CUBE
15.10.04 - 02.02.05
CUBE secured the only UK showing of this major international exhibition on Erich Mendelsohn, one of Germany's most important architects of the twentieth century, known for his expressionist architecture as well as for developing a dynamic functionalism in his projects for department stores and cinemas.
At the end of 1918, upon his return from World War I, Mendelsohn (1887-1953) settled his practice in Berlin. The Einsteinturm and the hat factory in Luckenwalde established his reputation. As early as 1924 Wasmuths Monatshefte für Baukunst (a series of monthly magazines on architecture) produced a booklet about his work. In that same year, along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius, he was one of the founders of the progressive architectural group known as Der Ring. His practice employed as many as forty people, among them, as a trainee, Julius Posener, later an architectural historian.
Erich Mendelsohn's work encapsulated the consumerism of the Weimar Republic, most particularly in his shops, most famously the Schocken Department Stores. Nonetheless he was also interested in the socialist experiments being made in the USSR, where he designed the Red Banner Textile Factory in 1926 (together with the senior architect of this project, Hyppolit Pretreaus). His Mossehaus newspaper offices and Universum cinema were also highly influential on art deco and Streamline Moderne.
In the spring of 1933, in the wake of growing anti-semitism and the rise of the Nazis in Germany, he fled to England. Here he began a business partnership with Serge Chermayeff, which continued until the end of 1936. Mendelsohn had long known Chaim Weizmann, later President of Israel. At the start of 1934 he began planning on Weizmann's behalf a series of projects in Palestine during the British Mandate. In 1935, he opened an office in Jerusalem and planned Jerusalem stone buildings in the International Style that greatly influenced local architecture. In 1938, after dissolving his London office, he took UK citizenship and changed his name to "Eric." In Palestine, Mendelsohn built many now-famous buildings: Weizmann House and three laboratories at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Anglo-Palestine Bank in Jerusalem, Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus, Rambam Hospital in Haifa and others.
From 1941 until his death, Mendelsohn lived in the United States and taught at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1945, he established himself in San Francisco. From then until his death in 1953 he undertook various projects, including a number of synagogues and Jewish community centres, as well as the critically acclaimed Russell House, the only residential work he built in the United States.
The exhibition, curated by Dr Regina Stephan, is arranged in various subject blocks covering his writings and utopian projects, his links with intellectual circles, and his major architectural projects. Twenty-two models, specially made for the exhibition, present his buildings according to type. Department stores form an extensive chapter, including the ones he built for Salmann Schocken.
Organized and mounted by the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (ifa) in Stuttgart, Erich Mendelsohn - Dynamics and Functions was first presented in the Kunsthalle Tübingen in early 2000, subsequently touring to the Genia Schreiber University Art Gallery in Tel Aviv. Venues in Holland, Poland, Norway, Italy, Turkey, Greece and Russia, and then again Poland, followed. In 2004, it was shown at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin to mark the 50th anniversary of Erich Mendelsohn's death.
The exhibition, curated by Dr Regina Stephan, is arranged in various subject blocks covering his writings and utopian projects, his links with intellectual circles, and his major architectural projects. Twenty-two models, specially made for the exhibition, present his buildings according to type. Department stores form an extensive chapter, including the ones he built for Salmann Schocken.
Organized and mounted by the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (ifa) in Stuttgart, Erich Mendelsohn - Dynamics and Functions was first presented in the Kunsthalle Tübingen in early 2000, subsequently touring to the Genia Schreiber University Art Gallery in Tel Aviv. Venues in Holland, Poland, Norway, Italy, Turkey, Greece and Russia, and then again Poland, followed. In 2004, it was shown at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin to mark the 50th anniversary of Erich Mendelsohn's death.