Group Introduction
Neue Sachlichkeit or “New Objectivity” was a term created in 1923 by G.F. Hartlaub which has been altered over time. The first exhibit of New Objectivity was held at the Mannheim Art Gallery with post-expressionistic objective paintings and graphic arts. Since its conception, the term has extended into other forms. According to Fritz Schmalenbach, Neue Sachlichkeit has transcended to the realm of architecture approximately 1926. Historian Hartoonian claims that Walter Gropius introduced linear natures of New Objectivity as early as late 1923. However, the architectural concepts have existed since around 1800 with ideas behind “new objectivity” appearing in lectures by Viollet-le-Duc. According to Hartlaub’s original idea, this school of thought shifted into an architectural style characterized by “machine-like precision” and “Anti-Formalism.” Later, the term was more concisely defined for architecture by Hermann Muthesius and Peter Behrens to emphasize “order,” “materials and structure.” Working in the nature of the Bauhaus school, Neue Sachlichkeit was empirically viewed in association with technology. Neue Sachlichkeit architecture was enhanced in conformity based on developments in machinery. Walter Gropius agreed with G.F. Hartlaub’s idea of opposition of academic formalism in his development of New Objectivity. For Gropius, architecture “must answer its purpose in every way…to fulfill its function in a practical sense, and must thus be serviceable, reliable and cheap.” However, Gropius believed that machines had also reduced architecture to the “status of a daily utensil” losing its sense of humanity. Le Corbusier sought to reinvent the simple functional architecture through New Objectivity by reconciling historical forms with new materials to meet to new needs to the people. The new language was inspired by Peter Behrens’ Werkbund experiments which dove deeper than just industry. Le Corbusier intended to redefine the architectural object by finding the “spirit,” referring to Charles Blance’s Grammaire des arts du dessin, “the coming generation would grasp the spirit of a thing and discard whatever in it does not stand out. For architecture, this would mean discharge figurative representation through-out the elements of wall, beam, column and roof.” This would eliminate the figurative elements that have been the long accepted standard of architecture developed by Vitruvius.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was one of the three architect-directors of the Bauhaus school, highly influential on the development of the “New Objectivity” movement. His new style of architecture during the period of the Weimar Republic had a heavy emphasis on technology and its ability to increase functionality and affordability, especially for people’s housing. Mies felt a responsibility to make “good design” accessible to the struggling public. For Mies van der Rohe, good design was functional, not decorative, and rationally clean in its appearance. Like Charles Blance’s Grammaire des arts du dessin, Mies created works that captured the essence or “spirit” of the thing. Therefore, his design captured the essence of Neue Sachlichkeit becoming adaptable and timeless.
A showcase of how “Neue Sachlichkeit” was applied to building people’s housing is the Weissenhof Siedlung. The building exhibition was initiated by the Deutscher Werkbund collective and it was build between spring and summer 1927 under the supervision of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
The Weissenhof Siedlung became more than just an exhibition on modern housing when it was created in the Golden Years of the Weimar Republic. Seventeen Architects from 5 different countries put their dreams of modern living into reality by creating 21 homes at the Killesberg in Stuttgart. The dwellings are prototypes for modern living and domestic work. They were imagined as concepts to solve the housing shortage after the war and addressed primarily the working and middle classes. The model homes show a democratic approach of construction by proposing progressive design for the masses, and allow them to participate in the transformation towards modernity. The estates were composed of single-family-houses, apartments and row-houses. The city of Stuttgart seeded out to make the urban living conditions better and sponsored this experimental project. Weissenhof primarily addressed the working and middle classes. However, even though the objects of the Weissenhof colony were arranged in alignment to each other and were similar to each other in their minimalistic style, they also showed a range of variety. Mies Van der Rohe had granted each contributor a lot of artistic freedom and therefore the different outcomes were very diverse. The objects of the estate all had a basic shape, pure geometric forms and avoided any ornament. Additionally, all buildings had flat roofs, as they obeyed the ideal of standardization and rationalization. On the other hand, each contributor focused on different aspects of modern living. For example, Walter Gropius, Peter Behrens and Mart Stam each set their own goals when they designed their dwelling proposals. By taking a closer look at Weissenhof, it also becomes apparent how conflicting the architects’ prototypes were in their functionality and effectiveness. It shows that the ideas of Modernism were born, but had not yet matured.
With the single-family home at Weissenhof, Walter Gropius, the Bauhaus founder, introduced his concept of a prefabrication system. Gropius’ modular system, which was used to build the house on the estate consisted of wall panels that were linked to each other in a grid system. By experimenting on an industrialized construction of dwellings, one could cut the costs and save time to build it. His rationalized prototype, the Einfamilienhaus builded towards the Bauhaus attempt to show that the school’s output has a value for society. Cost effective, quickly raised and cool-looking, the future citizen should find a home in this dwelling.
