Timeline

1900 Paris Métro Porte Dauphine station enclosed edicule by Hector Guimard.
Reactions to Art Nouveau impelled partly by moral yearnings for a sterner
and more unadorned style and in part by rationalist ideas requiring
practical justification for formal effects. Art Nouveau had however,
opened up a language of abstraction and pointed to lessons to be
learned from nature.[55]
August 25, 1900, death of Friedrich Nietzsche
1905
Formation of the Dresden Die Brücke expressionist art movement.
1907
The poet Paul Scheerbart independently offers a Science fiction image of
Utopian future.
1908
Adolf Loos publishes his essay/manifesto "Ornament and Crime" which
rejects ornamentation in favour of abstraction.
1909
The New Munich Artist's Association, Neue Künstlervereinigung
München is established by Wassily Kandinsky and others in Munich.
1910
Publication in Berlin of the journals, Der Sturm by Herwarth Walden and
Die Aktion by Franz Pfemfert as counterculture mouthpieces against the
Deutscher Werkbund.
1911
Hans Poelzig sets up practice in Breslau. Designs a water tower for
Posen (now: Poznan, Poland), described by Kenneth Frampton as a
certain Die Stadtkrone image, and an office building which led to the
architectural format of Eric Mendelsohn’s later Berliner "Mosse-Haus" in
1921.[56]
 Wassily Kandinsky resigns chairmanship of the Neue
Künstlervereinigung München.
Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer (architect) build the Fagus Factory,
Alfeld an der Leine.
Der Blaue Reiter forms and has first exhibits in Munich, and Berlin
1912
Hans Poelzig designs a chemical plant in Luban with strongly
expressively articulated brick massing.
Wassily Kandinsky publishes Über das Geistige in der Kunst,
("Concerning the Spiritual in Art")
Work of the Amsterdam School starts with the cooperative-commercial
Scheepvaarthuis (Shipping House), designed by Johan van der Mey
1913
Michel de Klerk starts work on the first of three apartment buildings at
Spaarndammerplantsoen, Amsterdam the last to be completed in 1921.
Rudolph Steiner commences work on the first Goetheanum. Work is
completed in 1919.
1914

Front page of 'Die Aktion' from 1914 with illustration by Egon Schiele

Paul Scheerbart publishes Glasarchitecktur

Cologne Werkbund exhibition demonstrates ideological split between:

1. Normative form (Typisierung) - Behrens, Gropius, and,

2. Will to form (Kunstwollen) - Taut, van de Velde
1915
Death of Paul Scheerbart.
Franz Kafka publishes The Metamorphosis
1917
Michel de Klerks starts building the Het Schip the third and most
accomplished apartment buildings at Spaarndammerplantsoen, for the
Eigen Haard development company in Amesterdam[1]. Work is
completed in 1921.
Bruno Taut publishes Alpine architecture.
Amsterdam: Het Schip by Michel de Klerk in 1917

