108 ENGLISH English translation by David Cemlyn-Jones

An appraisal of Mendelsohn a monopoly of assignments from a culturally Alleinstein in (now in Polish territory) aware, rich clientele who was distrusted to the in Bavaria, with Berlín being his Miguel Ángel Baldellou ideologically by the extreme right and left. AII initial and final centre. He also lived torced these factors that initially allowed him to absences due to the war and study trips, develop his best ideas with sufficient freedom, sought the freedom denied him in his country A graphic expression repeated over and over. one eye, ill with an ailment that would later kili later contributed to his isolation and his of origin in a land that never fulfilled its Mendelsohn's infinite versatility, and the him, underlined his perception of sounds and pigeon-holing. Among his first importan! promise, in England, Palestine and finally in memory of sorne inimitable and extraordinary textures and he concentrated on himself, clients, the publisher Mosse played a decisive Chicago and Los Angeles. buildings stick in the mind. And still it seems absorbed in thought. Everything led to the role. He built the editorial exhibition pavilions that his influence can be detected in anything mystical contemplation of his condition. for his newspaper, the Berliner Tageblatt, THE SEARCH FOR A PLACE IN THE WORLD that presumes to be "modern". 01 the various Mendelsohns that existed. a thanks to which he was able to travel to the Few architects as so often mentioned to thoughtful dreamer who was as confident as he East and the south of Europe, and the United Mendelsohn's lile is that of a nomad seeking the point that his name has became an was practica! developed at this time. No one can Sates in 1924 and Russia in 1926. He was able his place in the world. In his journey he adjective for a type of , and so little have been surprised by the power of the 1919 to observe from different and contrasting ca rried a tabernacle containing his own roots, known as Mendelsohn. He was much favoured Einsteinthurm, almos! a prima opera. cultures the crisis of va lues of the century now enclosed in his dreams, his drawings, and the by circumstances when he started out as he E. Mendelsohn emerged on the German ending, and to attempt to create a synthesis of memory of a half-seen and never fully was harmed later on by his independence, and scene like a flashing explosion. 11 the opposites in his thought and his architecture. completed image. A promised place never the wealth that official history denied him was exhibition of his drawings from the front at the His powers of observation allowed him to attained. compensated for by his real influence among Cassier Galleries in 1919 could be described photograph with discernment and to make In diffe rent oases he seemed to identify architects who attempted to produce works of superficially as escapist, his suggestive comparisons. His vision of the East his longings. In this sense his choice of Los quality that were divorced from ideologies. construction was immediately recognised as and West is still valid. Angeles as a place of residence was He belonged to that generation of German one of his generation's most powerful formal From that moment two possible goals exemplary. lt seemed as though the very architects born at the end of the last century and references. Beyond its scientific significance, were available to him: Palestine newly created scenery made him hear a voice proclaiming who began their activities at the height of the the legendary surname on the inscription, and by the founders of Zionism (Waitzman . .. ) the promised land, tied to the stunning natural debate between Einfühlug and Sachlikeit. Heirs the literature to which it could be linked, it and the Utopian America of Whitmam and beauty of a privileged place. to a profound artistic style and seriously involved contained his image and his totemic Wright, his great human and professional hero. Previously, he had longed to hear this in real conflicts and theoretic constructions that personality. This latter destination brought Laos. Neutra, same call in the French Mediterrranean where were influenced by the 1914 war. they suffered The drawings and the Schinder and Mendelsohn from Europe, he tried to retire to manage an artistic that great crisis of form parallel to their own identified the architect permanently as a key following the Wasmuth edition of Wright's academy, or in Palestine whe re he joined the quest for a professional identity. figure of , a decisive general work. 01 al I of them. perhaps he was the most great project for a new Israelí state. And Crisis is undoubtedly the word that will curren! along which flowed the different rootless and the most suited to a lite that could temporarily in England, a temporary stopping always be associated with the architecture of tendencies of the Modern Movement. be described as one of a vocational nomad. place, from where he could catch a glimpse of their generation. From a perspective of crisis That early success made Mendelsohn His German residence cannot be fixed, a freer and wider horizon. lf it was here that he they viewed their profession as a mission, and stand out among his generation and gave him because he moved from his hometown of first changed his nationality, he desired to be as artists their message as a type of revelation. In this sense, building architecture was the consequence of a laten! idea, acquired from observation by an intuitive and obsessive process that captured reality in a transcendental form to launch it into the distance of time, imagined from the present or a past recovered from nostalgia, favouring a positive future opposed to a situation considered as negative. To deny the present could be clearly improved, involved assuming the responsibility of projecting the future. Faith in the future was based in the certainty of a message delivered by nature and picked up by superior beings, artists elevated to the ranks of legend. Wi thout the Great Crisis this need would never have emerged with such force. lt was the search for an origin that could only be reached from the most intimate interior, submerged in doubts, on a journey of initiation in the strictest sense. The journey to the origins was undertaken at many levels. In Mendelsohn's case, he needed solitude alter enjoying company. Alter his Munich experience, where he met the members of the . and completed his architectural studies, the precise conditions for the revelation of his mission as an artist arase. Sorne key events occurred, including in 1910 the death of his mother who had introduced him to music, and his marriage in 1915 to Louise Maas. his lile-long partner. With the declaration of war, his enlistment and march to the front. carne loneliness only made bearable by memories. The loss of the sight of ENGLISH 109

reborn in America by adopting US citizenship river or vast forest, without beginning or end. and that therefore has led sorne to think of a origin (the natural forces sensing the relative and, even more significantly, changing his Beethoven he found to be too grandiose and "visionary" or escapist activity. On the relationship between mass and energy), name. The new Eric, no longer Erich, wan ted finite. His art, like Bach's, was a ceaseless contrary, his vision of a viable future discovering the cause and thus justifying to start out again, aventure that proved to be search for a fleeting, short-lived motif. He established his real ly achievable strict Utopian consequences (the line of the modernist too short in a country imagined as free. would listen distractedly, intent in himself, like sense, insofar as it was structurally credible movement), and giving sense a priori to a non­ Because, in fact, E. Mendelsohn's the music that I believe created his space, his and possible to present. formalised future in a different way from productive periods were always very short, experience and his existence. The obsessive nature of his repelitions, futurists and their etticacious "styles". This interrupted by periods of silence. lntervals of elaborated from variations of a formal generic was nota leap into a vacuum, but a big risk 14, seven and seven years of activity between ON HIS METHOD OF ATTAINING theme to which later wereadded specific assumed fromt he beginning with 1919and 1933; 1933-1940and 1950-1957, KNOWLEDGE. PLANNING AS AUTOPIA qualities that could be related to concrete extraordinary awareness. were cut short by the Second World War and proposals, produced a method of The way known to Mendelsohn by adaption to post-war America between 1945 lf the architect's peculiar way of acquiring appropriation of the latent structureo f nature intuition potentially contained all courses to be and 1950. The still phases were. however, knowledge poses serious problems for through what was formally evident and of an explored by him later, their concretion profitable for interior reflection, for basic ideas theoretic interpretation, then the Mendelsohn essentially imitative aspect. These specific depending on sounds and exterior vibrations. to be developed in each subsequent stage. case very probably can be viewed as one of the qualities were clearly named and catalogued The lines of appropriation and the interior They helped him create, like his personal more significan! paradigms. Because, if in as silos, hangars, facto ries, monuments, and reality would meet at this point, a reality crossing of a desert. nearly all the best examples the course described as intriguing, dynamic, extending, expressed in his mystic visions. The exterior suggested by the drawings seems to be strewn closed, expansive pictures of waves, clouds, would be caught by theattent ion of a SOLITUDE with doubts, in Mendelsohn it acts as a hills, valleys, deserts and dunes. musici an, capable of discovering the essence medium between imaginary visions and lf we accept this inward-looking procedure of things in order to produce a work whose Loneliness probably accompanied him from constructed forms. There are very few of the as "organic" and its represe ntation as formal efficiency would be the logical childhood, was definitely present at the architect's drawings lacking an expectant "expressionist", the results of applying consequence of the "natura l" encounter of Russian front, and never left him afterwards. lt underlying reference to architecturally comprehensive "reason" , broadened by these realities, basically confused in one. lts was necessary in his search for the significan! forms. His imaginary drawings, intuition, should clash against the redu ctionist adaptability to the peculiar conditions of its architectural dream and he used it to raise a sketched mainly at the front while not strictly mechanisms of sorne of the realities suggested protean images verifies its validity, its vitality. wall between his world and the exterior. At forming a "plan", nora constructive end, nor obliquely by "modern" orthodoxies. Nevertheless, the viability of this times it produced a difficult, almost indicating a function from which a specific E. Mendelsohn's suggestions, graphically introspective course, requires a very high unsociable, person, who only revealed his true feature can be derived, do definitel y represen! captured in isolation, signified a great degree of intellectual tension anda sensitivity feelings as a sensitive soul afraid of being architectural works that display an interna! qualatative teap forward in the history of and independence capable of enduring a hurt, to his wife and his heros - architects like structure that point to his constructi ve architecture. They were elaborated from the lonely journey. So it is not odd that Wright. He nearly always used music as a potential. That is ata strictly graphic and last "modernist" gestures in whosesphere th e Mendelsohn's way should not be easily filter, behind which he could concentrate in exclusively formal level. lt matters little that his architect was shaped (we recall Van de Velde trave lled and that his attitude is often confused isolation and in privacy. He especially liked apparent formality does not make it easy to and to a certain extent the first Wright, masters with his presentations. Bach, whose music he conceived as a flowing place him in a con ve ntional architectural slot whom I always admire) to determine their His critica! position had swayed between veneration and oblivion, probably not accidently, while calm consideration on his method of knowing (knowing again what already existed) had been substituted by the oblique reading of theex pression (consequence and not cause) of what has "already been done". Analysing this creative process, linked intimately in his case to his development, is of course more in te restingand riskier, but almost always produces an uncertain result. The Mendelsohn way is not ther ight one if "security" is wanted. Giedion's "forgetfulness, dear Zevi, by no means seems to be casual.