Peter Behrens also worked on a problem posed by modern living, namely that of crowded multi-family apartment buildings in the city, that were usually shabby and damp. The idea behind the Terrassenhaus is to bring light and fresh air to populous urban dwellings. He aimed to provide better living conditions by giving the residents access to fresh air and sunlight through terraces, which were the rooftops of the lower part of the apartment building. Through the improved wall construction and overall better lighting of the apartment complex, a better hygiene should be provided. Wettish corners and moist walls were causing many health problems to the residents and supported the spread of diseases.
Mart Stam’s contribution Drei Reihenhauser is signficant, because the three single-family row-houses present an alternative to the bourgeois representational villa. His design exemplifies revolutionary thinking, because it denies old values of status and instead focuses on a well-constructed but minimalistic low-cost solution. The dwellings are in a row and very clean and anonymous in their outer appearance.
However, visionary designers not only considered the exterior and structural qualities of people’s dwellings. The innovations in interior design are just as outstanding. Especially domestic work was revolutionized by Die Frankfurter Küche, a remodeled kitchen environment aimed to help the housewives of Germany.
Technology and culture have always been intertwined. Every society is always striving for the unattainable “better.” The better aesthetic, the better lifestyle, the better design. The development of technology revolves around encouraging this form of advancement. Technology enables society to achieve their goal of being “better.” The Weimar culture was a part of this school of thinking.
At this period in history, Weimar Germany was concerned with the emancipation of women. In the early 1920’s, women consitited a significant percentage of the workforce. This display of independence by the woman, which was perpetuated out of necessity after the war, is evident in this presentation of statistics: “by 1925, 20 percent of all full-time workers in [Frankfurt] were women.” This liberation which was achieved with the help Ernst May and his encouragement of Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky through their designs of affordable housing and Die Frankfurter Küche: “Designed by a woman for women.”
This innovative kitchen design comes from a less than conventional architect. Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky was one of the first female graduates of Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna Austria, (the Vienna School for Applied Arts). A firm believer in the theory that architectural ideas build and thrive off each other, she fights the notion that she alone initiated the of the separation of the kitchen from the Best Room, (otherwise known as the eating room), but rationalizes this cold formality with an understanding of necessity that can be described as both economical and more hygienic. For the Weimar Culture, “the Frankfurt Kitchen represented a great step forward in time. The 10,000 examples that were produced made many people’s lives easier and undoubtedly contributed to more women being able to take up a career, to become financially independent.” At the time, the separation of the functions of living, cooking and eating was monumental.
The Frankfurt Kitchen is the ancestor of modern kitchens, and the ones installed, many between the years of 1925 and 1930, are still functional today. This form of progress was seen as a way to engage Germans in the wake of World War I and engage them in the new world of the new republic. As with most orginizational transformations, the kitchen was designed with specific guidelines to maximize productivity.
Maximum productivity within a restrictive space demanded that above all, the working-kitching must be separated from the living area. This provided the architects with up to eight additional square meters and the family with a more spacious dining area. Safety issues concerning venting as well as child supervision were accounted for, as well as specific regulations concerning lighting. The disposal of waste became more practical, as did the flow of movement through the living space.
The Frankfurt Kitchen was not only important in its contrubution to making the Weimar architectural culture “better”, but it had the added bonus of making life “better” by allowing progress for women post World War I.
The Weimar Republic- was a period of drastic change. This change happened not only in the economy, but also in government, art, and architecture. However, one group in particular sought for change even before the war began its course. This group, German Werkbund (Work Federation), was formed in 1907 as a reactive response to the popular idea that rapid industrialization/modernization in Germany posed a significant threat to the nation’s culture. What set it apart from similar groups and associations that formed from this “arts and crafts” reform movement was its rejection of ‘handicraft romanticism’, an idea favored by most English/cultural critics, and even refused to participate in the collective cultural pessimism in most intellectual circles. Instead, the founders made it their goal to prove that an organization that is dedicated to raising the standard in German work in the applied arts could restore dignity to labor, as well as produce a harmonious national style reflective of the modern age, through the use of cooperation with progressive elements in industry.
Here, the impact of the Werkbund’s contribution to architecture reflects these ideas of progress, particularly through Bruno Taut’s “Glashaus”. Taut’s Glashaus was displayed in the Werkbund’s first public exhibition in Cologne in 1914. This original structure, however, was a commission made not by the exhibition organizers, but rather by the glass industry to house its display. Despite the fact that its construction preceded the war, the building represented ideals that closely reflects those of the Werkbund itself.
