European Expressionist Architecture

Modern European Architecture

Expressionist architecture was an architectural movement that developed in Europe during the first decades of the twentieth century in parallel with the expressionist visual and performing arts. The term "Expressionist architecture" initially described the activity of the German, Dutch, Austrian, Czech, and Danish avant-garde from 1910 until 1930. Subsequent redefinitions extended the term backwards to 1905 and also widened it to encompass the rest of Europe. Today the meaning has broadened even further to refer to architecture of any date or location that exhibits some of the qualities of the original movement such as: distortion, fragmentation, or the communication of violent or over-stressed emotion.

The style was characterized by an early-modernist adoption of novel materials, formal innovation, and very unusual massing—sometimes inspired by natural biomorphic forms and sometimes by the new technical possibilities offered by the mass production of brick, steel, and glass. Many expressionist architects fought in World War I and their experiences, combined with the political turmoil and social upheaval that followed the German Revolution of 1919, resulted in a Utopian outlook and a romantic socialist agenda. Hence, ephemeral exhibition buildings were numerous and highly significant during this period. Likewise, scenography for theater and films provided another outlet for the expressionist imagination, and provided supplemental incomes for designers attempting to challenge conventions in a harsh economic climate.

Expressionist architecture was individualistic and in many ways eschewed aesthetic dogma. While the movement was very broad, some points can be found as recurring in works of Expressionist architecture, and are evident in some degree in each of its works:

1. Distortion of form for an emotional effect
2. Subordination of realism to symbolic or stylistic expression of inner experience
3. An underlying effort at achieving the new, original, and visionary
4. Profusion of works on paper, and models, with discovery and representations of concepts more important than pragmatic finished products
5. Often hybrid solutions, irreducible to a single concept
6. Themes of natural romantic phenomena, such as caves, mountains, lightning, crystal and rock formations
7. Utilizes creative potential of artisan craftsmanship
8. Tendency more towards the gothic than the classical
9. Draws as much from Moorish, Islamic, Egyptian, and Indian art and architecture as from Roman or Greek
10. Conception of architecture as a work of art

Form also played a defining role in setting apart expressionist architecture from its immediate predecessor, art nouveau, or Jugendstil. While art nouveau had an organic freedom with ornament, expressionist architecture strove to free the form of the whole building instead of just its parts. An example of a built expressionist project that is formally inventive is Erich Mendelsohn's Einstein Tower . This sculpted building shows a relativistic and shifting view of geometry: devoid of applied ornament, form and space are shaped in fluid concrete to express concepts of the architect and the building's namesake.

Einstein's Tower

Einstein Tower in Potsdam, Germany, 1919-1922 (Erich Mendelsohn). In Mendelsohn's design, form and space are shaped in fluid concrete and devoid of applied ornament.

Expressionist architecture utilized curved geometries and a recurring form in the movement is the dome. Another expressionist motif was the emphasis on either horizontality or verticality for dramatic effect, which was influenced by new technologies like cruise liners and skyscrapers .

"Skyscraper Project"

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's Friedrichstrasse Skyscraper Project, Berlin-Mitte, Germany, 1921.