ENGLISH English Translation by David Cemlyn-Jones
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108 ENGLISH English translation by David Cemlyn-Jones An appraisal of Mendelsohn a monopoly of assignments from a culturally Alleinstein in Prussia (now in Polish territory) aware, rich clientele who was distrusted to the Munich 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 architecture, 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 Potsdam 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 Einstein Tower 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 expressionism, 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 Der Blaue Reiter. 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.