The building itself was dedicated to the poet Paul Scheerbart at the exhibition in 1914. This was because the building was a physical reproduction of the architectural ideas that Scheerbart himself exchanged with Taut. Its small scale was inspired by late Gothic chapels, while the dome recalled Islamic mosques. As Detlef Mertins described the pavilion itself, it was a symbol of a return to “organic society” or to art itself, in the form of criticism of European humanism, esteeming poverty, and advocating the return to primitivism “through which the creative power of the masses would awaken”.
The designs and design theories of the Weimar Republic are rich in their individual approaches. The objects, interiors and buildings that were created helped transform the society into a modern world. The recovery process after the end of the First World War offered the opportunity to re-create life and put utopia into reality. Especially architecture and design seems to be able to aid this process of progress towards a more humanistic existence as they so often literally put ideals into concrete. Buildings and interiors shape the choreography of how we move in them, live in them, work in them and finally feel in them. Designer-Architects such as Mies van der Rohe and Gropius, who both were from the Bauhaus as well as other organizations such as the Werkbund and the female architect Schütte-Lihotzky considered the new demands of everyday life. They investigated the impact of live in the city, the demands and opportunities of new technology and social revolution. The examples show how fertile the playground for the architects was during the last years of the Weimar Republic.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was one of the three architect-directors of the Bauhaus school, highly influential on the development of the “New Objectivity” movement. His new style of architecture during the period of the Weimar Republic had a heavy emphasis on technology and its ability to increase functionality and affordability, especially for people’s housing. Mies felt a responsibility to make “good design” accessible to the struggling public. For Mies van der Rohe, good design was functional, not decorative, and rationally clean in its appearance. Like Charles Blance’s Grammaire des arts du dessin, Mies created works that captured the essence or “spirit” of the thing. Therefore, his design captured the essence of Neue Sachlichkeit becoming adaptable and timeless.
A showcase of how “Neue Sachlichkeit” was applied to building people’s housing is the Weissenhof Siedlung. The building exhibition was initiated by the Deutscher Werkbund collective and it was build between spring and summer 1927 under the supervision of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
The Weissenhof Siedlung became more than just an exhibition on modern housing when it was created in the Golden Years of the Weimar Republic. Seventeen Architects from 5 different countries put their dreams of modern living into reality by creating 21 homes at the Killesberg in Stuttgart. The dwellings are prototypes for modern living and domestic work. They were imagined as concepts to solve the housing shortage after the war and addressed primarily the working and middle classes. The model homes show a democratic approach of construction by proposing progressive design for the masses, and allow them to participate in the transformation towards modernity. The estates were composed of single-family-houses, apartments and row-houses. The city of Stuttgart seeded out to make the urban living conditions better and sponsored this experimental project. Weissenhof primarily addressed the working and middle classes. However, even though the objects of the Weissenhof colony were arranged in alignment to each other and were similar to each other in their minimalistic style, they also showed a range of variety. Mies Van der Rohe had granted each contributor a lot of artistic freedom and therefore the different outcomes were very diverse. The objects of the estate all had a basic shape, pure geometric forms and avoided any ornament. Additionally, all buildings had flat roofs, as they obeyed the ideal of standardization and rationalization. On the other hand, each contributor focused on different aspects of modern living. For example, Walter Gropius, Peter Behrens and Mart Stam each set their own goals when they designed their dwelling proposals. By taking a closer look at Weissenhof, it also becomes apparent how conflicting the architects’ prototypes were in their functionality and effectiveness. It shows that the ideas of Modernism were born, but had not yet matured.
With the single-family home at Weissenhof, Walter Gropius, the Bauhaus founder, introduced his concept of a prefabrication system. Gropius’ modular system, which was used to build the house on the estate consisted of wall panels that were linked to each other in a grid system. By experimenting on an industrialized construction of dwellings, one could cut the costs and save time to build it. His rationalized prototype, the Einfamilienhaus builded towards the Bauhaus attempt to show that the school’s output has a value for society. Cost effective, quickly raised and cool-looking, the future citizen should find a home in this dwelling.
Peter Behrens also worked on a problem posed by modern living, namely that of crowded multi-family apartment buildings in the city, that were usually shabby and damp. The idea behind the Terrassenhaus is to bring light and fresh air to populous urban dwellings. He aimed to provide better living conditions by giving the residents access to fresh air and sunlight through terraces, which were the rooftops of the lower part of the apartment building. Through the improved wall construction and overall better lighting of the apartment complex, a better hygiene should be provided. Wettish corners and moist walls were causing many health problems to the residents and supported the spread of diseases.
Mart Stam’s contribution Drei Reihenhauser is signficant, because the three single-family row-houses present an alternative to the bourgeois representational villa. His design exemplifies revolutionary thinking, because it denies old values of status and instead focuses on a well-constructed but minimalistic low-cost solution. The dwellings are in a row and very clean and anonymous in their outer appearance.
However, visionary designers not only considered the exterior and structural qualities of people’s dwellings. The innovations in interior design are just as outstanding. Especially domestic work was revolutionized by Die Frankfurter Küche, a remodeled kitchen environment aimed to help the housewives of Germany.
