Colorful brick expressionism in a Frankfurt factory

Hoechst AG Technical Administration Building in Frankfurt is an excellent example of the unique German style of the 1920s. The architect Peter Behrens designed the office building after the new brick expressionism at the time, which used bricks to create dynamic and decorated forms. From the outside, the Behrens-Bau office building offers a steamed but different facade with a large clock. The inside of the building, on the other hand, looks like a colorful canyon made of bricks. Remarkably, the fabulous office building survived the war and is still used as headquarters today.

Expression of brick

The beginnings of the modernist movement in Europe can already be seen before the First World War, but it was the 1920s that enabled the new architecture to demonstrate their full potential. In Germany, modernity developed through the Bauhaus School with its focus on functionalism and the repetition of interesting forms. Significantly, the early modernists often rejected the need for a classic ornamentation, but this did not always include the creation of simple designs.

Brick expressionism showed that classic red bricks could create even the most impressive forms. The dynamic forms of this style were mainly covered in the industrial areas of Germany and the Netherlands due to their durability and low construction costs. A good example of inpatient Expressionism is that Chilean house In Hamburg, a large, decorated and above all functional office building, which still serves successive tenants to this day.

Industrial visionary

Peter Behrens experimented with the modernist factory architecture before the First World War. The AEG turbine factory, for example, is a stricter, utilitarian building that has become a model for the modern factory. Such a description would not be surprising if it were not the fact. The opportunity to test the architect's new ideas was a Commission of Hoechst AG Chemical Company in the industrial city of Höchst near Frankfurt. Interestingly, a well -known invention of the company is the fluorescent and toxic dye of the same name.

The Behrens office building (Behrens-Bau) is a representation of the architect's industrial imagination. After all, the building could have been another simple industrial box or a historicizing office building, but the final design is based on colored bricks. The facade draws attention with three important elements.

First, the large dark tower differentiates the factory from the other buildings in the industrial park with its large metal clock. Although the clock towers in factories were common, only a few towers can correspond to that in Behrens construction. In addition, the steps serpentine frames will first first open the large windows and openings. Second, the brick process of the dark and slightly lighter brick creates simple but aesthetically appealing patterns. Thirdly, the characteristic connecting bridge with its bow across the street is reminiscent of solutions from wasteful town houses. An interesting detail of the connecting bridge is a small bay window.

Brick Canyon

A low ceiling extends along corridors from the entrance to the main tariff. The 15-meter high room is an unexpected and delightful representation of the creativity of industrial architecture. Colorful columns made of clinking bricks rise upwards, which create a kind of artificial canyon with their colors. Rott tones, blue, yellow shape rejuvenates down, normal columns with three large ox -shaped skylights. The subsequent soils of the building are also striking on the pages.

The office building also has its own exhibition hall, in which a sculpture is currently housed that represents a worker. In the past, the Hoechst AG-IG colors presented its products there, so that the exhibition hall had to be large and well lit. Light current by large windows illuminates the colorful hall, the columns of which consist of green brick stone and the soil of which is arranged in geometric shapes. The architect has spread such puzzles over almost the entire building. Interestingly, there was previously a monument in the hall to the fallen of the First World War.

Corridors lined with dark cladding lead to the rest of the rooms. It is also worth taking a look at the glazed bricks of the soil, which are arranged in both fishbone and concrete geometric figures. Peter Behrens paid attention to small details such as handmade door knobs or modernist lamps. Another interesting element is the paternoster lift (our father), in which open cabins circulate in a loop along a chain.

The dark past

The last areas of interest are the marble hall and the auditorium. The marble hall used to be a meeting room and has its name from the Travertin Panels. It is important that the white travertine Marble resembles. The two -story auditorium could be entered from the marble hall, where chemical experiments were presented on a brick platform. The walls of the auditorium were originally lined with complicated cladding, but an arson bomb that fell on the auditorium during the Second World War destroyed the original decorations. The post -war reconstruction was carried out in a simpler style.

After the war, IG Farben was divided into several smaller companies and then returned to the Germans. Although the building was not the headquarters of the company in Höchst, it is also the actions and fate of the central management of IG colors. Members of the management were convicted in Nuremberg because they consumed slave work and medication on the inmates of the concentration camp. Your explanation should be top-down. Since the German criminals were not properly held accountable after the war, the managers returned to a short prison sentence either to work in the new IG colors or received elaborate payouts. In order to make things worse, IG colors were also a manufacturer of Zyklon B.

The Frankfurt Technical Management of Hoechst AG is now the headquarters of one of the successors of the company. The building was enforced at the end of the nineties of a great renovation and Behrens' legacy is still admired today. His ingenuity and brick expression were a touch of fresh air in the architecture of office and industrial buildings. The colorful Brick Canyon of the main attrium is an aesthetic masterpiece that is carried out at low costs.

Source: Modern there modern

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