The Deutscher Werkbund is a German association of artists, architects, designers and industrialists established in 1907. The Werkbund became an important element in the development of modern architecture and industrial design, particularly in the later creation of the Bauhaus school of design. Its initial purpose was to establish a partnership of product manufacturers with design professionals to improve the competitiveness of German companies in global markets. The Werkbund was less an artistic movement than a state-sponsored effort to integrate traditional crafts and industrial mass production techniques, to put Germany on a competitive footing with England and the United States. Its motto Vom Sofakissen zum Städtebau indicates its range of interest.
Aleksander Mikhailovich Rodchenko was a Russian and Soviet artist, sculptor, photographer, and graphic designer. He was one of the founders of constructivism and Russian design; he was married to the artist Varvara Stepanova.
The first Werkbund Exhibition of 1914 was held at Rheinpark in Cologne, Germany. Bruno Taut's best-known building, the prismatic dome of the Glass Pavilion of which only black and white images survive today, was in reality a brightly colored landmark. Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer designed a model factory for the exhibition. The Belgian architect Henri van de Velde designed a model theatre. Berlin-based Margarete Knuppelholz-Roeser designed the controversial Haus Der Frau.
Vkhutemas was the Russian state art and technical school founded in 1920 in Moscow, replacing the Moscow Svomas.
Vasyl Dmytrovych Yermylov (1894–1968) was a Ukrainian painter, avant-garde artist and designer. His genres included cubism, constructivism, and neo-primitivism.
Gustav Gustavovich Klutsis was a pioneering Latvian photographer and major member of the Constructivist avant-garde in the early 20th century. He is known for the Soviet revolutionary and Stalinist propaganda he produced with his wife Valentina Kulagina and for the development of photomontage techniques.
Lilly Reich was a German designer of textiles, furniture, interiors, and exhibition spaces. She was a close collaborator with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe for more than ten years during the Weimar period in the 1920s and early 1930s. Reich was an important figure in the early Modern Movement in architecture and design. Her fame was posthumous, as the significance of her contribution to the work of Mies van der Rohe and others with whom she collaborated only became clear through the research of later historians of the field.
Lazar Markovich Lissitzky, better known as El Lissitzky, was a Russian artist, designer, photographer, typographer, polemicist and architect. He was an important figure of the Russian avant-garde, helping develop suprematism with his mentor, Kazimir Malevich, and designing numerous exhibition displays and propaganda works for the Soviet Union. His work greatly influenced the Bauhaus and constructivist movements, and he experimented with production techniques and stylistic devices that would go on to dominate 20th-century graphic design.
Bernhard Hoetger was a German sculptor, painter and handicrafts artist of the Expressionist movement.
Willi Baumeister was a German painter, scenic designer, art professor, and typographer. His work was part of the art competitions at the 1928 Summer Olympics and the 1932 Summer Olympics.
The New Objectivity is a name often given to the Modern architecture that emerged in Europe, primarily German-speaking Europe, in the 1920s and 30s. It is also frequently called Neues Bauen. The New Objectivity remodeled many German cities in this period.
Richard Riemerschmid was a German architect, painter, designer and city planner from Munich. He was a major figure in Jugendstil, the German form of Art Nouveau, and a founder of architecture in the style. A founder member of both the Vereinigte Werkstätte für Kunst im Handwerk and the Deutscher Werkbund and the director of art and design institutions in Munich and Cologne, he prized craftsmanship but also pioneered machine production of artistically designed objects.
The Atlantis House on Böttcherstraße in the old town of Bremen in the north of Germany is an interesting example of German architecture in the interwar period. Designed by Bernhard Hoetger, it was completed in 1931. After suffering serious war damage, it was rebuilt in 1965 with a new facade designed by Ewald Mataré.
The House of the Seven Lazy Brothers is a historic building in Bremen, Germany, completed in 1927. With a name based on a local legend, the building located in Böttcherstraße in the old town was built by the prosperous coffee merchant Ludwig Roselius to a design by Bremen architects Eduard Scotland and Alfred Runge. The first version of the house was home to the advertising department of Roselius's coffee company and the Deutscher Werkbund association of craftsmen. When it was rebuilt in 1954 the new design was based on a traditional local story.
Valentina Kulagina, full name Valentina Nikiforovna Kulagina-Klutsis was a Russian painter and book, poster, and exhibition designer. She was a central figure in Constructivist avant-garde in the early 20th century alongside El Lissitzky, Alexander Rodchenko other and her husband Gustav Klutsis. She is known for the Soviet revolutionary and Stalinist propaganda she produced in collaboration with Klutsis.
Sergei Yakovlevich Senkin (1894–1963) was a twentieth-century Russian artist, photographer, and illustrator.
The October Group was a collective of constructivist artists active in the Soviet Union from 1928 to 1932.
Alexander Ilyich Naumov (1899-1928) was a Russian a painter, interior designer, book designer and poster artist who was active following the Russian Revolution.
Max Creutz was a German art historian and curator of the Museum für Angewandte Kunst Köln and the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Museum in Krefeld where he worked from 1922 until his death. In Cologne, in 1914 he was instrumental in the first exhibition of the Deutscher Werkbund, Deutsche Werkbundausstellung. In Krefeld, he succeeded in acquiring modern art exhibits, including works by Max Ernst, Wassily Kandinsky, and Alexej von Jawlensky. He included a substantial collection of art, crafts and design from the Bauhaus.
Ludwig Paffendorf was a German architect and craftsman.
