Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer, 1920–1922

Sommerfeld House, Berlin

Sommerfeld House in Berlin was built for the Plastische Werkstatt
/ Plastik
industrialist Adolf Sommerfeld during the early,
expressionistic phase of the Bauhaus and is regarded
as its first collective project. Almost all of the
workshops of the Bauhaus Weimar were involved in
making the interior fittings and fixtures.

Sommerfeld House, Berlin, entrance, architecture: Walter Gropius and Adolf

Meyer, 1920–1922 / photo: Carl Rogge. Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin / © VG Bild-
Kunst, Bonn 2017.
In 1920 Adolf Sommerfeld, a Berlin-based building entrepreneur specialising
in timber structures, commissioned the architects Walter Gropius and Adolf
Meyer to design his private residence. Shortly before, Sommerfeld had
bought a large plot of land in the south of Berlin, where, in addition to
Sommerfeld House, four detached houses for employees were built. A large
o ce building was also planned, but never realised.

The plans for Sommerfeld House were drawn up in Gropius and Meyer’s
private o ce, in which Gropius continued to practice during his time as
director of the Bauhaus. As such, the students at the Bauhaus were able to
collaborate, in the form of commissions, on a range of construction projects.
The first collective project on a larger scale was Sommerfeld House. Here,
the vision formulated in the Bauhaus Manifesto of the unity of all arts in the
building, was realised for the first time. The laying of the foundation stone
and, later, the topping-out ceremony, were thus celebrated accordingly.

The family home was constructed using a “block house” building method
recently developed by Sommerfeld’s own construction company, Adolf
Sommerfeld Bauausführungen. Numerous Bauhaus students were involved
in making the interior furnishings and fittings: Joost Schmidt created
complex wooden carvings in the entrance hall, in the staircase and on the
ends of the timber joists. Josef Albers designed a large stained glass
window for the staircase. The furniture was designed by Marcel Breuer,
Gropius himself, and Adolf Meyer. Light fixtures, rugs, wall hangings, murals
and even covers for the radiators, which were fitted in the house even in
those early days, were also made by Bauhauslers.

The only remaining part of the residence of the timber builder and early
advocate of the Bauhaus, Adolf Sommerfeld, is the house built for the
chau eur, based on plans by Fréd Forbát. Sommerfeld House itself was
completely destroyed in the Second World War.

Literature:

Nerdinger, Winfried (1985): Der Architekt Walter Gropius, Berlin/Cambridge.

Kress, Celina (2011): Adolf Sommerfeld/Andrew Sommerfield: Bauen für

Berlin 1910–1970, Berlin.

Droste, Magdalena (1993): Bauhaus 1919–1933, Berlin.

Bergdoll, Barry/Dickerman, Leah (2009): Bauhaus 1919–1933. Workshops

for Modernity, New York.

[NO 2017, Translations: RW]