"With every new building the first task is to clarify the needs that will arise in context of its use",1 opined Peter Behrens on December 10th 1912 at the official inauguration of the new administrative HQ for the Prussian industrial concern Mannesmannröhren-Werke AG. And while Peter Behrens was certainly not the first to opine such, with the so-called Mannesmann-Haus in Düsseldorf he realised one of the earliest large office buildings designed to evolve and develop as those needs evolved and
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"I am happy to supply you with photos of a larger building that has recently been completed, and which, for me, is one in which I have succeeded in most clearly expressing my views on art", wrote the German architect, designer and artist Peter Behrens in 1931, "it is the central warehouse and the associated administration building of the Gutehoffnungshütte Oberhausen, Rhineland"1 With the exhibition Peter Behrens - Art and Technology that clearest expression of Behrens' view on art hosts an
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"...this is also a sure sign for the development of our style that we gradually succeed in bringing the practical back in line with the ideal. It seems to me, this could now also apply to many aspects of our common aspirations."1 So wrote Peter Behrens in 1901 to the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum Krefeld's director Friedrich Deneken. With the exhibition The Practical and the Ideal the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum Krefeld explore not only how Peter Behrens' understood such and how he attempted to achieve just
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For the German architect, designer, artist Peter Behrens it was important that the exterior reflected a building's intended function, that the exterior provided information about the nature of the building and its occupants. We suspect therefore he would greatly approve of the title of the Museum für Angewandte Kunst Cologne's exhibition in honour of his 150th birthday, neatly encapsulating as it does the nature of its protagonist. #all-rounder Peter Behrens himself greets visitors to
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Arguably because Passover/Easter is early this year, every, but every, museum is opening a major exhibition in the course of March 2018, in preparation for the unofficial start of the tourist season in April. A situation which leaves us with the daunting possibility of creating 5 such Top 5 lists. And still having some exhibitions left over. Faced with a similar situation back in November 2017 we referred to the abundance of options which lay before us as being akin to "gardens mottled with
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By way of an addendum to our 5 New Design Exhibitions for March 2015 post, until March 28th the NRW-Forum Düsseldorf is presenting an exhibition devoted to the German artists, architect, designer and all round multi-talent, Peter Behrens. Born in Hamburg on April 14th 1868 Peter Behrens was not just one of the earliest product designers and first proponents of corporate design but also played a decisive role in the development of European modernist architecture. Yet very much like his
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Erected in 1927 in context of the Deutscher Werkbund exhibition "Die Wohnung" the Weißenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart aimed to achieve "…. a reduction in house construction and running costs, in addition to a simplification of housework and a general improvement in living standards" But did it? Or is it just a collection of buildings by Max Taut, Hans Poelzig, Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Mart Stam, Peter Behrens and their ilk? A chance for a close connected group of modernists to show off?
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