Peter Behrens (14 April 1868 – 27 February 1940) was a leading 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 ...

, graphic and

industrial designer Industrial design is a process of design applied to physical products that are to be manufactured by mass production. It is the creative act of determining and defining a product's form and features, which takes place in advance of the manufactu ...

, best known for his early pioneering

AEG Turbine Hall The AEG turbine factory was built in 1909, at Huttenstraße 12–16 in the Moabit district of Berlin. It is the best-known work of architect Peter Behrens. The 100m long steel framed building with 15m tall glass windows on either side is consi ...

in Berlin in 1909. He had a long career, designing objects, typefaces, and important buildings in a range of styles from the 1900s to the 1930s. He was a foundation member of the

German 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 ...

in 1907, when he also began designing for AEG, pioneered corporate design,graphic design, producing typefaces, objects, and buildings for the company. In the next few years, he became a successful architect, a leader of the rationalist / classical German Reform Movement of the 1910s. After WW1 he turned to Brick Expressionism, designing the remarkable Hoechst Administration Building outside Frankfurt, and from the mid 1920s increasingly to

New Objectivity The New Objectivity (in german: Neue Sachlichkeit) was a movement in German art that arose during the 1920s as a reaction against expressionism. The term was coined by Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub, the director of the ''Kunsthalle'' in Mannheim, wh ...

. He was also an educator, heading the architecture school at

Academy of Fine Arts Vienna The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (german: link=no, Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien) is a public art school in Vienna, Austria. History The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna was founded in 1692 as a private academy modelled on the Accademia di Sa ...

from 1922 to 1936. As a well known architect he produced design across Germany, in other European countries, Russia and England. Several of the leading names of European modernism worked for him when they were starting out in the 1910s, including Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and

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 ...

Biography

Behrens attended the

Christianeum Hamburg The Gymnasium Christianeum is a famous former Latin school (German: ''Lateinschule'') in Hamburg, northern Germany. Founded in 1738 by King Christian VI of Denmark, it is now housed in a building planned by Danish designer Arne Jacobsen. His ...

from September 1877 until Easter 1882. He studied painting in his native

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

, as well as in

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

and

Karlsruhe Karlsruhe ( , , ; South Franconian: ''Kallsruh'') is the third-largest city of the German state (''Land'') of Baden-Württemberg after its capital of Stuttgart and Mannheim, and the 22nd-largest city in the nation, with 308,436 inhabitants. ...

, from 1886 to 1889. In 1890, he married Lilly Kramer and moved to

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

. At first, he worked as a painter, illustrator and

bookbinder Bookbinding is the process of physically assembling a book of codex format from an ordered stack of ''signatures'', sheets of paper folded together into sections that are bound, along one edge, with a thick needle and strong thread. Cheaper, ...

in an artisanal fashion. He frequented the bohemian circles and was interested in subjects related to the reform of lifestyles. In 1899 Behrens accepted the invitation of the Grand Duke Ernst-Ludwig of Hesse to be the second member of his recently inaugurated

Darmstadt Artists' Colony The Darmstadt Artists’ Colony refers both to a group of Jugendstil artists as well as to the buildings in Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt in which these artists lived and worked in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The artists were largely fi ...

, where Behrens built his own

Jugendstil ''Jugendstil'' ("Youth Style") was an artistic movement, particularly in the decorative arts, that was influential primarily in Germany and elsewhere in Europe to a lesser extent from about 1895 until about 1910. It was the German counterpart of ...

style house in 1901, and fully conceived everything, from furniture to towels, paintings, pottery, etc. The building of this house is considered to be the turning point in his life, when he left the artistic circles of Munich and showed himself to be a talented architect in his very first project. In 1903, Behrens was named director of the

Kunstgewerbeschule A Kunstgewerbeschule (English: ''School of Arts and Crafts'' or S''chool of Applied Arts'') was a type of vocational arts school that existed in German-speaking countries from the mid-19th century. The term Werkkunstschule was also used for thes ...

in Düsseldorf, where he implemented successful reforms, developing new ways of teaching design. In 1907, Behrens and ten other people ( Hermann Muthesius,

Theodor Fischer Theodor Fischer (28 May 1862 – 25 December 1938) was a German architect and teacher. Career Fischer planned public housing projects for the city of Munich beginning in 1893. He was the joint founder and first chairman of the Deutscher Wer ...

