Expressionist Architecture in Drawings

"The freehand sketch is of particular importance for the understanding of Expressionsist architecture - even more imporatant, it might be argued, than the finished building. For Expressionist architects were above all concerned with the spontaneity of the intial idea, a quality that only rarely survived the transition from drawing to reality, and that was often too fantastic even to attempt. Many of their most striking thoughts, therefore, remained on paper. Wolfgang Pehnt, whose Expressionist Architecture, the standard work on the subject, appeared in 1973, here brings together a representative collection of drawings, many of which have never been published before. They range from the crystalline utopias of Bruno Taut and the almost Baroque exuberance of Hans Poelzig to the clear, formulaic lines of Erich Mendelsohn and the organic forms of Otto Bartning, Rudolf Schwarz and Rudolf Steiner. Among those whose projects did achieve realization are the young Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius and the master of the Dutch school, Hendrik Petrus Berlage, Michel de Klerk and Piet Kramer. These are not meticulous drawings or practical blueprints, but as records of the white heat of architectural inspiration they have few equals."--book jacket.