Peter Behrens

Germany

Person

Designer

Born 14 April 1868 Hamburg Died 27 February 1940 Berlin, Germany Peter Behrens studied painting from 1886 to 1889 in Hamburg, Karlsruhe, and Düsseldorf. In 1893 he co-founded the Munich Secession and in 1897 became a founding member of the Vereinigte Werkstätten für Kunst im Handwerk in Munich. From 1898 he designed furniture, household objects, and interior fittings. Between 1899 and 1903 he worked in the Darmstadt artists’ colony, where he designed and built his own house on the Mathildenhöhe in 1901, including its complete interior. In 1902 he created the Wertheim dining room for the exhibition 'Moderne Wohnungs-Kunst' in Berlin. From 1903 to 1907 he served as director of the Kunstgewerbeschule Düsseldorf. In 1907 he co-founded the Deutscher Werkbund and, from 1907 to 1914, acted as artistic consultant to AEG in Berlin, designing products, advertising materials, and buildings, including the AEG Turbine Factory of 1909. He participated in the Werkbund Exhibition in Cologne in 1914. Major architectural works included the I.G. Farben administration building in Höchst near Frankfurt am Main (1920–24), the terrace house for the Weißenhofsiedlung Stuttgart (1927), and the Berolinahaus and Alexanderhaus office buildings at Alexanderplatz in Berlin (1932). From 1922 to 1936 he was professor and head of the architecture school at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, and from 1936 until his death he headed the architecture studio at the Preußische Akademie der Künste in Berlin.