WAYS OFLOOKING AT REALI TY

Mendelsohn's view of the world is of decisive importance to his work, not only in his drawings but also in his photography. His powers of observation allowed him to reflect with great efficiency on such culturally diverse countries as the and Russia in the second half of the 1920s. His photographs, published with great success in two magnificent books with the architect's interesting comments, revea! sights that we re then astonishing to European eyes. They show the great fusion of opposites, captured in their essence. lt is precisely his "way" of seeing things, jusi as he attempted to catch a reality as it was forming in his drawings, that which led him penetrate the "object" and display it with extraordinary efficiency. Thes ubjects chosen by thear chitect were usually everyday events • but very revealing of a meaningful reality clase 110 ENGLISH

ar contrasting in form with his own interior contemporary time, applicable in a greater vision. Far example, Mendelsohn discovered measure to the buildings that most clearly sorne of his dreams built into American silos, were representative. Those, which in a historie and the energy of that society reflected in the sense, reflected new times. However, creative factories, and the drama (again the laten! crisis) procedures. the balance between opposites, of inevitable change. To catch aglimpse of the contras! and counterpoint, revealed the j ~ future from a disturbing present, accentuated "cultural inertia" in which the architect's .. an anxiety whose photographic expression knowledge was always trapped - a "baroque" exposed the difficulty of the visual means to way of creating, reinterpreting the dynamic capture a reality that was about to explode. intuition of flight. In sorne particular creative However, the architect was preparing a "styles" this "baroque" procedure is revealed reconstruction of avanishing world, planning with greater force: in the use of the his own Utopía without respite. "judgemental" line far the single-flight spiral The reporter in Mendelsohn provided stairway, and in the redundancy of the clues of the positive aspects, of the handrails in the final support (their course reconstructed future and of the pieces that moves inevitably downwards while the shank could be recovered far use after the storm. The line goes upwards). The idea of a tall object photo shot provided him with a setting in (tower ar chimney) is converted into a which discontextualization selected fragments, skylighVsmoke escape that counteracts in ar snapshots, with regard to his own series the succession of aisles. The vertical or temporary and spatial energy. Photographic horizontal sign counterweighs ar underlines relativism is similar in this respect to drawing the horizontal stratification of the luminous in its attempt to capture a fleeting idea. For strips, facing inwards during the day, and this reason, 1believe that one must understand outwards at night. his drawing as "parts" in flight; not contained Tricks in the end, "learned" and in themselves and isolated but chained in transformed to the service of an "intuitive" and continuum, always in a process. So they are unknown form. 11 is the double scale ol the never described as finite. And that is maybe present, near at hand and memory, and the why they tend towards the infinite. future, in !light and being planned. The near­ The technique of reproducing the far temporariness that necessarily repeats itself drawings is much more coherent if the whole in advance through experience, is translated collection is assessed, giving value to the into spatial terms in detail and the setting in succession of approximations and focuses as which it takes meaning. though they were sequences of a movie, Figure-background and the corresponding complete with their changes of angle (or relative value, form the scheme of the creative shots), only understandable in the view of the continuum of an architecture whose !heme is whole. That many of the elements have almos! indifferent to the norm imposed from enormous visual value has only meaning type and poses above all as a prior question within the larger context of the global idea thenotion of significan! Form, and the reflected in sorne photograph (ar drawing) in expression of its own character - the character which accident has underlined the fascinating al form facing the form al character - the aspee! in an unexpected way. One can only function of Formfacing the form al the wonder what kind of films E. Mendelsohn function. This dialectic inversion was could have made. disturbing and elegantly subversive. However, in the development al sorne themes, especially THEMES AND TYPES in the final stages of his exile, a pragmatic adjustment al themes to types had to be Far Mendelsohn architectural themes were attempted. Something that he had already laced basically a question of character. They did not in his early career asan industrial architect. depend so much on their functional condition In this sense, the American as on what "they wanted to be" befare being. are of special interest. A convincing solution He conceived forms that he called to the problem, however, was interrupted by factories, silos, and so forth that "appeared" to his death. be silos or factories because they wanted to Among the dominan! motils to which E. hand in hand and displayed themselves in a making any other significan! changes. express the corresponding idea. Naturally (in a Mendelsohn dedicated special attention, decisive form in the horizontal sides ol E. Mendelsohn's reli gious architecture natural way}, function adapted itself to form applying his formal visions to the character of windows of indefini te length and those of the was first produced in Ktinisberg's Jewish that did not follow it, but on the contrary, in the building, industrial architecture occupied a blind pane walls of intermediate brick. The cemetery. Savagely destroyed by the Nazi fury, this case preceded it. leading position. Examptes are the Leningrad round signs with salid, practica! print together ali that remains of this creation are period As Mendelsohn dominated the "will of and Lukenwalde textile lactories. with the staircases, were theelemen ts with photographs. The idea of its volume resulted form". the notion of type is not pragmatic but The large stores built by Mendelsohn lor which he completed and created the plating from the much studied creative schemes symbolic, especially when he "invented" an Schocken, completed between 1926 and 1929 strips of these fantastic laGades, in which present in his drawings based on opposed architecture far which he did not accept in , and . and lor movement was rellected at both day and night. objects placed in balance that reinforce the immediate tradition. Petersdorff in Breslau, radically altered the The night show of the illuminated strips notion of hierarchy and immutable arder. In His extraordinary fascination with the new type ol building, until then conceived as caused an unprecedented sensation among the his American period, however, rel igion that he wanted to make coincide with progress, "palaces" of fashion. A good part population wh o felt they could not escape from became an almos! exclusive subject. Then he led him to search in his character far qualities Mendelsohn's success and universal the suggested consumerism. planned up to seven synagogues and on which form could become a reality. So popularity was dueto the modern When Mendelsohn took up the theme community centres, of which tour were built, those that he pursued looked far continuity interpretation of these types of building in again in the United States heonl y had to adapt apart from the unfortunate monument to th e and movement as determining qualities of which functional aspects and elegance went the staircase ol the European model without victims of theJ ewish Holocaust. ENGLISH 111

