The Einstein Tower Megan Fritzler | EVDA 621

A | Form

Modern, organic, monumental and expressive are all formal descriptions that come to the forefront in the attempt to qualify the form of the Einstein Tower. Interestingly, many of these descriptors seem to be incongruous with respect to one another. The words modern and organic connote polarizing impressions making them difficult to reconcile in a single gesture. In the climate of an uprising social order, Eric Mendelsohn’s Einstein Tower merged such opposing concepts based on a formal strategy of relating mass and motion to embody a functional program inside an organic monument to science.

From a social science perspective, the German nation in 1921 was widely recovering

German Pride from its World War One defeat and ascending into the age of ‘The Weimar Republic’ and hyperinflation. Albert Einstein, who had proposed his now famous Theory of 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 Relativity in 1919, was becoming a celebrity to a German citizenry searching for a sense of nationalistic pride (James, 1994). Although resources were scarce, a Figure A.1 | The monumental countour celebration of this German achievement was warranted. In 1921, “The call, couched of the Einstein Tower can be corellated in nationalistic terms, pleaded for the money for just one site where German research with the period of German nationalism could be given a chance to hold its own against the numerous experiments being that followed its construction. conducted at the time in England, France, and America…” (James, 1994, p. 400). The call was for an observatory tower to prove and to celebrate Einstein’s Theory This sense of organic formation simultaneously awakens within the building a (Weston, 2004). The function of the Einstein Tower was scientific, however, the spirit progressive energy that makes the building seem as if it could leap forth from its of the times dictated another need: for a monument to ignite the pride of the German static position. The scale and materiality that attribute the iconoclastic quality to nation. With its monolithic central volume and modern vigor, Mendelsohn’s design the tower are balanced by the rhythmic composition of volumes that surround it. met this need. “Nothing could be further from echoing a lingering past, from stylistic The arrangement of the curvilinear masses serves to excite a sense of movement tag-ends and souvenirs. Rather, here young Germany, the after-war generation, spoke within the heavy formations. The lower volumes act as a base for the central domed out clear and strong, and with the assurance of power.’ (Whittick, 1956, p .54). tower balancing the building’s quantities. The smooth and seamless quality of the exterior skin was achieved through the exploration of concrete and stucco on brick horizontal + vertical elements The Tower was also monumental in the new architecture it espoused with its dynamic (Weston, 2004). The materiality adds a plasticity that softens the monumental stability. Designed as an homage to relativity, the formal strategy of the Einstein qualities of the building. Tower was scientifically reducible to Einstein’s theory in which energy is equal to mass scientific multiplied by the speed of light squared (E=MC2). The equation was the foundation While the exterior skin was left up to Mendelsohn’s expressionist discretion, the function for the buildings formal conception; Mendelsohn sought a relationship between mass building’s interior was derived as a product of function. The Einstein Tower was and movement in the form of the Einstein Tower (James, 1999). conceived of in order to prove the Theory of Relativity by means of measuring the shifting spectrum of the sun through a large and powerful telescope (Fara, Mendelsohn realized mass and movement simultaneously through an amalgamation 2005). The interior of the building was determined by a program of rigid scientific of heavy, monumental volumes with curvilinear elements carved from a thick exterior. requirements which dictated the volumes that would be required. In direct contrast In his evocation of magnitude, Mendelsohn asserted that the, “line must die, [it] to Mendelsohn’s concept of movement for the exterior, the inner tower, which was must become the contour of the mass…Architecture is domination of the mass.” to encase the instrumentation, had to be void of movement in order to provide (James, 1994, p. 402). To this end Mendelsohn attributed increased thickness to the human accurate measurements (James, 1999). A 150 foot tower was needed to house diameter of the tower. The use of concrete, a building material which was relatively function the scientific equipment for the building. Such a prescribed and highly engineered curved + angled elements new at the time, enhanced the sense of heaviness. The materiality used to sculpt interior program served as a ‘functional check’ on Mendelsohn’s form (James, 1999). the form suggests an architecture of weight; openings seem too peer out, carved Mendelsohn was commissioned to from the helm of a thick volume. Mendelsohn created a structure of such mass that provide a ‘shell’ for the functional it appeared to emerge geologically, like a rock formation organically rising from the workings of the interior (Fara, 2005). earth (Weston, 2004). Exterior Figure A.3| The scale of functions Figure A.2| Sections through the which take place in the Einstein Einstein Tower show the form Tower encompasses a large range Figure A.4| The interior and fragmented into two categories, in height. exterior of the Einstein Tower exhibit various states of rigidity Interior and plasticity. modernist infrared

