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From Building towards Landscape: Erich Mendelsohn and a Reconstitution of Geographical Forms, 1919-1929
This paper is in preparation for presentation at the Society of Architectural Historians Annual Meeting, April 2010
ABSTRACT: Among German architects active following World War I, Erich Mendelsohn is remarkable for his early projects conceived for
sites far beyond the borders of his native land. Mendelsohn’s visits to Palestine, Greece, the United States, and the nascent Soviet Union
resulted, too, in extensive written and graphic descriptions, many of which were published by the popular press. And although these foreign
places were as diverse culturally as they were geographically, Mendelsohn’s letters, lectures, and books quite naturally reflect the designer’s
own sensibility both towards architecture, per se, and towards something else: architecture as a constituent part of a universal “visual
landscape.”
In Mendelsohn’s case, photography was a significant tool in the assembly of his travel-based narratives. Mendelsohn’s use of photographs
betrays a reversal of the more typical relationship between landscape and an architect’s creative process. Rather than having drawn
inspiration for new man-made forms from nature, Mendelsohn’s travel images evoked a world in which technical artifacts appear to
constitute the background against which new architecture might -- or might not -- emerge.
Although most readily apparent in his book Amerika: Bilderbuch eines Architekten (An Architect’s Photo Album), this perspective persists
throughout his second book, Russland, Europa, Amerika. The latter’s subtitle makes explicit Mendelsohn’s extension of the human gesture
into geography's domain: “An Architectural Cross Section.” Examination of photographs taken or selected by Mendelsohn for this
publication points to a formal process by which man-made things come to substitute for the landscape and its more widely-held moral
properties. Other sources for comparison include illustrations by contemporary artists and architects such as Hermann Kosel, Bruno Taut,
Hannah Höch, and Paul Citroen. [ Click here for Original Call-for-Papers and Submitted Abstract ]
01/07/10 DRAFT (text) ; DRAFT (images). Presentation to Baltimore's Design Soiree 12/21/09 TEXT / IMAGES
ABSTRACT: Among German architects active following World War I, Erich Mendelsohn is remarkable for his early projects conceived for
sites far beyond the borders of his native land. Mendelsohn’s visits to Palestine, Greece, the United States, and the nascent Soviet Union
resulted, too, in extensive written and graphic descriptions, many of which were published by the popular press. And although these foreign
places were as diverse culturally as they were geographically, Mendelsohn’s letters, lectures, and books quite naturally reflect the designer’s
own sensibility both towards architecture, per se, and towards something else: architecture as a constituent part of a universal “visual
landscape.”
In Mendelsohn’s case, photography was a significant tool in the assembly of his travel-based narratives. Mendelsohn’s use of photographs
betrays a reversal of the more typical relationship between landscape and an architect’s creative process. Rather than having drawn
inspiration for new man-made forms from nature, Mendelsohn’s travel images evoked a world in which technical artifacts appear to
constitute the background against which new architecture might -- or might not -- emerge.
Although most readily apparent in his book Amerika: Bilderbuch eines Architekten (An Architect’s Photo Album), this perspective persists
throughout his second book, Russland, Europa, Amerika. The latter’s subtitle makes explicit Mendelsohn’s extension of the human gesture
into geography's domain: “An Architectural Cross Section.” Examination of photographs taken or selected by Mendelsohn for this
publication points to a formal process by which man-made things come to substitute for the landscape and its more widely-held moral
properties. Other sources for comparison include illustrations by contemporary artists and architects such as Hermann Kosel, Bruno Taut,
Hannah Höch, and Paul Citroen. [ Click here for Original Call-for-Papers and Submitted Abstract ]
01/07/10 DRAFT (text) ; DRAFT (images). Presentation to Baltimore's Design Soiree 12/21/09 TEXT / IMAGES
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