Adolf Behne

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Adolf Behne (13 July 1885 - 22 August 1948) was a critic, art historian, architectural writer, and artistic activist. He was one of the leaders of the Avant Garde in the Weimar Republic.

Behne was born in Magdeburg. He studied architecture briefly, then the history of art in Berlin. He joined the Deutscher Werkbund and was a guiding light of the Arbeitsrat für Kunst in 1918. In a 1913 critique of Bruno Taut, Behne helped coin the term "Expressionist Architecture", and soon became one of the leading promoters of expressionism.¹ He was close to the members of the Magdeburg artist collective 'The ball' and demanded the creation of a new closeness between art and architecture.

He taught at the University of Berlin until 1933. Between 1945 and 1948 he was a professor at the National University for Fine Arts, (Staatlichen Hochschule für Bildende Kunst Berlin) and belonged to the architect group Der Ring.

As an architect he rarely had his projects executed. However between 1932 and 1936 he built the reception building of the main station in Duesseldorf. [sic]

He died in Berlin. His hometown of Magdeburg named a street after him (Behneweg).

[1] Behne, Adolf. "Bruno Taut," Pan 3, no. 23 (Mar. 7, 1913): 538-540.

[edit] Selected Literature

Adolf Behne. Die Wiederkehr der Kunst. Kurt Wolff, Leipzig, 1919. Reprint : Kraus, Nendeln/Liechtenstein, 1973; Gebr. Mann, Berlin, 1998.
Adolf Behne. Der moderne Zweckbau. Drei Masken Verlag, Vienna/Berlin, 1926. Reprint: Der moderne Zweckbau. Ullstein Bauwelt Fundamente, Frankfurt am Main / Berlin, 1964; and Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin 1998. Translated as Modern Functional Building, ed. & intro. Rosemarie H. Bletter. Getty, Oxford UP, Santa Monica, 1996.
Adolf Behne: Neues Wohnen - Neues Bauen. Hesse & Becker, Leipzig 1927
Adolf Behne: Eine Stunde Architektur. Stuttgart 1928; Neuausgabe Berlin 1984
Adolf Behne: Architekturkritik in der Zeit und über die Zeit hinaus: Texte 1913 - 1946. Herausgegeben von Haila Ochs. Basel, Boston, Berlin: Birkhäuser-Architektur-Bibliothek, 1994
Adolf Behne. Schriften zur Kunst, ed. & postscript Cornelia Briel. Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 1998.
Gutschow, Kai Konstanty. "The culture of criticism : Adolf Behne and the development of modern architecture in Germany, 1910-1914 /." Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 2005.
Bushart, Magdalena, ed. 'Adolf Behne. Essays zu seiner Kunst- und Architektur-Kritik'. Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 2000.
Schwartz, Frederic J. "Form Follows Fetish: Adolf Behne and the Problem of Sachlichkeit," Oxford Art Journal 21, no. 2 (1998): 45-77.
Mertins, Detlef. "Transparencies Yet to Come: Sigfried Giedion and Adolf Behne," A + U 97:10, no. 325 (Oct. 1997): 3-17.
Bohm, Arnd. "Artful Reproduction: Benjamin's Appropriation of Adolf Behne's `Das reproduktive Zeitalter' in the Kunstwerk Essay," The Germanic Review 68, no. 4 (1993): 146-155.
Lindner, Bernd. "`Auf diesen Berg...' Adolf Behne - Vermitter der Moderne," in Avantgarde und Publikum. Zur Rezeption avantgardistischer Kunst in Deutschland 1905-1933, ed. Henrike Junge. Cologne, Weimar, Vienna: Böhlau, 1992, pp. 7-15.