Bruno Taut
b. Konigsberg, 1880;
d. Istanbul, 1938. I

Key pioneer German avant-garde famous architect and theorist, associated initially with the Activist group of Expressionists and later with the new objectivity or social functionalism. Trained briefly in Konigsberg and Berlin-Charlottenburg, Taut worked in Theodor Fischer’s office in Stuttgart (1904-8) before opening his own firm in Berlin (1910). He ran a busy practice with office and exhibition projects before the First World War. He completed his famous Glass Pavilion for the Werkbund Exhibition, Cologne, in 1914. A year earlier he had designed the Steel Industrial Pavilion for the Leipziger Fair. Both buildings were erected in conjunction with his partner Franz Hoffmann, although the Glass Pavilion was the product of a close collaboration between Taut and his mentor, the Expressionist poet Paul Scheerbart (1887?1915). After the war, Taut became the virtual leader of the Berlin architectural avant-garde. In 1918 he had assumed chairmanship of the Arbeitsrat fur Kunst, with responsibility for shaping the “Architectural Programme” of that year. In 1919 he saw the publication of drawings prepared during the war depicting a visionary Utopia under the title Alpine Architektur. He issued his Expressionist supplement Friihlicht as part of a planning magazine in Berlin (1920-21) and as a “Glass Chain” publication in its own right from Magdeburg (1921-2) after he had become the City Architect. In 1923 he returned to Berlin to recommence practice with his brother Max Taut (1887?1967) and Hoffmann. He produced his book Modern Architecture in English in 1930 for the Studio Press. By the end of the 1920s Taut had become well known as a propagandist of the Neue Sachlichkeit or the “New Objective” architecture. He built many estates in Berlin, including “Onkel Tom’s” Estate, subsequently often using Marxist colours for the exterior faces. He left Germany for the USSR in 1932 and a year later went to Japan, where he stayed until 1936. He eventual?ly died in Istanbul in 1938, the year in which he had entered the competition for a new parliament building in Ankara.

Major buildings / works:
L Steel Industries Pavilion, Leipzig, 1913.
Garden City “Am Falkenberg”, Berlin, 1913-14.
Glass Pavilion, Werkbund Exhibition, Cologne, 1914.
General Plan for Magdeburg, 1921.
Housing Estates: Berlin-Tegel, 1924-32;
Berlin-Britz, 1925-30;
Berlin?Zehlendorf (”Onkel Tom’s” Estate), 1926-31 etc.

Bibliography:
J Bruno Taut, Die StadtkrOne, Jena, 1919.
J Bruno Taut, Alpine Architecture, Hagen, 1919.
J Bruno Taut, Friihlicht, 1920-21.
J Bruno Taut, Die neue Wohnung, Leipzig, 1924.
J Bruno Taut, Bauen, Leipzig, 1927.
J Bruno Taut, Modern Architecture, London, 1930.
K. Junghans, Bruno Taut 1880-1938, Berlin, 1970.
Dennis Sharp (ed.), Glass Architecture/Alpine Architecture, London, 1972.
I. Boyd Whyte, Bruno Taut and the Architecture of Activism, Cambridge, 1982.