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Peter Behrens and a New Architecture for the Twentieth Century.
by Stanford Anderson.
MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, U.S.A., 2000.
ISBN: 0-262-01176-X.
Reviewed by Roy R. Behrens, Department of Art, University of Northern
Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA 50613-0362, U.S.A. E-mail: ballast@netins.net
This is a lengthy, superbly written book about the life, work and
cultural milieu of one of the most interesting architectural, industrial
and graphic designers of the 20th century, better known for having
influenced three famous protÚgÚs (Mies Van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and
Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius) than for his own contributions as
designer of his innovative Art Nouveau home in the Darmstadt Artists'
Colony; as director of the Kunstgewerbeschule at DÄsseldorf; as a
founding member of the Deutscher Werkbund; and as corporate designer for
AEG, the still extant German electrical firm. Before his death in 1940,
he played a brief and minor role in Albert Speer's plans for redesigning
Berlin. The text is unrelenting in its attempt to identify Behrens' own
influences and trace the sequence of his thoughts. It is assuredly
richer because of the accompanying 250 illustrations, and, especially,
the thoughtful and fitting design by Yasuyo Iguchi. (Reprinted by
permission from Ballast Quarterly Review 15, No. 4, Summer 2000.)
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