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As a German industrial and commercial center in the Prussian Rhine province, Düsseldorf expanded rapidly in the last quarter of the 19th century, serving as the banking and trading center for the heavily industrialized Ruhrgebiet (Ruhr Valley) to the east. Industrialization and continuous development as a trade-fair center shaped the city and its architecture along the Rhine River. Noteworthy commercial and administrative structures were built in the first half of the 20th century, but during World War II much of the city was destroyed by Allied bombing raids. Although some prewar buildings were undamaged or restored, a great deal of construction in the 1950s and 1960s transformed the cityscape, with many notable achievements. In 1946, the Allied occupation designated Düsseldorf the capital of the new state of Northrhine-Westphalia, and, as a result, prominent new structures associated with state capital status have enhanced the city’s architectural character.
Düsseldorf has long been a center for art and architectural study. Under the German Empire, the city had two art institutions: an Academy of Art (Kunstakademie) and a School for Arts and Crafts (Kunstgewerbeschule). Both offered courses in architecture and design. The Kunstakademie continues to be a leading center for study. However, the Kunstgewerbeschule closed in 1918, torn between the reformist and conservative tendencies of the 20th century. The Kunstgewerbeschule was an important center for aesthetic reform under Peter Behrens’ directorship (1903–07). A number of innovative designers were attracted to the school, including Rudolf Bosselt, Fritz Helmuth Ehmcke, and J.L.M.Lauweriks. Behrens was followed by Wilhelm Kreis, an architect with much more conservative views. Kreis purged the school of Behrens’ appointees and ultimately presided over the institution’s dissolution in 1918, an approach to the rivalry between art academies and schools of applied arts mockingly referred to as the “Düsseldorf solution.” Kreis continued to teach architecture at the Kunstakademie, where he had held a joint appointment since 1913. Relatively unknown today, Kreis enjoyed fame and success in a career spanning four German regimes: the Second Empire, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, and West Germany. Through his teaching and commissions, Kreis strongly affected Düsseldorf’s s architectural heritage.
Düsseldorf has a wealth of innovative buildings. German architecture between 1900 and 1914 was typified by bourgeois monumentalism, a stylized architecture that melded Jugendstil (Art Nouveau) with historicism, serving as a bridge between 19th-century historicism and the 20th-century search for new forms and ideas. One of the most important Wilhelmine buildings is the Tietz Department Store (now Kaufhof), built in 1907–09 to designs by J.M.Olbrich on a given floor plan. Together with Alfred Messel and Wilhelm Kreis, Olbrich was one of the most influential architects of German department stores. Olbrich used the colonnade and shop window front made famous by Messel’s Wertheim store but added new sculptural interest to the roofline. Buttresses and columns covering the steel frame served to unify the monumental exterior. Olbrich’s four-part windows, running the height of the building, became a basic motif of German department stores. The interiors and light courts were not restored after World War II destruction.
Despite teaching for years in Düsseldorf, Peter Behrens designed only one building there, the Mannesmann Building; it was built in 1911–12 after he left the city. Here, Behrens sought to combine his interest in innovative design with the need for display inherent in a corporate headquarters. Behrens’ building was inspired by Italian palazz.i On a steel frame, he used rusticated stone for the foundation, dressed stone for the upper levels, and a steeply pitched roof. The fenestration, geometric harmony, and horizontal emphasis are typical of Behrens’ classical tendencies and were widely imitated. The interior incorporated innovative engineering based on a system of pillars using a normal module that allowed organizational flexibility. The module was a “normal office”: a six- person desk with heater and office furniture. Even in the executive offices, all office walls were movable partitions. The free treatment of the interior and the exterior emphasis on blocky, objective forms were design landmarks in German corporate architecture.
Poured-concrete construction and innovative brick Expressionist architecture dominated the interwar period. Düsseldorf also became home to Germany’s first skyscraper, the Wilhelm Marx House (1922–24) by Kreis. The building included a stock exchange, shops, and administrative offices. Concrete and elaborate brick designs alternate on the exterior, culminating in geometric brick tracery crowning the tower and lending a distinctive silhouette to the building. Another brick Expressionist building, the Stumm Concern Headquarters (1922–24), was the work of Paul Bonatz, the architect of Stuttgart’s Central Train Station. The Stumm building drew on American examples to create a concrete frame decoratively clad in bricks.
The most important interwar project was the Ehrenhof (1925–26), a group of buildings designed by Wilhelm Kreis as part of the “GESOLEI” (Gesundheitspflege, soziale Fürsorge und Leibesübungen) exposition, an event combining elements of design show, amusement park, trade fair, and education fair. The Ehrenhof itself was a group of four stylistically unified permanent buildings arranged around a plaza: Planetarium (a multipurpose meeting hall), Economics Museum, Art Museum, and Rhine Restaurant. The complex was intended to combine contemporary architecture, sculpture, and landscaping ideas in an urban plaza that would serve as a cultural center for social interaction and give closure and balance to the Rhinefront as part of the city plan. On the whole, the Ehrenhof exemplifies Weimar design at its best but also presages the monumental classicism of the 1930s (particularly during the Third Reich) at which Kreis excelled. Flat roofs and horizontal lines dominate the museum buildings, where stone foundations contrast with decorative use of brick and sculpture. The Planetarium is a striking, circular building with brick arcades and a low dome reminiscent of Near Eastern forms. Gutted by fire in World War II, the Planetarium was restored in the 1970s as a concert hall.