The arrangement and manner in which form would enclose the interior occupations became a representation of and monument to the sciences of mass and motion. bodily The monumental tower was functionally required, but its dynamic expression also limitation served to celebrate the newly discovered technology and efficiency. By making the outter ‘shell’ of the building resemble a machinelike organism, Mendelsohn explored a dynamic functionalism.

The dome atop the telescopic projection provides the only suggestion as to the buildings function. The dome is the most notable conformity to the conventional B | Body observatory typology; the Einstein Tower counters its typology in all other ways. The mechanization of its scientific function is replaced by an organic nature. Although its ultraviolet Although physics is a science that pervades daily life, its workings are unfamiliar to sleek volumes and lack of décor are modern, the mechanization and efficiency of the the average human. The Einstein Tower acts as an extension through which such interior are masked by fluidity. The telltale dome is diminished in the face of other complex and transcendental information is sampled and studied by the human mind. curvilinear forms which accompany it within the overall naturalized form. In such a way, the Einstein Tower is an extension of the body in which mankind’s physical and mental barriers are overcome. The building translates science to the The organic nature of the Einstein tower serves to set it apart from other contemporary spectrum spectrum mind by extending the sensory capabilities of the body. The Einstein Tower, is a case observatories. The combination of the natural with the modern, motion with mass, visible with visible with of, “amplification rather than a simple replication of bodily experience.” (Vidler, 1990, telescope and function with expression unite in order to create this monument to science and eye P.4). The Einstein Tower relates to humankind in the simultaneous and reciprocal act the spirit of the times. of heightening the abilities of the body and transmuting itself to relate to the mind producing a vessel which the body can unite with in order to reach and disseminate new planes of understanding. cornea lens Building as Extension

