scharoun and haring's east-west connections

Among Hugo Häring’s papers in the Häring archiveof the Akademie der Künste in Berlin are the minutesof six meetings entitled Discussions about ChineseArchitecture held on Fridays and once on a Saturdaydating from November 1941 to May 1942.1 Thepersons involved are Hugo Häring, Hans Scharoun,Chen Kuan Lee and John Scott. Of Scott, aGermanised American, we know little: it seems hiswife Gerda worked at Häring’s art school.2 But ChenKuan Lee is a key figure in this story. Born inShanghai in 1919, he had arrived in Berlin in 1935 tostudy architecture under Hans Poelzig, completingthe course in 1939. He then became Scharoun’s

assistant until 1941, working on the private housesthat provided a limited creative opportunity underthe Nazis.3 Lee returned to Scharoun’s office in 1949,remaining there until 1953, one of only fourassistants during the crucial period of 1951/1952

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when Scharoun’s new architecture was underdevelopment with key projects such as theDarmstadt School and Kassel Theatre. In between,Lee served as an assistant to Ernst Boerschmann(1873–1949),5 the great German investigator ofChinese culture and author of several books onChinese architecture.6 Boerschmann had visitedChina from 1906 to 1909, when he was sent by theGerman government to make a comprehensivecultural study, rather as Hermann Muthesius hadbeen sent to England in 1896.7 To complete Lee’sbiography, in 1954 he set up as an architect on hisown account, building several Chinese restaurants,more than 30 private houses and some apartmentblocks in a Scharoun-like manner [1], some spatiallyvery interesting,8 but this kind of work went out offashion with the advent of postmodernism in the1980s and Lee died quite recently in obscurity.

Since Lee had by 1941 already been Scharoun’sassistant for four years with every opportunity fordiscussion, the meetings about Chinese architecturewere presumably convened for Häring’s benefit. Theminutes were left in his possession, and he emergesin them as the leader of the discussion. Lee is themain provider of material, which according to theminutes included books on traditional Chinesearchitecture by Ernst Boerschmann and RudolfKelling, sketches and diagrams of his own, andpublications or photos of modern buildings inShanghai. Lee later claimed in a CV to have spent theyears 1941–43 working with Häring.9 The followingextract from the minutes of the first meeting showshow the conversation began:

‘The contemplation of this material suggests the existenceof fundamental rules behind the building principles ofChinese architecture. The temple layout seems to haveprovided an example which is carried even into thedwelling, especially the strong north-south axes. Therooms are not orientated on a practical basis, but forreligious reasons. In comparison with other great

history arq . vol 12 . no 1 . 2008 29

historyHugo Häring and Hans Scharoun’s discovery of the religious and

symbolic dimensions of traditional Chinese architecture sheds

new light on central concerns of their mature work.

The lure of the Orient: Scharoun and Häring’s East-West connectionsPeter Blundell Jones

1 Chen Kuan Lee,private house inStuttgart, late 1960s

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2 Illustrations fromErnst Boerschmannarticle, 1911a ‘Ground plan oftemple at Kiatingfu’b ‘The ancestraltemple of the Ch’enfamily at Canton.The reception hall’c ‘Ground plan ofT’ai-miao, thetemple at the foot ofthe sacredmountain, T’ai-shan,in Shantung’

3 Hugo Häring,‘Chiweb’ projecta Original pencildrawing, scale1/2000, dated 4 June1942b Diagram. This isthe author’sretraced version ofHäring’s drawing.The marked centralaxis of theessentiallysymmetrical north-south orientated

plan leads from themotorway (1) acrossa basin (2) via triplebridges (3) to a‘great forecourt’ (4),culminating in thecentraladministration andcuratorium of theWerkbund (5).Behind is a greatcomplex of ateliersand workshops forartists andcraftspersons (6). To left of thecuratorium is theadministration andeconomic direction(7), to right a greatexhibition hall (8)with schooladministration andlibrary behind. Infront of this to southis the publicitysection (9). Outsidethis main centralsquare enclosureand across the basinare the municipal

administration (10)and the planningoffice (11). On theright flank are a park(12), an area ofparking and shops(13), a residentialsuburb withcourtyard houses(14), and the regionalplanning office (15).Across the motorwayare a hotel (16) alongwith further shopsand parking. Thedrawing was leftincomplete, but one can presumethat the outer parton the right wouldhave been mirroredon the left, especiallythe residentialsuburb

