Walter Curt Behrendt (December 16, 1884 – April 26, 1945) was a

German-American German Americans (, ) are Americans who have full or partial German ancestry. According to the United States Census Bureau's figures from 2022, German Americans make up roughly 41 million people in the US, which is approximately 12% of the pop ...

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 ...

and active advocate of German modernism. He was an authority on

city planning Urban planning (also called city planning in some contexts) is the process of developing and designing land use and the built environment, including air, water, and the infrastructure passing into and out of urban areas, such as transportatio ...

and

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, editor of ''Die Form'', and author of ''The Victory of the New Building Style'' among many other works. Behrendt was born in

Metz Metz ( , , , then ) is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle (river), Moselle and the Seille (Moselle), Seille rivers. Metz is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Moselle (department), Moselle Departments ...

, emigrated to the U.S. in 1934 to teach at

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College ( ) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, Dartmouth is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the America ...

through the help of his friend

Lewis Mumford Lewis Mumford (October 19, 1895 – January 26, 1990) was an American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic. Particularly noted for his study of cities and urban architecture, he had a broad career as a ...

, and died in

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of the county of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. It lies by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. The population of the Norwich ...

Vermont Vermont () is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, New York (state), New York to the west, and the Provinces and territories of Ca ...

Selected literary works

* ''Alfred Messel'', intro. Karl Scheffler. Berlin: Bruno Cassirer, 1911. Reprint: Gebr.Mann, Berlin 1998. * ''Die einheitliche Blockfront als Raumelement im Stadtbau''. Berlin: Bruno Cassirer, 1911. * ''Der Kampf um den Stil im Kunstgewerbe und in der Architektur''. Stuttgart/Berlin: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1920. * ''Der Sieg des neuen Baustils''. Stuttgart: Akademischer Verlag Dr. Fritz Wedekind & Co., 1927. Translated as: ''The Victory of the New Building Style'', intro. Detlef Mertins, trans. Harry F. Mallgrave. Texts & Documents. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2000. * ''Modern Building. Its Nature, Problems, and Forms''. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1937.

References

* Mertins, Detlef. "Introduction," in Behrendt, The Victory of the New Building Style, pp. 1–84. * Samson, Miles David. "

, Walter Curt Behrendt, and the Modern Movement in Germany," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 55, no. 2 (May 1996): 126–139. * Gutschow, Kai Konstanty. "Revising the Paradigm: German Modernism as the Search for a National Architecture in the Writings of Walter Curt Behrendt." (M.Arch) Thesis, University of California at Berkeley, 1993. * Scalvini, Maria-Luisa and Maria G. Sandri. L'immagine storiografica dell'architettura contemporanea da Platz a Giedion. Rome: Officina Edizione, 1984.

External links

*
Walter Curt Behrendt papers, 1910–1945
* ttp://www.sah.org/oldsite06012004/aame/biob.html SAH.org – Society of Architectural Historiansat www.sah.org (short biography) 1884 births 1945 deaths 20th-century German architects 20th-century American architects Dartmouth College faculty Emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States People from Alsace-Lorraine People from Metz {{Germany-architect-stub