect. Sketches, drafts, buildings. Rudolf Mosse Buchverlag, Berlin 1930. As reprint: Vieweg, Braunschweig and Wiesbaden 1988, ISBN 3-528-18731-X .
  • New house - new world. (With contributions by Amédée Ozenfant and Edwin Redslob ), Rudolf Mosse Buchverlag, Berlin 1932. As a reprint with an afterword by Bruno Zevi . Gebrüder Mann, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-7861-1934-1 .

literature

Movies

  • Erich Mendelsohn. Visions for the ages. (OT: Mendelsohn's Incessant Visions. ) Documentary, Israel, Poland, USA, Germany, 2011, 71 min., Book: Galia Engelmayer-Dror, Duki Dror, director: Duki Dror, production: Zygote Films, German theatrical release: 8 November 2012, preview of Edition Salzgeber , 1:24 min., Film scenes and dates in Filmportal.de , review:.

Exhibitions

Web links

Commons : Erich Mendelsohn  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Biographies

photos

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Streamlined Modern Architecture. In: structurae , accessed on May 3, 2020.
  2. ↑ Ulf Meyer: A journey in the footsteps of the builder Erich Mendelsohn. In: Jüdische Allgemeine , July 9, 2012: “Modern classics: Erich Mendelsohn's Mosse publishing house in Berlin”.
  3. ↑ a b c d Ulrike Eichhorn: Erich Mendelsohn in Berlin. Edition Eichhorn, Berlin 2014. ISBN 978-3-8442-9024-0
  4. ↑ Mike Davis : Attack on "German Village". In: Der Spiegel , October 11, 1999, No. 41, ( PDF; 600 kB ).
  5. ↑ Press release: Establishment of the Erich Mendelsohn Foundation on September 6th in Berlin. In: Senate Department for Urban Development and the Environment , September 4, 2009.
  6. ↑ dpa : Now guided tours through the Mendelsohn House in Olsztyn. In: General-Anzeiger (Bonn) , May 2, 2013.
      Erich Mendelsohn. In: ostpreussen.net , May 2, 2013.
  7. ↑ Illustrations in: Heinrich de Fries (Ed.): Modern Villas and Country Houses , 3rd edition, Wasmuth, Berlin 1925, pp. 7-12.
  8. ↑ Fig. In: Interior decor , 1928, vol. 39, p. 406, digital copy from Heidelberg University Library .
  9. ↑ Renate Palmer: The Stuttgart Schocken building by Erich Mendelsohn. Silberburg-Verlag, Tübingen 1995, ISBN 3-87407-209-6 , p. 113.
  10. ^ Judith Breuer, Lost, but not forgotten: the Schocken department store in Stuttgart , in: Denkmalpflege in Baden-Württemberg , Vol. 48, No. 3 (2019), pp. 147–160.
  11. ↑ Erich Mendelsohn: The Deukonhaus renovation . In: The Form. Journal of shaping work , ( ZDB -ID 2662861-2 ), 1928, Vol 3, No. 2, pp 42-48. Digitalisat the UB Heidelberg , doi : 10.11588 / diglit.13709.12 .
  12. ^ Foundation Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe , East Prussian State Museum (ed.): "Everything burned" - Jewish life and its destruction in the Prussian provinces of Hanover and East Prussia. Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-942240-13-0 , exhibition catalog.
  13. ^ Elisabeth Maria Hajós , Leopold Zahn : Berlin architecture of the post-war period. Albertus, Berlin 1928, DNB 580929833 , pp. 33, 127.
  14. ↑ Timeline for the Columbushaus. ( Memento from October 15, 2014 in the Internet Archive ). In: Building of the Federal Council in Berlin 1904–2004 , scroll down .
  15. ↑ Harald Lordick: “The most beautiful youth home in Germany” - Erich Mendelsohn's House of Jewish Youth in Essen 1932–1938 . In: Kalonymos . tape 19 , no. 2 , 2016, p. 1–5 ( steinheim-institut.de ).
  16. ↑ Photos: De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea. In: cambridge2000.com , September 9, 2007.
  17. ↑ Film review by Susann S. Reck : Duki Dror - Erich Mendelsohn. Visions for the ages. In: Aviva-Berlin.de , January 13, 2013, accessed on May 3, 2020.
      cf. Mendelsohn's Incessant Visions in the English language Wikipedia.
  18. ↑ Bay window exhibitions. In: State Museum for Archeology Chemnitz ( SMAC ).
  19. ^ Exhibition review by Werner Jacob: Zeitgeist in the foreign. In: taz , March 22, 2000.
personal data
SURNAME Mendelsohn, Erich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mendelsohn, Eric
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-British architect
DATE OF BIRTH March 21, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Allenstein , East Prussia
DATE OF DEATH September 15, 1953
Place of death San Francisco , USA