German Postwar Modern

Looking at Paul Schneider-Esleben’s architecture is like looking at the history of postwar architecture in Germany en miniature: PSE, as he was known among colleagues and employees, very attentively...

German Postwar Modern

Autocratic power and architecture throughout history have formed a number of unholy alliances in which architects often played an opportunistic role. One such example was Franz Roeckle (1879-1953),...

German Postwar Modern

The German architect Paul Stohrer (1909-75) was a real bon vivant: with his gullwinged Mercedes 300SL, expensive suits and a butler serving drinks in his luxury apartment he was the talk of the town...

German Postwar Modern

While many accounts of Louis Kahn’s undoubtedly epochal work focus on his large-scale projects it is also his houses that reveal a lot about the master: how he engaged with and interpreted modernism...

German Postwar Modern

At the very end of his life the circle closed for Erich Mendelsohn: his first and very last buildings were of religious nature, commissioned by Jewish communities in what was then East Prussia and the...

German Postwar Modern

Corporate architecture can be a double-sided medal of great quality or mediocrity, a source of inspiration or pure boredom. The Swiss architect Roland Rohn (1905-71) throughout his entire career...

German Post-War Modern

The notion of a building being a total work of art is a recurring topic in modern architecture, especially during its heroic period. Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe and many others filled their...

German Post-War Modern

The Second Vatican Council between 1962 and 1965 thoroughly liberated church architecture and enabled architects to experiment with forms and layouts. Innovative church designs were developed all over...

German Post-War Modern

The example of Mies van der Rohe’s architecture has had countless followers, some of them developing further his approach, some badly and superficially imitating his style. In 1938 Mies was appointed...

German Post-War Modern

In most surveys of 20th century design Gerrit Rietveld solely appears through his Red and Blue Chair, the painted version of a design originally conceived around 1918. Naturally there is more to...

German Post-War Modern

As the first recipient of the Pritzker Prize from a Nordic country Sverre Fehn (1924-2009) arguably was the most important architect of his generation in Scandinavia. In 1950 Fehn together with Arne...

German Post-War Modern

Despite his untimely death at the age of only 49 the German architect Carsten Schröck (1923-73) left a remarkably rich and complex oeuvre. Out of and in the city of Bremen he realized most inventive...

German Post-War Modern

It is both meritorious and tragic that Detlef Mertins spent the decade before his untimely death in 2011 with writing the present monograph: „Mies“, published in 2014 by Phaidon. Countless books have...

Finding a Lavender Thread Even in Catherine Opie’s Landscapes

A queer outlook suffuses the photographer’s wide-ranging works, from streetscapes and still lifes to Elizabeth Taylor’s closet.