Title: "Tradition" as modernism in German architecture and urban design, 1888--1918
Description: A kind of modernism explicitly based on "tradition" rose to preeminence in Germany before the First World War. This modernism represented an idea that all design disciplines were defined by a long evolutionary adaptation of form to the social practices of the user, and stood against the idea of design as expressive art. This modern traditionalism had its origins in the German design reforms of around 1890, saw itself as a branch of the British Arts and Crafts movement, and was tempered by a reaction against the related but opposed "new style" movements of around 1900 such as the Jugendstil and the art nouveau. The movement flowered in the hands of architects like Hermann Muthesius, Fritz Schumacher, and Theodor Fischer in the early 1900s, expanding its interests to taste, social class, and housing reform, and during the same time it grew to include a parallel movement that had been going on in city planning. After around 1905 it also underwent a switch from an early rural-vernacular focus to an imitation of urban and bourgeois precedents from around 1800, the historical point at which the tradition of evolutionary design was presumed to have been interrupted. Finally, in the years around 1910, this modernism reached its peak in the attempt to solve the problems of the modern metropolis, but was then pushed out of power by the resurgence of the idea of the artist in design, and by changes resulting from the war. Though the cohesiveness of traditional modernism as a movement has been obscured since its decline, it remains interesting for the skill with which its practitioners learned to handle precedent, and for its dedication to designing for daily life.
Subjects: Architecture, History, City planning
Places: Germany
Time periods: 19th century, 20th century