Scheerbart, Paul

views updated

Scheerbart, Paul (1863–1915). German writer and fantasist, the high-priest of Expressionism. He was the mentor of Bruno Taut and Tatlin. In his writings he frequently alluded to an imaginative architecture of glass as an instrument of social change, and indeed his most celebrated work was Glass Architecture (1914 and 1972), dedicated to Taut, whose famous Glass Pavilion at the Werkbund Exhibition, Cologne (1914), was dedicated to Scheerbart. His work was an important influence on Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, and the evolution of International Modernism.

Bibliography

Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, xxxiv/2 (May 1975), 83–97;
Kunstblatt, iii/9 (1920), 271–4;
Sharp (1967);
Sharp (ed.) (1972)