Erich MendelsohnFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the American film director, see Eric Mendelsohn.

Erich Mendelsohn

Erich Mendelsohn (21 March 1887 – 15 September 1953)[1] was a Jewish German architect, known for

his expressionist architecture in the 1920s, as well as for developing a dynamic functionalism in his projects for

department stores and cinemas.

Contents

  [hide] 

1   Biography

2   Architecture career

3   Buildings (selected)

4   Published works (German)

5   References

o 5.1   Bibliography

6   External links

7   Further reading

Biography[edit]

Erich Mendelsohn was born in Allenstein (Olsztyn), East Prussia.His birthplace was at the former 21 Podgorna

street, now no. 10 Staromiejska street. A plaque embedded on the wall on the side of Barbara street

commemorated his place of birth.[2]

He was the fifth of six children; his mother was Emma, (maiden name Jaruslawska)and, a hatmaker and his

father Dawid was a shopkeeper.[3] He attended a humanist Gymnasium in Allenstein and continued with

commercial training in Berlin.

Einstein Tower in Potsdam

In 1906 he took up the study of national economics at the University of Munich. In 1908 he began

studying architecture at the Technical University of Berlin; two years later he transferred to the Technical

University of Munich, where in 1912 he graduated cum laude. In Munich he was influenced byTheodor Fischer,

an architect whose own work fell between neo-classical and Jugendstil, and who had been teaching there since

1907; Mendelsohn also made contact with members of Der Blaue Reiter and Die Brücke, two groups of

expressionist artists.

From 1912 to 1914 he worked as an independent architect in Munich. In 1915 he married the cellist Luise

Maas. Through her, he met the cello-playingastrophysicist Erwin Finlay Freundlich. Freundlich was the brother

of Herbert Freundlich, the deputy director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institut für Physikalische Chemie und

Elektrochemie (now the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society in the Dahlem district of Berlin).

Freundlich wished to build a suitable astronomical observatory to experimentally confirm Einstein's Theory of

Relativity.

Hat Factory in Luckenwalde

Through his relationship with Freundlich, Mendelsohn had the opportunity to design and build

theEinsteinturm ("Einstein Tower"). This relationship and also the family friendship with the Luckenwalde hat

manufacturers Salomon and Gustav Herrmann helped Mendelsohn to an early success. From then until 1918,

what is known of Mendelsohn is, above all, a multiplicity of sketches of factories and other large buildings, often

in small format or in letters from the front to his wife.

Architecture career[edit]

At the end of 1918, upon his return from World War I, he settled his practice in Berlin. The Einsteinturm and the

hat factory in Luckenwalde established his reputation. The Hat Factory was commissioned in 1921,

Mendelsohn's design included four production halls, a boiler, a turbine house, two gatehouses and a dyeing

hall. The dyeing hall became a distinctive feature of the factory, the building was shaped with a modern,

ventilation hood that expelled the toxic fumes used in the dyeing process. The structure even ironically

resembled a hat. [4]

As early as 1924 Wasmuths Monatshefte für Baukunst (a series of monthly magazines on architecture)

produced a booklet about his work. In that same year, along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Walter

Gropius, he was one of the founders of the progressive architectural group known as Der Ring. His practice

employed as many as forty people, among them, as a trainee, Julius Posener, later an architectural historian.

Mendelsohn's work encapsulated the consumerism of the Weimar Republic, most particularly in his shops:

most famously the Schocken Department Stores. Nonetheless he was also interested in the socialist

experiments being made in the USSR, where he designed the Red Banner Textile Factory in 1926 (together

with the senior architect of this project, Hyppolit Pretreaus). His Mossehaus newspaper offices and Universum

cinema were also highly influential on art deco and Streamline Moderne.

Weizmann residence, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot

In 1926, he bought an old villa, and in 1928, he designed Rupenhorn, nearly 4000 m², which the family

occupied two years later. With an expensive publication about his new home, illustrated by Amédée

Ozenfant among others, Mendelsohn became the subject of envy.

De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill on Sea

In the spring of 1933, in the wake of growing antisemitism and the rise of the Nazis in Germany, he fled to

England. His fortune was seized by theNazis, his name struck from the list of the German Architects' Union,

and he was excluded from the Prussian Academy of Arts.

In England he began a business partnership with Serge Chermayeff, which continued until the end of 1936.

Mendelsohn had long known Chaim Weizmann, later President of Israel. At the start of 1934 he began planning

on Weizmann's behalf a series of projects in Palestine during the British Mandate. In 1935, he opened an office

in Jerusalem and planned Jerusalem stone buildings in the International Style that greatly influenced local

architecture.[5] In 1938, after dissolving his London office, he took UK citizenship and changed his name to

"Eric." In Palestine, Mendelsohn built many now-famous buildings: Weizmann House and three laboratories at

the Weizmann Institute of Science, Anglo-Palestine Bank in Jerusalem, Hadassah Hospital on Mount

Scopus, Rambam Hospital in Haifa and others.