1918
Adolf Behne expands the socio-cultural implications Scheerbarts writings
about glass.
Armistice – Republican revolution in Germany. Social Democrats form
Workers and Soldiers Councils. General strikes.
Free expression of the Amsterdam School elucidated in the Wendingen
(Changes) magazine.
November - Arbeitsrat für Kunst (Worker's Council for the Arts), founded
by Bruno Taut and Adolf Behne. They model themselves consciously on
the Soviets and attach a leftist programme to their Utopian and
Expressionist activities. They demand; 1. A spiritual revolution to
accompany the political one. 2. Architects to form ‘Corporations’ bound
by ‘mutual aid’.
November - Novembergruppe formed only to merge with Arbeitsrat für
Kunst the following month. It proclaims; 1. Creation of collective art
works. 2. Mass housing. 3. The destruction of artistically valueless
monuments (This was a common reaction of the Avant Garde against the
elitist militarism that was perceived as the cause of World War I.
December - Arbeitsrat für Kunst declares its basic aims in Bruno Tauts
Architeckturprogramm. It calls for a new 'total work of art', to be created
with active participation of the people.
Bruno Taut publishes Die Stadtkrone.
1919 the Grosses Schauspielhaus, Berlin by Hans Poelzig in 1919
 Spring manifesto of Arbeitsrat für Kunst is published. Art for the masses.
Alliance of the arts under the wing of architecture. 50 artists, architects
and patrons join lead by Bruno Taut, Walter Gropius and Adolf Behne.
April - Eric Mendelsohn, Hannes Meyer, Bernard Hoetger, Max Taut and
Otto Bartning stage exhibition called 'An Exhibition of Unknown
Architects'. Walter Gropius writes the introduction, now considered to be
a first draft for the Bauhaus programme published later in the month.
Called for a ‘Cathedral of the Future’, to unify the creative energy of
society as in the Middle Ages.
Bauhaus established and begins expressionist phase, to last until 1923.
Adolf Behne publishes Ja! Stimmen des Arbeitsrates für Kunst in Berlin
(Yes! Voices from the art Soviet in Berlin).
Spartacist revolt ends the overt activities of Arbeitsrat für Kunst. The
group starts the first Utopian letter of the Glass Chain by Bruno Taut.
They are joined by previously peripheral architects; Hans Luckhardt,
Wassili Luckhardt and Hans Scharoun. The letters demand; 1. Return to
medieval integration of the building team. 2. Irregular form. 3. Facetted
form. 4. Glass monuments.
Opening of the Grosses Schauspielhaus by Hans Poelzig in Berlin.
Hanging pendentive forms create a ‘luminous dissolution of form and
space’.
Bruno Taut launches the magazine Frühlicht (Early Light).
Bruno Taut and Hans Scharoun stress the creative importance of the
Freudian unconscious.
Hans Poelzig is made chairman of the Deutscher Werkbund.
Design work starts on Piet Kramers De Dageraad. Construction is
completed in 1923. Mendelsohn see it as more structural than the work of
Hendrikus Wijdeveld.
1920
February 26, the film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari premiered at the
Marmorhaus in Berlin.
Hans Poelzig declares affinity with the Glass Chain. He designs sets for
The Golem.
Solidarity of the Glass Chain is broken. Final letter written by Hermann
Finsterlin. Hans Luckhardt recognises the incompatibility of free
unconscious form and rationalist prefabrication and moves to
Rationalism.
 Taut maintains his Scheerbartian views. He publishes ‘Die Auflösung der
Städt' (The dissolution of the city) in line with Kropotkinian anarchist
socialist tendencies. In common with the Soviets, it recommends the
break up of cities and a return to the land. He models agrarian
communities and temples in the Alps. There would be 3 separate
residential communities. 1. The enlightened. 2. Artists. 3. Children. This
authoritarianism is noted in Frampton as although socialist in intent,
paradoxically containing the seeds of the later fascism.
1921 Walter Gropius's 1921 Monument to the March Dead
Taut is made city architect of Magdeburg and fails to realise a municipal
exhibition hall as the harsh economic realities of the Weimar republic
become apparent and prospects of building a ‘glass paradise’ dwindle.
Walter Gropius designs the Monument to the March Dead[2] in Weimar. It
is completed in 1922 and inspires the workers' 'Gong' in the 1927 film,
Metropolis by Fritz Lang.
Frülicht loses its impetus.
Eric Mendelsohn visits works of the Dutch Wendingen group and tours
the Netherlands. He meets the rationalists JJP Oud and W M Dudek. He
recognises the conflict of visionary and objective approaches to design.
Eric Mendelsohn’s Mossehaus opens. Construction is complete on the
Einstein Tower. It combines the sculptural forms of Van de Weldes
Werkbund Exhibition theatre with the profile of Taut’s Glashaus and the
formal affinity to vernacular Dutch architecture of Eibink and Snellerbrand
and Hendrikus Wijdeveld. Einstein himself visits and declares it ‘organic’.
Mendelsohn designs a hat factory in Luckenwalde. It shows influences of
the Dutch expressionist De Klerk, setting dramatic tall pitched industrial
forms against horizontal administrative elements. This approach is
echoed in his Leningrad textile mill of 1925 and anticipates the banding in
his department stores in Breslau, Stuttgart, Chemnitz and Berlin from
1927 and 1931.
Hugo Häring and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe submit a competition entry
for a Friedrichstrasse office building. It reveals an organic approach to
structure and is fully made of glass.
1922
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe publishes a glass skyscraper project in the
last issue of Frülicht.
 The film Nosferatu by F.W. Murnau is released.
1923 Goetheanum by Rudolph Steiner in 1923
Chilehaus by Fritz Höger in 1923