Josef Hoffmann Josef Hoffmann (15 December 1870 – 7 May 1956) was an Austrian- Moravian architect and designer. He was among the founders of Vienna Secession and co-establisher of the Wiener Werkstätte. His most famous architectural work is the Stoclet Pa ...

Joseph Maria Olbrich Joseph Maria Olbrich (22 December 1867 – 8 August 1908) was an Austrian architect and one of the Vienna Secession founders. Early life Olbrich was born in Opava, Austrian Silesia (now Czech Republic), the third child of Edmund and Aloisia O ...

Bruno Paul Bruno Paul (19 January 1874 – 17 August 1968) was a German architect, illustrator, interior designer, and furniture designer. Trained as a painter in the royal academy just as the Munich Secession developed against academic art, he first ca ...

, Richard Riemerschmid, Fritz Schumacher, among others), plus twelve companies, gathered to create the

. As an organization, it was clearly indebted to the principles and priorities of the Arts and Crafts movement, but tending towards the classical in architecture. Members of the Werkbund were focused on improving the overall level of taste in Germany by improving the design of everyday objects and products. This very practical aspect made it an extremely influential organization among industrialists, public policy experts, designers, investors, critics and academics. His work in the early 1900s included a series of exhibition halls and pavilions, a crematorium and some private houses, which show a new direction immediately after his own Jugendstil house, towards exploring simple, rectilinear volumes and classical sources. AEG by Peter Behrens

In 1907, AEG (''Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft'') retained Behrens as artistic consultant, and his work for AEG was the first large-scale demonstration of the viability and vitality of the Werkbund's initiatives and objectives. He designed the entire corporate identity (

logotype A logo (abbreviation of logotype; ) is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name it represents as in a wordm ...

, product design, publicity, etc.) and for that he is considered the first industrial designer in history. He also designed a series of factory buildings for them at their two Berlin factory sites, most famously the 1909 AEG Turbine Factory, at the

Moabit Moabit () is an inner city locality in the borough of Mitte, Berlin, Germany. As of 2016, around 77,000 people lived in Moabit. First inhabited in 1685 and incorporated into Berlin in 1861, the former industrial and working-class neighbourhood i ...

site, considered an early example of Modernism. He then went on to design four new buildings at the Humboldthain site, which showed that he was as much interested in massive, bold, classical and picturesque effects depending on the context, as expressing modernity. Since Peter Behrens was a consultant rather than an employee of AEG, he was free to work on other projects, and developed a highly successful architectural practice. In this period his growing office had many students and assistants, some who would go on become leading Modernists, including Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Adolf Meyer, Jean Kramer and

(later to become the first director of 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., 20 ...

). Immediately after the AEG Turbine Hall, he designed a series of large office buildings in a bold monumental stripped classical form, part of the German Reform Architecture movement. His 1912 German Embassy in St Petersburg, and the Administration Building for Continental AG in Hannover, built 1912–1914 are good examples of this period. After WW1 his work changed again, and like many German architects, he explored the themes and styles of Brick Expressionism. Between 1920 and 1924, he was responsible for the design and construction of the Technical Administration Building of Hoechst AG in Höchst, outside Frankfurt. With its soaring atrium clad in coloured bricks representing the factory’s dye products, and an exterior in dark clinker bricks with clocktower and dramatic arch, it is one of the most representative examples of the style in Germany. IPH Behrensbau Eingangshalle DSC 7854

In 1922, he accepted an invitation to teach at the

, becoming head of the architecture school, a post he kept until 1936, whilst also designing for a range of clients across Europe. In 1926, Behrens was commissioned by the Englishman Wenman Joseph Bassett-Lowke to design a family home in Northampton, UK. The house named 'New Ways', a stark white walled rectangular volume (with jagged parapets), is often regarded as probably the first modernist house in Britain, and marks Behrens' turn towards the Modernism of

. In 1925 he was invited by his former student

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 ...

, along with many of the leading German architects working in the new style, to design a residential building in Stuttgart, in the development now known as the Weissenhof. His contribution was a set of apartments in stacked cubic volumes, allowing many apartments to open to large terraces. In 1928 Behrens won an international competition for the construction of the New Synagogue, in Zilina, Slovakia, which was restored in 2012–17 as a cultural centre. The same year he designed a renovation of the Feller-Stern department store in central

Zagreb Zagreb ( , , , ) is the capital and largest city of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb stands near the international border between Croatia and Slov ...

