Artigo Revisado por pares

In praise of poverty: the middle-class dwelling and asceticism in early twentieth-century Germany

2013; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 18; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13602365.2013.798831

ISSN

1466-4410

Autores

Didem Ekici,

Tópico(s)

Walter Benjamin Studies Compilation

Resumo

Abstract This article examines the evolution of architectural asceticism in the capitalist economy by focusing on the middle-class dwelling in early twentieth-century Germany. It starts with an analysis of the concept of poverty in bourgeois imagination and how this concept played out in the Wilhelmine middle-class dwelling. Then the Wilhelmine design reform and the debate around the architect Heinrich Tessenow's austere architecture in the years leading up to the First World War are analysed to indicate how middle-class attitudes to poverty were changing. The final part focuses on the transformation of the ascetic discourse in architecture in the years of austerity during the war and its aftermath. Notes In his 1998 book The Saints of Modern Art, Charles Riley analyses the ascetic ideal in modern arts, architecture, music, literature and philosophy. He argues that Modernism has always depended on asceticism as a foundation for its various types of formalism and Classicism. In his 2008 book Untimely Beggar: Poverty and Power from Baudelaire to Benjamin, Patrick Graeney focuses solely on French and German philosophical and literary texts on poverty to examine the concurrence of misery and promise of a post-humanist future. These include writings by Friedrich Nietzsche, Walter Benjamin, Stephane Mallarmé and Rainer Maria Rilke. In both studies, asceticism occupies a central position in the development of key concepts of modernity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Patrick Greaney, Untimely Beggar: Poverty and Power from Baudelaire to Benjamin (Minneapolis, London, University of Minnesota Press, 2008), p. 145. Ibid., pp. 143–152, on Benjamin's notion of poverty: it is a prominent theme of his texts in the 1920s and 1930s. Walter Benjamin, ‘Experience and Poverty’, in Selected Writings (Cambridge, Belknap, 1999), p. 732. Bernd Widdig, Culture and Inflation in Weimar Germany (Ewing, NJ, University of California Press, 2001), p. 57. Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization (London, Routledge, 1988), p. 219. The nineteenth-century historian Louis Chevalier, cited in P. Greaney, Untimely Beggar, op. cit., p. xii. Marie Diers, ‘Armut und Reichtum’, in Moderne Kultur: Ein Handbuch der Lebensbildung und des guten Geschmacks, E. Heyck, ed. (Stuttgart, Leipzig, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1909), p. 68. On the cultural significance of German domestic products and the German home see John V. Maciuika, ‘The Production and Display of Domestic Interiors in Wilhelmine Germany, 1900-1914’, German History, 25, no. 4 (2007). B. van Munden, Heinrich Frauberger, ‘Die Erfindungen der neuesten Zeit. Zwanzig Jahre industrieller Fortschritte im Zeitalter der Weltausstellungen’ (Leipzig, Berlin, Otto Spamer, 1883), p. 12. Stefan Muthesius, ‘The ‘altdeutsche’ Zimmer, or Cosiness in Plain Pine: An 1870s Munich Contribution to the Definition of Interior Design', Journal of Design History, 16, no. 4 (2003), p. 270. Roger-Henri Guerrand, ‘Private Spaces’, in A History of Private Life, Michelle Perrot, ed. (London, Cambridge, Mass., The Belknap Press, 1987), p. 369. Ibid. Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project (Cambridge, Mass., Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999), p. 216. Christoph Asendorf, Batteries of Life : on the History of Things and their Perception in Modernity (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1993), p. 129. Erik Martin Ghenoiu, ‘“Tradition” as Modernism in German Architecture and Urban Design, 1888–1918’ (PhD diss., Harvard University, 2008), p. 138. Warren G. Breckman, ‘Disciplining Consumption: The Debate about Luxury in Wilhelmine Germany, 1890–1914’, Journal of Social History, 24, no. 3 (1991), p. 487. The nineteenth-century historian Louis Chevalier, cited in P. Greaney, Untimely Beggar, op. cit., p. xii. Georg Simmel, The Philosophy of Money, Tom Bottomore, David Frisby, trs (London, Boston, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1990), p. 252. See Chapter 5: ‘Asceticism and The Spirit of Capitalism’, in Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Mineola, New York, Dover Publications, 2003). Evert Peeters, Leen Van Molle, Kaat Wils, ‘Modern Asceticism: A Historical Exploration’, in Beyond Pleasure: Cultures of Modern Asceticism, Evert Peeters, Leen Van Molle, Kaat Wils, eds (Oxford, Berghahn Books, 2011), p. 7. On architectural realism in Germany, see Harry Francis Mallgrave, Modern Architectural Theory: A Historical Survey, 1673–1968 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 207–11. On Sachlichkeit, see also H. F. Mallgrave, Modern Architectural Theory, op. cit., p. 209. On the Kunstgewerbe Reform, see Stefan Muthesius, Das englische Vorbild (London, Prestel, 1974); Mark Jarzombek, ‘The Kunstgewerbe, The Werkbund, and the Aesthetics of Culture in the Wilhelmine Period’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 53 (1994); J. V. Maciuika, ‘The Production and Display of Domestic Interiors’, op. cit.; E. M. Ghenoiu, ‘“Tradition” as Modernism’, op. cit. W. G. Breckman, ‘Disciplining Consumption’, op. cit., p. 489. W. G. Breckman, ‘Disciplining Consumption’, op. cit., p. 488. On Paul Schultze-Naumburg see Norbert Borrmann, Paul Schultze-Naumburg, 1869–1949 : Maler, Publizist, Architekt: vom Kulturreformer der Jahrhundertwende zum Kulturpolitiker im Dritten Reich : ein Lebens- und Zeitdokument (Essen, R. Bacht, 1989). Paul Schultze-Naumburg, Häusliche Kunstpflege (Leipzig, Eugen Diederichs, 1903), p. 15. Werner Sombart cited in W. G. Breckman, ‘Disciplining Consumption’, op. cit., p. 488. P. Schultze-Naumburg, Häusliche Kunstpflege, op. cit., p. 3. Ibid., 46: Schultze-Naumburg also pointed to a gradual change in attitudes towards heirlooms; old furniture which once seemed boring and impoverished to the uneducated eye, was again in fashion for its plain simplicity. The most comprehensive study of Tessenow is by Marco De Michelis, Heinrich Tessenow 1876–1950: Das architektonische Gesamtwerk (Stuttgart, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1991). See also Martin Ebert, Heinrich Tessenow: Architekt zwischen Tradition und Moderne (Weimar, Weimar & Rostock, 1999), these articles by Marco De Michelis, ‘In the First German Garden City: Tessenow in Hellerau’, Lotus International, 69 (1991) and ‘Modernity and Reform: Heinrich Tessenow and the Institut Dalcroze at Hellerau’, Perspecta, 26 (1990), as well as this article by Michael Hays, ‘Tessenow's Architecture as National Allegory: Critique of Capitalism or Protofascism?’, Assemblage, 8 (1989), pp. 104–23. Heinrich Tessenow, ‘Housebuilding and such Things’, in 9H (1989), p. 24. Erich Haenel, ‘Die Gartenstadt Hellerau’, Dekorative Kunst, 14, no. 7 (1911), p. 327. Karl Scheffler, Die Architektur der Grossstadt (Berlin, Gebr. Mann Verlag, 1998), p. 172 H. Tessenow, ‘Housebuilding and such Things’, op. cit., p. 