Behrens, Peter

Behrens, Peter (pā`tər bā`rəns), 1868–1940, German architect, influential in Europe in the evolution of the modern architectural style. He established before World War I a predominantly utilitarian type of architecture that at the same time achieved qualities of clarity and impressiveness. His factory buildings were among the earliest European works to base a simple and effective style upon the frank terms of modern construction. Behrens is known also for residences, for workers' apartment houses in Vienna, and for his pioneering work in industrial design. Among his pupils were Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, and Ludwig Miës van der Rohe.

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Behrens, Peter

Behrens, painting by Max Liebermann

(credit: Archiv fur Kunst und Geschichte, Berlin)

(born April 14, 1868, Hamburg—died Feb. 27, 1940, Berlin, Ger.) German architect and designer. He became director of Düsseldorf's arts and crafts school in 1903. The large electrical company AEG hired him in 1907 as its artistic adviser, a comprehensive job that led him to design the hexagonal trademark of the AEG, its catalogs, its office stationery, products such as electric fans and street lamps, and retail shops and factories. His AEG Works turbine factory in Berlin (1909–12), with its sweeping glass curtain wall, became the most significant building in Germany at that time. He was an influential pioneer of Modernism; Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe all worked in his office.

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Behrens, Peter 

Born Apr. 14, 1868, in Hamburg; died Feb. 27, 1940, in Berlin. German architect and artist-designer.

Behrens studied in Karlsruhe and Düsseldorf from 1886 to 1889 and worked as an artist, graphic artist, and master of decorative arts in Munich (1891–99) and Darmstadt (1900–03). He presided over the Commercial Art School in Düsseldorf from 1903 to 1907. In 1900, Behrens began to work as an architect in the spirit of the Jugendstil, striving for geometrical clarity in composition and decor (the crematorium near Hagen, 1907). He was an active participant in the Munich Secession, the Darmstadt artists’ colony, and the German Werkbund. In 1909 he began to construct a series of industrial buildings, which combine innovative construction (reinforced-concrete and metal frame, wide-span glass enclosures), functional design, and simplicity of spatial solution along with the traditional features of German architecture, including a heavy, impressive appearance and severe, massive power (factories built in Berlin between 1909 and 1912, in Oberhausen between 1921 and 1925, and Höchst in 1925–26). Behrens’ last works were executed in the spirit of functionalism (tobacco factory built in Linz between 1932 and 1936). Behrens is one of the founders of modern European architecture. Le Corbusier, Gropius, and Mies van der Rohe all worked in his studio.

REFERENCE

Cremers, P. J. Peter Behrens, sein Werk von 1900 bis zur Gegenwart. Essen, [1928].