4 Häring, Krutinagarden pavilion,Badenweilera Whole drawingb Sectionc, d Elevations

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architecture it is the cultural and symbolic side of oldChinese buildings that needs researching. Topics such asthe motifs of water, forest, and sky, or water, clouds, andsky. Also the timber construction, skeleton construction,lack of diagonal bracing, and the restriction mainly to asingle-storey. The construction of the roof is discussed.Major buildings in China have a stone foundation like ahill with retaining wall. In this the motif of the [holy]mountain can be recognised. Form-elements of stoneconstruction depend on timber-construction.’10 [2]

Orientation, the dominance of the roof, and thecrucial role of carpentry were thus well understood.Even during the first meeting the dominating topicof the later ones emerges:

‘Häring stresses the seriousness of the work, and thenecessity of assuring its good effect, and suggests settingup a Chinese cultural organisation like the DeutscheWerkbund.’11

Parallel with these meetings was a project in theHäring archive marked Chiweb: the most finishedgeneral plan dates from 4 June 1942 [3]. This was theproject on which Lee claimed to have helped Häring,and it is perhaps significant that one of the lastmeetings involved Häring and Lee alone, havingmoved on from general study to work on the ChineseWerkbund idea. Chiweb is a kind of ideal town,placing the arts and crafts organisation – itsadministration and its Kuratorium – at the focalpoint, with private studios behind and bureaucraciessuch as the civic administration and buildingdepartments in front. Recognisably Chinese are thehierarchical use of the north-south axis with asouthern entrance only, the canal-like basin to southcrossed by triple bridges, and the grouping offacilities into walled precincts around courtyards,though the symmetrical and axial layout also repeatsaspects of Häring’s general plan for Zagreb of 1929.12

Some of the detailed thinking relates to Häring’sexperience with the art school Kunst und Werk whichhe led in Berlin from 1935–43, the formerReimannschule. This large and progressive institutionwith departments of photography and film as well asarts and crafts had been a rival to the Bauhaus, andunder Häring it re-employed former Bauhaus stafflike Walter Peterhans and Georg Muche, strugglingon through the Nazi years until its building wasbombed in 1943.13 Häring had become deeplyinterested in education and made various ambitiousand idealistic plans to rehouse and redefine theschool both before and after its destruction. In allthese schemes education, as the provider of spiritualdirection and as the determiner of all significantform, is given the central place, hence the proposedwerkbund’s temple-like status. Here work would bedone on ‘the secret of form’, Häring’s great finaltheme in his theoretical writings of the early 1950s.14

‘Den Musen geweiht’Chiweb is not the only example of oriental influencein the late work of Häring. Among the few buildingshe was able to plan during the War – thoughunexecuted – was a tiny garden pavilion for hiswriter/actor friends Krutina15 in Badenweiler [4], forwhom he had built a family house in 1937–8. Besides

acting as a greenhouse and tool-shed, this tinystructure was to contain a writing place for theowner. It was called a ‘hermitage’ with a beaminscribed ‘Den Musen geweiht’ – ‘dedicated to themuses’, and was to have had carved lions at the endsof the main beam – sculpted figures drawn with great


The lure of the Orient Peter Blundell Jones

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care and reminiscent of Chinese figures in Kelling’sbook, although Häring also cited Roman precedents.16

The cranked building made its architecturalstatement through the expressed timber frame anddaringly low-pitched thatched roof. Its studiedprimitiveness is reminiscent of Japanese Minka andthe Ise shrine, and may reflect Häring’s already well-established interest in Japanese architecture.

In the early 1930s as secretary of the Ring, Häringhad entertained at least three of the key figures ofwest-east transfer, Tetsuro Yoshida, Mamoru Yamadaand Chikadata Karata. The preface of Yoshida’sfamous book Das japanische Wohnhaus of 1935 namesHäring and Hilberseimer as the two instigators of thebook project,17 so he knew its contents, including Iseand Katsura, and must have spent considerable timewith Yoshida. Berlin was the base for Yoshida’sEuropean trip, and he came and went from there fivetimes between October 1931 and May 1932, spendingno less than four and a half months in the city.18

Concerning the earlier visit of Yamada in 1930, Hyon-Sob Kim has turned up more precise information.They met no less than five times, and Häring guidedhim on visits to Siemensstadt, to see Haesler’s work,and to visit Poelzig. Yamada had discussions withHäring about architectural form and sympathisedwith his organic approach. But Yamada’s descriptionalso includes the claim that he was ‘haunted by thememory of Häring’s dexterous use of chopsticks’.19

Kurata was introduced to Häring by Yamada andstayed in Berlin for some time, living in the newsiedlung Onkel Tom’s Hütte designed by Häring,Taut, and Salvisberg, and writing articles on Germanarchitecture for Kokusai Kenchiku.20

