The City Crown by Bruno Taut

The City Crown by Bruno Taut
Ashgate Studies in Architecture Series

series editor: eamonn canniffe, manchester school of architecture,
manchester metropolitan university, uk
The discipline of Architecture is undergoing subtle transformation as design

awareness permeates our visually dominated culture. Technological change, the
search for sustainability and debates around the value of place and meaning
of the architectural gesture are aspects which will affect the cities we inhabit.
This series seeks to address such topics, both theoretically and in practice,
through the publication of high quality original research, written and visual.
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Stefano Corbo
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Kay Bea Jones
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The Architecture of Industry

Changing Paradigms in Industrial Building and Planning
Edited by Mathew Aitchison
ISBN 978 1 4724 3299 5
Architecture in an Age of Uncertainty

Edited by Benjamin Flowers
ISBN 978 1 4094 4575 3
Charles Robert Cockerell, Architect in Time

Reflections around Anachronistic Drawings
Anne Bordeleau
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in Islamic and Western Traditions
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ISBN 978 1 4724 3868 3
Phenomenologies of the City

Studies in the History and Philosophy of Architecture
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The City Crown by Bruno Taut
Translated and Edited by

Matthew Mindrup
The University of Sydney, Australia
and
Ulrike Altenmüller-Lewis
Drexel University, USA
© Matthew Mindrup and Ulrike Altenmüller-Lewis 2015
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Matthew Mindrup and Ulrike Altenmüller-Lewis have asserted their right under the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work.
Published by
Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company
Wey Court East 110 Cherry Street
Union Road Suite 3-1
Farnham Burlington, VT 05401-3818
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www.ashgate.com
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The city crown by Bruno Taut / [translated and edited] by Matthew Mindrup and Ulrike
Altenmüller-Lewis.
pages cm. -- (Ashgate studies in architecture)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4724-2199-9 (hbk) -- ISBN 978-1-4724-2200-2 (ebook) --
ISBN 978-1-4724-2201-9 (epub) 1. City planning--History. I. Taut, Bruno, 1880-1938.
II. Baron, Erich. III. Behne, Adolf, 1885-1948. IV. Scheerbart, Paul, 1863-1915. V.
Mindrup, Matthew. editor. VI. Altenmüller-Lewis, Ulrike, 1971- editor. VII. Taut, Bruno,
1880-1938. Stadtkrone. English.
NA9090.C58 2015
711’.4--dc23
2015002219
ISBN 9781472421999 (hbk)

ISBN 9781472422002 (ebk – PDF)
ISBN 9781472422019 (ebk – ePUB)
Printed in the United Kingdom by Henry Ling Limited,

at the Dorset Press, Dorchester, DT1 1HD
Contents
List of illustrations vii

Translators’ Preface xi
Acknowledgements xiii
Introduction: Advancing the Reverie of Utopia 1

Title Page
Dedication
1 The New Life: An Architectonic Apocalypse 35

Paul Scheerbart
2 40 Examples: Historic City Crowns 41
3 The City Crown 73

Architecture 74
The Old City 76
The Chaos 77
The New City 78
Body Without a Head 79
Raise a Flag 82
The City Crown 86
Economic Costs for The City Crown 98
4 Epilogue: Recent Attempts at Crowning Cities 101

Bruno Taut
5 Aufbau 115
erich Baron
vi The City Crown by Bruno Taut
6 Rebirth of Architecture 125

Adolf Behne
7 The Dead Palace: An Architect’s Dream 141

Paul Scheerbart
Sources 143
List of Figures 145
Contents 147

Afterword: The City Crown in the Context of Bruno Taut’s Oeuvre 149
Index 177
List of Illustrations
Black and White Illustrations Figure 6 Durham.
1.1 Ebenezer Howard, “Garden City,” Image Figure 7 Adrianople, Selim Mosque.
no. 2 of Howard, To-morrow: A Peaceful Path
to real reform, 1898. © Town & Country Figure 8 Augsburg, St Ulrich Church.
Planning Association.
Figure 9 Utrecht.
1.2 Bruno Taut, Stadtschema (City
Diagram), in Die Stadtkrone, 1917. Figure 10 Assyrian Temple, reconstruction.
1.3 Bruno Taut, Das Glashaus (The Glashaus) Figure 11 Madurai, Great Gopura.
at the 1914 Kölner werkbund–Ausstellung
Figure 12 Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem,
(1914 Cologne Werkbund Exhibition), 1914.
reconstruction.
1.4 Bruno Taut, haus Der Freundschaft
Figure 13 Cologne.
in Konstantinople (House of Friendship in
Constantinople), 1916. Figure 14 London.
1.5 Bruno Taut, Das Kristallhaus (The Figure 15 Selinunt, reconstruction.
Crystal Building), Sheet 3 of Bruno Taut,
Alpine Architecture, 1917. Figure 16 Athens.
Original Illustrations Figure 17 Yangon, Shwedagon Pagoda.
Figure 1 St Barbara by Jan van Eyck. Figure 18 Salamanca.
Figure 2 Charles Cottet, City Image. Figure 19 Yangon.
Figure 3 Mont-Saint-Michel. Figure 20 Buarcos.
Figure 4 Strasbourg. Figure 21 Tzaffin.
Figure 5 Monte Compatri. Figure 22 Prenzlau.

viii The City Crown by Bruno Taut
Figure 23 Angkor Wat. Figure 48 City crown, plan and elevation.
Figure 24 Cairo. Figure 49 City crown, perspectival view.
Figure 25 Hebron in Palestine. Figure 50 Garden City Estate Falkenberg
near Berlin.
Figure 26 Moscow. Great Cathedral in the
Kremlin. Figure 51 Street views from Falkenberg.
Figure 27 Moscow with the Kremlin. Figure 52 Design of a votive church by
Schinkel.
Figure 28 La Chaise-Dieu.
Figure 53 Design for a monument of
Figure 29 Béziers. Friedrich the Great on the Leipziger Platz in
Berlin by Gilly.
Figure 30 Strängnäs.
Figure 54 Karlsruhe, city plan.
Figure 31 Pisa, Piazza del Duomo.
Figure 55 Temple of Confucius in Qufu.
Figure 32 Danzig.
Figure 56 Plan diagram from Howard.
Figure 33 Aden.
Figure 57 City center of Letchworth
Figure 34 Srivilliputtur.
Figure 58 Plan of the city of Qufu.
Figure 35 Miao tai tae, Memorial Temple.
Figure 59 Augsburg, Elias Hollplatz.
Figure 36 Paris. Figure 60 Municipal building for New York.
Figure 37 Speyer. Figure 61 New York, city skyline.
Figure 38 Mainz. Figure 62 XXII District in Vienna.
Figure 39 Toledo. Figure 63 Project for Klein-Hoheim.
Figure 40 Bangkok. Figure 64 Plan for an Australian capital city.
Figure 41 Chidambaram, Shiva-Pond. Figure 65 Project for an International

World Center.
Figure 42 City crown, east elevation.
Figure 66 Ministry of Foreign Affairs in
Figure 43 City crown, west elevation. Berlin.
Figure 44 City crown, bird’s eye view Figure 67 Palace of Justice in Brussels.
looking west.
Figure 68 The Capitol in Washington.
Figure 45 City skyline.
Figure 69 Design of a Monument for the
Figure 46 City plan diagram. People by Berlage.
Figure 47 City crown, image. Figure 70 Cathedral in Rouen.

List of Illustrations ix
Figure 71 Palitana, the Great Temple 8 Bruno Taut, Waldsiedlung Onkel Toms
Chamukte. Hütte, Berlin-Zehlendorf, 1926–31. Single
family row houses, north of Argentinische
Figure 72 The Great Pagoda of Udaipur. Allee. Illustrating the results of the color
analysis. Photo of drawing: Helge Pitz,
Colour Plates
Architekturwerkstatt Helge Pitz – Winfried
1 Bruno Taut, Wohnstadt Carl Legien, Brenne, 1976/1977.
Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg, 1928–30. Loggias
at housing block. Photo: Laura J. Padgett, 9 Bruno Taut, Waldsiedlung Onkel Toms
January 2009. Hütte, Berlin-Zehlendorf, 1926–31. Yard at
Birkenhof. Landscape reminiscent of Taut’s
2 Bruno Taut, Wohnstadt Carl Legien, Berlin- early pastel drawings from nature. Photo:
Prenzlauer Berg, 1928–30. Housing block Laura J. Padgett, September 2008.
Sültstraße. Photo: Laura J. Padgett, April 2009.
10 Bruno Taut, Waldsiedlung Onkel Toms
3 Bruno Taut, Wohnstadt Carl Legien, Hütte, Berlin-Zehlendorf, 1926–31. Photo:
Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg, 1928–30. Housing Laura J. Padgett, September 2008.
block Sültstraße. Courtyard elevation and
corner balconies. Photo: Laura J. Padgett, 11 Bruno Taut, Waldsiedlung Onkel
January 2009. Toms Hütte, Berlin-Zehlendorf, 1926–31.
Apartment building Waldhüterpfad. View
4 Bruno Taut, Wohnstadt Carl Legien, from stairhall. Photo: Laura J. Padgett,
Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg, 1928–30. Housing September 2008.
block Sültstraße. Courtyard elevation.
Photo: Laura J. Padgett, January 2009. 12 Bruno Taut, Waldsiedlung Onkel Toms
Hütte, Berlin-Zehlendorf, 1926–31. Corner
5 Bruno Taut, Wohnstadt Carl Legien,
Hochsitzweg and Hochwildpfad. Photo:
Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg, 1928–30. Housing
Laura J. Padgett, September 2008.
block Sültstraße. Staircase. Photo: Laura J.
Padgett, April 2009.
Hütte, Berlin-Zehlendorf, 1926–31. Am
6 Single family row houses, north of
Wiesenblau. Garden facades. Photo: Laura J.
Argentinische Allee. Reconstruction of the
color plan by Bruno Taut illustrating results Padgett, September 2009.
of the color analysis. Photo of drawing:
Helge Pitz, Architekturwerkstatt Helge Pitz –
Winfried Brenne, 1976/1977. Hütte, Berlin-Zehlendorf, 1926–31. Photo:
Laura J. Padgett, September 2008.
Hütte, Berlin-Zehlendorf, 1926–31. Single 15 Rudolf Steiner, Goetheanum, Dornach,
family row houses, north of Argentinische Switzerland. Built in poured concrete from
Allee. Terraces with glass roof along the 1925–8. Photo: Mark Brack, 1989.
garden façade. Illustrating results of the
color analysis. Photo of drawing: Helge Pitz, 16 James Turrell, “Twilight Epiphany”
Architekturwerkstatt Helge Pitz – Winfried skyspace at Rice University, Houston, Texas,
Brenne, 1976/1977. 2012. Photo: Florian Holzherr, 2012.
This page has been left blank intentionally
Translators’ Preface
Translations of historical texts are by their very nature always a balancing act
between historical accuracy, linguistic beauty and an interpretation of the author’s
original intent. The works included in this book are certainly no exception. Written
under the influence of the First World War, the texts included in Die Stadtkrone
represent the hopes and longings of three individuals, Eric Baron, Adolf Behne
and Bruno Taut, for a new utopian society made possible by architecture. In three
different voices and three different approaches, Baron, Behne and Taut reason for
the viability of creating a new garden city where people can live and work in peace
and community underneath the shadow of a single, purpose-free glass structure,
a city crown. Shortly after the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II on November 9, 1918,
the First World War came to an end and a handful of artists and architects joined
Taut in forming the Arbeitsrat für Kunst (Working Council for Art) to work with the
new socialist government to help forge the cultural politics of the new country. Die
Stadtkrone was, for Taut as well as for his friends in the Arbeitsrat für Kunst, Adolf
Behne and Walter Gropius, used as a starting point for developing the goals of their
new council. Later it was a guideline for Taut’s “Ein Architektur-Programm” (“An
Architecture Programme”) from Christmas of the same year and Gropius’ Bauhaus
Manifesto of April 1919. So it is surprising that after its publication in 1919, such an
important work in the development of modern architecture, urban planning and
architectural education has never been translated into English.
Taut is still considered one of the most influential architects of the modern
movement and his writings had an undeniable impact on the early twentieth-
century architectural culture. For English-speaking audiences, Taut’s Die Stadtkrone
is a staple of any discussion surrounding the garden city movement, utopianism,
Expressionist or early modern architectural history – all the more reason for our
surprise that the anthology had yet to be translated into English. There have
been fragments of the anthology’s different texts translated in the literature on
Taut and early modern architectural history but never a complete rendition of
the anthology’s arguments in their entirety. It was only in 2009 that the Journal of
xii The City Crown by Bruno Taut
Architectural Education solicited us to produce the first English translation of Taut’s

title essay, “The City Crown.”
Translations not only require a fluency in the original and translated languages
but also a deep knowledge of the context in time – in the case of Die Stadtkrone, this
includes the historical, cultural, social and political background in which the authors
conceived their texts and in which today’s audience will read it. As historical texts,
which usually come with antiquated phrasing and expressions that are no longer in
active use, the challenge of this translation was to find appropriate English words
and syntax that, while accurately describing the context of the German, also mirror
the idiosyncrasy of each author’s voice and field of study. When confronted by
difficult or unclear phrasing, we made every effort to retain the voice and the intent
of the author, adding footnotes to justify our interpretation of the text. Similarly,
we sought to add important references to clarify an author’s citation of a work or
concept that was either ambiguous or, at times, inaccurate.
The texts and images in this translation are organized to retain the original
format of the book – a composition of layers intended to guide the reader to
understand the efficacy of his city crown proposal. At the outermost layer of the
facsimile, the reader encounters two poems from Paul Scheerbart: at the beginning
is the poem “Das neue Leben” (“The New Life”) and the end with the short poem
“Der tote Palast” (“The Dead Palace”). After having set the poetic tone of the volume
with these works, Taut includes 40 examples of historical city crowns to prepare the
reader for the subject matter and argue for the necessity of his urban scheme. His
title essay then references these images to justify the need for a new city crown that
he includes in his urban scheme, a completely conceived garden city accompanied
by drawings and images. Immediately following an explanation of the costs, Taut’s
section “Neuer Versuch zu Stadtbekrönungen” seeks to substantiate its validity in
contemporary architectural practice with additional examples of contemporary city
crowns. Under the title “Aufbau”, Eric Baron’s essay then encourages the edification
of socialism after the end of the First World War through art and architecture.
Adolf Behne concludes by elaborating on Baron’s concept by tracing the decline
of art since the Gothic and prophesizes a “Wiederkehr der Baukunst” (“Rebirth of
Architecture”) through the cooperation of the arts under architecture.
Surrounding the facsimile format, we have added an introduction entitled
“Advancing the Reverie of Utopia,” which critically examines the professional
and intellectual developments leading to and underpinning Taut’s proposal to
advance the English garden city concept with a centralized communal structure
of glass, a city crown. The afterword, “The City Crown in the Context of Bruno Taut’s
oeuvre,” sets Taut’s Die Stadtkrone in the context of his overall oeuvre, reviewing
the reception of the book at the time of its publication and the impact it had both
outside of Taut’s work and for his own career. As a work, we hope this first English
translation of Taut’s seminal anthology will become a critical text in architectural
studies on the history of European Modernism, urban design theory and Taut’s
oeuvre in general.
Acknowledgements
This English translation of Bruno Taut’s Die Stadtkrone is a work that has been many
years in the making. We would like to thank first of all George Dodds, who expressed
interest in this project as chief editor of Journal of Architectural education in 2006
and commissioned our translation of Taut’s title chapter. It was Dodds’ enthusiasm
that gave us the impetus to approach Ashgate Publishing in 2012 for their support
to complete a translation of the entire book.
In preparing this translation, we enjoyed the support of many people. Special
thanks must go to Franziska Zürcher-Mindrup, who selflessly gave of her assistance
turning the sometimes ambiguous imaginings of Die Stadtkrone’s four authors
into something reasonably comprehensible in English. It was because of her early
assistance that we were able to see the project in its entirety as a viable endeavor.
We are also especially grateful to Mark Brack, who provided us with many hours of
insightful suggestions how to phrase and re-phrase parts of the texts that were at
times barely comprehensible in the original German. For this, we would also like
to thank Tony Flynn, Frank Trommler, David Raizman, Jon Coddington and Ross
Anderson for their candid remarks on the translations and encouragement to re-
appraise the legibility of critical points on the texts. Discussions with them allowed
us to further gauge questions of context and interpretation.
We owe a debt to Ufuk Ersoy for providing critical insight into the introductory
chapter “Advancing the Reverie of Utopia.” Many thanks also to Paul Emmons, Marcia
Feuerstein, Ellen Sullivan and Barbara Klinkhammer, who in early conversations
inspired the idea for the “Afterword: The City Crown in the Context of Bruno Taut’s
Oeuvre.” Careful reading and suggestions provided by Rosemarie H. Bletter and
Manfred Speidel were greatly appreciated and helped us to finalize this book.
At Ashgate, we must extend our most sincere gratitude to Valerie Rose, who
enthusiastically supported this project from the very beginning. We would also like
to thank Charlotte Edwards and our production editor Adam Guppy, as well as our
proofreader Jon Lloyd. We are grateful for their patience and help throughout this
process.
xiv The City Crown by Bruno Taut
Lastly, we would like to extend a special thanks to both our families who – in
their unique ways – sacrificed much of their own time and energy to make this project
possible.
Introduction: Advancing the Reverie of Utopia
Matthew Mindrup
Let us build a tower whose summit will touch the skies – Those who conceived the
idea of this tower could not have built it themselves, so they hired thousands of
others to build it for them. But these toilers knew nothing of the dream of those
who planned the tower. While those who conceived the tower did not concern
themselves with the workers who built it. The hymns of praise of the few became
the curses of the many. BABEL! BABEL! BABEL!—Between the brain that plans and
the hands that build, there must be a Mediator.1
Maria (Character) in Metropolis, 1927
On August 28, 1917, the German architect Bruno Taut sent the completed draft
of his anthology Die Stadtkrone (The City Crown) to the Diederichs Verlag in Berlin,
Germany.2 Published shortly after the end of the First World War, the leaflet
announcing its publication described Die Stadtkrone as the “Darstellung eine
Gestaltung, eine Form, ein Ideal” (representation of a design, a form, an ideal) to
stimulate the common work of mankind towards the creation of a single structure,
a crown “über dem leeren Chaos der Städte” (over the empty chaos of the city).3
The character of Maria in Fritz Lang’s 1927 utopian drama Metropolis ascribes a
similar role to the “Mediator,” who she believes will unite the different classes in
constructing a Tower of Babel. In Lang’s film, the inhabitants of a large industrial
city are separated into two classes: wealthy residents, who live a carefree life in
artificial pleasure gardens abounding with flowers, fountains and exotic birds,
and a subterranean working class, living beneath the city in poor conditions and
making the entire paradise above possible. By exaggerating the polarization of
the two classes, Lang sought to expose the social and urban problems that had
emerged since the Industrial Revolution in Europe and Germany in particular.4 It
was because of his own experiences with civic disorder in German cities that Taut
had the inspiration to develop Die Stadtkrone.
Born in 1880, Taut grew up in the Gründerzeit (founding time), a period of rapid
industrial and economic development following the unification of Germany in
1871. As technical developments in farming had reduced the need for people to
2 The City Crown by Bruno Taut
1.1 Ebenezer work in agriculture, the mass immigration of labor from the countryside to the
Howard, “Garden cities (known as the “Landflucht”) caused the populations of large German cities
City,” Image no. 2 to dramatically increase in size between 1871 and 1901.5 Miles of speculative
of Howard,
apartments were built to house the lower classes in what came to be known as
To-morrow: A
Peaceful Path Mietskasernen (rental barracks) grouped around multiple courtyards in deep, poorly
to Real Reform, lit city blocks.6 Here entire families lived in tiny, poorly ventilated rooms without
1898. © Town & indoor plumbing to work long shifts in the factories. Meanwhile, the middle and
Country Planning upper classes lived in well-lit, respectable, generously proportioned apartment
Association.
buildings recalling the personification of the classes in Lang’s Metropolis. In the
decade before Lang began filming Metropolis in 1925, Taut belonged to a small
group of artists, architects and sociologists who vigorously challenged the value of
the city as a congested, fast-paced industrial organism. One of the most important
urban proposals of the Industrial Revolution read closely by Taut and his colleagues
emerged from the English parliamentary shorthand writer Ebenezer Howard.7
Disappointed with the quality of contemporary urban life, Howard proposed
a model by which people could access the employment opportunities offered by
cities and still enjoy a healthy quality of life in proximity to nature. In a small book
from 1898 entitled To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform, Howard proposed the
creation of new suburban towns that were of a limited size, planned in advance and
surrounded by a permanent belt of agricultural land (Figure 1.1).8 In his proposal,
Howard reasoned that his new towns would be free of slums and that their
inhabitants could enjoy the benefits of social opportunities, places of amusement,
chances of employment and higher wages associated with living in a town and
access to the beauty of nature, fresh air and low rents found in the countryside.9
To argue his point, Howard created his famous (and remarkably simplistic) Three
Magnets diagram to illustrate his solution to the question carefully placed in its
center: “Where will the people go?” In the diagram, a magnet is superimposed on
three types of living environments, including “Town,” “Country” or “Town-Country”
and their respective characteristics. With individuals represented as needles,
Howard reasoned that “Human society and the beauty of nature are meant to be
enjoyed together”; his solution was that “the two magnets must be made one.”10
Appropriately organized, each “garden city” would be the perfect blend of “town”
and “country,” remaining largely independent, managed by citizens who had an
economic interest in them and financed by a group of trustees who leased the
lands to its residents.11
It was under the influence of the First World War that Taut envisioned a new way
to advance Howard’s garden city concept by merging it with a dominant central
communal structure of glass and concrete he called a “city crown.” With fewer
architectural commissions during this time, Taut devoted much of his efforts to
the development of his new urban scheme, a utopian garden city of socialism and
peace that he believed could overcome national and social differences by means of
architecture and more specifically through a city crown. Modeled after the European
medieval cathedral or Indian temple, Taut’s crown was to act as a towering secular
beacon of social harmony around which the political, commercial and residential
quarters would be organized. This crystalline structure of glass would be the
material expression of a new living community in close contact with nature and
industry unified by cosmic transcendental thoughts of the collective good.
THE CItY CROWN PROpOSAL
Published in 1919, Taut included his utopian garden city proposal in Die Stadtkrone
accompanied by contributions from the architectural critic Adolf Behne, the
Expressionist poet Paul Scheerbart and the journalist Erich Baron. Taut placed
his title essay, “Die Stadtkrone,” at the center of the anthology accompanied by
drawings including two elevations (East and West) and a bird’s-eye view (West)
leaving a Stadtsilhouette (City Skyline), Stadtschema (City Diagram), a combination
plan-elevation drawing, oblique view and perspective views of the city center,
and both aerial and street-side perspectives of his own garden city of Falkenberg,
Germany in the pages after it.
In his urban scheme, Taut proposed the construction of a city for 300,000
inhabitants who live in garden city-style housing: “rows of low, single-family
houses with deep gardens for every house … so that the residential area itself
becomes a horticultural zone.” Taking his inspiration from Howard’s city of To-
morrow, Taut decentralized industry and distributed housing near horticulture,
agriculture and parks to promote a healthy quality of life, large enough to permit a
complete social lifestyle, but not larger.12 Similar

to Howard, Taut’s ideal city is a large circle but
with a much larger diameter and ten times as
many inhabitants.
As the Stadtschema of Taut’s garden city
illustrates, the form of his city is not randomly
determined but employs a series of concentric
circles to define and segregate its physical,
social and economic requirements (Figure 1.2).
Similar to a medieval city, Taut first encircles
his garden city with a ring-like wall, not of
stone fortification walls but trees. Then, four
main streets cross the entire city in wide arches
defining an area of 500–800 meters in its center
where Taut has located the central facilities and
the crown itself. Additional circles in-between
the middle and the edge of the city define the
rows of residential buildings in a north–south
direction. Shorter connecting streets interrupt
these long lines leading to the city center. The
main streets to the north and south of the
1.2 Bruno Taut, city center define the edges of funnel-shaped fields that extend away from the
Stadtschema (City center to the east and west. To the east, Taut locates a church, city administration
Diagram), in Die buildings, commercial buildings and a train station on whose lines industrial areas
Stadtkrone, 1917.
can develop outside of the city borders to the north and the south. In the west,
classrooms and hospitals are planned in a “‘… large sector-shaped park [that]
brings good air into the city from the woods and fields.”13
In Taut’s city plan, the complex geometrical arrangement of circles permits
the centrally located civic structure to connect itself to internal residential
neighborhoods and external industrial or commercial zones. While the centripetally
oriented residential quarters are directed towards the city center, recreation
and industry are located in sectors that open themselves to the surrounding
countryside and as many neighboring cities as possible. Nevertheless, despite
the effectiveness of Taut’s scheme, he asks “can all of our life’s needs be fulfilled by
comfort, ease and pleasantness?”14 For all time, Taut argues, cities have gravitated
around a single structure that could unite the longing and hopes of people in a
community.15 To restore this structure to the fabric of a contemporary garden city, he
proposes the construction of five buildings in its center to meet the social interests
of its community and to fulfill their artistic and entertainment needs.
Taut’s garden city is built up in layers, from a residentially planned exterior to
a community-used interior. As one progresses from the residential zones toward
the city center, they are greeted by stores, cafes and restaurants. Then, from this
commercial zone, reading halls, museums, aquariums and glass agricultural houses
are accessible via tree-line courtyards. Finally, inside an innermost colonnade
ring, the political and institutional structures that typically occupy the center of a
city have been replaced by the places for entertainment and education, concert
and public houses, a theater and opera. This hierarchy of buildings is an image
of what Taut refers to as the “human stratification” of the city’s inhabitants, who
are not differentiated by their social class, but by their tempers and desires.16 In
this way “the entire city is accessible to everyone; and people go to where they
are drawn.”17 However, unlike the prescribed activities occurring in the innermost
building group, they are only the base of the most important structure in Taut’s
city scheme, a huge glass Kristallhaus (crystal house), while the crown is reserved
for the people without a single dedicated purpose.
For this Kristallhaus, Taut makes a distinction between “buildings” whose
purpose it is to provide social or communal experiences, like a theater and a
people’s house, and “architecture” that has its raison d’etre in the social wishes of
the community containing “nothing but a wonderful room” remaining “quiet and
empty.”18 In Die Stadtkrone, this “architecture” that Taut describes as a combination
of concrete, iron and colorful glass has to be rooted “in the inner spiritual life and
existence of mankind … including all that through which he perceives his own
value and relation to the world.”19 For Taut, a city always had a crown about which
its citizens would gravitate. It was “the highest structure in a townscape … a
religious building” that could “convey our deepest feelings about mankind and the
world.”20 However, compared to the religious orientation of historical city crowns,
Taut contended that religion was no longer necessary as a force around which to
organize contemporary cities. In the contemporary conception of the city, Taut
argued that the former unifying power of the Christian Church separated itself into
smaller congregations and instead promoted socialism as a new faith that could
“unite the longings and hopes of people in community.” Taut already spoke of
these thoughts in an article from 1914 where he lamented Hans Poelzig’s loss of
the Berlin Opera House competition. As he argued, it is not a conventional view
of architecture based upon “Modern Imperialism, Caste Structures and Ethnicity,”
but the “typical ideal of our days that everyone sympathizes with today,” the “social
thought” that can inspire “the new in architecture.”21 This “social thought” that
Taut refers to as a “new form of Christianity” in “Die Stadtkrone” embodies what
he argues to be an urge to “enhance the well-being of mankind” and “to feel as
one, solidly united with all mankind.” For Taut, it is this solidarity that can motivate
the “many hands and material means” to give “material expression for that which
slumbers in all mankind.”22
To justify his thesis that a non-religious structure can crown a city, Taut includes
18 images of proposed and contemporary civic structures to accompany his
essay “Neuere Versuche zu Stadtbekrönungen” (“Contemporary Examples of City
Crowns”). Since a city’s crown should be a center of the community’s spirit and
“represent our view of life,” Taut wants to use cultural and meetinghouses for the
crown and not political institutions or existing religious structures.23 Rather, the
aim of Taut’s “Die Stadtkrone” is to promote socialism by restoring the spiritual
representation of a community to city centers near theaters and gardens, and near
all new buildings that emerge from social idealism.24
To prepare the reader for his garden city proposal, Taut surrounded his text
and designs with contributions from Behne, Scheerbart and Baron. Under the
title “Aufbau” (“Building-Up”), Baron encourages the edification of socialism after
the end of the First World War through art and architecture. Behne elaborates on
Baron’s concept by tracing the decline of art since the Gothic and prophesizes a
“Wiederkehr der Baukunst” (“Rebirth of Architecture”) through the cooperation of
the arts under architecture. Taut’s aim for the construction of a communal purpose-
free city crown of glass is to give the city brilliance and vitality, but also peace,
silence and eternal longing – qualities that Scheerbart underlined in two poems
that the editor of Das hohe Ufer, Hans Kaiser, argued in 1919 that Taut uses like
“Schutzheilige” (patron saints) to his anthology: the beginning with the poem “Das
neue Leben” (“The New Life”) and the end with the short poem “Der tote Palast”
(“The Dead Palace”).25
In his own essay, Taut traces the importance of “city crowns” in previous cultures,
arguing that the erection of new cities and towns without this essential binding
element would only produce a “Rumpf ohne Kopf” (“Body without a Head”).26
To validate his point, Taut includes “40 Beispiele alter Stadtbekrönungen” (“40
Examples of Historic City Crowns”) from international cities including Mont
Saint-Michel, Strasbourg, Durham, Angor Wat and Bangkok.27 A similar sense of
internationalism is implied by Baron’s essay that argues for a new global architecture
of socialism. For Behne’s text, Taut includes two images: the Gothic Kathedrale zu
Rouen (Cathedral of Rouen) at the beginning and the Indian Palitana der grosse
Tempel Chamukte (Palitana, The Great Temple of Chamukte) at the end. With these
examples Taut wants to extend Behne’s study of the Gothic cathedral, and the
picture frame in particular, to Indian temples. Together, the texts and images in
Taut’s anthology suggest that his proposal is not limited to European cities but a
human phenomenon that transcends geography and culture.
As a complete work, the texts and images in Taut’s anthology are composed
in layers through which the reader is guided to understand the efficacy of his
city crown proposal. In an essay about Bruno Taut, Mathias Schirren supports this
reading comparing the structure of Die Stadtkrone to a medieval reliquary in which
the most sacred, the drawings of the city crown are hidden in its core. Schirren
makes this comparison based upon a short essay Taut published in 1919 entitled
“Bildschreine” (“Picture Shrine”), wherein Schirren argues Taut provides a possible
explanation for the composition of his book reasoning that a work of art should
be segregated from the activities of everyday life because it may dull the eye and
distract the mind.28 As Taut explains, an artwork should be framed and hidden
in the middle of a shrine that has been “adapted to the subject of the picture.”29
The drawings that Taut locates in the center of his anthology are comparable to
such an artwork framed by additional texts and images. The historic examples
at the beginning prepare the reader for the subject matter and argue for the
necessity of Taut’s urban scheme, while his section entitled “Neuer Versuch zu
Stadtbekrönungen” (“Recent Attempts at Crowning Cities”) explains its costs and
includes contemporary examples to substantiate its validity in contemporary
architectural practice.
A letter to his wife Hedwig from August 13, 1917 indicates that Taut had only
organized the texts and images into a “concept book” at a very late stage in the
planning of his anthology when he included Jan van Eyck’s painting of St Barbara
as the cover page.30 In van Eyck’s representation, St Barbara is sitting on a hill,
holding a palm branch and reading an open book while the tower from which she
became enlightened is under construction in the background. Speidel notes that
Taut did not include a title to van Eyck’s drawing in the City Crown reasoning that
he probably knew the authorship and the role of Saint Barbara as the patron saint
of craftsmen but wanted to give it a new meaning in its new context. For Speidel it
was “a personal dedication to [Taut’s] wife” but this doesn’t take into consideration
that the Saint, like the reader, is fondly reading a book (the city crown?) while a
unified community is building their own city crown in the background.
Early Manifestations
Despite the dating of Taut’s letter to his wife mentioned at the beginning of this
introduction, his proposal to advance the practical social reforms of the English
garden city concept with a city crown did not emerge suddenly in the months
before its publication. Since the founding of his office with Franz Hoffmann in 1909,
one can observe in Taut’s completed projects, publications and correspondences
a slow synthesis of experiences in architecture, garden city housing and pavilion
design that had crystallized in a project for Constantinople (today Istanbul in
Turkey), but were missing so far from garden city designs.
Like many German architects at the beginning of the twentieth century,
Taut developed an interest in resolving the afflictions caused by the rapid
industrialization and concomitant densification of European cities. At the end of
the nineteenth century, urban planning theory as a scientific topic with the goal
of advising problem solving did not yet exist. In his 1889 book Der Städtebau nach
seinen künstlerischen Grundsätzen (City Planning According to Artistic Principles),
the Austrian architect and critic Camillo Sitte tried to resolve the distress by
rejecting grid planning and the development of over-scaled boulevards and plazas
promoting instead the creation of irregular or “organic” urban patterns with more
intimate public spaces enhanced by monuments and other aesthetic elements.31
Sitte’s co-founder of the journal Der Städtebau (City Planning), Theodor Goecke
continued to propose new principles for organizing city quarters and street lines
according to research based upon social, economic and health issues.32 Yet, other
critics took a more radical approach, calling for a return to the countryside. An
observer of English housing reform and co-founder of the Deutscher Werkbund
(German Work Federation), the architect Hermann Muthesius argued:
Denn wer von den Stadtbewohnern trüg nicht die Sehnsucht nach Feld und Wald,
nach Wiesengründen und blühenden Gärten in sich, und wem klänge nicht das
Märchen in den Ohren, dass er … mitten in ihnen im eigenen Häuschen leben könnte.
[Whoever of the city dwellers does not bear the longing for field and forest, meadow
grounds and flowering gardens, and who do not hear the sounds of the fairy tale in
the ears, that they could … in the midst of them, live in their own house.]33
By 1902, the English garden city idea of Ebenezer Howard was carried over to a
circle of poets in the commune Neue Gemeinschaft (New Community) located to
the west of Berlin in Schlachtensee.34
The Neue Gemeinschaft was a reform movement that sought emancipation

from the effects of industrialization on urban life through a vegetarian, literary and
socialist way of life. The movement’s dream of an ideal, socialist urban community
lasted only a year, with many of the founding members, including Heinrich and
Julius Hart, Bernhard and Paul Kampffmeyer, Bruno Wille and Wilhelm Boelsche,
reorganizing themselves as the Deutsche Gartenstadtgesellschaft (German Garden
City Society) in 1902.35 In the following years, it broadened its tasks to accommodate
the German conditions and reissued its Deutsche Gartenstadtgesellschaft
Programm (Program of the German Garden City Society) as “the winning over of
the public to the establishment of garden cities.”36 The ultimate aim of Deutsche
Gartenstadtgesellschaft was “internal colonization, which will promote industrial
decentralization and with it an even distribution of industrial life across the land
through planned establishment of garden cities” and the “expansion of existing
towns in the sense of the garden city.”37
Like Howard, the Deutsche Gartenstadtgesellschaft viewed the garden city as a
means for replacing the squalor and deprivation endured by the urban working
class with a vigorous and healthy quality of life in close communion with the land
and countryside.38 The concepts Raymond Unwin developed during his planning
of the garden city of Letchworth were summarized in a textbook entitled Town
Planning in Practice and published in 1909.39 Unwin’s work was translated a year
later into German under the title Grundlagen des Städtebaus (Fundamentals of City
Planning), which became one of the earliest, most widely read urban planning
textbooks in Germany. Certainly, it was this German translation of Unwin’s textbook
that created a strong impetus for Walter Gropius and Taut to participate in an
excursion to visit the English garden cities during the same year.40
Taut’s trip to England had a profound impact upon him. Shortly after returning to
Berlin in 1910, he was appointed the advisory architect to the building department
of the Deutsche Gartenstadtgesellschaft in 1913.41 In this position, he accepted
commissions to plan two garden city projects during the same year at Falkenberg
near Berlin and Reform in Magdeburg, Germany. Both estates comprise low-rise
terrace houses oriented in north–south rows so that their primary facades were
supplied with indirect light throughout the day. An amateur artist who enjoyed
studying nature and landscapes with pastels, Taut had the houses at both estates
painted in varied colors to relieve the residents from the monotony of the typical
gray color of German tenement housing, which, at Falkenberg, became known as
the “Tuschkasten Siedlung” (paint box estates).42 Surrounded by residential areas
with a central space-like axis leading to a major civic structure, the Akazienhof, Taut
clearly took inspiration for his design of the Falkenberg estate in particular from the
first English garden city of Letchworth.
The late nineteenth-century industrial and economic expansion that
encouraged the development of the garden city movement in Germany also fueled
a pedagogical, technical and aesthetic reformation of Germany’s industrial and
applied arts. At world fairs throughout the nineteenth century, German applied-
arts goods were criticized for their “technical backwardness, aesthetic inferiority,
and economic worthlessness.”43 To put Germany on a competitive footing with
England and the US, the Preußisches Ministerium für Handel und Gewerbe (Prussian
1.3 Bruno Taut,

Das Glashaus
(The Glashaus) at
the 1914 Kölner
Werkbund–
Ausstellung
(1914 Cologne
Werkbund
Exhibition), 1914.
Ministry of Commerce and Trade) began in 1884 to wield more control over the
education of arts, crafts and trades that were perceived to be out of touch with
nineteenth-century changes affecting industrial manufacture.44 In 1907, an
association of German artists, architects, designers and industrialists formed as the
Deutscher Werkbund to establish a partnership between product manufacturers and
design professionals to enlarge the scope of activities of the Commerce Ministry. In
combination with industry, these institutions began to develop national, state and
Werkbund-sponsored exhibitions to promote new German industrial and applied
arts that emphasized design techniques oriented toward materials, constructional
principles and local crafts industries.45 It was in this context that Taut received
an opportunity to showcase the creative architectural applications of steel and
especially the glass he later sought to employ in the Kristallhaus of “Die Stadtkrone.”
For the steel industry, Taut produced two exhibition pavilions, the Berliner
Verkaufskontor für Stahlträger (Berlin Sales Office for Steel Girders) for the 1910
II. Deutsche Ton–, Zement– und Kalkindustrie–Ausstellung (Second German Clay,
Cement and Lime Exhibition) in Berlin and the Monument des Eisens (Monument
of Iron) at the 1913 Internationale Baufach–Ausstellung (International Building
Trades Exhibition) in Leipzig, Germany. Contrary to his simple, pragmatic
housing developments in Berlin and Magdeburg, Taut’s exhibition pavilions were
conceived as mechanisms to create vivid optical and partly haptic experiences
of the materials they were intended to market. Similarly, while his Falkenberg
Garden City was under construction in 1913, Taut had the sudden inspiration
to explore the potential of glass for the Deutsche Werkbund’s 1914 Kölner
Werkbund–Ausstellung (1914 Cologne Werkbund Exhibition) and approached
the glass industry for sponsors.46 As a minor young architect with few sponsors
and a personally initiated versus officially sponsored experimental pavilion,
the Werkbund’s executive board was hesitant to include Taut’s proposal in the
exhibition.47 Paid for in large part out of his own pocket, Taut erected a glass and
concrete “net cupola” on a curved concrete apron (Figure 1.3). Taut’s ‘Glashaus’,
like that for the Berliner Verkaufskontor für Stahlträger and the Monument des
Eisens, used the material being advertised to construct the pavilion itself. Taut’s
Glashaus filmically orchestrated the visitors’ sensory experiences up, around and
down narrow glass block stairs, next to colored light filtering through brightly
colored Luxfer prisms to an internal waterfall in the lower floor. With colored tiles
and a kaleidoscope slowly projecting abstract patterns on an opaque screen,
the “gleaming, transparent, reflective character” of the structural and material
effects of Taut’s Glashaus were repeated almost verbatim in his description of the
Kristallhaus of “Die Stadtkrone,” whose “steel and concrete construction” forms the
framework that supports “prismatic glass fillings, colors and colored mosaics.”48
Although Taut’s choice of glass for the construction of the Kristallhaus had
its beginnings in the Cologne Glashaus, its most significant promotion as an
architectural building material must be attributed to his friendship and ensuing
collaboration with the poet of glass architecture, Paul Scheerbart. In a series of
fantasy novels including Das Paradies, Die Heimat der Kunst (Paradise, The Home
of the Arts) and Rakkóx der Billionär (Rakkóx the Billionaire) from 1889 and 1901,
respectively, Scheerbart had been developing the theme of an earthly paradise
ornamented by architectures of color and glass.49 During July 1913, Taut had
finished the model of the Cologne Glashaus pavilion when he met Scheerbart
whose fantasies of glass architecture must have immediately appealed to him.50
Taut and Scheerbart were in frequent correspondence throughout 1913 and 1914.51
The confluence of ideas between Taut and Scheerbart is evident in Scheerbart’s
dedication of “Glasarchitektur” to Taut and Taut’s inscription of Scheerbart’s
14 aphorisms on the drum course of the Glashaus. These aphorisms included:
“Das bunte Glas zerstört den Hass” (colored glass destroys hatred); “Ohne einen
Glaspalast ist das Leben eine Last” (without a glass palace, life is a burden); and
“Das Glas bringt uns die neue Zeit; Backsteinkultur tut uns nur leid” (glass brings us
a new era; brick culture only makes us sad).52
Echoing Scheerbart, Taut designed the Glashaus with the important concept
of removing the limits of solid walls to allow the interpenetration of “inner” and
“outer” space. As Scheerbart argued in the first aphorism of his 1914 published
“Glasarchitektur” (“Glass Architecture”):
If we want our culture to rise to a higher level, we are obliged, for better or worse,
to change our architecture. And this only becomes possible if we take away
the closed character from the rooms in which we live. We can only do that by
introducing glass architecture, which lets in the light of the sun, the moon, and
the stars, not merely through a few windows, but through every possible wall,
which will be made entirely of glass – of colored glass. The new environment,
which we thus create, must bring us a new culture.53
To justify the open empty inner spaces of his pavilion design, Taut provided a
guide for visitors in which he explained that “The Glashaus has no other purpose
than to be beautiful.”54 During the same year, he developed the same concept
in an article for Walden’s Der Sturm periodical entitled “Eine Notwendigkeit”
(“A Necessity”), but cited the Expressionist painters as his inspiration and not
Scheerbart.55
In “Eine Notwendigkeit,” Taut sought to justify his own aims for the pavilion’s
design and at the same to encourage his fellow architects to follow the
contemporary Expressionist painters in developing a new architectural spirit. As
he explains, what he has in mind is not the painting of facades or an adoption of
the “external forms of painting” to architecture because the “functions of the frame
are by nature different from those of the picture surface.”56 Rather, holding up the
Gothic cathedral as the favored prototype, Taut calls architects to lead the other
arts in creating a magnificent new unity of architecture, painting and sculpture
whose construction of glass, iron and concrete would help revitalize and renew
modern art through a new artistic expression free from utilitarian aims.57 In “Die
Stadtkrone,” Taut sublimated this new quest for architecture into his Kristallhaus:
Here architecture again renews its beautiful bond with sculpture and painting.
It will all be one work in which the performance of the architect is found in his
conception of the entirety; the painter through glass paintings that are removed
but also inspired by the world; the sculptor’s art that is inseparable form the
whole.58
In the spirit of a functionless unity of the arts proposed in “Eine Notwendigkeit”

or the prismatic experience of color and light in the Glashaus, Taut’s Kristallhaus
was intended to contain “nothing but a wonderful room” in which “full sunlight
showers in a high room and splits into numerous fine reflections.”59 As a city
crown, Taut’s new architecture would provide the occasion for a city to redeem the
“necessity” he spoke of in 1914 and connect it with the “social commitment” of its
citizens in their community buildings.60 Yet Taut remained unresolved during this
time between the conflicting demands of function and simplicity in the Deutsche
Gartenstadtgesellschaft, and the aesthetic delight and artistic fantasy of the Sturm
group.
At the time that Taut published “Eine Notwendigkeit,” he also wrote a critique
of a proposed opera house in Berlin for the Sozialitische Monatshefte. Contrary
to his call for the construction of a new utilitarian-free architecture in “Eine
Notwendigkeit,” Taut argued in “Der Architektenkongress” (“The Conference of
Architects”) that the spirit of the age would be better expressed by the architecture
of garden cities than by monumental buildings. It was not until he came upon
the idea of reintegrating a city crown into the English garden city concept that
he was put into the unique position of navigating the interconnections between
the spiritual leadership of Expressionism and the practical social reformism of the
Deutsche Gartenstadtgesellschaft. During July 1914, the First World War broke out in
Germany and Taut was forced to discontinue the development of his ideas in “Eine
Notwendigkeit” in order to maintain his office in Berlin and support the war effort
through civil service.
Writing Die Stadtkrone
After deliberately weakening his health (with cigarettes and coffee) in order
to avoid being conscripted into the military, Taut enlisted in the civil service in
1915, initially working for the Militär-Neubauamt (the Military’s New Building
Department) in Spandau and then in Plaue an der Havel and later as an “engineer”
at the Stella Werke (Stella Works), an iron furnace factory in Bergisch-Gladbach.61
Despite his new commitments, Taut returned to his call for an alternative work of
architecture in an open letter to the March 1916 Werkbund Kongress (Werkbund
Conference) in Bamberg entitled “Darlegungen” (“Statements”). Although
no copy of the letter survives, in his study of Taut’s inter-war architectural and
utopian activities, Iain Boyd Whyte has attempted to reconstruct the contents
of “Darlegungen” from extant letter conversations between Taut’s fellow
Werkbund members, Walter Gropius and Karl Ernst Osthaus.62 In Bruno Taut and
the Architecture of Activism Whyte reasons that Taut’s “Darlegungen” attacked war,
contemporary architectural education and the weakened, democratic structure
of the Werkbund. More importantly, Whyte claims it painted an ideal picture of a
future architecture and, in particular, one that corresponded to the Kristallhaus in
Die Stadtkrone.63 In the same month Taut published “Darlegungen,” he wrote to
his brother Max that he had a “brilliant idea” for a new project.64 Although these
early musings about the development of a new architecture might suggest that
Taut had already begun to work on Die Stadtkrone in March 1916, there is no firm
documentary evidence that it inspired the Kristallhaus in it.
Rather, Taut’s entry for the 1916 Deutscher Werkbund’s Haus der Freundschaft
(House of Friendship) competition in Constantinople was perhaps the most
important project for his development of Die Stadtkrone during the wartime
period. To be designed was a large “artistic” building on the hill of the old city near
the Hagia Sophia. In his “Nachwort” (Afterword) to the 2002 re-publication of Die
Stadtkrone, Manfred Speidel illuminates the chronology of events surrounding
the competition that led to Taut’s development of the anthology.65 As Speidel
argues, the “Orient” must have opened a new perspective for Taut who in his
“Reiseeindrücke aus Konstantinopel” (“Travel Impressions of Constantinople”)
claims to have suddenly seen in the east “the true mother of Europe and our
slumbering desire always goes there.”66 For his design of the Haus der Freundschaft,
Taut used his Glashaus as a model, proposing the construction of a large cupola
of concrete ribs and colorful glass fillings on top of a simple flat square block
supported by arcades (see Figure 1.4). Clearly, Taut also used the Cologne Glashaus
as a model for the Kristallhaus in “Die Stadtkrone,” while his travel impressions and
the two silhouette drawings (east and west) in the text suggest that the mosques
of old Constantinople, which both “emerge from the entanglement of houses and
back into them … like a pyramid in silhouette” reinforce the harmonic “sound” of
the entire city.67 Taut’s former employer and mentor, the architect and pedagogue
Theodor Fischer, made a similar observation of historical cities that are crowned by
meaningful urban structures that organize:
Gliederung der Massen nach Herrschenden und Beherrschten … die

