National Romanticism and Modern Architecture in Germany and the Scandinavian Countries
National Romanticism and Modern Architecture in Germany and the Scandinavian Countries
Out of Print
This book provides a comprehensive examination of one of the most important modernist traditions. Offering a new interpretation of its origins, Barbara Miller Lane focuses on the movement called 'National Romanticism', which flourished in Germany and Scandinavia from about 1890 to 1920. During this period, painters, interior designers, city planners and architects created a new kind of domestic architecture and interior design, as well as monumental architecture. Drawing upon local and regional folk traditions, and encouraging a simple way of life, architects such as Eliel Saarinen, Hans Poelzig, and Martin Nyrop, looked back to medieval and even prehistoric times for their models, as they also tried to create a new architecture for the new millennium. Their buildings encouraged new kinds of social and political relationships and have had a profound influence in the architecture of Germany and Scandinavia.
- Unique in that it traces the relationships between history-conscious architecture and modern architecture
- Stresses the common ideas of architects, planners, and designers in Germany and all of the Scandinavian countries
- Sheds new light on the relationships between architecture, politics, and nationalism
Reviews & endorsements
'For those interested in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the relationship of National Romantic architectural, artistic and literary trends and their mutual influences, a more thorough work than this one would be hard to find … this is an important book.' The Times Literary Supplement
'Barbara Miller Lane's rereading of the architectural and documentary evidence has produced a compelling revisionist account that connects the previously disconnected and suggests fascinating new insights into the complex origins of Modernism.' The Architects' Journal
'Lane's is one of those books in which even the footnotes are a treasure-trove of information and insight.' Journal of Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain
Product details
August 2000Hardback
9780521583091
432 pages
287 × 225 × 34 mm
1.71kg
255 b/w illus. 31 colour illus.
Unavailable - out of print May 2007
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- 1. The origins and transformations of the dream of the North
- 2. The search for a modern national style: the home as a work of art
- 3. The search for a modern national style: monuments and monumental architecture
- 4. The legacy of national Romanticism.