Mendelsohn's understanding of the perception is probably the best example of the ability to of space became more evident than elsewhere. include previously existing elements and The changes of altitude and the tricks of light adapting themas a "distinct" part of a whole (whether through a skylight or fromabove ) thal "surpasses" themand produces an allowed himto produce sorne emotive ideas increaseacco rding to a "stratified" generic without leaving aside cold reason, fa r removed image. from the effects of primitive religion. He Thecomer presents the rupture of the two seemed to place greater emphasis on faith in levels in which it is contained. The va rious reason than in mystery. Anyway, the series of possibilities for its treatment, either as a limit his American synagogues whose colophon oran element that articulates the adjacent was the first project far the six mill ion levels and the presence or absence, in exterminated by the Nazis, deserves greater negative or positive, of their uniqueness, were attention than it has been given so far, explored by Mendelsohn with unprecedented eclipsed no doubt by the brilliant German success. In this way continuity was period The synagogues and community established without ruptures towards the centres in St Louis and Cleveland (both borders. The treatment in strips, in layers, of 1946), and that of Washington (never built}, the facade plan, increased the sensation of Beth-EI in (only partially built}, flight and accentuated the ascending Emanu-EI in Grand Rapids, Michigan, (all prominence of the vi rtual comer-facade. The from 1948), Mount Zion in Saint Paul, building and Schocken Minnesota (1950) and Emanu-EI in Dallas. apartments were the clímax of this experience. Texas, nol built either, and the Riverside Park At theother extreme, the accentuation of monument in New York (1951), constituted a the comer element asan ascending tower, was sequence of variations on a theme that has contrasted with horizontal elements that, on rarely been seen in the work of a master, and lateral levels, were extended in an attempt al that was built moreover in a very short time. impossible continuity. This solution, thal can E. Mendelsohn's work seems to centre on be seen in the Schoken stores, was probably his different periods, on dominant themes and his most enduring endeavour. In ihe thP.ir variations among which literally atypical Einsteinturm, he established the balance works stand out, such as counterpoint , thal between opposites, Mendelsohn's strongest also display the possibilities of the application formalised vocation. of lhe basic motil to diverse themes. The most characteristics aspee! of THE DESTROYED WORKS Mendelsohn's creative driv&ca n be understood as movement, lhe continuity of Many of E. Mendelsohn's major works were surfaces, lhe unification of lhe parts in a unily destroyed. Apart from the Mosse Pavilion of a higher arder; the counterpoint of the (1927 ) whose original destination was elements on a conlinuous structure, transitory, soon aflerwards the 1920 underlying both the complexity of visual Lukenwalde factory would disappear in 1925. relationships as the establishment of the limits The existence of the Konisberg cemetery of the figure on an urban background and on (1926) did not last much longer and il was the base of the surface plan. Getting to the destroyed by the Nazis in 1938. bottom of each case. a motil of identification Victims of the Second World War were the is superimposed. The symbolic nature of Helpirch Furrier (1924) and the Deukon Haus certain conventional elements in the religious or Columbushaus (1929). The latter. however. buildings (the tables of the Law and the was reconstructed but finally demolished in candelabrum, joined as light and spiritual 1953. the year that its creator died. guide) is adopted by the posters and the The Woga complex and its Universum illuminations (in a night view that makes the cinema. reconstructed alter being destroyed, presence of the buildings be sleepless and had a different tate. In this case, the old resolves the passage ot day-night in cinema. now an experimental theatre, suffered continuum) in lhe shopping centres without another kind of destruction, its probably any particular expressive Form, in an irreversiblealte ration. In the series he ended up rearranged far assemblies. was a novelty in anonymity that permits its use asan incip ient Deserving special menlion are the producing a model that apparently had no these type of buildings that since then have massive container, indifferent to the disappearance of the possibly most importan! precedents in the United States. The basic idea become standardised plans. Among the merchandise (lhe Stocken buildings}, against Shocken constructions in Stuttgart (1926), attempted to reconcile two opposites. On the possible precedents, 1think one would have to the expressive torm of the factory (Mosse) and destroyed in 1960. Also lost because of one hand he created a fixed hierarchy look at the open-air Mexican chapels that he the laboratory (Einstein, or Herpisch) that substantial changes are buildings in according to a symmetric and axial design, with probably saw during the inactive American aspired to transmit the idea of the New as Nuremburg (1926) and others demol ished a final formal clímax of the visual and ritual years between 1941 and 1946 when he was opposed to the novel. . experience, producing adominant vertical named honorary member of the Mexican Fascination with unique Form and the 11 the radi cal tra nsformation of the element in the composition, and the flexibility Architects Society. "anonymous" packaging, sparked a struggle Maimónides Hospital (1946) in the United of a floor that served for both everyday use as The flexibility of the floor plan was to define the Idea underlying th e initial States or the unfinished Berlín work for the well as far large meetings. On the other, a achieved thanks to clever mobile wall drawings that were to sorne extent expiatory. Metalworkers Union is added, it can be seen closed community centre around a common mechanisms and the use of fabr ics and panels 11 his "continuous" facades tended to thal littleof Mendelsohn's planned work open space constructively introduced variability that like in early temples or theatre stages are appropriate the borders with an urban, and remains. The value of what is still standing has on the dominant axis. The organisation of the able to divide space in a way that is the most therefore, infinite touch, the laterals also muttiplied because of its scarcity and, !loor plan in sequence towards the altar in such required. proclaim differences with a deep sense of lherefore, urgen! and global protection is a way that the successive spaces could be lt was precisely in these temples that "distinction". The Berliner Tageblatt building needed far th ese monuments.• 112 ENGLISH

The man who enclosed space in an arch in the sky The drawings of Erch Mendelsohn Helena Iglesias

There is probably no graphic work of majority of which belong to the widow, but that architecture that is so recognisable, so also come from other very-well identified identifiable, so often published and sources. And all are accompanied by technical apparently so well-known as the work of illustrations and measurements. Erich Mendelsohn. As I say it is a marvel lous and essential The eyes of architects and architect book that provides more details than any other students around the world are certain to be previous or later work. And still it is a relatively able to recognise and attribute the authorship confusing book, a book that includes errors to those clear ink lines that stitch the paper not exactly through the author's fault, in my with dots; those light curving pen strokes that opinion, but because of very different reasons. leave accumulated ink at the extremes; those This book contains its own section of enlarged and black stains like charred photos pictures, a graphic discourse, that forms pages that shape compact buildings; and, especially, (and consequently selects information) by those pencil, carbon or pastel scribbles that virtue of the apparent whim of a designer who mark the architectural form where they have pays greater attention to the page than to its crossed the paper, so definite and precise as contents of drawings, plans and photos. though they were sealing the building. These This is done in such a way that the neatly scribbles that have filled books dedicated to ordered pages, chronologically arranged, are the architect with thousands (literally) of plans made up of graphic "bits and pieces" that are for buildings and threaten to invade others very different from their relative measurements books of his time in which he is included and presenting a formal account that is more among many other architects. invented than factual. "lt seems" that we know everything about As examples I will take a couple of pages these drawings, "it seems" that it would be at random (as the problem exists throughout impossible to add anything new to what is the book). Pages 38 and 39, headed Projects, already known, whether the graphic technique Russian Front (1917), gather 17 drawings of itself or the relationship with the architecture varied forms in an ordered puule of container produced is being referred to. rectangles, none exactly equal to others, but "lt seems" that we can define this similar. production in a few labels available to ali the The index that has already been enlightened. They are "small sketches", mentioned, informs that all the drawings are layouts of types or models of buildings; done in pencil, except for three which are preferably they are linear and perspectives and drawn in ink, and that they measure between are closely related to the form of architecture 12.4 x 12.4 centimetres (the size of seven of from which they derive. Furthermore they are them) for the largest and 3.8 x 6.3 centimetres spontaneous and symbol ic. for the smal lest "lt seems" also, that their huge number So the smallest drawing, number 17 in the (are they a legion?) and the countless pages under consideration, is in reality variations of the curving bodies that they reproduced in the largest size, 7.5 x 11 cms., forms. And this justifies the carefully does not includeany explanation on colour or reflect can include many other alien and later that is double the original, while the drawings considered decision, taken because th e number of different pencils that have been architectural shapes from which they derived, that in fact are the biggest, are reproduced in cataloguing done in the 1960s with drawings used in a particular drawing. and are thus the seminal seed. the smallest size. But there is even greater followed an arbitrary and not a chronological And the most inexplicable difficulty also Visual game en thusiasts, a breed that confusion in this artistic puzzle of rectangles order, and therefore non-correlative numbers almost impossible to clarify, centres on the currently proliferates among writers of because drawings of the same size are at times correspond to "consecutive" drawings inverted positioning of the drawings, that is architecture, have more or less accustomed us reproduced together in different sizes. (belonging to the same fo rmal seri es) which looking leftwards or rightwards, although they to their ability (purely visual and often not This is justan example, but it is constantly made the ordered structure of graphic work are apparently not only of the same even that) to discover Mendelsohn influences and repeatedly noticeable. Throughout the extremely difficult. architectural form but of the same drawing. in Ronchamp, in the TWA Terminal, in Sydney whole book, drawings have been reproduced Added to this cumbersome arrangement, And it is not easy to decide on whether one is and in many more places. in the size that the graphic designer seemed to distorted perception and the understanding of dealing with several ora single drawing that So all this and much more is "apparenr . consider convenient, whether they were big or the book, are other snags regarding the has been "treated" graphically in various But, of course. what is most "apparent" is what small, wilhout any apparent proportional drawings. For example, the graphic publications in ad ifferent manner, especialty if we all know are those little sketches that we ali connection between them. They have been "recklessness" of displaying them as negatives it is taken into account that sorne had been recognise each one of these little sketches and presented capriciously so that only constant (white lines on a black background), wh en they published previously in various places, and don't have to consultan archive because they and tiring checks with the index, harmful to the should be black on white as should be the case with different graphic treatment. are available in Bruno Zevi's book. binding, allows researcher to get acomplete with those on page 19, numbered 1, 2 and 4. AII this attempts to show what was said at lt's a marvellous book, because along with picture of the formal relationship that exists And the most irrilating, but forgivable, the beginning: that "it seems" that we know the biographic details there are many precise between drawings on the same subject. muddle, that of reproducing in black and white very well a graphic work that is in fact difficult references to conserved letters, posters, plans, The pages themselves explain in notes to drawings that are really of several colours, is to know in depth, and therefore not too well and so on, including Louise Mendelsohn' the text by Zevi the difficulty of arranging the understandable in aage when the development known in its true dimensions, techniques, collection of 1,482 drawings and, in the lndex formal relationships between architectural of graphic arts was notas easy, as excellent relationships and meaning. We contemplate of lllustrations and Catalogue of Mendelsohn's bodies collected in the work, and the nor as economic as at th e end of this century. the features that are traditionally understood as drawings, a description of 707 plans or determination of the author to complete this And this problem is not cleared up in the lndex the most apparent of these works, the most photographs reproduced in the book, the task from the point of view of the architectural of lllustrations, since the bare wo rd "pencil" frequently mentioned and the ones that have ENGLISH 113