, Croatia, transforming it from Art Nouveau to a complex almost

De Stijl ''De Stijl'' (; ), Dutch for "The Style", also known as Neoplasticism, was a Dutch art movement founded in 1917 in Leiden. De Stijl consisted of artists and architects. In a more narrow sense, the term ''De Stijl'' is used to refer to a body ...

Modernist composition. His 1931 hillside villa for the Clara Gans, daughter of Frankfurt industrialist Adolf Gans, was a similarly complex interplay of rectangular volumes, clad in stone, a fine example of

. In 1929, Behrens was invited to the competition for the design of buildings around a proposed radical redesign of Alexanderplatz in Berlin, and though he came second, his designs for the buildings on the south west side of the new square was preferred by the subsequent developer, and the Alexanderhaus and the Berolinahaus were built by 1932. In 1929, Behrens, in partnership with former student Alexander Popp, was commissioned to design a new factory for the state-run Austria Tabak in Linz, which was built over a long period, due to the economic conditions, finally completed in 1935. The main building has a very long completely horizontal slightly curved facade, Behrens’ most striking design in the style of

. In 1936 Behrens left Vienna to teach architecture at the Prussian Academy of Arts (now the '' Akademie der Künste'') in Berlin, reportedly with the specific approval of

Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

. Behrens participated in Hitler's plans for the rebuilding of Berlin with the commission for the new headquarters of the AEG on Albert Speer's famous planned north–south axis. Speer reported that his selection of Behrens for this commission was rejected by the powerful

Alfred Rosenberg Alfred Ernst Rosenberg ( – 16 October 1946) was a Baltic German Nazi theorist and ideologue. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart and he held several important posts in the Nazi government. He was the head o ...

, but that his decision was supported by Hitler who admired Behrens's Saint Petersburg Embassy. Behrens died in the Hotel Bristol in Berlin on 27 February 1940, while seeking refuge there from his country estate.

List of projects

1900–1901: Behrens house on

Mathildenhöhe The Darmstadt Artists’ Colony refers both to a group of Jugendstil artists as well as to the buildings in Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt in which these artists lived and worked in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The artists were largely fi ...

in Darmstadt * 1905–1907: Villa Obenauer in Saarbrücken * 1905–1908: Eduard Müller Crematorium in Hagen-Delstern * 1906: Interior design of the state and city library in the extension of the Kunstgewerbemuseum Düsseldorf * 1908–1909:

AEG Turbine hall The AEG turbine factory was built in 1909, at Huttenstraße 12–16 in the Moabit district of Berlin. It is the best-known work of architect Peter Behrens. The 100m long steel framed building with 15m tall glass windows on either side is consi ...

, Berlin-Moabit * 1908–1909: Schröder house in Hagen (destroyed in World War II) * 1909–1910: Catholic Fellowship House in Neuss * 1909–1910: Villa Cuno in Hagen *1909–10: High Voltage Factory, AEG, Berlin – Humboldthain * 1910: Boathouse "Elektra" for the ''Berlin rowing company "Elektra"'' in Berlin-Oberschöneweide, founded in 1908 as a rowing club for employees and civil servants of the AEG * 1910: Exhibition hall (temporary wooden structure, named Hetzerhalle) for the German Railways with a span of 43 meters for the Brussels World Exhibition in 1910, built by the entrepreneur Otto Hetzer from Weimar * 1911: Gasworks Ost in Frankfurt am Main, Osthafen * 1911: AEG factory settlement in Hennigsdorf * 1911–1912: Mannesmann House in Düsseldorf * 1911–1912: German Embassy in Saint Petersburg * 1911–1912: House for government architect C. H. Goedecke in Hagen * 1911–1912: Wiegand house, home for the archaeologist and museum director

Theodor Wiegand Theodor Wiegand (October 30, 1864 – December 19, 1936) was one of the more famous German archaeologists. Wiegand was born in Bendorf, Rhenish Prussia. He studied at the universities of Munich, Berlin, and Freiburg Freiburg im Breisgau ...

in Berlin-Dahlem, today the seat of the

German Archaeological Institute The German Archaeological Institute (german: Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, ''DAI'') is a research institute in the field of archaeology (and other related fields). The DAI is a "federal agency" under the Federal Foreign Office of Germany ...