Postwar Düsseldorf became a center for innovative architecture, and recent developments sealed Düsseldorf’s s reputation as an architectural mecca. In 1960, Düsseldorf received a new symbol in the Thyssen Tower, popularly known as the “Dreischeibenhaus” (Three-Slab House), built in 1957–60 to designs by the firm Helmuth Hentrich and Hubert Petschnigg. The nickname refers to its geometric conception as three tall, narrow slabs. At a height of 95 meters with 25 floors, its steel-frame and glass/ aluminum-curtain-wall construction was a milestone for German corporate architecture. Although its height and starkness were controversial, the tower was celebrated as an emblem of German economic recovery.
Another subject of debate as a symbol was the State Parliament (Landtag), completed in 1988 following a 1979 competition won by the firm of Eller, Maier, Moser, Walter and Partner. The parliament features a circular plenary hall surrounded by two multilevel wings and an interplay of convex and concave rounded forms intended to symbolize the complex but open nature of democracy. Nonetheless, the building’s monumentality has been criticized for embodying a sort of economic hubris. Although a state parliament, the building is larger and more imposing than the Federal
Parliament built in Bonn in the same era.
Düsseldorf continues to be a center for arts innovation. Museum Insel Hombroich is
an art environment, an innovative approach to museum conception located on an island 15 kilometers south of Düsseldorf in Neuss. The complex was begun in 1982 by Karl- Heinrich Müller, a real estate tycoon, and has been open to the public since 1986. There is no single museum building. Instead, the island is conceived as a space for art in a landscape shaped by Bernhard Korte. An art collection is housed in pavilions, or “walk-in sculptures,” designed by Erwin Heerich. By 1997, there were 11 pavilions in a large park. The concept behind the complex was to blend art and nature and to juxtapose ancient Chinese, Persian, and Khmer art with contemporary works, allowing their merits to speak to the viewer directly, without any signs or labels to identify the artworks. Heerich’s pavilions also include ateliers and studios for artists in residence. The collection includes work ranging from Rembrandt through Matisse to Alexander Calder.
The redevelopment of Düsseldorf’s s Rhinefront in the 1990s has also recently attracted critical attention. Between 1993 and 1995, a major thoroughfare along the Rhine River was rerouted into a tunnel. The goal was to reincorporate the river into the life of the city by making space for terraces, parks, and cafes above the tunnel. The resulting Rhine Promenade has been critically admired and popularly successful. The Promenade combines paths with seating spaces and pools running roughly north to south from the State Parliament to the Ehrenhof.
In a second project, the Rhine Harbor is being redeveloped to transform most of the harbor area into office spaces, especially for multimedia firms. The “Media Harbor,” or “Creative Mile,” combines retention of the 1896 harbor as a technological landmark with experimental architecture by international leading architects, including Frank O.Gehry, Steven Holl, David Chip perfield, and many others. It is frequently described as a permanent architecture exhibit. In particular, Gehry’s Neue Zollhof office tower complex (1999) broke new ground by making deconstructionist architecture potentially economical. Gehry’s free-form shapes were adapted to mass-production methods via computer simulation and poured forms in order to meet the builder’s engineering demands. The harbor project promises to attract attention for several years to come.
TIMOTHY PURSELL
Sennott R.S. Encyclopedia of twentieth century architecture, Vol.1 (A-F). Fitzroy Dearborn., 2004. |
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INTERNAL LINKS
BERLIN; COLOGNE; FRANKFURT; GERMANY; STUTTGART;
FUTHER READING
Gehry, Frank O., Der neue Zollhof Düsseldorf, Essen: Verlag Peter Pomp, 1999
Heerich, Erwin, Museum Insel Hombroich, Stuttgart, Germany: Hatje, 1996
Mai, Ekkehard, “GESOLEI und PRESSA: zu Programm und Architektur rheinischen Ausstellungswesens in den zwanziger Jahren,” in Rheinland-Westfalen im Industriezeitalter, edited by Kurt Düwell and Wolfgang Köllmann, vol. 4, Wuppertal, Germany: Peter Hammer, 1984
Moeller, Gisela, Peter Behrens in Düsseldorf: die Jahre von 1903 bis 1907, Weinheim, Germany: VCH, 1991
Nerdinger, Winfried, and Ekkehard Mai, editors, Wilhelm Kreis: Architekt zwischen Kaiserreich und Demokratie, 1873–1955, Munich: Klinkhardt und Biermann, 1994
Schepers, Wolfgang, and Stephan von Wiese, editors, Der Westdeutsche Impuls, 1900–1914: Kunst und Umweltgestaltung im Industriegebiet: Düsseldorf, eine Grossstadt auf dem Weg in die Moderne (exhib. cat.), Düsseldorf: Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf, 1984 |
