Imaginary Practice: Ideology and Form in the Unlived-in House of Peter Behrens on the Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt

Notes

• This text offers a rereading of Tilmann Buddensieg's essay “Das Wohnhaus als Kultbau. Zum Darmstädter Haus von Behrens,” in Peter Behrens und Nürnberg. Geschmackswandel in Deutschland. Historismus. Judgendstil und die Anfänge der Industrierefrom, exhibition catalog (Nuremberg: Deutsches Nationalmuseum, 1980), pp. 37–47.
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• See Jacques Derrida, La vérité en peinture (Paris: Flammarion, 1978), and in particular “Restitutions de la vérité en peinture,” pp. 291–436. English translation from The Truth in Painting, trans. Geoff Bennington and Ian McLeod (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), p. 257.
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• George Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel, “Vorlesungen über die Ästhetik,” vol. 1, in Werke, eds. Eva Moldenhauer and Karl Markus Michel (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1970), p. 82. English translation from Hegel, Aesthetics, trans. T. M. Knox (Oxford: 1975), vol. 1, p. 55.
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• Ibid., p. 52, English translation ibid., p. 31.
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• The romantic idea of a “new unity” was taken over, for example, by Piet Mondrian; a unity that would create the realm of the “spiritual” through “the destruction of all divisions.” This postulate, initially formulated as an aesthetic theory, was also proposed as a demand for the abolishment of the division of labor. This led him to collaborate with the anarchist Arthur Müller-Lehning, for whose journal i 10 he wrote several articles. See Piet Mondrian, “Die neue Gestaltung. Das Generalprinzip gleichgewichtiger Gestaltung,” in Mondrian, Die Neue Gestaltung (Munich, 1925), pp. 5–28 and in particular pp. 7 and 25. See also Yve-Alain Bois, Arthur Lehning en Mondrian. Hun vriendschap en correspondentie (Amsterdam, 1984).
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• See Jürgen Habermas, Theorie des kommunikativen Handels (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1981), and in particular Volume 2, “Entkoppelung von System und Lebenswelt,” pp. 229 ff. [English: The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume 2, Lifeworld and System: A Critique of Functionalist Reason (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1987).]
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• Tilmann Buddensieg, “Das Wohnhaus als Kultbau. Zum Darmstädter Haus von Behrens,” in Peter Behrens und Nürnberg. Geschmackswandel in Deutschland. Historismus, Jugendstil and die Anfänge der Industriereform, exhibition catalog (Nuremberg: Deutsches Nationalmuseum, 1980), pp. 37–47.
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• Peter Behrens, Feste des Lebens und der Kunst. Eine Betrachtung des Theaters als höchsten Kultursymbols: der Künstlerkolonie in Darmstadt gewidmet (Leipzig, 1900); Peter Behrens, “Einleitende Bemerkungen,” in Haus Peter Behrens, exhibition catalog, provisional edition of May 15, 1901 (Darmstadt, 1901), pp. 3–10; Peter Behrens, Ernst Ludwig. Dem Grossherzog von Hessen und bei Rhein, in Ein Dokument deutscher Kunst. Die Ausstellung der Künstlerkolonie in Darmstadt 1901, commemorative publication (Munich, 1901), pp. 5–12; “Die Lebensmesse von Richard Dehmel, als festliches Spiel, dargelegt von Peter Behrens,” Die Rheinlande: Monatschrift für deutsche Kunst, 1, No. 4 (1904), pp. 28–39.
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• Buddensieg, above Note 1, p. 44.
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• Ibid.
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• Hans-Ernst Mittig and Klaus Herding, Kunst und Alltag im NS-System. Albert Speers Berliner Straßenlaternen (Gießen: Anabas, 1975).
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• Tilmann Buddensieg, rewiew of ibid., Kunstchronik, 29, No. 5 (1976), pp. 148–64.
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• Mittig and Herding, above Note 11, p. 48.
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• Klaus Herding and Hans-Ernst Mittig, response to Tilmannn Buddensieg's remarks, p. 6. This text was not accepted for publication by Kunstchronik, but is accessible in the Kunstbibliothek der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, catalog number E 10396 b mtl.
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• Cf. Note 14.
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• Buddensieg, above Note 1, p. 37.
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• Quoted ibid, p. 38, n. 7.
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• Buddensieg, above Note 1, p. 43. [Translator's note: This is a reference to the Artists' Colony established at Darmstadt in 1899 by Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse. Behrens was one of the seven architects and artists invited to live and work there; the other six were Paul Bürck, Rudolf Bosselt, Hans Christiansen, Ludwig Habich, Patriz Huber, and Joseph Maria Olbrich.]
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• “The extent to which Olbrich's Tietz store served as the mandatory example” is shown by Eberhard Grunsky: “Waren- und Kaufhäuser,” in Eduard Trier and Willy Weyres (eds.), Kunst des 19. Jahrhunderts im Rheinland, vol. 2 (Düsseldorf, 1980), pp. 271–86, this citation p. 278.
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• Buddensieg, above Note 1, p. 43.
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• Hegel, above Note 3, p. 137, English translation from Hegel, Aesthetics, trans. T. M. Knox (Oxford, 1975), vol. 1, p. 99.
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• Ibid., p. 52.
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• Behrens, “Einleitende Bemerkungen,” above Note 8, p. 3.
