Erich Mendelsohn | |
|---|---|
 Erich Mendelsohn (1925) | |
| Born | (1887-03-21)21 March 1887 |
| Died | 15 September 1953(1953-09-15) (aged 66) |
| Citizenship | German, British (since 1938) |
| Occupation | Architect |
| Spouse | Luise Maas (m. 1915) |
| Buildings | Einstein Tower, Potsdam De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill on Sea Petersdorff Department Store, Breslau (Wrocław) Weizmann House,Rehovot |
| Projects | Hebrew University of Jerusalem |
Erich Mendelsohn (German pronunciation:[ˈeːʁɪçˈmɛndl̩ˌzoːn]ⓘ); 21 March 1887 – 15 September 1953)[1] was a German-British architect, known for hisexpressionist architecture in the 1920s, as well as for developing a dynamicfunctionalism in his projects for department stores and cinemas. Mendelsohn was a pioneer of theArt Deco andStreamline Moderne architecture, notably with his 1921Mossehaus design.
Mendelsohn was born to aJewish[2] family inAllenstein,East Prussia,Germany, now the Polish city ofOlsztyn. His birthplace was at the former Oberstrasse 21, now no. 10 Staromiejska street. A plaque embedded on the wall on the side of Barbara street commemorates his place of birth.[3] He was not related to theMendelssohn family.
He was the fifth of six children; his mother was Emma Esther (née Jaruslawsky), a hatmaker and his father David was a shopkeeper.[3][4] He attended a humanistGymnasium in Allenstein and continued with commercial training inBerlin.
In 1906, he took up the study of national economics at theUniversity of Munich. In 1908, he began studyingarchitecture at theTechnische Hochschule in Charlottenburg (nowTechnische Universität Berlin); two years later he transferred to theTechnische Hochschule München, where in 1912 he graduatedcum laude. InMunich he was influenced byTheodor Fischer, an architect whose own work fell betweenneo-classical andJugendstil, and who had been teaching there since 1907; Mendelsohn also made contact with members ofDer Blaue Reiter andDie Brücke, two groups of expressionist artists.
From 1912 to 1914, he worked as an independent architect in Munich. In 1915, he married thecellist Luise Maas. Between 1910 and 1953, they corresponded with each other; these materials provide[5] insight into the lives of an artist and couple who experienced a changing international landscape, including their fleeing from the Third Reich in Germany in 1933. Through his wife, he met the cello-playingastrophysicistErwin Finlay Freundlich. Freundlich was the brother ofHerbert Freundlich, the deputy director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institut für Physikalische Chemie und Elektrochemie (now theFritz Haber Institute of theMax Planck Society in the Dahlem district of Berlin). Freundlich wished to build a suitableastronomicalobservatory to experimentally confirmEinstein'sTheory of Relativity.
Through his relationship with Freundlich, Mendelsohn had the opportunity to design and build theEinsteinturm ("Einstein Tower"). This relationship and also the family friendship with theLuckenwalde hat manufacturers Salomon and Gustav Herrmann helped Mendelsohn to an early success. From then until 1918, what is known of Mendelsohn is, above all, a multiplicity of sketches of factories and other large buildings, often in small format or in letters from the front to his wife, Louise Mendelsohn (née Maas; 1895–1980). The 2011 documentary film by Duki Dror titled "Incessant Visions" is about Erich Mendelsohn and his wife, in which Dror animates the memoirs of Louise and the letters.[6]
At the end of 1918, on his return fromWorld War I,[further explanation needed] he settled his practice in Berlin. The Einsteinturm and the hat factory in Luckenwalde established his reputation. The Hat Factory was commissioned in 1921, Mendelsohn's design included four production halls, a boiler, a turbine house, two gatehouses and a dyeing hall. The dyeing hall became a distinctive feature of the factory, the building was shaped with a modern ventilation hood that expelled the toxic fumes used in the dyeing process. The structure even ironically resembled a hat.[7]
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 withLudwig Mies van der Rohe andWalter Gropius, he was one of the founders of the progressive architectural group known asDer Ring.His practice employed as many as forty people, among them, as a trainee,Julius Posener, later an architectural historian. Mendelsohn's work encapsulated the consumerism of theWeimar Republic, most particularly in his shops: most famously theSchocken Department Stores. Nonetheless, he was also interested in the socialist experiments being made in theUSSR, where he designed theRed Banner Textile Factory in 1926 (together with the senior architect of this project,Hyppolit Pretreaus). HisMossehaus newspaper offices and Universum cinema were also highly influential on art deco andStreamline Moderne.
In 1926, he bought an old villa, and in 1928, he designed Rupenhorn, nearly 4000 m2, which the family occupied two years later. With an expensive publication about his new home, illustrated byAmédée Ozenfant among others, Mendelsohn became the subject of envy.
In the spring of 1933, in the wake of growingantisemitism and the rise of the Nazis in Germany, he fled to England. His assets were seized by theNazis, his name struck from the list of the German Architects' Union, and he was excluded from thePrussian Academy of Arts. In England he formed an architectural practice withSerge Chermayeff, which continued until the end of 1936 and together they designed two important private houses –Cohen House andShrubs Wood – and theDe La Warr Pavilion, an entertainment and arts complex in the seaside town of Bexhill-on-Sea, commissioned and paid for by the local landowner.
Mendelsohn had long knownChaim Weizmann, laterPresident of Israel. At the start of 1934 he began planning on Weizmann's behalf a series of projects inMandatory Palestine during the British Mandate. In 1935, he opened an office inJerusalem and plannedJerusalem stone buildings in theInternational Style that greatly influenced local architecture.[8] In 1938, he dissolved his London office. At that same time he and his wife received British citizenship and he changed his name to "Eric"; the new citizenship also allowed them to issue guarantees and thus bring other family members to Britain.[9] In Mandatory Palestine, Mendelsohn built many now-famous buildings: Weizmann House and three laboratories at theWeizmann Institute of Science,Anglo-Palestine Bank in Jerusalem,Hadassah Hospital onMount Scopus,Rambam Hospital inHaifa and others.
From 1941 until his death, Mendelsohn lived in the United States and taught at theUniversity of California, Berkeley. Until the end ofWorld War II his activities were limited by his immigration status to lectures and publications. However, he also served as an advisor to the U.S. government. For instance, in 1943 he collaborated with theU.S. Army andStandard Oil in order to build "German Village", a set of replicas of typical German working-class housing estates, which would be of key importance in acquiring the know-how and experience necessary to carry out thefirebombing of Berlin.[10] In 1945, he established himself inSan Francisco. From then until his death in 1953 he undertook various projects, mostly for Jewish communities.
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