Hilbersheimer, Ludwig Karl

Hilbersheimer, Ludwig Karl (1885–1967). German-born American architect, he taught at the Bauhaus, and was involved with Arbeitsrat für Kunst and other avant-garde groups, including the Expressionist Der Sturm and Der Ring. He joined CIAM and in 1931 was Director of the Deutscher Werkbund, so his International Modernist credentials were impeccable, and indeed he was one of the founders of that style. His project for a ‘skyscraper city’ (1924) evolved from Le Corbusier's ideas, and he built a house for the Weissenhofsiedlung, Stuttgart (1927). He was closely associated with Mies van der Rohe, and joined the latter at the Illinois Institute of Technology (then the Armour Institute) in 1938. He published Grossstadtbauten (Metropolitan Buildings—1925), Grossstadt Architektur (Metropolitan Architecture—1927), Contemporary Architecture: Its Roots and Trends (1964), and many other polemical works intended to further International Modernism. He was responsible for many development plans in the USA from 1938 until his death.

Bibliography

Kalman (1994);
Hays (1992);
Hilbersheimer (1925, 1927, 1927a, 1929, 1944, 1949, 1955, 1956, 1963, 1963a);
Placzek (ed.) (1982);
Pommer (1988);
Spaeth (1981);
Jane Turner (1996)