Bruno Taut Research Articles

Yabancı Mimarların Türk Modernist Hareketine Katkılarının İrdelenmesi

In terms of the assessment of the post-war period, Turkey was not directly involved in the war, but the country was as directly affected as any European country. Under the strong leadership of Atatürk, several reforms consisting of social, educational and industrial developments were carried out after the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923. Architecture was one of the subjects that could be analysed within the framework of the educational reform. Robert Oerley, Ernst Egli, Clemens Holzmeister, Hermann Jansen, Martin Elsaesser, Martin Wagner, Hans Poelzig, Bruno Taut, Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, Wilhelm Schütte, Robert Vorhoelzer and Paul Bonatz were some of the architects who were allowed to work in Turkey and who had beneficial works for the Turkish cities both in terms of urban planning and architectural context. The aim of this study is to evaluate the relationship between the works of refugee architects, particularly during their stay in Turkey, and their long-term and positive contributions to Turkish architecture in the post-war period. With the research, some questions will be answered, such as whether the foreign architects had a dominance or influence on the Turkish architects; and whether there are any foreign architects who tried to protect the existing traditional order.

Beauty to the Modernist Eyes: Katsura Imperial Villa as an Experience of Modernism and Modernity

This article explores a 1960 book project on the Japanese Imperial Palace and Garden complex Katsura, entitled Katsura: Tradition and Creation in Japanese Architecture (1960), in collaboration with Walter Gropius, Kenzo Tange, Yasuhiro Ishimoto, and Herbert Bayer, as an experience of modernism and modernity. Through photography and written records, this article traces the rediscovery of the villa by modern architects since the 1930s, from Bruno Taut to Walter Gropius to appreciate the beauty of Katsura and, finally, Yasuhiro Ishimoto’s photographic rendering in 1983, to understand the visual interpretation of authenticity and objectivity through developing perspectives of observation. The 1960 book project was a modernist reinvention on the traditional architectural and garden landscape of Katsura. Through Ishimoto’s lens, a series of observations and impressions were projected in the modernist eyes that were distinct from traditional experiences of the villa. The meticulous capture of spatial dynamics and layered material presented in this visual tour have provided a new perspective of interpreting the Katsura Palace, which is fundamentally different from traditional ways of documentation and continues in Ishimoto’s visual reinterpretation in 1983, mirroring a developing conversation of cultural exchange between Japanese tradition and the West.

New Form, New Material and Color Scheme, the Exposed Concrete Phenomenon—The Centennial Hall in Wrocław

The aim of the article is to present the remarkable changes in architecture that took place in the 20th century. They can easily be called a revolution regarding the architectural form and the color scheme. Progress was being made through the development of reinforced concrete production methods. In the German Empire (Deutsches Kaiserreich), this material quickly found applications in more and more interesting solutions in architectural structures. In Wrocław (formerly Breslau), then located in the eastern German Empire, exceptional architectural works were realized before and after the First World War using new technology. In 1913, an unusual building was erected—the Centennial Hall, designed by Max Berg (inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2006). Berg’s work was inspired by the works of both Hans Poelzig and Bruno Taut. On the one hand, it was a delight with the new material (the Upper Silesian Tower at the exhibition in Poznań, designed by H. Poelzig) and, on the other hand, with the colorful architecture of light and glass by B. Taut (a glass pavilion at the Werkbund exhibition in Cologne). Max Berg left the concrete in an almost “pure” form, not hiding the texture of the formwork under the plaster layer. However, stratigraphic studies of paint coatings and archival inquiries reveal a new face of this building. The research was carried out as part of the CMP (Conservation Management Plan—prepared by the authors of the article, among others) grant from The Getty Foundation Keeping It Modern program. According to the source materials, the architect intended to leave the exposed concrete outside of the building, while the interior was to be decorated with painting, stained glass, and sculpture. The stratigraphic tests showed that the external walls were covered with a translucent yellowish color coating. Thus, the Centennial Hall shows a different face of reinforced concrete architecture.