From 1941 until his death, Mendelsohn lived in the United States and taught at the University of California,

Berkeley. Until the end of World War II his activities were limited by his immigration status to lectures and

publications. However, he also served as an advisor to the U.S. government. For instance, in 1943 he

collaborated with the U.S. Army and Standard Oil in order to build "German Village", a set of replicas of typical

German working-class housing estates, which would be of key importance in acquiring the know-how and

experience necessary to carry out the firebombing of Berlin.[6]In 1945 he established himself in San Francisco.

From then until his death in 1953 he undertook various projects, mostly for Jewish communities.

Buildings (selected)[edit]

Main article: List of works by Erich Mendelsohn

Interior view of the Hat Factory in Luckenwalde

Mossehaus in Berlin

Petersdorff department store in Breslau, nowWrocław (Detail)

Schocken department store in Chemnitz

Work hall of the Herrmann hat factory, Luckenwalde (1919-1920)

Einsteinturm  (solar observatory on the Telegraphenberg) in Potsdam, 1917 or 1920-1921 (building), 1921-

1924 (technical equipment). The building, its expressionistic form giving the impression of concrete as a

building material, was mostly built in brick and then covered with plaster. Mendelsohn explained this was

because of delivery problems; however, it is presumed that the real reason for the choice of building

materials was problems with constructing the casing.

Steinberg hat factory, Herrmann & Co, Luckenwalde (1921-1923) with a strict, angular form

Mossehaus , conversion of the offices and press of Rudolf Mosse, Berlin (1921-1923)

Schocken department store, Nuremberg (1925-1926)

Red Flag Textile Factory , Leningrad, 1926. Mendelsohn authored the building of the power station of the

factory; the other buildings were authored by S. O. Ovsyannikov, E. A. Tretyakov, and Hyppolit Pretreaus,

who was the senior architect of this project. The complex of buildings of this factory is included in the List

of the objects of historical and cultural heritage issued by the government of Saint Petersburg in 2001 (with

additions of 2006).

Extension and conversion of Cohen & Epstein department store, Duisburg (1925-1927)

Schocken department store , Stuttgart (1926-1928). The department store, together with the Tagblatt-

Turm (1924-1928) of Ernst-Otto Oßwald across the way, constituted an impressive ensemble of modern

architecture, and was damaged only lightly in World War II. In 1960, the city of Stuttgart demolished the

store, despite international protest. In its place today stands Egon Eiermann's unremarkable department

store building (Galeria Kaufhof, previously Horten).

Exhibition pavilion for the Rudolf Mosse publishing house at the Pressa in Cologne (1928)

Woga-Komplex and Universum-Kino (cinema), Berlin (1925-1931)

Schocken department store, Chemnitz (1927-1930), known for its arched front with horizontal strips of

windows.

His own home, Am Rupenhorn, Berlin (1928-1930)

Columbushaus , Potsdamer Platz, Berlin (1928-1932), not to be confused with the "Columbia-Haus"

in Berlin-Tempelhof, which was burnt out during the June 1953 uprising and demolished in 1957

Jewish youth center, Essen (1930-1933)

The De La Warr Pavilion , Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex, England (1934). In collaboration with Serge

Chermayeff.

Cohen House , Chelsea, London (1934-1936). In collaboration with Serge Chermayeff.

Weizmann House , Weizmann Institute campus, Rehovot near Tel Aviv (1935-1936)

Built around the same time: a cluster of three buildings on the Weizmann Institute campus, presently

housing high-resolution NMR, biological MRI, and the Kimmel Center for Archeology, respectively

Hebrew University , Jerusalem (1934-1940)

Synagogue  B'Nai Amoona, now Center of Creative Arts, University City, Missouri (1946-1950)

Maimonides Hospital, San Francisco (1946-1950)

Park Synagogue , Cleveland Heights, Ohio (1947-1951)

Russell House, San Francisco, California (1951)

Published works (German)[edit]

Erich Mendelsohn: Amerika. Bilderbuch eines Architekten (1976) Berlin: Nachdruck Da Capo Press, ISBN

0-306-70830-2

Erich Mendelsohn: Rußland - Europa - Amerika. Ein architektonischer Querschnitt. (1929) Berlin

Erich Mendelsohn: Neues Haus - Neue Welt. Mit Beiträgen von Amédée Ozenfant und Edwin

Redslob (1932) Berlin. Reprinted, with an afterword by Bruno Zevi (1997) Berlin