history of contemporary architecture - 11. Expressionism.ppt

Expressionism (German)
Arch. Dania Abdel-Aziz 1

What is Expressionism?
• Expressionism is a term that artistes in the early 20th century around a group of
painters, mainly German and centered in Munich.
• Who sought to convey deep emotional content using significant amounts of
abstraction but without losing figural subject matter.
• Color played a major role in their work.
• They also sought to convey a new and different kind of emotional content, often
verging on complex psychology and psychic struggle.
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Arch. Dania Abdel-Aziz

• Expressionism is not a clearly defined term and may have more than one definition.
• It can often overlap other kinds of content and formal choices.
• Nevertheless, there is a certain quality about it that usually allows us to recognize it.
• Expressionist forms are often sculptural, sometimes irrational, usually personal
and idiosyncratic.
• But they are also often distorted.
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What is Expressionism?

Bruno Taut (4 May 1880 – 24
December 1938)
• Was a prolific
German architect, urban
planner and author active during
the Weimar period. He is known for
his theoretical works as well as his
designs and buildings.
• He is classified as
a Modernist and, in particular, as
an Expressionist.
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Bruno Taut
Modernism and the Heroic Period of Architecture – Sources of Modernism
Expressionism

• The Glass Pavilion, built in 1914 and
designed by Bruno Taut.
• It was a prismatic glass dome structure at
the Cologne Deutscher Werkbund
Exhibition.
• The structure was a brightly colored
landmark of the exhibition, and was
constructed using concrete and glass.
• The concrete structure had inlaid colored
glass plates on the facade that acted as
mirrors.
• Taut described his "little temple of beauty"
as "...reflections of light whose colors began
at the base with a dark blue and rose up
through moss green and golden yellow to
culminate at the top in a luminous pale
yellow."
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Expressionism
Glass Pavilion, werkbund exhibition,

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Glass Pavilion, werkbund exhibition,
Bruno Taut (1913-1926):
Expressionism

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Bruno Taut (1913-1926), Iron Pavilion, Berlin:
Expressionism

• Project: Britz/Hufeisensiedlung
• Architect: Taut, Bruno & Martin Wagner
• City Berlin
• Country Germany
• Building Type Row house
• Date Built1925-27
• Dwelling Types flats/2-story row houses
• Exterior Finish Materials plaster, wood
• Construction Type masonry
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Horseshoe Development or "Hufeisensiedlung", built
1925, in Britz, Berlin
Horseshoe Estate
Expressionism

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Horseshoe Development or "Hufeisensiedlung", built
1925, in Britz, Berlin
Part of the site plan for the
"Hufeisensiedlung", the central horseshoe
figure surrounded an existing pond.
Expressionism

• During the critical housing shortage that existed in in Germany following W.W.I,
various co-op housing societies and associations, public housing associations and
trades unions housing groups were formed to build economical housing in Berlin.
• One of the largest of these associations, Gehag (public utility homes, savings and
construction company), was founded in 1919 to build housing for its members.
• Committed to a progressive program of modern housing, Gehag sought collaboration
with modern architects and, in 1924, Bruno Taut was appointed chief architect.
• Taut had been involved in the development of the Gross-Siedlungen (large residential
community) idea as a concept for building large garden city-type housing complexes,
and had some experience designing a similar garden city development in Magdeburg
in 1912-15.
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Expressionism

• Built in an outlying area south of
central Berlin, Britz-Hufeisensiedlung-
- literally "horseshoe" community, so
named from the horseshoe shape of
the inner group of apartments which
are built around a natural pond-- was
one of the early Gross-siedlung to be
built in Berlin.
• Along with Taut's "Onkel-Toms Hutte"
(Uncle Tom's Cabin), built in 1926, it
is one of the best examples of
application the ideas of the Garden
City Movement
(Gartenstadtgesellschaft) by a
functionalist architect.
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Arch. Dania Abdel-Aziz Onkel Toms Hutte
Horseshoe Estate
Expressionism

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View of outside of
"horseshoe".
Expressionism

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View of the street facade of the
four-story, point-access blocks
outside of the "horseshoe".
Typical facade showing apartment balconies
View of the interior landscaped area of the "horseshoe".

