Bruno Paul - Edition Axel Menges

At the dawn of the 20th century, Bruno Paul (1874–1968) stood like a colossus astride
the landscape of an emerging Modernism. As an illustrator, architect and educator his
influence was unequalled. Arguably the most important German designer of his generation,
his work was ubiquitous in the technical and professional publications of his
day. For five decades, Paul’s reputation was unparalleled among progressive German
artists. As a young man he was a member of the Munich avant-garde responsible for
the creation of the Jugendstil. As a designer of furniture and interiors, he achieved a
commercial success unmatched by his illustrious contemporaries. In the light of his
professional accomplishments, he was the most influential German architect of his
generation, a figure of international significance. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Adolf
Meyer and Kem Weber were among his students, and their work developed from the
practices of his atelier. Indeed, as director of the Vereinigte Staatsschulen für freie
und angewandte Kunst in Berlin he presided over an institution that rivaled the Bauhaus
as a center of progressive instruction in the arts.
069.00 Euro
108.00 sfr
048.00 £
079.00 US $
128.00 $A
ISBN 3-932565-47-9
9 783932 565472
57900
William Owen Harrod Bruno Paul Menges
William Owen Harrod
Bruno Paul
The Life and Work
of a Pragmatic Modernist
At the dawn of the 20th century, Bruno Paul
(1874–1968) stood like a colossus astride the landscape
of an emerging Modernism. As an illustrator,
architect and educator his influence was unequalled.
Arguably the most important German
designer of his generation, his work was ubiquitous
in the technical and professional publications
of his day. For five decades, Paul’s reputation was
unparalleled among progressive German artists.
As a young man he was a member of the Munich
avant-garde responsible for the creation of the
Jugendstil. As a designer of furniture and interiors,
he achieved a commercial success unmatched
by his illustrious contemporaries. In the
light of his professional accomplishments, he was
the most influential German architect of his generation,
a figure of international significance. Ludwig
Mies van der Rohe, Adolf Meyer and Kem Weber
were among his students, and their work developed
from the practices of his atelier. Indeed, as
director of the Vereinigte Staatsschulen für freie
und angewandte Kunst in Berlin he presided over
an institution that rivaled the Bauhaus as a center
of progressive instruction in the arts.
Despite the renown he enjoyed at the height
of his career, Paul’s name has been largely absent
from the standard histories of the modern movement.
Indeed, this book is the first comprehensive
study of his life and work. Nevertheless, Paul’s
story embodies a significant facet of the history
of 20th-century design: the development of Modernism
in Central Europe and its coalescence from
the influences of Jugendstil, Elementarism, Classicism,
Expressionism and Functionalism. Paul
played a prominent role in this coalescence, and
he deserves a place of honor in the history of the
modern movement. Yet his biography also encompasses
a less familiar, but no less significant, aspect
of the history of modern design. It cupied a
middle ground between avant-garde experimentation
and conservative professional practice, a
Modernism that was timeless, practical and principled.
It was this pragmatic Modernism that won
the patronage of the middle classes and established
progressive design as an accepted alternative,
and eventually as the preferred alternative to
the period styles. Moreover Paul’s pragmatic Modernism,
and its underlying principles, remain as
relevant today as when they were first conceived.
William Owen Harrod is a graduate of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology and the University
of Texas at Austin, where he received his doctorate
in architectural history. He is a practicing architect,
theoretician and historian, based in Austin,
Texas.