That Häring was also interested in the Japaneseteahouse is proved by his essay on the subject,though it was probably written later.21 But returningto his ‘hermitage’, it is fascinating to consider thedates. The main drawing is marked December 1941,neatly couched between the first meeting aboutChinese architecture on 14 November and the secondon 16 January 1942. The plan includes an interestingskew, but in the absence of siting information itsrationale is not clear.22 The essential architecturehowever appears more in the section and elevation.As with the Chinese architecture they were studying,more or less the whole thing is roof, some timbermembers are round trunks, and the humped endgives hierarchical priority to the ‘spiritual’ study.That Häring had always been interested in theexpressive potential of roofs is obvious from much ofhis work – one only has to think of the added accentproduced by the silo at Garkau – but it can hardly becoincidence that in February 1942, just as he wasworking on the details of the Krutina ‘hermitage’, healso produced an essay entitled ‘Conversation withChen Kuan Lee about some roof profiles’ (seetranslation in this issue, pp. 26–28). This seems to bethe report of a meeting held in addition to theminuted ones, and hangs on a group of sketchesreproduced with it when it was first published in1947.23 The original drawing is in my possession,bequeathed to me by Häring’s assistant MargotAschenbrenner [5], and the curious thing is that the

sketches are bunched up together and drawn everyway round on the paper, not following the order ofthe argument. It seems this drawing was the originalcentre of discussion, pushed to and fro across thetable, though the hand seems to be entirely Häring’s. The text shows how well Häring understood thecritical importance of the roof in Chinesearchitecture:

‘How did this […] remarkable Chinese roof […] comeabout? It is a saddle roof with an exaggerated rounding ofthe ridge and wide outswinging eaves, and the surface israised to the highest shine through the intensity ofgleaming glazed tiles which display all the colours ofnature […] Through the wave profile of the over- andunderlapping tiles, which add to the formal effect, itsurvives every kind of weather. And these tiles lie in a thickmortar-bed, so that the whole becomes extraordinarilyheavy. It is supported by a most elaborate structure ofintersecting beams, struts and columns, which seems lessthe result of calculation than of a will to form and image[… The structure] connects this skin to the great tree-trunks which convey these extraordinary loads to theearth. It would be wrong to group these tree-trunks withthe columns of the west, for they are the precise opposite.They are proportional to the heavy load and the wind-pressure, there are few of them, and they are of slendergrowth. Between them are set partitions of clay, morescreens than true wall construction, and not in theslightest load-bearing. The roof is the whole building: allelse is subordinate. When it takes the form of a gate it evenstands alone with no house beneath, just a roof held highon tree-trunks.’24

For brevity I will summarise the argument thatfollows with the help of his sketches [6]. The specialroof, which represents Chinese Wesen or ‘beingness’,rises from the ground without attaining a peak, thenfalls back again to rejoin the earth. Its form reflectsthe Chinese landscape and the surroundingmountains whose shapes are always significant, andit also finds a parallel in the flow of characters inChinese script. Some of these ideas seem to derivedirectly from Boerschmann’s magnum opus of 1925:

‘[…] But to bring life, the play of living forces, into thebuilding and make it felt, they also used the specialChinese motif of the curving roof. The swinging lines andsurfaces of this roof, and the tremendous life it gives to theornament, is nourished to the fullest extent throughimages furnished by nature herself. These are found in theforms of plain and mountain, in trees, in water, and evenin passing clouds. In a purely formal sense, the lightrooflines very often lend the buildings a grace and charmof the personal. But at the same time they awakentranscendent voices to inform us of the great primarysource in religion, which is further reflected in a wholeseries of other building characteristics.’25

Later in the essay, Häring contrasts the Chinese roofprofiles with modernist ones. Two sketches inparticular make a stark contrast [7]. One shows aseated figure at peace in the ancestral hall – thereligious focus of Confucianism – with subordinatedwelling rooms to the side. The other is arepresentation of a modernist building which seemsto squash the poor inhabitant. The latter type isexplicitly attributed to Ludwig Mies van der Rohe,



who is accused of an obsession with the horizontal:‘[…] Exclusively horizontal energy […] spreading everoutward without limit. Nothing competes with thishorizontality: the rising triangle of gods in the Greektemple falls away and Promethean man no longer proudlycarries the earthly load of the architrave […] Everythingsubmits to the horizontal expansion of power, there is noescape. The earth and its riches are protected andarranged in horizontal harmony, expressive of the hereand now. Expensive materials and the noblest work areinvolved, but not for their essential meaning, rather fortheir corporeal display.’ 26

Häring finds an alternative to Mies in the work of hisfriend Scharoun, who uses ‘no single roof-form, butrather roofscapes’ [8]. His multiple roofs areapproved by Häring as being-like and present ‘amusical elevation in space like an orchestra’.27 Häringwas presumably thinking of the roofs depicted inScharoun’s visionary sketches of the wartime period,for those of the private houses had had to followconventional vernacular forms.