versions and are drawings of interiors and that, together with two more pencil drawings of interiors and four drawings of the exterior, make up the total plan of this house. These watercolours of interiors have medium-sized formats from 29.2 x 27.3 cms. for the largest to 23.2 x 23.2 cms. for the smaliest, anda very colourful formal layout of great impact. They have been widely distributed in practically ali the Mendelsohn bibliography, to such an extent that their images have contributed to weaken the "almost all exteriors" conception of the collection. But the presence of exteriors is overwhelming in the coliection of drawings, and is probably related to the concept of space in Mendelsohn's architectural thinking . In the two Mendelsohn conferences that fo rmt he bulk of his architectural thought and best summarises it, space was always upheld as a desired value anda necessary end. However, the particular understanding of this space would be what could shed sorne light on this way of projecting "from outside". In the 1919 conference. the first, after criticising other architectural ideas that he disliked, especialiy those concerning "crystaliine" forms and concepts, he said: "lntention is an illusion even when in the Czech Werkbund's exhibition, the transformation of architectural elements into spatial geometric fo rms is transported to ba re essentials and crystaliine expanses". He made part of his thought clearer when he said: "the architecture of 'sketched representation' is no substitute for spatial truth". Many references to the double concepts of "mass and light" were quoted: when there was "the satisfactory relationship", when in bad company because light was an insufficient element to emphasise the "energy" of "tension" of masses. But while he analysed the architectural direction that he believed dominant at that time ("the disciples of the been the objects of our greatest attention. 1 understood from these details. And the same interrelating elements, ve ry often establishing world of glass", "the analysts of the elements refer to those that define the drawings as has occurred with a significan! number of themselves in series that usually have as a of space", "the seekers of material and spontaneous and symbolic. drawings. beginning or "motif" that special generic construction fo rms") it became clear that ali lt is impossible to measure the quality of Size, another of the featu res seen as building, or sorne particular type of building these analyses were being carried out with the the graphic expression without strictly traditional, must be contemplated in precise (when they are fantasies). And they are drawn use of concepts that led to one conclusion: for assessing the size of the drawing. lt is even and exact conditions. This is usually in perspective. Mendelsohn, space was "depth" (meaning more impossible to understand the expression represented in little sketches, but not always. Two points are immediately clear: the vast volume or deep mass that is developed in made by hand when the drawing is double, And precisely those that, for historie reasons majority are drawings of exteriors (or what three directions) rather than "emptiness" triple and even quadruple its original size. or for being published more, have become comes to the same thing, a lack of drawings of (interior space). The 1915 drawing of a silo that is in red, better known are often drawings of sufficient interiors) and the re is a fa irly radical As evidence of this repeated sentences blue and yellowand magnificently reproduced format, or reworked drawings completed discontextualization that limits the support can be taken in which the "spatial body" in Erich Mendelsohn, Gebaute Welten, serves specificall y for the Berlín 1919 Exposition and ground of these volumetric compositions to concepts are used in the sense that has just asan example There it is reproduced in 20 x that are, therefore, outlined or projected from sorne simple line, if it exists, and thus been explained, and the fact that throughout 17 cms .. compared with the 15.4 x 11 .4 cms. earlier drawings with the consequent non­ vegetation, the líe of the land, and what we this first conference there were no mention of and blurred black and white image of Zevi's symbolic and graphic concentration that goes could call the boundary, are left out. buildings used as examples whereconcepts of book that accentuates the sky tone (that we with tracing. Regarding this marked absence of interior interior space were included. Ali such know to be blue). lts real dimensions of 12.38 They are not odd formats of 20 or 30 cms. drawings it should be noted that sorne of the comments were limited to the consideration of x 11.75 cms. makes one believe that there in any direction, which anyway are not pictures that have been published most often the nature ("heavy", "tense", "unbalanced". exists greater precision in the stroke as it is enormous dimensions, but they are a long way (and even been better published) make the "transparent" and many other terms) of the much finer than in the great reproduction, that from the traditional size of these drawings that interior/exterior drawing re lationship of the mass and construction elements. and to the has been completely lost. An d it has been lost are about postage stamp size. collection appear different as they have been inclusion of the concept of function. in both reproductions, in one because of the However, the great majority are little set out with a good number of pictures of In the second conference of 1923, there increase of size and in the other because of the sketches of smal I format, or little scribbles, interiors. were also many mentions of this peculiar graphic loss of colour and tone, so the real whose theme or subject is generaliy the 1am referring to the 1915 Becker House conception of space, and even aliusions that expression of the hand has certainly not been volumetric form of different compositions of in Chemnitz watercolours that exist in four can be read as a statement of what the deep 114 ENGLISH

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understanding that Menelsohn was juggling with is. Regarding this matter I would like to draw attention to sentences like "this theoretic form only has externa! relationships with space, even though its representation in perspective concerns itself with it" that strikes me as being revealing of the particular and very personal association that Mendelsohn established between what in our present conception is understood as space. depth, perspective. and even volume and form. But whether this is the reason that Mendelsohn's drawings are mainly of exteriors or not, the case is that they are. Only about 100 of interiors out of a collection of 1,500 makes an approximate proportion of five per cent, and that is really a very low amount. And one still has to bear in mind that in the final American stage, the group of drawings contain a great profusion of interiors. sorne that could have been "presentation drawings" that are fairly well formatted . But there are also many procreative little sketches. with the same style of a plan or suggestion that we had become accustomed to in previous productions. but now with many more interior views. The far-sighted Zevi , so precise with details as he was radical in interpretations, provided an explanation far this occurrence, saying: "spatial flexibility is an American conques! that applies as much to grandiose community complexes as it does to domestic scales," when commenting on the sketch of the interior of the Russell House, that in fact is a drawing that does not in the widow's collection. And Zevi clinched the American spatial fluidity "apprenticeship" argument, adding: "In that first journey he had looked at the great factories. the silos. Chicago skyscrapers, but the flowing spaciousness of domestic architecture had not been an object of his attention then". As to the the other characteristic already mentioned, the "discontextualization" of drawings of exteriors, barely supported on sorne line that represents the ground, other considerations that I find interesting must be added. Above all, this fairly radical absence of any ground ar boundary irregularities whether they were alterations or folds, urban streets, any type of vegetation, ar even "projects" of alterations destined to establish the transition between the projected architectural body and the pre-existing support of the ground, have a chronological place in Mendelsohn's activity that is understated and contradictory. 1 am referring to drawings completed during his stay in the future Israel, that are drawings that are nearly always contextualized, and contain inclined ground, gardens and vegetation, vegetation that at times is more dreamed of than real because its the vegetation / of an oasis rather than that of a desert. •• 11: / • :.