An amplification of sensory experience is achieved through the function of the Einstein Tower as a solar observatory. Mankind is limited to viewing a finite spectrum of light. Figure A.5| The Einstein Tower retina makes use of two artistic The Einstein Tower empowers the human body with new sensory experiences by movements characteristic of enabling humans to view the infrared end of the light spectrum. In allowing for the the time. Figure B.1 | Light Spectrum visibility: discernment of otherwise indiscernible data, the building acts as a machine which expressionist Telescope vs. Eye humans use to overcome the obstacles that limit the capabilities of the human body. In order to engage with the buildings capabilities, the body which to elevate the body away from the limitations of the earthbound mind. Visually and inhabits the system must be in possession of scientific knowledge. spatially, the Tower expands the eye of the user and in so doing promotes the mind The Einstein Tower allows a higher level of perception, but a higher to a new level of understanding. level of understanding is only attainable with a prescribed set of previous experience. The buildings exterior and interior are sculpted of concrete composed so as to create an analogy to the human body (James, 1997). The overall skin of the building is When building and body are engaged in an interaction, the hybrid mimetic of human texture and curvature. Surfaces protrude and retreat suggesting system of man and building becomes more ablebodied. The body the building as both vessel and vehicle. The smooth hollows carved out of the gains visual perception unreachable outside of the walls. In an buildings skin impersonate the female role of the vessel carrying the body. The educated member of the scientific community the building gains concave openings extending from the buildings base curve and stretch to receive and an operator and interpreter. Conversely, both building and body envelope the body. Such instances demonstrate the the Einstein Tower is “epitomizing viewpoint are lessened in the absence of one another. Just as Sartre stated: bodily states or, more importantly, sates of mind based on bodily sensation” (Vidler, regular spectrum visibility “it is only in a world that there can be a body.” (Vidler, 1990, P.9). 1990, P. 3-4). By personifying the embracing qualities of female curvature the infrared spectrum visibility The body becomes empowered by the building; the building loses buildings orifices construct for the body a sensation of comfort. The towering Figure B.2| Visible spectrums of light power without the body. monument allows the mind to associate at selected viewpoints. Building Transmuting to Body with it sensations of masculinity and progression. Somehow the unfamiliar The scientific understanding that the building embodies creates ‘the uncanny.’ (Vidler, notion of scientific evolution is made to 1992). Because physics is not a comfortably understood subject, relating it to the seem comfortable. the human presence body could make for uncomfortable spaces for the body. Mendelsohn’s Tower makes of the Einstein Tower elicits empathy outside Einstein Tower the body more at ease in an, “attempt to make an insentient and unresponsive external from the viewer (James, 1997). reality feeling and responsible, by endowing it with human attributes” (Vidler, 1990, Figure B.5| Concept sketch of Einstein Tower inside Einstein Tower P7). Body Transformed by Building done by Erich Mendelsohn exhibiting convex and concave qualities of the building skin. Retrieved from Bucherverlag, 1992, P.45. The Einstein Tower relates to the human bodies that inhabit it through a language that Mendelsohn’s Einstein Tower produces speaks of both genders. The Tower professes its scientific preeminence through the Figure B.4| Selected effects on the body in the form of sensory ground plane interior and exterior monumental mimicry of the male organ. The interior of the heightened space serves experience and learned knowledge. The surfaces. Figure B.3| Height of body relative to ground plane: Exterior vs. Interior building produces bodies with knowledge of and experience in new planes of learning. The techniques which informed the Those who engage with it deliver the new knowledge to the masses. In this respect, Einstein Tower encompass both the Einstein Tower is reversing the relationship with the bodies that inhabit it. Just the creative and the scientific. The as bodies use it as a vessel to reach higher understanding, the building in turn uses result of these techniques has been human bodies as vessels to disseminate higher understanding to the masses. a building which imposes its own technique on its users and viewers. Incoming knowledge The Einstein Tower exists in Germany, however, it has the potential to transform The following diagrams will serve to Outgoing knowledge bodies universally. A body does not need to enter its walls in order to gain knowledge. explore and analyze the techniques The bodies that interact with the Tower are transformed into transmitters of scientific behind the buildings production and its reproductive techniques. learning and in turn transform other bodies. In the context of cybernetics, the Einstein C | Technique Tower’s potential to disseminate information through bodies may then constitute Norbert Weiner’s fear that in the relationship between mechanized building and the Figure C.1| Intent body, the body has become the subordinate (Hayles, 1999). With respect to creation, two Conclusion explanations exist: either to regard organization as, “a fortuitous The relationship between building and body is represented in the Einstein Tower in concatentation of atoms, or to several ways. The Einstein Tower is used as an extension of the body which allows relate it to the incomprehensible for greater experience and understanding. The Tower relates to the body mimetically influence of an external force by personifying human attributes in order to bring about bodily sensations of that has grouped its elements comfort and empowerment. By allowing the body to perceive itself at ease with the together.” (Bergson, 2001, P. 242). empowerment of scientific knowledge, the Einstein Tower enables the transmittance Figure 1 endeavours to decipher of knowledge through bodies. the production of the Einstein Tower as an interaction between singular elements. The social relations amongst scientists, and connections to Erich Mendelsohn and other major contributors will be mapped with different lineweights representing relationships and Figure B.6| Flow of knowledge. colours denoting communities. Figure C.1| Conclusions Figure C.1| (Morgenthaler, 1999, P.22). Figure 2 Figure C.2| will use recombination to explore the Figure 1 displays a network of different masses that Mendelsohn loosely organized entropy. Three sketched attempting to capture his ‘clusters’ form. The least developed design. Figure 2 will consist of a cluster here is around Mendelsohn, series of 14 sketches which will however, this cluster represents the be made transparent, arranged integral link between the scientific in an approximate chronological and creative communities. order on a grid. The images will be increasingly overlaid from outside More important is the role of to inside until they consist of one the catalyst, here Freundlich, to dense mass. facilitate the ‘colliding‘ of these two groups of ‘atoms.’ In the context of Figure C.2| Conclusion Bergson’s theory Freundlich could be considered the ‘incomrehensible The Figure produced in the exercise external force’ that organizes these bears resemblance to the building elements. Perhaps the creator in which was realized, however, there this case is not Erich Mendelsohn, is no way of knowing if the sketches but Findlay Freundlich. or the building have captured the mental images that inspired Figure C.2|Intent Mendelsohn. The incremental differences between sketches Mendelsohn wrote, “...Masses suggest that he was not able to “...bringing form to chaos – standing in their ripeness flash satisfy the form he was visualizing past in a moment and slip away, is similar to the creation of allowing the conclusion that the so that it is almost impossible for the earth – creation out of building is just a representation the hand to note them down even nothing...” of Mendelsohn’s true design. approximately. I lament the fact The only pure design exists in his mental image with the sketches that the hand and vision are not (Morgenathaler, 199, p.18-19 on linked together mechanically.” Mendeslohn’s views on creation) and the building itself being best approximations. Figure C.3| Intent Figure C.3| Plate 1