Courtyard plans, orientation and cosmologyReference to Chinese or Japanese sources was equallyimportant for questions of plan. Among Häring’snumerous projects between 1945 and 1950 forhousing schemes, some seem East-Asian both in theirinspiration and in the way they are drawn [9,10],especially the ones with private courtyards andprotective enclosing walls, emphasising the outdoorspaces as contained rooms. Orientation was also aprimary consideration, and in his essay on theground plan, Häring claimed that a house mustpresent itself to the sun like a flower,28 while heplanned all dwellings after about 1936 with north-headed beds. Here East-Asian practice confirmedideas already present and supported by othersources, such as water-divining and earth-radiation.29

This was much more than the mere climatic issuesubscribed to by other modernists like Gropius: itwas a deeper and more spiritual sense that directionin architecture is important, and is a matter to whichone should never remain indifferent; it was a



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6, 7, 8 Sketches, as published in‘Conversation withChen Kuan Leeabout roof profiles’,

Neues Bauen:Schriftenreihe desBundes DeutscherArchitekten, vol. 3(1947)

5 Sketches for roofprofiles, originaldrawing

conviction that every building needs to be located,both in relation to the planet and the cosmos. Farfrom being new, this was an ancient and widespreadattitude that had been lost, for anthropologistsstudying pre-industrialised peoples have so oftenreported on rules of orientation for buildings that aregular reader comes to expect them almost as amatter of course.30 Boerschmann certainly presenteda resounding case for the Chinese, stressing frombeginning to end of his various books the religiousconnotations of building and the intendedreflection of nature: first a summary text:

‘The basis of Chinese architecture is religious resonance.Once we understand this, we have the key tounderstanding the buildings themselves. The finestconsiderations of the Chinese people found theirexpression in religion. Here lies the root of all action. Theinner forces released by it should move us when weconsider the outer image of the Chinese landscape, ofnature and what people have added to it – when weconsider what it was, and how through works ofarchitecture the Chinese give their land its soul.’ 31

Then a more profound one, from the end of his two-volume study:

‘In works of architecture the Chinese see […] an image ofthe cosmos, and they naturally strive to build inaccordance with this way of thinking. For when, as theChinese also believe, everything living is to be regarded as aunity, this must also embrace the works of men. Since thepure reflection of this cast of mind also appears in the formof architecture […] one can read it in the forms of the greatsites. The harmony of the All, of stars, sun, moon, andearth, the rhythm of the becoming and the departing, of theseasons, of day and night, were discovered by the Chinesein ancient times as the foundations of our being and laidout in visible symbols, among which numbers gained asupreme importance. Primarily numbers, but also lines,surfaces, and spaces in their manifold divisions anddependant relationships […] form the elements of thebuilding art and are used to produce rhythmic andharmonic order. This close relation between a rhythmicinterpretation of the world and the conscious adoption ofit in one’s own forms of life can […] scarcely beoveremphasised. Connected with this was the symbolism ofenergy forces working in nature and in us, which peoplelonged to make visible. Among the great conceptions thatthey […] tried to show in their buildings were a highestprinciple, interpreted as the extreme transfiguration andalso as the void itself, then superimposed on this a dualismof the two forces found within that unity, third a soul-likeagent, which is immanent everywhere, and finallyhumanity which lets godliness remain in balance.Examples which express these thoughts throughorganisation and ordering of buildings are (1) the greatcentral axes of courtyards and halls as the holy routeleading away from the midday sun, (2) the tripartitedivision of the axis, which is much demanded for religiousbuildings and also customarily used for gates and halls, (3)the arrangement of the principal seat for the master of thehouse, the God, duke or patriarch, in the principal place inthe middle or at the end of the whole layout, and (4) thesame arrangement with temple and dwelling housethrough worship of ancestors, and even of the livingfamily-head.’32

