EXPRESSIONISM

•A movement of revolt in art, literature and music

• Style depicted in painting, architecture, music, drama etc. that expresses the
creator’s (painters, architects, musicians or writer) inner emotional
feelings/experiences rather than in a realistic form.

•The term expressionism was first used in the early 20th century of painter’s who used
violent colour and linear distortions.

•A movement that strives to expressive subjective feelings and emotions rather than
to depict reality or nature objectively in literature, art and music.

•The subject is frequently caricatured, exaggerated, distorted or otherwise altered in

order to stress the emotional experience in its most intense and concentrated form

•In the late 19th and early 20th century the Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh, the French
artist Paul Gauguin and Norwegian painter Edward Munch used violent colours and
exaggerated lines to obtain intense emotional expression.

•Expressionism had become an international movement during the beginning of the

20th century
EXPRESSIONIST PAINTER: EDVARD MUNCH (1863-1944)

•Paintings and graphics based on personal grief and obsessions were

instrumental in the development of expressionism

•His work was based on the assumption that painting could sacrifice truth to
nature for expressive purpose

•He used harsh combinations of colours, distorted

forms and exaggerated perspectives

•Munch’s expressive and anguished works

profoundly influenced the development of
German expressionism

•The best know of all Munich’s work is “The

Scream” (1893)

•In “the dance of life”, a poem of life, love and

death is depicted
The Scream The dance of life
EXPRESSIONIST ARCHITECT: BRUNO TAUT(1880-1938)

•Born in Konigsberg, Prussia.

•Influenced by poet Paul Scheerbart for expressionist ideas

GLASS HOUSE
•Significant expressionist work by Taut

•Opened at the Cologne Werkbund

exhibition, May 1914.

•It explored the possibilities of fantasy

colored glass architecture.

•The 14 sided prismatic dome of the

Glass Pavilion familiar from black and
white reproduction, was a brightly
colored landmark
•The dome is set on a concrete plinth decorated
with mosaic and a cascading waterfall.
Glass House
EXPRESSIONIST ARCHITECT: ERICH MENDELSOHN

•Born in 1887, East Prussia.

•When he opened his architectural practice in Berlin in 1919 after

military service in World War I, he was an expressionist.

•Mendelsohn’s Einstein Tower (1920-1924, Potsdam, Germany) housed a domed

observatory atop a rounded, free-form tower. Its surging sculptural forms and varied
volumes demonstrated the newly expressive possibilities of concrete, which in this case
hid a conventional brick structure underneath.
Einstein Tower,
Potsdam (1919-21)
SCHOCKEN DEPT. STORE, STUTTGART (1926-28) MOSSEHAUS-BERLIN (1923)

• Mossehaus considered to be the first building designed in - popularized in the U.S.

by Neutra - streamline style. In fact - 10 years earlier Hans Poeltzig built a
department store in Wrocław, which is almost pure example of the streamline
SCHOCKEN-CHMMITZ (1928)
PETER BHEREN (1898-1940)

• Born in Hamburg Germany

• One of the most influential 20th-century German designers.

• At the beginning of the century, he brought forth outstanding works in

painting, architecture, graphic design and industrial design,

Aeg Turbine Factory (1908-1969): The First Expressionist Attitude-monumentality

 MAX BERG (1870-1947)

• Architect of the “German Expressionist school,” noted for the huge reinforced
concrete dome , (Centenary Hall; 1912–13) at Breslau (now Wrolaw, Pol.).

• It is an early landmark of reinforced concrete architecture, and was listed as a

UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2006
 Centenary Hall, Breslau 1913 (interior)

• Its reinforced concrete structure was simultaneously daring and

conservative; daring in its unprecedented span of 225 feet and
conservative in that the extraordinary structure was largely masked on
the exterior by the stepped tiers of its clerestory fenestration.
HANS POELZIG (1869-1936, Berlin
Germany)

• A distinctive architect, Poelzig

designed several projects in an
unique, expressionistic mode.

• At the end of the First World War he

became closely associated with the
general artistic movement of
Expressionism.

• Active as the vice president of the

German Werkbund in post-war
Germany, he contributed both
residential and commercial projects
to Germany's reconstruction efforts
after 1923.

• He designed the 51.2 m tall Upper

Silesia Tower in Posen
(today Poznań) for an industrial fair
in 1911. It later became a water Water Tower, Posen
tower.
 • Hans Poelzig is considered to be the
creator of first expressionist buildings
in Europe.

Department store in Wrocław Chemical Factory, Luban, Germany (now Poland),

1911.
GROSSES SCHAUPIELHAUS, 1919
INTERIOR TRANSFORMED BY SCULPTURAL HANGING ACOUSTCAL DECORATIONS
 RUDOLF STEINER (1861-1925)
•In the years 1913-1919 Steiner designed and built theater
building for anthroposophic company - Goetheanum, which
burned down in 1922 to 1923.

•Goetheanum- I was timber clad, had timber domes and

concrete podium

•Between 1924 to 1928 in Dornach, Switzerland, Steiner has

built the so-called Second Goetheanum.
GOETHEANUM-II
•Largest raw concrete building

•Amazing technical achievement

+aesthetic curiosities
 FRITZ HOEGER

• He is considered one of the leading

representatives of the North German Brick
Expressionism

The Chilehaus building (1922 – 1924)

Chile House, Shipping Headquaters, Hamburg, Germany
8. EERO SAARINEN

TWA, JFK INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, NEW YORK, USA (1961)

Free-flowing curves suggest flight
HANS SCHAROUN Later period of
expressionism

PHILHARMONIC Concert hall

(1963) Berlin
HERMANN FINSTERLIN (1887-1973)

• Painter, poet, essayist,

toymaker and composer.
HOUSE OF GLASS (1928)
Thank you…….