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• Buddensieg, above Note 1, p. 43.
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• Behrens, “Ernst Ludwig,” above Note 8, p. 5.
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• Ibid., pp. 10–11.
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• Ibid., p. 11.
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• Buddensieg, above Note 1, p. 44.
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• Kurt Asche, Peter Behrens und Oldenburg: Dokumente Deutscher Kunst, exhibition catalog (Oldenburg: Kunstverein, 1992), pp. 49–50. Ashe refers to Holger Maraun, Reformen des Kunstgewerbes in Bremen (Stade, 1992).
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• The registration certificates in the Darmstadt City Archive show that Behrens was registered as a resident in the city from January 1, 1899 until he moved to Düsseldorf on March 21, 1903. For access to this source I would like to thank Dr Peter Engels of the Darmstadt City Archive, and also Dr Ulmer of the Darmstadt Museum for the generous provision of text and illustrative material.
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• Alfred Lichtwark, Briefe an die Kommission für die Verwaltung der Kunsthalle, ed. Gustav Pauli, Volume 1 (Hamburg, 1923), pp. 447ff.
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• Gisela Möller, Peter Behrens in Düsseldorf: Die Jahre von 1903 bis 1907 (Weinheim: 1991), chapter entitled “Der Theaterreformer,” pp. 373 ff.
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• Elizabeth Motz, “Pathos und Pose: Zu Peter Behrens' Theater-reform,” in Hans-Georg Pfeifer and others (eds.), Peter Behrens: Wer aber will sagen was Schönheit sei? (Düsseldorf, 1990), pp. 38–51.
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• Behrens, Feste des Lebens und der Kunst, above Note 8, p. 11.
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• Ibid., p. 8.
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• Ibid., p. 9.
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• Ibid., p. 19.
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• Behrens, “Einleitende Bemerkungen,” above Note 8, p. 6.
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• Julius Posener, “Vorlesungen zur Geschichte der Neuen Architektur, III: Das Zeitalter Wilhelms II, in Arch+ (October 1981), pp. 4–75, cited text p. 50.
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• Christian Norbert-Schulz, Casa Behrens—Darmstadt (Rome, 1980), p. 26.
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• Ibid., p. 4.
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• Tilmann Buddensieg in collaboration with Dieter C. Schütz, “Die ästhetische Ausstattung des Lebens,” in Werner Busch (ed.), Funkkolleg Kunst: Eine Geschichte der Kunst im Wandel ihrer Funktionen, vol. 1 (Munich, 1987), pp. 311–35, cited in text p. 319.
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• Norbert-Schulz, above Note 40, p. 26.
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• Behrens, “Feste des Lebens und der Kunst,” above Note 8, p. 13.
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• Ibid., p. 12.
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• Buddensieg, above Note 1, p. 40.
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• Behrens, “Feste des Lebens und der Kunst,” above Note 8, p. 15.
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• See Motz, above Note 33: “The cultural-political context, in which a construction like the Darmstadt Artists' Colony could develop is indicated by the attempt 'to establish modernism once again as a courtly art, … which at the same time aspired to be the utilitarian art for everybody.' “
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• Buddensieg, above Note 1, p. 44.
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• Martin Warnke, Hofkünstler: Zur Vorgeschichte des modernen Künstlers (Cologne, 1985), pp. 9–11.
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• Behrens, “Feste des Lebens und der Kunst,” above Note 8, p. 13.
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• Ernst Nolte, Nietzche und Nietzscheanismus in Deutschland (Berlin and Vienna, 1990).
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• Buddensieg, above Note 1, p. 38 and n.5.
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• Friedrich Nietzsche, Sämtliche Werke. Kritische Studientausgabe, eds. Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari (Munich and Berlin, 1967–77), vol. 12, p. 121. This is a text fragment by Nietzsche from 1885–86, subsequently used in the compilation by Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche entitled Der Wille zur Macht (The Will to Power).
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• Ibid., p. 239.
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• Ibid., p. 238. [Translator's note: Voluntarism in this context refers to the belief that will is the dominant factor in the constitution of the world.]
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• Ibid. p. 280.
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• Idem.
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• Kurt Breysig, “Versuch über Kunst und Leben,” in “Das Haus Peter Behrens,” Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration, 9 (special issue, January 1901–2), pp. 135–150, this citation p. 135.
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• Ibid., pp. 137–38.
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• Ibid., p. 143.
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• On December 22, directly after receiving the special issue [see above Note 59], Behrens wrote to Breysig: “We are delighted by your essay, by the language, and by all the beautiful sentiments in it. It is without doubt the best piece that has ever been written in regard to my art.” Quoted Buddensieg, above Note 1, p. 38.
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• Karl Scheffler, “Wer seinen Wünschen nach reineren Lebensformen …“ in “Das Haus Peter Behrens,” special issue of Die Kunst, vol. 6 (1902), pp. 3–48, cited in text p. 21.
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• Ibid., pp. 40–41.
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• Ibid., pp. 48.
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• Nietzsche, above Note 54, p. 208.
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• Buddensieg, above Note 1, p. 44.
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• Cf. the analysis of Behrens's use of the grid in his post-Darmstadt designs in: Kurt Asche, Peter Behrens und die Oldenburger Ausstellung 1905 (Weinheim, 1992).
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• Mittig and Herding, above Note 11, p. 8.
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