artistically as it appeared in the drawing for the CA Harpich Furrier in Berlín (1924) that contains an ink stain placed almos! in its centre. lt begins immediately to support itself on the ground line before gradually enclosing the whole drawing in a half bubble of isolation, and is accompanied in the lower right comer by a scribble of a signature thus converting the whole into a closed system that is signed. Tracking this arch in the sky throughout Mendelsohn's graphic work produces many interesting facts, sorne of which are open to deep psychological interpretations. 1have already said that its emergence coincided with the start of the period of constructions in , a golden age that in tour or five years (by 1926) converted Mendelsohn's studio into a complex where 40 people worked and the architect himself spent part of the night at thedrawi ng board while Bach music played at fu ll volume. So, thear ch could in sorne way be associated with professional success. But tracking the arch produces many surprises, one being its total absence from a ve ry personal project that very dear to him - period could possibly form part of a desired very precise significance once this very close to the time I am considering. the house that he bui lt in Berlín for himself imagery, the characterisation of a promised explanation is accepted. They attempt to The same rays or scribbles in the sky are and his family. land that could respond with cheerful graphically define what could be the best, found in sorne well-known drawings A wish finally fulfi lled, that of possessing expectations to the depressions of the terrible most significative or most expressive image of belonging to different phases of the Einstein the house he had built after so many years of situation experienced previously and the project's details, and for which it is Tower period. But in any case, 1 believe that owning dream houses and presenting Louise confirmed in the disappointment of his stay in necessary to find the exterior form that could there is an importan! difference between these on her birthday every year a plan for a house. England. be the best or most characteristic. expansive rays traced in the sky and the Perhaps as this construction was a calm and These general characteristics of "absence And in this same sense sorne of the enclosure suggested by thearch in the meditated undertaking, neither disturbing nor of surrounding" should be considered further, sentences of the conference can be Berliner Tageblatt drawing. troubled by doubt, it could be understood that given that in his mature work (which is, as is understood; those explaining his or other The thing is that the arch presented like the isolating arch that could have appeared as known, an very ample urban work) the graphic works of architecture from formal and exterior this began to appear with sorne frequen cy and an affirmation, was not needed here. But in isolation of the architectural forms contrasts assumptions, handling concepts conceming seemed to adopta signposting role in these fact, the Berlin house would be practically the sharply with the very shape of these forms that bigger and better expression of tensions, first appearances. Sorne of the drawings that only project without an arch in thes ky. The are conceived from the point of view of their forces and masses, and so forth. are assembled on a piece of paper appeared to drawings began to become more and more position in the city. The placing of these "little sketches" help indicate by way of choice with this arch, or enclosed within themselves until the American Paradoxically, the comer curves that he this understanding, because they often segment of a circle, to the corresponding period when they consisted of isolated cal Is "dynamics" conceived and projected to accumulate in large numbers on only one formal volumetric plan that the drawing bubbles sharing paper and the technique of "follow" the urban traffic flow and give piece of paper, adopting completely represents and that was thus the plan selected. completion, but with each one showing a character to the structure of the cily have been independent relative positions, without the This also appears to be the meaning of voluntary affirmation of unity and authorship, drawn on an isolated document, without any ground lines maintaining respective parallel the arch that appeared in sorne imaginary re inforced by the signature that followed the apparent interaction with the context that directions. This gives achaotic appearance to projects of 1923, that are understood to be trace of the arch. defines them and, consequently, excluding the the ensemble because the different little musical seores, and this interpretation is And furthe rmore, al the foot of this possibility of deducing from the drawings any sketches appear upside-down or downside­ reinforced by the lateral positioning of th e signature in the right-hand come r, inscriptions cause or origin for these particular formal up, or lying on their sides. arch whether to the right or left of the drawing explaining characteristics of the project selections. In Mendelsohn's own words, the A theme has emerged that has provided a and not in the upper part. appear in a tidy rectangular bloc that forms a character of the city converts "the street, title for these notes from looking at and The arch could be understood as graphic "blot" and completes the drawing. depending on the speed of traffic, into a observing this collection of drawings: the associated, in sorne way, to the formal change Even Mendelsohn himself, the nomad who horizontal directional track that goes from theme of the arch that encloses sorne of the that took Mendelsohn from the completely free retained sufficient will power to move from one centre of gravity to centre of gravity and, drawings, an arch traced on paper over the and fluid curve fo rms to the massive facetted, exile to another to repeatedly start and finish therefore, the future ci ty is also a centre of graphic image, that is an arch in the sky. jagged and stratified forms that characterise his work, became as wrapped up in these gravity because, if it is viewed with a stronger The first arch that I found belongs to the his town constructions, precisely around these bubbles as the forms that he designed. Jusi magnifying glass, it is really a tridimensional so successful mature period, the time of the years and until the end of his German period. before his death he told Hans Schiller, his system in the strict sense". town buildings in Germany and, more So, the arch was to become a signall ing assistant in the United States: "Look al my This suggests a sophisticated method of precisely, to the time of the drawing of an or selecting system to be able to pick one or drawing, everything is in it". projection, a method of absorbing previously interior of the Berliner Tageblatt that several of the little sketches that would be This was so true that thedynam ic volumes all kinds of data (situational, functional and Mendelsohn constructed in Berlín between needed to the same extent that the new that were his primordial architectural interest, constructional) that are later used for the 1921 and 1923 that tumed out to be an volumetric forms were much less well kn own the tensions of mass and light that were creation of architectural forms, but are not isolated act. and, therefore, required a different kind of necessary for his conception of the reflected in their graphic illustration, because There is nothing like it in previous selection. architectureo f the future, ended up so they belong to the dark substratum of primary drawings, except perhaps sorne scribbles "in But the arch rapidly carne to be seen as enclosed in a piece of space as he himself was motivations and not to the most superficial the sky" like rays or light projections that the author's signature, first drawn without in different residences and countries, following levels of apparent formal relationships. appear in imaginary projections from the closing on the ground line in theshape of a a torced and dramatic destiny, fromfreedom of The little experimental sketches acquire a German period after the war and, therefore, border curve, and even occasionally treated expression to self-absorption.• 116 ENGLISH

Mendelsohn and the Einstein Tower. The necesary ._...., ______nightmare __ .._._ --- -..., Adolfo González Amézqueta ()_

