Bruno Taut 1880-1938
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| Bruno Taut |
Born in Königsberg in 1880, Bruno Taut became one of the leading figures at the height of the Weimar Republic (1919-1933). In particular, he was known for his fascination with "utopian" cities in which urban spaces were able to coexist in harmony with the natural world. Said term was coined in 1516 by Thomas Moore to describe fictional classless societies that were at one with nature, a concept that is considered an unattainable ideal.
Due to the catastrophe of the Great War (1914-1918), many urged the need to re-evaluate social order, with artists at the forefront of such calls of change, creating new ways of expression through art and architecture. The Modernist movement began to take shape.
Bruno Taut was just one among many prestigious figures seeking for change. His main source of influence came from the Garden City movement, originated in England and led by Sir Ebenezer Howard. This concept sought to create communities that would combine the best of the city and the countryside.
After completing his studies at the Baugewerkshule and working under numerous architects, Taut began to individually develope innovatie structures according to his utopian ideals.
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| Baugewerkschule in Königsberg, state technical school for structural and civil engineering. |
Like his contemporaries, Taut experimented with new technologies and materials such as glass and steel. In 1914, he completed the Glass Pavilion for the Cologne Werkbund Exhibition, showcasing the way in which glass could be manipulated into a preactical building material. This complexe geometric structure was not only aesthetically astonishing but also functional.
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| Glass Pavilion |
Taut then turned his attention to the housing crisis. In Berlin, he became the chairman of the Arbeitsrat für Kunst ("Workers council for art") in 1918. Their main goal was to bring the current developments and tendencies in art and architecture to a broader population. At the time, the capital was the largest metropolis in the world after New York and London, and with the Industrial Revolution the population had risen to 4.5 million by 1920. This rapid growth resulted in a bleak quality of life, so Taut called for the Government to support new housing projects aiming to provide improved and affordable accomodation for people with low-incomes, especially in the working-class areas of Kreuzberg and Neukölln in Berlin.
In 1924, Taut began working on what are now known as the six Berlin Modernism Housing Estates. The first project, the Hufeisensiedlung is located in Neukölln and is known as "The Horseshoe Estate". It was buit to house 5000 people and its international architectural importance was honoures with UNESCO World Heritage status in 2008. The second project is the Gartenstadt Falkenberg, also known as the "Paint Box Estates".
Both projects were built according to the Garden City movement and presented a striking colour scheme, given that Taut saw colour as an inexpensive way to inject vibrancy and excitement into otherwise grey and poor neighbourhoods.
Following the rapid rise to power of the National Socialists in the 1933, Taut left Germany, settling in Japan, before eventually moving to Istanbul, Turkey, where he died prematurely in 1938.
The Weissenhof Estate
The Weissenhof Estate is one of the most significant landmarks left by the movement known as "Neues Bauen".
Weissenhofsiedlung was created as part of the municipal housing building programme in which the City of Stuttgart attempted to battle housing shortages following World War I.
The 1927 Weissenhofsiedlung housing exhibition of Deutsche Werkbund in Stuttgard drew together a considerable number of the leading European modern architects, working under the artistic direction of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
In these 33 houses with 63 apartments, a total of 17 architects from Germany, France, Holland, Belgium and Austria formulated their solutions for living arrangements of the modern big city dweller, coupled with the use and implementation of new building materials and effective construction methods. Amongst them were Le Corbusier, Gropius and Behrens.
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| House 13 and 14-15 by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret. |
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| House 1-4 by Mies van der Rohe. |
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| House 17 by Waltter Gropius (wrecked). |
Bruno Taut was chosen to be part of the group of architects that designed the estate thanks to the recommendation from his younger brother, Max Taut, who was also an architect. He was then assigned a plot of land in Bruckmannweg 8 to design a single-family, two-storey home with a basement (House 19).
In the midst of the resulting examples of flat-roofed, white, concrete framed buildings, it was Bruno taut's number 19 that stood out. Each surface of Taut's house, including the internal walls and ceiling, were painted in a different primary colour, which caused disturbance among the other architects. It shocked and annoyed the white Purist architects og "International Style".
The house was intended to be mass procible. It also took account of environnement, was functional and flexible. Howeverit also had a vibrant red external wall, another in deep blue, another in bright yellow and another in green. The floors were pitch dark (absorbs heat), the ceilings yellow (reflects light) and the internal walls also of red, green and blue.
Of the original twentyone buildings, eleven survive. Bombing damage during World War II is responsible for the complete loss of the homes by Gropius, Hibeseimer, Bruno Taut, Poelzig, Max Taut and Döcker.
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