Adolf Behne (13 July 1885 – 22 August 1948) was a critic, art historian, architectural writer, and artistic activist. He was one of the leaders of the Avant Garde in the

Weimar Republic The German Reich, commonly referred to as the Weimar Republic,, was a historical period of Germany from 9 November 1918 to 23 March 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is also r ...

. Behne was born in

Magdeburg Magdeburg (; nds, label= Low Saxon, Meideborg ) is the capital and second-largest city of the German state Saxony-Anhalt. The city is situated at the Elbe river. Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor and founder of the Archdiocese of Mag ...

and studied

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...

briefly, then the history of art in

Berlin Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...

. He joined the

Deutscher Werkbund The Deutscher Werkbund (English: "German Association of Craftsmen"; ) is a German association of artists, architects, designers and industrialists established in 1907. The Werkbund became an important element in the development of modern arch ...

and was a guiding light of the Arbeitsrat für Kunst in 1918. In a 1913 critique of

Bruno Taut Bruno Julius Florian Taut (4 May 1880 – 24 December 1938) was a renowned German architect, urban planner and author of Prussian Lithuanian heritage ("taut" means "nation" in Lithuanian). He was active during the Weimar period and is kno ...

, Behne helped coin the term "

Expressionist architecture Expressionist architecture was an architectural movement in Europe during the first decades of the 20th century in parallel with the expressionist visual and performing arts that especially developed and dominated in Germany. Brick Expression ...

", and soon became one of the leading promoters of expressionism. He was close to the members of the

artist collective 'The ball' and demanded the creation of a new closeness between art and architecture. He was influenced by the writings of

Jakob von Uexküll Jakob may refer to: People * Jakob (given name), including a list of people with the name * Jakob (surname), including a list of people with the name Other * Jakob (band), a New Zealand band, and the title of their 1999 EP * Max Jakob Memorial Aw ...

.Behne 1914/1915. He taught at the

University of Berlin The Humboldt University of Berlin (german: link=no, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin, Germany. The university was established by Frederick Will ...

until 1933. Between 1945 and 1948 he was a professor at the National University for Fine Arts, (Staatlichen Hochschule für Bildende Kunst Berlin) and belonged to the architect group Der Ring. As an architect he rarely had his projects executed. However, between 1932 and 1936 he built the reception building of the main station in

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in ...

. He died in Berlin. His hometown of Magdeburg named a street after him (Behneweg).

Selected Literature

* Behne, Adolf 1913. Bruno Taut. ''Pan'' 3(23) (7 March 1913): 538–540. * Behne, Adolf 1914–1915. Biologie und Kubismus. ''Der Sturm'' 5(11/12), 68–71. * Behne, Adolf 1919. '. Kurt Wolff, Leipzig. Reprint: Kraus, Nendeln/Liechtenstein, 1973; Gebr. Mann, Berlin, 1998. * Behne, Adolf 1926. '. Drei Masken Verlag, Vienna/Berlin. Reprint: Der moderne Zweckbau. Ullstein Bauwelt Fundamente, Frankfurt am Main / Berlin, 1964; and Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin 1998. Translated as Modern Functional Building, ed. & intro. Rosemarie H. Bletter. Getty, Oxford UP, Santa Monica, 1996. * Behne, Adolf 1927. '. Hesse & Becker, Leipzig. * Behne, Adolf 1928. '. Stuttgart. Neuausgabe Berlin 1984 * Behne, Adolf 1994. '. Herausgegeben von Haila Ochs. Basel, Boston, Berlin: Birkhäuser-Architektur-Bibliothek. * Behne, Adolf 1998. '. Ed. & postscript Cornelia Briel. Berlin: Gebr. Mann. * Bohm, Arnd 1993. Artful Reproduction: Benjamin's Appropriation of Adolf Behne's `' in the Kunstwerk Essay. ''The Germanic Review'' 68(4): 146–155. * Bushart, Magdalena, ed. 2000. '. Berlin: Gebr. Mann. * Gutschow, Kai Konstanty 2005. "The culture of criticism: Adolf Behne and the development of modern architecture in Germany, 1910–1914." Ph.D. diss., Columbia University. * Lindner, Bernd 1992. 'Auf diesen Berg...' Adolf Behne – Vermitter der Moderne. In: ', ed. Henrike Junge. Cologne, Weimar, Vienna: Böhlau, pp. 7–15. * Mertins, Detlef 1997. Transparencies Yet to Come: Sigfried Giedion and Adolf Behne. ''A + U'' 10(325) (Oct. 1997): 3–17. * Schwartz, Frederic J. 1998. Form Follows Fetish: Adolf Behne and the Problem of Sachlichkeit. ''Oxford Art Journal'' 21(2): 45–77.

References

External links

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Genealogy of Adolf Behne
{{DEFAULTSORT:Behne, Adolf 1885 births 1948 deaths German architecture writers Architectural theoreticians Expressionist architects Architects from Magdeburg People from the Province of Saxony German male non-fiction writers 20th-century German architects