In a way typical of the German 1920s, Boerschmannstressed the relativity of cultures and the way eachreflected a world-view that had to be understood indetail within its own terms. His books are full ofrespect for the Chinese, despite the colonialcircumstances of his original visit and the thennormal assumption of European superiority. The verytitle of his final chapter ‘Das Wesen chinesischerArchitektur’ (The Beingness of Chinese Architecture)resonated with Häring’s own views about the Wesen ofthe building task, and sentences like ‘the unity ofinner being and external appearance, of being andcreation, is the secret of the deep affect of Chinese art(das Geheimnis der tiefen Wirkung chinesischer Kunst)’,33

must have held an immediate appeal. IfBoerschmann did not provide the primary exampleof how architecture can reflect a world-view (forHäring was already widely read), he did at leastconfirm the idea, offering a new sample for Häring’sdeveloping view of architectural history. In this thevarious earthly regions were the Werkräume of thevarious peoples who had their duties allotted to themas part of the unfolding divine purpose – Häringnever quite broke away from his protestant roots, but



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9 Häring, floor plan ofa courtyard housewith communitybuilding on the northside facing south, inthe Chinese manner

10 Häring, isometricprojection of acourtyard house,1950

11 Häring, Schmitzhouses, Biberach,1950a, b, c exteriorsd interior

his God was necessarily a universal one that allreligions attempt to grasp.34

Both Boerschmann and Häring acknowledgedcultural – and racial – differences as part of the richvariety of the world, but generously accepted thecultural ‘other’ as an equal, with fascinated respectrather than with any presupposition of superiority.Although both of the Chinese-inspired textsconsulted in the meetings dated from the 1920s,belonging essentially to the open-minded andrelativist era of the Weimar Republic,35 they werebeing read in 1941–2 in very different outercircumstances. There was the chaos of war, the threatof bombing, the Gestapo taking a tighter grip, andfor architects a total cessation of active work.Häring’s art school had depended financially onforeign students who no longer came, and it limpedon until bombed in 1943. Scharoun was employed asa surveyor of bomb damage. For both, the privateexcursion into Chinese architecture must haveprovided the welcome refuge of another world.

By 1942, Häring’s active career was almost over.Although he hoped for a new start after the war andproduced dozens of buildable designs, he onlycompleted a couple of houses in 1950 for his patronGuido Schmitz. They seem almost oriental in theirspare simplicity and exposed timber framing,particularly the interiors [11], but it was also a timeof austerity and economic struggle, of making dowith limited means. Häring spent his last years inwriting and contemplation, living in a simple atticroom, and as his assistant Margot Aschenbrennerdescribes, even here was a touch of the Orient:

‘In front of the window of the attic room […] where heworked on his intended book, he made a tiny “roofgarden”



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in a clay trough, “at the scale of 1:100”, as he explained tovisitors. The arrangement of small plants, mosses, andstones awakened the impression of a territory to beentered with the eyes. Amidst the greenery a small bronzeBuddha found his place, with a socket in its hand for anincense stick. Instead of this, Häring set in his grasp asharp pencil, sticking up diagonally against the sky, farbeyond its holder. Delighted with his creation, Häringinterpreted the Buddha’s gesture with the words “Up herethings will be written!”.’36

Scharoun and Chinese influenceHans Scharoun was only 52 in 1945, with a full publiccareer still ahead of him. During the twelve years ofNazi rule he had been obliged to ghost for others onhousing schemes, and he put his architecturalcreativity mainly into a series of private houses.Externally they acknowledged the Nazi planningrestrictions with a vernacular appearance, but theirliving spaces were freely-planned and of daring,unprecedented fluidity [12].37 Most of them havegardens by Hermann Mattern or his wife HertaHammerbacher, a couple for whom Scharoun haddesigned a modest house completed in 1934 which isunusual in its reticence [13]. The Matterns were partof Karl Foerster’s plant nursery at Bornim andbecame the leading German landscape architects oftheir generation. Their informal approach togardens and their love of creating natural-lookinglandscapes in miniature suggest influence fromChina and Japan, but more striking still is a sensitive



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12 Hans Scharoun,weekend house forthe art dealerFerdinand Möller

in Zermützelsee,Brandenburg,photographed afterrecent restoration

13 Scharoun, Matternhouse, Bornim, nearPotsdam, 1934

14 Three examples ofMattern’s work

use of irregular paving stones counting on theuniqueness of each piece, which is reminiscent ofKatsura [14]. The Scharoun houses repeatedlyemployed such irregular or ‘crazy’ paving in theliving areas, both to link inside and out and toeschew the space-defining effect of geometric tiling.It probably came from the Matterns to Scharounrather than vice versa, and it may in turn reflect theinfluence of Camillo Schneider, the plant hunterfrom the Bornim school who spent 1913 and 1914 inChina and returned via the United States.38 Hecertainly visited Chinese gardens and brought backphotographs, though the connection with theMatterns has yet to be proved.