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Color variations of doors and entrances - a
typical design pattern of Bruno Taut
Expressionism

General Site Plan of Taut’s Waldsiedlung at
Onkel Toms Hutte, Berlin Zehlendorf 1926, with
the curved U- Bahn running across the middle.
Detailed plan of nothern part showing varied
building and facade types.
Onkel Toms Hutte

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Expressionism

Expressionist architecture was individualistic and in many ways eschewed aesthetic dogma, but it is
still useful to develop some criteria which defines it. Though containing a great variety and
differentiation, many 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. Themes of natural romantic phenomena, such as caves, mountains, lightning, crystal and rock
formations. As such it is more mineral and elemental than florid and organic which characterized
its close contemporary art nouveau.
6. Uses creative potential of artisan craftsmanship.
7. Tendency more towards the gothic than the classical. Expressionist architecture also tends
more towards the romanesque and the rococo than the classical.
8. Though a movement in Europe, expressionism is as eastern as western. It draws as much from
Moorish, Islamic, Egyptian, and Indian art and architecture as from Roman or Greek.
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Characteristics

Expressionism
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Caspar David Friedich’s Das Eismeer
(The Sea of Ice)
1921, Walter Gropius's Monument to the
March Dead

Expressionism
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• Expressionistic’ qualities: A building may convey some intentional meaning
through its form “expressive”.
Sydney Opera house
1957-73 (Jorn Utzon)
Lotus Temple,1986
(fariborz sahba)

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Expressionism
• Distorted form for emotional effect, subordination of realism
Haus Duldeck in Dornash
1915 (Rodolf Steiner & Hermann
Ranzenberger)

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JFK International Airport in New York,
1956-62
(Eero Saarinen)
National Museum of the American
Indian,2004
(Douglas Cardinal‘s)
Expressionism

25
Expressionism
Forms in something more gothic
rather than classic, which resulted in
forms and shapes that are
individualistic from the other forms
of architecture.
around that time expressionist use
of Monolithic materials.
Hohenzollernplatz Church berlin 1930
((fritz höger

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Expressionism
Grundtvig's Church,
1927
(Peder Vihelm&Jensen klint)

What is… And what is not…Expressionism
• The expressionist transforms reality rather than seeking to imitate it. An avant-garde
movement and a famous “ism” among many other strains of modernism.
• Appearances are only a semblance, claims the expressionist; we must transcend the
superficial guise of reality to find true meaning.
• It is not Impressionism which seeks to capture transient nature at different
moments, to reflect the diversity of the physical world.
• It is not Naturalism which records “life as it is”.
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Materials
• Materials used in this movement of architecture , which have a poetic expression,
and to unify the buildings into making it a monolithic design. Bricks, steel and
especially glass is used, according to Paul Scheerbart : “Coloured glass destroys
hatred”,
”Without a glass palace life is a burden”,
”Glass brings us a new era, building in brick only does us harm”.
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Evolution of expressionism
• The genesis of expressionism lies in art nouveau.
• Art nouveau, principally a decorative convention turned to bionic and geomorphic
forms.
• However art nouveau consumed itself in the
need for more extravagant forms.
• Architects often spilled over exoticism,
irrationality and ultimately this intense exaggeration
was called Expressionism.
• Antoni Gaudi bizzarre architecture had close
affinity to expressionism.
• With the fundamental theme the
preoccupation with the biomorphic fantasy.
• But the real birth of this ‘ism’ is bound up
with traumas of world war I.
• Barred from the realities of construction sites,
the architects were free to built castles in
the air.
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Erich Mendelsohn
• The Einstein tower , Potsdam 1917-21 by Erich Mendelsohn is one of the first
expressionist building
• What he built was not merely a laboratory; it was a monument with an anthromorphic
form.
• The building was built in brick and covered with concrete.
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The Einstein tower

TWA terminal, NY: Eero saarinen
• Saarinen's terminal for TWA is sculpted as an symbol of flight - abstract, and not
intentionally as a landing eagle as it has often been described.
• The expressive curves of the design create attractive, spacious halls and a rare
degree of exhilaration for an airport terminal
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• nine overlapping shells on the Sydney waterfront was chosen over more conventional
square and circular buildings. The forms of the shells could be described as sections
radiating from the bottom of an orange, or the frond of a palm plant unfurling in the
sun.
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Sydney Opera House

• The idea for an opera house for the city of Sydney wasn't a new one. It had been
discussed as part of a post-World War II building program. But a lack of vision kept it
on the back burner.
• In 1956 a competition was floated for its design and out of 233 entries Jørn Utzon
was selected
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Sydney Opera House

Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
• Frank o gehry
• His buildings are powerful essays in geometric
form and materials, and from an aesthetic
standpoint they are among the most profound
and brilliant works of architecture of our time.
•
• Whole building is made of irregular shapes having
not a single straight wall
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• The big surprise of the vast Guggenheim Bilbao is that, despite its complexity and
unorthodox appearance, you never feel lost or confused inside
• With this work frank gehry became famous as “the other Frank” “with other
guggenheim”
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Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

Rudolph steiner (1924-1928)
• His strong expressionist designs for the second Goetheanum (house of speech) and
surrounding buildings.
• The chimney of the boiler, like a stem, symbolizing the rising smoke.
• The transformer station- meant to express the intake, conversion, and output
electrical power.
• The second goetheanum- an impressive sculpturous form built in concrete
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Conclusion
• Time flattens distinctions such between works with similar forms... but the history of
architectural theory is about ideas and not just the shapes they make
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Thank you 
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history of contemporary architecture - 11. Expressionism.ppt