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Overview
The Werkbund set out to prove that organized effort could revitalize the applied arts and architecture. In addition to acting as an agent of reform, it provided a forum for the debate of such broad concerns as the need to restore joy and dignity to work in modem industry.
Originally published in 1978.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780691611457 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Princeton University Press |
| Publication date: | 03/08/2015 |
| Series: | Princeton Legacy Library , #1710 |
| Pages: | 376 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 2.70(d) |
Read an Excerpt
The German Werkbund
The Politics of Reform in the Applied Arts
By Joan Campbell
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 1978 Princeton University PressAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-05250-2
CHAPTER 1
The Founding of the Werkbund
The Founding meeting of the Deutsche Werkbund, held in Munich on October 5 and 6, 1907, brought together about one hundred prominent artists, industrialists, and art lovers. Convened in response to an appeal by twelve individual artists and twelve manufacturers, it represented a novel approach to one of the problems that engaged the attention of educated Germans at the time, namely how to reforge the links between designer and producer, between art and industry, that had been broken in the course of the nation's recent spectacular economic development. The fact that both artists and entrepreneurs attended the convention raised hopes that the Werkbund would succeed in its aim of injecting a much-needed artistic and ethical element into German economic life. When the meeting, chaired by a director of a ceramics factory, J. J. Scharvogel, chose a professor of architecture, Theodor Fischer, as the society's first president, it gave symbolic expression to the spirit that the new association planned to foster.
The keynote speech was given by Fritz Schumacher, professor of architecture at the Technische Hochschule in Dresden. Schumacher stated the Werkbund's objective: to reform the German arts and crafts through a genuine rapprochement between artists and producers. Although he deplored the destruction of the artistic culture associated with a preindustrial past, he stressed that the progress of industrialization and mechanization was irresistible, and that the Werkbund must strive to counter the excessive materialism and rationalism that were its by-products without sacrificing the positive benefits of modernity. If practically-minded artists and idealistic entrepreneurs could work in concert, the result would be the "reconquest of a harmonious culture" that would represent a new cultural synthesis in tune with the realities of contemporary life.
The immediate task before the new association would be to improve the design and quality of German consumer goods. Schumacher made it quite clear, however, that the Werkbund was not created merely to appease the sensibilities of aesthetes offended by the sheer ugliness of current products. Nor was its purpose to increase the profits of participating firms. Instead, Schumacher sought to enlist the moral and patriotic sentiments of his auditors in support of the ideal of quality, arguing that quality work would both strengthen the nation's competitive position in the markets of the world and foster social peace at home.
While the aims of the Werkbund, as expounded by Schumacher, closely paralleled those of the German Arts and Crafts movement which had already spawned numerous lay and specialist societies, the men gathered at Munich believed that a new organization was needed to implement reforms more effectively. By drawing together an aristocracy of creativity and talent from all parts of Germany, the Werkbund hoped it would be in a unique position to encourage the healthy development of the most advanced tendencies of the day. Yet it would be wrong to note the progressive aspirations of the Werkbund's founders without acknowledging that their purpose was essentially a conservative one, namely to restore the lost moral and aesthetic unity of German culture. This ambivalence was reflected at the Munich convention, where romantic nostalgia for a lost world combined with determination to meet contemporary needs; and it remained a feature of the Werkbund during the next twenty-six years of its independent existence.
To understand the origins of the Werkbund, one must look beyond the events of October 1907. This is in part because the new society represented the culmination of a movement for artistic and intellectual reform dating from the 19th century, but also because of the three individuals who can most justly be described as its founding fathers — Hermann Muthesius, Friedrich Naumann, and Henry van de Velde — only Naumann actually attended the Munich meeting. These three men, coming from very different backgrounds, agreed in their fundamental purposes, but each held distinctive views on matters of policy and organization. Their ideas and ideals deserve analysis because they helped to set the Werkbund on its course. At the same time, examination of the motives that led each of them to support the Werkbund sheds light on those features of the contemporary situation which contributed most to the association's creation and initial success.
The man most frequently cited as the father of the Werkbund was Hermann Muthesius, who, in 1907, was a civil servant in the Prussian Ministry of Trade. Born in Thuringia in 1861, the son of a mason, Muthesius learned his father's trade, went on to Realgymnasium in Leipzig, and completed his architectural training at the Technische Hochschule in Berlin. While still a student, he was sent to Japan by a private firm, but in 1893 he returned to Germany and began his career in the Prussian civil service as government architect in the design office of the Prussian Ministry of Public Works. The turning point in his career came in 1896 when he secured an appointment as architectural attaché at the German embassy in London, filling a position apparently created in response to the Kaiser's personal wishes. Between 1896 and his return to Germany in 1903, Muthesius reported regularly on advances in English architecture, crafts, and industrial design, with a view toward adapting the best features of the English experience to German circumstances. He cultivated close contacts with the leaders of the English Arts and Crafts movement, and acquainted himself with contemporary British architecture and art education. The fruit of his diligence, in addition to his official reports, was an influential three-volume publication on the English home, which appeared after his return to Germany.
