Verzweigte Moderne

Only with an awareness of its diversity can one speak of modernity in architecture. It was already a global phenomenon with numerous regional expressions in the first third of the 20th century, which was further developed and differentiated in the following years. The migration of architects played a significant role in this. At the same time, the dissemination of expertise and programmatic positions through magazines, books, exhibitions, and travel increased significantly. The contributions in this volume address such processes of transfer using the example of architects who left Germany in the 1930s. These include protagonists of modernism such as Walter Gropius, Erich Mendelsohn, and Marcel Breuer, who initially worked in Great Britain and later in the USA, as well as Wolfgang Frankl in Italy, Max Cetto in Mexico, and Leopold Rother in Colombia. A second focus of the book is on the renewed and tension-filled engagement with modernity in post-war Germany. The role of the emigrants, of whom only a few returned, the handling of concepts from the former avant-garde, the orientation towards foreign influences, and not least the criticism of the claims to hegemony and unfulfilled promises of progress of modernity are illuminated through selected debates and exemplary buildings.