OnSeptember 4, 1921, the Berliner lllustrirte still exist in Luckenwalde but were never Zeitung, then one of Germany's leading and considered important by Mendelsohn, a top-selling publications, printed on its cover garden pavilion that was built without having one of the first photographs of Potsdam·s anything to do with the series of famous Planet Observatory, already named the Einstein fantasy drawings of 1920, and the first ~: Tower. The basic final externa! parts of the expansion works on Herrmann's factory in building were near completion - they were Luckenwalde. At the time of the completion of ;b D finished in October of that year - but the the Potsdam tower, Mendelsohn was also interiors that were to be done in 1922 still working on a competition project for the remained incomplete as well as the scientific building in Berlin's Kemperplatz, completed on equipment that did not start operating until the September 30, 1921, on the double-villa inauguration in December 1924. However, the project for Berlin's Karolingerplatz, finished in building immediately became one of the 1922, and possibly beginning to concentrate emblems of the "new architecture". on one of his obsessions, the restructuring of The powerful and surprising image of the the Rudolf Mosse publishing building on new observatory aroused considerable attention, Berlin's Jerusalemerstrasse. directed to sorne extent towards its creator, Erich Until the unveiling of the Einstein Tower Mendelsohn, a young, 34-year-old architect who the little that was known about Mendelsohn's was practically unknown except in sorne closed work and personality could only by glimpsed avant garde circles of those years. The at in sorne brilliant and surprising drawings extravagance of the unusual form of the new that were displayed in an exhibition at Berlin's construction, transferred to its extravagant Paul Cassirer Gallery in November/December creator and an alleged member of the eccentric 1919, under the title Architecture in Steel and new art groups, was combined with asimilar Concrete [Architektur in Eisen und Beton]. show of extravagance by the young scientist That exhibition of drawings by for whom the building was Mendelsohn, now very famous and named and by his new scientific theories on considered as one of the pillars of modern relativity that in previous years and in the future architecture, only attracted a few visitors and would stimulate the highest level of both little attention at the time. This was probably scientific and popular discussion. Furthermore due more toan accumulation of similar events = the Einstein Tower was in fact practically the first than to the specific value of Mendelsohn's monumental work of any significance drawings. Mendelsohn's exhibition shared constructed by the new Republic after the war. the same Berlín stage and with little difference At the time that the externa! work on the in time the now famous ( which it was not in and imaginative drawings) and a strong in the winter of 1919, coinciding with the tower was being concluded, Mendelsohn, who its day as was the case with Mendelsohn) ideological commitment to researching and Cassirer exhibitio n, under the title: The would be repeatedly identified as the builder of Unknown Architects Exhibition organised by elaborating a new architecture fo r a new world. Problem of A New Ar! of Building. the Einstein Tower, was practically just the Arbeitsrat für Kunst (AfK) group headed on As Norbert Huse has rightly pointed out in Mendelsohn's inclusion in the gallery of beginning his professional life and receiving its foundation in the immediate post-war analysing post-war German architectural participants in AfK activities was probably due orders that would increase and come in faster period by Bruno Taut, Adolf Behne and Walter , "one of the few to show concern to the group's obvious desire to convert, after the tower. The Einstein Tower was his first Gropius. A little later, in May 1920, the far a serious confrontation with Utopian especially at that low time for the group when major constructed work, but it was also a real second major AfK exhibition, announced as idealism was Erich Mendelsohn .. . . it was in retreat, rather than a strict turning point and, in acertain sense, marked a Neues Bauen and translated in the Ruf zum Mendelsohn did not consider that fleeting understanding between them. In the same time of crisis in his work. Bauen publication, was seen as a sort of Utopías were necessary, only confrontation conference, Mendelsohn exposed his ideas of Apart from a temple in the Jewish "befare and after" with reference to the with reality. Because [far Mendelsohn] new the moment and pointed to the distances from cemetery of his hometown Allenstein (now Mendelsohn event. forms should not arise fro mcoll ective and objections to the visionary Utopía of in ), significantly but not Frequently, if not systematically, decisions, nor from a new re ligion, nor from a Taut's circle. literally, the only work that Mendelsohn saw observers have recognised identical objects new flight to the heights of architectural In a paragraph that is now fa irly well completed befare the Einstein Tower was the and contents in the Mendelsohn and AfK fantasy, but from modifications that are made known and quoted, Mendelsohn gave a sort of Hausleben lnsurance Company building in exhibitions, ar at least coincidences, such as objectively." balan ced summary of the innovative Berlín, built while he was working almos! two equivalen! manifestations of the exalted, This attitude, so accurately described by architectural currents of the time. He cited obsessively on the observatory. When the Utopian and ecstatic fantasy of the avant garde Norbert Huse, was already evident in three main groups: "disciples of the world of basic plans far the Einstein Tower were described as "expressionist". Although the two Mendelsohn's conduct in 1919 and, as crystal", "analysts of the elements of space" finished and published, Mendelsohn had the had points of encounter and similarities, contradictory as it may seem, in his series of and "seekers of material and construction Luckenwalde Steiberg-Herrmann hat factor Mendelsohn and the main members of the AfK drawings and in thedisturbing Einstein Tower forms ". The first were visionaries of Taut's project on his hands, the last of a series of were, however, rea lly different and even project itself. lt consisted of the basics, the circle with their symbolisms of crystalline and assignments carried out originally far Gustav opposites. Mendelsohn's graphic, ar non­ confrontational and the integration of intuition crystallographic structures. The second were Herrmann befare the latter became an graphic work, his ideological constructions, on or "artistic" vision with the concrete facts of a th e "artists" who, following the break with associate of Steiberg and the final project the one hand, and those of Tau t, Finsterlin functional programme and, in a very special cubis m, and initial expressionism, arrived. These assignments, undertaken from (who was often compared wi th Mendelsohn), way, with those of real constructions. were exploring the definition of a new mid 1919 for Gustav Herrmann, the first of his Goesch, Golyschef, the Luckhardt brothers and For its content and repeated later figurative language. And the last, more in tune importan! Jewish clients and one of the other "unknown architects" and later members publication, this attitude is clearly expressed in generally with Mendelsohn's own line fo rm a Einstein Tower's financiers, were: a collection of the "crystal chain", had little more in the relevan! text of the AfK-organised long tradition of architectural revival with of working men's houses that were built and common than a way of expression (imaginary conference held in the Kunstgewerbemuseum which sorne of Mendelsohn's "favourite" ENGLISH 117

drawings) between 1914 and 1920 contain The idea of a formthat in theco nstruction plenty of references on the meaning of relations of its lines expresses a "dynamic" behaviour of between "mass", "space", "time" and "light", the material of which it is madeand which among other similar questions. structures it, was fairly frequent in the years in The idea of a "structural principie of which Mendel sohn applied it. In fact, it was a elastic continuity .. . derived from the nature typical idea of . One of the of continuity of fo rmmade possible by the best known and often quoted cases was that of elastic nature of steel and rei nforced concrete", Sant'Elia that in the "declaration of futuristic as Mendelsohn would later state, would architecture". advocates th e use of curves and integrate itself with an "organic" concept of diagonals. But in Mendelsohn's case, much form in which mass. matter, energy, space, moresignifi cantly (and earlier) was the time and light would mutualiy overlap. "The experience of artists of the Skupina Vytvarnych Einstein Tower is a clear architectural body. Umelcu group, now known as th e Czech Having said that, thereare reasons why it is cubists who, starting from Hildebrand's base nota purely functional body But it seems to theory and the figurative discoveries of the me that no part of it can be rem oved, neither new artistic progressives, initiated a renewal of from its mass. nor from its movement, nor architectural language. Mendelsohn was one even from its logical development, without of th e few who showed interest in and destroying the whole," Mendelsohn would knowledge of the first experience of explain in his 1919 text. The we li-known story architecture linked to the artistic progressives. about the only brief comment Einstein made He referred to them in the 1919 conference as when asked about the tower should be added th e "analysts of the elements of space", his to Mendelsohn's statement. "Organisch," greatest objection being that they had not Einstein repl ied .. emerged fromth e field of pictorial figuration, Ali the complicated processes of the having an " ignorance of th ecom pletely Einstein Tower's elaboration could be summed different formal conditions that predominate up simply in two expressions. The first: the in each of the plastic arts". Far Mendelsohn concept of an image, of a "vision" in the usual the symbolic conception of material fo rm. as Mendelsohn terminology, in harmony with the shown by the Czechs, had to beconf ronted deep sense of the building's functional (" synthesised") with material and technical programme. The majority of the first sketches reality, with the reasoning of specific made on the Russian fro nt in the second half constructive processes. of 1917 and the first half of 1918 on th e In his theoreti c formulation, Mendelsohn observatory theme, inspired partialiy by would denominate these pales as "dynamics" Freundlich with whom he exchanged and "function". "I referred far the first time to comments by letter, presented an accumulative Functi on and Dynamics as two opposites in the form of compact domed volumes, sorne field of architectu re. 1 owe this scientific notion labelied by Mendelsohn as "tellurisch" or to my frequent presence at discussions between "planetarisch". From the now famous Einstein and his coliaborators .. .. What in antecedents are linked. Firstly there is the concept of the "visions" expressed in his Freundlich letter of July 2, 1918, in which he 191 7 was an unconscious emanation of my Werkbund legacy seeking "technical fo rm" and drawings to the determinan!, but not exclusive, included a description of the "programme" artistic nature, now I real ise only revealed the discussion on it, but also his admired Olbrich commitment to "functional" facts can be which he intended to carry out. thereapp eared architectura l method of counterpoint, simi lar to and Van de Velde, Otto Wagner, Poelzig, clearly appreciated in the period befare the in the later drawings of the French fro nt, the musical counterpoint wh ere one or seve ra! Behrens and, somewhat apart, Wright. He Einstein Tower and which reached a certain basic scheme in an almost definitive way: a melodies join to gether to achieve the submitted ali of them to rigourous criticism, "clímax" with its arrival. basement partly buried and an elevated ve rtical accompaniment of agiven melody.'' underlining the insufficiency or fragmentation Very shortly afterwards, early in 1920, an tower, now labelied "mil unterirdischen Mendelsohn's hypothesis regarding of their results. old idea that until then had been little more Laboratorium" or "über der Erde" . Almos! to construction in reinforced concrete as asys tem The thesis that Mendelsohn upheld was than a wild dream began to take shape: the the end, Mendelsohn continued to polish, that would correspond to a "soft" and the need far convergence and accord, in short building of Potsdam's planetary observatory. retouch, and experiment with the definition of "continuous" as weli as "dynamic" form, was a synthesis, between the characteristics of From about 1914, Mendelsohn had got to this basic form that has been maintained; the maintained until the Einstein Tower and these progressive tendencies and thei r know and deal with Erwin Findlay Freundlich form. to put it metaphorical ly as has in fact abandoned after its completion. To be more significance. But, at the heart of his argument . on a fairly regular basis. He was an astronomer been done. of a submarineand its perisc ope. precise, what was abandoned with resignation the proposed accord looked towards a of about the same age as Mendelsohn and had "There is a structural correspondence between was the propasa! to put the the ory into practice. synthesis between "artistic form", and worked since 1913 in Potsdam·s Babelsberg the Einstein Tower anda submarine; in both The almost defin itive form is shown in therefore was autonomous and self-expressive Observatory, being one of the first and most cases the spatial config uration of the whole is plans that were kept of the project dated and, to a large extent, subjective and enthusiastic supporters of the theories that adapted to fit with the optical arrangement. .. September 30, 1920, although it is ve ry like emotional, and "technical form" or "functional Einstein had begun to circulate with . So jusi as the submarine does not float on previous plans. Barbara Eggers has identified form" wi th its specific expressive and considerable commotion. Freundlich, whose the surface of the water but in it, likewise the and cl assified up to seven stages in the symbolic potential. relationship with Louise and Erich Mendelsohn Einstein Tower is not on th e gro und but in it. elaboration of the project, seven generation of Shortly after. on May 13, 1920, was rooted in music (he was a cellist), The other expression, dialectically plans in her words. From the fourth stage, or Mendelsohn wrote one of his usual letters to introduced Mendelsohn to the theories of new opposed to the first, would be the generation, of July 1920, the general idea was his wife Louise in which he said "The physics and thus aroused the architect's determination of form through its constructive practi caliy established, especially concerning Arbeitsrat has asked me to contribute interest in a new concept of the world. His "system": in principie reinforced concrete, the one of the decisions that possibly had more to something additional to the Neumann scientific background helped with the new system that far Mendelsohn contained in do with that hypothesis of total continuous and exhibition. 1have turned them down. translation of the performance of the form of its interior ali the tensions that act on two fluid form: the abandonment of the articulated ... Undoubtedly, you would take the same "matter" from which architecture is created, an materials, steel and concrete interacting configuration of the body of the tower that had point of view. You cannot construct a new idea that genericaliy runs through a good part jointly. This system would have to regulate appeared in sorne of the first sketches from the world with words and pictures." of architectural and even theart istic philosophy the exterior formas long as the material of French front and which characterised the Oevelopment from the initial intuitive of those years. Mendelsohn's writings (and dynamic and elastic performance continued. version chosen by Mendelsohn himself far 118 ENGLISH