* 1912: AEG Large Motors Factory, Berlin – Humboldthain * 1912–1914: Administration building of Continental AG in Hanover (extension 1919–1920), today the House of Economic Development * 1913: AEG Small Motors Factory, Berlin – Humboldthain * 1914: Frank & Lehmann office building in Cologne, 37 Unter Sachsenhausen Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1998-012-24A, Berlin, Alexanderplatz

Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1998-012-24A, Berlin, Alexanderplatz

* 1914–1917: Factory for the National Automobile Society (NAG) in Berlin-Oberschöneweide (later the factory for television electronics, called Peter- Behrens-Bau) * 1915: Wuhlheide forest settlement in Berlin-Karlshorst, Hegemeisterweg * 1918: Oberschöneweide settlement in Berlin (built 1919–21 to plans by others, Behrens only designed some single family houses) * 1919: Workers' and master craftsmen's settlement for Deutsche Werft AG in Hamburg-Finkenwerder * 1921–1925: Technical administration building of Hoechst AG in Frankfurt-Höchst * 1921–1925: Administration building of the Gutehoffnungshütte in Oberhausen * 1925: Tomb for Friedrich Ebert in Heidelberg, in the mountain cemetery * 1925–1926: College of St. Benedict in Salzburg *1926: 'New Ways', Northampton, UK * TabakfabrikLinz 1231

1927: Apartment house in the Weißenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart (lots 31 + 32) * 1928: Reconstruction of Feller-Stern department store,

Ban Jelačić Square Ban Jelačić Square (; hr, Trg bana Jelačića) is the central square of the city of Zagreb, Croatia, named after Ban Josip Jelačić. The official name is Trg bana Jelačića. The square is colloquially called ''Jelačić plac''. It is locate ...

, Croatia * 1928–1929: U-Bahn stations, line U 8 in Berlin ( Moritzplatz,

Bernauer Straße Bernauer Straße is a street of Berlin situated between the localities of Gesundbrunnen and Mitte, today both belonging to the Mitte borough. It runs from the Mauerpark at the corner of Prenzlauer Berg to the Nordbahnhof. The street's name refe ...

, Voltastraße, designed 1912) * 1928–1930: '' Franz-Domes-Hof'' in Vienna – Margareten * 1929: Residence for

Kurt Lewin Kurt Lewin ( ; 9 September 1890 – 12 February 1947) was a German-American psychologist, known as one of the modern pioneers of social, organizational, and applied psychology in the United States. During his professional career Lewin applied hi ...

in Berlin- Nikolassee, Waldsängerpfad 3 * 1929–1930: Group of apartment buildings in Berlin- Westend, Bolivarallee 9 * 1929–1931: Villa Gans in

Kronberg im Taunus Kronberg im Taunus is a town in the Hochtaunuskreis district, Hesse, Germany and part of the Frankfurt Rhein-Main urban area. Before 1866, it was in the Duchy of Nassau; in that year the whole Duchy was absorbed into Prussia. Kronberg lies at th ...

, Falkensteiner Straße 19, Hesse * 1929–1931: Synagogue in

Žilina Žilina (; hu, Zsolna, ; german: Sillein, or ; pl, Żylina , names in other languages) is a city in north-western Slovakia, around from the capital Bratislava, close to both the Czech and Polish borders. It is the fourth largest city of ...

, Kuzmányho 1 * 1929–1935: Tobacco factory in Linz (with Alexander Popp) * 1930–1932: Alexanderhaus and Berolinahaus at Alexanderplatz in Berlin * 1931: “Ring der Frauen” house at the ''German Building Exhibition in 1931'' in Berlin-Charlottenburg (demolished) * 1932–1933: Hohenlanke house near Neustrelitz (planned as a separate retirement home, partially completed) * 1933–1951: Christ the King Church in

Linz Linz ( , ; cs, Linec) is the capital of Upper Austria and third-largest city in Austria. In the north of the country, it is on the Danube south of the Czech border. In 2018, the population was 204,846. In 2009, it was a European Capital ...

(with Alexander Popp, Hans Feichtlbauer and Hans Foschum)

Typefaces designed by Behrens

All faces cast by the Klingspor Type Foundry. * Behrens-Schrift (1901–7) * Behrens-Antiqua (1907–9) * Behrens Mediaeval (1914)