Zusammenfassung aller Teile in eine Einheit … in der alle Teile vom Geringsten
bis zum Haupte ihre eigenste Bestimmung haben und schön sind dadurch …
1.4 Bruno
Taut, Haus Der
Freundschaft in
Konstantinople
(House of
Friendship in
Constantinople),
1916.
[The masses according to rulers and ruled … the combination of all the parts
in a unity … in which all the parts, from the lowest to the head have their own
definition and are beautiful …]68
It was clearly an idea familiar to Taut, who justified the organization of the urban
elements in “Die Stadtkrone” in a similar way.
Despite the new inspiration Taut found in the Haus der Freundschaft
competition, he did not win. Judged by the participants on November 5 and 6,
1916, Taut was eliminated in the first round, with the classical design from the
German architect German Bestelmeyer taking first place.69 Nevertheless, Taut’s
experiences in Constantinople must have stimulated him greatly and he began
a new project, the conception of a complete new garden city surmounted by a
purpose-free “crown.”
Taut’s letters to his brother during the winter of 1916–17 indicate that the
construal of his Die Stadtkrone anthology progressed rapidly. Just two months after
receiving the results of the Werkbund competition, Taut wrote to his brother on
December 30, 1916 to wish him a happy new year and let him know about the
progress of his new project that permits him to bear his horrible work situation at
Plaue an der Havel:
Ich habe eineinhalb Wochen lang in der Bibliothek Bände gewälzt und viel
fabelhaftes Material gefunden. Jetzt bin ich bei dem Projekt selbst, und auch das
rundet sich zu einem Resultat. Es macht mich glücklich, und ich zittere jetzt nur,
dass mir der Moloch noch 3–4 Wochen lässt, ehe er mich frisst. Dann kann ich wie
ein Vermächtnis etwas zurücklassen, was im Groben wenigstens fertig vorliegt.—
Das lässt mich die Konstantinopler Enttäuschung leicht überwinden.
[I have tossed volumes [of books] for one and a half weeks in the library and
found much fabulous material. Now I am at the project itself and also that one
rounds itself to a result. It makes me happy and I tremble only now that the
juggernaut leaves me three to four weeks before it devours me. Then I can leave
something behind like a legacy that is at least roughly already there.—This lets
me easily get over the Constantinople disappointment.]70
By the middle of January 1917, Taut had moved to the Stella Werke, a factory for
producing industrial ovens in Bergish-Gladbach, to the east of Cologne, where he
was completing his civil service as an “engineer.” As a draftsman of furnaces, Taut
was completely uninspired and mentally preoccupied with “other things.” In detail,
we learn from a letter to Max on April 14, 1917 that at the end of service each day,
Taut would return to his room to work on the Die Stadtkrone anthology, which was
at that time very far advanced:
Ich sitze hier wie Du weisst nun schon drei Monate als Zeichner für Glühöfen und
arbeite Tat für Tag meine 8½ Stunden mit Mühe und Not herunter. Es ist auch
so etwas wie Militärdienst: Pünktlichkeit auf die Minute und Urlaub selten und
schwer … Es würde ganz und gar abstumpfen, wenn man den Kopf noch mit
anderem voll hätte … Diederichs in Jena hat meine “Stadtkrone” angenommen,
und es werden vielleicht nächstens die Klischees gemacht. Jedenfalls will er es bei
Friedensbeginn herausbringen. Wann wird es aber soweit sein? …
[As you know, I sit here already for three months as a draftsman for furnaces and
work day after day my 8½ hours down with pain and misery. It is also something
like military service: punctuality on the minute, few vacations, and difficult …
This would be entirely deadening if one did not have the head full with other
things … Diedrichs in Jena has accepted my Die Stadtkrone and the printings will
probably be made soon. Anyway he wants to publish it at the beginning of peace.
When will it be thus far?.]71
Excluding his own description of the city crown itself, Taut had completed a draft
of Die Stadtkrone by May 10, 1917 when he sent the manuscript and drawings to
his brother Max to review. As Taut reported to his wife on May 13, 1917, he found
inspiration for the design of the crown only a couple days later:
Mir geht es immer gut. Gestern Abend habe ich noch einen richtigen Abschnitt
zur Stadtkrone geschrieben, in meinem Arbeitszimmer bei Kampffmeyer vor
offenem Fenster mit einer grünen Wiese und bei aufziehendem Gewitter.
Kampffmeyer und Baron finden ihn schön. Es ist die Schilderung der höchsten
Bauten, Theater, Volkshäuser und des Kristallhauses. Empfunden habe ich es
am Freitagabend, als Göttel im Saal in Bergisch-Gladbach spielte, ich die Augen
schloss und etwas, den Raum des Kristallhauses in einem Augenblick sah und
empfand, wie es mir unbegreiflich war …
[I am always well. Yesterday evening I have written a real part of the Die
Stadtkrone in my office at Kampffmeyer’s, in front of the open window with a
green meadow and gathering storm. Kampffmeyer and Baron found it nice. It is
the description of the highest buildings, theaters, public houses and the crystal
house. I have experienced it on a Friday evening as Göttel played in the hall in
Bergisch-Gladbach, I closed my eyes and saw and felt something, the room of the
crystal house in one moment how incomprehensible it is to me …]72
The slightly sloped square glass tower that Taut describes rising above the cross
configuration of four large civic structures: the opera, playhouse, and small and
large community centers recalls the formal massing of the Indian temples he 1.5 Bruno Taut,
includes in Die Stadtkrone. However, compared to Das Kristallhaus (The Crystal Das Kristallhaus
(The Crystal
Building) on Sheets 3 and 4 of Taut’s later co-authored utopian project, Alpine
Building), Sheet
Architektur (Alpine Architecture), the shapes are more determined that those in “Die 3 of Bruno Taut,
Stadtkrone” (see Figure 1.5).73 As Speidel similarly notes, when Taut describes the Alpine Architecture,
design of the city crown “not finished smoothly and enclosed with walls but of a 1917.
harmony that is rich and perfect in rhythm,” one does not find any visualization
of it in the drawings.74 Rather, Taut restrained from illustrating too precisely the
design of the crown so that it does not influence later executions that may evolve
differently and “whose ultimate solution is comprised of many thousands of varied
possibilities.”75
Advancing the English Garden City Concept
Although Taut took his inspiration from English garden city designs for the planning
of his Falkenberg estate, in “Die Stadtkrone,” he sought to advance Howard’s
scheme by merging it with concepts he developed in “Eine Notwendigkeit” and

the Haus der Freundschaft competition. In a survey of different approaches to city
planning that had arisen since the “economic boom” of the Industrial Revolution,
Taut summarized in “Die Stadtkrone” the character and aims of the English garden
city movement as the creation of:
row houses, each with its own garden, in close proximity to horticulture and
agriculture. The structure of this new city’s residential streets were practical and
profitably laid out to promote living near well-distributed parks. The location
of industry and every element of the living city environment were sensible and
controlled to exclude real estate speculation.76
In both Howard and Taut’s schemes, the center of the garden city is surrounded
by large public structures, including an “opera house, theater, a large community
center and large and small meeting hall” in the case of Taut and a “town hall,
principal concert and lecture hall, theater, library, museum, picture gallery and
hospital” in Howard’s design.77 However, instead of an open park at the center of
Taut’s city scheme, he merged it with the silhouette of old Constantinople and used
the surrounding public structures to support his utilitarian-free Kristallhaus. To this
end, he permitted the business and administration buildings that encircle his city
crown to slowly increase in height towards the central Kristallhaus so that they
“reign powerfully above the entire city.”78
The key to the success of the Kristallhaus in Taut’s garden city scheme was based
upon on a faith in Gemeinschaft (community) unified by a common spirituality: a
fusion of Christianity and socialism that Taut called “social commitment.”79 This he
explained in “Die Stadtkrone” as:
It is the urge to somehow enhance the well-being of mankind, to achieve

salvation for self and thus for others and to feel as one, solidly united with all
mankind. This feeling lives, or at least slumbers, in all mankind. Socialism, in the
non-political, supra-political sense, far removed from every form of authority is
the simple, ordinary connection between people and it bridges any gap between
warring classes and nations to unite humanity.80
Taut’s view of Gemeinschaft as a representation of apolitical socialism in “Die

Stadtkrone” echoes Gustav Landauer’s 1911 critique of centralized power structures
in Aufruf zum Sozialismus (Call to Socialism).81 Both Taut and Landauer argued that
the centralized state is the root of all contemporary evils and the surrogate for
the natural relationships on which Gemeinschaft should be based.82 Quoting from
Alexander von Gleichen-Rußwurm, Taut observes how:
Recently, the ideal of the German citizen grew ever more accustomed to letting
the state think for him, so one should probably not resent the fact that it finally
took possession of the thinking mechanism … In our view, the state is not an end
in itself, an organized power, but a structure tasked to serve the interests of all
citizens.83
Contrary to the state, Taut and Landauer saw the way to bring about Gemeinschaft
was through an intensification of Geist (spirit). In “Die Stadtkrone,” Geist is what
humans feel connected to in their innermost being; the bond that links the
aspirations and strivings of mankind to one another.84 Using a reference from
Theodor Fechner’s critique of materialism in Die Tagesansicht gegenüber der
Nachtansicht (The Day View versus the Night View), Taut wants to reorient the
spiritual focus of the contemporary city away from materialism and the state
towards socialism as a new religion that waits like a foot “hovering in the air
ready to descend.”85 Whyte reasons that Taut’s section of “Die Stadtkrone” entitled
“Architektur” (“Architecture”) was an attempt to give physical and architectural
form to Landauer’s Aufruf zum Sozialismus.86 The Christian Middle Ages, said
Landauer, were the high point of Geist and the model for a socialist Gemeinschaft
in which the will of the Volk found a perfect expression in the constructions of the
geistig leaders – the theologians and the master builders.87 Landauer’s analysis
of early Christian’s Geist, Gemeinschaft and religious structures resonates in “Die
Stadtkrone,” which Taut believes is not only reflected in the relationship between
the Gothic cathedral and its surrounding community but also in the temples
created by “every great cultural epoch.”
Taut conceived the organization of his city plan around a Kristallhaus that
could focus the longing and aspiration of the Volk. In the same spirit as his former
teacher and urban planner, Theodor Goecke, Taut organized his city around a
central public core – the city crown – and surrounded it by housing, business,
industrial and recreational zones.88 His model for the residential areas were the row
houses he developed for the Falkenberg estate and included as examples in “Die
Stadtkrone.”89 At a superficial glance, the ideology of pragmatism in the design of
the row housing is an expression of Volk with its antithesis in the ideology of the
sacred – the expensive and utilitarian-free Kristallhaus as a physical approximation
of Geist. Using a quote from Master Eckhart’s “Sprüchen” (“Proverbs”), Taut ascribes
to the Kristallhaus the spiritual longings of the Volk who ask God “to make me
empty and pure.” Like a cathedral, Taut’s ultimate task for his “empty and pure”
architecture is “to be quiet and absolutely turned away from all daily rituals for all
times.”90 In this way the architecture of Taut’s entire city crown reflects the mutual
ideals of the Gemeinschaft. The buildings surrounding the city crown express the
social freedom and the natural social intercourse of the Gemeinschaft, while the
Kristallhaus, supported both physically and symbolically by the Volkshäuser, was in
this way to embody Geist:
A minster, a cathedral above the historic city; a pagoda above the huts of the
Indians; the enormous temple district in the square of the Chinese city; and the
Acropolis above the simple houses of an ancient city – all show that the climax,
the ultimate, is a crystallized religious conception. This is, at once, the starting
point and the final goal for all architecture. Its light, radiating onto each building,
down to the simplest hut, demonstrates that [buildings] can fulfill the simplest
practical needs and still possess a shimmer of such a conception’s glory.91
In this sequence, the profane architecture of the Volk is illuminated by the glory of
Geist in the “crystallized religious conception” that unites society as Gemeinschaft.92
For its imposing scale and communal function but more for its striking beauty, the
individuals in Taut’s city would be inspired by the quiet and empty Kristallhaus as
a material expression for their deepest feeling about mankind and the world. Its
gleaming, transparent, reflective character would radiate its light onto all buildings
as a metaphor for the collective good that binds “warring classes and nations” in
Gemeinschaft.93
For Taut, the architect alone is the creative artist who can conceive the city crown
based on the will of the people. As he explains, because this city crown must unite
the inner spiritual life and existence of a community, its form cannot be achieved
by satisfying mere functional needs. Rather, what differentiates architecture from
building is the imagination of the architect who is not constrained by the basic
necessities of a structure and “[t]his shows that the will of the architect as artist
is directed by something entirely different than mere practicality. And it is thus
quite self-explanatory that this will lies above and beyond mere functionality.”94
In this position, Taut ascribes the role of “geistig creator” to the architect, whom he
reminds us is not free from restraint but must root their imagination in the inner
spiritual life and existence of mankind:
The architect must remind himself of his noble, priestly, magnificent, even divine
profession and try to raise the treasure that lies in the depths of the human soul.
In complete self-abandonment, he must immerse himself in the soul of the Volk
(people) and discover both himself and his noble profession by giving – at least as
a goal – a material expression for that which slumbers in all mankind. As it was at
one time, a talismanic, built ideal should again arise and make people aware that
they are members of a great architecture.95
Already in “Eine Notwendigkeit,” Taut attributed a unique role to the artist as

leader of a society’s spiritual development. As Taut insisted: “great art appears in
the work of the individual artist. The Volk can then educate itself through it or can
wait until the educators arise.”96 Landauer was also in no doubt as to the identity
of this leader who could give birth to the Geist in the Volk – the artists, “inwardly
strong individuals, representatives of the Volk, who carried Geist to the Volk.”97 At
the 1914 Werkbund conference, Whyte remarks that Taut reiterated his own call
for the establishment of a creative elite in an attack on Muthesius’ proposal for the
development of artistic “types” that could be merged with mass-production:
Art represents a pyramid, which widens towards its base. Above, at the apex,
stand the most able – the artists with ideas. The broadening base means nothing
more than a leveling down of these ideas. On no account can I understand the
typical in any other way, and I find it exceedingly depressing that we cannot bring
ourselves to trust simply in the artist at the top.98
A source for Taut’s egoist view of the artist’s role could also be found in Nietzsche’s
vision of the artist as superman, elevated above normal humanity. At an early
stage in his architectural career, Taut was a convinced Nietzschean and wrote to his
brother Max in 1904: “I’ve read Nietzsche’s Zarathustra over the last three months –
a book of enormous and serious vitality. I’ve learned a lot from it.”99
Clearly, Taut’s exposure to such diverse intellectual and artistic figures as Nietzche,
Landauer, Fischer, Fechner and Eckhart make it easy to bring “Die Stadtkrone”
into connection with their writings. Nevertheless, Taut’s extant correspondence
shows that his familiarity with the work of such diverse architectural, philosophical
and spiritual leaders were constantly expanded during his composition of “Die
Stadtkrone.” Certainly, many of his urban design concepts owe a debt in form and
content to his former teacher Theodor Goecke and employer, Theodor Fischer.
At the Technische Hochschule Berlin in 1908, Taut learned from Goecke’s lectures
that the modern city is a holistic organization of city quarters, traffic, people and
nature. Conversely, Fischer anticipated Taut’s concept of the city as an image of
the stratification of humankind in his urban building handbook Sechs Vorträge
über Stadtbaukunst (Six Lectures on Town Planning), which was published after the
war in 1920.100 Undoubtedly, Nietzsche’s ideas were widespread among European
writers and artists at the turn of the century. Taut had read Nietzsche’s Also sprach
Zarathustra (Thus Spoke Zarathustra) from 1904 “with much profit,” but did not
share with his brother what he had specifically gained. Again Speidel argues that
attempts to connect Nietzsche with thematic strings in “Die Stadtkrone” are not
very convincing:
Freilich ist es nicht sehr überzeugend, wenn die Themenstränge, die man in der
Stadtkrone findet, aus den verschieden Schriften Nietzsches hergeleitet werden:
Tauts Glaube an die Spitze der Menschenheitspyramide aus “Anti–Christ” oder
seinem künstlerischen Bau ohne Zweck aus der “Fröhlichen Wissenschaft” mit
Zitaten herauszulesen, seinen sozialen Gedanken, der “ein Christentum in neuer
Form verheisst” als Ergebnis aus Nietzsches “Gott ist tot” zu verstehen, ist zu kurz
gegriffen.
[It is short-sighted to derive from quotes Taut’s belief in the top of the human
pyramid as “Anti-Christ” or his artistic building without purpose from “The Gay
Science” or to understand his social thought that “brings Christianity in a new
form” as resulting from Nietzsche’s “God is dead.”]101
Similarly, Whyte’s argument that Taut’s ideal city in Die Stadtkrone is an attempt
to give physical and architectural form to Landauer’s Aufruf zu Sozialismus is
inconclusive. Clearly Taut and Landauer had similar colleagues in the Deutsche
Gartenstadtgesellschaft, and from these individuals Taut could have become
familiar with Landauer’s writings. However, if Landauer had provided Taut with
the intellectual underpinnings for “Die Stadtkone,” why didn’t Taut reference
him? Equally problematic are attempts to find inspiration or justification for
the conception of the city plan or its crown in the writings of Meister Eckhart or
Theodor Fechner, whose writings Taut does reference. In the introduction to his
translation of Alpine Architecture, entitled “Empathy and Astral Fantasy,” Mathias
Schirren notes that Taut only mentions Fechner for the first time in a letter to his
brother Max on April 15 of 1917 while a letter to Taut’s wife from August 13, 1917,
weeks before Taut’s Die Stadtkrone was completed, indicate any deeper reading of
Eckhart.102 As Speidel argued, Taut’s quote from Eckhart cited earlier brings a very
different tone to the chains of perceptions and for this reason it is likely that the
quote was only incorporated into the text of “Die Stadtkrone” at the very end.103
A more sagacious approach to the array of references in Taut’s Die Stadtkrone is to
see him as an active and thoughtful reader of urban, social and spiritual treatises
who used their material to generally support his own arguments in Die Stadtkrone.
After Die Stadtkrone
Shortly after the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II on November 9, 1918, the First World
War came to an end and handful of artists and architects joined Taut in forming
the Arbeitsrat für Kunst (Working Council for Art) to work with the new socialist
government to help forge the cultural politics of the new country. Die Stadtkrone
was used, by Taut as well as by his friends in the Arbeitsrat für Kunst, Adolf Behne and
Walter Gropius, as a starting point for developing the goals of their new council. In
Taut’s program, over 50 signatures making up the new council called for all the
arts to work together under the direction of architects to shape the artistic values
and fabric of the new nation. A comparison with Taut’s “Ein Architektur-Programm”
(“An Architecture Program”) from Christmas of the same year reveals a number
of similarities: both convey a faith in the power of architecture to create a better
future, both contain a clear commitment to breaking down artificial divisions
between the arts and both argue for the architect to remain in control of the final
design. Taut’s “Ein Architektur-Programm” would also be a guideline for Gropius’
Bauhaus Manifesto of April 1919. In “Ein Architektur-Programm,” Taut placed the
purpose-free “crown” of “Die Stadtkrone” at the highest point of the city so that
it could radiate its spiritual effect on the activities of the artists and educational
institutions below. Here, however, Taut no longer refers to it as a “crown,” but simply
as “architecture”:
The direct carrier of the spiritual forces, molder of the sensibilities of the general
public, which today are slumbering and tomorrow will awake, is architecture.
Only a complete revolution in the spiritual realm will create this architecture. But
this revolution, this architecture will not come of themselves. Both must be willed
– today’s architects must prepare the way for tomorrow’s buildings. Their work on
the future must receive public assistance to make it possible.104
Contrary to Taut’s proposed schedule of the construction of the Kristallhaus in “Die

Stadtkrone,” the development of an “architecture” in “Ein Architektur-Programm”
progresses in reverse order: only after the “preparation” of the great common
purpose-free building (with experiments for its realization) and after the erection
of people’s houses will the housing developments be executed. Perhaps this
“architecture” that Taut envisions in “Ein Architektur-Programm” will also require
several generations for its realization, but in “Die Stadtkrone,” the Kristallhaus
becomes the prerequisite for a “spiritual revolution” after which one can only
“correctly” build.
By the middle of 1919, political stability in Germany began to return with the
enactment of a Weimar constitution. With many of the conservative forces in
power, the Arbeitsrat für Kunst’s hope for social change was severely damaged.
The widespread lack of employment limited the professional options of Taut
and his colleagues. Hoping to keep the dream of a new civic architectural spirit
alive, Taut initiated a utopian correspondence between November 1919 and
December 1920 amongst 13 architects, artists, an engineer and a playwright.
Now known as the Gläserne Kette (Crystal Chain), the members’ exchange of
ideas through written correspondence was unfettered by the demands of
practicability, as Taut encouraged the members of the group to speculate on

what form the architecture of the future should take.105 Optimistically, Taut
proclaimed that it is perhaps “a good thing nothing is being built” because ideas
and forms had to be given time to “ripen” in a manner that is impossible in a
normal working environment.106
Simultaneous with his development of the Gläserne Kette correspondence,
Taut had an opportunity to design a city crown for a real project, namely for the
Folkwang-Schule in Hagen. Taut received the order from Karl Ernst Osthaus in
November 1919 for a “new school with an education system based on the greatest
independence of students, working in school workshops and a boarding school life
in student communities.”107 After lengthy discussions with Osthaus, Taut developed
a layout of the Folkwangschule based on the shape of a parabola, a semi-circular
arrangement of residence halls around a seven-sided erected crystal-like structure
in the isolated middle of the park. Osthaus remarked in the publication of the
journal Genius that the heterogeneous, multi-planned building group would, as
Taut aimed for his city crown, unite itself to a whole, and to a satisfactory silhouette
with the crystal house.108 The funding for this project, however, fell through in May
1920 and the school was never realized.109
Shortly after its publication, Taut’s Die Stadtkrone received a handful of reviews
that both praised its aims and criticized its arguments. One of the earliest reviews
of Taut’s book emerged from his cousin, Hans Kaiser, who “after a long period of
unfruitfulness” praised him as “a truly creative person at work. His book projects
high out of the flood of books.”110 Another positive meditation of Taut’s proposal
in the Westdeutsche Wochenschrift entitled “Zur Wiedergeburt der Baukunst” (“To
the Rebirth of Architecture”) also remarked upon the timeliness of his proposal
emerging after “Der Weltkrieg hat das Alte zerstört, Gebundenheit gelöst und
neue Kraft freigemacht” (The world war has destroyed the old and loosened up its
bondage and given it free new power.) The author simply summarizes Taut’s aim as:
Der Stadt wieder ihre Krone zugeben, ihre höhere Einheit in dem hochragenden
Bau, in dem der Drang aller suchenden Seelen empor zum Licht sich vereinigt zu
himmelanstrebenden Auftrieb, ist der Sinn der Baukunst.
[To give the city its crown again, its higher unity in the towering construction in
which the urge of all seeking souls rises up to the light and unifies itself to the
heavenly aspiring buoyancy is the last sense of building art.]111
In Der Zweeman, the art critic Christof Spengemann also praises Taut’s anthology
as “die heutige Zeit durchaus notwendig” (absolutely necessary for our times).112
Lisbeth Stern is similarly surprised in her review, entitled “Stadtkrone,” that after the
hardship of more than four years of war, one finds in Taut’s book “ein Glaube an eine
gute Zukunft, in der Mensch zum Menschen stehen wird … ohne die Schranken
der Stände” (a belief in a better future, in which man will stand with mankind …
without the barriers of the classes). In her opinion, “Die Gesichtspunkte, unter denen
Taut die frühere Architektur ansieht, und mit denen er an die Arbeit der Zukunft
herangeht … ohne die Schranken der Stände” (the aspects under which Taut looks
at the former architecture, and with which he approaches the work of the future),
architecture is “ein Ausdruck der Zeit und ihrer Ideen, die in den Bauten zu Stein
geworden sind” (an expression of the time and its ideas that have become stone
in the buildings).113 However, it is for this very reason that Das Kunstblatt criticized
the “mentality of Taut and also maybe in the spirit of the time which has gone off
track … the consequence is a certain fanaticism … that despite the enduring call
on socialism and radicalism seems to stand in the contradiction and sense of this
time.”114 In a very detailed article for the Deutsche Bauzeitung, Emil Fader echoes
this acerbic critique at the beginning of the following year.115 Fader challenges
Taut’s assumption whether or not such a proposal could “produce a new and better
people.” Arguing that although a magnificent building may be a reflection of an
existing culture, “to lift the cultural level of the people with beautiful architectural
designs is an impossible thing.”116 Simply from a pragmatic point of view, Fader
argues: “The architect cannot inspire a nation to build by giving them building
thoughts; he must patiently wait until the client comes to him.”117 In The City Crown,
though, Taut wanted to play the part of owner and building master at the same
time instead of letting “the people come” and to entirely let them be tools of his will
and spirit of the time. But to this Fader challenges a deeper assumption in Taut’s
proposition that the spirit of the time could create a new form which he argues “is
often only forming building types. In the absence of its own style forms the present
spirit of the time makes use of existing motifs and adapts them.”118
The city Taut envisaged overcoming societal strife through the construction of
architecture, specifically through its city crown, unfortunately never came true.
By 1920, one witnesses a decided shift towards pragmatism and functionality in
Taut’s speech explaining in one of the last Gläserne Kette (Crystal Chain) letters
from October 5, 1920: “In a word, I no longer want to draw Utopias ‘in principio,’ but
absolutely palpable Utopias that stand with both feet on the ground.”119 In 1921
Taut accepted the position as “Stadtbaudirektor” (City Architect) in Magdeburg.
Though constrained by many functional, financial and urban requirements, the
residential quarters Taut designed in Magdeburg and later in Berlin show a delicacy
and consideration for their inhabitant that Taut expressed in “Die Stadtkrone” and
implemented in his garden city housing projects before the war. Taut’s thoughts,
and especially his later realized housing projects, which carry the seeds of his
hoped for new society in them, were highly respected.
When Taut left Nazi Germany in 1933, first traveling to Japan (via Zurich) for four
years when he accepted a teaching position in Istanbul, Turkey, the inspiration
for his utopian musings during the First World War. In Turkey he must have felt
something like one of the inhabitants of his city in “Die Stadtkrone” returning
home. As Professor of Architecture at the State Academy of Fine Arts, Taut designed
a handful of educational buildings, including the Faculty of Languages, History
and Geography building at the Ankara University in Turkey. Still today, Taut is
considered one of the most influential architects of the modern movement and his
writings had a strong impact on the early twentieth-century architectural culture.
This first English translation of Taut’s anthology should become a critical text in
architectural studies on the history of European modernism, urban design theory
and Taut’s oeuvre in general.
Notes
1 Fritz Lang, Metropolis: A Film (London: Lorrimer Publishing, 1974), pp. 57–60.
2 “Weil ich die ganze Stadtkronegeschichte nun hinter mir habe, es ist alles gestern an Diedrichs
geschickt, und ich nun nie weiss was ich tun soll” [Because I now have the entire City Crown story
behind me, everything was sent to Diedrichs yesterday, and I now never know what to do]. Letter
to Hedwig Taut from August 29, 1917, Bruno Taut Archive (hereinafter BTA) 01–14 after Manfred
Speidel, “Nachwort,” in Bruno Taut, Die Stadtkrone (Berlin: Gebrüder Mann Verlag, 2002), p. 28, n. 58.
3 Reproduced in Speidel, “Nachwort,” p. 3.
4 For a summary of Fritz Lang’s allegorical meanings in Metropolis, see Tom Gunning, The Films of
Fritz Lang (London: British Film Institute, 2000), pp. 52–83.
5 Kristiana Hartmann, Deutsche Gartenstadtbewegung (Munich: Moos, 1976), pp. 8–10.
6 Ibid., pp. 10–14; and Dietrich Worbs, “The Berlin Mietskaserne and its Reforms,” in Josef Paul
Kleihues and Christina Rathgeber (eds), Berlin/New York: Like and Unlike: Essays on Architecture and
Art from 1870 to the Present (New York: Rizzoli, 1993), pp. 144–57.
7 Ebenezer Howard was employed as a shorthand writer by Gurneys, the official reporters of the
British Parliament. F.J. Osborn, “Preface” in Ebenezer Howard, Garden Cities of To-morrow (London:
Faber & Faber, 1946), p. 19.
8 Ebenezer Howard, To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform, with New Commentary by Peter Hall,
Dennis Hardy & Colin Ward (London: Routledge, 2003), pp. 12–19.
9 Ibid., pp. 5–11.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid., pp. 12–19. The communal ownership of land was crucial to Howard’s ideal that aimed at
preventing the kinds of land speculation that had made industrial cities so dense and unlivable in
for the working classes.
12 Ibid., p. 13; Bruno Taut, “The City Crown,” in The City Crown, ed. and trans by Matthew Mindrup and
Ulrike Altenmüller-Lewis (London: Ashgate Publishing, 2015), pp. 86–7.
13 With my inclusion of “that” in brackets: Taut, “The City Crown,” p. 86.
14 Ibid., p. 80.
15 Ibid., p. 82.
16 Ibid., p. 89.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid., pp. 90–91.
19 Ibid., pp. 74–5.
20 Ibid., p. 82.
21 Bruno Taut, “Das Problem des Opernhaus,” Sozialistische Monatshefte, 20(6) (March, 23 1914): 355–7.
22 Taut, “The City Crown,” pp. 75 and 84.
23 Ibid., p. 80.
24 Ibid.
25 These poems were originally published in art and literary journals at the end of the nineteenth
century. Paul Scheerbart, “Das neue Leben. Architektonische Apokalypse, Die Gesellschaft, 15(4)
(1897): 552–8; Paul Scheerbart, “Der tote Palast: Ein Architektentraum,” Pan, 3 (1898/1899): 162.
26 Taut, “The City Crown,” p. 79.
27 Ibid., pp. 41–71.
28 Bruno Taut, “Bildschreine,” Das hohe Ufer, 1 (1919): 305 after Matthias Schirren, “Weltbild, Kosmos,
Porportion,” in Winfried Nerdinger, Kristiana Hartmann, Matthias Schirren and Manfred Speidel
(eds), Bruno Taut 1880–1938 (Munich: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt DVA, 2001), p. 104.
29 Ibid.
30 Letter to Hedwig Taut from August 13, 1917, BTA–01–94 after Speidel, “Nachwort,” p. 27, n. 57
31 Camillo Sitte, Der Städte-Bau nach seinen künstlerischen Grundsätzen (Vienna: Carl Graeser, 1889).
32 Theodor Goecke, “Verkehrstrasse und Wohnstrasse,” Preussische Jahrbücher, 73 (1893): 85–104.
33 Herman Muthesius, Landhaus und Garten (Munich: 1907; 2nd edn 1910) after Kristiana Hartmann,
“Bruno Taut, der Architekt und Planer von Gartenstädten und Siedlungen,” in Nerdinger et al. (eds),
Bruno Taut 1880–1938, p. 137, n. 9.
34 Hartmann, “Bruno Taut,” p. 138; and Hartmann, Deutsche Gartenstadtbewegung, pp. 27–31.
35 Hartmann, Deutsche Gartenstadtbewegung, pp. 27–31.
36 “Sie erblickt ihr Haupstziel in der Gewinnung des Volkes für die Begründung von Gartenstädten.”
Hans Kampffmeyer, Die Gartenstadtbewegung, 2nd edn (Leipzig [u.a.]: Teubner, 1913), pp. 26–7.
37 “ … ist eine Innenkolonisation, die durch planmässiges Begründen von Gartenstädten eine
Dezentralisation der Industrie und damit eine gleichmässigere Verteilung des Gewerbelebens
über das Land anstrebt.” Ibid.
38 Howard, To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform, pp. 3–5.
39 Raymond Unwin, Town Planning in Practice: An Introduction to the Art of Designing Cities and
Suburbs (London: T.F. Unwin, 1909).
40 Hartmann, “Bruno Taut,” p. 139.
41 Ibid., p. 142.
42 Kurt Junghanns outlines the development of Taut’s color scheme at these estates: Kurt Junghanns,
Bruno Taut, 1880–1938: Architektur und sozialer Gedanke (Leipzig: Seemann, 1998), pp. 23–4.
43 Wilhelm Waetzoldt, “Die Entwicklung des Kunstgewerblichen Unterrichswesens in Preussen,”

Deutsche Rundschau, 176 (1918): 228–45, 365–80, after John V. Maciuika, Before the Bauhaus
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 21, n. 60.
44 “Rückblick auf die Entwickelung des gewerblichen Schulwesens in Preussen von 1884–1909,”
Ministerial-Blatt Handels- und Gewerbe-Verwaltung, 2 (May 6, 1910): 155–64 after Maciuika, Before
the Bauhaus, p. 115, n. 55.
45 Maciuika, pp. 137–216.
46 Kai K. Gutschow “From Object to Installation in Bruno Taut’s Exhibit Pavilions,” Journal of
Architectural Education, 69(3) (2006): 66; Hartmann, Deutsche Gartenstadtbewegung, pp. 104–21
after Iain Boyd Whyte, Bruno Taut and the Architecture of Activism (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2010 [1982]), p. 30, n. 14.
47 Thiekötter, Kristallisationen, Splitterungen Bruno Tauts Glashaus Köln 1914 (Basel: Birkhäuser, 1993),
pp. 15, 158–9, 168; and Kristiana Hartmann, “Ohne einen Glaspalast ist das Leben eine Last,” in
Nerdinger et al. (eds), Bruno Taut 1880–1938, p. 56, after Gutschow, “From Object to Installation in
Bruno Taut’s Exhibit Pavilions,” p. 66.
48 With the exception of Kai Gutschow, who refers to the kaleidoscope as a cinematograph, the
structure and experience of Taut’s Glashaus is generally described in the same way. See: Whyte,
Bruno Taut, p. 35; Rosemarie H. Bletter, “The Interpretation of the Glass Dream-Expressionist
Architecture and the History of the Crystal Metaphor,” Journal of the Society of Architectural
Historians, 40(1) (1981): 20–43; Gutschow, “From Object to Installation in Bruno Taut’s Exhibit
Pavilions,” p. 66; Taut, “The City Crown,” p. 88.
49 Paul Scheerbart, “Rakkox der Billionär; Münchhausen und Clarissa,” in Paul Scheerbart, Dichterische
Hauptwerke (Stuttgart: Goverts, 1962), pp. 227–47.
50 Leo Ikelaar, Paul Scheerbarts Briefe von 1913–1914 an Gottfried Heinersdorf, Bruno Taut und Herwarth
Walden (Paderborn: Igel Verlag, 1996), p. 88.
51 Ibid., pp. 97–113.
52 With the exception of “Backsteinkultur tut uns nur leid,” these English translations are from Whyte,
Bruno Taut, p. 36.
53 Paul Scheerbart, “Glass Architecture,” in Paul Scheerbart and Bruno Taut, Glass Architecture and
Alpine Architecture, Dennis Sharp (ed.), James Palmes and Shirley Palmer (trans.) (New York:
Praeger, 1972), p. 41. This English translation is by James Palmes.
54 Bruno Taut, Glashaus (Cologne: Werkbund, 1914), p. 289.
55 Bruno Taut, “Eine Notwendigkeit,” Der Sturm, 4(196–7) (February 1914): 174–5.
56 Ibid., p. 125.
57 Ibid. pp. 124 and 126.
59 Ibid.
60 Ibid., p. 83.
61 Letters from Taut to his brother Max from June of 1915 until the end of 1916 indicate that he was
employed at the Militär-Neubauamte in Spandau from June to August 1915 and in Plaue and der
Havel from August 1915 to December 1916. Letter to Max Taut, June 11,1915, Max Taut Archive
(hereinafter MTA) 01–1090. The letter to Max from November 8, 1916 MTA–01–1153 shows only
that he goes “no longer to Plaue.” After Speidel, “Nachwort,” p. 12, n. 23 and p. 14, n. 29.
62 Whyte, Bruno Taut, pp. 45–6.
63 Ibid., p. 46.
64 “Ich habe eine herrliche Idee, aber ich bin zu matt” (I have a brilliant idea, but I am too tired). Letter
to Max Taut, March 23, 1916, MTA–01–1153, after Speidel, “Nachwort,” p. 17, n. 37.
65 Speidel, “Nachwort,” pp. 14–17.
66 “Der Orient ist die wahre Mutter Europas, und unsere schlummernde Sehnsucht geht immer
dorthin.” Bruno Taut, “Reiseeindrücke aus Konstantinopel,” Kunstgewerbeblatt, 28(3) (1916/1917):
49–50, after Speidel, “Nachwort,” p. 14, n. 31.
67 “Die Moscheen aus dem Häusergewirre heraus und in es hinein … im Umriss aus der Ferne
gesehen ganz wie eine Pyramide.” Ibid.
68 During the time that Taut worked for Fischer (between 1904 and 1908), Fischer taught at the
Technischen Hochschule in Stuttgart from 1901 to 1908, where he gave a lecture in 1903 on the
historical hierarchy of the city organization around a central structure that represented the
ruling authority of the city. Theodor Fischer, Stadterweiterungsfragen mit besonderer Rücksicht auf
Stuttgart (Munich: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1903), pp. 8–11, with my correction of the citation
after Speidel, “Nachwort,” p. 25.
69 Theodor Heuss, Das Haus der Freundschaft in Konstantinopel: ein Wettbewerb deutscher Architekten
(Munich: Bruckman, 1918), after Speidel, “Nachwort,” p. 16.
70 Letter to Max Taut, December 30, 1916, MTA–01–1153, after Speidel, “Nachwort,” p. 17, n. 38.
71 Letter to Max Taut, February 6 and April 14, 1917, MTA–01–1154, after Speidel, “Nachwort,” p. 19,
n. 45.
72 Letter to Hedwig Taut, May 13 1917, BTA–01–94, after Speidel, “Nachwort,” p. 20, n. 46.
73 Matthias Schirren, Bruno Taut–Alpine Architektur: Eine Utopia (Munich: Prestel, 2004), pp. 36–41.
74 Taut, “The City Crown,” p. 90. Speidel make a similar observation in Speidel, “Nachwort,” p. 16.
75 Ibid., p. 92.
76 Ibid., p. 79.
77 Ibid., p. 87; Howard, To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform, p. 14.
79 Ibid., p. 83.
80 Ibid.
81 Gustav Landauer, Aufruf zum Sozialismus: ein Vortrag (Berlin: Verlag des Sozialistischen Bundes,
1911). Gustav Landauer, For Socialism, David J. Parent (trans.); introduction by Russell Berman and
Tim Luke (St Louis: Telos Press Ltd, 1978). All references will be made to this English edition.
82 Landauer, For Socialism, pp. 42–4.
84 “What in stone extends for centuries into the heavens, as a monument of the human Geistes,
must be based on a broad and strong perception” and “[in the city] we can see in front of us
everything that humans felt connected to by their innermost being: an architecture of the
Geister.” Ibid., p. 75.
85 Gustav Theodor Fechner, Die Tagesansicht gegenüber der Nachtansicht (Leipzig: Verlag Breitkopf
und Härtel, 1879), p. 64; Taut, “The City Crown,” p. 81.
86 Whyte, Bruno Taut, p. 54.
87 Landauer, For Socialism, pp. 42–4.
88 Theodor Goecke, “Von den Beziehungen der Zonenbauordung zum Bebauungspläne,” Der
Städtebau, 2(1) (1905), pp. 2–5.
89 Taut includes perspective views of his own Falkenberg estate design as visual examples of a
garden city. Taut, “The City Crown,” pp. 96–7, Figures 50–51.
90 Ibid., p. 91.
91 Ibid., p. 76.
92 “The community halls similarly express the full harmonic tone of human Gemeinschaft. In them
Geist and soul shall be elevated and mature, in order to give the entirety its beauty.” Ibid., p. 89.
93 “Some form of purpose must live in every human breast, a feeling that elevates the individual
above everyday concerns and permits him to enjoy the fellowship of this contemporaries, his
nation, with all people and with the entire world.” Ibid., p. 83.
94 Ibid., p. 75.
95 Ibid., p. 84.
96 Taut, “Eine Notwendigkeit,” pp. 174–5. With my replacement of “public” by “Volk,” this English
translation is from Rosemarie H. Bletter, “Architecture,” in Rose-Carol Washton Long (ed.), German
Expressionism, Documents from the End of the Wilhelmine Empire to the Rise of National Socialism
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), p. 124.
97 Landauer, For Socialism, p. 33.
98 Taut, address to the Werkbund Conference, July 4, 1914 in vol. 7. Jahresersammlung des Deutschen
Werkbundes von 2. Bis 6. Juli 1914 in Köln (Jena, 1914), p. 75 after Whyte, Bruno Taut, p. 85, n. 17.
99 Taut, Letter to Max Taut, June 8, 1904, Heinrich Taut Collection after Whyte, Bruno Taut, p. 85, n. 19.
100 Theodor Fischer, Sechs Vorträge über Stadtbaukunst (Munich, Berlin: Oldenburg, 1920).
101 Speidel, “Nachwort,” p. 33.
102 See Schirren, p. 16, n. 25. In Taut’s letter to his wife he remarks how: “Manchmal, oft vor (de)m
Einschlafen lese ich ein Kapital von Meister Eckhart. Wunderbare tiefste Weisheit” (“Sometimes,
often before going to bed I read a chapter of Master Eckhart. Wonderful deepest wisdom”). Bruno
Taut, letter to Hedwig Taut, August 13, 1917, BTA–01–94, after Speidel, “Nachwort,” p. 27, n. 57.
103 Speidel, “Nachwort,” p. 30.
104 Bruno Taut, “Ein Architektur-Programm,” 1st edn, December 1918; 2nd edn Berlin: Arbeitsrat für
Kunst, 1919; This English translation from Ulrich Conrads (ed. and trans.), Programs and Manifestoes
on 20th Century Architecture (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1975), p. 41.
105 With the exception of the playwright Alfred Brust, who contributed three aphorisms to the
correspondence, Taut indicates the names of the participants in his letter to them from December
19, 1919. He later confirms Brust’s naming of their correspondence as a “gläserne Kette” (Crystal
Chain). Iain Boyd Whyte, The Crystal Chain Letters: Architectural Fantasies by Bruno Taut and His
Circle, Iain Boyd Whyte (ed. and trans.) (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985), pp. 20–21 and 154.
106 Taut, letter to the Crystal Chain members, November 24, 1919. Ibid., p. 19.
107 “Neuartige Schule mit einem Erziehungssystem auf der Basis größter Selbständigkeit der Schüler,
Arbeit in Schulwerkstatten und Internatsleben in Schülergemeinschaften.” Isabelle Ewig, Thomas
W. Gaehtgens and Matthias Noell, Das Bauhaus und Frankreich 1919–1940/Le Bauhaus et la France.
(Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2002), pp. 153–4.
108 Karl Ernst Osthaus, “Die Folkwangschule, Ein Entwurf von Bruno Taut,” Genius, 2 (1920): 199–205.
109 Whyte, Bruno Taut and the Architecture of Activism, pp. 169 and 173. Surviving letters between Taut
and Osthaus confirm that Osthaus approached Taut about the school in late November. See Birgit
Schulte (ed.), Auf dem Weg zu einer handgreiflichen Utopie (Hagen: Neuer Folkwang Verlag, 1994),
p. 150.
110 Das Hohe Ufer, 1(4) (1919): 113–14 after Speidel, “Nachwort,” p. 42.
111 “Der Weltkrieg hat das Alte zerstört, Gebundenheit gelöst und neue Kraft freigemacht.” “Der Stadt
wieder ihre Krone zugeben, ihre hohere Einheit in dem hochragenden Bau, in dem der Drang aller
suchenden Seelen empor zum Licht sich vereinigt zu himmelanstrebenden Auftrieb, ist der Sinn
der Baukunst.” Author unknown, “Zur Wiedergeburt der Baukunst,” Westdeutsche Wochenschrift, 1
(May 23, 1919): 85–6, after Speidel, “Nachwort,” p. 42.
112 Christof Spengemann, “Bruno Taut / Die Stadtkrone / Eugen Diederichs / Jena,” Der Zweeman, 6
(April 1920): 15.
113 Lisbeth Stern (Red.), “Stadtkrone,” Sozialistische Monatshefte, 25 (June 10, 1919): 584–5 after
Speidel, “Nachwort,” pp. 41–2.
114 “Mentalität Tauts und vielleicht auch in dem aus dem Gleise geratenen Zeitgeist liegt es …
Die Folge ist eine gewisse Schwarmgeisterei, … das trotz dauernder Berufung auf Sozialismus
Radikalismus doch im Wiederspruch zu dem Sinn dieser Zeit zu stehen scheint.” Das Kunstblatt,
3(6) (1919): 190.
115 Emil Fader, “Gedanken zu Bruno Taut: Die Stadtkrone,” Deutsche Bauzeitung, 54(33) (April 24, 1920):
197–200, after Speidel, “Nachwort,” p. 40.
116 “Ein harmonisch geschichtetes Volk bring wohl eine vorbildliche Stadtanlage hervor, aber eine
schön verteilte Gebäudegruppe erzeugt noch keine neuen, besseren Menschen. Ein herrliches
Bauwerk ist der Abglanz einer vorhandenen hohen Kultur, jedoch mit schönen Architektur–
Entwürfen den kulturellen Stand des Volkes heben zu wollen, ist ein Unding.” Ibid., p. 198.
117 “Der Architekt kann nicht ein Volk zum Bauen anregen, indem er ihm einen Bau-Gedanken
schenkt; er muss geduldtig warten, bis der Bauherr zu ihm kommt.” Ibid.
118 “Der Zeitgeist ist nicht immer formschöpferisch, er ist oft nur typenbildend. In Ermangelung
eigener Stilformen bedient sich der gegenwärtige Zeitgeist vorhandener Motive und wandelt
sie ab.” Ibid., p. 200.
119 Bruno Taut’s letter to Crystal Chain members, October 5, 1920. Whyte, The Crystal Chain Letters,
p. 155.
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(Stuttgart: Goverts, 1962), pp. 227–47.
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Kunst, 1919. This English translation from Ulrich Conrads (ed. and trans.), Programs and
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(eds), Berlin/New York: Like and Unlike: Essays on Architecture and Art from 1870 to the
Present (New York: Rizzoli, 1993), pp. 144–57.
BRUNO TAUT
THE CITY CROWN
WITH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM
PAUL SCHEERBART, ERICH BARON, ADOLF BEHNE
WITH 72 ILLUSTRATIONS
[ORIGINALLY] PUBLISHED BY EUGEN DIEDERICHS JENA 1919
FOR THE PEACEFUL
THE NEW LIFE
AN ARCHITECTONIC APOCALYPSE
BY
PAUL SCHEERBART
36 The City Crown By BRUNO TAUt
THE NEW LIFE

