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n 1899 peter behrens joined the darmstadt artists’ colony on the Mathildenhohe. The colony was the creation of grand duke ernst-

ludwig hesse, whose family still retained some claim to sovereignty in Hesse, of which Darmstadt was the capital.

ernst-ludwig’s plan was to create a village

exclusively of artists, whose every house, and everything in them, would be beautiful. The artists, including behrens, were chosen and invited by ernst-ludwig. The colony formally opened in 1901 with an exhibition called a document of german art. The subject of the exhibition was the village itself and the eight houses furnished by the resident artists. The houses were open to the public. All the houses but one 

were the work of joseph maria olbrich, the Viennese architect. The eighth was designed by peter behrens. It was his first building.

The interior of the behrens’ house was lavish,
with everything in it—furniture, rugs, dishes,
silverware, candelabra, carved doors, ceiling

reliefs, mosaic floors and textiles—executed to the artist’s drawings. The total cost came to about 200,000 marks. It was the most expensive of the eight house-projects in the colony.

Behrens House in Darmstadt, Germany, designed by peter

behrens, 1901. Photo courtesy of Bildarchiv Foto Marburg

 

Behrens House, designed by

peter behrens, 1901. © Getty Images

The floor and staircase of Behrens House,

designed by peter behrens, 1901. © Getty Images

 

The house has not been preserved, but we know

what it was like from the January 1902 edition (No. 11) of a Darmstadt periodical, deutsche kunst und dekoration. The entire number was devoted to the artists’ colony on Mathildenhohe and featured a 63-page, specially titled section on the behrens’ house that was set in a special typeface. It is likely that behrens set the pages himself. In any case, he designed the typeface and ornaments. Some objects from the home are in museums, and some still turn up at auctions. Some furnishings and details may have

been reproduced later (for other exhibitions, for example), but no later reproductions for sale are known to me.

The plan of Behrens House

designed by peter behrens, 1901

The pages from the magazine deutsche kunst und dekoration, January 1902 issue,

with the publication “Peter Behrens House. The Essay On Art And Life" by kurt breysig

 

In Darmstadt, under the imprint of the artists’

colony, behrens wrote, set and published a manifesto of contemporary theater, feste der lebens und der kunst (1900). The book holds special significance for the history of graphic design. The title-page spread is a rare example for its time of the use of a sans-serif face.

The cover and the title page of feste der lebens

und der kunst designed by peter behrens in 1900

behrens worked on the German pavilion for the

world exposition at Turin in 1902, designing the vestibule and furniture. The vestibule interior is the best example of behrens’ very recognizable early style, a personal version of art nouveau. Also shown at the Turin exposition was behrens’ design of a library for alexander koch, the publisher of deutsche kunst und dekoration.

Hall in the German section at the international

exhibition of modern decorative art in Turin, 1902

Hall in the German section at the international exhibition

of modern decorative art in Turin, 1902. © Getty Images

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mmediately after the 1901 exhibition, behrens sold his magnificent home on the Mathildehohe and began teaching at the dusseldorf school 

of applied arts (kunstgewerbeschule). He was its director in 1903–1907 and significantly changed the method of instruction, devoting more time to studio work and to the study of materials and technologies.

 

 

Crematorium in Hagen-Delstern, Germany,

designed by peter behrens, built in 1908

 

The reforms that he brought to the school in

Dusseldorf reflected the evolution of his own views of applied art. Before Dusseldorf, his esthetics looked to the creation of purely beautiful living spaces without regard to costs. His Darmstadt house had been a priceless toy,

a completely handmade, three-story jewel box. In Dusseldorf he turned his attention to the production aspects of applied art.

 

 

In 1904 behrens invited johannes ludovicus mathieu lauweriks, a Dutch architect with his own theory of ornamentation, to join the Dusseldorf

faculty. lauweriks was fascinated by abstract geometric constructions, which he believed to have mystical significance. lauweriks was a powerful influence on behrens’ architecture (the influence is especially notable in the interior of the crematorium at Hagen, which behrens built in 1905–1908) and his graphic design, in which geometrical figures, imposed one on another, take the place of behrens’ earlier art nouveau ornaments.

While working at the school in Dusseldorf,

behrens continued active as an architect. In addition to the Hagen crematorium, he built the splendid Villa Obenauer in Saarbruken (1905–1907), among other projects.

Interior of Crematorium in Hagen-Delstern

 

Obenauer House, architect:

peter behrens, 1905–1907

the deutscher werkbund (german association 

of craftsmen) was founded in 1907. Its aim was to raise the artistic level of German consumer-product

manufacturing and bring it dominance in the world market against the rival British. One of the werkbund founders was peter behrens. 

 

At this time, Britain’s artists and craftsmen were hostile to machine production. The ideal of the British movement was an artist- and craftsman-

based socialist utopia, a small, closed world in which everything built would be different from what was used outside it. This approach was hardly possible in Germany, where the werkbund included not only artists and craftsmen but manufacturers serving the mass market. In their cooperation with the factories, Germany’s artist-craftsmen became industrial designers.

 

The poster for Deutsche Werkbund-Ausstellung: Kunst

in Handwerk, Industrie und Handel; Architektur, Cöln, Mai– Oct. 1914. © Library Of Congress

 

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ehrens started work with Berlin-based aeg (Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft) in 1906. By the next year he was the factory’s artistic 

consultant. behrens designed all of aeg’s graphic materials (advertisements, exhibit brochures, catalogs, the covers of the firm’s magazine), devised the firm’s new logo, designed factory buildings for it in various cities (the turbine factory in Berlin, 1908–1910, is the

best known) and exposition pavilions. In short, he was the first person in history to create a thoroughgoing corporate graphic style.

 

 

In addition, he worked on aeg’s products: lamps, clocks, fans, electric kettles. And behrens did more than sketch their outlines.

He took a hand in the engineering itself, standardizing subassemblies to make them interchangeable. This was true industrial design.

Heater, designed by behrens for aeg, 1920.

Photo courtesy of Quittenbaum

 

“Industrial design” as a term, of course, did not

yet exist. It first came into regular use, in the United States, toward the end of the decade of 1910–1920 and, as the name of a profession, only in the early 1930s. By the late 1930s, the use of the term had spread to Britain, but it was not until the middle of the century that it reached beyond the English-speaking world. 

Ventilator, aeg, designed by peter 

behrens, 1908. Photo courtesy of aeg

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Ventilator, aeg, designed by peter 

behrens, 1908. Photo courtesy of aeg