Max Taut (15 May 1884 – 26 February 1967) was a German

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

Prussian Lithuanian The Prussian Lithuanians, or Lietuvininkai (singular: ''Lietuvininkas'', plural: ''Lietuvininkai''), are Lithuanians, originally Lithuanian language speakers, who formerly inhabited a territory in northeastern East Prussia called Prussian Lithuan ...

heritage.

Biography

Max Taut was born in

Königsberg Königsberg (, ) was the historic Prussian city that is now Kaliningrad, Russia. Königsberg was founded in 1255 on the site of the ancient Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades, and was na ...

, the younger brother 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 ...

. He, his brother and Franz Hoffman formed Taut & Hoffman, an

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 ...

firm in Berlin, In the 1920s, Max Taut was particularly known for his office buildings for

trade unions A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits (s ...

. Between 1922 and 1925, he built one house a year on Hiddensee island, each one very different from the others. The Deutscher Buchdrucker building (1924–1926) on Dudenstraße in Berlin"Das Haus der Deutschen Buchdrucker"
Medien Galerie. Retrieved 7 August 2011 and the consumer cooperatives' department store (1930–1933) on Oranienplatz are two of his most important buildings and are on the Berlin list of

heritage sites A national heritage site is a heritage site having a value that has been registered by a governmental agency as being of national importance to the cultural heritage or history of that country. Usually such sites are listed in a heritage regist ...

."Denkmale in Berlin."
Berlin.de (25 March 2008). Retrieved 8 August 2011 He was a member of the Glass Chain and the Novembergruppe. He was also a member of the

avant garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

architectural society, Zehnerring, which included

Mies van der Rohe Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ( ; ; born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies; March 27, 1886August 17, 1969) was a German-American architect. He was commonly referred to as Mies, his surname. Along with Alvar Aalto, Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Frank Lloyd ...

Walter Gropius Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (18 May 1883 – 5 July 1969) was a German-American architect and founder of the Bauhaus School, who, along with Alvar Aalto, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright, is widely regarded as one ...

and

Erich Mendelsohn Erich Mendelsohn (21 March 1887 – 15 September 1953) was a German architect, known for his expressionist architecture in the 1920s, as well as for developing a dynamic functionalism in his projects for department stores and cinemas. Mendelso ...

. His primary importance exists in the development of framed buildings, which showed the construction of the building and symbolized a new, democratic openness in architecture. After the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, he and Wilhelm Büning founded a new architecture school at the

Berlin University of the Arts The Universität der Künste Berlin (UdK; also known in English as the Berlin University of the Arts), situated in Berlin, Germany, is the largest art school in Europe. It is a public art and design school, and one of the four research universit ...

. His postwar work includes the Reutersiedlung (1948–1952) in Bonn and Ludwig Georgs Gymnasium (1951–1955) in Darmstadt. Taut was buried at the Choriner monastery cemetery.

Works

Buildings

Verwaltungsgebäude Rüdesheimer Str 54-56

* Janusz Korczak Gymnasium, formerly the Knabenschule in Finsterwalde (1913) * Administration building, Allgemeiner Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund in Berlin-Mitte (1922–1923) * Two houses in the Weißenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart (1927) * Verband der Deutschen Buchdrucker building on Dudenstraße 10, Berlin (1924–192

, designed with Franz Hoffmann. * Alexander von Humboldt Oberschule in Berlin-Köpenick, formerly Oberlyzeum "Dorotheenschule" (1929) * Trade union building, Frankfurt am Main (1929–1931) * Nöldnerplatz group of schools in Berlin-Lichtenberg (1927–1932) * Reichsknappschafthaus on Breitenbachplatz in Berlin (1930), designed with Franz Hoffmann. Designed in the

Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 2 ...

style with a

steel frame Steel frame is a building technique with a " skeleton frame" of vertical steel columns and horizontal I-beams, constructed in a rectangular grid to support the floors, roof and walls of a building which are all attached to the frame. The devel ...

and a ceramic-tile facade. (Used today by the Institute for Latin American Studies,

Free University of Berlin The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public university, public research university in Berlin, Germany. It is consistently ranked among Germany's best universities, with particular strengths in poli ...

). * Block of flats with library on Dudenstraße 12–20, Berlin (1954–1955), designed with Franz Hoffmann. * 1963/64 Renovation of the Jagdschloss Glienicke, with

bay window A bay window is a window space projecting outward from the main walls of a building and forming a bay in a room. Types Bay window is a generic term for all protruding window constructions, regardless of whether they are curved or angular, or ...

s added to the two lower floors *Ludwig Georgs Gymnasium in Darmstadt

Publications

* Max Taut: ''Bauten und Pläne'', Berlin (1927) * Alfred Kuhn: ''Max Taut – Bauten'', Berlin (1932) * Max Taut: ''Berlin im Aufbau'', Berlin (1946)

Bibliography

* ''Max Taut'', exhibition catalogue with text by Julius Posener. ADK Berlin (1964) * ''Max Taut – Zeichnungen, Bauten'', exhibition catalogue. ADK Berlin (1984) * Annette Menting: ''Max Taut. Das Gesamtwerk'' Munich: DVA (2003)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Taut, Max 1884 births 1967 deaths Expressionist architects Architects from Königsberg Recipients of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany 20th-century German architects