Essay · 2021
Erich Mendelsohn
- Type
- Essay
- Title
- His use of photography across the periods of his work
- Course
- Der Architekt und sein Bild (The Architect and His Image)
- University
- RWTH Aachen
- Chair
- Art History
- Topics
- Erich Mendelsohn, architectural photography, New Vision (Neues Sehen), Arthur Köster
How Mendelsohn used photography to stage the core idea of his buildings – from the Einstein Tower and his collaboration with photographer Arthur Köster to his buildings in England and Palestine.
Erich Mendelsohn (1887–1953) is regarded as one of the most important architects of the twentieth century, and his use of photography was revolutionary as well. In four books he often placed the photograph above the drawing in the layout and deliberately staged his buildings with the means of the New Vision (Neues Sehen) to convey his architectural outlook. His collaboration with the photographer Arthur Köster, who photographed the Einstein Tower in 1923, was formative.
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The essay follows his work through the five periods into which Bruno Zevi divides it, from the Einstein Tower via the books “Amerika”, “Das Gesamtschaffen des Architekten” and “Neues Haus – Neue Welt” to his buildings in England and Palestine and his late years in the USA. It asks how Mendelsohn steered the effect of his architecture, for example with day and night shots, views from below and heavily cropped images, and whether Zevi’s division also applies to his work with the medium.
The conclusion shows that his use of photography fits the five periods only with difficulty, since stylistic means recur or overlap. He engaged most intensively with the medium in the second and third periods; how far he still shaped the images of his late years remains unclear.