An Architectonic Apocalypse
S lowly the old terrestrial globe turns around the old sun that no longer
glows and radiates as before.
Dark violet the old sun shines, so that it will never be day again – never again
on earth.
Silent night is everywhere.
It is very very still.
The sky is as black as the blackest velvet.
But the stars sparkle so bright as before – probably brighter, as they are
larger.
Golden stars they are!
The terrestrial globe is entirely white – entirely enveloped with white snow
– with luminescent snow!
Starry winter night on the heights and in the valley!
The dead earth turns ever more slowly.
Yet in the velvet black sky, it comes alive.
The great archangels come.
With colossal white wings, they flutter hurriedly here. Rustling through
the sky.
It becomes so loud; the air is so full of turbulence as if many million tribes
of people awake to a new life.
But only the archangels come. They are twelve. They are so frightfully
large. Six flutter around one half of the terrestrial globe and six on the other,
so that one sees little of either side.
The angels slowly bow their heads while flapping their wings. Their feet
float high over both poles of the earth. With their fluttering blond curls the
twelve heads soon form a magnificent halo of hair around the middle of the
terrestrial globe.
Initially each archangel takes the large cathedral they carried under their
arm into both hands and set it on a high snow range. Then all twelve remove
their thick fur gloves and with delicate fingers reach into their ocean-sized
backpacks.
From their backpacks the angels break out many hundred shiny new
sparkling palaces. And with the palaces, they decorate the large snowball that
calls itself earth making it colorful and powerfully radiant; at the same time
the eyes of the archangels shine as if presenting toys to well-behaved children.
After their backpacks are emptied, the angels flutter upwards in beautifully
large arcs chatting merrily at moderate distance.
The earth looks colorful, as if it were strewn with the wings of the most
precious butterflies, frozen birds of paradise and gleaming diamonds.
And the palaces become bright. A million lamps are lit everywhere inside;
through the colored glass windows of the high cathedrals and all the many
The New Life: An Architectonic Apocalypse 37
castles, streams the soft thousand-colored light out into the violet snowy
night.
The violet sun becomes even darker. The distant golden stars also lose
much of their brilliance. The black velvet sky gloriously frames the softly
glowing earth.
And the enormous bells of the cathedrals all ring.
A shudder of longing trickles through the expansive snowfields; a new life
percolates through the lurking melancholy of the cold terrestrial globe – the
eternal life!
The dead arise.
Everywhere the blanket of snow lifts up. And all the people, who once lived
and died on the earth, climb out of their graves, shake off the snow and look at
one another in astonishment. When they notice that they are resurrected, they
all embrace one another and are so moved.
Yes! Yes! Who would not gladly begin a new life!
The earth turns still faster.
Yet, this great serious moment forebodes a large humorous masquerade,
for all people wear clothing, similar to what they wore most frequently in their
lifetimes. The beggars walk next to the kings, the priests next to the warriors,
the craftsmen next to the scholars – in all the many costumes of all the many
times. From the [raw] hide apron to the ironed dress shirt, everything is there.
The risen climb up the golden steps to the castles and cathedrals. It is
swarming [with people]!
All languages of the earth swirl in confusion, resounding powerfully
through the entire sky and the bells can be heard no longer.
Above, before the doors of the castles and cathedrals, many thousand
angels, who are not larger than the people, stand in delicate lime green, pale
blue and light red robes and wait.
Solemn greeting! Shaking hands and caressing cheeks! Nodding and
waving arms! Much laughter! And much smiling comfort!
The large castles that consist of pure giant diamonds spray their colorful
fire so festively into the twilight. And the other jewels of the distant pillared
halls of column shine competitively with the pure giant diamonds. And the
precious stone growths that soar out of the cathedrals are also so wonderful.
The emerald cupolas of individual castles are illuminated from within and
throw far into the black velvet sky green beams of light that slowly move.
The sapphire towers rise higher than the other towers. And the quiet light
that streams out everywhere through the thousand-colored glass windows,
shimmers so saintly colorfully and auspiciously. Enormous palace-mountains
are enclosed with gigantic opal arches. When the eye wanders from pole to
pole, it becomes entranced by the entire radiant glow. The buildings’ magic
is so powerful that astonished one asks himself how it is that the risen people
become not go crazy. But –as terrible as it is, it is also so true: that most people
think merely of the good supper, that according to their expectations will be
served by assiduous servants in the cathedrals and palaces. How astonished
the risen are when they find in the interior of all the many brilliant castles
no supper! Man and woman look around amazed, to discover nothing.

Outside they already painfully noted the complete absence of trees, fruits and
vegetables – and now the inside is also entirely of barren stone! Marble and
ruby, gold and silver, colorful lamps and colorful walls, charmingly detailed
cupolas, a little velvet and silk, mighty granite columns, sparkling glass
grottos and similar things, yes, in unmanageable quantity – yet no trace of
roast mutton, snail salad and fire wine!
“Angel, where is the supper?”
So quickly then, humanity unanimously cries out.
The angels silently open small side gates inside the palaces and cathedrals
that until then were hidden from the views of the people. Everyone naturally
thinks – now it is time to eat, to drink and to smoke. Hey! How happy they
are!
Meanwhile – this time the disappointment is still much greater.
The “old” life grins at the people.
“Everything” is resurrected.
But their misery does not appear as bad as at the time when the sun still
shone brightly. It is framed differently! In the palace taste! The halls and
rooms, in which their former vocation is supposed to be taken up again,
are surrounded with so much fine pageantry that the “good” people jump
[back] into the old habits with great joy, even if it is also so unsavory like dirty
laundry.
Yes! Yes! The old life!
One must again care for their sick wife, who groans and complains without
intermission; in cold silence he begins again the dance of torment from the
start, like so often before –a truly good man! Another good man begins, to visit
large social events, and at the same time to complain again about his insatiable
longing for eternal solitude – exactly like before. A third is not satisfied with
his reputation; he wants to become famous, which naturally does not happen,
because he does not know how he would like to do it. A fourth fights with
his former courage his enormous carnal sensuousness and becomes the real
ascetic master, let’s again admire his iron willpower, even though he must
have a good laugh at himself in each quite hour because as all his power is
only a natural and appropriate consequence of debauchery and disgust. A
fifth hopes always to find a sack with gold – And what does he find? A sack
with poisonous jokes!! A sixth must seek “money” in vain – because he never
finds success!! And a seventh must say “yes” and “amen” to all, which was
always difficult for him. And the million others work and reign, command
and obey – also exactly like once before. The machines rattle again, and the
heads of thinkers smoke again, the potato fields bear their mealy fruits again,
the drunkards booze again like in the former times and the criminals again
break in [to the homes] of the people with means.
Everything is as before! – It merely takes place in beautifully framed lovely
palaces and cathedrals that are so large that one cannot see them in their
entirety. Otherwise there is no difference.
The New Life: An Architectonic Apocalypse 39
Naturally, the good people are satisfied with everything – while the evil
people are satisfied with nothing – for them the all invigorating sun of the
architecture is not enough – they want supper with oysters and strong drink
– uninterrupted pleasure with honky-tonks and sleigh rides.
The good angels, who want to soothe and comfort the evil people, say
kindly: “Children, you know not at all what is useful to you! Bad times and
good are equally distributed in every human life. One without the other is
inconceivable. Be sensible! All are not satisfiable. Is it not enough that we
created a comfortable environment for you? You desire to be continuously
amused – yet that does not work!”
“Why not?” Scream the evil ones.
“Because it would bore you!” answer the angels, and they yawn while they
think of “perpetual” happiness. The evil ones however laugh – so hatefully
that the good angels become seriously angry.
“One should actually,” they continue in a sharper tone, “tease you –
with fiery pincers. Your stupidity must be eradicated with fire and sword.
You will never understand that ‘dwelling respectably’ is better than ‘living
respectably.’ As the plants of the earth mostly lived only of light and air, so
should you now also mostly live of what surrounds you – of the light and of
the air of divine architecture, which is ‘true’ art. Is it for you really not enough
to be able to live in these heavenly radiant castles? Do you still not know what
it means: to be at home in a dream world? That is certainly the stimulating
oyster of poverty! What are compared to that all the rabbits of wealth? A great
cacophony – nothing else! Your life shall only be a chord in the music of the
spheres1 – therefore your painful outcry is not to be done without – otherwise
the music of the spheres will be as mushy as rice pudding! You incredible
hippopotami!”
The evil ones shake with laughter and hold their bellies. The angels,
however, remain entirely serious, they say sadly: “You all will not miss out!
The torments of the beggars are rewarded equally with joys, of which the
poor kings know nothing. In addition to all that, comes this splendid dream
world of your wonder palaces.”
“Precisely that makes us even more desirous! We want no self-deception!”
scream out the stupid villains, who always want to be amused and blessed.
“Well, if the self-deception does not fit you,” thunder the angels, “then you
can go back in your graves. Your cannibalistic stupidity should not spoil for
us the new life that we offered you in this bright world!”
And the lime green angels with dark green fir branches step forward, and
with their dark green fir branches, strike all the discontents.
And the stricken fall over dead.
Quickly they are carried out and hastily buried beneath the snow again.
Every trace of the evil ones is soon gone.
1
“Music of the spheres” refers to the ancient concept that the planets create
a celestial harmony derived from their obits’ proportional relationships.
The good people, however, that are grateful they can just live in a brilliant
blessed dream world, quietly carry over the torments of their former lives into
their new lives, laugh cheerfully about it all and desire no more.
When the lime green angels return, they kindly caress the wise heads of
the good people.
Through the colorful panes of glass, a new and happiness radiates into the
snowy night, making it quite strange.
Emerald globes illuminate the black universe with green cones of light.
Sapphire towers stretch themselves yet higher – like energetic phantoms.
Gigantic opal lattices shimmer like millions of swarming butterflies.
Many smaller castles look like little fireflies on the white snowball that is
called earth.
And it is all so solemn and touching in the eternal twilight hours so that
everyone can become serene.
The archangels bow down to earth for the second time.
Like shortly before, the giant blond curls form a magnificent halo of hair.
The indescribably large angels place the festively illuminated palaces back in
their backpacks, pull on their gloves, take their cathedrals into their arms –
and flutter away.
Soon the entire globe will revolve slowly like just before – like a large
snowball that children roll when they construct a snowman.
The violet sun glows in the distance like a hanging lamp that runs out of
oil.
The golden stars twinkle in the deep black velvet sky – like happy radiant
castles.
And the night is so quiet – so deathly quiet!
40 EXAMPLES OF
HISTORIC CITY CROWNS

Figure 2 Charles Cottet, City Image.
Figure 3 Mont-Saint-Michel.
Figure 4 Strasbourg.
Figure 5 Monte Compatri.
Figure 6 Durham.
Figure 7 Adrianople, Selim Mosque.
Figure 8 Augsburg, St Ulrich Church.

Figure 9 Utrecht.
Figure 10 Assyrian Temple, reconstruction.

Figure 11 Madurai, Great Gopura.
Figure 12 Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem, reconstruction.
Figure 13 Cologne.
Figure 14 London.
Figure 15 Selinunt, reconstruction.
Figure 16 Athens.
Figure 17 Yangon, Shewdagon Pagoda.
Figure 18 Salamanca.
Figure 19 Yangon.
Figure 20 Buarcos.
Figure 21 Tzaffin.
Figure 22 Prenzlau.
Figure 23 Angkor Wat.
Figure 24 Cairo.
Figure 25 Hebron in Palestine.
Figure 26 Moscow. Great Cathedral in the Kremlin.
Figure 27 Moscow with the Kremlin.
Figure 28 La Chaise-Dieu.
Figure 29 Béziers.
Figure 30 Strängnäs.
Figure 31 Pisa, Piazza del Duomo.

Figure 32 Danzig.
Figure 33 Aden.
Figure 34 Srivilliputtur.
Figure 35 Miao tai tae, Memorial Temple.
Figure 36 Paris.
Figure 37 Speyer.
Figure 38 Mainz.
Figure 39 Toledo.
Figure 40 Bangkok.
Figure 41 Chidambaram, Shiva-Pond.
THE CITY CROWN
ARCHITECTURE
M any thousand times shall be praised the glory of architecture!

Mankind cannot face the forces of nature without shelter. It fulfills
man’s need for protection from inclement weather and the manifold dangers
to which he is exposed.1 In this way, the role of architecture for mankind as
a “functional art” seems to be a modest one, which satisfies man’s practical
demands in a graceful way. Only when human desire goes beyond the
satisfaction of simple functional needs, where people seek an abundance of
luxury does architecture become more noticeable and reveal more of itself.
In these instances, architecture is not constrained by the satisfaction of bare
necessities and for that reason presents itself as a form of art.
Overall, the public and those who serve architecture confront it with this
point of view today.2 However, architects need not complain. It remains a
great accomplishment to fulfill people’s recurring and increasing needs.
Humanity cannot be nourished without forms that are thoroughly integrated
with their needs; forms that purify and support the entire culture through
their inner truths. Because it is here, even if only to a modest extent, already
a question about metaphysical forms, meaning creations of the imagination,
so must the imagination’s meaning and value emerge even stronger when
luxury becomes the driving force and function is no longer a limiting factor.3
In this way, design is no longer concerned only with the unity of form with
purpose, because the play of form now serves to increase the enjoyment of
life. Rather, design is about the unity of form with a purpose greater than
basic needs. It becomes apparent that our view of architecture and the true
vocation of the architect are understood too narrowly.
To view architecture as nothing more than well-designed functional forms
or as ornamental wrappings around our essential needs is to assign it to
the role of a craft and places too little value on its importance. In buildings
that demand more than the fulfillment of basic necessities, architecture is
an art, a play of fantasy, and maintains only a very loose connection with
those purposes. However, no effort of the human imagination can lead to
profound physical forms if it does not root itself in the inner spiritual life
1
For this translation, we have decided to include the word “shelter” in
brackets and use gendered pronouns in lieu of non-gendered language in order to
preserve the original character of the text and the culture in which it was written.
Hereinafter, words or phrases in square brackets indicate additions we have made
to our translation of the German text.
2
The term “those who serve it today” refers to architects as professionals
who create architecture. From Taut’s perspective, architecture is perceived by the
greater public as an art that goes beyond the fulfillment of functional needs and it
is the architect who gives his life into the service of this art as artist.
3
In this sentence, as in the one before it, Taut uses the word “Formen” (forms,
shapes) in the original text. Here, we have added the word “metaphysical” in
brackets to clarify a change in the meaning of the word “forms” that Taut himself
explains are now to be understood as “creations of the imagination.”
THE CITY CROWN 75
and existence of mankind.4 Despite relegating architecture to such a humble

position, explaining it by its purpose should no longer be enough if this term
“purpose” is not used in a broader and more unrestricted way.5
Like every other art, architecture must ground itself in the entire being
of man, including all that through which he perceives his own value and
relation to the world. Because the abstraction of architectural form is given
by its nature, it is sometimes mistakenly compared with music. Therefore,
the visible core from which it emerges must be especially clear and strong.
Architecture can reproduce, only negligibly, the variable tempers of its
creator as lyrically as music. What in stone extends for centuries into the
heavens, as a monument to the human spirit, must be based on a broad and
strong perception. Although one individual may be its spiritual creator, the
genesis of a building requires many hands and material means. The architect
himself must possess an awareness and knowledge of all the deep feelings
and opinions of the populace for whom he wants to build. Of course, his work
aspires not only to the ephemeral, in what is called the Zeitgeist, but also to
those dormant spiritual forces of generations, cloaked in beliefs, hopes and
aspirations that struggle towards the light and in the nobler sense want to
build. At first, it appears necessary to solve tasks based solely on need. Yet,
in reality, it is not practical demands, but rather the imagination that creates
architecture.6 This shows that the will of the architect as artist is directed by
something entirely different than mere practicality. And it is thus quite self-
explanatory that this will lies above and beyond mere functionality. Buildings
that exhibit a minimal practical purpose or none at all best demonstrate an
architect’s volition.
Throughout every great cultural epoch, the constructive will of the time
was directed at one transcendent building type. The narrow concept of
4
The German word “Dasein” is in this text translated as “existence” when it
is describing something physical and as “being” when it is describing something
metaphysical.
5
Taut’s elder friend, Hermann Muthesius, writes extensively about the
distinction between Baukunst and Architektur in Stilarchitektur und Baukunst. It was
Muthesius who suggested that Taut travel to England to study the garden city
movement that became an inspiration for much of Taut’s urban ideals in this essay.
Hermann Muthesius, Stilarchitektur und Baukunst: Wandlungen der Architektur im
XIX. Jahrhundert und ihr heutiger Standpunkt (Jena: Diederichs, 1901). In English:
Hermann Muthesius, Style-Architecture and Building-Art, Stanford Anderson
(trans.) (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 1994).
6
It is difficult to imagine Le Corbusier’s claim that architecture is a “pure
creation of the mind” in Toward an Architecture is not influenced by the distinction
Taut makes here. See Le Corbusier, “Architecture, Pure Creation of the Mind,” in
Toward an Architecture, John Goodman (trans.) (Los Angeles: Getty Publications,
2007), pp. 231–51. The original printing of the essay as “Architecture III, pure
création de l’esprit” occurred in the tenth issue of Le Corbusier and Amédée
Ozenfant’s periodical L’Esprit nouveau. Le Corbusier-Saugnier, “Architecture,
pure création de l’esprit,” L’Esprit nouveau, Revue internationale illustrée de l’activité
contemporaine, 16 (May 1922): 1903–20.
building construction applied today is a complete inversion of what it was in

the past. A minster, a cathedral above a historic city; a pagoda above the huts
of Indians; the enormous temple district in the square of the Chinese city; and
the Acropolis above the simple houses of an ancient city; these all show that
the pinnacle, the highest point, is the crystallized religious conception – both
the starting point and the final goal for all architecture. This spiritual light,
radiating onto each building, down to the simplest hut, demonstrates that
buildings can fulfill the simplest practical needs and still express a shimmer
of brilliance. The depth and power of this philosophy of life is not limited to
large buildings alone. Their intensity and passion creates beauty in the small
as well. Embedded within the task of the architect, this alone achieves the
correct valuation of scale and prevents the blurring of boundaries of which
our times suffer between the big and the small, the sacred and the profane.7
During the gothic era, this devotion inspired the incredible adventurousness
of the cathedrals and produced the restless interpenetration of the practical
and constructive needs of the people in the simplest of buildings.
THE OLD CITY
T he fabric of the old city is a precise image of the inner structure of mankind
and its thoughts. It is so obvious that we can see in front of us everything
that humans felt connected to by their innermost being: an architecture of the
spirit. Altogether, huts, dwellings, and town halls build up to and culminate
in a cathedral, temple, or something that one could call a great architecture,
a unique building. Beyond the actual construction, the cohesion of this fabric
is so tight that it embraces and unifies mankind, through their enjoyment of
life, their world-views, and all forms of art. Architecture permeates through
all existence and this in itself turns it into architecture. Can architecture and its
meaning ever be overestimated? It is a carrier, expression, and touchstone for
every period. We need not study cultural history, the particulars of everyday
life, or the political and religious doctrines of different epochs to clearly see in the
stony witnesses what had fulfilled humanity. Because it connects generations,
architecture represents a second life for man; it is the truest mirror. It declares
what long deceased prophets have learned and dynasties have believed.8 For
this reason it seems that the phrase “building art” is too limited for something
that embodies life, and worlds of thought, rendered in stone.
The mirror of the old city image is true, pure, and unclouded. The greatest
buildings were derived from the highest thoughts: faith, God, and religion.
The house of God governs every village and small city, just as the cathedral
reigns majestically over large cities. This is quite different from what we see
today in the tenement housing that extends beyond the old city plan. That it
was a religious thought that created the majesty of these edifices needs no
7
Taut seems to contradict himself here.
8
A life that goes beyond the lifetime of a generation, a heritage that lives on.
THE CITY CROWN 77
explanation. The often-prominent position of fortifications and castles has

nothing in common with religious architecture. These were chosen to satisfy
the practical need for fortified protection, a value they no longer possess in
today’s warfare. The cathedral, with its truly egregious nave and even less
practical tower (purpose as a basic need), remains the city’s actual crown.
Despite the strong political independence of the old city, the town halls, civic
buildings, guild houses, and so many others subordinate their beauty and
glory to the cathedral, as do the multicolored jewels that surround a sparkling
diamond. In them rests everything that should represent the highest of ideas:
the towered city walls, the chain of gabled houses that enclose the city hall,
small church towers, and finally the main church. Together, these elements
build a closed, increasingly intensified rhythm that culminates precisely at the
top. Given the wealth of its overflowing life, the city’s component parts may
not always be recognized so clearly, but its inherent organization is apparent.
A religious-clerical presence alone cannot explain this aspiration, because it
was the result of deeper religious needs. No matter how you try to explain this
phenomenon, whether or not it was consciously intended by the old masters,
it exists and is inseparable from our conception of the old and beautiful city.9
The same presence is found in the distant past, and yes, even more prominent
in the impressive temple systems of antiquity or in the temples and pagodas
of Asia, where the removal of fortification walls often evoke an even more
powerful contrast to the simple dwellings of common people.
THE CHAOS
W ithout any particular justification, one perceives the old city as an

organism that grew into its present form. Although the particularities of
different localities resulted in numerous variations, what essentially remains
the same is that the city developed around the cathedral and the city hall. It
then grew outward towards the city walls that were originally located very
far from the center so that, in the case of a siege, the rural population could
flee inside.
How the city must now transform itself when the intoxicating effect of the
economic boom brings about an increase of traffic by the train! Tenements,
factories, and office buildings glued themselves onto the old core and, despite
the mammoth scale of the expansion, threatened to smother what still remains
of the true center. Because a combination of old and new was no longer possible,
conceptions of city planning were rife with uncertainty and confusion. Finally,
after too much time had passed, one perceived the instability of the city’s
chaotic condition. It appeared impossible to clean such an Augean stable of
culturelessness.10 The neglect of all fundamental requirements of building and
9
Here, the term “Meister” refers to “Baumeister” (master builder).
10
In Greek mythology, the fifth labor of Hercules was the cleaning of the
stables of Augeas, the King of Elis, in one single day. Owning the greatest number
planning had become too pervasive.11 “The paradise, the home of art” vanished
and had become “the hell, the home of the power hungry” (Scheerbart).12
Cities so transformed certainly stood in the most beautiful harmony with their
being that, according to the laws of nature, always provokes a unity of content
and form. Even the filthiest tenement quarters, yes every single house, always
stands in harmony with the life that goes on inside of it, no matter how ugly it
is. Moreover, if a divinity arrived and suddenly deposited the most beautiful
quarters, after some time life in such new houses would be similarly altered.
Nevertheless, given this state of the chaos, it would really require a God. The
few people who perceived the hopelessness and ugliness of this materialistic
existence could only slowly dig and search for a new order of things by
departing from individual points of view.
THE NEW CITY
A t first, people were entrenched in a romantic love for the beauty of the old
city image and sought, through the study of the single street and square
forms, a new aesthetic orientation (Camillo Sitte).13 In addition, research
was conducted on a new concept of urban planning according to social,
economic and health issues. The goal was to organize the city quarters and
street lines, as well as to discover everything upon which a new city could be
built in the first place (Theodor Goecke).14 This line of thinking formed a new
theory called “urbanism.” In large part, however, it remains until today only
superficially understood by some followers and usually limited to formalistic
terms. In substance though, this new theory turned out to be a fertile seed for
the future. One after another, all the progressive forces were carried away by
the doctrines of urbanism. Owing to many designs and theoretical studies,
today we have an idea as to how best organize a modern city.
At least in theory, the distribution of residential quarters, industry,
business quarters, public schools, and administrative buildings finally found
a fixed form. Restructuring and reorganizing an existing city was, however,
of cattle in Greece, the King had neglected his stables, which had never been
cleaned. Hercules succeeded in cleaning the stables by rerouting two rivers and
thus washing out all the dirt.
11
The fundamental rules of urban planning were no longer considered
and uncontrolled building had occurred, creating chaos in the cities that Taut
considered unbearable.
12
Taut is quoting from Paul Scheerbat’s book: Paul Scheerbart, Das Paradies.
Die Heimat der Kunst (Berlin: Commissions Verlag von George und Fiedler, 1889).
13
Camillo Sitte, Der Städte-Bau nach seinen künstlerischen Grundsätzen (Vienna:
Carl Graeser, 1900). In English: City Planning According to Artistic Principles,
George Roseborough Collins and Christiane Crasemann Collins (trans.) (London:
Phaidon Press, 1965).
14
Theodor Goecke was professor for urban planning at the Technische
Hochschule Charlottenburg in Berlin where Bruno Taut visited his lectures in 1908.
THE CITY CROWN 79
not enough.15 Research continued regarding the new forms that the new city
must take, so that its inhabitants would be happy. This critical review led to
the theoretical rejection of tenement housing and to the understanding that
building small single-family row houses would be feasible. The garden city
movement aimed at the creation of a new city. It included row houses, each
with its own garden, in close proximity to horticulture and agriculture. The
structure of this new city’s residential streets were practical and profitably
laid out to promote living near well-distributed parks. The location of
industry and every element of the living city environment were sensible and
controlled to exclude real estate speculation. The British vigorously promoted
this manner of city design, leading to “the first garden city of Letchworth,”
one hour’s train ride from London.16 Many suburban settlements dependent
upon a metropolis were constructed in Germany along a similar philosophical
line.17
Although often obscured by compromises, a new idea lives in the garden
city movement, providing fruitful suggestions for expanding and improving
the planning of existing cities. A new idea directs all these heads and hands; it
is the model of a new city. A deep desire directs us all: according to Aristotle,
we want cities in which we can live not only safely and healthily, but also
happily. This longing rests so deep in our psyche that we have no need to look
back to the old. With pride, we know our own wishes and inclinations that
differ significantly from those of the past. We endeavor to fill them with hope,
unencumbered by all inhibitions.
BODY WITHOUT A HEAD 18
T his idea of the new city will bear fruit and we shall be happy that we have
it. It is for us the secure promise that our descendants will live better and
more beautifully.
15
Here, and throughout the text, we translate the word “disziplinieren,”
meaning literally “to discipline,” as “to restructure” when it is being used to refer
to an unruly existing city that will be disciplined according to a new set of ideas or
rules.
16
Ebenezer Howard, Garden Cities of To-morrow (London: S. Sonnenschein
& Co., Ltd, 1902). The German translation was first published under the title
Gartenstädte in Sicht (Jena: Diederichs, 1907) and inspired the German Garden City
Movement.
17
Hellerau, begun in 1909 just north of Dresden, was the first German
Garden City and involved notable designers like Heinrich Tessenow, Richard
Riemerschmidt and Hermann Muthesius.
18
The title is “Rumpf ohne Kopf.” “Rumpf” translates as either “body” or
“torso.” We chose to translate this term in the tradition of Francesco di Giorgio
Martini. See Lawrence Lowic, “The Meaning and Significance of the Human
Analogy in Francesco di Giorgio’s Trattato,” Journal of the Society of Architectural
Historians, 42(4) (1983): 360–370.
Yet, one idea must be made clear in our minds: organizing – restructuring
– organizing – restructuring. This should not be underestimated; yet, is this
an idea that one can build? Has this in itself a building force?19 Where is the
graphic image without which there is no art? What image do we have of the
new city?20 Healthy dwellings, gardens, parks, nice paths, industry, businesses
– everything healthy, well ordered and comfortable for living. A school here,
an administration building there, all laid out beautifully in a romantic or
classical style. Yet, can all of our life’s needs be fulfilled by comfort, ease, and
pleasantness? The whole can dissolve like snow in the sun. Is there no head?
Has this body no head? Is this our image, our spiritual condition? We look at
the old cities and must say wearily: we have no firm footing.
We have civic buildings: schools, baths, libraries, city administration
buildings, etc! And these edifices can certainly dominate! Still, for practical
reasons, a number of these buildings, including the schools, baths and libraries
(with the exception of the main library), lie scattered about our comfortable
city to disburse their healing effects. Nevertheless, an administration building
located in the urban center can dominate as the City Hall once did! Despite
being a pure representation of the government, the City Hall certainly was
still subordinate to the cathedral. Our City Halls comprise only offices for
civic administration. Citizens arrive, register, pay taxes or fines, and leave.
Moreover, it probably contains the city council assembly room, meeting
rooms and other spaces, but does this type of structure so fully represent our
view of life that it may reign powerfully above the entire city? Justifiably,
the opulent endowment of modern City Halls with a tower and heavy
architecture is rejected for reasons of parsimony, because it contradicts the
building’s inner workings.21 Cities today may have their own independent
administration, but they are not as self-important and powerful as were those
of old free cities. Even then, a city was not built around the city hall. Hence, to
grant today’s city administration building equal significance is foreign to our
modern feeling, particularly in regards to the state.
The rise of nationalism, emerging from the carnage of World War I,
makes the concept of the state suitable as the highest expression of the will
to build the new city.22 In antiquity, nationalism combined itself so closely
19
Taut uses the term “bauende Kraft” (building force). In this paragraph, he
questions whether the idea of organizing and restructuring cities would alone be
forceful enough to inspire architecture.
20
By “image … of the new city,” Taut seems to refer to the graphic
representations of cities in woodcuts and models duing the Middle Ages. In
these instances, a few identifiable structures were all that was necessary for the
identification of a city. See, for example, Carol Belanger Grafton, Medieval Woodcut
Illustrations: City Views and Decorations from the Nuremberg Chronicle (Mineola, NY:
Dover Publications, 1998).
21
Original footnote and location: Cürlis und Stephany: Irrwege unserer Baukunst
(Cürlis and Stephany: Meanders of our Building Arts).
22
Taut uses the word “Nationalgedanke,” which is here translated as
“national thought” based on the ethnic and/or cultural awareness of community.
The German term is a fixed expression with a deeper meaning than that of the
THE CITY CROWN 81
with religion that the Acropolis or the Forum with its temples were at the
same time the seat of the highest law, the Areopags, and the highest authority.
However, an imitation of these conditions today would be nothing but a copy,
and the life of our people would only be enriched by the further mistake of
imitation.23 Even if it were made convincing by virtue of intense nationalism,
this building would never develop a sacred glory in itself or the people. Owing
to our nation’s good constitution, we can immerse our sentiments of gratitude
with devotion to our life’s tasks. The national state is the comprehensive term
for all values produced by it and does not exist above or outside us, but in and
amongst us. On February 5, 1916, Alexander von Gleichen-Rußwurm said:
Recently, the ideal of the German citizen grew ever more accustomed to letting
the state think for him, so one should probably not resent the fact that it finally
took possession of the thinking mechanism. Then again, shall we be educated
only for the state? The entire world considers the thought of rigorous discipline
as the German ideal; but it is not the German ideal.24 In our view, the state is not
an end in itself, an organized power, but a structure tasked to serve the interests
of all citizens. Further, we believe that citizens have the right to guard the
fulfillment of these tasks and to control the activities of the government body.
In his essay “Schopenhauer as Educator,” Nietzsche observed: “All those

nations, in which people other than the statesmen must deal with politics, are
poorly organized and they deserve to collapse.”25
This point of view towards the concept of the state finds its precise expression
in the integration of government buildings into the cityscape. In “Städtebau,”
Philipp A. Rappaport writes:
The position of the state buildings has drastically changed since former times.
In antiquity, and still in the Middle Ages, every large city was a city-state.
National buildings were city buildings. National welfare was city welfare. The
characteristics of public buildings were determined by their local limitations.
Since the state now comprises hundreds of cities, national buildings are, to a
certain extent, foreign in their individual cities. Additionally, it is no longer
as it was in former times, when everything respectfully made space for public
term “nationalism.” It must be viewed in the context of German history. Only after
the First World War, during the time of the Weimar Republic, were the different
German states united through a democratic constitution to form one nation as a
parliamentary democracy. He further uses the term “Völkermord,” which today
would be translated as “genocide.” However, as this term was not coined until the
Second World War, we decided to translate it as “carnage.”
23
Here, Taut is making a sarcastic comment, while he seems to refer to
German Classicism such as the works of Karl Friedrich Schinkel in Berlin and Leo
von Klenze in Munich.
24
Von Gleichen-Rußwurm refers literally to the “Drill,” an extremely
rigorous discipline for which the Prussian army was recognized.
25
Friedrich Nietzsche, Schopenhauer als Erzieher (1874). Schopenhauer as
Educator, J.W. Hillesheim and M.R. Simpson (trans.) (Chicago: Henry Regnery
Company/Gateway Editions, 1965).
buildings and was oriented towards them. They no longer enjoy such special
rights. Their correct location in the city is often difficult to resolve; its artistic
design no longer arises effortlessly out of closely aligned characteristics of the
national territories.26
Rappaport continues to suggest that, if the state does not acquire the land in
a timely manner, building codes and development plans remain the right of
the city community, which thereafter also has the right to organize of these
buildings within the city space. The movement of government buildings into
the periphery of the city is comparable to a Landflucht (migration of the people
from the land). Therefore, it seems here that outer form and inner content are
completely in accord; we must search for another head for the body.
RAISE A FLAG 27
S till today, as it was in the historic townscapes, the highest, crowning ideals
must be embodied in a religious building. For all time we have gravitated
towards the house of God as the one building that can convey our deepest
feelings about mankind and the world.
Why has in recent times no great cathedral been constructed or at least been
seriously designed somewhere in the world since the flowering of Jesuitism?
Born from his desire to create something that would unite the longing and
hopes of people in a community, Schinkel’s romantic character led him
to propose a great cathedral project on the Templower Berg near Berlin.28
Nevertheless, this proposal received no support.
The church is missing in the contemporary conception of the city. Although
churches are designated in plans, they are distributed in such a way that they
do not find a meaningful position in the city. Furthermore, as with the church,
the idea of God is lost in the new city. This is not to claim that religious life has
diminished in its intimacy, but rather that it has been reduced to smaller and
smaller channels. The common prayer and liturgy have lost their unifying
power. It is as if people are ashamed to openly admit to their religious beliefs,
26
Städtebau was a monthly magazine edited by the founders of urban
planning theory, Theodor Goecke and Camillo Sitte. Philipp A. Rappaport, “Die
Stellung der Staatsbauten im Stadtbilder,” in Städtebau (Berlin: Wasmuth, 1913),
p. 115.
27
Taut summons his readers with this headline to clarify where they are
standing. He uses a very old-fashioned term, “to raise a flag,” referring to a form
of signal identification (especially in wartime). At the same time, he uses the term
“Fahne” or “flag” as a synonym for an idea, or a theoretical suggestion at the end
of the text to describe a position or body of thought that architects will follow in
the future.
28
Taut appears to refer to Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s national monument to the
dead of the Napoleonic Wars. His original design from 1817 for the Templower
Berg (today Berlin-Kreuzberg) resembled a Gothic cathedral.
THE CITY CROWN 83
as if spirituality has withdrawn to the quiet chamber of the individual. The

church follows the same process, becoming decentralized and fragmented
with its spiritual shepherding delegated to missionaries. Pious communities
with prayer-houses in city quarters, as well as small churches scattered about
the city illustrate how the church associates itself with the general appearance
of dissolution. Even the clergy of the Catholic Church, so proud of showing
itself, gives the appearance of dissipating. The large old cathedrals remain full
of life that stems from tradition. However, while the care of souls continues to
follow similar customs today, there are no new cathedrals.
It would seem that religious conviction no longer has its former strength.
No confessors, no fighters argue for it. That which once inspired great
movements appears today to have been stripped of its dogma, to have
retreated to individual experience and undergoing a process of complete
transformation.
But faith certainly still exists. It is unthinkable that millions of people have
been completely enslaved by materialism and live without knowing why
they exist. Some form of purpose must live in every human breast, a feeling
that elevates the individual above everyday concerns and permits him to
enjoy the fellowship of his contemporaries, his nation, with all people and
with the entire world. Where is it? Does a deeper meaning of life also melt
away or is there something new flowing through all mankind and waiting
for its resurrection, for its radiating transfiguration and crystallization in
magnificent buildings? Without religion, there is no true culture, no art. And
should we, divided by isolated currents, simply vegetate, without creating for
ourselves the true beauty of life?
The steps of religion are large, but slow. One step takes thousands of years.
Its foot – already raised in the direction of progress – is hovering in the air
ready to descend. When will religion set it down? (Gustav Theodor Fechner in
“Tagesansicht”)29
There is a word that preoccupies both the rich and poor, which resonates
everywhere and promises a new form of Christianity: socialism.30 It is the
urge to somehow enhance the well-being of mankind, to achieve salvation for
self and thus for others and to feel as one, solidly united with all mankind.
This feeling lives, or at least slumbers, in all mankind. Socialism, in the non-
political, supra-political sense, far removed from every form of authority
is the simple, ordinary connection between people and it bridges any gap
between warring classes and nations to unite humanity – if one philosophy
can crown the city of today, it is an expression of these thoughts.
29
Gustav Theodor Fechner, Die Tagesansicht gegenüber der Nachtansicht
(Leipzig: Verlag Breitkopf und Härtel, 1879).
30
The original text speaks of “der soziale Gedanke”—literally translated as
“the social thought.” The word “socialism” has also been used in the translation
of this phrase depending on the meaning of the expression in German.
If the architect does not want to become irrelevant and if he wants to know
his purpose in life, he will have to design the crown of the city. What, after
all is the point to make this house or that building pretty, if we do not know
the great source that feeds all small waters! As explained in the beginning
of this essay, the lack of this knowledge is the reason why architecture is so
poorly appreciated today. But architects themselves are responsible for this. If
they have no ultimate goal, if in hope and longing, they do not imagine their
highest aspirations then their existence has no value. Their talent is wasted on
economic struggles and is squandered upon minor aesthetic things or on the
over-valuation of trivialities. They exhaust themselves by glorifying the past,
and by eclectic or conceptual speculations, such as Heimatkunst [vernacular
art], function, material, proportion, space, plane, and line amongst others.
Ultimately, they are entirely incapable of creating something beautiful,
because they have divorced themselves from the last inexhaustible fountain
of beauty. The study of old building styles does little to help the designer,
because they remain fixated on individual forms and are blind to the light
that radiates through all magnificent things. The architect must remind
himself of his noble, priestly, magnificent, even divine profession and try to
raise the treasure that lies in the depths of the human soul. In complete self-
abandonment, he should immerse himself in the soul of the Volk [people] and
discover both himself and his noble profession by giving – at least as a goal – a
material expression for that which slumbers in all mankind. As it was at one
time, a talismanic, built ideal should again arise and make people aware that
they are elements of a great architecture.
Color can finally flower again and create the colorful architecture that
today is desired by only a few. The spectrum of pure and unbroken colors
will once again flow over our houses and rescues them from their dead, grey
on grey existences. And the love for splendor awakens: the architect no longer
shuns the bright and the shiny. From his new position, far removed from old
prejudices, he now knows how to endow all things with new effects.
If it is really socialism that now yearns for the light but still rests buried
under the surface, is it even possible to create something that is latent? The
answer is in the cathedrals. Before their physical incarnation, these great
temples were conceived in the mind of a single architect. What stands there
proudly and self-evidently today was at one time introduced as an idea and
planned when the desire for it still lay locked up in an undefined and unclear
vision within the soul of the people [Volkseele]. Yet one will say that there were
humble beginnings and modest attempts, out of which the great cathedral
gradually grew as a result of a tradition that created the same thing over and
over again, until it boldly arose as the result of long practice. I am convinced
that already in the smallest beginnings, this idea or inclination existed since
it is a work of man. However, the final result was beyond comprehension.
Even today, the folktales of the Indians ascribe the building of the wondrous
temples of to the gods, athough for a very large temple system like Ankor
Vat (Figure 23), the name of the architect (Diwakara) has been handed down
through the centuries. Have we not also such beginnings? Nothing grows out
THE CITY CROWN 85
of nothing. And architecture only arises comes into being when it is supported
by a story. It is impossible for a simple thought to become architecture without
a story. It is for this reason that all modern attempts to create a monument are
condemned to fruitlessness, because there is no event or tradition on which to
build. The structure is founded upon the superficial imitation of misunderstood
old works. The religious ritual in the temple, the sacrifice, the mass, and the
like were essential to the creation of these great buildings.
If the city crown is embedded in the social thought, we must examine
the types of actions that manifest this thought today. What do the majority
of people want today? What do they do? Are there no events in which the
longing of the masses expresses itself in a veiled form? Let us follow the crowd
to the places where they spend their leisure away from material wishes. We
then come to these places of enjoyment, from cinema to the theater, or to the
people and assembly houses to which they are drawn by a political longing
or the wish to experience their community. Here, we find two motivating
forces that already have called to life numerous buildings: pleasure and
the community. These instincts have been detected by leaders31 and with
some luck have been brought to perfection. The desire for amusement, that
moves large numbers of people into theaters (according to news reports, in
Brussels the number of theater visitors every day is approximately 20,000
in a city of nearly 600,000 inhabitants), should not be interpreted as a raw
drive for amusement. Rather, in it resides the need of the soul for something
higher, for the elevation above everyday existence. Performers view German
theater visitors as particularly grateful and devotional guests, who attend the
theater with Sunday-like reverence. The other motivation that leads people to
community events possesses a noble inner character as well. It is their longing
to educate themselves through the community, and to feel as one with their
contemporaries as a human among humans. Obviously, underlying these
activities are the ethics of the people who have created numerous buildings
many of which are opulent (the “Volksbühne” in Berlin) and nice (the Diamond
Worker Union House in The Hague).32 Still, one has to unite the different
forms of architecture so that they do not get lost in the political structure of
the city. Obviously, a single great homogeneous movement embodies this
tendency and embraces all the public parts in the broadest and strongest way.
In this lies the veiled yearning of our time that wants to come to the light and
seeks a visible transfiguration. This is the building desire of our world.
31
Original footnote and location: “Es sei auf den neuerdings begründeten
Volkshaus-Bund hingeweisen” (It needs to be referred to the recently founded
League of Community Halls).
32
The “Volksbühne” was erected with donations from the workers to allow
“the small people” access to the theater or other cultural events. Oskar Kaufmann
designed the first of those theaters in modern style in Berlin, which was completed
in 1914. Taut’s second example of the Diamond Worker Union House in The
Hague most likely refers to the main building of the “Algemeene Nederlandsche
Diamantbewerkersbond” designed by Hendrik Petrus Berlage (1897–1900), which
is located in Amsterdam and not in The Hague as he incorrectly notes.
So we have the idea of a new city, but it is a city without a head. Now,
however, we know the form that its head, its crown, must take.
THE CITY CROWN
T he design depicted here is an attempt to show how the crown, the highest
ideal, might be striven for in a new city. This proposal may seem audacious
and even presumptuous, but at the danger of being chided as for immodest
and utopian, it must be made at least once. Quite simply, the design should
illustrate in concrete terms the heights to which we aspire. It should not be
regarded as an end in itself, but rather as a stimulus for the realization of what
we already know, and bring us closer to the fulfillment of our future goals.
To begin with, that which is to be crowned must be discussed – the city

