1st Edition
Constructing and Reconstructing History in Twentieth-Century German Architecture
The battle in architecture between the internationalist voices of modernism and the localized resistance, which favored traditional technologies and regional precedents, reflected in microcosm the violent and complex histories of twentieth-century Germany. The chapters in this book span the years from 1902 to 1991 and interrogate the ways in which architecture constructed and reconstructed these histories, with a primary focus on those voices that were opposed to the dogmas of modernism. All translated into English for the first time, the chapters reflect the changing eras and contours of the German nation. They were written in the German Empire (1871–1918); the Weimar Republic (1918–1933); the Third Reich (1933–1945); the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic (GDR), which both existed from 1949 to 1990; and, finally, the reunified Germany that came into being in 1990 when the former GDR and the reunified Berlin joined the Federal Republic of Germany.
The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Art in Translation.
Preface
Iain B. Whyte
Introduction: Constructing and Reconstructing History in Twentieth-Century German Architecture
Alexander Luckmann and Volker M. Welter
1. The ‘Restoration’ of Our Old Buildings
Hermann Muthesius
2. Villa
Rudolf Borchardt
3. The Architecture Exhibition in Munich 1926
Theo Lechner
4. Tradition and New Building
Paul Schmitthenner
5. Northern and Southern Germany: Notes on the Works of the Architect Emil Egermann, Berlin
Alfons Leitl
6. The Buildings of the Third Reich
Adolf Hitler
7. Architecture in the New Reich
Gerdy Troost
8. The Motor Highways built by Herr Hitler: The Planning, Construction and Importance of the Reich Motor Roads
Fritz Todt
9. Heretical Thoughts at the Edge of the Rubble Heaps
Otto Bartning
10. An Appeal: Fundamental Demands
Otto Bartning et al.
11. Art and Science on Track
Walter Ulbricht
12. Architecture in the Age of Science
Walter Gropius
13. Requiem for Putti
Wolf Jobst Siedler, Elisabeth Niggemeyer and Gina Angreß
14. The Case for Abolishing Historic Building Preservation
Dieter Hoffmann-Axthelm
15. Architectural Monuments
Julius Posener
Biography
Alexander Luckmann is a Ph.D. student specializing in histories of architecture, preservation, and landscape. His primary research focus is twentieth-century German religious architecture. Additional research interests include historic preservation, American churches and real estate, California modernism, and the German-American monk and architect Cajetan Baumann.
Volker M. Welter is an architectural historian specializing in modern architecture from the nineteenth century onwards, mainly in California but also in Great Britain and Germany. His research interests center on domestic architecture; émigré architects; patronage, histories of modernism, revival styles, and sustainable architecture.