Bauhaus expressionist phase ends. Standard arguments for the reasons

for this are 1. Expressionism was difficult to build. 2. Rampant inflation in
Germany changed the climate of opinion to a more sober one. Jencks
postulates that the standard arguments are too simplistic and instead
argues that 1. Expressionism had become associated with extreme
utopianism which in turn had been discredited by violence and
bloodshed. Or 2. Architects had become convinced that the new
(rationalist) style was equally expressive and more adequately captured
the Zeitgeist. There is no large disagreements or public pronouncements
to precipitate this change in direction. The only outwardly visible reaction
was the forced resignation of the head of the basic Bauhaus course,
Johannes Itten, to be replaced with the, then constructivist, László
Moholy-Nagy.
Chilehaus in Hamburg by Fritz Höger.
Walter Gropius abandons expressionism and moves to rationalism.
Bruno and Max Taut begin work on government funded low cost housing
projects.
Berlin secession exhibition. Mies van der Rohe and Hans and Wassili
Luckhardt demonstrate a more functional and objective approach.
Rudolph Steiner designs second Goetheanum after first was destroyed
by fire in 1922. Work commences 1924 and is completed in 1928.
Michel de Klerk dies and the style of the Amsterdam School effectively
dies with him.
1924
Germany adopts the Dawes plan. Architects more inclined to produce
low-cost housing than pursue utopian ideas about glass.
Hugo Häring designs a farm complex. It uses expressive pitched roofs
contrasted with bulky tectonic elements and rounded corners.
Hugo Häring designs Prinz Albrecht Garten, residential project. Whilst
demonstrating overt expressionism he is preoccupied with deeper
inquiries into the inner source of form.
Foundation of Zehnerring group.
 June 3, Death of Franz Kafka.
Hermann Finsterlin initiates a series of correspondence with Antoni
Gaudí.[57]
1925
Hans Poelzig abandons expressionism and returns to crypto-classicism.
Zehnerring group becomes Der Ring. Hugo Häring is appointed
secretary.
Max Brod publishes Franz Kafka's The Trial
1926
Founding of the architectural collective Der Ring largely turns its back on
expressionism and towards a more functionalist agenda.
Wassily Kandinsky publishes Point and Line to Plane.
Max Brod publishes Franz Kafka's The Castle
1927
Anzeiger-Hochhaus, Hannover by Fritz Höger
Release of Fritz Lang's Metropolis.
Weissenhof Estate is built in Stuttgart. Expressionist architects, Taut,
Poelzig, Scharoun, build in international style.
1928
Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM) convenes in
Switzerland. Hugo Häring fails to move consensus away from Le
Corbusiers call for rationalism towards an organic approach. Finally the
Scheerbartian vision is eclipsed as the non-normative ‘place’ orientated
approach is cast aside.
The Großmarkthalle at Frankfurt (by Martin Elsaesser) is completed.
Chapel of the Cemetary of Glienicke/Nordbahn (Germany) is completed.
Architect: Paul Poser

1930
1931
Completion of 'The house of Atlantis' in Böttcherstraße (Bremen).
Böttcherstraße

1938
After Nazi seizure of power, expressionist art was outlawed as
degenerate art.
1940
The Berlin Philharmonic concert hall is destroyed in 1944 during WWII.
1950
Le Corbusier constructs Notre Dame du Haut signaling his postmodern
return to an architectural expressionism of form. He also constructs the
Unité d'Habitation, which emphasizes the architectural expression of
materials. The brutalist use of béton brut (reinforced concrete) recalls the
expressionist use of glass, brick, and steel.
1960
Expressionism reborn without the political context as Fantastic
architecture.
Rebuilding of the Berlin Philharmonic in 1963 by Hans Scharoun