Behrens, Peter (1868–1940). Hamburg-born artist, who became an architect under the influence of the teachings of William
Morris. A founder-member of the Munich
Sezession in 1893, his early graphic work was heavily influenced by
Art Nouveau. From 1898 he became interested in the problems of designing mass-produced artefacts. In 1899 he was invited to Darmstadt by Ernst Ludwig II, reigning Grand Duke of Hesse (1892–1918), where he designed his own house for the artists' colony of
Mathildenhöhe: incorporating a severe geometry with
Gothic ogee gable and dormer-windows, it was designed as a whole, inside and out, drawing on the ideas of van de
Velde and
Mackintosh. From 1907 his work became more
Neo-Classical: the crematorium at Delstern, near Hagen, in Westphalia (1906–7), is a good example. He became a founder of the
Deutscher Werkbund and was appointed architect to the first electrical company in Berlin, the AEG, for which he designed the turbine-hall (1908–10), factories, offices, shops, workers' housing, and all manner of artefacts until 1914.
His Berlin office gained an international reputation for progressive design, and in
c.1910 Le
Corbusier, W.
Gropius, and
Mies van der Rohe all worked there. There was much that was Neo-Classical in his AEG work, and the influence of
Schinkel was strong in his Haus Schröder, Hagen-Eppenhausen, Westphalia (1908), and Haus Wiegand, Berlin (1911–13). The Imperial German Embassy in St Petersburg (1911–12), a powerful essay in
stripped Classicism, influenced many architects, including the Scandinavian Neo-Classicists of the 1920s and 1930s. In 1920–4 he built the offices of the I. G. Farben (now Höchst) Dyeworks in Frankfurt-am-Main, an
Expressionist essay with touches of proto-
Art Deco.
From 1922 Behrens was Director of the School of Architecture in the Vienna Academy of Arts, a post he held until 1936, when he became Head of the Department of Architecture of the Prussian Academy of Arts, Berlin. He designed one house in England: ‘New Ways’, 508 Wellingborough Road, Northampton (1923–5), for Wenman Joseph Bassett-Lowke (1877–1953), which incorporated an earlier room from 78 Derngate designed by
Mackintosh in 1907. He designed the Werkbund's exhibition-house at the
Weissenhofsiedlung, Stuttgart (1927), the Villa Lewin, Schlachtsee, Berlin (1929–30), an
apartment-house at Westend, Berlin (1930), and the Villa Ganz, Kronberg-in-Taunus (1931–4), all with influences from the
International Modern style, which he also employed in the Austrian State Tobacco Administration block, Linz (1936—with Alexander Popp (1891–1945) ). In 1937–9 he prepared a design for
Speer's north-south axis in Berlin: it was to be for a new AEG administra-tion-building in a
stripped Classical style.
Bibliography
S. Anderson (2000);
Behrens (1901);
Buddensieg & and Rogge (1984);
Weber (1966);
Windsor (1981)
