GLASS ARCHITECTURE and ALPINE ARCHITECTURE
Paul Scheerbart and Bruno Taut
Paul Scheerbart: GLASS ARCHITECTURE and Bruno Taut: ALPINE ARCHITECTURE. New York: Praeger, 1972. First edition thus. Octavo. Gray cloth titled in gold. Printed dust jacket. 127 pp. Facsimile editions translated into English for the first time here. Well illustrated in black and white. Edited and with an introduction by noted architectural historian Dennis Sharp. Jacket with a trace of edgewear. A nearly fine copy in a nearly fine dust jacket.
6.25 x 8.75 hardcover book with 127 pages and well illustrated in black and white. Edited and with an introduction by noted architectural historian Dennis Sharp. Scheerbart's Glass Architecture was originally published in 1914 while Taut's Alpine Architecture came out in 1919, this book being the first English translation of both.
Glass is commonly associated with the presumed rationalism of modern architecture. Architectural historians directly link the glass exhibitions and botanical structures of the mid 1800’s to modern architecture. But this simple modernist storyline bypasses a large amount of other major influences that played an even more significant part in the development of meaning behind glass architecture.
"Before the war I was denounced as a glass architect; In Magdeburg they called me the apostle of colour. The one is only a consequence of the other; for delight in light is the same as delight in colour."-- Bruno Taut
In 1917, German architect Bruno Taut conceived an utopian city in the Alps and documented it through 30 illustrated plates in the book ALPINE ARCHITECTURE. The treatise developed the ambitious plans for a city to be constructed by the same inhabitants of the community. ALPINE ARCHITECTURE didn’t limited to urban planning but condensed Taut’s pacifist and communal ideals as well as his mystical researches.
Houses, pavilions and monuments, rendered through watercolor drawings, are all made of crystal and reflect the sunshine and the landscape while merging with it. Behind the project of this city is the architect’s reaction to the ongoing war as he envisions a potential new starting point for society in a small, decentralized community. The ideals of beauty and transparency were opposed by the architect, to a materialistic and utilitarian culture.
ALPINE ARCHITECTURE is inspired by the work of German critic and novelist Paul Scheerbart and particularly by his fantasy essay “Glasarchitektur” (Glass Architecture). In this text Scheerbart advocated the construction of buildings able to be completely invaded by natural light in all their interior spaces, a condition which, he believed, would have had huge positive consequences on the development of human environment.
“Architectural historians view Taut and Scheerbart Expressionist work’s as being unrealistic and competing against a more rational interpretation of European destiny (whose monument was to be the factory). Consequently, the portrayal of Taut’s and Scheerbart’s architecture as only being fit for fantasises does no justice to the actual impact they had on built architecture and future generations of architects. This disparity is due to some simple facts: Taut (1880-1938) and Scheerbart (1863-1915) died before they had the opportunity to write their own history like other architects of the period. This contributed significantly to their being forgotten about, whilst architectural historians deemed the International Style the source of rebirth for architecture and shunned all other movements. Furthermore World War II created an overwhelming prejudice against anything that was German so this hindered the discovery of Paul Scheerbart’s interpretation on glass architecture.
“All these factors resulted in Scheerbart receiving some attention as a literary figure in Germany for his eccentric tales and fantasies but the short historiography of English works examining his architectural fictions are considerably lacking.” — Amélie Conway