ERICH MENDELSOHN: DAS GESAMTSCHAFFEN DES ARCHITEKTEN
Skizzen, Entwürfe, Bauten
Erich Mendelsohn
Erich Mendelsohn: ERICH MENDELSOHN: DAS GESAMTSCHAFFEN DES ARCHITEKTEN [Skizzen, Entwürfe, Bauten]. Berlin: Rudolf Mosse, 1930. First edition. Text in German. Quarto. Tan cloth titled in brown. 252 pp. 402 black and white photos, illustration, diagrams and floorplans. Architectural historians’ bookplate to front endpaper. Charming pencilled marginalia and underscoring to textblock. Cloth backstrip slightly pulled at lower spine edge and cloth a trifle dusty, but a very good or better copy of the German first edition.
7.5 x 9.75 book with 252 pages of black and white photos, illustration, diagrams and floorplans. Includes Mendelsohn’s essays "Das Problem einer neuen Baukunst" (Berlin, 1919) and "Die Internationale Übereinstimmung des neuen Baugedankens, oder Dynamik und Funktion" (Amsterdam, 1923). Excellent early survey of one of the master architects of the twentieth century produced in the finest neue typographic styles of 1930s Berlin.
German Jewish architect Erich Mendelsohn (1887 – 1953) was known for his expressionist buildings in the 1920s, the first in the style, as well as for developing a dynamic functionalism in his projects for department stores and cinemas.
This volume includes the Workers' colony for the Builders' Union in Luckenwalde (1919-1920), Garden pavilion of the Herrmann family, Luckenwalde (1920), Work hall of the Herrmann hat factory, Luckenwalde (1919-1920), Conversion of the administration building of the Hausleben insurance company, Berlin (1920), Einsteinturm (Observatory on the Telegraphenberg) in Potsdam, 1917 or 1920-1921 (building), 1921-1924 (technical equipment), Double villa on Karolingerplatz, Berlin (1921-1922), Steinberg hat factory, Herrmann & Co, Luckenwalde (1921-1923), Mossehaus, conversion of the offices and press of Rudolf Mosse, Berlin (1921-1923), Weichmann silk factory, Gleiwitz, Schlesien (1922), Villa of Dr. Sternefeld, Berlin, (1923-1924), Furs factory of C. A. Herpich and Sons, Berlin (1924-1929), Schocken department store, Nuremberg (1925-1926), Red Flag Textile Factory, Leningrad, (1926), Extension and conversion of Cohen & Epstein department store, Duisburg (1925-1927), Cottage of Dr. Bejach, Berlin-Steinstücken (1926-1927), Schocken department store, Stuttgart (1926-1928), Exhibition pavilion for the publishing house Rudolf Mosse at the "Pressa" in Cologne (1928), Rudolf Petersdorff store, Breslau (1927-1928), Woga-Komplex and Universum-Kino (cinema), Berlin (1925-1931), Jüdischer Friedhof (Jewish cemetery), Königsberg, East Prussia (1927-1929), Schocken department store, Chemnitz 1927-1930, His own home, Am Rupenhorn, Berlin (1928-1930), House of the German Metal Workers' Union, Berlin-Kreuzberg (1928-1930), Columbus-Haus, Potsdamer Platz, Berlin (1928-1932), and others.
Erich Mendelsohn became famous early in his career with his Einstein Tower in Potsdam in 1921, and the Schocken department stores in Stuttgart and Chemnitz, revealed him to be at highest level of his art; dynamic, flowing lines together with a constructive clarity resulting in buildings of expressive plasticity. In 1933 he emigrated to Great Britain where he designed the De La Warr Pavilon at Bexhill-on-Sea in 1935. He then moved to Palestine, designing the hospital at Haifa in 1938. From 1941 until his death in 1953 he worked in the USA.