itself. A diagram is presented here according to which a new city should be
laid out in the plains (Figure 46). To recognize the idea and the theory as
purely as possible, all special charms that a preferred location would bring
are deliberately excluded, such as the sea, a river and mountains. In reality,
all these topographical features would produce different results for this
schema, similar to an old city that always reveals its unique conditions of its
development.
The entire city encompasses a circle with a diameter of approximately 7
kilometers, at whose center the “city crown” is located. This crown is a
rectangular area of 800 x 500 meters that is reached by the main traffic arteries,
which for circulatory and aesthetic reasons do not run through its middle, but
tangential to it and radiate in wide arcs from there. The train line is planned
to follow a similar arc on the eastern section of the city so that businesses
can develop in between the train station and the city center. For reasons of
practicality, the administrative buildings, the city hall, and other similar
structures will be located around special squares within this city quarter.
Furthermore, factories are placed to the east, stretching along the train line out
beyond the periphery of the city, in order to spare the city from their emissions.
In the west, from the direction of the prevailing wind, a large sector-
shaped park brings good air into the city from the woods and fields. This park
connects the heart of the city to the open countryside like a lifeline and should
function like a true people’s park with playgrounds, grass play areas, water
basins, a botanical garden, flower beds, rose gardens, a vast grove and forest
stretching out into the open countryside. Axially to the city center, three main
churches and schools are distributed in the living quarters with a classroom
center (university) located in the middle of the park. Farther out again are the
hospitals. As shortcuts, two main street lines lead diagonally to the train station.
In the residential quarters, the streets mainly run from north to south,
providing the front of the houses on both east and west sides with sunlight as
well as shelter from the wind for streets and gardens. Their design is entirely
conceived in the character manner of a garden city, with rows of low, single-
THE CITY CROWN 87
family houses with deep gardens for every house, such as those of Figures 50
and 51, so that the residential area itself becomes a horticultural zone making
remote allotment gardens unnecessary (Figures 50–51). Beyond the periphery
of the park belt is the agricultural zone. The total surface area of the city
comprises 38.5 square kilometers and the residential zone approximately 20
square kilometers. This garden city type of development allows for 300,000
inhabitants, or 150 souls per acre, with the possibility of expansion up to
500,000 inhabitants. Although green areas, playgrounds and park strips are
intermingled in between residential and industrial areas to separate them, no
further details are indicated. The distance from the periphery to the city center
is not more than 3 kilometers = 1/2 hour walking time. The streets within the
residential quarters themselves are kept as narrow as possible (5 to 8 meters)
in order to not waste resources unnecessarily. The main roads are designed to
accommodate streetcars and heavy car traffic.
According to the principles of the garden city, the height of the houses
in residential quarters should remain as low as possible. The commercial
and administration buildings are allowed to exceed the height of houses
by a maximum of one floor so that the city crown reigns powerfully and
unreachable above the entire city.
The center, the city crown itself is a grouping of all those buildings, that meets
the social interests of the community and fulfills the artistic and entertainment
needs for a city of this size (Figures 42–48).
Four large buildings forming a cross crown the city. Orientated strictly
towards the sun, these structures include the opera house, theater, a large
community center and a large and a small meeting hall. Their exits are facing
in four different directions to permit the quick dispersal of crowds. Open
squares are located to each side in the case of an emergency. A courtyard
with wings is located in their center for the storage of stage scenery, supplies,
janitor rooms, etc. These rooms are connected and surrounded by a colonnade.
On the four corners, to the left and right of the community center [Volkshaus],
are meeting houses with terrace gardens for smaller, more intimate events
(e.g. weddings) and on the other side by an aquarium and a greenhouse.
This colonnade enables the most intensive use of the entire complex; one can
spend an afternoon in the terrace gardens, an evening at a concert, theater or
in a meeting.
Figure 42 City crown, east elevation.

While the exits from the theater and small community center lead to large
outside staircases (special ramps are not drawn; the approach to the loading
dock in the middle would take place via a tunnel-like driveway) and tree-
lined squares, to the right and left of these two large buildings is a sequence
of courtyards, arcades and buildings, which vary according to position and
purpose. The opera house is a companion to the aquarium and green house,
providing the quiet beauty of fish, flowers, exquisite plants, birds. A covered
colonnade with stairs leads across an enclosed and equally arcaded pond to
the car parking area as a dignified conclusion or beginning to an evening of
art. The museum and central library are attached to the outer courtyard. These
are serious buildings with two upper floors that are not too large. For in the
new city, the mass storage of anything that’s old and all sorts of questionable
new things will not take place, as is unfortunately the excessive manner in
today’s museums.
The living arts require no stockpiling at all; they should no longer eke out
their miserable existences in the museum, but play a vital and integral part of
the entire project.33
Two reading houses, connected to the museum and library by colonnades,
stand in gardens at cascade ponds. These gardens are connected to those of
cafes and restaurants. The outermost corners should contain consumer and
department stores, which are operated based on socio-economic criteria.
Similar to the restaurants and cafes, they have only one upper floor, so that
they lead up to the domestic housing. Each store has special loading docks.
The two western corners of the central area are the same, but the forecourts
and gardens are different from those on the eastern side according to their
varying purposes. Directly in front of the large assembly hall or community
center is an enclosed arcade of trees, which defines a square for public
assemblies.
A speaker can conduct open-air meetings from a pulpit in front of an
exterior staircase, with a crowd gathered on a large sloping lawn. This lawn
continues across the road into the city park, and up to a lake with water
fountains. To the right and left of the lawn are a summer theater and a garden
restaurant. Beyond this space, graceful amusement devices can be added in
the park, something in the style of Tivoli in Copenhagen.
The entire city decreases in importance from above to below, similar to the
way humans are differentiated from one another by their inclinations and
their dispositions. The architecture becomes the crystalline image of human
stratification. The entire city is accessible to everyone; and people go to where
they are drawn. There are no conflicts, because people with the same opinions
always find each other.
The expression Taut uses is “lebendige Kunst,” the “living art,” which
33
refers to products of living artists, but may also include installations, performances
and more modern genres. Taut seems to refer to rotating exhibitions where
the institutions themselves facilitate the showing of contemporary art, but not
necessarily their storage.
THE CITY CROWN 89
The upper crown is visible by the symbolic expression of a cross, formed by

the masses of the four large buildings. The peoples’ aspirations for an authentic
community find their fulfillment at the top of the edifice. The drama and the
play of music provide a unified people their inner momentum, a drive they long
for in their everyday lives. Their reunion in community centers enables them
to feel what they have to give to one another as humans. This leads the herd
instinct, the elementary power of community, to its most refined statement.
Because of their position and arrangement, the buildings must become as
living organisms on both the inside and outside that only exist in this special
life. In theaters, the gap between the stage and seating and between the actors
and the audience no longer exists. The dramatic indulgence of the audience
is no longer a purchased commodity that remains closed behind an “iron
curtain” before the purchase of the ticket. The curtain is no longer separating;
it is a meaningful artistic tool, a tight ribbon encircling actor and audience.
A festive counter-play in light and color between stage and theater, built
and decorated according to the scale of each individual person, creates the
framework for dramatic experiences. A bare unstructured wall has no place
here. This unique interaction vibrates throughout the building and enlivens
all its single members, emanating from the stage above the theater, from the
corridors and foyers to the external architecture.
Figure 43 City crown, west elevation.
The community halls [Volkshaüser] similarly express the full harmonic

tone of human community. In them spirit and soul shall be elevated and
mature, in order to give the entirety its beauty. Large and small halls
for reunions, lectures, concerts and parties; the auditorium, library and
reading room; entertainment and playroom; corridors and every part of the
community center depict the domestic intimate surmounting architectural
design, which is based entirely on the large community and unites itself
with sculptural and painterly decoration. This design goes beyond the
barriers of the everyday, the “natural.” It flows freely and, at the same time,
in a tight spiritual bond.
The cross configuration that is formed by these four large structures is the
upper crowning of the entire building group. However, this building group is
itself not yet the crown. It is only the base for an even higher structure, which,
entirely void of purpose, reigns above the entirety as pure architecture.
It is a crystal house constructed of glass, a building material that due to its
gleaming, transparent, reflective character is more than ordinary matter. A

steel and concrete construction lifts it above the volume of the four large
buildings and forms its framework. Within it, the entire rich spectrum of
glass architecture hangs resplendent in prismatic glass fillings, colors and
colored glass mosaics. The crystal house contains nothing but a wonderful
room, which is reached by stairs and bridges passing to the right and left of
a playhouse and small community centers.34 But how should one describe,
even if only allusively, describe what one can only build! All deep and great
feelings will be awakened here, when full sunlight showers in a high room
and splits into numerous fine reflections, or when the evening sun fills the
upper vault and its red light deepens the rich chromaticity of the glass images
and the sculptural work. Here architecture again renews its beautiful bond
with sculpture and painting. It will all be one work, in which the performance
of the architect will contribute his conception to the entirety; the painter
through glass paintings that are removed but also inspired by the world; the
sculptor’s art that is inseparable from the whole. Thus, all art is connected.
Everything becomes a part of the great Baukunst [architecture]; the noble
desire to create that fulfills all artists equally and compels them to the highest
achievements.35 Cosmic transcendental thoughts mirror the colors of the
painter, “Weltgegenden” [the celestial spheres], and a new sculptural form
decorates all architectural elements, settings, connections, supports, brackets
and so on. It shows that sculpture can once again be something more than just
figures in stone or masonry. Sculpture shall awaken again and expose to all
its exquisite, until now step-motherly deprived richness. The entire world of
forms is free from the spell of reality. What in waves, clouds, mountains, in all
elements and creatures leads the soul of the artist far beyond the constraints
of the figurative and naturalistic, will arise again to shine and shimmer in all
colors and materials, metals, precious stones and glass in all positions and
spaces, wherever the play of light and shadow provoke it. This room is not
finished smoothly and enclosed with walls but of a harmony that is rich and
perfect in rhythm. Great acoustically undisturbed music is heard from its
galleries, a music that only serves the highest [and] is as far from the domestic
as the visual arts.
Infused by the light of the sun this crystal house reigns above the entire city
like a sparkling diamond, a sign of the highest serenity and peace of mind.
In its space, a lonely wanderer discovers the pure bliss of architecture. While
ascending the stairs to the upper platform, he looks to the city at his feet and
beyond to the sun rising and setting, towards which this city and its heart are
so strongly directed.
34
Taut’s term for the crown in the German text is actually “das Haus” (the
house).
35
Taut speaks here of the “letzter Ausdruck” (the last expression), which
refers to the dedication and creative power that artists experience when they are
absorbed into their work that pushes them beyond all expectations.
THE CITY CROWN 91
Figure 44 City crown, bird’s eye view looking west.
“Light wants to pass through the universe and is alive in the crystal.”36
Emanating from the infinite, it is captured in the highest point of the city.
It scatters and shines on the colored panels, edges, surfaces and concavities
of the crystal house. This house becomes the carrier of cosmic feelings,
a religiousness that reverently remains silent. It does not stand isolated,
but is supported by buildings that serve the noble emotions of the people.
These buildings are further separated in the forecourts by a more profane
mechanism: realism and vitality surround the crystal, like once annual
markets and church fairs in front of the church. The brilliance, the shining of
the pure and the transcendental, shimmers above the festivity of the unbroken
radiating colors. Like a sea of colors, the municipality spreads itself around
the crown, as a sign of the good fortune of new life.
The ultimate is always quiet and empty. Meister Eckhart said: “I never want
to ask God that he should sacrifice himself to me; I want to ask him to make
me empty and pure. Because if I was empty and pure then God would have
to sacrifice himself to me by his own nature and be determined by me.”37 The
cathedral was the container of all the souls that prayed in this way; and it always
remains empty and pure – it is “dead.” The ultimate task of architecture is to be
quite and absolutely turned away from all daily rituals for all times. Here the
scale of practical demands becomes silent, similar to the cathedral tower. Similar
36
Original footnote and location: Spruch Scheerbarts am Glashause zu Köln 1914
(An expression of Scheerbart on the Glass House in Cologne, 1914).
37
Gustav Landauer, Meister Eckharts mystische Schriften, in unsere Sprache
übertragen (Berlin: K. Schnabel, 1903). Eckhart von Hochheim, also known as
“Meister Eckhart,” was a medieval monk, philosopher, and presumed mystic.
The publication of some of his writings in contemporary German by Landauer
attracted much attention at the time and also influenced Taut’s thinking.
to the otherwise “impractical” nave, the tower goes far beyond what this crystal
house means compared to the many structures born of a higher purpose.
Otherwise, everything else stands on a known and safe ground. When

founding the city, the area will remain empty. The necessities of the city are
constructed one after another according to a fixed plan, until eventually the
ultimate will be achieved. Its construction can be passed on from generation
to generation. The means to continue are contingent on the scale of progress,
and the correlation between speed and demand will determine the harmony
of the style. Many architects may build the city, but success can only be
achieved if they commit to the greater plan. There is a beauty in collaboration
without knowing which blessed Brunelleschi will form the highest crown!
The architectonic forms in this design should only be taken in a schematic
way. The question of style is not a problem for us architects if we already know
our aim. The city crown proposal in itself may be considered problematic.
Perhaps with some justification – it may be that the solution to the city crown
evolves differently. Nevertheless, enough will have happened, if the architect
has given a modest effort to inspire the search in this direction. At best, this
work should be a flag, an idea, or a theoretical suggestion, whose ultimate
solution is comprised of many thousands of varied possibilities.
Figure 45 City skyline.
Figure 46 City plan diagram.

Figure 47 City crown, image.
Figure 48 City crown, plan and elevation.
Figure 49 City crown, perspectival view.
Figure 50 Garden City Estate Falkenberg near Berlin.
Figure 51 Street views from Falkenberg.
ECONOMIC COSTS FOR

THE CITY CROWN
T he costs for implementing the City Crown result in the following

approximate numbers:
A. Construction Costs:
1. Crystal House .......................................................... 15.0 million Marks

2. Opera House .............................................................. 6.0 million Marks
3. Large Community Center ........................................ 4.0 million Marks
4. Theatre ........................................................................ 4.0 million Marks
5. Small Community Center ........................................ 2.0 million Marks
6. Magazines, etc. for 1-5 .............................................. 0.5 million Marks
7. Meeting Houses, 2. 0.1 = .......................................... 0.2 million Marks
8. Aquarium and Greenhouse ..................................... 0.2 million Marks
9. Colonnades, [outside] Staircases in Courtyards
and Gardens of I-8 ..................................................... 1.0 million Marks
10. Library ........................................................................ 1.0 million Marks
11. Museum ...................................................................... 1.0 million Marks
12. Reading Houses ......................................................... 0.1 million Marks
13. Summer Theater ........................................................ 0.5 million Marks
14. Summer Restaurant .................................................. 0.3 million Marks
15. Music pavilions, Kiosks ......................................... 0.03 million Marks
16. Restaurants, Cafes, 4. 0.2-f-2. 0.1 = .......................... 1.0 million Marks
17. Consumption etc., 4. 0.2 = ........................................ 0.8 million Marks
18. Contingencies .......................................................... 0.37 million Marks
Total 38.0 million Marks
B. Excavation, Grading, Sewer, Water Supply
and Garden Construction, approximately 20% ........ 7 million Marks
Cost of Implementation ....................................................... 45 million Marks
in total.
The cost of the construction for the Crystal House should not suggest that
beauty would be achieved by flaunting expensive material. These should
only provide a loose scope for an exercise that, regardless of time and money,
demands the full dedication of the artists. Essentially, such values cannot be
estimated. Who today would calculate a fixed amount for the construction of
the Strasbourg Cathedral! On the other hand, public utility buildings, such
as market halls, railway stations and the like, also offices, baths, schools, city
halls, could be built with less effort for architectural effects than happens until
now, so that a gradation of the essential is visible and the highest beauty can
reveal itself in the supreme.
THE CITY CROWN 99
The production costs of the entire so-called “City Crown” building group
should not fall on the city all at once. The necessary structures will be built
in proportion to the growth of the city and according to its resulting needs
while the individual phases of construction can always show a well-rounded
architectural image. The costs are then divided approximately as follows:
Stage 1: With a population of around 30,000 people

16. and 17. Consumer Stores, Restaurants, etc. [1st] half .... 0.9 million Marks
13. Summer Theater ............................................................... 0.5 million Marks
14. Summer Restaurant ......................................................... 0.3 million Marks
General1 25% ........................................................................... 0.4 million Marks
Stage 2: Around 100,000 inhabitants

16. and 17. Consumer Stores, Restaurants, 2nd half ......... 0.9 million Marks
5. Small Community Center ................................................. 2.0 million Marks
4. Theater ................................................................................ 4.0 million Marks
7 & 8: Aquarium, Greenhouse and Meeting Houses ........ 0.4 million Marks
General 25% ........................................................................... 2.0 million Marks
9.3 + 2.1 = 11.4 million Marks
Stage 3: Around 250,000 inhabitants

10. Library ............................................................................... 10 million Marks
11. Museum ............................................................................ 1.0 million Marks
2. Opera House ...................................................................... 6.0 million Marks
3. Large Hall ........................................................................... 4.0 million Marks
9. Colonnades, etc. ................................................................. 1.0 million Marks
6, 12, 15 and 18. Outbuildings, Warehouses, etc. ............... 1.5 million Marks
General 25% ............................................................................ 3.6 million Marks
11.4 + 18.1 = 29.5 million Marks
Stage 4: At 300,000 and more inhabitants

1. Crystal House ..................................................................... 15 million Marks
General ................................................................................... 0.5 million Marks
29.5 + 15.5 = 45 million Marks
With a size of 500 x 800 m = 400,000 square meters or 40 hectares, the land of
the “City Crown” is not included in the calculation. At the founding of the
city, according to the principles of the public good, the entire required area,
1
Under “General,” Taut counts all other possible expenses related to the
construction of the specific stage.
as far as the development of the city can be predicted – in this case, 38.5 sq
km – would be occupied by the new municipality and released piece by piece
from agricultural use for construction. The construction site of the central area
would not experience any increase in value except for the interest rate.
The causes for the founding of a new city – whether it happens because
of a concentration of industrial plants, by a favorable trade location, through
special institutes or agricultural sales and trade, or by combining several of
these and other factors – cannot be examined here. Rather, the local conditions
in conjunction with the main railway lines, ports, rivers, etc. will be decisive
elements. At any rate it is certain that the economic disintegration of the
contemporary metropolis (due to unplanned development), combined with
land speculation and grossly swollen land prices, must lead to the foundation
of new large cities on virgin land. And it is equally certain that these cities are
not only structurally built according to new insights but, in their communal
organization, also need to be based on non-profit charitable principles. These
will be the clearest expression of the social commitment [sozialen Gedankens],
and their image, with a crown on top, will be like a pyramid of human
stratification, a symbolic and clearly defined ideal for all practical social work.
Clearly, in such a city formation, the absolute costs of the central building
group are less and easier to bear by the citizens as a whole. This is not only due
to the amalgamation of the theaters, community centers, etc. because of the
great savings incurred by having these facilities and their maintenance costs
in one location than if they are scattered throughout the city – according to the
extensive literature on this subject, the non-profit organization of the new city
will have the effect of a significantly lower amount of road construction costs
and of all the other expenses, which burden the citizen so that, compared
with today’s cities, a surplus is created which goes far beyond the expense of
the “City Crown.” Compared to today’s cities one can say that these are non-
existent, and in spite of the “useless” and precious crystal house result in no
tax burden for the community.
RECENT ATTEMPTS aT
CrOWNING CITIES
EPILOGUE
I t is not the meaning and purpose of this project to present something that
is clear in all its details. Rather, the aim for this undertaking is to encourage
and fruitfully contribute, where we are not dealing with very new cities, to
extensions and transformations of existing cities.
Even under the pressure of compromise, the desire to give the individual
urban quarter texture must for once also take priority. Naturally, the objective
is to create a completely new city, and it is perhaps not as far-off as one may
believe. Compared to the example of Rüstringen near Wilhelmshaven, the
formation of the municipality Rheinfelden is an example of the haphazard
mushrooming of cities. Some publicly discussed proposals for the creation of
new cities in Germany, whether they be in the industrial area of Rhineland
Westphalia or on the Elbe and the like, speak for it.1
Therefore it may be of value to briefly characterize the main trends that
continue to allude to the construction of a city crown within existing conditions.
During the eighteenth century’s heyday of royal absolutism, the
sovereignty–founded residences led citizens to settle under a “building
grace” and, in high self-confidence of their appointment, placed their castle
in the center of the new city (Figure 54). Equipped with the same massing
and towers, both the church and the city hall in Karlsruhe were counterparts
facing one another. It cannot be said that here was a great idea dispensed in
terms of old towns: the idea of “Enlightenment.”
The first half of the nineteenth century brought forth the aforementioned
attempts from Schinkel’s Romantic School (Figure 52). Gilly’s design for
Frederick the Great’s monument on the Leipziger Platz in Berlin (Figure
53) takes a similar direction. Despite the great beauty of the design itself, it
already carried in the seeds of the later monument epidemic.
Then came chaos and with it the consummate savagery and aimlessness of
urban planning. Only once when the doctrine of “city planning” developed
in the nineties did the desire for objectivity and for a city crown gradually
appear. Here, I contrast the diagram of the city center in Ebenezer Howard’s
seminal essay “Garden Cities in Sight”2 (Figure 56) with that of the Chinese
1
Original footnote: The strong movement originating from Hans
Kampffmeyer, to establish a “city of peace,” gives hope for a not too distant
fulfillment of our desires.
2
Taut is referring to the German edition of Howard’s Garden Cities of To-
morrow. The book was translated by Maria Wallroth-Unterilp, and published
with contributions by Franz Oppenheimer and Bernhard Kampffmeyer by Eugen
Diederichs, Jena in 1907, the same publisher as The City Crown.
City of Qufu (Figure 58) in order to show how one was going about this in
purely rational way.
The center of the Garden City of Letchworth (Figure 57) demonstrates the
connection between church and town hall. The powerful area of the Confucius
Temple in Qufu (Figure 55) gives voice to a massive, all passionate idea, which
our deliquescent rationalism can only humbly bow towards. But the idea of
the Garden City is more than a mere intellectual construction. It was born
from a desire for happiness and leads us towards that goal.
Even with an informal country house typology, the plan shown for Klein-
Hohenheim near Stuttgart (Figure 63) may serve as an example how the
creation of a city crown with a festival center is possible. Here, strenuous
efforts began to put the already formed motionless metropolitan city image
into order and at the same time to touch the barren tenement wards with
a breath of the human spirit. To give support and intelligence to these
efforts, many proposals were submitted to the Greater-Berlin competition
of 1910, which should have requested that as much as possible of the image
of the imperial capital is saved. Most striking was the tendency for pointy
formations in the work of Bruno Schmitz, whose proposal suffered from a
self-imposed desire to surpass oneself and an addiction to monumentality.
The internal idea was missing, without which such things are only stuck
in formalities. How noble the crowning of London by St Paul’s Church
touches us. According to the will of the city’s creator it used to tower over
the entirety violently (Figure 14), and still has a great effect today: in the
crypt, exactly beneath the center of the cupola lies the magnificent, raised
sarcophagus of Nelson and above it is the church with its enormous dome
that still dominates the city skyline today. A similar impression of hero
worship is finely cultivated and maintained by a long tradition in Chinese
culture.
Although Otto Wagner’s effort to bring order and sound to the city of
tenement blocks in Vienna produced a nice work, it suffers from the inclusion
of certain elements to create an expressive rhythm in the entirety and an
impossible adjacency of independent, well-rounded structures with the
blocks of tenement buildings (Figure 62). Here there is something akin to the
efforts of Americans.
In America, one has probably most clearly recognized the need of a city
crown. A large movement began, which made its special task the creation of
city centers in the skyline. In Chicago, the “City Club” issued a competition
for the design of secondary centers in the outskirts of cities. Typical for
the perception of Americans towards this problem is Frederic C. Howe’s
pronouncement:
There were three major periods of time in which urban development inspired
the thoughts and dreams of the people: the time of Antonine, in which the
Roman people devoted themselves enthusiastically to the beautification of their
cities; the medieval cities of Italy, France, Germany and the Netherlands, whose
monuments attest the growing love and pride of the recently freed bourgeois,
and now in the 20th century in which the German people manifest their pride
Recent Attempts at Crowning Cities 103
for their fatherland and their sense of power in monuments with the same
meaning for permanence and artistic brilliance.
In a literature review for “Urban Development,” Cornelius Gurlitt characterized

the American effort as follows:
Above all there are very instructive books whose goal is to prepare a regulated
building industry for a city. It is usually their intention to create a Civic
Centre, which means to design a great square and road system for the city
center, which should employ all artistic media. In this type of art, size is the
bottom line: streets of 100 meters in width surrounded by twelve-story houses
with a huge capitol or municipal building in the middle. Rarely does one find
a clear calculation of the costs for land acquisition, road construction, the
construction of public buildings, and even less about how these costs should be
distributed on the shoulders of the taxpayers. A sure hope for the power of the
future permits the greatest plan to appear the most welcome. To show where
they go beyond their American counterparts, town–planning committees do not
avoid comparisons with great European cities. As a report for Rochester claims,
its “well-known spirit of enterprise and high-civic pride entitles great hopes for
the future of the city.”
How well these efforts are addressed may prove the words of the committee
consultant for the city plan of New York, George B. Ford, who said at the
National Assembly for the Creation of Community Centers on April 21, 1916:
“It is not enough, to group the different buildings and open spaces in a way
that they work together. We also need beauty – the beauty of line, form, color,
ratio, mass and general composition. The spiritual man yearns for beauty.”
And further:
Rarely do our local road networks have a terminal spot somewhere. Usually our
plans resemble monotonous gridirons without a change or emphasis – – –.
If one allows the imagination to play with the possibilities of such a plan,
the vision of the urban plan of the future gradually unfolds; a city of many
interwoven municipalities, each in itself whole and sufficient for the ordinary
things of everyday life, but outreaching for the exceptional. Thus, a number of
places would unite their high schools, central libraries, theaters and large lecture
halls, their concert halls, armories and larger play areas in one group center.
Large community groups for the entire city would include universities, art
collections, institutions for the sick and needy, and finally, as the peak of the entire
city, the cluster for administration, legislation and jurisdiction. – – – In this
sense, a center of the municipality would very much contribute to accelerating
the growth of sentiment for the common good. As soon as mankind has achieved
the sense of community as such, he becomes much better able to appreciate the
true meaning and importance of the various interactions between the neighboring
municipalities, and so on until one day, like a vision, the entire great panorama
unfolds before him and he senses “The City’ in all its glory and beauty.”
These words are completely in the direction of what we are also searching for.
The striking thing is the tendency to embody civic pride that is particularly
close to that of an American who is proud of his young powerful flourishing
state. The new municipal building in New York is an example of the realization
of this idea (Figure 60). It strongly stands out from the cityscape in order to
assert its position alongside the skyscrapers. But if you look at the cityscape
of New York (Figure 61), it is not grander than the magnificent Town Hall of
Augsburg (Figure 59), which finally again subordinates itself to the proper
City Crown, the Church of St Ulrich (Figure 8). This high appreciation of civic
pride in the old cities expressed by Howe above seems to be based on the
misjudgment of what can actually crown a city as the highest expression of
the highest thought.
As the Chicago architect W. Griffin’s plan by for the federal capital
of Australia illustrates, new American city plans have their capitol, the
governmental group as the top of the city (Figure 64). The church, however,
plays only a very meager or no role in it. These plans are ultimately
products of a bold rationalism, a kind of addiction to setting records such
that even beautiful designs are not convincing over time. Even the elegant
Capitol in Washington (Figure 68), which embodies the idea of the State as
the highest seat of that great country’s government, cannot compare to the
sacred marriage of church and state in antiquity. Of course the nationalistic
pride of America does not simply merge itself into the organizational and
administrative structure; more than in Europe, the state is a symbol of
refuge and freedom. But it still does not have a religious significance at all;
and even there, as elsewhere it is a servant of the people, and we do not
want to make it the bearer of the last thought, the longing and faith of all
people translated into architecture. It is absurd to create a huge structure
dominating the city filled with only office spaces and meeting rooms, even
if it may have a very drastic effect on the welfare of the citizens. “To be
more than citizens, means to be human” (Robert Saitschick). The state is and
remains only the brains of the community. Its heart must lie elsewhere. The
same is true of the Palace of Justice in Brussels (Figure 67), which in itself
is striking, although even more in the negative sense. On other hand, how
fine the simple one-story building of the Foreign Office in Berlin touches us
(Figure 66). This structure represents the most accurate congruence of form
and content for such buildings.
Nonetheless, the embassy building seems to have been created for the
highest degree of representation. First of all, it has little relationship to the city
where it happens to be, and then its nature is surely less that of representation
than of hard work, to which the representatives of all classes of people unite for
the salvation of the whole. However, the houses built for this purpose mostly
show in their architecture a bombastic swirl of phrases, as if the mission of
the parliament lies in pompous speeches and is not in good laws, for which,
unfortunately, our Reichstag building, despite its historical significance, is an
example.
We must recognize it as a quest amongst Americans to feel the
impossibility of this rationalism elevated to a sole principle. Originating
from two Americans, Anderson and Hébrard, the concept of a World Center,
Recent Attempts at Crowning Cities 105
a World Capital (Figure 65), has next to buildings that serve education and
art, its heart and highest peak, a 320 meter tall “Tower of Progress.” “It is the
center of a circular plaza, around which the palaces for scientific congresses
are located, all equipped with galleries, libraries, bureaus, cupolas, towers
and colonnades. To the right and left, arise buildings for the International
Court of Justice and the Temple of Religions. An international bank and an
international library complete this building group. Concentrically around
this monumental heart of the city lie the boulevards with the living quarters;
the outermost ring is a garden area, together with an accompanying
waterway.” There exists here a construct of ideas, which in fact appear
exaggerated, but which pronounce a departure from the purely intellectual.
The plan of a Confederative City on the German-Austrian border points in
a similar direction. Its center should correspond to related trends that have
emerged in the newspapers.
Finally, the design for a public monument from the Dutchman H.P. Berlage
should be mentioned as the most striking example of the nobility of humanity
(Figure 69). In these words, Berlage explained:
I conceived this Pantheon after the war to built on a hill overlooking a plain
in the middle of Europe with eight military roads leading to its gates from
all directions. These will be located between the towers dedicated to love and
courage, enthusiasm and discretion, science and power, freedom and peace.
These towers, like guards, which grant admission to the Pantheon, surround
the great round hall radiating their light far into the distance at night.
The towers are bordered by courts of silent contemplation, surrounded by
galleries memorializing those who have fallen for States that have led war.
Through the galleries of reconciliation, one proceeds to the great hall. There
stands the monument of human unity surrounded by the gallery of memory
only illuminated by the zenith of light from the cupola. Farther up lies the
galleries of awareness, the elevation of the soul and its all-encompassing
comprehension. Then the dome of international community completes the
space.
Here is a construct of ideas expressed in an extreme form. They are complex,

albeit beautiful in form, yet not unlike the epidemic of constructing monuments
that is hopefully already behind us. One cannot simply adorn any building
with emblematic designations. By a long philosophical and religious practice,
these symbols must first become commonplace like the Chinese Temple (Gate
of Knowledge, of Purification, and the like). Such a connection of ideas to
building structures seems foreign to us because we do not know how to take
acts that justify their designation. It is, after all probably the same rationalistic
soil from which grows these abstract structures.
Architecture is an art and should be the highest of all arts. It arises only out
of strong emotions and speaks only to emotion. The head can, at best, have a
regulating influence. Architecture’s essence, can only flourish from the heart,
and this alone, we must allow to speak.
Figure 52 Design of a votive church by Schinkel.
Figure 53 Design for a monument of Friedrich the Great on the

Leipziger Platz in Berlin by Gilly.
Figure 54 Karlsruhe, city plan.
Figure 56 Plan diagram from Howard.
Figure 55 Temple of Confucius. Figure 57 City center of Letchworth.

Figure 58 Plan of the city of Qufu.
Figure 59 Augsburg, Elias Hollplatz.
Figure 60 Municipal building for New York.
Figure 61 New York, city skyline.

Figure 62 XXII District in Vienna.
Figure 63 Project for Klein-Hoheim.

Figure 64 Plan for an Australian capital city.
Figure 65 Project for an International World Center.

Figure 66 Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Berlin.
Figure 67 Palace of Justice in Brussels.

Figure 68 The Capitol in Washington.
Figure 69 Design of a Monument for the People by Berlage.

AUFBAU
BY
ERICH BARON
T he concept of ‘statehood’ is the rigid framework of those tamed by reason

for creating, maintaining and strengthening power structures, empires
and provinces from the outside. The social thought permeates the national
community from inside it.1 Those however who feel like the children of God,
do not confess to it in their religious humility, are foreign to the workings
of worldly power, piously devoted to the effect of the inner commandments
which are alien to artists who by the grace of God can never be and are nowhere
at home. All these underprivileged, non-civil-servants help to realize in non-
political or over-politicized ways the idea of a higher communal life. As the
most distant love encloses true charity within itself, the longing for the stars
is the drive and divine inspiration for a more beautiful construction of the
world.2 Pilgrimage and destiny, pilgrimage and transfiguration are the molds
within which the transcendentally orientated human sees their life formed.
Worldly meaning aspires for struggle and purpose, for confraternity and an
increased presence.
Blessed are the meek; for they will possess the earth.
Blessed are the peace-loving; for they will be God’s children.
Some people believe that social concepts would only be temporary phenomena
that are opposed to the enhancement of individuality. If we are longing to be
alone, it is often only the secret wish to be in an unclouded alliance with ourselves,
or at minimum, to be an individual within a group.3 To connect this private
concealed selfness with the public spirit, to promote the “new community of
the souls,” to satisfy the longing “to start over once again, somewhere entirely
different and not to be alone anymore,” has often been tried in times of war by
modern liberalism. And these “activists,” the youthfully raging heralds of the
“acting spirit,” claim that they are politicians … not “against the state,” but for
a different one. Every communal life is based upon one social construct whose
higher development also yields higher levels of solidarity for the individual
as well as the universal. The level of cultural progress cannot be measured by
how it climbs into higher classes, but rather by where it begins below. In the
efforts to serve the entirety through labor unions and cooperatives, community
theaters and community centers, community gardens and public baths, lies at
the same time the effort of the individual to help the individual, to promote
1
Baron uses the term der soziale Gedanke, which has been translated as “social
concepts.” Literally translated, the term means “social thought” and he refers to
a very wide and inclusive range of social ideas and philosophy in a very broad
sense. In English, the term appears more appropriate in the plural rather than the
singular.
2
The original German text plays here with the word Nächstenliebe (the love for
the closest, usually translated with “charity”) and the fictional word Fernstenliebe
(the love for the most distant). Unfortunately, these kinds of wordplay cannot be
translated closely enough to mirror their double meaning.
3
The term Baron uses here is “anders,” meaning “different” or not the same.
The contrast Baron wants to make in this paragraph is between individuality and
group identity.
Aufbau 117
him and let him share in a higher refined enjoyment. We do not only want the
indispensable young proletarian powers that press up from below, we also
know about the intellectual potentials that draw them upwards. These concern
the cooperation of the artists with social work. Obsessed with their mission,
many of them neither knew nor loved the people and yet were their promoter
or leader. Others have turned themselves to the people in glowing enthusiasm
and enlightenment. These prophetic heralds, passionate politicians, [and]
visionary poets, all transformed the people with their own fire and lifted them
above themselves. In them was the great mystery, the deep wonderful power
of the soul of the people. Whether they are poets or apostles, musicians or
painters, sculptors or architects, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Leo Tolstoy, Walt
Whitman, Cervantes and Strindberg, Hamsun and Gerhart Hauptmann are,
like all great artists, the true creators of the people, who sanctified the people
from within their own souls. What wrests itself from artists, gains a more
effective form and living guise for the recipients as well.
How closely limited are the internal and low external values of the
community centers and community homes today. As a well-known Austrian
lyricist from the proletariat explains, this “community home is a concept
full of thundering movement, creative power and the peaceful quiet of
awareness.”4 With its bright paint, the [community] house itself is to him
a white star of stone. It is a house of joy amidst the gray deterioration and
misery of its environment. The street, in which the name “community center”
shines forth, becomes a holy source of light like “the Mecca of a new religion.”5
In the inauguration of a community center that came about through social
democracy, our longing spoke in festive words about a “breath in the light of
the spirit,” of “life in emotional exuberance,” and this confession surprised
everyone, asking them to not “cling to the boundaries of this building” but
to believe in “the future house of stars.”6 So the work of the present also
presses into the vast unknown. Not only houses of knowledge, instruction,
and the meager joy of the people—the universities and theaters, all sites of
consecration should open themselves, to those who stream towards them in
the flowing light of divinity.
Out of a cathedral we hear high-pitched chimes. From a tower, solemn
tones swing around us. The church as architecture and the bell as instrument
have disappeared from our senses. Adoration and promise stir our heart.
Of which miracles does the morning earth laugh,

As if it was her first day?
The creation shudders as if in the state of grace.
No walker comes along the way, whose head
Would not decorate an unknown majesty.
4
Baron appears to be referring to a non-traceable quote by the Austrian poet
Alfons Petzold (1882–1923).
5
Quotes by Alfons Petzold on the Volkshochschule Ottakring in Vienna,
potentially at the inauguration of the institution in 1905.
6
Ibid.
A wide light is poured over the country,

Salvation to all who go in its rays!7
Stefan George, who composed these verses in a state of grace, is the most
illustrious herald of our longings. No denial but rather the holy enlightenment
of life is in him.
We are the ones who suffer. Murder raged amongst us. The scent of corpses
permeates the atmosphere of the world. And the souls lie huddled together
on the fallow field.
We carry the suffering, but the longing lifts us above it. Petrified in horror,
torn up by all the terror, we sense death in our hearts. Innocence is poisoned,
purity is stained. The rejected and hopeless kneel at the disgraced sanctuaries.
We stand up to a new belief.
The earth has soaked up the streams of blood. Despicable and precious, full
of divine premonition it remains a tomb and cradle for mankind.
That humankind could be more human! That we would not continue to
maul each other or let the filthy war be followed by a filthy peace! Both would
require a purging that boldly overcomes anything previously “self-evident”
and does not leave all the rest to the Creator. For our creation, we are at the
same time creator and created. It does not befit us to speak of the divine where
the limit of our words ends. Paul Scheerbart, who knew “that we all have the
desire, to kneel before the grandeur of the world in glowing enthusiasm,”
spoke about a religion of great silence.8
He dreamed of an entirely different kind of worship than what we know
today. His temples should act solely by their sublime architecture and their
great silence, only interrupted from time to time by fine orchestral and organ
music. Not even singing voices should be heard in these temples. Cosmic
paintings and sculptures would be allowed in the temples from time to time,
but if the individual and the specific are referenced too often what can be made
visible is shown less and less since it cannot be brought into harmony with
the overwhelming feelings of terrestrial worship. So spiritual was this poet’s
religiosity and love of world. He who lived in glass – and light architecture,
in the crown of stars and who named the battles of the war “childlike didactic
tools of unintelligent barbarian peoples.” Perhaps he, who died despising
the war, thought of the teachings of Lao-Tsu: “The softest thing on earth
overcomes the hardest.”9
War was raging. Yet, before one is Austrian, Serbian, Turkish, or Chinese,
one is human; a reasoning, loving being, whose only task is to fulfill their
purpose during the short period that they live in this world. Yet this is entirely
clear: love all people. So said Tolstoy, and by this he meant that those who
understand the meaning and significance of life, cannot help but feel his
7
Stefan George: Der Stern des Bundes. Baron seems to be referencing the
collection of poems, published by Georg Bondi, Berlin, 1914.
8
Paul Scheerbart, Münchhausen und Clarissa: Ein Berliner Roman (Berlin:
Oesterheld & Co. Verlag, 1906), p. 109.
9
The quote is from Lao-Tzu’s Tao Te Ching, Chapter 43.
Aufbau 119
equality and fraternity with all members of not only his, but of all people.
With the same priestly-prophetic spirit, Walt Whitman showed to all peoples
of the earth the path in his “Drum-Taps”:
Be not dishearten”d – Affection shall solve the problems of Freedom now,