Japan and the West: An Architectural Dialogue

Japan and the West: An Architectural Dialogue

« On vit dans une utopie ; ce n’est juste pas la nôtre. » De More à Miéville : activisme, spatialité et métamorphose du registre utopique

Abstract: Since the 1960s, it is more common to encounter criticism rather than praise for utopian ideas. In 1964, while moderating a debate between Ernst Bloch et Theodor Adorno, Horst Krüger stated that « [today] the word ‘utopia’ does not have a good sound to it ». Twenty years later, art historian Robert Hughes goes even further by saying that the xxth century was full of utopian propositions: « drawn, designed, sometimes even built, and in the process it was shown that ideal cities don’t work […]. It seems that like plants we do need the shit of others for nutriments ». However, after decades of rejection, in the work of some writers like China Miéville this mode is being reborn, albeit in a modified form often called « radical fantasy ». Considered by some as the direct descendant of utopia, it similarly puts front and center the figure of the activist searching for progressive social justice and economic equality, but treats the future as an indeterminate and unpredictable topic. This article takes advantage of this apparent resurrection and interest, in order to attempt to decipher our seemingly secular obsession for this shape-shifting genre. Our investigation will briefly summon Michael Gazzaniga’s research in neurobiology, followed by the works of Francesca Polletta in the sociology of social movements field, in order to draw a direct relationship between the act of storytelling and the birth and rise of new collective actors. The critical theory of science-fiction, formulated by the croato-canadian researcher Darko Suvin will allow us to dig deeper into the inner mechanisms of utopia, and to show how this rhetoric device sometimes manages to persuade its audience that its dream-like imagery either is or it should be real. This theoretical framework will be accompanied by two case studies, two utopian examples dating to the beginning of the XXth century: on one hand we will delve into the belligerent manifest of futurist architecture — born in 1914 from F. T. Marinetti’s words and Antonio Sant’Elia’s lines — and on the other, into the vulnerable and pacifist glass worlds imagined by the expressionist writer Paul Scheerbart and architect Bruno Taut. By putting these historic works in parallel with Miéville’s contemporary novel The City & The City (2009) — a reference point in radical fantasy — we aim to unveil the continuities and discontinuities between our historic understanding of the utopian mode and this new contemporary form.

Utopia and Nostalgic Return

The term ‘traditional Japanese architecture’ often causes confusionbecause people want the architecture of a certain period to eithercontinue endlessly, or to be substituted by some kind of facsimile.This paper maintains that the roots of Japanese architecture continueand that these roots make themselves evident at times of upheavaland renewal.Japan consists of a number islands which have had periods ofisolation both internationally, and nationally from ‘political lockdown’within. And yet these periods of isolation have often produceda veritable zenith in the houses of what Bruno Taut called “thepeasants”, and the author has chosen to call ‘commoners (minka)’.One example this is the Japanese tea house, which came about at atime of heightened military dominance. Castles were the strongholdsof power complete with large rooms in which the rituals of statedemanded order by rank. Beside this show of power came the humbletea house, used for the simple tea ceremony, sometimes between as few as two people.
 The roots of this humble hut, if we can call itsuch, carried with it the same structural principles as the minka, orcommoner’s house. A non-loadbearing structure of post and lintelconstruction for the sole purpose of concentrating on “the sound ofboiling water”. Out of the dream of power came the need for humility.The warrior’s power lay in the control of space; the tea master’s in thecontrol of time. The architecture responds. The building is an event

In praise of light and shadows

The interaction of light and shadow has always fascinated architects, and even more so since Le Corbusier’s famous quote from 1923, published in Vers une Architecture, in which he describes architecture as “the learned game, correct and magnificent, of forms assembled in the light”. This game, which thus motivated the painters of Purism and Cubism – among whom Le Corbusier would come to be included – contributed in great part to the definition of the aesthetic ideals of the artistic avant-garde in the West in the first half of the 20th century. Associated with the purity of crystal, with the idea of total transparency, and with the blurring of the boundaries between the interior and the exterior, this very same game served as the conceptual premise of (and later as a critical challenge to) the architecture of the Modern Movement. The counterpoint to the purist and crystalline impetus of modernism would emerge, and indeed one of many, by way of “In Praise of Shadows”, a reference to the book written in 1933 by Junichiro Tanizaki. In this work, the author examines how Oriental culture (in contrast with Western culture) has always sought to shield the interior space from the invasion of light and from exterior views by use of trees, porches, patios, shutters, and translucent sliding doors or dividers (the Japanese shôji). It is not by accident that many of these traditional elements would once again come to be adopted by Western architecture from the late 1950s onward in its search for vernacular values deriving from a broad variety of cultures. Having studied in these seminal years of critical review of the Modern Movement and coinciding with the publication of the Survey on Regional Architecture in Portugal – (Inquérito à Arquitetura Popular em Portugal) (1955-1961), the young architect Álvaro Siza learned from Fernando Távora – his former teacher and mentor – to appreciate not only the effect of light on forms (Távora himself admitted to being an avid admirer of Le Corbusier), but also to stroll about the shadows in traditional habitats (Távora would gather important teachings from Japanese architecture during his grand tour in 1960 and filtering it through another great influence of his: Frank Lloyd Wright). These different “phantom-characters” would come to also occupy the imagination of the young Siza, and to them he added references to Alvar Aalto, Bruno Taut or Adolf Loos, at the moment of considering the relationship between the individual and the collective space, between the domestic and the monumental scale, between the window and the city. The photographic work of Mark Durden and João Leal focusing on Álvaro Siza’s work in Porto – now published by Scopio Newspaper – goes in search of not only this same game of shadows upon the target surfaces of the façades and the interiors of the buildings but also the multiplicity of transparencies and penumbras that unfold through their ample glazed windows. [...]

