page_title: Expressionist architecture
section_title: 1920
hierarchical_section_title: Expressionist architecture / Timeline / 1920
context_page_description: Expressionist architecture was an architectural movement in Europe during the first decades of the 20th century in parallel with the expressionist visual and performing arts that especially developed and dominated in Germany. Brick Expressionism is a special variant of this movement in western and northern Germany and in The Netherlands. Expressionist architecture is one of the three dominant styles of Modern architecture: International Style, Expressionist, and Constructivist architecture.
context_section_description: February 26, the film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari premiered at the Marmorhaus in Berlin.
  Hans Poelzig declares affinity with the Glass Chain. He designs sets for The Golem.
  Solidarity of the Glass Chain is broken. Final letter written by Hermann Finsterlin. Hans Luckhardt recognises the incompatibility of free unconscious form and rationalist prefabrication and moves to Rationalism.
  Taut maintains his Scheerbartian views. He publishes ‘Die Auflösung der Städt' (The dissolution of the city) in line with Kropotkinian anarchist socialist tendencies. In common with the Soviets, it recommends the breakup of cities and a return to the land. He models agrarian communities and temples in the Alps. There would be 3 separate residential communities. 1. The enlightened. 2. Artists. 3. Children. This authoritarianism is noted in Frampton as although socialist in intent, paradoxically containing the seeds of the later fascism.
  1921
  Taut is made city architect of Magdeburg and fails to realise a municipal exhibition hall as the harsh economic realities of the Weimar republic become apparent and prospects of building a ‘glass paradise’ dwindle.
  Walter Gropius designs the Monument to the March Dead in Weimar. It is completed in 1922 and inspires the workers' gong in the 1927 film Metropolis by Fritz Lang.
  Frühlicht loses its impetus.
  Erich Mendelsohn visits works of the Dutch Wendingen group and tours the Netherlands. He meets the rationalists J.J.P. Oud and W.M. Dudok. He recognises the conflict of visionary and objective approaches to design.
  Erich Mendelsohn's Mossehaus opens. Construction is complete on the Einstein Tower. It combines the sculptural forms of Van de Weldes Werkbund Exhibition theatre with the profile of Taut's Glashaus and the formal affinity to vernacular Dutch architecture of Eibink and Snellebrand and Hendrikus Wijdeveld. Einstein himself visits and declares it ‘organic’.
  Mendelsohn designs a hat factory in Luckenwalde. It shows influences of the Dutch expressionist De Klerk, setting dramatic tall pitched industrial forms against horizontal administrative elements. This approach is echoed in his Leningrad textile mill of 1925 and anticipates the banding in his department stores in Breslau, Stuttgart, Chemnitz and Berlin from 1927 and 1931.
  Hugo Häring and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe submit a competition entry for a Friedrichstrasse office building. It reveals an organic approach to structure and is fully made of glass.
  1922
  Ludwig Mies van der Rohe publishes a glass skyscraper project in the last issue of Frühlicht.
  Toompea Castle is rebuilt for the Riigikogu in Tallinn, Estonia, as the only expressionist style parliamentary building in the world.
  The film Nosferatu by F.W. Murnau is released.
  1923
  Bauhaus expressionist phase ends. Standard arguments for the reasons for this are 1. Expressionism was difficult to build. 2. Rampant inflation in Germany changed the climate of opinion to a more sober one. Jencks postulates that the standard arguments are too simplistic and instead argues that 1. Expressionism had become associated with extreme utopianism which in turn had been discredited by violence and bloodshed. Or 2. Architects had become convinced that the new (rationalist) style was equally expressive and more adequately captured the Zeitgeist. There is no large disagreements or public pronouncements to precipitate this change in direction. The only outwardly visible reaction was the forced resignation of the head of the basic Bauhaus course, Johannes Itten, to be replaced with the, then constructivist, László Moholy-Nagy.
  Chilehaus in Hamburg by Fritz Höger.
  Walter Gropius abandons expressionism and moves to rationalism.
  Bruno and Max Taut begin work on government funded low cost housing projects.
  Berlin secession exhibition. Mies van der Rohe and Hans and Wassili Luckhardt demonstrate a more functional and objective approach.
  Rudolf Steiner designs second Goetheanum after first was destroyed by fire in 1922. Work commences 1924 and is completed in 1928.
  Michel de Klerk dies.
  1924
  Germany adopts the Dawes plan. Ar
caption: De Bijenkorf in The Hague, 1926 (Piet Kramer)
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