Those who love each other shall become invincible, …
Were you looking to be held together by lawyers?
Or by an agreement on a paper? or by arms?
Nay, nor the world, nor any living thing, will so cohere.10
Here speaks Whitman, the lover of life, who constructively intervenes in shaping
the physical and spiritual formation of the world. The lover of all life has become
the conscious creator of social life – he is a socialist. To go from the abundance
of the heart to the spiritual interpenetration of all things is the idealistic goal of
romantic and visionary socialism without a need to oppose the practical side
of socialism.11 It is his predecessor and last inspiration. Whitman energetically
testifies to the fervent belief in the new man, the new people. “Chaos and the
abyss of intimacy, cosmic love and abundance of feeling” is in Walt Whitman;12
as strong and fruitful as he is rooted in the social activities, the creativity of
genius pulls him from the wealth of the earth in to the clear empty sky:
… midnight: this is your hour, O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless;
Away from books, away from the arts, after a day is eliminated, after work is
eliminated
Raising yourself entirely and far away, in silence, wondering, musing about
what you loved most:
Night, sleep, death and the stars.13
That is how we want to build our life from the ground up. Loving the flower
and worshiping the fruit. Owning the earth and looking into the sky. Shaping
the abundance and searching the void. It is no mere architectural dream: the
empty glass palace. In its radiance it is the symbol of greatest glory.
10
The poem’s title is actually “The Carnage,” in which the last three stanzas
are in parentheses. Baron is quoting here from the Whitman’s collection of poems
“Drum Tabs,” first published in 1865 in New York. Gustav Landauer translated
poems by Walt Whitman into German. These were published as Walt Whitman,
Gesänge und Inschrifte. Übertragen von Gustav Landauer (Munich: K. Wolff Verlag,
1921). It must be assumed that Baron had knowledge of the original version of the
poems or had access to Landauer’s translation prior to the official publication as he
refers to the poem “Trommelschläge” that was included in this publication. Later
translations of Whitman’s work that include the same poem originally entitled
“Over the Carnage Rose Prophetic a Voice” offer a different German translation.
11
Baron uses the term “Alldurchdringung,” which has no equivalent term in
English. We translated this as “interpenetration.”
12
Quoted by Gustav Landauer in a 1917 published essay on Walt Whitman.
This essay was republished in Gustav Landauer, Werkausgabe, vol. 3 (Berlin:
Akademie Verlag, 1997), p. 80.
13
“A Clear Midnight” by Walt Whitman was first printed in the seventh
edition of Leaves of Grass in 1881.
World improvement and faith in the future have often been reviled and
despised, as if they did not belong in this world or at best as if their confessors
join Gregers Werle.14 Yet in all the fervor of denial, Ibsen has given him all his
positive love, as indeed even in Hjalmar Ekdal is something of its original
fire and a flicker of Peer Gynt’s soul. We find in all streets up and down fools
in good and evil, deceivers in small and large. Many saw infinity even in the
tightest of all the gears in the world, the land of the soul in the most distorted
form, through Hamsun’s microcosm.15
Without the timidity that today lets socialists insist on often too modest
goals, we again want to be called world reformers and believers in the future.
In all work that builds upon the existing and the given, we do not continue
to weave the old threads indifferently but devote ourselves expectantly and
exuberantly to the new, the incalculable and absolute. This applies to all areas.
Spiritualization is not merely a refinement of thinking. Internationalism is
not merely an “intergovernmental understanding” to which it seems to have
sunk during the war as a goal for peacetime. Freedom is not merely a way
to maintain legitimacy. When it comes to ideas, it is about what is on the
other side of their definition, what lies beyond their circumscribing and un-
explanatory words. We love these ideas because they are the rivers of life,
which flow into the eternal.
A forward-looking contemplation of existence may be directed
transcendentally, exceeding the levels of [spiritual] development, yes it must
be [transcendentally oriented] for all those to whom the having is not the
sublime. If Horace wants to touch the stars with his forehead, he does not
adhere less to the ground than when he sings of wine; but those who divest
themselves, who lose themselves completely, who without sense and desire
feel released and removed from the everyday and all-binding, will glide into
infinity. Only with the stars do we win life entirely.
As the struggle for sustenance can only be resolved through social culture,
we need to get from civilized tastelessness to the cult of art. Gloria mundi et coeli.16
O you moonlit city, O you distance of the world –
We build the city and the empire, but the safest and richest in humankind is
the kindness with which he helps others and himself. It was this way before,
but few could recognize the relationship of their own lives with the universal
and great inner happiness. By virtue of our desire and skills we now have
erected an external image of this ascent. Not the hut and not the palace, no
village or city structure, no mild or harsh sovereign power comprises the final
destination in itself. What pulls people up to happiness, what pushes them
down into damnation is the secret with which only sagacious goodness can
14
A character in Ibsen’s play The Wild Duck from 1884.
15
Baron is certainly referring to the Norwegian writer Knut Hamsun’s Segen
der Erde or Growth of the Soil in English, a monumental work, which helped him
win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920.
16
This translates as “The glory of the world and the heavens.”
Aufbau 121
unlock. Holy and beautiful is everything in the ultimate ground of worldly

being, but nevertheless it is at risk of distortion. Nothingness is inviolable.
Bright land, boundlessly open to all currents of the mind,
In you we are crowned. Your sun is our unquenchable star.
In its conventional role as a bond to traditions, religion was always a valuable

resource for the state’s own interests. If it dissipated into higher spheres, the
rulers dropped it. As a personified structure of order the state hangs on the
outstretched finger of the human-like God. Idolatry and submissiveness are
the ever-recurring forms of external piety that does not need to be hypocrisy,
and loveless violence that does not need to be either aristocratic or ochlocratic
tyranny. Turning away from the low command of egoism, and the surrender
of the ego in its devotion to the greater community is the release of age-old
political and religious demands from their temporal solidification into their
eternal human value.
Not a program but a flag should be given; not a dead design, but a living
entity that was created by the longing of the heart: Human settlement as a
spiritual concern. The mind does not need to be silent. It is the sensing separation
within the wonderful total absolute, which also reigns unconditionally there,
where everything seems relative.
People’s rights, people’s will, people’s state – have turned from vigorous
tendencies, into empty parliament formulas, newspaper headlines and
book titles. People’s art, people’s house, or people’s school17 degrade the
people and arts, home and school in the same way. “People” is an active
and suffering embodiment of the inhabited earth, including emperor, king,
gentleman, peasant, burgher, and beggar. To want to be the first servant of
the state sounds democratic; to declare the king’s will as the supreme law
sounds autocratic. However, both ignore the people. Governing and being
governed is the definition and formula of the rulers and the ruled. More than
by votes and by the statements of individuals, the people speak through the
totality of their production. And in this way they speak figuratively to us,
especially also in artistic performance. That is how we gain the right measure.
Properly understood, people and art are inseparable and indivisible; only
their different social positions apply to the state and society, countries and
history, crafts and entertainment.
Today, bureaucratic and military states are the ordinary forms of coexistence
and conflict where humanity thrives poorly. Coexistence founded on mutual
appreciation is rare and for the most part it has been tested unsuccessfully.
Social, cultural and artistic aspirations suffered and failed many times from
ignoble dependencies and small-minded vanities, where free independence
and overly individual absorption in the name of work could have benefited
the common goal and the community. The garden city concept has been so
badly distorted by land speculation and its associated higher ideal has been
17
Alliteration and the use of the word “Volk” (i.e. people) led us to keep the
stylistic element. However, the reader should note that Volkskunst, translated as
“people’s art,” is actually “folk art.” Volkshaus as people’s house is a community
center, and Volksschule, “the people’s school,” is a primary school.
so frequently diminished that, even less of the originally planned movement

remains with us in Germany than in England, which would be worthwhile to
promote. Creative ideas dry up without the power of sentiment, which paves
the way for them. If one starts too small, one easily remains stuck in the small-
minded. Grand works must be started on a large scale and must be continued
indefinitely. The lack of confidence in the dimension of time is often not only
the offspring, but the origin of their internal weakness. By brute force and the
lust of power [this weakness] is not contradicted, but confirmed.
In the luminosity of the glass, architecture is redeemed from its heaviness.
As the gloomy wrinkle creates anger, the clear view creates serenity and
harmony. The well-built city allows people to live together nobler and better.
The major landmark in the work brings them closer to the ultimate goal. Art
and artists, building and man mutually mold one another and create anew.
Because stone has no glassy radiance, the stony building, the stony city
does not need to be a torment. Beauty knows no boundaries – truly: one
can never love beauty too much. The wreath winds not around an aesthetic
principle or an aesthetic form. The gospel of beauty is holy. Plato’s Idea, the
cosmic thought, the escape from the world. In the Gothic and the dream are a
love of the world and great magic. Just as medieval man proceeds from credo
to a higher consciousness, the social sphere swells and rises to the cosmic-
divine-artistic space.
In the waking dream, in blessed awe we see from afar the land of beauty
where people have overcome hatred and pain, where coexistence and
opposition to one another transform into cooperation, where envy and
greed for possessions have given way to the happiness of the gentle and
peaceful. So few know that gentleness does not make one timid and weak,
nor does peacefulness make one cowardly and subservient. In the dawn of
the victorious sun strides the spiritually rejuvenated man who has overcome
the lower spheres for the sake of the higher aspirations. In the light of the
coming day, the battlements of the eternal city shine for us. To build it, to
constructively experience it is the highest pleasure.
We are witnessing the disintegration of large, state structures to the cheers
of the previously oppressed and betrayed, from those who did not choose the
regressive path of pain and anger towards despair, but strode from a new insight
towards new action and self-assurance. If we overthrow the decay and bury the
dead unstained a new confidence beats in their hearts. No life arises without
death. The truly brave of our time cannot be talked down or thrown into defeat.
Without the cry of triumph, they are the victors of today and tomorrow, who do
not know any conquered, but only defectors and vanquished. In recovery alone
lies a guarantee when opinions and beliefs change.
Our empire begins beyond the war, our power without weapons. Just as
our intoxication does not require wine, so does our military power not require
the ore, and our victory not the glory of battles. We do not coerce the spirit by
the barbaric methods of the horde. Rather it rises from the decay of war, from
the skull yard of crime, from the defeat of the armed. Humanity raises its head
again. Oppressing hatred is torn apart and over the graveyard of raw violence
the bridge to a new happiness for all peoples vaults towards the liberation of
the world.
Figure 70 Cathedral in Rouen.
REBIRTH OF ARCHITECTURE
BY
ADOLF BEHNE
I would like to show the path by which art has declined since the Gothic,
when it flourished for the last time in Europe, and will try to bring to light
those forces that, after its lowest point has been suffered through, will serve as
a prophecy of a new creation. I base my argument on the truth that architecture
is the carrier of all the visual arts. If the trunk becomes sick, the leaves cannot
grow in health, and if the leaves of the tree die, so must the trunk have suffered
harm. However, the process by which a sick tree revives to new health can only
occur because the disease, which at first causes progressive paralysis from the
trunk, through the branches, twigs, veins, and leaves, finally reaches its last
tips; but then, when it comes to recovery, a new life revitalizes the same tree
from below through the roots of its trunk. So, there is no gradual development
that can be observed on a well-defined scale, which imperceptibly changes its
appearance, rather, a new beginning; no naturalness that can be explained
physically, rather, a biological phenomenon – a miracle.
If I want to illustrate this biological process of decline then I must isolate
the most advanced decomposition of the last remaining leaves and show
that by pruning them, the forces that advance the new emerge at the base of
the trunk. What this means for our task is that I first speak of all about the
dissolution of the image since painting is the most advanced development of
the visual arts. And even if one would like to expect that from here I would
move progressively in the opposite direction back to the trunk, based upon
what was said previously I am entitled, even obliged to return, apparently
abruptly, to the root of all art, to architecture itself. Thus, a leap has been
made. Nevertheless, I believe I have conclusively shown that this leap is not
arbitrary. Rather, it is an objective necessity.
Still, one thing will be inferred from the aforementioned: namely, that my
argument is not tied to the historical perspective. Wherever I turn my attention
away from the decomposition of the leaves and towards the new life in the
trunk, I necessarily depart from the sequence of historical events. Time does
not create works of art. To bring the contemplation of art into connection with
the concept of time is therefore completely arbitrary. However, according to
modern Impressionism, India for example, is not a dead past but rightfully
our future.
W e begin our reflection in that place painting still stands in fruitful alliance
with architecture. The [stained] glass window of a Gothic cathedral
may serve as an example. Yet, at this time, nothing concerns the isolation of an
art [form], nor about the division of the great will to art1 into specialized skills.
The eye may blissfully rest on this one so rich, so precious window – part of
this deepest enjoyment is the awareness that next to this jewel many others
1
See Aloïs Riegl, Problems of Style: Foundations for a History of Ornament,
Evelyn Kain (trans.) (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992); see also
Jacqueline E. Jung, translator’s introduction to Aloïs Riegl, Historical Grammar
of the Visual Arts (New York: Zone Books, 2004), pp. 13–19. Alois Riegl describes
“Kunstwollen” as a specialized term for art’s desire to grow and transform.
Rebirth of architecture 127
shine as beautifully, as inexhaustibly, and these again are all deeply framed by
the strong, vigorous and large body of the space; not only the window frames
with their kneading profiles and tracery swinging beautifully in the miracle
of glass, but also the chords and caps, the statues on the column bundles, and
the keystones high up. No, beyond the sphere of the visible we feel the unity
of these delicate and strong, intimate and glowing, giant glass panels with
gables and pinnacles, the roses and bulbs of the portals and facades, we feel
the unity [all the way] up to the freely dissolved peaks of the tower. Indeed,
if the formwork rising in the air through the ringing of bells transforms
architecture into music, then the unity created by the luminous glass images
in the windows that together with the fragrance of incense builds a pure,
refined space is alive in us all the way up to the purifying tones high above.
Much remains to be said in order to describe the richness of Gothic
[stained] glass painting. But only here, at the beginning of the sequence, shall
it appear unified with the building as the origin of beauty. If I describe in the
following examples the areas of art’s gradual decline, the Gothic stained glass
window emerges on its own behind them where its abundance only shines
more. It seems important to me only to refer specifically to one example of
art’s decline, namely that of the Gothic era. Aside from the blaze of the giant
windows that consumed all earthly things in their crystal purity of colorful
glass, the Gothic knew the quiet, serene, humane narrations in the drawings
and brush paintings of books. But the flowering of the Gothic did not know
the mixing of the monumental with the intimate, the saint with the human,
and the cosmic with the anecdotal.
Only when we take both aspects into our consciousness do we feel
the full richness of this period rising above all theories and slogans. [The
Gothic] is as realistic as it is unrealistic, and its secret is that everything is
in its own time and place. No one would desire that a single detail of the
miniatures of the Wenzel Bible, the calendar pictures of the “Tres riches
heures” or the Brevarium Grimani would be any different from how they
are now with their infinitely affectionate illustrations of fine shrubs above
which swallows fly, the bluish bull horns, sharp-pointed stone edges and
light, thin fences, the many individual figures in their manifold activities,
proximity and brighter distances, with houses and towers, castles and
peaks. These pages are untouchable for their artistic purity. And only
when we take them into consideration do we completely understand
and appreciate the spirit that created the large [and] foreign forms of the
cathedral windows anew, almost without knowing the representations in
books – the book covers hide them.
These miniatures are charming, like a last, soft breath released by gentle
hands from the layers of physicality. And one could say the same about
some of the most beautiful works of art from this time. But for the great
work, all matter is thrown into the hottest furnace until a new unearthly
mass of glass has formed – out of whose disembodied pure color, the new
is generated.
A first step towards the mixing of artistic poles can be found in the
multipartite Gothic altarpiece. Since it is here that painting separates itself
for the first time from the unity of the arts. What treasures these works are,
whose resplendent assembly in the Academy of Siena presents to the eye a
golden feast that sirs up the soul. They already have more reality, matter
and substance than the glass panels that received the beauty of their effects
from the outside, from light, from heaven, in which the work of stone, like
a humble and timid sacrifice, was married with light, its sunbeams. When
the clear ether deeply and strongly penetrated the glass panes, the power
of color was released from them like sounds from an organ and spread a
colorful reverberation over walls and floors, the assurance was given that
this human work has come to share in grace. The altar panels no longer
have such a mystical character. They are already dogma. They already have
a frame around themselves. Without it they cannot stand. And the infinite
light has transformed to become a golden substance in them.
But their beauty is so full of grace and sweetness that it seems like a dream
in one’s memory. Nevertheless, even while they are no longer mythical, they
still reject human scale. They are less cosmic than the glass windows, but are
still remarkable. They have a frame around themselves, but this frame is still
perceived as formwork. It is architecture on a small scale, with its twisted
slender columns, separating the individual saints but not isolating them; with
the pointed arch, often filled with tracery, in whose oscillations the haloes
accommodate themselves; with the panels of the tympanum resting on the
frame, which is aligned in a burgeoning lance-like work of golden pinnacles,
with the narrower images in the side panels – not forgetting the foundation-like
Predella. These beautiful images are in themselves a unity of representation
and framework, both born at the same time, where the removal of saints or
pious scenes from the whole is impossible. The figures stand on a golden
background, and the frame is gold; and as this golden frame is decorated
lovingly and inexhaustibly by the profiles of the columns from the base to the
delicate capital, by the crockets of the ornamental gables, by the delicate relief
in the spandrels, the gold base of the panels takes the play of ornamentation
on its fine-pecked, softly shimmering decorations that play like a delicate
tissue woven from solar filaments.
Although such work already emerged from its direct alliance with art, it
is still living in its unity with architecture. Nevertheless, only in the space
of the church does it show its full meaning, only there, where its pointed
arches and pillars, and all the other related disciplines of architecture, have
their support in the built forms of the same kind. It is by no means obvious
that these panels finish off their individual representations in ogival
arches. Precisely this sentimental adherence to a curved profile shows us
that a cosmic perception underlying all true art is here not yet completely
broken. Certainly, the completion of the representations in an ogival arch
was initially the acquisition of familiar and ubiquitously practiced forms.
But, why this deep love for oscillation, for bending in and out, for crossing
everywhere? – The pointed arch brings a piece of heaven to art, and this
interpretation is not arbitrary and “witty.” When, as on Sano di Pietro’s

beautiful Ancona in Siena, the pointed arch still rises high and light above
the Madonna, when tracery playfully borders the curves which do not stop
suddenly, satisfied at the apex, but instead point to the infinite, and from
their open oscillations the irradiant heads of angels rejoice from far above
– in these I have found the proof. Here painting still has a feeling for it,
that the stars and not mankind are the complete measure of art. The stars,
however, swing, cross and encounter each other in wide spreading curves,
coming from infinity and going to infinity. Everything that is cosmic is
spiral, curvaceous, and circular. In the cosmic there is no straight, shortest
route and no planar surface. And we say that architecture, which has most
preserved the cosmic character of all human activities, again comes closest
to the act of creation where it bends by separating itself the most freely
from the vertical and the horizontal and from the plane. In turn, the painter
nuzzles-up with gratitude into the shells, the Calottes, and the wedges of
the vaults – small patches of sky that architecture created for him. It is
not right to always regret the way the Gothic left so little space for mural
painting that it had to retreat into the humble narrow wedges of the cross
vault. No, here as well the Gothic period came closest to the ideal, by giving
this delicate and difficult role to painting in its buildings. How safe were
the picturesque figures in their oscillating niches or nests from which they
looked down like constellations! If we turn the eye away from them – from
the angels for example, which decorate the ceiling in the chapel of Jacques
Coeur’s house in Bourges, back to Sano di Pietro, we probably feel the
rigid-smooth two-dimensionality as a rather dubious improvement. In the
colored glass windows woven by light, the concept of two-dimensionality
completely ceased to exist. But here, in the altarpiece, a fatal step has been
taken towards the rational. Now it will no longer be possible to prevent in
perpetuity that all sorts of human demands seize the figures. In their world
of curves where the arched cap covers them like a knight’s shield, are they
removed from such a meddlesome assault. The architecture of grandeur
kept all questioners away from them. But now, they can easily be seized
defenselessly. A flat panel of wood at ground level offers no resistance.
Only the beautiful heavens formed by ogival arches and the unity of gold
in background, figure and frame protect them for a while.
As soon as viewer and saint face each other closely as equals, the unity
loosens up quickly, one that all later artists will have to search for arduously.
Here, with Sano di Pietro, with the magnificent artist Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, and
Stephan Lochner, all wealth emerges from the unity that stands behind and
above their creator. Its sound is gold. Yet, as soon as the first hole is cut into
the gold background, as soon as the blue sky enforces its clear trueness, the
lost natural unity must be sought artificially from a new basis. Until then, the
closing latch of the unity was outside of it. Of what significance it is, that this
unity must be found within the picture itself, will occupy us at a later point.
Here, however, Piero della Francesca is mentioned, with whom, for a short
while, all the individual parts are still embedded in a tender transcendental
unity. Its sound is silver. Its deep intimate bondage can even impart upon a
portrait – of Battista Sforza – or in the colorful works of his contemporaries,
something supernatural, deeply universal. Incidentally, here we now arrive at
decisions from which the question of the Gesamtkunstwerk [total work of art]
would have to be judged anew.
Despite all misunderstandings, the Gesamtkunstwerk is the goal – certainly
not consisting of assembled parts that never rise above the sum of its parts,
but a [total work of art] that, no matter which or how many means it uses, still
causes all the strings to vibrate, because it is on a high level, where everything
is still a concentrated unity. That means Weber’s “Oberon” comes from unity,
while Richard Wagner’s work strives for unity.
With Rogier van der Weyden painting became entirely detached from
architecture. I mention this name because his triptych “Saint Luke Painting
the Virgin” shows particularly clearly the consequences of this separation.
Rogier is inconceivable without the work of the Brothers van Eyck, of whom
art history rightfully teaches had been continuing the tradition of the small
and precise, detailed and colorful depictions of the life of the book illuminators
whose delicate illustrations they enlarged to glossy oil paintings. But if art
history ascribes credit to them for this – “why should they not take the good
where they found it” – in consequence of our earlier discussions, we see with it
a crucial step towards depth. Only now does the modern concept of “picture”2
originate as a painted, free, mobile, framed panel. And we emphasize that
it was books, picture books, where painting had to obtain inspiration at the
moment when it finally separated itself from architecture. – “Picture” is not
our initial conception of it still today the illustrated page of a book? Are not
book and picture still associated concepts in our minds?
How weak, how meaningless must painting have become when it
descended from the vaults, and now standing at a loss, found no other way to
continue than through the enlargement of book pages! Art history completely
glosses over this critical period of time. It also sees here only the normative
logical progress. But we believe that the fate of modern painting had been
sealed at this time and in what follows we want to draw attention to some of
the consequences.
Hereafter painting sees itself forced to be gegenständlich (concrete,
objective). Das Gegenständliche is now the standard of painting and becomes
the new ground that supports it. Good painting was not necessarily non-
figurative, but it certainly remained free from Gegenständlichen; it made use
of the object. The object never affected its style, yet at this point one can
almost speak of a “Style of the Gegenständlichen.” Until then, painting did
not have to justify itself. It only needed to create beauty and wealth and to
be. Something else relieved it from justification. The vast, wide-spanning,
all-encompassing work gave it its justification. Through this, it had its own
meaning. Yet this meaning was not in architectural form, not in sculpture
2
Easel painting.
and not in painting, but defined by their commonality. If painting now

completely separated itself from architecture, it had to search for a new
meaning, a new justification. And quite naturally this justification could
no longer be part of a larger unity separate from painting itself, but the
new justification fell as a burden on its previously untroubled shoulders.
Only within itself could painting be justified, and it could not be anything
other than the subject, upon which it could erect itself through the clarity
and general recognition of the object. At one time it was part of the cosmic
feeling. Then it spread itself ornamentally into the wings of architecture. It
was borne aloft, high and entirely free where it could form itself, as the true
words of Meister Eckhart suggest: “The more imprisoned, the freer.” But
now, with the Eyks, painting has become profane. It has self-consciousness,
and because painting has made the reassuring observation that no punitive
deus ex machina pulls it back, if it enlarges the exquisitely delicate pages of
the miniatures to “paintings,” for only now it believes that its separation,
although it is the degeneration of the sense for the context, is the true
freedom. But perhaps it does not realize yet that it just went into slavery,
into the hard constraint of Gegenständlichen. What its colors were like in
the strong and broad protection of architecture[!] What their existence
could have affected there[!] The more the colors devoted their force, and
poured out their strength, the more the whole gained. Did not the architect
himself have to wish the greatest freedom for them? Is that not called true
freedom? Consequently one has discovered that one can actually use the
colors themselves for something, and because the painter can now choose
from all profane things that he wants to portray, he believes painting to
be freed. However, in doing this, the painter confuses his own freedom,
whose benefits are of no interest to anyone, with the freedom of painting.
This does not exist anymore. Painting has become a means for the purpose
of reproducing objects and is therefore not free. At one time the colors had
reality, now they signify realities.
Now the frame as we know it today appears: four fixed straight lines, four
right angles. The curve and the pointed arch now no longer make sense. After
all, nothing connects these panels with the world of the stars anymore, or
even with the oscillating vaults of architecture. The “picture” is an enlarged
book page that unconditionally adopts its frame from there as well. As a white
margin regularly frames the illustration on all four sides in a book, so do the
black, golden, smooth or profiled moldings frame the new picture, which in
the course of generations becomes stronger and more robust. Enlarged to the
size of a painting, the page of a book clearly requires a solid barrier, which is
supposed to negate the thought of turning the page. Now we have completed
the toneless, neutral, conceptual, non-existent border of the image, which
belongs to representational content, like its shadow. – Geometry instead of
music.
The triptych from Rogier van der Weyden is in this regard also surprisingly
communicative. The painter felt that this new simple and quick creation of an
image was such a magnificent triumph, that he repeated the feat again in the
center of the picture. He opens a wall behind the figures in the center, and by
setting two columns in the opening he establishes the framing lines of a new
smaller triptych. Into it he paints a landscape that one could with no effort
remove from the whole. – But let us also look into the side chamber behind
the back of St Luke. There a book lies on the lectern. Are not its columns of
writing, just as they become visible with their white-framed borders, once
again a type of triptych with three rectangular fields? And even further,
the psychological relationships could be pursued without any forced effort.
Above the lectern, a tall, narrow glass pane is open in the window. We
look through the painted window frame onto the painted landscape, and
the format of the book layout is repeated in the same way. Therefore, in
the little window frame a small part of nature appears again, apparently
conceived by the painter with pleasure as a new image in the picture, a
detail. Outside of the merely painted, this detail could in reality almost be
enough for the painter as a subject to paint. Here at the very beginning of the
naturalistic development, we see random window or door openings emerge
unconsciously for the painter as a result of the search for image-creating
elements.
The preceding analysis should have already given the reader the idea that
in Rogier’s painting a remarkable splitting of consciousness must be present.
Certainly this is the case. Only in the use of the triptych form, in its ability to
extend beyond the individual picture plane, does it still refer to the former
richness. There in the cloak of the Virgin drawing a floating arch on the floor
is a last memory of archways pouring out into the high spandrel of the Divine,
which seem to have a continuing effect. But otherwise, the picture is like a
detailed program of the new age.
By no means do I forget the fate of architecture, if I may now elaborate on
this. In reality, it is the decline of architecture, which we follow here. All the
weakening that the picture continually suffers is only possible because the
trunk continues to loose more and more sap.
Instead of an ideal surface, there is now a fore- and background. Rogier
paints the holy scene in the foreground. One still feels, I repeat, in the figure
of Mary from the corner of her cloak up to the inclined head, a hint of the
nuzzling in the spandrels of an arch. Here she is still hovering a little – enough
for us to enjoy this Madonna. But already the robe of St. Luke is uncertain.
The folds of his red cloak falter. They do not want to swing freely and widely
anymore, but the attempt to construct them objectively, to enliven them, will
not succeed either. The painter feels uncomfortable here in the front. And
with a sigh of relief, he escapes the closeness as soon as he can, to spread
his art of painting beyond the second frame, just into the triple window
of the middle ground. And this escape into the distant, remote view now
becomes commonplace. The smaller and the more middle-class or homely
the paintings become, the more they let the extravagant view wander into
the distance.3 “Foreshortening” serves them as a means – “foreshortening”

becomes their mantra. Compared to the framing arch, the new convenient
“natural” square frame is already “foreshortened.” Rogier’s view, his image
within the image, is really a model meant to produce as much as possible
in the shortest and fastest way. There is no relation to the theme of St Luke
in the richness of the background. As if to demonstrate their pleasure with
this picturesque accomplishment, these people who contemplate the wide
view onto the landscape, confidently turn their backs on the saintly activity.
– A new framework, a new picture, and a new audience: the division of
consciousness.
Yet it is worthwhile to point out that the tendency to escape into the remote
field of view, in turn, must strengthen the inclination towards objectivity. Only
for the viewer who steps back from the painting, do the drifting wonders of
the eye become objective concepts.
So the secular spirit moves into painting at the same pace by which
painting emancipates itself from the walls of the house of God and moves into
the homes of the middle-class. It begins the new achievement of “art in life,”
continuing up to an “art in commerce and industry.” The cathedrals become
increasingly indifferent, the living spaces become increasingly artificial –
although not richly decorated in the true sense, since even the appreciation
of all ornament decreases quickly. The blue sky of the panels extinguishes the
bright, punched nimbuses, stars, crosses, rosettes and crystals, all the subtle,
graceful, delicate patterns of the background.
Already Rogier omits any halo, even a quiet thin circle of gold. Who knows
whether or not those figures on the bridge that enjoy the beautiful view out
of the picture or perhaps into the picture are not Mary and Luke going for a
walk after the painting session.
In the future, the only place on a picture where gold is still permitted is
outside of the picture, on the frame. Therefore, the flight of the gold from the
center to the border is a tendency that is constantly growing. Not even in the
fabric of the canopy does Rogier depict the gold as gold. And it is the same
thing, whether by his clever foreshortening he reduces the stunningly colorful
brocades of their beautiful unfolding or if instead of pure gold he depicts in
yellow and gray the semblance of badly lit, faded gold.
Now we are just a few steps from the end. With Rogier the holy scene has
still remained a close-up, behind it a remote view. In Hugo van der Goes’
“Birth”4 at the Berlin Museum, the biblical scene is transferred to the remote
3
While Behne uses the German word “bürgerlich,” the literal translation
“bourgeoisie” does not quite mirror the specific meaning in this context, where it
describes a middle-class quality of life. This appears more similar to the meaning
of “homely” than that of “bourgeois,” which has a more sociological or political
connotation based on the French origin of the word, bourgeoisie.
4
The painting by Hugo van der Goes that Behne is referring to has the
German title “Die Geburt Christi” (“The Birth of Christ”). It was purchased in
1903 by the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum in Berlin, Germany. The painting is now in
view, and the close-up is reduced to two male characters who pull apart
a curtain on the left and right. Certainly this painting of van der Goes has
considerably more artistic power than that of Rogier. The strong solid heads
of these two men are wonderful, as is the devoted foreboding tenderness of
Mary, the restrained loveliness of the fine angels. The hidden melancholy of
this painting, visible in the almost glassy golden brown angel with golden
wings, is singled out from its much more profane surroundings. Here we
have an example that the career of a true artist, who is forced to swim against
the current of tradition, will henceforth end tragically. Considering all that,
it cannot be overlooked that van der Goes’ “Birth,” in the continuation of the
remote view as an actual picture form, again signifies an important phase
of art Soon thereafter, the figures denoting the close-up in the foreground
are omitted. The image exists only in the exclusive form of the remote
view, which for both the academic Hildebrand as well as the Impressionist
Weisbach stabilize for modern art.
While the painting of van der Goes was a striking enhancement of the time’s
trends in a particular direction, as well as a poignant final reference to a prior
blossoming, Vermeer from Delft with his painting of a party in Braunschweig,
introduces the full, deep, irresistible current of the general norm.5 Despite all
the adversities of perception at the time, where van der Weyden began the
separation of foreground and background, van der Goes almost succeeded in
neutralizing the concept of the background once again. (The terms “remote
view” and “background” are not to be confused.) With Vermeer, the picture
falls apart, sharp as a knife into scene and background. This background is a
single-color film, not developed simultaneously with the figures or out of a
single movement with them, but as a consequential filling-in of the coloristic
gap.
With Vermeer, one always emphatically admires his fine taste, and no
one will deny that he has it. But this emphasis on taste already includes
the verdict that with Vermeer, the art of color, to speak only of this, is no
longer a totality, but has already frozen into proportionality. His surprising
achievements of taste are no longer unities in the higher sense. They do
not result from necessity, nor are they completed by a higher, covertly
operating unity, as we have still found in Piero della Francesca. Rather, they
are simply evidence of the already announced quest for unity within the
image. Arithmetically, one part results from the other. The sum is always
the same in pictures of this kind; but it is continually subdivided differently.
No step can be taken here beyond the natural human experience into the
unexplored, the new. The picture becomes an arithmetical example. For this
the possession of the Gemäldegalerie SMPK in Berlin. In German and in English,

the painting is better known under the title “Die Anbetung der Hirten” (“The
Adoration of the Shepherds”).
5
Behne seems to refer here to the painting “Girl with a Wineglass” painted
by Jan Vemeer in 1659–60 that is part of the collection Herzog-Anton-Ulrich
Museum in the German city of Braunschweig.
reason, the images appear so empty over time. Who would not notice that
the Kantian concept of the analytical judgment and the synthetic judgment
have a priori their purest and clearest Anologon6 in the contrast between old
and new visual art?
In the pictures of the old transcendental unity, there were no pronounced
contrasts. Now the contrast becomes a primary means of preparing an effect;
for example, in the picture discussed, the contrast of the rich, bright salmon-
red dress in front of the dull complementary wall. The same repeats itself in a
smaller way in the stained glass window with its coat of arms. From the deep
richness of the stained-glass church windows nothing remains but a cheap
effect.
Now the painter is looking for different means by which to conceal
the fateful emptiness of his pictures. He loves to introduce anecdotal-
psychological moments. And with them, his representations again approach
a domain to which they already aspire: stage-likeness. Here, to single out a
detail, the direction of the girl’s attention clearly implies a relationship with
the audience in front of the stage. The educated man of today is not moving
at all in his “effect world,” in which I am using the expression of Jacob von
Üxküll,7 but within the stage set of a theater and according to the directions
of an artist who knows how to consistently dispel all the essentials from
everything.
With that unwavering logic which operates in all artistic work, there
appears in the background of our picture a painting with its painted frame. We
could not wish for a better element by which to identify the conception, which
this time period has of a picture. A painting, a picture is a painted and framed
surface of wood or cloth, which should be similar to an object of domesticity
as well as tasteful. One hangs such works of art in the parlor where they have
become a kind of furniture. Now, if a painter paints a bourgeois parlor, which
is as worthy a subject for art as anything else, why should he then not also
paint a smaller scale parlor on the wall, which, like the honest painting of a
colleague, could hang in that same parlor as a framed picture on the wall?
Consequently, in one picture infinitely many parlors could theoretically be
possible one inside the other. No one resents this. Why should they? But
that no one cares is proof the sensitivity is lost that every work of art is an
exploration of the meaning of the world and therefore something honestly
exclusive. Every work of an artist that is perceived as true steps into the world
confidently. In this way the true artist could only feel it a dissolution of his
entire being if he was expected to allude within his creation to the fact that
such things were everywhere by the dozen. Here, profanity almost becomes
frivolous.
6
Behne uses this spelling and seems to be referencing Kant’s Critique of
Judgment.
7
Jacob von Üxküll’s “Wirkungswelt” or “Wirkwelt” is an expression in
semiotics in the field of biology. We found references in English to Üxküll’s work
where the translated term “effect world” was applied.
Now we have the continuation of Rogier van der Weyden who indeed
already painted a picture in a picture, but did not justify it as an isolated,
framed achievement of someone else. Even the most boring frame of a
painted, very indifferent picture has become a sufficient object for the art
of painting.
At the same time we recognize why it was inevitable that the banal square
frame would attain such immense importance. We have already heard
from where this frame came from, yet as a parlor painting, as a piece of the
furniture, the picture understandably had to adapt to its new environment of
chairs, windows, tables, cabinets and chests. However, these are all square for
practical purposes. So, what else was there for the painting to do than to also
fit into four right angles? With that, its separation from the architectonic, its
deviation from the cosmological, was completed.
Forced to the Gegenständlichen, the picture in the parlor or lounge leads
a profane existence. It integrates itself amongst the drapes, curtains and
knick-knacks. The halos and ornaments of the former fore- and background
were melted into the thick, heavy gold of the sculpturally carved frame
proving that it has a certain elevated appearance amongst the commodities
of bourgeois existence. With its sculptural potency, the frame becomes
necessary as a way to avoid confusion between the objects in the picture and
the objects on the table. Although art serves the daily life of the bourgeois,
it is being isolated within the domestic culture by glamour, so much so
that the frames become always heavier and wider. Through the emphasis
on the frame – one should not think that these explanations are a play
with analogies! – The clear tendency of a time is expressed, in which all
things, all questions and tasks are accustomed to escape from the center to
the periphery, so one could safely speak of a culture of the frame. Classic
examples are in the philosophy of David Hume, in the biology of Charles
Darwin, in the art of Claude Monet and in the art theory of Hippolyte Taine.
From the edge of experience no path leads to the center of knowledge, from
evolution no stairs to the organic, from observation no effort to design and
from the milieu no hairsplitting to art.
A painting from Ludwig von Hofmann entitled Picture with Frame emerges
as a final culmination of the imaginary tendencies.8 Despite its naming, it is
a frame with no picture. It consists of a line in the upper half marking the
horizon. Above is a uniform surface, below an almost completely uniform
surface: sky and sea, seen entirely from afar, entirely as an idea. The cover
page of a book is more interesting and richer in content. Around the void
is a rich, lively frame, which shows to the right and left of a Beethoven-like
winged head, a male and a female figure below which are many strongly
articulated, unremarkable efforts at ornamentation.
That is how we have come to the end. The path led us from the picture
without a frame to the frame without a picture.
8
The painting Behne seems to refer is “Sunset over the Sea,” now located at
the Schloss and Museum Belvedere in Vienna, Austria.
W hat we have traced is the decline not only of painting, but also of all
art since the flowering of the Gothic. The historical appraisal of the
great achievements of individuals, these mostly tragic creative forces of the
different time periods – Raphael, Grünewald, Breughel, Daumier, van Gogh
– does not change its devolution. Despite their accomplishments painting’s
decline cannot be changed. And it is so complete, so all-dissolving, that
the question of a new beginning barely ventures forth from this absolute
destruction.
And yet, a new magnet is already upon us that exerts its powerful mysterious
attraction. Where to? To a great new creative architecture. Certainly, things
remain here in the sphere of the foreboding, and as accurately as we were
able to follow the trajectory of painting down to zero, as dreamlike as it may
be, there remains the proud, alluring, lustrous path upward. It is impossible
to prepare the way to plausibility step by step. That would be like jumping
towards a distant mountain and always falling back exhausted. But we have
the promise of Paul Scheerbart’s poetry, and in it we have the certainty of a
distant homeland.
In Scheerbart’s poetry are temples in the sunlight whose absolute being
take our breath away. There are no structures on earth, and that is not
saying too much, whose distance from us would be as equally gigantic as
the mysterious distance of Indian temples. Their image appears demonical;
unsettling our conscience from the moment we have seen it. Beauty is
erected in front of us and makes its ideal demand upon us in holy serenity,
though it does so relentlessly. Only a few hear it; but those who have been
moved by it, have no other choice. As a model, beauty requires enormous
amounts of surrender, overcoming, purity and simplicity. It demands a
pristine, elemental-crystalline humanity; a humanity that yields to no terms,
that endures no convention, permits no restriction from the outside, only
because it is based on power; a humanity, which revealingly shines through
all derivations and refractions of our culture, moved by the burning drive for
nakedness.
This ideal requires a separation from the Europe of our time that, as a
consequence, the surroundings can call only ridiculous and extravagant;
this ideal requires such a simple and yet so serious reevaluation of all values
that the contemporary can only call it foolish, illogical and unhistorical.
But as perfect as this spiritual renewal is for transforming almost every
aspect into its opposite, and as many complicated and useful achievements
of European civilization, culture and development it gives away for what
seems ridiculously little, the affected will not withdrawal from any demand
for it. Full of gratitude, his eye is focused on the beauty of the Indian temples,
and he knows that this supreme beauty of the earth is a compass that cannot
lead one astray. For by necessity, the highest meaning manifests itself in
the highest beauty. But for that individual who is absorbed by the sight of
an Indian temple – even if he relies on an imperfect picture of the distant
wonders – where does the period of European painting remain that we have
taken so seriously just for the sake of illustration? Where does it remain? It
seems to us almost laughable now. Does the proud Europe concern itself
with such works? With the smile of a young girl towards the audience
because a covetous gentleman forces a glass of wine upon her? With a
frame without a picture? We need to rise to Sano di Pietro, to the cathedral
window, to arrive at things that can even be named in the same breath as the
sight of Indian architecture. But we have seen how logical, how consistent,
how strongly preoccupied with its own achievements, Europe came to be
what it is today. Europe is simply a Europe that paints. But it also houses
architects in it. The fact that they give themselves the same name as the
former creators of wonderful works should certainly not lead us to accept
them as artists. Europe is a Europe that paints. The majority of today’s most
recognized “architects” began as painters. As they were not even talented
enough to paint, it sufficed for modern architecture. One can gather from
this how beautiful it must be.
There is only one fine art: building.9 Painting and chiseling belong to
it. Neither as slaves, nor as servants. Rather, the unfolding art of building
carries painting and chiseling. It is entirely unnecessary to establish a theory
about the position of the visual arts amongst each other. There is only one
fine art: building. Apart from building, painting and sculpture only exist in
a depraved form. Only during the Gothic period, had Europe a visual art for
the last time.
But is India not even more than the Gothic? At no time has Europe come
so close to the Orient as during the Gothic. It is also true: in one respect, the
Gothic is supremely beautiful – the sweet flowing intimacy of glass windows
belongs to it alone. We certainly do not want to do without them. But as a
whole, India towers high above all others as the purest culture of the Orient.
Even China fades next to India – the finest, most spiritual realism next to
pure transcendence. And our Gothic is again nothing but a beautiful dream
of the Orient, which the Crusaders dreamt about after their return home. The
Gothic, as with all our most beautiful things, like Venice, is only one tenth
European – and therefore so beautiful.
The light always comes from the East. But Europe was capable of the Gothic
– and should therefore no longer be satisfied with less than its beauty. Europe
should again truly create – that is: build.
The rebirth of architecture – it began with the period in which the distant
model began to exert its magnetic power. It cannot be made psychologically
plausible, as little as any birth. It is a miracle, as good as any birth. It began by
feeding the trunk new sap, by renewing the roots, although the leaves may at
first continue to wilt and fall. None of us will live to see the ultimate birth, the
complete regeneration.
9
“Building” as an act not as a completed edifice.
Figure 71 Palitana, the Great Temple Chamukte.
THE DEAD PALACE
AN ARCHITECT’S DREAM
BY
PAUL SCHEERBART
I knew where I wanted to go

Therefore I assiduously climbed higher up the poorly carved rock stairs –
and was soon there.
And I stood before the striking palace, that I have wanted all my life.
But I have never seen it as clearly as at that time.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– ––––––––––––––––––
The palace sits on the mountaintop like a jagged spiked helmet.
I am very astonished.
But – it is so quiet.
I have never felt such dreadful solitude.
And ruby columns pierce my eye – and the vast halls of the blazing sun
burn so strong.
So this is the striking palace I have wanted all my life!
Everything is so dead!
And a voice speaks to me:
“The art that you dreamed up is always dead. The palaces have no life.
Trees live – animals live – but palaces do not live.”
“Therefore,” I respond, “I want the dead!”
“Yes!” I hear it call – but I do not know who says that.
“I wanted the silence – the peace!” I cry wildly, in grim disgust.
“The silence,” I hear now, “you will certainly find it – don’t be so greedy
after all!”
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– ––––––––––––––––––
And I knew what I wanted – I wanted the silence – without pleasure – the
departure into infinity!
The dead palace trembled – trembled!
Figure 72 The Great Pagoda of Udaipur.

