Building a rupture: modern tectonics in the work of Erich Mendelsohn

Abstract

The present paper aims to collaborate in the deepening of the inflection moment in the modern tectonics of architecture in the beginning of 20th century, emphasizing mainly Erich Mendelsohn, the German architect based in United States from the 40s onwards. From the jewish roots and suffering from the Nazi shredding with the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany, Mendelsohn begins a genuinely authorial production that passes to dialogue with marginal productions of the dominant modern architecture of his period, mainly under the oculus of Mies Van Der Rohe. Starting from the concept that the modern production of architecture is constituted as a growing culture of tectonic expression exemplified in the creation of the Bauhaus, we can understand Mendelsohn as a singular exponent that would come to play a more radically modern language and, above all, outside a context visibly stylistic. To do this, we will trace the point of fragmentation in his buildings, in order to understand his poetic intentions in construction. In this way, its production during the period of Nazi ascent and subsequent installation in the North American continent between the years of 1921, with the end of the construction of the Tower Einstein, until 1950, with the end of The Park Synagogue in Cleveland Heighs.