11. Ibid. Heinrich Tessenow, Der Wohnhausbau (Munich, Georg D. W. Callwen, 1908), p. 3. Although Friedrich Ostendorf was an unorthodox and influential critic at the time, his name is hardly mentioned in architectural histories: see Werner Oechslin, ‘“Entwerfen heisst die einfachste Erschenungsform zu finden.” Missverstaendnisse zum Zeitlosen, Historischen, Modernen und Klassischen bei Friedrich Ostendorf’, in Moderne Architektur in Deutschland, 1900 bis 1930. Reform und Tradition, V. Magnago Lampugnani, R. Schneider, eds (Stuttgart, Gerd Hatje, 1992). Friedrich Ostendorf, Sechs Bücher vom Bauen (Berlin, Verlag von Wilhelm Ernst, 1922), p. 5. Ibid., p. 52. H. Tessenow, ‘Housebuilding and such Things’, op. cit., p. 13. Jeannette Marie Redensek, ‘Manufacturing Gemeinschaft: Architecture, Tradition, and the Sociology of Community in Germany, 1890–1920’ (Dissertation, The City University of New York, 2007), p. 180. Otto Bartning, ‘Heinrich Tessenow: Hausbau und dergleichen’, Kunst und Künstler, XV, no. 1 (1917), pp. 42–43. K. Scheffler, Die Architektur der Grossstadt, op. cit., p. 141. This is mentioned by Wenzel Holek, a craftsman working at the German Workshops, in his autobiography of 1921: Wenzel Holek, Vom Handarbeiter zum Jugenderzieher, “Lebensgang eines deutsch-tschechischen Handarbeiters.” (Jena, E. Diederichs, 1921), pp. 124–25. Paul F. Schmidt, ‘Blütezeit der Dresdner “Brücke.” Erinnerungen’, Aussaat, 2 (1947), p. 51. G. Ferchland, ‘Heinrich Tessenow’, Mitteilungen für die Gemeinde Rähnitz-Hellerau, no. 37 (1913); Martin Wagner, ‘Gartenstadthäuser’, Neudeutsche Bauzeitung, 6, no. 7 (1910). Books on the theme of Kleinhaus included Fritz Schumacher, Die Kleinwohnung: Studien zur Wohnungsfrage (Leipzig, Quelle & Meyer, 1917); Hermann Muthesius, Kleinhaus und Kleinsiedlung (Munich, F. Bruckmann A. G., 1918); Carl Johannes Fuchs, ed., Die Wohnungs- und Siedlungsfrage nach dem Kriege. Ein Programm des Kleinwohnungs und Siedlungswesens (Stuttgart, Wilhelm Meyer-Ilschen, 1918). Percival Booth, Eine einfache Wohnung für die Zeit nach dem Kriege nach einem Entwurf von Professor Heinrich Tessenow (Leipzig, B. H. Teubner, 1917). B. Widdig, Culture and Inflation in Weimar Germany, op. cit., p. 51. On the Heimatshutz movement see William H. Rollins, A Greener Vision of Home : Cultural Politics and Environmental Reform in the German Heimatschutz Movement, 1904–1918 (Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 1997). Will Vesper, Paul Fechter, Lob der Armut, ed. Heimatschutz Werk und Feier (Berlin, Furche-Verlag, 1921), p. 14. Emile Durkheim, Suicide: A Study in Sociology (New York, The Free Press, 1997), p. 254. Ibid. W. Vesper, P. Fechter, Lob der Armut, op. cit., p. 53. Ibid., p. 56. Ibid. Ibid., p. 99. Ibid. Charles A. Riley, The Saints of Modern Art: the Ascetic Ideal in Contemporary Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Music, Dance, Literature, and Philosophy (Hanover, University Press of New England, 1998), p. 172. David Gartman, From Autos to Architecture: Fordism and Architectural Aesthetics in the twentieth century (New York:,Princeton Architectural Press, 2009), p. 107. John Robert Mullin, ‘City Planning in Frankfurt, Germany, 1925–1932. A Study in Practical Utopianism’, Journal of Urban History, 4, no.1 (1977). On the history of the ‘crisis of modern architecture’, see Manfredo Tafuri, Architecture and Utopia : Design and Capitalist Development, Barbara Luigia La Penta, trsl. (Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 1976). W. Benjamin, ‘Experience and Poverty’, op. cit., p. 731.

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