German Architecture: 20th Century

For earlier German architecture, see German Architecture: 19th century.

German interest in developments in Great Britain, France, and America produced a distinctive style around 1910, the major figure being Peter Behrens. The first typically modern building was designed by Walter Gropius for the Werkbund Exhibition, Cologne (1914); later he was the principal and designer of the influential school, the Bauhaus at Dessau. The most important architects of the period with Gropius were Erich Mendelsohn, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Poelzig, Hans Bernhard Scharoun, and Hugo Haring. The last three were leading expressionists, and the influence of their work was revived after the World War II.

Modern architecture was suppressed by Hitler and several German architects settled in England and later America where they had considerable influence. Hitler tried to revive a form of neoclassicism as in the Congress Hall and Stadium, Nuremberg, and the Chancellery and Sports Centre, Berlin.

Post-war buildings of note include the Phoenix-Rheinrohr administration building, Dusseldorf (by Helmut Hentrich and Herbert Petschnigg); the Berlin Philharmonic (by Hans Scharoun, 1956-63); the College, Dortmund (by Friedrich Wilhelm Kraemer); and the churches of Rudolph Schwarz such as St Anne's, Duren. The style of post-war German architecture moved between the extremes of Scharoun's flowing expressionist sculptural forms and the neat, precise and logical Miesian buildings of Egon Eiermann (died 1970), who designed the German display building at the Brussels Fair (1958) with Sep Rut. Another figure of note is Frei Otto, who has designed expressionist exhibition buildings with suspended tentlike roofs.

The Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Germany (1977-83), by the Scottish architect James Stirling, blended constructivism, modernism, and several strands of classicism.

See also German architecture.