publication. the one titled Vorprojekt and modification of details bu! also in sorne of the building was completed and shown to !he occasion in 1925 when a group of students dated in 1919. This "vertebrate" version that detail plans that are known. Basically, it was a public. A summary of the experience is visited Mendelsohn. When he was asked what appeared in several drawings, even in sorne similar problem to many that have aris en in so succinctly told by Louise Mendelsohn when he considered to be his best bui lding, that possibly carne later. was eventually many other works tha1 have frequently been she revealed par! of her memories to Bruno Mendelsohn chose Luckenwalde and, noting replaced by another final version, that of a compared with the tower. such as Eero Zevi: "The Einstein Tower was a nightmare". the disappointment of the student who had tower of continuous vertical development. Saarinen's TWA Terminal, Jorn Utzon's Sidney Tha1 nightmare was clearly visible in expected him to say the Einstein Tower. he The conflicts that accompanied a much Opera House. and even !he more recent Men delsohn's next work, bu! i1 is no11rue th at continued: "Dear fell ow, never again! We had worked and continuously revised and Guggenheim Building of Gehry !he tower was assumed to be an error or basic to cal! in ship builder to make its outer layer. ret ouched project were much more immediate The majar difference centres on the fai lure of his ideas, asan acciden1 that should However, and in spite of everything, it is good than conceptual. Mendelsohn's errors were availability of instruments at given times. On be forgotten or hidden, as so much later thing that this building exists." larg ely errors of optimism. First of ali, he the other hand, and intermingling with tha1 history claimed. Fortunately, !he building does exis1and is found difficulties in getting !he new problem, was the actual construction work Naturalty, Mendelsohn himself later gave part of history. Today it is appro achable, is observatory project under way; later his with its derived complications, especially the his own evaluation of his experience with the sti ll a "monument to relati vi ty", and its problem was obtaining official recognition as form work. Mendelsohn absorbed all 1his with Potsdam work. In 1948 ata student's controvers ia! presence serves as a witness of the architect of the work; next he had to resignation and altered his hypothesis conference a1 the University of Los Angeles's !he rich experiences that marked the overcome continuous obstacles over the somewhat in !he later work. School of Architecture, Mendelsohn said "As committed quest for an architecture of the acceptance and approval of his projec ts; and, Alter countless difficulties and the issue of th e man who created and supervised the plans modern world. 11 is to be hoped that with the finalty and most importantly, he faced a permit in the summer of 1920, !he work was and the bui lding, 1unde rstand 1hat the twisted passage of time and !he disappearance of economic and supply difficulties that aflected started that season. Around October of 1hat shapes entai l a special archi tectural treatment many simplistic beliefs that such oversights as the construction of the building entirely in year Mendelsoh n had to face, or rather had to that should not be repeated. However, when 1 Mendelsohn's exclusion from the index of re inforced concrete. To all this must be added sufler. a 1ra uma1ic decision tha1gave rise later was asked years later if I would construct the Gideon's Space. Time and Architecture (and !he weigh1y inte rna! problems inherent in !he to the greatest criticisms and dispara geníent tower exactty as I did then. 1r eplied 'Heaven with that tille') will be avoided, because he is design and the execution of the form. On the He had to accept that par! of the building forbid!. But I would be able to construct it not mentioned in the text, and only vaguely one hand, there was the problem of would be constructed wi1h cemen t covered again as well as I did befare, 1know that." referred to in a sentence tha1 reads: ··others determining !he geometry of this "free" fo rm brick, or imitation concrete as i1i s often There is another reference, this time not considered raising towers of reinforced that was evid ent not only in !he continuous described. Ayear later the main body of !he first hand, from Julius Posener, on !he concrete, pliable like jelly".• ENGLISH 119

Gropius and Mendelsohn, symbols of hope disconnecting the appearance of the form from expressive advance of form. lt was the the certainty of the function arase. Architects encounter of architecture with the basic José Laborda Yneva decided that their buildings had their own significan ce of the machine, once the capacity to represen! themselves, provided with preceden! pro ductive processes based on an explicit exterior layout and capable of craftsmanship had been assimilated and Eighty years ago in April 1919, Walter a path leading toan encounter with harbouring in their interior spaces that had mechanic novelty had been assessed as a Gropius was circulating the spontaneous expression, certain that the never befare been attempted. lt was the almost manifesto in Weimar. That same year, Erich future of the arts lay in that direction. extreme handling of the possibilities that the Mendelsohn was exhibiting the drawings he This preference far spontaneity in fact renewal of materials offered to the architecture had sketched in the years that he had prevented the so-called expressionism of the time, explicit aggressiveness in the participated in the Great War. These two movement from establishing itself as a formal suggestions arising from the transfer of events were almost certainly unrelated, but compact action group. lts unruly nature set it spontaneous ideas to constructed reality. lt both are representative of the creative tensions apart from the norm, from the effective concerned ideas based above all on the that gripped Germany in the immediate post­ discipline required by all militan! groups. exaltation of the organic, the unique, the plastic war period. Already in the years befare th e Those who shared the same intellectual combination of objects needed to achieve the conflict, Germany had witnessed the uneasiness in an independent and impartial apparent link between volumes. This was the emergence of disconnected movements of way could barely perform common activities. architecture of Mendelsohn, already set down architects and artists, anxious to show their Their participation in the movement was in his drawings of 1919. disapproval of the plastic results of the characterised by absolute creative freedom, Despite their opposed plastic positions, it . lts obvious decorative formulation and they joined it sporadically with each is symptomatic that Gropius and Mendelsohn and its implicit decadent attitude combined member being tied to his or her own previous should find their most notable themes of badly with moves towards the abstrae! circumstances. lntention united the exponents expression in the new typologies. They we re understanding of form. Above ali, the arts had of expressionism rather than the ties of a manufacturing typologies sti ll to be capable of expressing themselves as group. Far this reason, when its results are uncontaminated by habit, undefined options vehicles of thought. There was no longer examined, hardly one single expressionist to achieve the advance of fo rm through room far formulas sustained by geometric example emerges; there were as many technique, suitable far the assimilation of new elation, by the latent perversion that the expressionisms as there were participants in constructive procedures that displayed a agreeable contemplation of undulating forms this fo rm of interpreting creativity. conscious break with precedents, not only in suggested. Plastic manifestation had to follow In ali of them the same intention of the novelty of the function but in the 120 ENGLISH