In 1904, Muthesius, now in the Prussian Ministry of Trade in Berlin, resumed his architectural practice, building villas in the "English style" for the wealthy bourgeois of the capital. In his official capacity, he applied the lessons learned in England by promoting a reform of the arts and crafts schools. He also used his influence to secure the appointment of first-class designers to key positions: Peter Behrens at the Art Academy in Düsseldorf, Hans Poelzig at the Breslau Academy, and Bruno Paul at the Berlin School of Applied Arts.
Muthesius' appointment to the first chair of the applied arts at the Berlin Commercial University (Handelshochschule) in the spring of 1907 gave him additional authority to further the cause of reform. However, his inaugural lecture, in which he set out the basic principles of his program for the arts and crafts, aroused a storm of protest from conservative elements in the German art industries, and produced an appeal to the Kaiser for his immediate dismissal. This step by the Fachverband für die wirtschaftlichen Interessen des Kunstgewerbes (Trade Association to Further the Economic Interests of the Art Industries) f ailed to overthrow Muthesius. Instead, it precipitated a confrontation between progressive and traditionalist factions within the Fachverband at its annual meeting in Düsseldorf in June 1907, led to secession of the pro-Muthesius firms, and culminated in the formation of the Werkbund.
Muthesius' Handelshochschule speech introduced many themes that were subsequently incorporated into the Werkbund program. Commenting on a recent applied arts exhibition at Dresden, Muthesius welcomed the increased respect shown for the innate character of materials, the emphasis on functional and constructional design criteria, and the decline in nostalgic sentimentality, artificiality, and excessive ornamentation. Nevertheless, he recognized that the reformers still faced tremendous obstacles. The consuming public, corrupted by social snobbery, sudden wealth, and the ready availability of "luxury" goods cheaply made by machine, would have to be won back to the old ideals of simplicity, purity, and quality. At the same time, producers would have to develop a new sense of cultural responsibility, based on the recognition that men are molded by the objects that surround them. Once manufacturers were made aware that by producing cheap imitations and fashionable novelties they were damaging the national character through pollution of the visual environment, Muthesius believed they would abjure their evil ways and address themselves to their proper task of creating a modern German home whose honest simplicity would beneficially influence the character of its inhabitants.
To Muthesius it seemed evident that the reform movement that had begun in the sphere of interior design would lead on to the development of new concepts in architecture and eventually would affect all the arts. Moreover, discounting the doubts of many manufacturers and dealers regarding the marketability of the new designs, he proclaimed his faith in their eventual victory, citing the commercial success already attained by the Dresdner Werkstätten für Handwerkskunst to prove his point. Here was evidence that an enterprise that enthusiastically adopted the quality ideal would gain a competitive advantage over its more conservative rivals. By ceasing to produce shoddy goods, Muthesius argued, industry would not only be acting morally but would reap great profits. At the same time, it would enable the Reich to redeem its reputation on the world market. Instead of seeking desperately — and ineffectually — to adapt their designs to foreign tastes and predilections, German producers, building on the achievements demonstrated at the German section of the St. Louis exhibition of 1904, might one day dictate good taste to the world, while enriching themselves. The rewards of a change of heart seemed plain: profits, power, and freedom from the stylistic tyranny of the French, then still dominant in the realm of fashion and design.
Thus in 1907 Muthesius set forth a number of ideas that regularly reappeared in Werkbund propaganda. Typically Muthesian features included the stress on good taste and quality as virtues in themselves, and the determination to mobilize economic, ethical, and patriotic sentiments in support of fundamentally aesthetic reforms. The speech also revealed Muthesius' distrust of the artistic individualism that at Dresden had still obscured the emerging functionalist trend. For he felt certain that the style of the future would not be the product of isolated genius self-consciously striving to create new forms, but would develop out of the efforts of many individuals working in a new spirit to utilize available artistic, technical, and economic ideas in the design and production of consumer goods.
Unlike many of his contemporaries, Muthesius firmly believed that German culture could and would be saved. This basic optimism enabled him to throw himself without reserve into the fight for converts, while his faith in the power of organization made him a wholehearted advocate of the Werkbund idea. By its very existence, the Werkbund would testify to the strength of the reform impulse and create the positive climate of opinion needed for success. Because Muthesius knew that controversy surrounding his person might jeopardize the new organization, he stayed away from the Munich meeting. But as soon as the Werkbund was established, he openly identified himself with it. Elected vice-president, he devoted his energies to expanding the Werkbund's influence, provided it with useful government contacts, and to a great extent succeeded in imposing his views on the association in the period to 1914. His home in Berlin served as a meeting place for men connected with the reform movement in art and industry; and the social gatherings over which he presided there helped to strengthen the Werkbund by creating a sense of community among individuals who of ten had little in common beyond their desire to further its goals.