SOURCES
T he Poems “The New Life” and “The Dead Palace” are taken from Paul
Scheerbart’s fantastic hippopotamus-novel Always Courageous! (Minden:
Verlag J.C.C. Bruns, 1902), with the permission from the publisher and
Scheerbart’s widow.
The remaining contributions appear for the first time in print.
Figures 1, 13 and 70 are from Gonse, L’art gothique, Figures 3, 28 and 29 are
from C. Brossard, Geographie pittoresque et monumentale de la France; Figures
4, 21 and 33 are from Braun and Hogenberg, Urbes, c. 1700; Figure 9 is from
C. H. Peters, De nederlandsche Stedenbouw, Figures 10 and 12 are from Perrot
and Chipiez, L’art antique, Figure 7 is from Handbuch der Kunstwissenschaft,
Lief. Figure 14 is from Prospects of all the cathedrals etc. of England and Wales,
Figures 15 and 57 are from Unwin, Grundlagen des Städtebaues, Figures 20 and
38 are from Daniel Meißner, Politica-Politica, 1700, Figure 22 is from Pinder,
Deutsche Dome im Mittelalter, Figure 23 is from Fergusson, History of Indian
Architecture, Figures 24 and 25 are from David Roberts, Egypte and Nubia and
Holy Land, Figure 26 is from Grabar, Russische Architektur, Figure 27 is from an
old aquacolor print, Figure 30 is from Dahlberg, Suecia, Figure 32 is from Die
schöne deutsche Stadt, Figures 35, 55 and 58 are from Börschmann, Baukunst der
Chinesen, Figures 36 and 37 are from Zeiler-Merian, Topographia, Figure 52 is
from Schinkel, Kriegsdenkmäler, Figure 53 is from Möller van den Bruck, Der
preußische Stil, Figure 66 is from Mebes, um 1800, and Figures 6, 11, 16, 17, 18,
19, 31, 34, 40, 41, 67, 68, 71 and 72 are from the portfolio of works for single
sheets in the Kunstgewerbemuseums zu Berlin.
From the same source as from the Lipperheide Kostümbibliothek are the
previously mentioned figures by kind permission and support of library
management.
Figure 2 is a reprint from Kunstwart, Figures 5, 8, 54, 59, 60 and 64 are
from Städtebau, Figures 61, 65 and 59 are from Deutsche Bauzeitung with
the permission of the editors, Figure 62 is from Otto Wagner, Die Großstadt,
Figures 50 and 51 are with the approval of the construction department of the
Deutschen Gartenstadt-Gesellschaft.
The other figures are taken from originals.
LIST OF FIGURES
Page
1. St Barbara by Jan van Eyck ...................................................................... 33

2. Charles Cottet, City Image ....................................................................... 43
3. Mont-Saint-Michel ..................................................................................... 44
4. Strasbourg by Braun and Hogenberg, Urbes ........................................ 45
5. Monte Compatri near Rome .................................................................... 46
6. Durham ....................................................................................................... 46
7. Adrianople, Selim Mosque ...................................................................... 47
8. Augsburg, St Ulrich Church ..................................................................... 47
9. Utrecht by J.V. Vianen, 1598 ..................................................................... 48
10. Assyrian temple, reconstruction by Perot and Chipiez ....................... 48
11. Madurai, Great Gopura ............................................................................ 49
12. Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem, reconstruction by Perrot
and Chipiez ................................................................................................ 50
13. Cologne ....................................................................................................... 51
14. London ........................................................................................................ 51
15. Selinunt, reconstruction by M. Hulot ..................................................... 52
16. Athens .......................................................................................................... 52
17. Yangon, Shewdagon Pagoda ................................................................... 53
18. Salamanca ................................................................................................... 54
19. Yangon ................................................................ ........................................ 55
20. Buarcos after Daniel Meißner, Politica-Politica 1700 ........................... 56
21. Tzaffin after Brau, Urbes, c. 1700 ............................................................. 56
22. Prenzlau ...................................................................................................... 57
23. Angkor Wat, elevation after Fergusson .................................................. 58
24. Cairo after David Robert, Egypte and Nubia ........................................ 58
25. Hebron in Palestine, after David Roberts, Holy-Land ......................... 59
26. Great Cathedral in the Kremlin of Moscow .......................................... 60
27. “Vue du Kreml de Moscou prise du pne de pierre”—Aquatint sheet 61
28. La Chaise-Dieu ........................................................................................... 62
29. Béziers ......................................................................................................... 63
30. Strängnäs after Dahlberg, Suecia ............................................................ 64
31. Pisa, Piazza del Duomo ............................................................................ 64
32. Danzig, St Mary’s Church ........................................................................ 65
33. Aden after Braun, Urbes c. 1700 .............................................................. 65
34. Srivilliputtur ............................................................................................... 66
35. Miao tai tze, Memorial Temple for Chancellor Chang-Liang ............. 67
36. Paris after Merian ...................................................................................... 68
37. Speyer after Merian ................................................................................... 68
38. Mainz after Meißner ................................................................................. 69
39. Toledo ......................................................................................................... 69
40. Bangkok–Siam, the great Wat Chaeng Pagoda ..................................... 70

41. Chidambaram, Shiva-Pond ...................................................................... 71
42. City crown, east elevation ........................................................................ 87
43. City crown, west elevation ....................................................................... 89
44. City crown, bird’s eye view looking west .............................................. 91
45. City silhouette with City Crown .............................................................. 92
46. Diagram of the new city ............................................................................ 92
47. City crown, image ..................................................................................... 93
48. City crown, plan and silhouette .............................................................. 94
49. City crown, perspectival view ................................................................. 95
50. Garden City Estate Falkenberg near Berlin ........................................... 96
51. Street views from Falkenberg .................................................................. 97
(Figures 42–51 after drawings by the author)
52. Design for a cathedral on the Templower Mountain near Berlin
in Remembrance of the Liberation War by Schinkel .......................... 106
53. Design for a memorial of Friedrich the Great on the Leipziger
Platz in Berlin by Gilly ............................................................................ 106
54. Karlsruhe, city plan ................................................................................... 107
55. Temple of Confucius in Qufu after Börschmann, Baukunst der
Chinesen ..................................................................................................... 107
56. Plan scheme after Ebenezer Howard, “Gartenstädte in Sicht” ......... 107
57. Central complex for Letchworth Garden City after Unwin,
Grund-lagen des Städtebaus ...................................................................... 107
58. Plan sketch of the Qufu City after Börschmann .................................. 108
59. Elias-Hollplatz with City Hall and Perlach-Tower in Augsburg
after drawings by Dr. Former ................................................................ 109
60. The new Municipal Building in New York .......................................... 110
61. New York City skyline ............................................................................ 110
62. Air Center of the future XXII. Community District of Vienna
by Otto Wagner ........................................................................................ 111
63. Klein-Hoheim development near Stuttgart, project by Jacobus
Görtel ......................................................................................................... 111
64. First prize in the competition for a master plan for the Australian
Capital by W. Griffin-Chicago ............................................................... 112
65. International World Center, Project by H.C. Anderson and M.E.
Hébrard ..................................................................................................... 112
66. Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Berlin .................................................... 113
67. Palace of Justice in Brussels ................................................................... 113
68. The Capitol in Washington .................................................................... 114
69. Design of a Monument for the People, Pantheon of Humanity
by H.P. Berlage ........................................................................................ 114
70. Cathedral in Rouen ................................................................................. 123
71. Palitana, the Great Temple Chamukte ................................................. 139
72. The Great Pagoda of Udaipur ............................................................... 142
CONTENTS
Page
The new life: An architectonic apocalypse by Paul Scheerbart .................. 35
40 examples: Historic city crowns .................................................................... 41
The city crown

Architecture ................................................................................................... 74
The old city .................................................................................................... 76
The chaos ........................................................................................................ 77
The new city ................................................................................................... 78
A body without a head ................................................................................ 79
Raise a flag ..................................................................................................... 82
The city crown ............................................................................................... 86
Economic costs for the city crown .............................................................. 98
Epilogue: Recent attempts at crowing cities ................................................. 101
AUFBAU by Erich Baron ................................................................................. 115
Rebirth of architecture by Adolf Behne ......................................................... 125
The dead palace: An architect’s dream by Paul Scheerbart ........................ 141
Sources ................................................................................................................ 143
List of figures ..................................................................................................... 145
Afterword: The City Crown in the Context of Bruno Taut’s
Oeuvre
Ulrike Altenmüller-Lewis and Mark L. Brack
In Taut’s writings, manifest and visions we find the arc of suspense between
reality and utopia, between real existence and idealistic motivation.
Helga Schmidt-Thomsen
Bruno Taut’s work appears in virtually every comprehensive survey of modern

architecture and he continues to be widely recognized for his significant
contributions to European avant-garde architecture in the years surrounding
the First World War. Nevertheless, what is generally presented about his life and
career is very limited. A handful of Taut’s built projects and few selected writings
on architectural theory are referenced again and again without acknowledging his
larger, remarkably productive and diverse career.
By the time he died at the age of 58, Taut had designed close to 200 projects
in Germany, Russia, Japan and Turkey. These included: prize-winning competition
entries, built and unrealized projects ranging from furniture designs and interiors
to exhibition pavilions, a wide variety of public and commercial buildings as well
as houses and housing estates and large urban development projects. Taut’s
written work was perhaps even more prodigious and comprises at least 21 major
publications or books and approximately 300 essays and manuscripts.1
Although Die Stadtkrone has long been recognized as a significant contribution
to architectural theory, its difficult German text was never translated into English
before and one suspects that its continuing renown might be more attributable to
its reputation rather than first-hand experience with the book. Die Stadtkrone can
be seen as a turning point where Taut’s social and spiritual agendas became equal
to the pragmatic and aesthetic impulses found in his work.
As the last few decades have permitted better access to original documents
concerning Taut’s life, a clearer picture of his accomplishments has emerged. This
essay will summarize his life and career and will also introduce the reader to more
recent (and largely German) research on him that provides crucial insights into his
theoretical work and personal development after his emigration from Germany.
These new materials also permit a fuller understanding of Die Stadtkrone’s influence
on his own work and place the text more inclusively within the cultural landscape
of its time.
Formative Years and Early Professional Life
Bruno Taut was born on May 4, 1880 in Königsberg, Prussia (today Kaliningrad
in Russia) as the second son of merchant Julius Taut. Taut’s brother Max was four
years younger and he also became a well-known architect. After Grammar School,
Bruno Taut continued his education for three semesters at the Königsberg School
for Construction Trades, which was only half the time of the usual training period
and undoubtedly reflects his precocious talent.2 In 1902 he began working for
several architects in Hamburg and Wiesbaden. In 1903 he seized the opportunity
to work with Bruno Möhring, one of the most recognized Jugendstil (Art Nouveau)
architects in Berlin, who introduced Taut to innovative construction methods with
steel and stone. The following year, Taut moved to Stuttgart where he was employed
at the firm of Theodor Fischer from 1904 to 1908. Under Fischer, he expanded his
knowledge of urban design and planning. At the same time he busily worked on
architectural design competitions, sometimes together with his brother Max. With
Fischer’s help, Taut won his first own commission in 1905: the renovation of the
village church of Unterriexingen, for which he collaborated with the painter Franz
Mutzenbecher. Together they created an innovative and colorful interior, strongly
influenced by Taut’s own painting studies, that reflected his interest in using color
as a medium to create spatial effects.
Taut returned to Berlin in 1908 to practice with Heinz Lassen and to begin
studies in art history and, under Theodor Goecke (a friend of Camillo Sitte), urban
planning. The following year, Taut and Franz Hoffmann started their professional
association in 1909.3 Three years later, Max Taut joined them; however, he worked
rather independently. 4 While in some earlier publications Hoffmann has been
dismissed as Taut’s draftsman, it is now apparent that Hoffmann was actually an
equal partner and life-long friend with whom Bruno Taut fully collaborated.5
During their first years, Taut & Hoffmann had predominantly received
commissions for apartment buildings in Berlin. Their major breakthroughs
came with the exhibition pavilions “Monument of Iron” (Leipzig, 1913) and the
“Glasshouse” (Cologne, 1914). Both were striking and original in form and material,
and they brought the firm (or more specifically Taut himself ) international
recognition. At the same time, the low-income garden city estates “Am Falkenberg”
in Berlin and “Reform” in Magdeburg were built and widely recognized for their
innovation and quality.6
With the outbreak of the First World War, Taut’s early architectural practice
ended. Although Taut and Hoffmann worked on a number of residential planning
projects and Bruno Taut also entered architectural design competitions, only a few
buildings were realized during this time. During the war, Taut focused primarily on
his theoretical work and writing.7 One of the publications he prepared during the
war was Die Stadtkrone, which was soon followed by Alpine Architektur. Matthew
Mindrup discusses this period extensively in his preface to the translation of the
anthology at hand.8
GroSSsieDLUngen – Large Residential Housing Estates
Taut’s most productive period as designer began after the First World War and
lasted from 1924 until his emigration in 1932. This was the time when he established
himself as one of Germany’s pre-eminent architects for Siedlungen (residential
housing estates). The initial inspiration for Taut’s large housing estates was primarily
derived from older models: the garden city movement and company-sponsored
housing for workers. Early in his career, Taut became highly interested in both.
Inspired by reform movements and fueled by the socially focused development
and planning policies that emerged during the early years of the Weimar Republic,
similar affordable housing projects sprouted up throughout Germany.9
Due to the growing impact of industrialization on society and accelerating
migration into cities, housing was critically needed, especially after the end of the
First World War. To accommodate the rapidly rising demand for living quarters for
the working class, massive new housing estates were created, often in the more
rural outer districts of urban centers. Here property prices were reasonable and
expanding, tightly knit transportation systems allowed for easy commutes to other
parts of the city. Philanthropic organizations and cooperatives also played crucial
roles advocating for the demolition of the older, overcrowded nineteenth-century
tenements and their replacement with more spacious and hygienic quarters.
These developments were inspired by the British garden city movement and
many new housing estates were planned as green and spacious towns not unlike
what Taut described in The City Crown. When Taut later designed housing estates,
however, he had to abandon the ideal of the completely self-contained community.
Yet, Speidel maintains that Taut still adhered to the “core model of creating a more
humane world, in which modest every-day dwellings are supplemented not only
by worthy community buildings, but that, to reinforce their meaning, a purely
artistic space should be incorporated, that has spiritual purpose only.”10 First, as
Stadtbaurat (city architect) in Magdeburg from 1921 to 1924 and from 1924 with
his many projects for GEHAG in Berlin, Taut became one of the leading German
figures developing housing estates at the city periphery. 11
Thanks to his successful project for the Gartenstadt Reform (garden city
“Reform”), the social-democratic Mayor of Magdeburg Hermann Beims invited Taut
to join his staff as city architect and to oversee the development of a masterplan for
housing. Taut hired Johannes Göderitz and Carl Krayl, two young and like-minded
architects, to help create and implement the masterplan, including the detailed
architectural color schemes.
In order to win the support of the population for his plans for a far-reaching
transformation of their city, Taut launched a newspaper campaign entitled “Aufruf
zum farbigen Bauen” (appeal for colorful building).12 By 1922, 80 facades of existing
buildings had been repainted with brilliant colors and radical abstract designs.
While criticized by some locals and critics, the “colorful Magdeburg” promotion by
the tourism industry through distinct postcards featuring its colorful streets and
buildings proved successful.13
Throughout Taut’s oeuvre, we find brightly colored streets, buildings and
details. Winfried Brenne and Helge Pitz have thoroughly researched color in Taut’s
work. Brenne maintains that the architect used color to accentuate spaces, to
create unity or contrast. Most importantly, Taut used color as he “attempted to free
the plane from its two-dimensionality, so that the space can be experienced in a
new way and to connect the landscape and the exterior space with the colored
space”14 (see Plates 3, 4, 10 and 13). His conceptual ideas did not stop at the façade
from an aesthetic perspective, as Brenne observes. Taut also considers energetic
effects. While facades facing west and receiving afternoon or evening sun were
often painted bright white or in light colors to balance their heat gain, facades
facing east consider the “cool morning sun” with dark colors that collected and
retained the warmth of the sun. While in his early housing project Taut remained
monochromatic with details like windows and doors, he later introduced a wide
spectrum of color and even used multiple colors for sashes of the same window or
door (Plates 7, 8, 12 and 13 are good illustrations for these colored sashes). While
one would assume that the effect might be discordant, in fact the colors enlived
and humanized the buildings in a manner that is not apparent in black and white
photographs.
Die fetten Jahre – The Fat Years
In 1924 Taut returned to Berlin, where he worked closely with Martin Wagner
and even partnered with him on a few projects, Taut’s large-scale housing
developments in Berlin are now considered milestones in the history of urban
design and public housing. Several housing estates by Taut – Gartenstadt Falkenberg
(1913–16), Siedlung Schillerpark (1924–26), Hufeisensiedlung Berlin-Britz (1925–33)
and Wohnstadt Carl Legien (1928–30) – were added to the UNESCO World Heritage
List in 2008 as the “Berlin Modernism Housing Estates.” The recommendation for
the addition of these housing estates prepared by the World Heritage Committee
stated:
The housing estates reflect, with the highest degree of quality, the combination
of urbanism, architecture, garden design and aesthetic research typical of early
20th century modernism, as well as the application of new hygienic and social
standards. Some of the most prominent leading architects of German modernism
were involved in the design and construction of the properties; they developed
innovative urban, building and flat typologies, technical solutions and aesthetic
achievements.
… The six Berlin housing estates provide an outstanding expression of a broad

housing reform movement that made a decisive contribution to improving
housing and living conditions in Berlin. Their quality of urban, architectural
and garden design, as well as the housing standards developed during the
period, served as guidelines for social housing constructed since then, both
in and outside Germany … The six Berlin housing estates are exceptional
examples of new urban and architectural typologies, designed in the search
for improved social living conditions. Fresh design solutions and technical and
aesthetic innovations were incorporated by the leading modern architects who
participated in their design and construction.15
When studying the plans of Taut’s housing estates, we quickly observe certain
communalities: the buildings are usually not laid out in straight, symmetrical
lines, but seem to dance in asymmetrical rows and ensembles, and deep balconies
enlivened the facades by creating interesting patterns of light and shadow (Plate
6). Both Speidel and Nerdinger trace this playfulness back to Theodor Fischer.16 To
keep cost at a minimum, Taut embraced the opportunity of standardizing type
modules and using state-of-the-art construction technology. Without creating
monotony, he maximized results with very limited type differences. He created
variety by mirroring, introducing slight shifts and setbacks, and varying the
shapes of roof. He added character to houses and streets through color variations
and thus managed to tie individual houses together into a unified ensemble
(Plates 10 and 15). In the Hufeisensiedlung but also in Wohnstadt Carl Legien (Plates
1–5) and Waldsiedlung Onkel Toms Hütte (Plates 6–14), he managed to achieve
smaller and larger differences, while his application of color at once unified the
entire ensemble while distinguishing individual streets of houses. At times, he
even chose a different species of tree for every street. The end result remains an
inviting and sheltering but at the same time stimulating development that is far
from the monotony of other housing estates and much of what would follow after
the Second World War.17
In addition, the interiors of Taut’s housing units and apartments were very
modern for the time. While small (a small apartment had just 48 m2 and row homes
128 m2), each unit was equipped with a bathroom and kitchen and has either access
to a garden or a balcony to connect to the green outdoors – a luxury practically
unknown for the proletariat.
An avid painter throughout his life, Taut aspired to capture the spatial qualities
and tonal relationships found in nature with watercolors and pastels.18 He was
a most careful observer and later applied what he learned to his architectural
designs. Speidel notes that there are obvious similarities between some of Taut’s
early artwork, which he created in the Chorin area, where he enjoyed spending
his weekends since 1903, and photos taken of the exterior spaces of the housing
estates Onkel-Toms-Hütte19 (Plate 9).
Taut enthusiastically embraced the opportunity to combine his passions for
color, space and architecture when he received the commission for the renovation
of the village church in Unterriexingen in 1906, while working in the Stuttgart
office of Theodor Fischer. In his diary he noted:
I am still obsessed with the thought that I have been carrying within me for
the last two years: The unification of my talents in regards to color with my
architectural skills. Colorful spatial compositions, colored architecture – these are
areas, in which I may say something personal.
I do not have to worry about fragmentation because painting will always bring
me back together with architecture and vice-versa.20
In his housing projects, Taut introduces color as a low-cost means to enliven the
urban space. In his essay “Die Kunst der Siedlung” (“The Art of the Housing Estate”),
he writes about the joy of living and the human instinct for play: “We must accept
color as absolutely emanicipated/equitable besides form … Do not disrespect this
gift of God, the pure unfractured color!”21
In 1930 Taut was appointed an honorary professor for Siedlungs- und
Wohnungswesen (settlement and housing design) by the Technische Hochschule
(technical university) in Berlin, a decision that was harshly criticized by the
strengthening conservative powers. A self-confessed pacifist and “leftist,” he was
not viewed as a “real academic” and this was considered a provocation to the
traditional university system.22 He taught seminars for residential design and
introduced his students to group work where they collaboratively worked on
designs. At the time, this was a rather innovative pedagogically. He also became
a member of the Preußische Akademie der Künste (Prussian Academy of the Arts).
Further evidence of his growing international reputation came with the Japanese
International Association of Architects’ invitation to him to join as an honorary
member and in 1931 he was elected an honorary Fellow of the American Institute
of Architects.
Departure from Berlin
In the fall of 1931, the world economic crisis took another turn for the worse. The
already high rates of unemployment skyrocketed, global commerce came to a halt
and the international financial world was at a near-total state of collapse. This also
had devastating effects on the German economy and its political climate. In Berlin
the situation was as bad as elsewhere and the architectural firm of Taut & Hoffmann
virtually found itself without work.23 Consequently, Taut’s most productive and
successful period as architect came to an end.24 Though Taut did receive a small
income from his teaching assignments at the Technische Hochschule of Berlin, the
financial situation deteriorated quickly and, with the rising influence of National
Socialism, it was for Taut to consider alternatives.25
Still fascinated by revolutionary ideas, Taut became increasingly interested in
the Soviet Union. Junghanns attributes several reasons for Taut’s interest in the rise
of Soviet socialism.26 The development of urban design and planning following the
abolition of private landownership presented unprecedented opportunities and
problems. Naturally, the attempt to grant complete equality to women would likely
have a major impact on family life and structure, housing and urban planning.
Gigantic living communes like Moisei Ginsburg’s architecture for communal living
were already on the drafting boards.27
Taut hoped since the early 1920s that here he would find the beginning of a
new society. He was intrigued and excited by the atmosphere and the potential
opportunities to fulfill his ideas of a “socialism, in the non-political, supra-political
sense.”28 Since 1926 Taut travelled to Moscow and was asked to give advice
for housing projects. In the fall of 1931, he visited Moscow upon invitation by
the Moscow Soviet (council) to help with the redesign of the capital city. With
prospective involvement in numerous projects and the assignment to build up the

city’s department for new construction, Taut’s decision to move was made.29
In March 1932 Taut arrived in Moscow.30 Erica Wittich, joined him later. He
poured his energy and creativity into countless design competitions and design
proposals as one might expect in an era of such extreme experimentation in
new typologies and aesthetics.31 However, Taut’s dreams did not materialize
and he soon became “irritated and frustrated,” which was amplified by feelings
of disconnection and missing the support of his Berlin office.32 Barbara Kreis
summarizes his stay in Moscow aptly:
His stay was on one hand affected by his quest for understanding and
reconnaissance, on the other hand by the existential wish to contribute a marker
of the new architecture through his built work. This would be denied. It only
played a subordinate role for Taut that – directly and indirectly – he had major
influence on the re-organization of the building industry and on urban design
and planning decisions. Called a “hopeless romantic,”33 Taut appeared in Moscow
as uncomfortable critic and maladjusted, lone warrior. The fact that he knew
the country better than most of his colleagues did not prevent his failure, but it
amplified his dissappointment.34
After less than a year in the Soviet Union, the Tauts returned to Berlin in February
1933. However, back at home the political situation had worsened. Since the
Machtergreifung (seizure of power) by the German National Socialist Party in January,
it was apparent that there was no stopping the reactionary forces. Stigmatized as a
Kulturbolschewik (cultural Bolshevist), Taut’s name was blacklisted and he escaped
from Berlin to avoid oppression and prosecution by the Nazi authorities. He lost
his appointment at the Technische Hochschule and was dismissed as a member of
the Academy of the Arts. Warned of his impending arrest through General Esquord
von Hammerstein, the father of Taut’s daughter Elisabeth’s former classmate, Taut
fled and left Germany for good on March 1, 1933.35 It was the same day that the
Notverordnung zum Schutz von Volk und Staat (Presidential Decree for the Protection
of People and State) became active and triggered a wave of arrests of so-called
Staatsfeinde (enemies of the state).36
Japan
Early in his life, Taut had developed an intense fascination with the Near and the
Far Orient, especially in India. Initially influenced by the work of the poet (and
Stadtkrone collaborator) Paul Scheerbart, he saw in the Orient a philosophy of life
that contrasted and sometimes surpassed European civilization. Speidel forges
the term “a personal Orient,” a diffuse, eclectic image that emerges through Taut’s
literature, photos and images and brief visits to rather random locations in the East.37
Taut and Erica Wittich first fled to Zurich, Switzerland, where they stayed only
briefly. What was planned originally as a leisurely educational trip to marvel at the
cherry blossoms now turned into a rushed flight into exile in Japan. With the help
of Isaburo Ueno, architect and Director of the Japanese International Association of
Architects, the Tauts arranged what was planned as a three-month-long tour with
lectures and conversations with Japanese colleagues to bridge the time until the
projects in Moscow would materialize or he could proceed to the United States.
They stayed for three and a half years.
Taut was viewed as an important ally by the young founders of the Japanese
International Association of Architects. Begun in 1927, the Association welcomed
him with great respect and garnered attention for him from the press. Isaburo
Ueno introduced him to key figures in Japanese modern architecture and took him
to experience the treasures of Japanese culture, including the villa and gardens
of Katsura in Kyoto, which made a profound impression on him.38 Shortly after his
arrival, Taut was commissioned to document his reactions to Japanese culture in a
book he titled: NIPPON, Japan Seen with European Eyes. Here he provided a critical
though admiring account of Japan’s recent cultural development.39 This book was
followed swiftly by NIPPON, Japanese Art Seen with European Eyes.40 Taut admired
the beauty, simplicity and aesthetic of Japanese arts, which he appreciated first
and foremost for their refinement of the most essential elements.
With the exception of two small projects, Taut was unable to build while in
Japan. However, he studied Japanese culture and architecture intensely.41 He
designed more than 300 objects of everyday use, taking advantage of the excellent
craftsmanship of Japanese wood and bamboo workers and lacquer artists.42
These designs, along with his work as consultant and the proceeds from his
writings, were his main source of income at the time. In his books and articles, he
examined Japanese culture, arts and architecture from a contemporary view while
considering the past.43 His writings received wide recognition in his host country
and showed many Japanese readers a way to find a synthesis of their own historical
culture – that had been honored and preserved for centuries due to the country’s
isolation from the world – with the new foreign influences that had flooded into
Japan since the late nineteenth century.
Taut documented and savoured many beautiful moments and deeply formative
experiences he experienced abroad. Ultimately, however, living in exile was a
difficult for him, professionally and personally. Although his publications on
Japanese art, culture and architecture are still acknowledged as essential early
studies of Japanese modernism, his inability to find architectural commissions left
him deeply disappointed. His hopes to find more favorable conditions in which
to contribute to the “neues Bauen” were thwarted and he felt more and more
isolated.44
Taut’s early image of the Orient was originally influenced by the work of the
poet Paul Scheerbart but his enthusiasm for anything “oriental” deepened in 1916
with his first visit to Istanbul. Later this fascination developed into a “catalyst … for
Taut’s concept of the ‘ideal building,’ that unites all arts.”45 Speidel states that the
“Orient” served for him as the origin of a Weltanschauung (world view) that would
stay with him throughout his life. However, Akcan clarifies that Taut’s “melancholy
for the east” was deeply reflective and that the more familiar he became with
the cultures and traditions he encountered while in exile, the more he criticized
superficial Western perceptions that were often based on stereotypes.46 Instead,
he “intuitively realized some of the basic problems that non-European countries
undergo in westernization.”47
After finishing his book Das Japanische Haus und sein Leben (The Houses and
People of Japan), Taut began drafting his “Architekturüberlegungen” (thoughts on
architecture) in December 1935.48 He added another essay titled “Wie kann eine
gute Architektur entstehen?” (“How Can a Good Architecture Occur?”). This was his
first systematic attempt at putting his thoughts on the fundamental questions of
architecture on paper. Its 170 pages in seven chapters constituted a self-critical
reflection and were not intended for a general audience.49 The third, more elaborate
version, entitled “Architekturlehre” (“Lectures on Architecture”), would later serve
as basis for his lectures and textbook on architecture when he assumed his new
positions in Turkey.
Turkey
In October 1936, Taut left Japan and traveled overland via Manchukuo and
Bejing to Turkey, where he assumed office as Director/Dean of the School of
Architecture at the Academy of Art in Istanbul. He would also serve as Director
of the Architecture Department of the Turkish Ministry of Education. His friend
and colleague Martin Wagner, who had also emigrated to Turkey, brokered this
arrangement.50 Besides teaching, Taut was at last able to build again and for a
brief time his commissions equaled those of his best years in Germany. Due to
his dual appointment and the fervor with which he embraced his architectural
commissions, one can easily imagine the pressures he was under. As a member of a
large community of German emigrants who fled their home country to escape the
Nazi regime, Taut participated in the renewal and modernization of Turkey under
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s leadership that marked a radical break from Ottoman
traditions.51 Within just two years, Taut designed 15 buildings and two decorative
arrangements.52 Among them were several schools and large university buildings
in Ankara, Istanbul, Izmir and Trabzon, and even a house for himself in Istanbul
that was dramatically perched with a view of the Bosporus. These projects also
allowed him to work again with several of his trusted former assistants from Berlin
and Franz Hillinger became his right-hand man, overseeing the commissions.
Taut’s final book was entitled Mimari Bigisi (Lectures on Architecture).53 The
publication was intended not only as a textbook for students, but also as a
manual for his colleagues at the Academy of Fine Arts in Istanbul, who had
many reservations about his approach and intention to reform the School of
Architecture and its curriculum.54 Published first in Turkish, it was released the
week after his death and only in 1977 in German with the title Architekturlehre,
the text summarized the great themes that Taut explored during his career. It was
enriched by his experiences abroad and considered the problematic transition
from traditional to modern societies.55
Taut’s very last commission was the design of the catafalque for the deceased
and revered founder of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who had
passed away on November 10, 1938. Originally commissioned to Martin Elsaesser,
who had failed to produce a design agreeable to Parliament, Taut developed his
proposal for the monument in the course of only one night, while severely ill with
asthma, influenza and high fever. He did not accept the honorarium for this project,
although he would have needed the money to finance the construction of his
own house.56 That he was trusted with a commission of such political importance
attested to the fact that he had become an architectural authority within his
adopted country.57 Within a month of this last commission (which, like his other
projects in Turkey, he never saw finished) Taut died on Christmas Eve in 1938 at
the age of 58 from heart failure during a severe asthma attack. His selfless work
on the catafalque was discussed in the Turkish press and connected his name with
the memory of the Turkish national hero.58 To this day, Bruno Taut remains the only
foreigner and non-Muslim who was put to rest at the Edirnekapi Martyr’s Cemetery,
the Cemetery of Honor of the Turkish State in Istanbul.59
Die Stadtkrone in the Context of Taut’s Later Career
Taut’s activities as an architect were frequently complemented by his journal

articles.60 These communicate the conceptual ideas that stood at the core of
both his personal work and what the firm Taut & Hoffmann stood for. Others
were compiled into books or served the purpose of promoting the firm.61 Speidel
further notes that a number of texts can serve as cornerstones for a comprehensive
body of architectural theory. Die Stadtkrone was central to Taut’s development as a
designer and a theorist, connecting his views on expressionism, artistic buildings
without a purpose (the exhibition pavilions) and the city crown proper with “die
Wohnung” (the apartment) and new typologies. Taut’s own article “Die Stadtkrone”
allowed him to discuss in theory what he had begun to build with his first housing
estates “Am Falkenberg” and “Reform.”
Taut belongs to a group of reformers after the First World War who made
significant and lasting contributions to the field of urban design and social reform
housing. In his article “Die Stadtkrone,”Taut explained how his ideal city should look.
He began describing the overall size and layout of the city and its administrative
and communal functions. While this ideal city is significantly larger than any of
the housing estates or neighborhoods Taut designed in his own practice, they still
addressed the need for functional circulation and infrastructure as well as a certain
density to support the latter while setting limits to the expanse in order to maintain
walkability. Next Taut focused on large parks and green spaces that allowed for
the throughflow of air and better air quality. These green zones provided relief
and relaxation for the entire community. Well aware of their restorative effect,
they were meant to counterbalance urban life and establish a connection to the
countryside and nature:
In the west, from the direction of the prevailing wind, a large sector-shaped park
brings good air into the city from the woods and fields. This park connects the
heart of the city to the open countryside like a major artery and should function
like a true people’s park with playgrounds, grass play areas, water basins, a
botanical garden, flower beds, rose gardens, a vast grove and forest stretching
out into the open countryside. Axially to the city center, three main churches and
schools are distributed in the living quarters with a classroom center (university)
located in the middle of the park. Farther out again are the hospitals. As
shortcuts, two main street lines lead diagonally to the train station.62
In his description of the residential quarters, Taut explained some of the guiding
principles he had applied in his previous designs for housing estates, specifically for
the housing estate “Am Falkenberg,” which the architecture firm Taut & Hoffmann
realized in two stages between 1913 and 1915 and was introduced in Die Stadtkrone
as an example. He applied similar design parameters but with added refinements
to his later large-scale housing and urban design projects:
In the residential quarters, the streets mainly run from north to south, providing
the front of the houses on both east and west sides with sunlight as well as shelter
from the wind for streets and gardens. Their design is entirely conceived in the
character manner of a garden city, with rows of low, single-family houses with
deep gardens for every house … so that the residential area itself becomes a
horticultural zone making remote allotment gardens unnecessary.
… According to the principles of the garden city, the height of the houses
in residential quarters remains as low as possible. The commercial and
administration buildings are allowed to exceed the height of houses by a
maximum of one floor so that the city crown reigns powerfully and unreachable
above the entire city.63
Taut never had the opportunity to build an actual “city crown,” a monument void
of any purpose except for the sake of aggrandizing and centering the city and
providing it with the ultimate transcendental space. Other planning aspects of
the larger “Stadtkrone” however were influential: the abundance of green space
and the return to garden city ideals, his emphasis on ample public space, and
the successful creation of authentic communities that went beyond the mere
provision of mass accommodation.64 Through a few important basic design
decisions, Taut created livable and inviting urban spaces by choosing appropriate
proportions of streets in relation to the height and use of the buildings that
surround them, by considering the orientation towards the sun when laying out
of streets or designing floor plans, by creating variety through simple means like
mirroring, offsetting or rhythmically repeating modules, and lastly by choosing
different color schemes to give each street a sense of identity while fitting it into
an overall neighborhood ensemble.
Shortly after its publication in 1919, Die Stadtkrone received some recognition
within the German architectural community. While some reviews in the press
welcomed the anthology and praised the various ideas of its authors, others
responded with rather harsh criticism.65 A number of reviews limited themselves
to a summary of the book with brief commentaries. However, the review by the
architectural theorist Emil Fader were particularly harsh. His article in the Deutsche
Bauzeitung criticized Taut’s “wordy gush of phrases” and dismissed the very essence
of his vision:
Not with external means can the internal rebirth of man be experienced, only the
abstract idea of ethical and religious nature has renewing power and it alone
ultimately sparks the common desire to build outstanding architecture – not the
preconceived ideas of architects and the building ideas he constructs.66
With exquisite condescension, Fader concluded that “one could abandon this book
to its fate, without even arguing against it; a thought that is not fit to live is quickly
abandoned and soon fades into oblivion.”67
Yet Faber’s prediction was not fulfilled. Die Stadtkrone ultimately inspired
generations of architects. From today’s perspective, one can only be surprised how
far-reaching the reputation of the anthology is despite its lack of accessibility to
non-German-speaking audiences. To underline the wider influence of the book,
Junghanns points out that the term “Stadtkrone” was later actually applied to
planned city centers like those of the English garden cities or the American City
Beautiful civic centers.68 However, Taut strongly objected to such attempts at
associating new civic centers with his much loftier goals for the city crown. In his
afterword to Die Stadtkrone, he admitted that political and administrative buildings
such as the United States Capitol and the Palace of Justice in Brussels might be
aesthetically appealing, but were devoid of “spirituality” and he charged that “it is
absurd to create a huge structure dominating the city filled with only office spaces
and meeting rooms.”69 He never wanted his model of spiritual and communal
harmony to be confused with monuments that embodied base political power.
Taut, Gropius, Hans Scharoun and a number of other architects and artists were
closely connected through the Gläserne Kette (the “Crystal Chain” correspondence),
the Werkbund and a number of other organizations.70 Therefore, it is not surprising
that these creative individuals influenced each other in the post-war period.
Historian Manfred Speidel noted the profound influence Die Stadtkrone – and
Taut in general – had upon the early works of Hans Scharoun.71 Scharoun realized
the housing project “Bunte Reihe” (colorful row) from 1921 to 1924 during his
time as city architect of Insterburg, East Prussia (now Tschernjachowsk in Russia).
This development showed clear similarities with the Falkenberg Estate in his
organization of spaces, the style and proportion of the architecture, and the use of
color. Although never built, Hans Scharoun’s competition entry for the town center
of the new city of Gelsenkirchen from 1919 also relied heavily on Taut’s book. The
scheme was a medley of baroque urban patterns and gothic forms with intensely
colorful drawings of a fantastic building that clearly took inspiration from Taut’s
vision for a city crown.
Establishing the potential influence of Taut’s city crown building on later
“capitol” buildings is daunting to say the least. The “purposelessness” of Taut’s
city crown obviously limited its applicability in the world that rarely grants such
architectural opportunities. In his text, Taut identified contemporary, monumental
civic centers that might have laid claim to such a title due to their size and
position within the city, but he dismissed them as representations of state political
ambitions and as lacking the deeper spiritual values he claimed for the city crown.
The unprecedented catastrophe of the First World War led him to powerfully
reassert the need for transcendent communal spaces, but stripped of all traditional
religious associations.
Rudolf Steiner’s Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland near Basel comes closest
to Taut’s ideals (Plate 15). Built in poured concrete from 1925 to 1928, it crowns a
hill with a dramatic, expressionist form that informed early visitors that this was
no ordinary temple.72 Emerging from his earlier involvement with the mystical and
esoteric principals of Theosophy, Steiner founded Anthroposophy, which claimed

to reconcile spiritual values with scientific rationalism. The Goetheanum was the
centerpiece of utopian spiritualist colony populated by Steiner’s followers. Services
(or more accurately performances) in the building involved music, harmonic
color effects created with light and paint, narrative enactments and eurythmic
dance. However, the Goetheanum lacked the city crown’s essential urban setting
and strictly non-denominational associations. But like Taut, Steiner believed
architecture capable of moral uplift and believed that the harmony of forms and
color would contribute to greater social harmony.73
While followers of Anthroposophy in Germany would soon be suppressed
by its fascist government, a project mandated by Adolf Hitler provides a second
(and most unlikely) city crown. From 1937 to 1940, Hitler collaborated with
architect Albert Speer to create a massive redevelopment scheme for Berlin. They
reconceived the city along neo-baroque lines with enormous boulevards and
grandiose neoclassical governmental buildings befitting what was intended to be
the new world capital. Although it’s known that Speer was familiar with Taut’s work,
no evidence records his opinion of Die Stadtkrone.74
The most imposing of the new Berlin buildings would have been the great hall,
sometimes identified as the “Volkshalle” (people’s hall), a gargantuan masonry
domed assembly room. If built, its cupola would have reached nearly 1,000 feet
tall and the hall itself would have had an interior span of 825 feet. The interior of
the dome drew its inspiration from the ancient Pantheon in Rome with its rows
of coffers drawing the eye upward. Unlike Taut’s vision, the Volkshalle is not a
“crystal hall” characterized by abstract forms and numinous displays of light; rather,
stripped neoclassical details provide a somber setting that was meant to convey
a sense of timelessness. Projected to accommodate approximately 150,000, its
essential purpose was to exalt the German race and celebrate its identification with
the political principles that would lead them to dominate the world. More than just
a setting for huge rallies, the building would also ennoble and elevate the average
German with a sense of the quasi-spiritual aspects of the Aryan people heralded by
Nazi propaganda. A true “monsterbau” in all senses of the word, the collective spirit
particular to the Berlin Volkshalle would have completely perverted Taut’s socialist
and pacifist ideals for the city crown. The martial and racist ideals underlying the
Berlin Volkshalle were aimed at creating an entirely different type of modern citizen
within its hallowed walls.75
Finally, another distant and unlikely descendant of the city crown is worth
mentioning: the modern American artist James Turrell is world-renowned for his
structures and installations that use light and color to focus the viewers’ attention
and promote self-reflection (Plate 16). In many of his pieces, one’s gaze is turned
upward literally and figuratively where color and tone subtlety change and seem to
take on a deeper meaning. In some, the changing sky forms the actual ceiling of the
space. Opened in 2012, Turrell’s “Twilight Epiphany Skyspace” at Rice University in
Houston, Texas shelters visitors within a berm structure that is topped with a thin,
flat metal canopy with a great square cut out of the center. Supported by delicate
metal poles, in certain light the canopy appears to hover above the berm structure
below. At dawn and dusk, light is projected onto the underside of the canopy. This
colored light enframes and complements the square of open sky revealed by the
cut in the middle of the canopy. The colors of both the projected light and the sky
change over time, creating abstract compositions that project a sense of tranquility
but also reinforce the idea that light is capable of evoking both and inner and
outer illuminations. Taut’s obsessions with light and color are clearly paralleled in
Turrell’s work and although “Twilight Epiphany Skyspace” lacks the monumental
qualities of Taut’s city crown, it encourages people to experience a kind of spiritual
awareness in a public setting that is certainly akin to Taut’s ambitions for his city
crown building.
Re-evaluating Taut’s Legacy
The German architecture historian Winfried Nerdinger observed that, while many
of Taut’s architectural achievements were groundbreaking, he remained the
least recognized of the German modernist architects from the first decades of
the twentieth century.76 This may come as a surprise given his frequent inclusion
in surveys of modern architectural history, and he is often referenced alongside
architects born in the same decade who achieved international renown: Ludwig
Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius and Erich Mendelson. Certain projects such as
Taut’s Glashaus in Cologne (1914) and the Hufeisensiedlung in Berlin-Britz (1925–
31) are well known in architectural circles, and even Taut’s esoteric and utopic
writings like Die Stadtkrone (1919) or Alpine Architektur (1919/1920) and the
Crystal Chain Letters have achieved wide notoriety.77 Considered together, these
accomplishments suggest the breadth of his interests, but scarcely communicate
the complexity and versatility of an oeuvre that has only fairly recently received the
comprehensive analysis worthy of an architect of his genius.
Even before his sensational success with the Glashaus, the pavilion representing
the glass industry at the 1914 Kölner Werkbund-Ausstellung (1914 Cologne
Werkbund Exhibition), Taut was recognized – along with Gropius – as one of the
most influential young men of the German Werkbund.78 Here he had met some
of the leading architects, artists and writers of his time. In his search to find his
own position in society, he became intimately involved with the critical dialogues
surrounding architecture and society during this period.79 He began publishing
countless articles in Der Sturm and other magazines, and thus contributed to the
avant-garde movements of the pre-war years.
Taut’s high ethical standards prompted him to develop a pronounced social
agenda in his own architectural practice. In 1913, he became the advising architect
of the Deutsche Gartenstadtgesellschaft (German Garden City Society) and, through
this connection, earned his first commissions to design larger housing estates in
Magdeburg and Berlin. He made the conscious decision to design housing for
the working class, despite the fact that little money was to be earned with such
commissions. Over his career, he built approximately 10,000 apartments, most of
them as cooperative developments for workers. These projects – many of them
still occupied and admired today – were informed by his ongoing theoretical
explorations and writings as well as by his deep interest in progressive societal forces.
His most recognized housing developments were created in Berlin during the
Weimar Republic era. These projects were not entirely dissimilar to other Siedlungen
created by Gropius, Ernst May and others, and this probably aided their acceptance
into the canon of modernism established by critics and historians.
Like the works of Peter Behrens, Hermann Muthesius or Fritz Schumacher,
Taut’s buildings were good examples of the first generation of a new kind. These
designs distanced themselves from “the new Biedermeier” traditionalists, rejected
conventions and pioneered innovative artistic expressions. However, Taut never
lapsed into repetition or betrayed a desire to develop a particular personal style.
On the occasion of his first retrospective, held in Istanbul in June 1938, Taut
summarized his career as a life-long search to connect the rational aspects of
technology, construction and function, a search for “the truth,” with the desire to
never let “the senses” starve.80
During the 1920s, Taut was one of the most productive German architects and
both his built and written works were widely admired. Nerdinger notes:81
Adolf Behne,82 distinguished architectural critic during the Weimar Republic,
wrote about nobody else as often and enthusiastically as about Bruno Taut.
Also the wise and critical observer of modernism from the USA, Lewis Mumford,
refers only to Taut and Mendelsohn as those architects, who did not only change
architecture in the course of general industrialisation and mechanization, but
created something for the “inner needs of human society.83
However, following Taut’s emigration departure from Germany and his early death
in 1938, appreciation of his work declined. Nerdinger lamented:
While Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe or Konrad Wachsman rose to become
models in the Federal Republic [of Germany] via their new home USA, of all things
the work of the most significant German designer of housing in the 20th Century
remains unconsidered in the rebuilding [after the Second World War].84
Taut’s biographer Kurt Junghanns concurs and made quite similar observations. He
recalls the beginning of his research efforts on Taut:
When my Taut monograph was released in 1970, the signs of the times were
not necessarily favorable. Everyone looked towards the great men of modern
architecture, towards Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier or Frank Lloyd
Wright, but not towards Bruno Taut, whose great achievements were in the field
of urban development. He was considered someone who made compromises and
had become stale. Leonardo Benevolo refers in his History of Modern Architecture
only to Taut’s high social engagement. Nikolaus Pevsner calls Bruno Taut in his
Dictionary of Architecture from 1971 only the creator of the Glashaus and the
Stadtkrone.85 The Revolution of Architecture by Reyner Banham,86 published in
Germany in 1964, mentions Taut in different contexts, but as most important
urban designer only Ernst May is mentioned. 87
Nerdinger adds to this list:

Further, the history of Neues Bauen was rewritten from an Anglo-Saxon
viewpoint in the 1950s and 1960s.88 In the infuential publications by Siegfried
Giedion, Nikolaus Pevsner, Henry Russel-Hitchcock, Jürgen Joedicke or Dennis
Sharp, Bruno Taut is mentioned only as a marginal figure, if at all.89
Nerdinger, however, also notes that a renewed interest in Taut’s life and work
was sparked in the 1960s. When Ulrich Conrads and Hans G. Sperlich published
Phantastische Architektur, they very selectively chose to include texts that supported
their goal to “correct” and contrast the functionalism of Modernism with an
architecture of fantasy that emphasized visionary, idealistic and utopic ideas.90 Taut
was assigned a central role in the volume, which led to a widespread recognition
of Taut as an expressionist and visionary. Nerdinger concluded that as a result,
“a small portion in Taut’s oeuvre gained unproportional importance, and this
reinterpretation was fueled subsequently by a series of publications and exhibitions
on the Gläserne Kette or Architecture as Expressionism as well as by reprints and
translations of those visionary texts. It was unavoidable that now the entire body
of work would be viewed as allegedly visionary.”91
Recent Research on Taut
Over the past two or three decades, interest in Bruno Taut and his oeuvre has
increased, specially among German scholars. In 2008, Taut’s biographer Kurt
Junghanns acknowledged:
Taut built ten thousand apartments in Berlin, but his work was considered
“home-made stuff” among German experts; the Berlin press mocked him as
an architect of “little people happiness.” Fascist Germany finally drove him
into emigration as a “red.” Taut never saw his greatest work again. Meanwhile,
through their research, a small band of “Tautians” gather together the important
components to form an overall representation of Taut’s work.92
Several exhibitions and publications introduced lesser-known projects and

allowed a wider audience to become familiar with the breadth and depth of his
work. Researchers and architectural historians like Winfried Brenne, Kristiana
Hartmann, Kurt Junghanns, Winfried Nerdinger, Matthias Schirren, Manfred Speidel
and others have made tremendous contributions to a broader understanding of
Taut’s achievements. The series of German reprints of Taut’s books with thoughtful
commentary by Manfred Speidel allows German speakers easy access to the
original texts and enables a better understanding of Taut’s theoretical views.93
As mentioned previously, however, recent reassessments of Taut’s career
in English are very rare. The notable exceptions here is the works of Iain Boyd
Whyte and Rosemarie H. Bletter. In her 1973 dissertation “Bruno Taut and Paul
Scheerbart’s Vision: Utopian Aspects of German Expressionist Architecture,” Bletter
systematically investigates the relationship between the architect and the poet,
who had a profound influence on his work. With the publication of Bruno Taut and
the Architecture of Activism in 1982, Whyte convincingly argued for the profound
influence of authors like Friedrich Nietzsche, Gustav Landauer, Kurt Hillers and Paul
Scheerbarts on the development of Taut’s social conscience.94 In 2004, Matthias
Schirren provided an invaluable annotated English translation of Taut’s Alpine
Architektur. Most recently, Esra Akcan closely examined Taut’s final years, which he
spent in exile in Japan and Turkey. In Architecture in Translation: Germany, Turkey, and
the Modern House and “Towards a Cosmopolitan Ethics in Architecture: Bruno Taut’s
Translations out of Germany.” Arkan intelligently discusses the interconnections
between the varied experiences of his lifetime and how these influenced and
sharpened his views on architecture.95
Conclusion
Several explanations can be offered on Taut’s eventual exclusion from the highest
ranks of modernism’s pantheon. His relatively early death in Turkey certainly robbed
him of the opportunity to build more as well as to promote his legacy in his later
years. His final immigrations, to the Soviet Union, Japan and Turkey, also placed him
far from the centers of architectural debate (and publishing) in Western Europe and
the US, where most of the later scholarship on modernism was centered. Designers
like Hannes Meyer made similar relocations and his legacy has likewise suffered
from critical neglect.
Perhaps the most important factor contributing to the general lack of
appreciation of Taut’s total oeuvre was his refusal to adhere to the emerging
design templates that came to define modernist architecture. His work betrayed
the influences of Jugendstil, National Romanticism, Art Deco, vernacular domestic
forms and folk art long after contemporaries like Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier
and Gropius created their own signature styles in the 1920s and 1930s. Some of
Taut’s Siedlungen such as the Streusiedlung Mahlsdorf in Berlin (1924–31) even
featured small, detached cottages with gabled roofs that closely resemble what
the Nazis later commissioned following their vicious propaganda campaigns
against modernist housing estates such as Taut’s own Hufeisensiedlung (1925–30).
The complexity and variety of Taut’s buildings and writings throughout his
career defied the overly simplistic and teleologically driven accounts of modern
architecture by Nicolas Pevsner and other early historians of the movement.
A man who rhapsodized about the Jain temples at Mount Palitana or Istanbul’s
Ottoman skyline could never be pigeon-holed as a rationalist – much less one who
steadfastly refused to abandon the spiritual values of architecture. Taut’s oeuvre is
so admirable precisely because he was engaged in so many diverse architectural
expressions that nevertheless remained focused on the improvement of human
life. He had the rare ability to channel the visionary and artistic side of his oeuvre
into social and functional architecture; however, he never surrendered his vision
of the architect as artist or “Weltbaumeister.” As the richness and complexity of
twentieth-century architecture becomes much better recognized, the “triumph”
of modernism as embodied by certain “heroic” careers is revealed as a misreading
of history that inhibits a more accurate understanding of the many currents that
determined the courses of architecture in that remarkable century.
Notes
1 Junghanns’ biography of Taut includes a listing of Bruno Taut’s built and literary work:
Kurt Junghanns, Bruno Taut, 1880–1938: Architektur und sozialer Gedanke (Leipzig:
Seemann, 1998), p. 273. Ute Maasberg and Regina Prinz provide a very detailed
compilation of Taut’s projects (pp. 310–95) and Manfred Speidel has contributed
a comprehensive commentary and list of publications (pp. 396–433) in Winifried
Nerdinger et al., Bruno Taut. Architekt zwischen Tradition und Avantgarde (Stuttgart:
DVA, 2002). The loss of the archive of works by the Taut & Hoffmann architectural
practice in the Second World War probably contributed to the fact that Taut’s written
oeuvre eventually received more recognition than his built work.
2 Kurt Junghanns, Bruno Taut, p. 7.
3 Ibid., p. 8.
4 See also Sylvia Claus, “Architektur ist die Kunst, gut zu bauen. Bruno Taut und sein(e)
Partner.” In Nerdinger et al., Bruno Taut, p. 41. Research has shown that while both Taut
brothers did business under the same name, they worked separately in their practices,
had separate staff and each had their own distinct commissions. Max Taut has a more
distant working relationship with the other two. Due to the loss of records during the
Second World War, the working relationship between the Taut brothers and Hoffmann
partially had to be reconstructed from the estate of Max Taut. This probably led to
the initial underestimation of Hoffmann’s role. It must also be noted that Bruno Taut
collaborated with other architects like Hans and Wassili Luckhardt and Martin Wagner
on a number of notable projects.
5 Hoffmann continued the office partnership with Max Taut even after Bruno’s
emigration; however, during the Nazi regime, their building activity suffered
drastically. Intermittently closed, the Taut & Hoffmann office reopened in 1945 and
existed until Hoffmann’s death in 1951. However, to his business partner’s great
dissapointment, Max Taut also opened a second office under his own name. Ibid.,
pp. 51–2.
6 The garden city estate “Am Falkenberg” in Berlin was designed in 1913 and built from
1913 to 1915. The garden city estate “Reform” in Magdeburg was initially designed in
1911 and the first phase was realized from 1913 to 1915. Three further expansions took
place in 1919–24, 1923–8 and 1929–33.
7 See also Ute Maasberg and Regina Prinz, “Verzeichnis der Werke.” In Nerdinger et al.,
Bruno Taut, pp. 310–95 and Manfred Speidel, “Bruno Taut. Schriften und Manuskripte.”
In Nerdinger et al., Bruno Taut, pp. 396–433
8 Matthew Mindrup, “Advancing the Reverie of Utopia.” In Matthew Mindrup and Ulrike
Altenmüller-Lewis (eds), The City Crown by Bruno Taut (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015),
pp. 1–22.
9 The UNESCO World Heritage website describes these new policies in detail: “The
reform building regulation, which became effective in 1925, provided the basis for
new social housing. It aimed to reduce the density of buildings in residential estates
and to separate the functions of individual zones. It divided the entire area of the
city into different development zones – starting in the city centre where buildings
were allowed 5 storeys in density, it decreased towards the outskirts where larger
housing estates were built. Here buildings were allowed to reach a maximum of
two to three storeys. The density of buildings was much reduced in these areas,
where cross buildings and wings were prohibited. Berlin now had the opportunity
to implement housing development in accordance with the models of neues Bauen.
Within only seven years (1924–1931) more than 146,000 flats were built. Such volume
of construction was never again reached, not even during the post-war period of the
1950s.” See http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1239.
10 See also Manfred Speidel, “Zu Bruno Tauts theoretischem Werk.” In Nerdinger et al.,
Bruno Taut, pp. 398–9.
11 GEHAG was founded in April 1924 as “Gemeinnützige Heimstätten-, Spar- und Bau-
Aktiengesellschaft” (non-profit organization for housing, savings and building stocks).
Its social and political goal was to improve the quality of housing for workers and their
families through the creation of affordable housing that addressed modern living
ideas of the 1920s. Taut’s designs for GEHAG included Hufeisensiedlung (1925–33),
Waldsiedlung Zehlendorf (1926), Onkel Toms Hütte (1926–32) and Wohnstadt Carl Legien
(1928–30).
12 In 1919 Taut published an article in the architecture magazine Bauwelt with the same
title. There he condemned the ubiquitous dirty-gray houses and advocated for the
use of strong colors. He points out that color is an affordable way to add life to our
environment and refers to nature as one example.
13 Winfried Brenne, “Wohngebäude von Bruno Taut. Erhaltung und Wiederherstellung
farbiger Architektur.” In Nerdinger et al., Bruno Taut, pp. 275–89. See also Wolfgang
Pehnt, Expressionist Architecture (New York: Thames & Hudson, 1979), pp. 87–8.
14 Ibid., p. 279.
15 UNESCO World Heritage, “Berlin Modernism Housing Estates.” See http://whc.unesco.
org/en/list/1239
16 In Nerdinger et al., Bruno Taut.
17 Harald Willenbrook, “Tautes Heim.” In brand eins, “Schwerpunk: Das gute Leben”,
Ausgabe 12/2992 (2012).
18 As a young man, he wrote to his four years younger brother Max: “By the way, I feel
more and more like a painter.” Diary entry dated March 17, 1905, after Manfred Speidel,
“Malerische Studien 1903–08.” In Bruno Taut; Natur und Fantasie. 1880–1938 (Berlin:
Ernst & Sohn, 1995), p. 41.
19 Ibid,. pp. 49–50.
20 Ibid., p. 50. “Immer noch beschäftigt mich der Gedanke, den ich nun schon seit zwei
Jahren mit mir herumtrage: Die Vereinigung meiner Begabung hinsichtlich der Farbe
mit meinem architektonischen Können. Farbige Raumkomposition, farbige Architektur
– das sind Gebiete, in denen ich vielleicht einiges Persönliches sagen werde.
Eben darum, weil mich die Malerei immer wieder mit der Architektur und diese
umgekehrt mit jener zusammenbringt, darum brauche ich mich wohl nicht vor der
Zersplitterung zu fürchten.”
21 Bruno Taut, “Architektonisches zum Siedlungswerk,” Der Siedler, 1 (1918/1919), H. 6,
pp. 248–57, at p. 255. Quoted after Kristiana Hartmann, “Bruno Taut, der Architekt und
Planer von Gartenstädten und Siedlungen.” In Nerdinger et al., Bruno Taut, p. 144.
22 Undra Hörner, Die Architekten Bruno und Max Taut. Zwei Brüder–Zwei Lebenswege
(Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag, 2012), p. 108.
23 Ulrike Eichhorn, Taut & Hoffmann in Berlin. Ein Architektentrio der Moderne. 1880–1967
(Berlin: Edition Eichhorn, 2014), p. 17
24 The period 1924–31 has also been referred to by Hörner as die fetten Jahre (the fat
years), a colloquial German expression for economically strong years. Accompanied by
architectural and financial success, Taut was at the height of his career. By this time, the
architecture firm Taut & Hoffmann had grown to 37 employees. With the onset of the
recession, lay-offs were necessary. Ultimately the firm gave up its premises and moved
into a smaller space at Bayreuther Straße 27/28. See also Hörner, Die Architekten Bruno
und Max Taut.
25 Taut’s inability to obtain commissions was paralleled by a sharp decline in publications
on his work. Throughout the 1920s, he was the subject of numerous articles every
year, but beginning in 1932, very few reviews were published in Germany or abroad.
This neglect only changed decades later with the rediscovery of his work. See also Ute
Maasberg and Regina Prinz, “Schriften über Bruno Taut.” In Nerdinger et al., Bruno Taut,
pp. 416–33.
27 The Narkomfin Building on Novinsky Boulevard in Moscow, designed by Moisei
Ginsburg and completed in 1932, is an example. It influenced Le Corbusier’s Unité
d’Habitation in Marseille, which is based on similar architectural principles. Ginsberg’s
54 apartment units made facilities like laundry, daycare and kitchens communal rather
than private. This design decision fundamentally reconsidered the requirements of
the individual family dwelling and forced tenants to adapt a more socialist lifestyle.
Normal family living with traditional gender roles was often impossible and private
living spaces were kept to a minimum, encouraging the participation of residents in
communal activities.
28 Mindrup and Altenmüller-Lewis (eds), The City Crown by Bruno Taut (Frarnham: Ashgate,
2015), pp. 82–6.
29 Kurt Junghanns, Bruno Taut, pp. 94–8.
30 It should be noted that Bruno Taut married Hedwig Wollgast (1879–1968), the
daughter of a smith and innkeeper in Chorin. They had two children: Heinrich and
Elisabeth. While Taut was living in Bergisch-Gladbach during the First World War,
working at the Stella Works, he met Erica Wittich (1893–1975). As of 1917, the two
were a couple and lived in an extra-marital relationship. Their daughter Clarissa Wittich
was born in 1918. Although Taut never divorced Hedwig, Erica is often referred to as
his second wife.
31 Junghanns, Bruno Taut, p. 94.
32 Ibid., p. 97.
33 Original footnote by Kreis: Hannes Meyer, Letter to N. Kolli, July 29, 1937. In Bauhaus-
Archiv Berlin (ed.), Hannes Meyer 1889 bis 1954, Exhibition catalogue (Berlin: Bauhaus-
Archiv, 1989), pp. 290–292.
34 Barbara Kreis, “‘Geschmacksfragen sind soziale Fragen’ Vom Sozialismus des
Künstlers zur sozialistischen Realität.” In Nerdinger et al., Bruno Taut, pp. 156–7. “Sein
Aufenthalt war einerseits geprägt vom Ringen um Verständnis und Aufklärung,
andererseits von einem existentiellen Wunsch, durch seine gebaute Architektur
Wegweiser der neuen Baukunst zu setzen. Dies wurde ihm versagt. Dass er direkt und
indirekt dennoch großen Einfluß auf die Neuorganisation des Bauwesens und aud
städtebauliche Entscheidungen hatte, schien für ihn untergeordnet. Von anderen als
‘hoffnungsloser Romantiker’ bezeichnet, trat er in Moskau eher als unbquemer Kritiker
und unangepaßter Einzelkämpfer auf. Dass er das Land besser als die meisten seiner
Kollegen kannte, verhinderte nicht sein Scheitern, vergrößerte aber um so mehr seine
Enttäuschung.”
35 Unda Hörner, Die Architekten Bruno und Max Taut, p. 119.
36 On February 28, 1933, President Paul von Hindenburg signed the Notverordnungen
zum Schutz von Volk und Staat, also nicknamed Reichtagsbrandverordnung (Reichstag
Fire Decree). It effectively annulled the civic rights of the population. The government,
now firmly in Nazi hands, was given the authority to curtail constitutional rights
including habeas corpus, free expression of opinion, freedom of the press, rights of
assembly, and the privacy of post and telecommunications. Constitutional restrictions
on searches and confiscation of property were likewise suspended. Among those
dissidents arrested in the first wave was Taut’s friend Erich Baron, who contributed a
chapter to Die Stadtkrone. He died in prison shortly after his arrest.
37 Manfred Speidel, “Das architektonische Kunstwerk und der Osten” (Preface to an
assembly of Bruno Taut’s essays on the Orient). In Speidel, Manfred (ed.), Bruno Taut. Ex
Oriente Lux. Die Wirklichkeit einer Idee (Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 2007), pp. 7–45. Taut visited
Constantinople as one of 11 hand-selected architects of the Deutscher Werkbund in
August 1916 in order to prepare for his design for the House of Friendship competition.
38 Speidel mentioned that Taut made multiple visits to the imperial villa of Katsura, which
at the time was largely unknown internationally. The first visit took place within days
of arriving in Japan through special arrangements made by Isaburo Ueno and his host
Shotaro Shimomura, the owner of the Daimaru department stores. After his second
visit the following year, Taut drew from memory his passage through the park and the
villa. Taut entitles this diary entry “Thoughts after a visit to Katsura.” Alpine Architecture
is one of Taut’s utopian books, which he wrote shortly after Die Stadtkrone. Here he
discovered the highest expression of the art of architecture, where context, spirit,
form, material and purpose were exquisitely integrated; a fulfillment of the ideals he
had promoted in his writings. See Manfred Speidel, “Bruno Taut in Japan.” In Nerdinger
et al., Bruno Taut, pp. 177–91. See also Manfred Speidel, “Bruno Taut and the Katsura
Villa” and Bruno Taut, “From Japanese Diary 1933.” In Virginia Ponciroli (ed.), Katsura:
Imperial Villa (London: Phaidon, 2013), pp. 318–47.
39 Bruno Taut, NIPPON mit europäischen Augen gesehen (Tokyo: Meiji Shobo, 1934;
German reprint: Berlin: Gebrüder Mann, 2009); Speidel, Manfred (ed.), “Bruno Taut in
Japan,” p. 177.
40 Bruno Taut, Japans Kunst mit europäischen Augen gesehen (Tokyo: Meiji Shobo, 1936;
German reprint: Berlin: Gebrüder Mann, 2011). Speidel mentions in the afterword to
the German reprint that there was some disagreement about the title of the book.
Taut’s original title, Japans Kunst mit Europäischen Augen gesehen (Japanese Art
Seen with European Eyes), was replaced by the publisher with nihon bunka shikan or
Japanese Culture as Personal View.
41 Manfred Speidel, “Was ist Architektur? Bruno Tauts ‘Architekturlehre.’” In ARCH +
Zeitschrift für Architektur und Städtebau, Issue 194 (Aachen: ARCH + Verlag, 2009),
p. 161.
42 Manfred Speidel, “Bruno Taut in Japan.” In Nerdinger et al., Bruno Taut, pp. 173–91.
43 His book Houses and People of Japan, though Written as a Chronicle of Taut’s First Year
in Japan is a thorough ethnographic study of Japanese architecture and its influences
and challenges for modern architecture. To this day, it is understood as one of the
benchmark publications on Japanese architectural history. Bruno Taut, Houses and
People of Japan (Tokyo: Sanseido, 1937)
45 Manfred Speidel (ed.), Bruno Taut. Ex Oriente Lux – Die Wirklichkeit einer Idee (Berlin:
Gebrüder Mann, 2007), p. 7.
46 Esra Akcan, Architecture in Translation. Germany, Turkey and the Modern House (Durham,
NC: Duke University Press, 2012), p. 252.
47 Ibid., p. 254.
48 Ibid. Akcan attests here that the observations made in Japan triggered a deeper
thinking about the cosmopolitan (vs. international) and thus universal values of
architecture that became the basis of his Architekturüberlegungen and the more
refined version of the Architekturlehre.
49 Manfred Speidel, “Was ist Architektur?” In ARCH + 194 (Aachen: ARCH+ Verlag, October
2009), p. 161.
50 Hans Poelzig was originally selected for these positions, but his sudden death allowed
Taut’s appointment instead.
51 See also Bernd Nicolai, “Bauen im Exil. Bruno Tauts Architektur und die kemalistische
Türkei 1936 bis 1938.” In Nerdinger et al., Bruno Taut, p. 192. Nicolai points out that
one focus of the reforms intended to lead the country into modernity was to develop
an educational system with universities and schools that were modeled on Western
principles.
52 Ute Maasberg, and Regina Prinz, “Verzeichnis der Werke,” pp. 389–95.
53 Bruno Taut, Mimari Bilgisi, Adnan Kolatan (trans.) (Istanbul: Günzel Sanatlar Akademisi,
1938).
54 Manfred Speidel, “Nachwort: Was ist Architektur? Bruno Tauts ‘Architekturlehre.’” In
Arch+ 194, Zeitschrift für Architektur und Städtebau, October 2009 (Achen: Arch+ Verlag,
2009), p. 161.
55 Ibid., p. 162.
57 Maasberg and Prinz, “Verzeichnis der Werke,” p. 395.
58 Kurt Junghanns noted in his biography of Taut that the architect had earned within
the very brief period of time he spent in Turkey great respect as a person and an artist.
Junghanns, Bruno Taut, p. 112.
59 Hans-Peter Laqueur, Osmanische Friedhöfe und Grabsteine in Istanbul (Tübingen: Ernst
Wasmuth Verlag, 1993), pp. 19–25.
60 Manfred Speidel, “Bruno Taut. Schriften und Manuskripte.” In Nerdinger et al., Bruno
Taut, p. 396. See also: Maasberg and Prinz, “Schriften über Bruno Taut,” pp. 416–33.
61 Taut carefully chose the publication media to target and address the appropriate
audiences. As late as 1923, he began writing for general architecture magazines like
Bauwelt or Baugilde. Though Taut was an active member of the Werkbund, it should be
noted that he contributed sparsely to its magazine Die Form.
62 Matthew Mindrup and Ulrike Altenmüller-Lewis (eds), The City Crown by Bruno Taut,
(Farnham: Ashgate, 2015), p. 86.
63 Ibid., pp. 86–7.
64 Taut’s submission for the competition of the new Turkish Parliament building from
1937 revisited the partially utopic and socialist goals of the Stadtkrone one last
time. For this proposal, he suggested a pinnacle towering over the city of Ankara
as the representative center of the Turkish Republic that would parallel the citadel
of old Ankara. See also Bernd Nicolai, “Bauen im Exil. Bruno Tauts Architektur und
die kemalistische Türkei 1936 bis 1938.” In Nerdinger et al., Bruno Taut, p. 204; and
Maasberg and Prinz, “Verzeichnis der Werke,” p. 391.
65 See Speidel’s “Nachwort” (Afterword) in Bruno Taut, Die Stadtkrone (Berlin: Gebr. Mann,
2002), pp. 40–42 for excerpts of reviews. In addition, Matthew Mindrup discusses the
reception of Die Stadtkrone in the press in his introduction, “Advancing the Reverie
of Utopia.” In Mindrup and Altenmüller-Lewis (eds), The City Crown by Bruno Taut
(Frarnham: Ashgate, 2015), pp. 21–2.
66 Emil Fader, “Gedanken zu Bruno Taut: Die Stadtkrone.” In Deutsche Bauzeitung, 54.
Jahrgang, No. 33 (1920), pp. 197–200. “Nicht mit äußerlichen Mittlen is die innere
Wiedergeburt des Menschen zu erleben, lediglich die abstrakte Idee ethischer oder
religiöser Natur hat erneuernde Kraft und nur diese entzündet letzten Endes den
allgemeinen Bauwillen zur Errichtung hochragender Architekturen, nicht aber ein von
Architekten vorgefaßter und von ihm aufgestellter Baugedanke … Man könnte das
Buch seinem Schicksal überlassen ohne dagegen zu sprechen; denn ein Gedanken,
der nicht lebensfähig ist, erledigt sich von selbst und versinkt bald in Vergessenheit.”
67 Ibid., p. 200.
69 Bruno Taut, “Recent Attempts at Crowning Cities. Afterword.” In Mindrup and
Altenmüller-Lewis (eds), The City Crown by Bruno Taut (Frarnham: Ashgate, 2015),
pp. 101–5.
70 The Gläserne Kette (Crystal Chain) was a community of mostly architects and artists
founded by Taut who corresponded with one another by shared letters between
November 1919 and December 1920. Many members of the Gläserne Kette were also
part of the Novembergruppe (November Group), the Arbeitsrat für Kunst (Working
Council for the Arts) and Der Ring. See also Iain Boyd Whyte and Ramona Schneider
(eds), Die gläserne Kette (Berlin; Ernst & Sohn, 1986).
71 Manfred Speidel, “Afterword.” In Taut, Die Stadtkrone, pp. 37–40.
72 The complex in Dornach actually had two versions of the Goetheanum. The first,
erected from 1913 to 1920 of concrete and wood, burned down in 1922 and differed
substantially from the second version. Steiner was responsible for the overall
conception of each building, but professional designers were charged with their
execution, especially in the latter case, which was largely built after Steiner’s death.
73 Wolfgang Pehnt, Expressionist Architecture (New York: Thames & Hudson, 1979), p. 137.
74 Wolfgang Pehnt wrote: “The term Stadtkrone was taken over by National Socialism’s
architectural publicists and complemented by the term Landskrone, referring to the
NSDAP political training schools which were built in the country.” See ibid., p. 207.
75 Albert Speer’s own account of the project can be found in his Inside the Third Reich:
Memoirs (New York: Macmillan, 1970), pp. 152–8. It should also be noted that Taut’s
“unmistakable Messianic streak” was also apparent within Nazism. See Pehnt,
Expressionist Architecture, p. 73.
76 Winfried Nerdinger, “‘Ein großer Baum muß tiefe Wurzeln haben’ – Tradition und
Moderne bei Bruno Taut. ” In: Nerdinger et al., Bruno Taut, p. 8.
77 Die Stadtkrone can be viewed as basis for the Architekturprogramm that Bruno Taut
drafted in 1918 when he founded the “Arbeitsrat für Kunst” with Adolf Behne, Walter
Gropius and César Klein. It also served a guideline for Gropius’ “Bauhaus-Manifest,” in
which he proclaimed that the primary goal of the school was to return to the roots
of architecture, sculpture and painting through a thorough grounding in materials
and craft. Even the name “Bauhaus” is a reference to the “Bauhütte” or building
site workshop found at medieval cathedrals, where craftsmen and artists worked
collaboratively under the guidance of the master builder to complete the great work.
78 The Deutscher Werkbund (German Association of Craftsmen) was founded in 1907

in Munich upon the suggestion of Hermann Muthesius, Friedrich Naumann and
Walter Gropius as an association of artists, architects, designers and industrialists.
Among its founding members were Joseph Maria Olbrich, Peter Behrens and Richard
Riemerschmid, The goal of the Werkbund was to improve the competitiveness of
German products through a partnership between art, industry and craftsmanship
via education, propaganda and dissemination of manifestos on the topic of relevant
questions. The Werkbund is widely recognized as a catalyst for the development of
modernism, especially in Germany. Taut designed several pavilions for exhibitions
sponsored by the Werkbund, including the The Glashaus, the famous Pavilion for the
German Glass Industry at the 1914 Kölner Werkbund-Ausstellung (1914 Cologne
Werkbund Exhibition) that brought him international recognition.
80 Manfred Speidel, “Das Frühwerk.” In Nerdinger et al., Bruno Taut, p. 25.
81 Winfried Nerdinger, “‘Ein großer Baum muß tiefe Wurzeln haben’,” p. 8. “Adolf Behne,
herausragender Architekturkritiker der Weimarer Republik, schrieb über niemanden
so häufig und enthusiastisch wie Bruno Taut, und der ebenso kluge wie kritische
Beobachter der Moderne aus den USA, Lewis Mumford, verwies nur auf Taut und
Mendelsohn als diejenigen Architekten, die im Zuge allgemeiner Industrialisierung
und Technisierung nicht nur die Architektur verändert, sondern auch etwas für die
“inneren Bedürfnisse der menschlichen Gesellschaft” geschaffen hat.”
82 Original footnote from Nerdinger’s text. Some of Behne’s texts on Taut have been
reprinted: Adolf Behne–Architekturkritik in der Zeit und über die Zeit hinaus. Texte
1913–1946 (Basel: Haila Ochs, 1994).
83 Original footnote by Nerdinger: Lewis Mumford, Vom Blockhaus zum Wolkenkratzer
(Berlin: Bruno Cassirer, 1926).
84 Ibid.: “Während Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe oder Konrad Wachsmann über ihre
neue Heimat USA zu Leitbildern in der Bundesrepublik aufstiegen, blieb ausgerechnet
das Werk des bedeutendsten deutschen Wohnungsbauers im 20. Jahrhundert im
Wiederaufbau nahezu unberücksichtigt.”
85 Kurt Junghanns refers here to the German translation of The Penguin Dictionary of
Architecture (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966).
86 Kurt Junghanns refers here to the German edition of Reyner Banham’s Theory and
Design in the First Machine Age (New York: Praeger, 1960). The full title in German is Die
Revolution der Architektur. Theorie und Gestaltung im Ersten Maschinenzeitalter.
87 Kurt Junghanns, “Erinnerungen an den Anfang.” In Nerdinger et al., Bruno Taut, p.
299: “Als 1970 meine Taut-Monographie erschien, standen die Zeichen der Zeit
nicht gerade günstig. Alle Welt blickte auf die Großen der modernen Architektur,
auf Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier oder Frank Lloyd Wright, aber nicht
auf Bruno Taut, dessen große Leistungen auf dem Gebiet des Städtebaus lagen. Er
galt as Kompromißler und war damit untinteressant geworden. Leonardo Benevolo
verweist in seiner Geschichte der Modernen Architektur nur auf Tauts hohes
soziales Engagement. Nikolaus Pevsner nennt Bruno Taut in seinem Lexikon der
Weltarchitektur von 1971 nur als Schöpfer des Glashauses und der Stadtkrone. Die
Revolution der Architektur von Reyner Banham, 1964 in Deutschland erschienen,
spricht von Taut in verschiednesten Zusammenhängen, aber als bedeutendster
Siedlungs- und Städtebauer wird nur Ernst May genannt.”
88 The Neues Bauen (New Building) is part of the New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit)
architectural movement that emerged in Germany and other European countries in
the 1920s and 1930s. This movement strongly influenced urban development and
design.
89 Winfried Nerdinger, “‘Ein großer Baum muß tiefe Wurzeln haben’,”, p. 8: “Auch
die Geschichte des Neuen Bauens wurde in den fünfziger und sechziger Jahren
aus angelsächsischem Blickwinkel umgeschrieben und in den einflußreichen
Publikationen von Siegfried Giedion, Nikolaus Pevsner, Henry Russel-Hitchcock, Jürgen
Joedicke oder Dennis Sharp wird Bruno Taut, wenn überhaupt, nur als marginale Figur
genannt.”
90 Ulrich Conrads and Hans G. Sperlich, Phantastische Architektur (Stuttgart: Hatje, 1960).
91 Winfried Nerdinger, “‘Ein großer Baum muß tiefe Wurzeln haben’,” pp. 9–10.
92 Kurt Junghanns, “Preface.” In Winfried Brenne, Bruno Taut: Master of Colorful Architecture
in Berlin (Berlin: Braun, 2008), p. 7.
93 Since the copyright of the original Taut publications has elapsed, Gebrüder Mann
Verlag in Berlin has published several of his books as reprints, his letters from Moskau
(edited by Barbara Kreis) as well as a selection of texts like Frühlicht, Ex Oriente Lux and
two volumes of the Japan-diaries (all edited by Manfred Speidel).
94 Iain Boyd Whyte, Bruno Taut and the Architecture of Activism (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. 1982).
95 Esra Akcan, “Towards a Cosmopolitan Ethics in Architecture: Bruno Taut’s Translations
out of Germany,” New German Critique, No. 99, Modernism after Postmodernity (Fall
2006): pp. 7–39.
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Index
Academy of Fine Art, Istanbul 22, 157 Architekturwekstatt Helge Pitz–Winfred

Aden viii, 65, 145 Brenne ix, Plate 6, Plate 7, Plate 8;
administrative buildings 78, 86, 160 see also Wint´fried Brenne, Helge Pitz
Adrianople vii, 47, 145; see also Selim areopags 81
Mosque Aristotle 79
agriculture 2–3, 16, 79 Art Deco 165
air quality 158 art of color 134
Akcan, Esra 156 (n.46), 157 (n.48), 164, aspirations 17, 75, 84, 89, 121–2
169–70, 173 Assyrian Temple vii, 48, 145
Alpine Architektur [Alpine Architecture] Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal 157
(Bruno Taut) vii, 15, 19, 25 (n.53), 26 Athens (Greece)) vii, 52, 145, 161
(n.73), 29, 150, 162, 164, 169 (n.169), Acropolis 17, 52, 76, 81
175; see also Bruno Taut, Matthias Aufruf zum farbigen Bauen [call for
Schirren colorful buildings] 151; see also
altarpiece 128–9 bunte Reihe, colorful Magdeburg
American Institute of Architects 154 Augeas, King of Elis and Augean stable
Amsterdam (Netherlands) 85 (n.32) 77 (n.10)
Anderson, Hendirk Christian 104, 112, 146 Australian capital city viii, 104, 112, 146
Angkor Wat (Cambodia) viii, 127, 135; see
Austria, Austrian 7, 105, 117 (n.4), 118,
also Diwakara
136 (n.8)
Ankara, Turkey 22, 157, 159 (n.64), 170
avant-garde/avant-garde 149 (n.1), 162,
anologon 135
166, 174
anthroposophy 161
antiquity 77, 80–81, 104
Bangkok, Siam 6, 70
apocalypse v, 35–6, 147
aquarium 4, 87–8, 98–9 The Great Wat Chaeng Pagoda viii, 70,
Arbeitsrat für Kunst [Working Council for 146
Art] xi, 20 (n.104), 27, 29, 160 (n.70), Banham, Reyner 163, 172
161 (n.77), 171, 175 Baron, Erich v, xi, xii, 3, 5–6, 14, 29, 31,
archangels 36, 40 115–22, 116 (n.1, n.3), 117 (n.4), 118
Architekturlehre [Lectures on (n.7), 119 (n.10, n.11), 120 (n.15), 147,
Architecture] (Bruno Taut) 156 (n.41), 155 (n.36), 168, 175
157 (n.48, n. 54), 169–70, 175–6 Basel (Switzerland) 160
Architekturprogramm [Architecture baths 80, 98, 116
Program] (Bruno Taut) 162 (n.77), 171, bauende Kraft [constructive forces] 80
173 (n.19)
Architekturüberlegungen [Reflections on Baugilde (magazine) 158 (n.61), 170
architecture] (Bruno Taut) 157 (n.48), Bauhaus xi, 8 (n.43), 9 (n.44), 20–21 (n.107),
170, 175–6 24, 27–9, 162 (n.77), 168, 171, 174
Bauhaus–Manifest [Bauhaus Manifesto] bourgeoisie, bourgeois 102, 133 (n.3), 135,

162 (n.77), 171, 173 136
Bauhütte [guild of stone masons] 162 Bourges (France) 129
(n.77), 177 (n.77) Braunschweig (Germany) 134
Baukunst [art of building] xii, 6, 19 (n.100, Brenne, Winfred ix, 152, 164, 167, 173, 174,
111), 21, 27–8, 75 (n.5), 80 (n.21), 90, Plate 6, Plate 7; see also Architektur
143, 146, 168 (n.34), 175 Werkstatt Helge Pitz – Winfried Brenne
Baumeister [master builder] 77 (n.9), 165 Breughel, Pieter 137
Bauwelt (magazine) 158 (n.61), 167 (n.12), Brevarium Grimani 127
170, 175 British garden city movement 151
beauty xi, 3, 17, 26, 76–8, 83–4, 88–9, 92, Brothers van Eyck 130; see also Jan van Eyck
98, 101, 103, 122, 127–8, 130, 137–8, Brunelleschi, Filippo 92
156 Buarcos (Portugal) vii, 56, 146
Behne, Adolf vi, xi, xii, 3, 5, 6, 20, 29, 31, building art 21, 75 (n.5), 76, 80 (n.21)
125–38, 133 (n.3, n.4), 134 (n.5), 135 building codes 82
(n.6), 136 (n.8), 147, 162 (n.77), 163 bunte Reihe [colorful row] (Magdeburg)
(n.81 and 82), 171–3, 175 160
Behrens, Peter 162 (n.78), 163, 172 business 16–17, 78, 80, 86, 166 (n.4, n.5)
Beims, Hermann 151 business quarters 78
Bejing (China) 157
Benevolo, Leonard 163 (n.87), 172 cafes 4, 88, 98
Bergisch-Gladbach (Germany) 12, 14, 85, Cairo, Egypt viii, 58, 145
168 (n.30) canopy 133, 161–2
Berlage, Hendrik Petrus viii, 85 (n.32), carnage 80–81, 119 (n.10)
105, 114, 146; see also Pantheon for The Carnage (Walt Whitman) 80, 81 (n.22),
Humanity 119 (n.20); see also Drum Tabs, Walt
Berlin (Germany) viii, ix, 1, 5, 7–11, 19, Whitman
22–3, 26–9, 30, 78 (n.14), 81 (n.23), castles 37, 39–40, 77, 101, 127
82, 85 (n.32), 91, 96, 101–2, 104, 106, cathedral viii, 3, 6, 11, 17, 36–8, 40, 60, 67,
113, 118 (n.8), 133–4 (n.4), 143, 146, 77, 80, 82–4, 91, 98, 117, 123, 126–7,
150–52, 154–7, 161–2, 164–9, 171–6, 133, 138, 143, 145–6, 171 (n.77)
Plates 1–14 Cathedral in Rouen (France) viii, 123, 146
Berlin-Britz 152, 162 central library 88
Berlin-Kreuzberg 82 (n.82) Cervantes, Miguel de 117
Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg ix, Plates 1–5 Chancellor Chang-Liang viii, 67, 145; see
Berlin-Zehlendorf ix, Plates 8–14 also Miao tai tze, Memorial Temple
Berlin Modernism Housing Estates 152–3 Chicago (Illinois, United States of
(n.15), 167 America) 81, 102, 104, 112, 146
Berlin Museum 133–4 (n.4); see also Kaiser- Chorin (Germany) 153, 168 (n.30)
Friedrich-Museum, Gemäldegalerie Christianity 5, 16, 18, 83
SMPK church viii, 4, 5, 47, 77, 82–3, 86, 91, 101,
Berliner Verkaufskontor für Stahlträger 102, 104, 106, 117, 128, 135, 145, 150,
[Berlin Sales Office for Steel Girders] 153, 158
9, 10 circulation 158
Béziers (France) viii, 63, 145 city i, iii, v, vi, viii, xi, xii, xiii, 1, 2 (Illustration
Biedermeier 163 1.1), 3, 4, 5–22, 23 (n.2), 24, 25 (n.68),
biological phenomenon 126 26 (n.84, n.89), 31, 41, 43, 73, 75 (n.5),
biological process 126 78 (n.13), 80–87, 88, 89, 91, 92–6,
Bletter, Rosemarie H. xiii, 10 (n.48), 18 98–104, 107 (Figures 54 and 57), 108,
(n.96), 25–6, 28, 164, 173 110, 112, 120–22, 134 (n.5), 145–6,
Bondi, Georg 118 (n.7) 147, 149, 151,154, 158–62, 166 (n.6,
Bosporus 157 n.9), 168, 170 (n.64)
index 179
city administration buildings 4, 80 Creator 18, 75, 102, 117, 118, 119, 129, 138,
City Beautiful civic centers 160 163
city center viii, 3–5, 86–7, 101–3, 107, 158, cross 4, 14, 87, 89, 129, 133, 166
160 crown i, iii, v–viii, xi–xiii, 1, 3–8, 10–26,
City Club 102 31, 41, 73, 77, 80–87, 87 (Figure 42),
City Crown i, iii, v, vi, viii, xi, xii, xiii, 1, 3, 89 (Figure 43), 90–95, 91, 93–95, 98,
5–8, 10–12, 15, 17–18, 21–2, 23 (n.2), 99–102, 104, 118, 121, 146–7, 149,
31, 41, 73, 85–7, 87, 89, 91, 92–5, 151, 166, 168, 170
98–104, 101 (n.2), 147, 149, 151, crown of the city 84
158–62; see also Stadtkrone crusaders 138
city hall 77, 80, 86, 98, 101, 146 Crystal Chain Letters 21, 22 (n.105, n.106,
city of peace 101 n.119), 27–8, 30, 162, 171 (n.70), 176
City plan diagram viii, 92; see also crystal house 5, 14, 21, 89–92, 98, 100
Stadtkrone culture, cultural xi–xii, 4–5, 17, 20, 22, 75–6,
city planning 7–8, 16, 77–8, 101 80 (n.22), 85 (n.32), 116, 121, 150,
City Skyline viii, 3, 92, 101, 110, 146; see 155–6
also Stadtkrone, New York cultural progress 116
civic 1, 4–5, 8, 14, 20, 77, 80, 103–4, 101, cupola 10, 12, 37, 38, 102, 105, 161
155 (n.36), 160, 168 Cürlis, Hans 80
civic administration 80
civic buildings 77, 80 Danzig (East Prussia) viii, 65, 145
civic centers 160 Darwin, Charles 136
Claus, Sylvia 166
Daumier, Honoré 137
Coeur, Jacques 129
Design of a Monument for the People viii,
coexistence 121–2
114, 146; see also H.P. Berlage
Collins, George Roseborough 78
Deutsche Bauzeitung [journal] 22, 28, 143,
Cologne (Germany) vii, 9, 10, 11 (n.54),
159, 171
12, 14, 25, 51 (Figure 13), 91 (n.36),
Deutsche Gartenstadtgesellschaft
145, 150, 162, 172 (n.78); see also
[German Garden City Society] 8,
Glashaus, Werkbund-Ausstellung
11, 19, 162; see also Gartenstadt
colonnade 4, 87–8, 98, 99, 105
color ix, 5, 8, 10–12, 24, 36–8, 40, 77, 84, Gesellschaft
89–91, 103, 127–31, 133–4, 143, Deutscher Werkbund [German Association
150–54, 159, 160–62, 167, 173 of Craftsmen] 7, 9, 12, 162 (n.78), 169,
colorful Magdeburg 151; see also 172
Magdeburg, Stadtbaurat development plans 82
comfortable 39, 80 Diamond Worker Union House (the
community center 15–16, 87–90, 99, 100, Hague) 85
103, 116, 117, 121 Die Stadtkrone [The City Crown] vii, xi–xiii,
community hall 17 (n.92), 26, 85 (n.31), 89 1, 3–6, 4, 9–23, 26, 27–9, 149–50, 155
complexity 162, 165 (n.36), 156 (n.38), 158–9 (n.64, n.65,
Confederative City 105 n.66), 160, 161 (n.74), 162 (n.77), 163
Confucius Temple (Qufu) viii, 102, 107, 146; (n.87), 169–72, 175
see also Qufu Diederichs, Eugen 75, 79, 101, 175
Conrads, Ulrich 174, 175 Die Kunst der Siedlung [The art of the
contemporary art 88 housing estate] (Bruno Taut) 154
content and form 78 divine 18, 39, 84, 116, 118, 122, 132
cooperatives 116, 151 Diwakara 84
Copenhagen (Denmark) 88; see also Tivoli dogma 83, 128
Cottet, Charles vii, 43, 145 Dornach (Switzerland) ix, 160, 171 Plate
courtyard ix, 2, 4, 87, 88, 98, Plate 3, Plate 15
4 Dostoyevsky, Fyodor 117
Crasmann Collins, Christiane 78 Dresden (Germany) 70 (n.17)
Durham vii, 6, 46, 145 functional art 74

dwelling 39, 76–7, 80, 151, 154 (n.27), 168 functional forms 74
Edirnekapi Martyr’s Cemetery (Istanbul) 158 gabled houses 77