Technology and culture have always been intertwined. Every society is always striving for the unattainable “better.” The better aesthetic, the better lifestyle, the better design. The development of technology revolves around encouraging this form of advancement. Technology enables society to achieve their goal of being “better.” The Weimar culture was a part of this school of thinking.
At this period in history, Weimar Germany was concerned with the emancipation of women. In the early 1920’s, women consitited a significant percentage of the workforce. This display of independence by the woman, which was perpetuated out of necessity after the war, is evident in this presentation of statistics: “by 1925, 20 percent of all full-time workers in [Frankfurt] were women.” This liberation which was achieved with the help Ernst May and his encouragement of Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky through their designs of affordable housing and Die Frankfurter Küche: “Designed by a woman for women.”
This innovative kitchen design comes from a less than conventional architect. Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky was one of the first female graduates of Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna Austria, (the Vienna School for Applied Arts). A firm believer in the theory that architectural ideas build and thrive off each other, she fights the notion that she alone initiated the of the separation of the kitchen from the Best Room, (otherwise known as the eating room), but rationalizes this cold formality with an understanding of necessity that can be described as both economical and more hygienic. For the Weimar Culture, “the Frankfurt Kitchen represented a great step forward in time. The 10,000 examples that were produced made many people’s lives easier and undoubtedly contributed to more women being able to take up a career, to become financially independent.” At the time, the separation of the functions of living, cooking and eating was monumental.
The Frankfurt Kitchen is the ancestor of modern kitchens, and the ones installed, many between the years of 1925 and 1930, are still functional today. This form of progress was seen as a way to engage Germans in the wake of World War I and engage them in the new world of the new republic. As with most orginizational transformations, the kitchen was designed with specific guidelines to maximize productivity.
Maximum productivity within a restrictive space demanded that above all, the working-kitching must be separated from the living area. This provided the architects with up to eight additional square meters and the family with a more spacious dining area. Safety issues concerning venting as well as child supervision were accounted for, as well as specific regulations concerning lighting. The disposal of waste became more practical, as did the flow of movement through the living space.
The Frankfurt Kitchen was not only important in its contrubution to making the Weimar architectural culture “better”, but it had the added bonus of making life “better” by allowing progress for women post World War I.
The Weimar Republic- was a period of drastic change. This change happened not only in the economy, but also in government, art, and architecture. However, one group in particular sought for change even before the war began its course. This group, German Werkbund (Work Federation), was formed in 1907 as a reactive response to the popular idea that rapid industrialization/modernization in Germany posed a significant threat to the nation’s culture. What set it apart from similar groups and associations that formed from this “arts and crafts” reform movement was its rejection of ‘handicraft romanticism’, an idea favored by most English/cultural critics, and even refused to participate in the collective cultural pessimism in most intellectual circles. Instead, the founders made it their goal to prove that an organization that is dedicated to raising the standard in German work in the applied arts could restore dignity to labor, as well as produce a harmonious national style reflective of the modern age, through the use of cooperation with progressive elements in industry.
Here, the impact of the Werkbund’s contribution to architecture reflects these ideas of progress, particularly through Bruno Taut’s “Glashaus”. Taut’s Glashaus was displayed in the Werkbund’s first public exhibition in Cologne in 1914. This original structure, however, was a commission made not by the exhibition organizers, but rather by the glass industry to house its display. Despite the fact that its construction preceded the war, the building represented ideals that closely reflects those of the Werkbund itself.
The building itself was dedicated to the poet Paul Scheerbart at the exhibition in 1914. This was because the building was a physical reproduction of the architectural ideas that Scheerbart himself exchanged with Taut. Its small scale was inspired by late Gothic chapels, while the dome recalled Islamic mosques. As Detlef Mertins described the pavilion itself, it was a symbol of a return to “organic society” or to art itself, in the form of criticism of European humanism, esteeming poverty, and advocating the return to primitivism “through which the creative power of the masses would awaken”.
The designs and design theories of the Weimar Republic are rich in their individual approaches. The objects, interiors and buildings that were created helped transform the society into a modern world. The recovery process after the end of the First World War offered the opportunity to re-create life and put utopia into reality. Especially architecture and design seems to be able to aid this process of progress towards a more humanistic existence as they so often literally put ideals into concrete. Buildings and interiors shape the choreography of how we move in them, live in them, work in them and finally feel in them. Designer-Architects such as Mies van der Rohe and Gropius, who both were from the Bauhaus as well as other organizations such as the Werkbund and the female architect Schütte-Lihotzky considered the new demands of everyday life. They investigated the impact of live in the city, the demands and opportunities of new technology and social revolution. The examples show how fertile the playground for the architects was during the last years of the Weimar Republic.