Strangers in a Strange Land: Bruno Taut and Charlotte Perriand as Design Consultants in Japan

Bruno Taut, the German architect and planner, and Charlotte Perriand, the French designer and architect, left their respective countries abruptly during the Nazi regime to work as design consultant...

Bruno Taut and the Changed Conception of Modernism on the Eve of World War II

Abstract Bruno Taut’s History, Language and Geography Faculty Building at Ankara University has received little attention in architectural history. As the work of an émigré architect, expelled from Germany in 1933, it is not only a product of Taut’s broader horizons through his experiences as an exile in Japan and Turkey, but also as a result of his confrontation with the modernization process under Atatürk’s new republic. Beyond this, Taut’s Faculty building issues a statement on the state of modern architecture in the late 1930s, where this type of public building was newly discussed in relation to different aspects of national representation, oscillating between dictatorship and democracy. This article explores the various facets that create this outstanding, unconventional and inventive building, as Taut’s major and enduring project during his later years, at the edge of classical modernism.

Mies: A Fighter for Film

<p>At the beginning of 1931, a short article entitled “Film fighter from the outside” appeared in the industry magazine Film-Kurier. In the introductory sentence, the author, who remains anonymous, asks: “How does Mies van der Rohe come to film? - Not a difficult question to answer: As a person who takes a stand on the spiritual things of the time, he naturally also addresses questions of film.” But the article neither explains what Mies’s involvement with film was, nor how the architect and then Bauhaus director became interested in film. And even today the assumption of an affinity between Mies and film is anything but self-explanatory. Neither the research on Mies, nor the field of research of ‘architecture and film’ covered by architecture theorists and film scholars has so far dealt in detail with the question of a possible relationship between Mies and the new visual medium. This shortcoming can be explained above all by the fact that his buildings, drawings and published writings do not contain any direct references to film. Although he apparently was a regular moviegoer, Mies built neither cinema theaters nor film sets. Nor did he take part in film productions or wrote movie scripts. This is exactly what many other representatives of the avant-garde did in the 1920s: Hans Poelzig and Robert Mallet-Stevens designed film sets, Bruno Taut integrated film projectors into some of his buildings, built innovative “daylight cinemas”, patented a vertical cinema for reclining viewers, and wrote screenplays; Le Corbusier used film as a propaganda tool to spread his architectural and urban planning ideas.</p>

Review: Colonialism and Modern Architecture in Germany, by Itohan Osayimwese

Itohan Osayimwese Colonialism and Modern Architecture in Germany Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017, 344 pp., 8 color and 74 b/w illus. $49.95 (cloth), ISBN 9780822945086 For a work of historical scholarship, Itohan Osayimwese's Colonialism and Modern Architecture in Germany has a surprisingly compelling opening. In the first sentences, the author stages a meeting in Berlin during the summer of 1913, where, gathered around a massive oak table, are “some of the men now considered to be the doyens of modern architecture in Germany”: Henry van de Velde, Hermann Muthesius, Bruno Taut, Walter Gropius, Hans Poelzig, Paul Schultze-Naumburg, and Dominikus Bohm, as well as some “lesser-known colleagues and proteges,” including Carl Rehorst, Adolf von Oechelhauser, Konrad Wachsmann, and—the lone woman in the group—Margarete Knuppelholz-Roeser (3). On the agenda is a discussion of “the status of architecture in the German colonies,” which leads to a conversation about ideas and language that, as Osayimwese suggests, “are familiar to readers today,” on topics such as the excessively ornamented “style architecture” in the protectorate of Kiaochow, the lack of objectivity in the floor plan of “ ‘parvenu’ villas” in the city of Qingdao, and the certain success of developing standard housing types and prefabricated houses in Dar es Salaam. Perhaps, Osayimwese imagines the group murmuring, “there is something to be learned from Germany's costly colonial adventure after all” (3). The meeting did take place, but not as described above. As the author notes, her depiction of the event is “fictitious in its finer details” (4). Most of those mentioned were not even present. Through this mise-en-scene, Osayimwese in one elegant stroke introduces the main protagonists in her book as well as the central theme that pervades her narrative, namely, “how colonial encounters and imperial entanglements affected architectural developments within Germany itself” (5). Not coincidentally, the meeting is staged in Berlin and not in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), Douala (Cameroon), Windhoek (Namibia), or Qingdao (China). The book then can be understood, …