Eichhorn, Ulrike 167, 174 garden ix, 1, 5, 7, 86–8, 98, 105, 116, 152–3,
Elias-Hollplatz, Augsburg (Germany) viii, 156, 158–9
109, 146 Garden City vii–xii, 2 (Illustration 1.1), 3,
Elsaesser, Martin 157 5, 7, 10, 11, 13–16, 22, 23 (n.7), 26–7
enlightenment 101, 117–18 (n.89), 28, 75 (n.5), 79 (n.15), 80,
entertainment 4–5, 87, 89, 121 86–87, 96, 101, 102, 107, 121, 146,
L’Esprit Nouveau 75 (n.6); see also Le 150, 159, 160, 160, 166 (n.6); see also
Corbusier and Ozenfant garden city estate
exile 155–6, 164 garden city estate viii, 96, 146, 150 (n.6),
expressionism 11, 27 (n.96), 30, 158, 164, 166
174 Garden City Letchworth 102, 107, 146
expressionist architecture 10 (n.48), 25, 28, Garden Cities of Tomorrow (Ebenezer
151–2 (n.13), 161 (n.73, n.75), 164, 167, Howard) 2 (n.7), 23, 79 (n.15), 101 (n.2);
171, 173 see also Ebenezer Howard, garden city
van Eyck, Jan vii, 6–7, 33, 145; see also movement, Gartenstadt
Brothers van Eyck garden city movement xi, 8, 16, 75 (n.5),
79, 151
façade ix, 8, 11, 127, 151–3, Plate 7, Plate garden design 152
13 Gartenstadt [garden city] 8, 11, 19, 23–4,
factories 2, 77, 86 28, 79 (n.16), 151–2, 162, 167, 174
Fader, Emil 22 (n.115), 28, 159 (n.66), 160, Gartenstadtgesellschaft [Garden
City Society] 8, 11, 19, 107,
171
143, 146, 162; see also Deutsche
Fahne 82 (n.27)
Gartenstadtgesellschaft
faith 5, 16, 20, 76, 83, 104, 120
gegenständlich [concrete, objective]
Am Falkenberg [Falkenberg estate] viii, 3,
130–31, 136
8–9, 15, 17, 26 (n.89), 96, 97 (Figures
das Gegenstandliche [Objectivity] 130–31,
50 and 51), 146, 150 (n.6), 152,
136
158–60, 166; see also Gartenstadt
GEHAG 151, 167 (n.11)
Falkenberg, Tuschkasten Siedlung
Geist [spirit] 16–18, 26 (n.84 and 92)
fascist Germany 164; see also Nazi
Gelsenkirchen (Germany) 160
Germany Gemäldegalerie SMPK (Berlin) 134; see also
Fechner, Gustav Theodor 17–19, 26 (n.26), Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum (Berlin)
28, 83 (n.29) Genocide 81 (n.22)
Federal Republic of Germany 163 George, Stefan 118 (n.7)
Fernstenliebe [love of the most distant] Der Stern des Bundes (Stephan George)
116 (n.2) 118
First World War xi–xii, 1, 3, 6, 11, 20–22, German xii–xiii, 1–3, 7–9, 11, 13, 16, 18
80, 81 (n.22), 149–51, 158, 160 (n.96), 20, 26, 30, 74–5, 79 (n.16 and
Fischer, Theodor 12, 18–19, 25, 27–8, 150, 17), 80–81 (n.22, n.23), 83 (n.30), 85,
152 90 (n.34), 91 (n.37), 101 (n.2), 102,
flag v, 82 (n.27), 92, 121, 157 105, 116 (n.2), 119 (n.10), 133 (n.3,
Ford, George B. 103 n.4), 134 (n.5), 149, 151, 152, 154–5,
Foreign Office in Berlin 104 157, 159–165, 167 (n.24), 169, 172
forum 81 (n.78, n.85, n.86), 173 (n.95), 174–6
France 21 (n.107), 27–8, 102, 143 German Classicism 81; see also Leo von
della Francesca, Piero 129, 134 Klenze and Karl Friedrich Schinkel
Frühlicht [early light] (Bruno Taut) 173 German Garden City Movement 79 (n.16,
(n.93), 175 n.17)
index 181
German Garden City Society 8, 143, 162 The Great Pagoda of Udaipur ix, 142, 146
German ideal 81 The Great Temple Chamukte ix, 6, 139,
German modernism 152 146; see also Palitana
German National Socialist Party 155 green areas 87
Germany 1, 3, 8–9, 11, 20, 22, 79, 101–2, green spaces 158
122, 133, 149, 151–2, 154 (n.25), 156 green zones 158
(n.46), 157, 161, 162 (n.78), 163 (n.88) Gropius, Walter xi, 8, 12, 20, 160, 162 (n.77,
164, 165 (n.95), 168, 169, 172, 173, n.78), 163 (n.84, n.88), 165, 171, 172
174 Großsiedlungen [large housing
Gesamtkunstwerk [total work of art] 130 developments] 174
Giedion, Siegfried 163 (n.89), 173 Gründerzeit [founding time] 1
Gilly, Friedrich 101 Grünewald, Matthias 137
Monument of Friedrich the Great on
guild houses 77
the Leipziger Platz (Berlin) viii, 101,
Gurlitt, Cornelius 103
106, 146
Ginsburg, Moisei 154 (n.27), 168
halo 36, 40, 128, 133, 136
Narkomfin Building (Moscow) 154 (n.27),
168 The Hague (Netherlands) 85 (n.32)
di Giorgio Martini, Francesco 79 Hamburg (Germany) 150
Glasarchitektur [Glass Architecture] 10 Hammerstein, Elisabeth von 155
Gläserne Kette [Crystal Chain] 20, 21 (n.105, Hammerstein, Kurt Esquord von (General)
n.106), 22 (n.119), 27–8, 30, 160, 164, 155
171 (n.70), 176 Hamsun, Knut 117, 120 (n.15)
Glashaus [Glasshouse] vii, 9, 10 (n.47, 48), Hartmann, Kristiana 1–2 (n.5), 6 (n.28), 7
11 (n.54), 24, 25, 29, 91 (n.36), 162–3, (n.33, 34), 8 (n.35, 40), 10 (n.46, 47),
172 (n.87), 150, 176 23, 24, 28, 154 (n.21), 164, 167, 174
glass ix, xi–xii, 3–6, 9–12, 14, 25 (n.53), Hauptmann, Gerhard 117
28–9, 36–9, 40, 89–91, 118–19, 122, Haus der Freundschaft [House of
126–9, 132, 134–5, 138, 150, 162, 172 Friendship], vii, 12, 13, 16, 25 (n.69),
(n.78), 173, 175, Plate 7 28, 155 (n.37), 169 (Constantinople);
glass industry 10, 162 (n.78), 172 see also Istanbul, Turkey
Gleichen-Rußwurm, Alexander von 16, Hébrard, Ernest M. 112 104, 146
81 (n.24) Hebron, Palestine viii, 59, 145
Globe 36–7, 40 Heimatkunst [vernacular art} 84, 165
Gloria mundi et coeli 120 Hellerau, Gartenstadt Hellerau (Germany)
God 17, 19, 76, 78, 82, 84, 91, 116, 121, 133, 79 (n.17); see also Gartenstadt
154 Hercules 77, 78 (n.10)
Göderitz, Johannes 151, 174 Herzog-Anton-Ulrich-Museum
Goecke, Theodor 7 (n.32), 17 (n.88), 19, 24, (Braunschweig) 134 (n.5); see also Girl
26, 28, 78 (n.14), 82 (n.26), 150
with a Wineglass, Jan Vemeer
van der Goes, Hugo 133 (n.4), 134; see
Hildebrand, Adolf von 134
also Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum
Hillers, Kurt 164
(Berlin) and Gemäldegalerie SMPK
Hillesheim, James W. 81 (n.25)
(Berlin)
Die Anbetung der Hirten [The Adoration Hillinger, Franz 157
of the Shepherds] 134 (n.4) Hindenburg, President Paul von 155 (n.36)
Die Geburt Christi [The Birth of Christ Hitchcock, Henry–Russel 163, 173 (n.89)
133 (n.4) Hitler, Adolf 161
Goetheanum (Rudolf Steiner) ix, 160–61, Hochheim, Eckhard von 91 (n.37); see
171 (n.72), Plate 15; see also Dornach also Meister Eckhart and Gustav
van Gogh, Vincent 137 Landauer
gothic xii, 6, 11, 17, 76, 82 (n.28), 122, Hoffmann, Franz 7, 150, 154, 158–9, 166
126–9, 137–8, 160 (n.1, n.4, n.5), 167 (n.23), 174
government buildings 81–2 Hofmann, Ludwig von 136 (n.8)
Picture with Frame 136 (n.8) Japanese International Association of

Hohenheim (Germany) 102 Architects 154–6
Horace 120 Japanese modernism 156
Hörner, Undra 167 (n.22 and 24), 168 (n.35), Jerusalem vii, 50, 145
174 Joedicke, Jürgen 163, 173 (n.89)
horticulture 3, 16, 79, 87, 159 Jugendstil [Art Nouveau] 150, 165
hospital 4, 16, 86, 159 Jung, Jacqueline E. 126 (n.1)
house of God 76, 82, 133 Junghanns, Kurt 8 (n.42), 24, 29, 149 (n.1,
Houston (Texas) ix, 161, Plate 16; see also n.2), 154 (n.26, n.29), 155 (n.31), 156
Twilight Epiphany Skyspace (James (n.44) 158 (n.56, n.58), 160 (n.68),
Turrell) 162 (n.79), 163 (n.85, n.86, n.87), 164
Howard, Ebenezer vii, 1–4, 2, 2 (n.7, n.8), (n.92), 165, 168–74
3 (n.11), 7, 8 (n.38), 15–16, 23–4, 28,
79 (n.16), 101 (n.2), 107, 146; see also Kain, Evelyn 126 (n.1)
Garden City Kaiser Wilhelm II xi, 20
Howe, Frederic C. 102, 104 Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum 133 (n.4);
Hufeisensiedlung Berlin-Britz 152–3, 162, see also Hugo van der Goes and
165, 167 (n.11); see also Siedlungen Gemäldegalerie SMPK
and Berlin-Britz Kaiser, Hans 6, 21
humanity 16, 18, 38, 74, 76, 83, 105, 114, Kaliningrad, Russia 150
121–2, 137, 146 Kampffmeyer, Bernhard 8 (n.36), 14, 24,
Hume, David 136 101 (n.2)
hygienic and social standards 152 Kampffmeyer, Hans 14, 101 (n.1)
Kampffmeyer, Paul 8, 14
Ibsen, Henrik 120 (n.14)
Kant, Immanuel 135 (n.6)
Peer Gynt 120 (n.15)
Critque of Judgement 135 (n.6)
The Wild Duck 120 (n.14)
Kantian concept 135
—— Gregers Werle 120 (n.14)
Karlsruhe (Germany) viii, 101, 107, 146
—— Hjalmar Ekdal 120
Katsura, Villa and Gardens (Kyoto) 156,
ideal city 4, 19, 158
169 (n.38), 174–6
idealistic goal 119
Kaufmann, Oskar 85 (n.32)
imagination 18, 74 (n.3), 75, 103
Klein–Hoheim viii, 102, 111, 146
impressionism 126
impressionist 134 Klein, Cesar 171 (n.77
India 3, 6, 15, 17, 76, 84, 126, 137–9, 143, Klenze, Leo von 81 (n.23)
155 Kölner Werkbund–Ausstellung [Cologne
Indian architecture 138, 143 Werkbund Exhibition] vii, 9
Indian temples 6, 15, 137 (Illustration 1.3), 10, 162 (n.78), 172
Industrialization 7–8, 151, 163 Konigsberg School for Construction
industry 1–2, 3 (n.11), 4, 8–10, 14, 16–17, Trades 150
23, 78–80, 87, 100–101, 103, 133, Königsberg, Prussia 150
151–2, 155, 162 (n.78), 172 Krayl, Carl 151
Insterburg (East Prussia) 160 Kreis, Barbara 155 (n.33, 34), 164 (n.93),
International Court of Justice 105 168, 173–4
International World Center viii, 112, 146 Kremlin, Moscow, Russia viii, 60, 61, 145
internationalism 6, 120 Kulturbolschewik [cultural Bolshevist] 155
Istanbul (Turkey) 7, 22, 156–8, 158 (n.59), Kunstwollen [formative will of art] 126 (n.1)
163, 165, 170 Kyoto, Japan 156
Italy 102
Izmir (Turkey) 157 La Chaise-Dieu viii, 62, 145
labor unions 116
Japan 22, 149, 154–5, 156 (n.38, n.39, n.40, Landauer, Gustav 16 (n.81, n.82), 17 (n.87),
n.42, n.43), 157 (n.48), 164 (n.93) 165, 18 (n.97), 19, 26–7, 29, 91 (n.37), 119
169–70, 173, 175–6 (n.10, n.12), 164
index 183
Landflucht [flight from the land] 2, 82 Mendelsohn, Erich 163, 172 (n.81)
Lang, Fritz 1 (n.1, n.4), 2, 23, 28; see also metropolis 79, 100, 176
Metropolis Metropolis (Fritz Lang) 1 (n.1, n.4), 2, 23;
Lao-Tsu 118 see also Fritz Lang
Tao Te Ching by Lao-Tzu 118 (n.9) Meyer, Hannes 165, 168 (n.33)
Laqueur, Hans-Peter 170 (n.59) Miao Tai Tze, Memorial Temple for
laws of nature 78 Chancillor Chang-Liang viii, 67, 145
Le Corbusier 75 (n.6), 164–5, 168 (n.27), Middle Ages 17, 80–81
172 (n.87) Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig 162–3 (n.84,
Unite d’Habitation (Marseille) 154 (n.27 n.87), 165
League of Community Halls 85 Mietskasernen [rental barracks] 2 (n.6),
lebendige Kunst [Living art] 88 (n.33) 23, 30
Leipzig 9 Mimari Bigisi [Lectures on Architecture]
Leipziger Platz (Berlin) viii, 101, 106, 146; 157, 170, 176; see also
see also Monument of Friedrich the Architekturlehre
Great (Gilly) Ministry of Foreign Affairs viii, 113, 146
Letchworth, Garden City viii, 8, 79, 102, modern art 11, 134
107, 146 modern genres 88
letzter Ausdruck [last expression] 90 (n.35) Möhring, Bruno 150
library 13, 16, 80, 88–9, 98–9, 103, 105, 143 Monet, Claude 136
light 8, 10–11, 14, 17–18, 21, 37, 39–40, Monsterbau [monster of a building] 161
75–6, 84–6, 89–91, 101, 105, 117–19, Mont–Saint–Michel, France vii, 6, 44, 145
122, 126–9, 133, 137–8, 152–3, 155, Monte Compatri (Italy) vii, 6, 46, 145
159, 161–2 monument viii, 7, 9,75, 82 (n.82), 85,
liturgy 82 101–3, 105, 106 (Figure 53), 114
living arts 88 (Figure 69), 120 , 127, 143, 146, 150,
Lochner, Stephan 129 157, 159–60, 162
loggias ix, Plate 1 Monument des Eisens [Monument of
London (Great Britain) viii, 51, 79, 102, 145 Iron] (Bruno Taut) viii, 9–11, 26 (n.84),
Lorenzo, Fiorenzo di 129 150, 157
Lowic, Lawrence 79 (n.18) Monument for the People (H.P. Berlage)
Luckhardt, Hans 166 (n.4) viii, 114, 146
Luckhardt, Wassili 166 (n.4) Moscow (Russia) viii, 60, 61, 145, 154
(n.27), 155 (n.30, n.34), 168
Maasberg, Ute 166 (n.1 and 7), 168 (n.25), Moscow Soviet 154
170 (n.52, n.57, n.60, n.64) Mumford, Lewis 163 (n.81, n.83), 172
Machtergreifung [Siezure of power] 155 Municipal Building (New York) viii, 104,
Madonna 129, 132 110, 146
Madurai, India vii, 49, 145 municipality 91, 100–101, 103
Magdeburg (Germany) 8–9, 22, 150–51, Museum 4, 16, 88, 98–9, 133 (n.4), 134
162, 166 (n.6), 174–5 (n.5), 136 (n.8), 143
Mainz (Germany) viii, 69, 145 Muthesius, Hermann 7 (n.33), 18, 24, 29,
Manchukuo (China) 157 75 (n.5), 79, 162 (n.78), 163, 172
Masquerade 37 Mutzenbecher, Franz 150
Materialism 17, 83 Nächstenliebe [charity] 116 (n.2)
May, Ernst 163 (n.87), 173
medieval 3–4, 6, 80, 91, 102, 122, 162 (n.77), Napoleonic Wars 82 (n.28)
171 National Assembly for the Creation of
meeting hall 16, 87 Community Centers 103
meeting houses 87, 98–9 National buildings 81
Meister Eckhart 19, 27 (n.102), 91 (n.37), National Romanticism 165
131; see also Gustav Landauer and Nationalgedanke [national thought] 80
Eckhart von Hochheim (n.22)
Nationalism 80–1, 81 (n.22) pagoda vii–ix, 17, 53, 70, 76–7, 142, 145–6
Naumann, Friedrich 172 (n.78) Great Pagoda of Udaipur ix, 142, 146
Nazi 22, 150 (n.5), 155 (n.36), 157, 161 Great Wat Chaeng Pagoda (Bangkok–
(n.75), 165, 166, 168, 171 Siam) viii, 70, 146
Nazi Germany 22 Shewdagon Pagoda (Yangon) vii, 53,
Nazi regime 150 (n.5), 157, 166 145
neo–Baroque 161 Painting 6,11, 90, 118, 126–37, 153, 171
neoclassical 161 (n.77), 174
Neue Gemeinschaft [New Community] 7–8 palace vi–vii, xii, 6, 10, 36–40, 104–5, 113,
Neues Bauen [new building] 156, 163 (n.88), 119–20, 141, 142–3, 146–7, 160
166, 172 Palace of Justice (Brussels) viii, 104, 113,
Neue Sachlichkeit [New Objectivity] 172 146, 160
(n.88) Palestine viii, 59, 145; see also Hebron
New York (United States of America) viii, Palitana, Mount, the Great Temple
23, 103, 104, 110, 119 (n.10), 146; see Chamukte ix, 6, 139, 146, 165
also new Municipal building Pantheon 105, 161, 165
the Netherlands 102 Pantheon of Humanity by H.P. Berlage
Nicolai, Bernd 170 (n.51, n.64), 174 ix, 114, 146
Nietzsche, Friedrich 189, 81 (n.25), 164 Pantheon (Rome) 161
Nippon 156, 169 (n.39), 175 Paris (France) viii, 68, 145
Nobel Prize 120 Park 3–4, 16, 21, 79–80, 86–8, 152, 156
Notverordnung zum Schutz von Volk und (n.38), 158–9, 169
Staat [Presidential Decree for the parlor 135–6
Protection of People and State] 155 parsimony 80
(n.36) Pavilion 7, 9, 10 (n.46, n. 47, n. 48), 11, 24,
Novinsky Boulevard (Moscow), 168 (n.27); 28, 98, 149–50, 158, 162 (n.78), 172,
see also Moisei Ginsburg and Narkofin 174
Building Pehnt, Wolfgang 151–2 (n.13), 161 (n.73,
n.75), 167, 171, 174
office 7, 9, 11, 14, 77, 80, 98, 104, 153, 155, Performance 11, 88, 90, 121, 161
157, 160, 166 (n.5) Petzold, Alfons 117 (n.4, n.5)
office buildings 77 Pevsner, Nikolaus 163 (n.87, 89), 165,
ogival arches 128–9 172–3
Olbrich, Joseph Maria 172 (n.78) Picture with Frame (also called: Sunset over
old city v, 12, 76–8, 86, 147 the Sea) (L. von Hofmann 136 (n.8)
Onkel Toms Hütte ix, 153, 167 (n.11), Pilgrimage 116,
Plates 6–14, see also Waldsiedlung Pisa (Italy) viii, 64, 145
Onkel Toms Hütte, Waldsiedlung Piazza del Duomo viii, 64, 145
Zehlendorf Pitz, Helge 152
opera/opera house 5, 11, 14, 16, 87–8, Architekturwekstatt Helge Pitz-Winfred
98–9 Brenne ix, Plate 6, Plate 7, Plate 8
Oppenheimer, Franz 101 Plato 122
Orient 12 (n.66), 25, 138, 155–6, 160 (n.37), playground 86–7, 158
160 (n.45), 173 (n.93), 175 Poelzig, Hans 5, 170
orientation 5, 78, 159 Posener, Julius 174
Osthaus, Karl Ernst 12, 21 (n.108, n.109), poverty 39
27, 29 Prenzlau (Germany) vii, ix, 57, 145, Plates
Ottoman skyline 157 1–5
Ottoman traditions 165 Presidential Decree for the Protection of
Ozenfant, Amédée 75 People and State 155
Preußische Akademie der Künste
pacifist 154, 161 [Prussian Academy of the Arts]
Padgett, Laura J. ix, 175, 176, Plates 1–14 (Berlin) 154, 173
index 185
Prinz, Regina 166 (n.1, n.7), 167 (n.25), Salamanca, Spain viii, 54, 145
170 (n.52, n.57, n.60, n.64) Sano di Pietro 129, 139
public 5, 7–8, 14, 16–17, 18 (n.96), 20, 26, Ancona (Siena) 129
74 (n.2), 78, 81, 83, 88, 98–9, 101, 105, Sarcophagus of Nelson (London) 102
116, 149, 152 159, 162, 173 Scharoun, Hans 160
public buildings 81–2, 103, 149 Scheerbart, Paul v–vi, xii, 3, 5, 6 (n.25), 10
public houses 5, 14 (n.49, n.50, n.53), 11, 23, 25, 28–9, 31,
publication xi–xii, 1, 7, 12, 21, 91, 119 35–40, 78 (n.12), 91 (n.36), 118 (n.8),
(n.10), 149 (n.1), 150, 154 (n.25), 156 137, 141–2, 143, 147, 155–6, 164,
(n.43), 157, 158 (n.61), 159, 163 (n.93), 173–5
164, 166, 168, 169, 170, 173 The Dead Palace: An Architectonic
puriification 105 Apocalypse xii, 6, 141–2, 143, 157
Münchhausen und Clarissa: Ein Berliner
Qufu, China viii, 102, 107, 108, 146 Roman 118
Plan of the city of Qufu viii, 102, 108, The New Life: An Architect’s Dream v,
146 35–40, 143, 157
Temple of Confucius (Qufu) viii, 102, 107, Schinkel, Karl Friedrich viii, 81 (n.23), 82
146 (n.28), 101, 106 (Figure 52), 143, 146
Schirren, Matthias 6 (n.28), 15 (n.73), 19
Raphael 137 (n.102), 24, 26–7, 29, 164, 174–5
Rappaport, Phillip A. 81–2 (n.26) Schloss and Museum Belvedere 136 (n.8);
reading houses 88, 98 see also Vienna
reform vii, 2, 2 (n.6, 8), 7–8, 11, 23, 24 (n.38), Schmitz, Bruno 102
26 (n.77), 28, 30, 120, 150–51, 152, school 21, 27, 78, 80, 86, 98, 101, 103, 121
157, 158, 166 9 (n.90), 170 (n.51)
(n.17), 150, 153 (n.51), 157–8, 161
Reform, garden city estate Reform 150 (n.6),
(n.74), 162 (n.77), 170–71
151, 158, 166; see also Siedlungen
Schopenhauer, Arthur 81 (n.25)
Reichstag 104, 155 (n.36), 168
Schumacher, Fritz 163
Reichtagsbrandverordnung [Reichstag
sculpture 11, 90, 118, 130, 138, 162 (n.77),
Fire Decree] 155 (n.36), 168
171
religion 5, 17, 76, 81, 83, 105, 117–18, 121
Second World War 149 (n.1), 150 (n.4), 153,
residential housing estates 151–2
155 (n.30), 163, 166, 168
residential quarters 2–4, 22, 78, 86–7, 159
secular spirit 133
restaurants 4, 88, 98–9
Rheinfelden (Germany) 101 self–deception 39
Rhineland Westphalia (Germany) 101 Selim Mosque (Adrianople) vii, 47, 145
rhythm 15, 77, 90, 102, 159 Selinunt, (Greece) vii, 52, 145
Rice University, Texas ix, 161, Plate 16; see Semiotics 135 (n.7)
also James Turrell Sforza, Battista 130
Riegl, Alois 126 (n.1) Sharp, Dennis 19 (n.53), 25, 29, 163 (n.89),
Riemerschmid, Richard 79 (n.17) 173, 175
Rochester, New York, United States of Shotaro, Shimomura 169 (n.38)
America 103 Shwedagon Pagoda, (Yangon) vii, 53, 145
romanticism, romantic 78, 80, 82, 101, 119, Siedlungen [Housing developments] ix,7
155, 165 (n.33), 8, 24, 151 (n.11), 152–3, 154
Rome (Italy) 145, 161 (n.21), 162, 163 (n.87), 165, 167, 172,
Russia 149–50, 160 174, Plates 7–14
Rüstringen (Germany) 101 Gartenstadt Am Falkenberg (Berlin) viii,
3, 8, 9, 15, 17, 26 (n.89), 96, 97, 146,
St Luke (Rogier van der Weyden) 132 150, 152, 158–60, 166 (n.6); see also
St Paul’s Church (London) 102 Tuschkasten-Siedlung
St Ulrich Church (Augsburg) vii, 47, 104, Gartenstadt Reform 150 (Magdeburg)
145 (n.6), 151, 158, 166
Hufeisensiedlung (Berlin-Britz) 151 (n.11), spiritual 5, 11, 17–20, 74–6, 80, 83, 89, 103,
152–3, 162, 165, 167 118–22, 137–8, 149, 151, 160–62, 165
Siedlung Schillerpark (Berlin) 152 spirituality 16, 83, 160
Streusiedlung Mahlsdorf (Berlin) 165 Spiritualization 120
Waldsiedlung Onkel Toms Hütte (Berlin- Srivilliputtur viii, 66, 145
Zehlendorf) ix, 151 (n.11), 153, 167, Staatsfeinde [enemies of the state] 155
Plates 6–14; see also Waldsiedlung Stadtbaukunst [art of urban design] 19
Zehlendorf (n.100), 27, 28
Wohnstadt Carl Legien (Berlin) ix, 167 Stadtbaurat [city architect] 151
(n.11), Plates 1–4 Städtebau [Urban Planning] 7–8, 17 (n.88),
Siena (Italy) 128–9 26, 28, 81 (n.26), 143, 146, 155 (n.34),
Academy of Siena 128 156 (n.41), 157 (n.54), 163 (n.87),
silence 6, 38, 118–19, 142 168–70, 172, 174–6
Simpson, M.R. 81 (n.25) Stadtkrone [the City Crown] vii, xi–xiii, 1
Sitte, Camillo 7 (n.31), 24, 29, 78 (n.13), 82 (n.2), 3, 4, 5–6, 9–14, 115 (n.74, 75),
(n.26), 150 116 (n.76–80), 17–20, 21 (n.112) 22
social xii, 1, 3–5, 7, 11, 16–17, 19–20, 38, (n.113, 115), 23, 26–9, 149–50, 153,
78, 83 (n.30), 85, 87, 100, 116, 117, 155 (n.36), 158, 159 (n.64, n.65, n.66),
119–22, 149, 151–3, 158, 161–5, 166 160 (n.67, n.71) 161 (n.74), 162 (n.77),
(n.9), 167 (n.11), 174 163 (n.87), 169–72, 175; see also City
social commitment 11, 16, 100 Crown, crown
social concepts 116 (n.1) steel 9–10, 150
social democracy 117 Steiner, Rudolf ix, 160 (n.72), 161, 171,
social housing 152, 166 (n.9) Plate 15
social thought 85, 116 (n.1) Stella Werke [Stella Works] 12, 14, 155
(n.30), 168
social–democratic 151
Stephany, H. 80
socialism xii, 3, 5–6, 16 (n.81, n.82), 17 (n.87),
Stern, Lisbeth 21–2 (n.113), 27, 29
18 (n.96, n.97), 22, 26–7, 29–30, 83
Strängnäs viii, 64, 145
(n.30), 84, 119, 154, 171 (n.74)
Strasbourg, France vii, 6, 45, 98, 145
socialist xi, 8, 17, 20, 119, 154 (n.27), 155,
Streusiedlung Mahlsdorf (Berlin) 165; see
159 (n.64), 161, 168, 170
also Siedlungen
solar filaments 128
Strindberg, August 117
Solitude 38, 142
Der Sturm 11, 25, 29, 162, 175
Solomon’s Temple (Jerusalem) viii, 50, 145
Stuttgart (Germany) 13 (n.68), 25, 28, 102,
Soviet Union 154–5, 165 146, 150, 153
der soziale Gedanke [the social thought]
83, 116 Tagesansicht 17 (n.85), 26, 28, 83 (n.29)
Speer, Albert 161, 171 (n.75), 175 Taine, Hippolyte [Adolphe] 136
Speidel, Manfred xiii, 1 (n.2, 3), 6 (n.28, talismanic 18, 84
29, 30), 7, 12 (n.61, 64–8), 13 (n.69, Taut & Hoffmann 149 (n.1), 150 (n.5), 154
70), 14 (n.70, n.71, n.72), 15 (n.74, (n.23, n.24), 158–9, 166–7, 174
75), 16 (n.76–80), 19 (n.101–3), 21 Taut, Bruno i, iii, v–xiii, 1–30, 1 (n.1), 4
(n.110, 111), 22 (n.113–118), 23–9, (n.12) 6 (n.28–30), 7 (n.33), 8 (n.34,
151, 153, 155–6, 158, 160, 164, 166 n.40–42), 9, 10 (n.46–48, n.50–53),
(n.1, n.7, n.10), 167 (n.18–20), 169 11 (n.54–60), 12 (n.61–63, n.66, n.67),
(n.37–42, n.45), 170 (n.49, n.54, n.60), 13 (n.68), 14 (n.70–72), 15 (n.73–75),
171 (n.65, 71), 172 (n.80), 173 (n.93), 16 (n.76–80, 83), 17 (n.86, 89–92),
174 –6 18 (n.93–96, 98–99), 19 (n.101–103),
Spengemann, Christof 21, 27 (n.112) 20 (n.104–105), 21 (n.105–106, 109,
Sperlich, Hans G. 164 (n.90), 173–4 112), 22 (n.113–116, 119), 28–30,
Phantastische Architektur 164 (n.90), 173 31, 72–114, 89, 91–97, 149–165,
Speyer (Germany) viii, 68, 145 149 (n.1), 150 (n.2–7), 151 (n.10–12),
index 187
152 (n.13–14), 153 (n.16–20), 154 Tessenow, Heinrich 79

(n.21–26, 28), 155 (n.29–37), 156 The Hague (Netherlands) 85 (n.32)
(38–459, 157 (n.48–49, 51–55), 158 theater 5, 14, 16, 85 (n.32), 87–9, 98–100,
(n.57–62), 159 (n.62–64, 65–66), 160 103, 116–17, 135
(n.67–71), 162 (n.76–77, 79) 163 theosophy 161
(n.80–89),164 (n.91–94), 165 (n.95), Tivoli (Copenhagen) 88,
165–173, 173–6, Plates 1–14 Toledo (Spain) vii, 69, 145
Alpine Architektur [Alpine Architecture] Tolstoy, Leo 117–18
vii, 15, 19, 25 (n.53), 26, (n.73) 29, 150, Torment 38–40, 122
162, 164, 169 (n.169), 175 town hall 16, 76–7, 102, 104
Architekturlehre [Lectures on Trabzon (Turkey) 157
Architecture] (Bruno Taut) 156 (n.41), train station 4, 18, 86, 159
157 (n.48, n. 54), 169–70, 175–6 tranquility 162
Architekturprogramm [Architecture triptych 130–32
Program] (Bruno Taut) 162 (n.77), Turkey 7, 22, 118, 149, 156 (n.46), 158 (n.58),
171, 173 159 (n.64), 164–5, 169, 170, 173
Architekturüberlegungen [Reflections Ankara 22, 157, 159 (n.64), 170
on architecture] (Bruno Taut) 157 Istanbul 7, 22, 156–8, 158 (n.59), 163,
(n.48), 170, 175–6 165, 170
Das Japanische Haus und sein Leben Izmir 157
157, 176 Trabzon 157
Frühlicht [early light] (Bruno Taut) 173 Turkish Ministry of Education 157–9
(93), 175 Turkish Parliament building 159 (n.64),
Mimari Bigisi [Lectures on Architecture] 170
157, 170, 176 Turkish Republic 157, 159 (n.64), 170
Taut, Elisabeth 155, 168 (n.30) Turrell, James ix, 161–2, Plate 16
Taut, Heinrich 27, (n.99), 168 (n.30) Twilight Epiphany Skyspace (Rice
Taut, Julius 150 University, Houston Texas) ix, 161–2,
Taut, Max 12 (n.61, n.64), 14 (n.70, n.71), Plate 16
18 (n.99), 19, 25, 26, 27, 150, 166 (n.4, Tuschkasten–Siedlung [paint box estate]
n.5), 167 (n.18, 22, 24), 168 (n.35), (Berlin) 8; see also Gartenstadt Am
174 Falkenberg
Technische Hochschule [technical twilight 37, 40
university] (Berlin) 19, 78 (n.14), 154–5 Tzaffin vii, 56, 145
temple vii–ix, 3, 6, 15, 17, 48, 50, 67, 76–7,
81, 84–5, 102, 105, 107, 118, 137, 139, Udaipur ix, 142, 146; see also The Great
145–6, 160, 165 Pagoda of Udaipur
Assyrian Temple vii, 48, 104, 145 Ueno, Isaburo 155–6, 169 (n.38)
Miao Tai Tze, Memorial Temple for UNESCO World Heritage List 151 (n.9),
Chancillor Chang–Liang viii, 67, 145 152, 153 (n.15)
Palitana, the Great Temple Chamukte United States 156, 160
ix, 6, 139, 146, 165 United States Capitol (Washington D.C.)
Solomon’s Temple (Jerusalem) viii, 50, 160
145 unity of form, 74
Temple of Confucius (Qufu) viii, 102, Unterriexingen (Germany) 150, 153
107, 146 Unwin, Raymond 8 (n.39), 29, 52, 107, 146
Temple of Religions 105 urban xi–xii, 1–3, 6–8, 12–13, 17, 19,
Templowerberge, Templower Berg 22, 75 (n.5), 78, 80, 101–3, 150–52,
[Templower Mountain] (Berlin) 82 154–5, 158–61, 163 (n.88)
(n.28), 106, 146 urban center 80, 151
Tenement 8, 76–9, 102, 151 urban development 102–3, 149, 163
terrestrial globe 36–7 (n.85–88), 172
terrestrial worship 118 urban life 2, 8, 158
urban planning xi, 7, 8, 78 (n.11, n.14), 82 Weber, Carl Maria von 130
(n.26), 101, 150–51, 154, 158 Oberon 130
urbanism xi, 78, 152 Weimar Republic 20, 80–81 (n.22) 151
utopia xi–xiii, 1, 3, 12, 13, 15 (n.73), 20, 22 (n.9), 163 (n.81), 172, 174
(n.119), 29, 86, 149, 156 (n.38), 161, Weltanschauung [world view] 156
164, 173, 175, Weltbaumeister [world master builder]
Utrecht (Netherlands) vii, 48, 145 165
Üxküll, Jacob von 135 (n.7) Weltgegenden [celestial spheres] 90
Werkbund vii–viii, 7, 9, 10, 11 (n.54), 12,
Venice (Italy) 138 13, 18 (n.98), 155 (n.37), 158 (n.61),
Vermeer, Jan or Johann 134 160 (n.70), 162 (n.78), 171–2, 174; see
Girl with a Wineglass 134 (n.5) also Deutscher Werkbund
Herzog-Anton-Ulrich-Museum van der Weyden, Rogier 130–31, 134, 136
(Braunschweig) 134 Saint Luke Painting the Virgin 130
vernacular art 84, 165 Whitman, Walt 117, 119 (n.10, 12, 13)
Vienna (Austria) viii, 102, 111, 117, 136 A Clear Midnight 119 (n.13)
Schloss and Museum Belvedere 136 Trommelschläge [drum taps] 80, 81
Virgin 100, 130, 132 (n.22), 119 (n.20)
visual art 90, 126, 135, 138 The Carnage 119 (n.10)
Volk [people] 8 (n.36), 17–18 (n.96, n.97), Whyte, Iain Boyd 10 (n.46, n.48, n.52),
22 (n.116), 84, 121 (n.17), 155 (n.36), 12 (n.62, n.63), 17 (n.86), 18 (n.98,
168–9 99), 19, 21 (n.105, n.109), 22 (n.119),
Völkermord [genocide] 81 (n.22) 24–8, 30, 160 (n.70), 164 (n.94), 173,
Volksbühne [people’s theater] 85 (n.32) 176
Volkseele [soul of the people] 84 Wiesbaden (Germany) 150
Volkshalle [people’s hall/town hall] 161 Wilhelmshaven (Germany) 101
Volkshaus [people’s house/community Willenbrook, Harald 153 (n.17), 167, 176
center] 14, 17, 85 (n.31), 87–8, 121 Wittich, Clarissa 168
(n.17) Wittich, Erica,155 (n.30), 168
Volkshochschule Ottakring 117 (n.5) Wohnstadt Carl Legien (Berlin) ix, 151
Volkskunst [folk art] 121 (n.17) (n.11), 152, 153 (n.15), 167, Plates 1–5
Volksschule [people’s school/elementary Sültstraße ix, Plates 2–5
school] 121 (n.17) Wohnung [the apartment] 154, 158, 172
votive church (Karl Friedrich Schinkel) viii, (n.84), 174, 175
106, 146 Wollgast, Hedwig 1 (n.2), 6 (n.30), 17 (n.72),
19 (n.102), 155 (n.30), 168
Wachsman, Konrad 163 (n.84), 172 World Center viii, 104, 112, 164
Wagner, Martin 150 (n.4), 152, 157, 166 World Heritage Committee 152 (n.9, 15),
Wagner, Otto 102, 111 142, 146 166–7; see also UNESCO
Wagner, Richard 130 World War I/WWI xii, 3, 11, 20, 6, 11, 15,
Waldsiedlung Zehlendorf Onkel Toms 22, 80, 149, 150, 151, 158,160
Hütte (Berlin) ix 153, 151 (n.11), Wright, Frank Lloyd 172, 177, 186
Plates 7–14; see also Siedlungen
Argentinische Allee ix, Plate 6, Plate 7, XXII district in Vienna viii, 111, 146
Plate 8
Birkenhof ix, Plate 9 Yangon, China 7, 53, 55, 145
Hochsitzweg and Hochwildpfad ix,
Plate 12 Zeitgeist [Spirit of the time] 22 (n.114,
Am Wiesenblau ix, Plate 13 n.118), 27, 28, 41, 42, 75 89
Wallroth-Unterlip, Maria 101 (n.2) Zurich, Switzerland 22, 155
Plate 1 Bruno Taut, Wohnstadt Carl Legien, Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg, 1928–30. Loggias at housing block. Photo: Laura J. Padgett, January 2009.
Plate 2 Bruno Taut, Wohnstadt Carl Legien, Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg, 1928–30. Housing block Sültstraße. Photo: Laura J. Padgett, April 2009.
Plate 3 Bruno Taut, Wohnstadt Carl Legien, Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg, 1928–30. Housing block Sültstraße.
Courtyard elevation and corner balconies. Photo: Laura J. Padgett, January 2009.
Plate 4 Bruno Taut, Wohnstadt Carl Legien, Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg, 1928–30. Housing block Sültstraße.
Courtyard elevation. Photo: Laura J. Padgett, January 2009.
Plate 5 Bruno Taut, Wohnstadt Carl Legien, Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg, 1928–30.
Housing block Sültstraße. Staircase. Photo: Laura J. Padgett, April 2009.
Plate 6 Single family row houses, north of Argentinische Allee. Reconstruction of the color plan by Bruno Taut illustrating results of the color analysis.
Photo of drawing: Helge Pitz, Architekturwerkstatt Helge Pitz – Winfried Brenne, 1976/1977.
Plate 7 Bruno Taut, Waldsiedlung Onkel Toms Hütte, Berlin-Zehlendorf, 1926–31. Single family
row houses, north of Argentinische Allee. Terraces with glass roof along the garden façade. Illustrating
results of the color analysis. Photo of drawing: Helge Pitz, Architekturwerkstatt Helge Pitz –
Winfried Brenne, 1976/1977.
Plate 8 Bruno Taut, Waldsiedlung Onkel Toms Hütte, Berlin-Zehlendorf, 1926–31. Single family row houses, north of Argentinische Allee.
Illustrating the results of the color analysis. Photo of drawing: Helge Pitz, Architekturwerkstatt Helge Pitz – Winfried Brenne, 1976/1977.
Plate 9 Bruno Taut, Waldsiedlung Onkel Toms Hütte, Berlin-Zehlendorf, 1926–31. Yard at Birkenhof. Landscape reminiscent
of Taut’s early pastel drawings from nature. Photo: Laura J. Padgett, September 2008.
Plate 10 Bruno Taut, Waldsiedlung Onkel Toms Hütte, Berlin-Zehlendorf, 1926–31. Photo: Laura J. Padgett, September 2008.
Plate 11 Bruno Taut, Waldsiedlung Onkel Toms Hütte, Berlin-Zehlendorf, 1926–31. Apartment building
Waldhüterpfad. View from stairhall. Photo: Laura J. Padgett, September 2008.
Plate 12 Bruno Taut, Waldsiedlung Onkel Toms Hütte, Berlin-Zehlendorf, 1926–31. Corner Hochsitzweg and Hochwildpfad.
Photo: Laura J. Padgett, September 2008.
Plate 13 Bruno Taut, Waldsiedlung Onkel Toms Hütte, Berlin-Zehlendorf, 1926–31. Am Wiesenblau.
Garden facades. Photo: Laura J. Padgett, September 2009.
Plate 14 Bruno Taut, Waldsiedlung Onkel Toms Hütte, Berlin-Zehlendorf, 1926–31. Photo: Laura J. Padgett, September 2008.
Plate 15 Rudolf Steiner, Goetheanum, Dornach, Switzerland. Built in poured concrete from 1925–8. Photo: Mark Brack, 1989.
Plate 16 James Turrell, “Twilight Epiphany” skyspace at Rice University, Houston, Texas, 2012. Photo: Florian Holzherr, 2012.

The City Crown by Bruno Taut

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The discipline of Architecture is undergoing subtle transformation as design

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ISBN 9781472421999 (hbk)

Printed in the United Kingdom by Henry Ling Limited,

List of illustrations vii

Introduction: Advancing the Reverie of Utopia  1

1 The New Life: An Architectonic Apocalypse 35

2 40 Examples: Historic City Crowns  41

3 The City Crown 73

4 Epilogue: Recent Attempts at Crowning Cities  101

6 Rebirth of Architecture  125

7 The Dead Palace: An Architect’s Dream  141

Black and White Illustrations Figure 6 Durham.

Original Illustrations Figure 17 Yangon, Shwedagon Pagoda.

Figure 1 St Barbara by Jan van Eyck. Figure 18 Salamanca.

Figure 2 Charles Cottet, City Image. Figure 19 Yangon.

Figure 3 Mont-Saint-Michel. Figure 20 Buarcos.

Figure 4 Strasbourg. Figure 21 Tzaffin.

Figure 5 Monte Compatri. Figure 22 Prenzlau.

Figure 24 Cairo. Figure 49 City crown, perspectival view.

Figure 37 Speyer. Figure 61 New York, city skyline.

Figure 38 Mainz. Figure 62 XXII District in Vienna.

Figure 39 Toledo. Figure 63 Project for Klein-Hoheim.

Figure 41 Chidambaram, Shiva-Pond. Figure 65 Project for an International

Figure 47 City crown, image. Figure 70 Cathedral in Rouen.

Architectural Education solicited us to produce the first English translation of Taut’s

Maria (Character) in Metropolis, 1927

THE CItY CROWN PROpOSAL

complete social lifestyle, but not larger.12 Similar

The Neue Gemeinschaft was a reform movement that sought emancipation

1.3 Bruno Taut,

In the spirit of a functionless unity of the arts proposed in “Eine Notwendigkeit”

Writing Die Stadtkrone

Gliederung der Massen nach Herrschenden und Beherrschten … die

Advancing the English Garden City Concept

scheme by merging it with concepts he developed in “Eine Notwendigkeit” and

It is the urge to somehow enhance the well-being of mankind, to achieve

Taut’s view of Gemeinschaft as a representation of apolitical socialism in “Die

Already in “Eine Notwendigkeit,” Taut attributed a unique role to the artist as

After Die Stadtkrone

Contrary to Taut’s proposed schedule of the construction of the Kristallhaus in “Die

practicability, as Taut encouraged the members of the group to speculate on

3 Reproduced in Speidel, “Nachwort,” p. 3.

5 Kristiana Hartmann, Deutsche Gartenstadtbewegung (Munich: Moos, 1976), pp. 8–10.

9 Ibid., pp. 5–11.

13 With my inclusion of “that” in brackets: Taut, “The City Crown,” p. 86.

18 Ibid., pp. 90–91.

19 Ibid., pp. 74–5.

22 Taut, “The City Crown,” pp. 75 and 84.

26 Taut, “The City Crown,” p. 79.

List of illustrations vii

Introduction: Advancing the Reverie of Utopia 1

1 The New Life: An Architectonic Apocalypse 35

2 40 Examples: Historic City Crowns 41

3 The City Crown 73

4 Epilogue: Recent Attempts at Crowning Cities 101

6 Rebirth of Architecture 125

7 The Dead Palace: An Architect’s Dream 141