Marshall McLuhan wrote that the ‘medium is the message’ (1995). Figure 3 will explore the highly published Einstein Tower as it was expressed in the media. The diagram will analyze the content and message of selected mediaums by obscuring different contents in different colours to strip them of their message. A copy of the same materials with the content revealed will allow for a comparison of the effect that the removal of the content has on the message sent by the Einstein Tower through the selected mediums.

content | Einstein Mendelsohn relativity = relitivitat tower = turm Figure C.3| Plate 2 Figure C.3| Conclusions

In comparing plates 1 and 2, one notes that the message of the medium is more pure when the content is obscured. It follows that portraying the building through these techniques must somewhat alter the message of the building; just as the message of the medium is encroached upon by the content, the message of the medium must affect the message of the content. Thus, in reproducing itself through the media, the Einstein Tower alters the message it sends. As Mcluhan noted, “any medium has the power of imposing its own assumption on the unwary...” (1995. P.157).

Figure C.4| Intent

Figure four will illustrate the relative audience that the Einstein Tower reaches at different stages in its production and reproduction. The content | Einstein diagram will employ an illustration Mendelsohn of the concept of the building at relativity = relitivitat different key phases and represent tower = turm its relative reach at that phase. An analysis of the change that Figure D.1| takes place between stages will Figure C.4| Figure 1 is intended as a means be achieved by illustrating the to test to what extent the Einstein combined midpoints of each stage. D | Space Tower abides by the concept of euclidean space as opposed to more Figure C.4| Conclusions intesive spatial qualities. By placing the spaces of the Einstein Tower on Thomas Kuhn states that new the traditional cartesian grid, one theories can only be accepted discovers that the formal logic of the when old theories are proven to interior spaces of the Einstein tower be wrong (1996). Therefore the is surprisingly symmetrical. This has purity of a concept is paramount implications for how one perceives to scientific revolution. Also and uses the space; the symmetry paramount to revolution is gives the space a predictability and widespread dissemination. comfort. Figure D.1| euclidean comparison

