Bruno Paul - Edition Axel Menges

Bavarian Alps and a dining room for the Vereinigte Werkstätten, displayed the same self-confidence
and maturity as the reworked office.
The Dresden exhibition was a significant event in the history of modern design in Germany,
as a consequence of policies adopted by the organizing committee led by the architect Fritz
Schumacher. Schumacher developed a selection process that favored the designs of independent
artists rather that the potentially artistically indifferent products of established manufacturers.
Paul’s work was prominently displayed in Dresden, evidence of his fundamental agreement with
the Kunstgewerbebewegung promoted by Schumacher and his circle, which included Muthesius,
Peter Bruckmann, Wolf Dohrn and J. A. Lux. These men would withdraw from the Fachverband
für das Deutsche Kunstgewerbe (alliance for the German applied arts) over their support of Schumacher
and his ideals, prompting the establishment of the German Werkbund.
The artist as architect
Bruno Paul’s introduction to the practice of architecture occurred through the Vereinigte Werkstätten,
as a logical extension of his projects for furniture and interiors. Soon after it was founded,
the firm offered the planning, construction, and furnishing of entire houses. The company archives
contain photographs of architectural models of three small houses that Paul conceived in 1905,
his earliest known designs for entire buildings. They are identified as an »Angebautes Wohnhaus
mit Atelier« (enlarged house with studio) and a »Landhaus mit Atelier« (country house with studio)
by Bruno Paul, and a »Landhaus« by Bruno Paul and F. A. O. Krüger. 132 These were apparently
speculative projects; although a similar design was built in Bonn as Haus Prym.
Paul’s designs for small artists’ houses with attached studios immediately suggest the most
famous examples of the type built in Germany during the first years of the twentieth century: the
residences designed for the Darmstadt Künstlerkolonie (artist’s colony) by Behrens and Joseph
Maria Olbrich. Paul’s houses were superficially similar to those built in Darmstadt, with roughcast
walls and asymmetrical massing derived from the projects of the architect-members of the
English Arts and Crafts movement. The influence of English design on progressive German housing
was particularly pronounced following the publication of Muthesius’ Das englische Haus in
1904. 133 The suggestion of Fachwerk, the German equivalent of English half-timber construction,
on both of Paul’s models certainly suggested the influence of Das englische Haus, while the horizontal
bands of windows, low eaves, and chimney pots of the small country house recalled the
contemporary work of Voysey and his followers. Details of Paul’s models also echoed the characteristic
rural houses of the Oberlausitz, the »Umgebindehäuser« that he had known as a child. Yet
despite such concurrences, Paul’s designs were uniquely his own.
Paul’s model for a house with studio offers a significant insight into his development as an architect.
The house was to be ornamented with a series of panels containing elongated lozenges
defined by inward-curving arc segments. Paul employed this same motif in his designs for the
»3. Deutsche Kunstgewerbe-Ausstellung« (third German applied arts exhibition) where it occurred,
in various forms, in art glass panels, lighting fixtures, mirror frames, a decorative frieze,
and various pieces of furniture. 134 Considering the time required for the Vereinigte Werkstätten to
39. »3. Deutsche Kunstgewerbe-Ausstellung Dresden«,
1906.
40. »Arbeitszimmer« displayed at the »3. Deutsche
Kunstgewerbe-Ausstellung Dresden«, 1906.
41. Dining room displayed at the »3. Deutsche Kunstgewerbe-Ausstellung
Dresden«, 1906.
42. Festival decoration of the Schwere-Reiter-Kaserne,
Munich, 1906.
execute Paul’s contributions to the Dresden exhibition, it is likely that he was designing them in
parallel with the preparation of his model houses. At the time he was clearly interested in a formal
vocabulary that he employed, with equal facility, in a variety of artistic media. This practice again
recalls the ideal of the Gesamtkunstwerk, the artistic synthesis characteristic of the Jugendstil
that was a central theme in Paul’s early work as an applied artist.
Paul’s first published architectural project was even more closely related to his interior designs
than his apparently unexecuted series of artist’s houses. In 1906, he received a commission to
decorate the stark façades of the Munich barracks of the heavy cavalry regiment »Prinz Karl von
Bayern«, the Schwere-Reiter-Kaserne, for a visit by Kaiser Wilhelm II. Paul adapted another of the
motifs he had employed in Dresden, that of an orthogonal grid interrupted by a single lozenge as
a focal element, in the wooden architectural ornaments that he conceived for the barracks. The
effect of his ornaments, installed like pilasters against the smooth façade of the existing building
and adorned with ribbons and garlands, was soberly festive, monumental, and classical. 135
When Wilhelm II arrived in Munich on 12 November, he found Paul’s decorations very much to
his liking. According to Paul’s recollection, the Kaiser halted his motorcade as it passed the barracks
and personally commended the designer. 136 Despite the satires on the official taste of the
Hohenzollern monarchy that regularly appeared in the pages of Simplicissimus, the Kaiser himself
maintained an educated interest in architecture. 137 His admiration for Paul’s work illustrates the
extent to which the artist had engaged the aesthetic sensibilities of mainstream culture. Notwithstanding
the inherent irony of the meeting between the autocratic sovereign and the Simplicissimus
illustrator, Paul’s brief reception by Wilhelm II in 1906 facilitated his appointment to a professorship
in Berlin the following year.
A new direction
By 1906, Bruno Paul had emerged as one of the most prominent modern artists in Central Europe.
His fame had been established through his illustrations for Simplicissimus, published over
the span of a decade. The vibrant cultural milieu of turn-of-the-century Munich that had provided
Simplicissimus with its creative vitality inspired Paul to explore the limits of his own artistic abilities.
He continued to draw and paint, but also designed metalwork, furniture, textiles, and entire interiors
for the Vereinigte Werkstätten für Kunst im Handwerk for which he received international acclaim.
As an applied artist, Paul contributed to the definitive character of the Jugendstil, and then
to its transcendence. In 1906 his work was increasingly cited as a harbinger of a new direction in
German design. Paul’s designs for furniture and interiors ultimately led him to architecture, a discipline
in which all of his interests could be conjoined. His first executed commissions demonstrated
his natural talent for design on an architectural scale.
Despite his splendid accomplishments, Paul had never realized the objective that had brought
him to Munich as a student. He had not become one of the »Malerfürsten« of the city, and it was
obvious that he never would. Characteristically, he confronted this realization by seeking a new
challenge towards which to apply his restless intellect. Paul was ready to leave Munich when an
opportunity arose in 1906.
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