In Scharoun’s case the most blatant outcome of thediscussions about Chinese architecture is a longessay on Chinese city planning dated January 1945 –three months before the end of the war.39 He hadbeen Professor at Breslau from 1925–33 but had nottaught for twelve years except perhaps for the oddlecture at Häring’s art school which closed in 1943, sowe can take it that this essay was written for his ownprivate purposes with no lecture or publication inmind. Its length is such that it is better summarisedthan quoted.

For Scharoun, the traditional Chinese city was anadmirable model because of its clarity, consistency,and phenomenal wholeness. He writes of its cell-likestructure, open-ended but following natural growth.He acknowledges the importance of the relation withthe surroundings and the consideration of cosmicand symbolic relations. He identifies a powerfulform-tradition, but questions its continuingrelevance, fearing that the world of the ancestor-cultwill be sacrificed to western ideas. In the second partof the essay he lists the contributing elements,starting with the wall that defines the spatial dasein.It can act alone, freestanding, unlike house walls in awestern street. Next come the axes, that as ‘soul axes’bind people to cosmos and nature. Third is light, andScharoun notes the southward orientation of themain hall, which links people to the course of thesun in a way not found in the west. The buildings arealso un-Western in their openness, formingthickenings not divisions within the spatial cell, likea wood in a landscape. Their roofs contain andproject like clouds over the earth, keenly symbolicand showing relative status in subtle ways. Thehouses have raised terraces, but they are sparinglyused and do not divide life from the ground.Everything is in proportion. The streets form ahierarchy. Private houses open onto them by windowor door, and the main streets can take nine ridersabreast. Between houses are narrow walled lanes: thedrama of family life starts only behind the walls, notspilling onto the street as in the west. Scharounconcludes his list by noting that the landscape hasmany scales, and whether planted or built, itcontinues outside the city in its cared-for order.40

City as a whole and ‘Stadtlandschaft’In 1946 Scharoun became Berlin City Architect and in1956 he won the Philharmonie competition: this washis most fertile decade. Returning to a public

architecture after 12 years of isolation meant facing amajor change in scale, tackling the city, andproviding a new public setting for democratic life incontrast with the overscaled monumentality ofAlbert Speer. Although what he proposed for Berlinand elsewhere differed greatly from the Chinese cityhe so admired, study of the latter arguably served as acatalyst. Most important in this respect wasScharoun’s conviction that the city should beconsidered as a whole, integrated into its landscapeas Stadtlandschaft (city-landscape). Such large-scalethinking implied a duty to design each building notonly in response to its immediate context but alsowithin the greater context of the city as a whole.

Projects such as the school at Darmstadt of 1951

and the theatres at Kassel and Mannheim of 1952 and1953 included context plans showing the whole city[15], and indicating how the new building wouldmake reference to existing plan features and existingpublic monuments. This question of location andintegration did not merely engage the existing citybut also responded to its historic growth, registeredin the case of Mannheim in a series of redrawn cityplans from its foundation in 1606 taken at centuryintervals [16]. These plans were drawn by AlfredSchinz (1919–1998), Scharoun’s principal researchassistant between 1950 and 1955.41 He was only one offour assistants in 1951/2 alongside Chen Kuan Lee,and he adds another Chinese connection. His fatherLeopold Schinz had been a civil engineer in China for



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eighteen years working in Jinanfu, and Alfred wasbrought up in the export quarter of Berlin,interested in things Chinese from his earliestchildhood. Having been Scharoun’s student and thenassistant, Schinz became a town planner and went towork in China, returning to complete a doctorate onChinese town planning in 1976. This was the basis ofhis magnum opus The Magic Square published in 1996,the most detailed history of Chinese town planningthat we have in the West.42

A second aspect of Scharoun’s architecturecatalysed by the Chinese experience was thenecessary continuity between a building and itssurroundings, each new work not imposed as anisolated object, but joining in a continuous chain ofindoor and outdoor spaces. His best known works,the Philharmonie and State Library in Berlin, areunfortunately somewhat anomalous in this respect,because the contextual intentions were so repeatedlytraduced. The work that would best have shown theidea of Stadtlandschaft unfortunately remainedunexecuted, but plans and model photographsremain. This was the prize-winning competition



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15 Scharoun,Mannheim TheatreCompetition, 1953,location plan

16 Mannheim TheatreCompetition, plansshowing thedevelopment of thecity submitted alongwith the design

17, 18, Hans Scharounand HermannMattern, KasselTheatreCompetition, 1952–3

design for a new theatre at Kassel of 1952, producedjointly and on equal billing with landscape architectHermann Mattern [17,18].

