Modern Architecture and Design in Germany

• Credit value: 15 credits at Level 6
• Convenor and tutor: Dr Tom Wilkinson
• Assessment: a 3000-word essay (100%)

In this module we explore architectural culture in Germany between 1900 and 1989.

We will learn about the experience of modernity peculiar to Germany, moving between empire, war, republic, dictatorshi war and Cold War and think about how architects and designers responded to these conflicted conditions, as well as to the development of new technologies and media. We will look at buildings, drawings, photographs, films and paintings, and read contemporaneous texts by architects, critics, philosophers, sociologists and novelists, using different methodological approaches to analyse these.

We will set Germany in a wider context by thinking about international exchange with America and the Soviet Union, as well as its pre-war empire, and ask what the legacy of Germany’s modern architecture means for us today.

Indicative syllabus

• Introduction
• Jugendstil
• The metropolis as experience and design problem
• The dwelling in modernity from villa to housing estate
• Architecture of spectacle from cinema to department store
• Expressionism
• The Bauhaus
• New objectivity
• Architecture in the Nazi period
• Architecture in a divided Germany

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

• demonstrate knowledge of architecture and design produced in Germany 1900-1989
• visually analyse architecture and other visual forms produced in Germany 1900-1989
• demonstrate understanding of current methodological and theoretical approaches to modern architecture
• apply your knowledge of the history of modern Germany as context for analysing architecture or other visual forms produced in Germany 1900-1989.