Although Muthesius' presence in Berlin gave the Werkbund a valuable foothold in the nation's capital, that city could not claim to be the birthplace of the new society. Vienna, Munich, and particularly Dresden all have a better right to that distinction, in view of their outstanding contributions to the arts and crafts. Moreover, rather than Muthesius, the Prussian civil servant, it was the politician Friedrich Naumann who devised the organizational structure that for the first time gave national unity to the reform movement. On the eve of the Werkbund's birth, Naumann, a former Protestant pastor and supporter of Adolph Stöcker's Christian Socialism, had already won a national reputation as a liberal politician with strong social views. Founder of the short-lived National-Social party (1896-1903), Naumann had acquired disciples in all parts of the country, and in 1907 he successfully contested a Reichstag seat for the left liberals in the South German city of Heilbronn.
To understand what attracted Naumann to the Werkbund cause, one must first of all take into account his strong artistic leanings. He drew with enthusiasm and considerable skill, and contributed frequent exhibition reports and other essays on aesthetic topics to Die Hilfe. An early advocate of the need to discover new forms suited to the modern age, he repeatedly gave forceful expression to his faith in the possibility of revivifying German culture in the age of the machine. His belief in the social and political significance of aesthetic questions drew him into the Werkbund orbit, and in turn enabled him to bring into the organization people who would have committed themselves neither to a political party nor to any purely artistic movement.
Naumann addressed the Munich convention and helped to write the Werkbund's constitution adopted at the first annual meeting in 1908. He also produced its initial propaganda pamphlet, Deutsche Gewerbekunst, which identified the Werkbund with a wide range of social and national goals. According to this brochure, the Werkbund, by propagating the principle of quality, would raise the value of labor, improve the worker's status, increase his joy in work, and thus reverse the trend to proletarianization hitherto associated with the advance of capitalism. Moreover, quality work would help to shape a culture based on respect for the creative power of the individual personality, while improving the competitive position of German exports. Comparing the Werkbund to the Navy League, of which he was an ardent supporter, Naumann argued that just as the League encouraged Germany to demand a larger role in world politics, so the Werkbund should work to extend Germany's economic power. Unlike the Navy League, however, the Werkbund was to remain independent of official guidance or subsidies, for Naumann was convinced that it would be most effective as a purely private association, acting on its own initiative to further the nation's cultural and economic growth.
It was at the Dresden Arts and Crafts exhibition of 1906 that Naumann helped to lay the foundations for the Werkbund. The exhibition itself had been organized by one of Naumann's political disciples, Fritz Schumacher, who enthusiastically subscribed to his program of freeing the German worker from the trammels of Marxist dogma, winning him over to the national ideal, and reawakening his religious impulses. While attending the exhibition, at which he delivered an address and which he later reviewed for Die Hilfe, Naumann developed the organizational blueprint for the Werkbund in conversation with another of his adherents, Karl Schmidt-Hellerau of the Dresdner Werkstätten. Schmidt, son of an artisan family, had spent a year in England following his apprenticeship. The furniture workshop that he established on his return to Dresden in 1898 soon grew into a sizable enterprise employing many of Germany's leading designers and craftsmen and exploiting the most advanced machine technology to produce relatively inexpensive quality goods for mass consumption. A carpenter by trade, Schmidt, under Naumann's influence, had abandoned some of the traditionalism of ten associated with his craft. In particular, he responded to Naumann's modification of the English Arts and Crafts philosophy, which stressed the need to restore the dignity of labor in alliance with-rather than in opposition to-the machine. Inspired by Naumann's social idealism, Schmidt initiated an ambitious apprentice training program within the Werkstätten; built a new community, the Gartenstadt Hellerau, to house its workers; and generally turned his firm into a model enterprise. Thus the Werkbund was only one fruit of a continuing association between Naumann and Schmidt, who, despite very different educational and professional backgrounds, shared the desire to create a strong, stable, and harmonious social order.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The German Werkbund by Joan Campbell. Copyright © 1978 Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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Table of Contents
- Frontmatter, pg. i
- CONTENTS, pg. vii
- LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, pg. viii
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS, pg. xi
- ABBREVIATIONS, pg. xiii
- INTRODUCTION, pg. 1
- I. The Founding of the Werkbund, pg. 9
- II. The Evolution of the Werkbund to 1914, pg. 33
- III. Cologne 1914, pg. 57
- IV. The Werkbund in a Nation at War, pg. 82
- V. Revolution and Renewal: 1918-1919, pg. 104
- VI. Years of Trial: 1920-1923, pg. 141
- VII. Alliance with the Future: 1924-1929, pg. 171
- VIII. The Disintegration of the Weimar Werkbund: 1930-1932, pg. 206
- IX. The Werkbund and National Socialism. Conclusion, pg. 243
- CONCLUSION, pg. 288
- APPENDICES, pg. 295
- BIBLIOGRAPHY, pg. 297
- INDEX, pg. 337