The site on Friedrichsplatz near the centre of thecity lay between the formal square and the hillsidewhich drops into the Fulda valley. In the otherdirection the square lay between the old medievalcentre and the Baroque gridded new town. To add tothe complexity, the Baroque gardens of the Schlossin the valley had to be restored, and a new ring-roadhad to be accommodated between theatre andsquare. These elements and their attendantgeometries were taken into account, and thebuilding was set in the side of the hill, partlyabsorbed in terraces and topped with a fly-tower thatadded a new signature to the city landscape.Scharoun and Mattern’s design promised toreconcile and recombine historic elements, creatinga seamless flow of public spaces between park andcity centre. It was developed for construction butabandoned under scandalous circumstances, to bereplaced by a poor design by local architect PaulBode. Mattern successfully reworked the Baroquepark and hillside, but the crucial chance ofcollaboration with Scharoun on a large public sitewas lost.43

Axes and anglesAn outstanding quality of the Kassel project in thecontext of the early 1950s is the daring geometricirregularity both of plan and section, and the multi-angularity of Scharoun’s post-war work might nowbe regarded historically as its most essential andinnovative quality. Doubts about its constructability,let alone its ‘rationality’, contributed to the project’sdemise. At first sight this irregularity seemscompletely at odds with Scharoun’s admiration ofthe rectangular orientated Chinese city, its regulargrid of streets, its dominant central axis, and theunderlying idea of the magic square: they could evenbe considered complete opposites. But of course theold imperial Chinese cities were embodiments of asociety that was hierarchical in the extreme, with theemperor living in a ‘forbidden’ city at the core, andthe central axial route reserved exclusively for hisuse, with instant execution for trespassers.Something of the same axial and hierarchical naturehad appeared in the work of Speer. The newdemocratic city of the Federal Republic needed, by

contrast, to avoid all such hierarchy, gaining a morecomplex form to reflect the egalitarian exchange ofviews. This theme occurs repeatedly in Scharoun’stexts about his post-war work. A clear example is the‘aperspective’ auditorium of the Mannheim projectthat aimed to give the theatre audience varied butequally valid views, as opposed to the old Baroqueversion which set the Duke’s box on axis and laid outthe audience according to the aristocratic hierarchy.

Once understood in relation to its politics andsupporting cosmology, the Chinese city provides afascinating case of how geometric discipline can bearmeaning in a manner quite outside the conventionsof the classical tradition, especially a classicismshorn of social and political meaning and practisedas empty formalism.44 The Chinese encounter mayhave induced an increased consciousness ofdirection registered by both Scharoun and Häring,and an increased consciousness of axiality which isessential to Scharoun’s mature work. Though somecontemporaries saw in his plans only a kind of wilfuldisorder, they were on the contrary highlydisciplined, for without the crutch of the grid he hadto have a reason for every dimension and every angle.Around 1932–3 Scharoun had discovered theadvantages of shallow swings in angle to controlmovement through a building both visually andhaptically, typically leading the visitor from staircaseto staircase.45 This developed into a hierarchy ofdirectionality which is immediately evident in thefoyer at the Philharmonie. It all depends on a specialkind of axial thinking which gives priority to theroute and to what one sees at each point, to how farone turns and how the building reveals itself as onemoves through it.

Directionality and specificity are the hallmarks ofthe organic architecture of Hugo Häring and HansScharoun, and both were present in different ways intraditional Chinese architecture. The interpretationof Ernst Boerschmann also stressed how buildingsreflected Chinese social mores and a whole ancientTaoist cosmology, which he summarised as Wesen orbeing, a direct parallel to Häring’s frequent demandthat architecture be wesenhaft, being-like. For the twoarchitects, the imagined trip to the Orient in thedarkest days of the War must have been a relief and aspur to the imagination, as well as providing freshexamples of eternal qualities in architecture that layoutside the classical tradition.



Notes1. The heading of the first sheet is

‘Besprechung am 14 November1941’: as yet unpublished anduntranslated. Where the meetingswere held and who took theminutes is unclear. From the styleand intellectual grasp of thecontent Margot Aschenbrenner isa possibility, but I never asked her.

2. Supposition of Andrea Schmitz,the executor to Häring’s secretaryMargot Aschenbrenner.Correspondence reveals that theScotts moved to Denver after thewar.

3. Peter Blundell Jones, ‘HansScharoun’s Private Houses’,Architectural Review, vol. 174, no.1042 (December 1983), 59-67; alsochapters 1 and 4 of Peter BlundellJones, Hans Scharoun (London:Phaidon, 1995).