West of Japan/East of Europe: Translating Architectural Legacies and the Case of Bruno Taut\u2019s Hyuga Villa

Based on communications presented at the international symposium ‘West of Japan/East of Europe’, hosted by the Department of Architecture at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in concomitance with the exhibition ‘Bruno Taut’s Hyuga Villa in Atami, Japan’, this text discusses the question of cultural translation in architecture departing from the example of Hyuga Villa, realised by Taut in 1936. Despite the inherently immobile status of architecture, architectural ideas travel widely, as well as their conceivers, the architects. The cultural passage implicit to translation is never flawless, though. Hyuga Villa offers a good case in point, since it was conceived by an architect who had only a partial grasp of local culture and who tried to integrate elements of both Western and Japanese design. But what are the implications of ‘translating’ architecture? Can we translate not only words but also images, details, building conventions, even aesthetic sensitivities? And is everything translatable? Applied to an artifact recognised today as an important testimony to the encounter between Western and Eastern design cultures, these questions relate to issues that are central to the debate on both architectural history and built heritage, proposing an alternative approach in terms of method and scope.

From Empire to Republic: Continuities of Ottoman Imperial Socio-spatial Practices in the Modern Capital of the Early Turkish Republic

The nationalizing narratives of the Turkish state framed the construction of the new nation as a revolution and as a deliberate break from the socio-political practices of the theocratic and multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire. However, the positioning of the schools in the urban landscape and their spatial organization continued the socio-spacial role of the Ottoman sultans' mosques. An analysis of school buildings designed by the German émigré architect, Bruno Taut, in the nation's new capital adds new insights to the existing scholarship on the continuities from empire to republic, further complicating the foundation myths of the nation.

Paul Scheerbart’s Kaleidoscopic Fantasies

The work of the German polymath Paul Scheerbart is attracting a renewed attention in recent years. During his prolific career, his unconventional fiction, art and poetry influenced a range of intellects, from architect Bruno Taut to Walter Benjamin, who even quoted his ideas on glass in his Arcades Project. Scheerbart wrote dozens of outer-space novels and utopian stories, plus articles and reviews, always about things like glass architecture, perfect outer-worlds and realities, reflecting extreme dreams, ambitions and fears. In this essay I will revisit Scheerbart’s various writings with an emphasis on the book Glass Architecture (1972) and the novel The Gray Cloth and Ten Percent White: A Ladies’ Novel (2001), in order to understand the metaphor of glass and colour that shaped the fantastic dimension of his work while, at the same time, reveal a myriad of ambivalent, and often opposed, meanings.

ブルーノ・タウトの工芸活動(15) : 工芸指導所での1933年12月11日付2通の文書について

ブルーノ・タウトの工芸活動(15) : 工芸指導所での1933年12月11日付2通の文書について

ブルーノ・タウト(Bruno Taut)の作品と建築設備の変遷

ブルーノ・タウト(Bruno Taut)の作品と建築設備の変遷

ブルーノ・タウトの商工省工芸指導所への提言書 : 10編の原典の検討

ブルーノ・タウトの商工省工芸指導所への提言書 : 10編の原典の検討

大正・昭和前期の農村工芸奨励 : 農商務省農村副業奨励,初期工芸指導所,高崎におけるブルーノ・タウトの活動解析を通して

大正・昭和前期の農村工芸奨励 : 農商務省農村副業奨励,初期工芸指導所,高崎におけるブルーノ・タウトの活動解析を通して

ブルーノ・タウトの1934年3月5日付文書の翻訳と検討 : 「仙台の工芸指導所のための私のこれまでの仕事に関する報告」について

ブルーノ・タウトの1934年3月5日付文書の翻訳と検討 : 「仙台の工芸指導所のための私のこれまでの仕事に関する報告」について

ブルーノ・タウトの商工省工芸指導所のための優良工芸品の選定 : 出張先京都からの2通の手紙の翻訳を通しての検討

ブルーノ・タウトの商工省工芸指導所のための優良工芸品の選定 : 出張先京都からの2通の手紙の翻訳を通しての検討