hope for the progress that might be achieved But perhaps Taut is the most singular when he starts his professional lile, like in the constructed remarkable buildings in Germany in the 20th century. example of the development of past, the artist will no longer be condemned in until his race was proscribed and, in more Alter the war in which both Gropius and expressionism, an introvert and to a certain the future to the incomplete exercise of art; his fortunate cases, expelled. He set up in London Mendelsohn had taken part, they also shared extent unsympathetic to the most reasonable activity will be fulfilled now by in 1933, then in Palestine and finally in the a feeling of identification with the intellectual realistic social altitudes. Taut was immersed craftsmanship", said one of the pamphlets of United States. Gropius, on the other hand, avant-garde and progress. The virtual in his initiation with lyrical expression and Gropius's founding manifesto. "Let us torm become more deeply involved in the belief of dispersion of expressionism as a channel of considered that architecture could not be then a new guild of craftsmen without the the standard. production in series. in the unification united them in their intention of linked with reality in his desire to precisely classicist arrogance that sought to raise a removal of adornment as a social fo rm of forming a vanguard around the evaluate what exceeds the practica!, removed presumptuous wall between artists and finding progress. until he, like Mendelsohn, Novembergruppe, founded in Berlin in 1918 from the relationship between form and its craftsmen. Let us wish, invent, create in had to leave Germany. Both, arriving by as a gathering of artists of radical tendency. objective. Alter the war he had redirected his common the new structure of the future different routes. were to find final shelter in "Radicals in the rejection of established forms expressive capacity towards an attitude through a new unique structure". Magnificent, America, paradoxical ly converted into an of expression, radicals in the use of new capable of blending his anti-functionalism isn't it? But the reality was ve ry different and ultraconservative refuge fo r the progressive techniques of expression," according to the with the need to arrange massive assertions, exaggerated nationalism together with the European avant-garde. There both continued text of one of the group's exhibitions the Siedlungen, suitable for absorbing the inevitable interna! tensions between those their personal lives, Mendelsohn losing the organised in 1919 demands required by the new social and who formed the Bauhaus, took care of ru ining creativity of his beginnings, and Gropius Germany had reached the apex prior to technological arder. Perhaps it was a re­ this sensitive alternative for progress. expanding his influence through his American the final break with the past. Painters like Klee encounter with a new Utopian idea, received Certainly Gropius and Mendelsohn buildings, together with his impressive and Kandisnsky; architects like Bartning, with enthusiasm by those who were then shared a short time together; but thei r origin activity in East Berlín. Gropius, Luckhardt, Mendelsohn, Mies van looking for new intellectual arguments to was the same and their eagerness to find Certainly few things were as they were in der Rohe and Taut; and composers like Eisler continue along their way. expression, each in his own way, in those the difficult and promising times immediately formed part of the Novembergruppe, The Bauhaus was included, although in a difficult years in which practically everything alter their 1919 meeting. Perhaps it was the organised through an intellectual union of different way. lts 1919 intention tended remained to be done in the revival of natural rhythm of history, the change of pace post war solidarity that expressionism never towards the recovery of the gathering of the European architecture. Their forms of that one day brought fo rth the hope of achieved. Architecture then became an arts and crafts in search of a common expression differed. Mendelsohn, faithful to progress and managed to convert the efficient formula for the improvement of attainment of a systematic practice in benefit his plastic ideas. concerned himself with immaterial idea projected by expressionism Germany's social drive that had been of the progress of design. "When the young perfecting his ability to communicate his into the structured option that was enshrined damaged by the war. man discovers lave through plastic activity, symbolic and energetic thought. He in the Modern Movement.a ENGLISH 121

Discovering Eric Mendelsohn in and yearning conveyed by the powerlul dwelling and by a pergola that closes the at the same time construction seems to stir an urge to circle other two sides. Divided into lour levels, it, which we do without hesitating. Going with a basement that contains a garage and Text and photographs: José Vela Castillo and Mariola del Santo Mora. around 3778,Washington Street to the left, which opens on to a rear garden terraced guided by the heavy vegetation and then with the incline, the lorm in which it is taking another turn, we go up sorne steps at related to the surroundings demonstrates all After /he columns and marble beams of /he Greek temple fo/lowed by /he pi/lars and stone vaulting the end of a white wall to enter a more or the care that makes his Berlín Am of the Gothic cathedral carne the structural tlexibility ot /he architecture or steel. After the balancing less square courtyard that suddenly reveals Rupperhorn house so attractive. The of weights in ancient times and their elimina/ion in /he Middle Ages carne /he powerful tension of the Russell house. Built in 1950-51 by Erich servants' quarter wing around the courtyard steel and concrete building. (now Eric) Mendelsohn in his last American leads to the inlerior, shaped by a curved exile, this final effort curiously contains block. An elliptic stairway whose oval lorm Erich Mendelsohn sorne of the most delinitive images of the leans over the rear la~ade (next to a lift and work of one ol the greatest architects of the another stairway) connects the whole house; Modern Movement. His a very light steel structure with wooden contemporaneousness seems to defy the steps that gives a sensation of transparency Walking up Maple Street towards of a large balcony that nonchalantly looks relative oblivion into which his work has and movement from the access that is Washington Street in San Francisco's very out over the assuredly blue views of the bay apparently fallen. Yet all the keys to his reminiscent ol the reso nant stairway of the peaceful Pacific Heights neighbourhood, from the elevated incl ine of the street high architecture are indelibly present here. Schocken Stores in Stuttgart. lt is not, under a clear blue Saturday sky you might up to the left. Flying literally over the thick The house is arranged around the however, a self-appointed repertoire house spot the circular and slightly irregular shape vegetation, the feeling of surprise and courtyard that is limited by the L of the constructed in wood in the bay region style. 122 ENGLISH

lf Mendelsohn's architecture had been a atmosphere is jusi as masterful. Neutra's experiment through the manipulation of architecture concerns itself primarily with volume of lightness and transparency, like surfaces rather than spaces, and although the curved corner of the Rudolf Petersdorff the house is practically cubic in form, the shop in Breslau that fl ies over the access intention of the Vienna master was to level, or like the Chemnitz shops, this dissolve any sensation of mass into glass intention would seem to have reached its planes and white plaster, and acquire limit and most daring expression in this lightness, not by coun terpositioning house on a slope. (The fa~ade of the heaviness and air, but like a hang-g lider Chemnitz shop is supported 3.5 metres out through the absence of weight. Platlorms from the Iine of supports to permit the ending in deep terraces that form the maximum effect of flotation from an different floors, seem to want to ascend, and uninterrupted level of glass and il luminated only the opposing effect of the metal lic pil lars). So the main space of the house, supports (also of a slimness approaching consisting of two floors that contain a living fragility) appear to preven! this movement, room, dining room and bedrooms on the jusi like taught cables restraining a come!. upper level , literally floats over the Built ata precise time in his career from courtyard, only supported by three minimal which point his exploration of transparency, metallic supports on three very thin planks light and reflection wou ld bring him that conceal a steel lattice in a particularly increasingly to deal with an architecture of expressive display of structural knowledge surfaces, practically free of materials and (an examination of the section sends a generally with buildings of only one floor shiver down the spine). From the courtyard extending horizontally and not vertical ly, the and entrance the house is transparent and Kahn house remains as a fine end of career opens out majestically to the views of the monument to Neutra's work and as one of bay. Beneath the constructed area, al the city's most excellent architectural another uneven part by the clearly defined landmarks. balustrade curve of the gallery, a compact And although we can only speculate, it and horizontal space spreads out above would seem natural that Mendelsohn in the wh ich the murmur of balancing effects seem years that he was building the Russell house to be heard before they collide in a distinctly and was teaching al nearby Berkeley, would dynamic sensation. Standing in a corner the paya complimentary visit to the work of his courtyard, over the service quarter wing in fo rmer Berl ín partner, if only in memory of the direction of the entrance, it can be seen the golden years of the 1920s. Even though how a part of the cubic structure, again Neutra and Mendelsohn apparently did not sustained by two minimal metallic tubes, renew their acquaintance while both lived in produces an effect of maximum tension that . This had probably something to a mass can be submitted without collapsing. do with destiny.• This produces a maximum effort of flotation. The aesthetic magnitude of the resull is clearly evident in the image that contrasts with the sculpture standing still in the foreground. This is magnificent trick, involving a disregard for the sculpture of space that works on the opposites of lightness and heaviness. Not far from here, his former draughtsman, partner and collaborator of the 1920s, fellow Jew Richard Neutra, had raised another splendid house on the crown of Telegraph Hill 10 years previously. Of equally grandiose dimensions and sharing a good number details, the building is called San Francisco's Lovell, the Kahn house (1940) at 66, Calhoun Terrace. Also standing on a pronounced slope with splendid views of scenery that Mendelsohn wrote reminded him of the Athens Acropolis or the Bay of Naples, it consists of four floors with a basement opening on to a garden where the butler lived. lt also has a stairway that curves in part (curiously, this is not usual in Neutra}, a lifl, and spectacular terraces overlooking Bay Bridge. Similarly, the living quarters are not on the ground level but above it, in Neutra's case bedrooms being on the second floor and the grand living room with its bar one floor further up. Stil l, the very different