Egon Eiermann : German embassy, Washington

Authors:Immo Boyken, Egon Eiermann

Summary:'When the German Embassy in Washington was completed in 1964, the architectural critic of the Washington Post wrote that the express aim of those commissioning the building had been to make an architectural statement that would embody the spirit of the young German democracy and avoid any form that could revive grim memories of the past. The paper felt that it had been right to engage Egon Eiermann for this project, as he had already solved the same problem of >>architectural diplomacy<< with his German Pavilion for the Brussels World Fair in 1958.Eiermann (1904-1970) studied at the Technische Hochschule in Berlin, finally in Hans Poelzig's master-class, but he was also influenced by Heinrich Tessenow. As early as 1931 his first building, which he had planned as an architect employed in a practice, was published in Wasmuths Monatshefte fur Baukunst und Stadtebau; his major buildings and projects continued to be featured in magazines in Germany and abroad, and impressed with their formal language, which remained uninfluenced by fashionable trends. Building was first and foremost an intellectual process for Eiermann, determined by the factors construction, function and material, by objectivity and a self-control that granted the imagination only limited scope. Eiermann developed the vocabulary he had found in the thirties consistently after 1945. The works dating from the early post-war period still appeal, no less than the major sixties projects, because of their tight organization of functional necessities, unity of construction and architectural form, and precise shaping of even the tiniest detail and not least because of an effortless elegance and lightness that raise the work above merely fulfilling a purpose into the ranks of great architecture. J. Alexander and Jerry Hecht were the official photographers for the building. Their pictures are among the most convincing photographic interpretations of Eiermann's work. Immo Boyken is professor of building history and architectural theory in Konstanz. He is particularly interested in the architecture of the late 19th century and of classical Modernism. He made a major contribution to the 1984 monograph on Eiermann.'--BOOK JACKET