A Document of German Art

1901: Darmstadt Mathildenhöhe

State of Change

The growth of industry and transport at the beginning of the 19th century had the effect of a yet unseen concentration of people, production and capital winding up to an “explosion” of the cities. Accompanying the rapid industrialization the social situation changed: everyday products were now merely produced by industrial mass production, art vanished from everyday life.

The First Building Exhibition Darmstadt –
a Document of German Art

In 1988 an artists‘ colony developed on Mathildenhöhe by the initiative of Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig. The master plan was given to the young architect Joseph Maria Olbrich. The process involved many artists. The team looked for a new form as a “milestone on its way to the renewal of life”, “which is not common but trendsetting including aspects of the future” (Joseph Maria Olbrich).
Mathildenhöhe gave innovative, constructional evidence of the then life reform movement and received international appreciation. Not later than in May 1901after finishing the colony the first IBA was opened titled “A Document of German Art”.

The specialty of the building exhibition:

the compound and holistic design. Urban plan, studio and residential buildings, exhibition buildings, interior design with products of every day needs – everything was planned together. In team work the architects, painters and sculptors gave new shape to their environment – as an attempt to reconcile art and
every day life, city and nature. Titled a “temple of work” the Ernst-Ludwig-House was built as a collective studio for the artists. Above the entrance the motto says: “His world the artist may show, which never was and never will be”. The building is the climax of an ensemble that inserts itself together with the artists‘ residences into the landscape. The only house not being designed by Olbrich received high appreciation in the same way. Peter Behrens, invited to Darmstadt as painter and graphic artist, here introduced himself as an architect for the first time. He succeeded in designing an entire project starting with the footprint and the general vision of the house up to the details of the stucco work of the interior, from the furniture down to the plates and cups and glasses developing a holistic design of a new life style.

Models of Holistic Life Concept

The idea of holistic concepts now accompanied the building scene of the 20th century: in the mainstream opposing hippie movement of the late 60s and 70s as well as in the ecological movement of the 80s and 90s. In the time of the globalisation of markets and of the internationalization of the urban society again the Mathildenhöhe inspires to reflect anew on the relation between “building”, “architecture”, “living” and “society”.

More Information

The publication of text and picture is based on the exhibition flyer "IBA meets IBA" by kindly courtesy of M:AI museum for architecture and und engineering art in Nordrhein-Westfalen and of IBA Hamburg.
Photo: Ausstellung Darmstadt, Hessisches Landesmuseum