The diagram betrays a tradeoff; The buildings exterior is much more the message of the concept must liberated from the grid showing mutate in order to be conveyed considerably less symmetry and through greater means to reach further differentiation from the greater audiences. The masses rectilinear concept of space. will never get the message in its Concrete was used to carry out this pure form. The Einstein Tower is a less refined notion of space. The representation of relativity theory material was used to obscure the offering a compromised view of it langauge of the interior spaces to its viewers. The extended arrow and create another language on the has been added to demonstrate the relative size of audience reached by medium exterior. The exterior of the Einstein ongoing mutation of the concept Tower acts as an object in space to as it continues to be reproduced. be reacted to. Figure 1 reveals that human behaviour on the fourth floor a | plan view interior and the exterior of the space Figure D.2| spatial inhabitation work, “as the empowering agent for may be affected differently due to the Figure D.3| ‘the naked building’ research...toward purposefully violating different treatments of space as a boundaries, hybridizing processes.” symmetrical enclosure and a sculpted fourth floor | plan view to output scientific decisions and e object respectively. solutions (Taron, 2011, P. 22). When the spaces of the operator and the Figure D.2| machine are used in tandem or in other b d words when the spatial boundaries are Figure 2 was intended as a means to ‘violated’, an integrative process of discover the occupiable space within research results. the Einstein Tower. The diagram reveals that the central area of each a c Figure D.3| floor is not inhabitable. These spaces basement are not governed by the human, but | plan view Guy Debord’s 1957 concept of The by the telescopic equipment the tower Naked City exposed the city as a series was built to house; the human is of separate but connected ‘unit[ies] limited to traversing the space around of atmosphere.” (McDonough, 2004, the equipment. P.242). By applying Debord’s approach, Figure 3 reveals the great number of e By revealing the spatial allocation of united spaces as well as the great the building, Figure 2 analyses the number of intervals between spaces in program which the space endorses. basement | plan view the Einstein Tower. When comparing In many ways, the spatial allocation Figures 2 and 3, one can deduce that of the Einstein Tower can be said to much of the connections between encompass a space of integrative d spaces are necessitated by the space b programming; both the human and space occupied by wall required by the telescope equipment. the machine are given soveriegnty The vertical arrows connecting through their designated spaces. space uninhabitable by human body relatively small spaces indicate that the This spatial articulation of human space inhabitable by human body height of the tower is in fact composed *letters correlate the view of the and machine conditions against one completely of interstitial space to location of the space in another can plan c Works Consulted space necessitated by the need time the users of the building come with the space of the equipment to design and construct,” the increasing

for access to the telescope. Much increasingly to govern it, further and there comes a new relationship simultaneity of the use of space in the Bergson, H. (1907). Creative Evolution, Elec Book. of the tower is therefore space further violating the original spatial of collaboration between the two Einstein Tower may promise to output between spaces or places. boundaries of the building. different space governing bodies. The higher degrees of scientific research Bucherverlag, R. M. (1992). Erich Mendelsohn Complete Works of the culture of the space, or the mode of through increased conceptual integration Architect. (Antje Fritsch, Trans.). New York: Princeton Architectural Figure D.4| The increasing ‘violation’ of the spatial behaviour, transforms as the spatial of space (Kolarevic, P.150). As the space Press, 1992. (Original work published 1930). boundaries of the space over time has boundaries and relationships change integrates over time, its culture changes Figure 4 seeks to identify the particular implications for what the over time. Just as, “higher degrees and its potential to produce greater Cobbers, A. (2007). Mendelsohn. Germany: Taschen. changes that have taken place space outputs. With the increasing of integration promise buildings minds, bodies, decisions and solutions within a particular interior space of integration of the human space that are better, faster, and cheaper increases with integration. Fara, P. (2005). Monuments to Einstein. Endeavour, 29(2), 58-59. the tower from its conception to the present day. The photograph to the Figure D.4| space & time Hayles, N.K. (1999). How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in right displays a perspective of the Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. Chicago: University of Chicago work room in the past. Subsequent Press. photos show the same room at present day. The black and white Hentschel, K. (1997). The Einstein Tower: An Intertexture of Dynamic renderings depict the incremental Construction, Relativity Thoery, and Astronomy. (Anne Hentschel, Trans.). changes that have taken place in California: Stanford Press. (Original Work Published 1992). the space betwen the two periods.

The space over time has become much more inhabited. Over present past James, K. (1994). Expressionism, Relativity and the Einstein Tower. Journal Morganthaler, H.R., (1999). “Why Should We be Laymen with Respect to of the Society of Architectural Historians, 53(4), 392-413. Retrieved Art?.” In R. Stephan (ed.), Eric Mendelsohn Architect 1887-1953 (26-38). from http://www.jstor.org/stable/990909. New York: The Monacelli Press.

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