La exaltación del lugar

Resumen

Since the end of the First World War, Bruno Taut had been the true leader of the Expressionists based on his activity as a member of Arbeitsrat für Kunst and Gläserne Kette, which left a deep impression in contemporary German architects.
Critics place Taut's conversion to rationalist ideas in the years when he was the municipal architect for Magdeburg. When he analyzes Modern Architecture in Die neue Baukunst in Europa und Amerika in 1929, Taut himself does not make reference to his expressionist experience, contributing to the "historiographic forgetfulness" which until the 80's affected German architecture prior to 1925. Nevertheless, from Magdeburg, Taut's works have been studied abundantly, and presented as a reference for the construction of contemporary homes in any Architecture manual of the past century.
The goal of this article is to analyze the spaces found within the Britz colony, especially those that have recognizable shapes such a rhombus or a horseshoe, interpreted as a translation of the values that the solids that covered the peaks of the Alps, crowned cities, or spread around the surface of the earth as fertile seeds, represented in his expressionist works. For years, the crystalline and glowing solid for Taut signified a possibility of moral regeneration for a society weighed down by war. However, when the country came out of economic crisis and his professional obligations derived towards building homes, he transferred the values that he had previously associated to these buildings towards the configuration of public space. In his Berlin Siedlungen, but especially in Britz, we can identify these interests in characterizing unique spaces, their measurement and structuring, and the prevalence of the organization of the individual and collective worlds above any other considerations. This interpretation can help us understand a less dramatic transition towards the Modern Movement, and explain the survival of ideas that many German architects carried into their Modern experience from their Expressionist years.