@architecture_in_a_blink

Fagus Factory, Alfeld DE, 1910-13. Architects: Walter Gropius (1883 Berlin – 1969 Boston) and Adolf Meyer (1881 Mechernich - 1929, Baltrum DE). Gropius and Meyer had both worked in the Berlin office of Peter Behrens on the project for the 1909 AEG Turbine Factory - and the Fagus factory represents their rebuke of their master’s work and it foreshadows a vision of an architecture for the new century. In spite of the significant progressiveness of the AEG, Behrens could not let go of the vestiges of European classicism, particularly the sense of masonry bearing weight at strong corners (see last image). The Fagus, in contrast, is notable for its vast walls of glass panels held by a very slender load-bearing structure. At the time of its design, Gropius had been collecting photographic images of industrial buildings by Albert Kahn in the USA for publication in the Deutscher Werkbund Annual - and the design of these American factories turned out to be an important source of inspiration for Fagus. As Nikolaus Pevsner wrote in Pioneers of Modern Design (1936): “For the first time a complete facade is conceived in glass. The supporting piers are reduced to narrow mullions of brick. The corners are left without any support, yielding an unprecedented sense of openness and continuity between inside and out. The expression of the flat roof has also changed. Only in the building by Adolf Loos which was done one year before the Fagus Factory [the Steiner House, Vienna], have we seen the same feeling for the pure cube. Another exceedingly important quality of Gropius's building is that, thanks to the large expanses of clear glass, the usual hard separation of exterior and interior is annihilated.” #architecture #architecturalphotography #architecturephotograph #architectures #modernist #modern #modernarchitecture #historyofarchitecture #historyofmodernism #gropius #waltergropius #fagusfactory #unescoworldheritage #unesco #glassarchitecture #curtainwall #bauhaus