Gallery

File:Mathildenhoehe-behrens-haus-048.jpg, Behrens house, Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt, 1901 File:Eduard-Müller-Krematorium 3.JPG, Eduard Müller Krematorium, Hagen-Delstern, 1908 File:Gustav-Meyer-Allee 25 (Berlin-Gesundbrunnen) AEG Hochspannungsfabrik.JPG, High Voltage Factory, AEG, Berlin-Moabit, 1909-10 File:AEG Montagehalle für Großgeräte Voltastraße Hussitenstraße 3.jpg, Large Motors Factory, AEG Berlin-Humboldthain, 1912 File:Б. Морская 41 01.jpg, German Embassy, St. Petersburg, 1912 File:Mannesmann-Haus Mannesmannufer Carlstadt Duesseldorf Germany.jpg, Mannesmann-Haus, Düsseldorf, 1912 File:Geschäfts- und Verwaltungsgebäude Unter Sachsenhause 37-4896.jpg, Office Building, Unter Sachsenhausen 37, Cologne, 1914 File:Haus der Wirtschaftsförderung, Vahrenwalder Straße 7, 30165 Hannover, wurde im März 2012 eröffnet.jpg, Continental AG offices, Hannover, 1912-14 File:Wilhelminenhofstr B-Oberschoeneweide 08-2017 img5.jpg, National Automobile Society (NAG), Berlin, 1914-17 File:IPH Bruecke Turm Westen DSC 7782.jpg, Hoechst Administration Building, Frankfurt, 1921-24 File:IPH Behrensbau Ausstellungsraum DSC 7810.jpg, Hoechst Administration, Frankfurt, 1921-25 File:Peter Behrens Bau Oberhausen 03.jpg, Gutehoffnungshütte warehouse, Oberhausen, 1921-25 File:GrabFriedrichEbert.jpg, Tomb of Friedrich Ebert, 1925 File:St. Rupert Statue vor Haus St. Benedikt 02.jpg, College of St. Benedict, Salzburg, 1926 File:20130609 in Zagreb 52.jpg, Feller-Stern department store, Ban Jelačić Square, Zagreb,1928 File:Franz-Domes-Hof1.jpg, Franz Domes Hof, Vienna, 1928-30 File:Peter Behrens - Villa Gans in Kronberg (3).jpg, Villa Gans, Kronberg, 1931 File:Žilina - Neolog Synagogue - 2018.JPG, Synagogue, Žilina, Slovakia, 1929-31 File:Berlin - Alexanderplatz (1).jpg, Alexanderhaus and Berolinhaus, Alexanderplatz, Berlin, 1930-32 File:Tabakfabrik Linz Luftbild 1.jpg, Tobacco Factory, Linz, Austria, 1929-35 File:Tabakfabrik Linz Haupteingang-2615.jpg, Tobacco Factory, Linz, 1929-35

References

;Sources * Borský, Maroš (2007).
Synagogue Architecture in Slovakia: Towards Creating a Memorial Landscape of Lost Community
'. PhD dissertation, Hochschule für Jüdische Studien,

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...

. Accessed 23 November 2014. * A. Windsor (1981): ''Peter Behrens: Architect and Designer'', Humanities Press Intl; First US edition, * Stanford Anderson (2002): ''Peter Behrens and a New Architecture for the Twentieth Century'', The MIT Press, * Peter Behrens (1990): ''Peter Behrens: Umbautes'', Licht Prestel Pub, (German edition) * Kathleen James-Chakraborty (2000): ''German architecture for a mass audience'', Routledge, * Ina Bahnschulte-Friebe: ''Künstlerkolonie Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt 1899–1914.'' Darmstadt: Institut Mathildenhöhe 1999, * Georg Krawietz: "Peter Behrens im dritten Reich", Weimar 1995, VDG, Verlag und Datenbank für Geisteswissenschaften, * Klaus J. Sembach: ''1910 – Halbzeit der Moderne.'' Stuttgart: Hatje 1992,

External links

Virtual gallery with Behrens designs for AEG

Neolog Synagogue in Žilina
Attached plaque: “This synagogue was built by the world famous architect Peter Behrens, in 1933–1934, on the same site as the original synagogue built in 1881. It served as a place of Jewish worship until the arrival of fascism. World War II tragically affected the lives of the Slovak Jews, at the time 3,600 Jewish people helped make up the 19,000 population of Žilina. After the war, only 500 Jewish returned. Since the end of war, the building has been used for cultural and educational purposes by the city and as a technical college. Jewish congregation of Žilina 1934–1996.”
The Schiedmayer grand piano from the musicroom of the House Behrens 1901
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Behrens, Peter 1868 births 1940 deaths People educated at the Gymnasium Christianeum 20th-century German architects German industrial designers German graphic designers German typographers and type designers Modernist architects from Germany Art Nouveau architects Prussian Academy of Arts faculty Architects from Hamburg Peter Behrens