Expressionism and Architecture

Expressionism

The expressionism movement emerged across Germany at the beginning of the 20^th century and lasted till the 1930s, it later flourished to Austria, Denmark and other Nordic countries . The movement is all about how artists seek to express emotional experience rather than impressions of the external world. This made art more unique and personal as one could express his own individual feelings and emotions to the audience, this also made art more questionable and mysterious.

The expressionism movement was a response to the lost feelings humanity had to spirituality and the world around us due to political and social problems; it was also a part of a reaction against academic art and impressionism were as then both styles depicted real factual subjects.

Expressionist architecture

Expressionism is also evident in architecture were we can find many famous architects that were involved in this movement, such as; Bruno Taut, Erich Mendelshn, Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe and Hans Poelzig. Architects who were involved emphasized on shapes and forms that could be rarely found in architecture around that time. Just like expressionist fine artists, architects derived from realism and emphasized on how to implement forms and shapes that show their emotional feelings.

In the choice of materials architects opted to go for the representation rather than the function, they mostly used bricks, steel and glass. They highly believed that glass should be use in their design and as one the architects stated “Coloured glass destroys hatred”,”Without a glass palace life is a burden”,”Glass brings us a new era, building in brick only does us harm” (Paul Scheerbart, 1914 on the Werkbund Glass Pavilion)

Expressionism was an ideal style to implement in stage design as the stage created a deep emotional atmosphere to the audience. And just like stage designers designed their stage so did architects for their buildings, the architects main idea was to engage the viewer in an emotional atmosphere when observing its form. One of their main highlight is how light and shadow is effecting the design itself just like the example below; Casa Batllo which is situated in Barcelona and made by Antonio Gaudi. His designs give us a quick peep into his fantasy ideas, it almost looks unreal. This is a clear example how most of expressionist artist mostly mattered on looks rather than functionality.

 

The Einstein tower which was designed by Erich Mendelsohn between 1917 and 1920. The masterpiece is one of the best examples of German expressionist architecture. The designers main target was to link its form with the buildings function which was an observatory and a laboratory for Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity. Its flowing form also reflects the great scenes of artistic freedom that expressionists brought. On the other hand in this case although it brought curtain freedom in architecture Erich still observed symmetry and although it wasn’t necessary we can already see evidence that aerodynamic shapes were already in use.

We can also see contemporary expressionist architecture today. The Sydney opera house is a perfect example. Another interesting fact about the opera house is that it was one of the first sophisticated geometric buildings to be partially constructed by CAD. It was designed by Jon Utzon in 1956 and is mostly known for its shell structure, which again is showing the freedom to express and show new forms and shapes.

 Bibliography 

architectureintlprogram (2011) Expressionism in architecture. Available at: https://architectureintlprogram.wordpress.com/2011/03/30/expressionism-in-architecture/ (Accessed: 30 May 2016)

Koberstein, M. (2016) Available at: http://db.arts.usf.edu/data/stein/reader.asp?n=whatisexpressionism (Accessed: 30 May 2016)

Manet, É. (2016) Impressionism movement, artists and Major Works. Available at: http://www.theartstory.org/movement-impressionism.htm (Accessed: 30 May 2016).

Krystle S. (2010) Expressionism: A retrospective. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVNly9jLbfE (Accessed: 30 May 2016).

Einstein tower - architecture of the world (1921) Available at: https://en.wikiarquitectura.com/index.php/Einstein_Tower (Accessed: 30 May 2016).