4. The others were Peter Pfankuch,Sergius Ruegenberg who alsoworked for Mies, and AlfredSchinz, about whom more below.

5. Mentioned in Alfred Schinz, TheMagic Square: Cities in Ancient China(Stuttgart: Menges, 1996), p. 422.See also C. K. Lee (catalogue of theexhibition at Architekturgalerieam Weissenhof 30, Stuttgart,February to March 1985).

6. Ernst Boerschmann, Die Baukunstund religiöse Kultur der Chinesen(Berlin, 1911-13); ChinesischeArchitektur, 2 vols (Berlin:Wasmuth, 1925); Baukunst undLandschaft in China (Berlin:Wasmuth, 1926); ChinesischeBaukeramik (Berlin, 1927).

7. Ernst Boerschmann, ChineseArchitecture and its Relation to ChineseCulture (Washington: Govt. Printoffice, 1912).

8. The catalogue of the 1985 Leeexhibition in Stuttgart lists asbuilt 32 private houses, eightlarger housing developments andsix Chinese restaurants.

9. Lee claimed to have worked withHäring ‘on the idea of the ChineseWerkbund’: ‘Lebensdaten’ incatalogue just cited. It seemsunlikely that Lee worked forHäring on a daily basis: probablythis was the only work of this timethat he later regarded assignificant.

10. Extract from the meeting dated 14

November 1941, Häring Archive,Akademie der Künste Berlin (mytranslation).

11. Ibid.12. Competition entry, unexecuted.

This most ambitious of all Häring’stown planning proposals isdescribed and illustrated in PeterBlundell Jones, Hugo Häring: TheOrganic versus the Geometric(Stuttgart: Menges, 1999), pp. 115-116.

13. For the story of the school Kunstund Werk see ibid., pp. 141-144.

14. Über das Geheimnis der Gestalt wasthe title of his last great essaypublished in 1954, while hisproposed book was to be titled DieAusbildung des Geistes zur arbeit ander Gestalt, published in part asHugo Häring, Fragmente, ed. byMargot Aschenbrenner (Berlin:Gebr. Mann, 1968).

15. In 1935-38 Häring designed andbuilt a house in Badenweiler forthe writer Edwin Krutina (1888-1953) and his wife the actress AnniMewes (1895-1980) who had been along-standing friend andcolleague of Häring’s wife theactress Emilia Unda. Both actresseswere involved in Max Reinhardt’sBerlin theatre operation in the1920s. The Krutina House was oneof only three private housescompleted by Häring under theNazis and was somewhatcompromised by painfulalterations at the insistence of theplanning authorities. It was muchaltered and extended after the war,and so has remained uncelebratedas a minor item in the Häringoeuvre. The most detailed accountis in Matthias Schirren, HugoHäring: Architekt des neuen Bauens(Stuttgart: Hatje Cantz, 2001), pp.214-218.

16. Rudolf Kelling, Das chinesischeWohnhaus (Tokyo: DeutscheGesellschaft für Natur- undVälkerkunde Ostasiens, 1935), (oneof the two books noted in theminutes). Schirren discoveredcorrespondence about them withthe sculptor Martin Scheible, andreveals that the client thought of‘Daniel in the Lion’s Den’, whileHäring wanted the kind of Romanlions that have human-like faces:Schirren, pp. 214-218.

17. Also mentioned in the preface tolater English editions, such asTetsuro Yoshida, The Japanese Houseand Garden (London: Pall MallPress, 1969).

18. According to a table of Yoshida’stravel dates based on his diary andassembled from Japanese sourcesby H. S. Kim, Sheffield, February2007.

19. From Mamoru Yamada ‘Thinkingabout Hugo Häring’, KokusaiKenchiku (InternationalArchitecture) (October 1931), andquoted in: Mukai Satoru,Kenchikuka Yamada Mamoru(Architect Mamoru Yamada)(Tokyo: Tokaidaigaku-Shupankai,1992), pp. 218-219 (trans. by H.S.Kim, 14 November 2006).

20. Information on Kurata fromNakae Ken, Hugo Häring andorganhaft Architecture (proceedingsof the Kobe University conference

Deutschland in Japan, 2005/6).21. This was published in 1954 as a

supplement to Über das Geheimnisder Gestalt, and also appears inHäring, Fragmente, pp. 309-10.

22. The south end with the writingplace is turned eastward byaround 27°, accompanied by athree-step change in levelfollowing the rising ground. Thisdifferentiates utilitarian fromceremonial functions butprobably also responds to featuresof the site unknowable withoutthe missing site plan.

23. In Neues Bauen: Schriftenreihe desBundes Deutscher Architekten, vol. 3(Hamburg, 1947).

24. From the reprinted version inJürgen Joedicke and HeinrichLauterbach, Hugo Häring: Schriften,Entwürfe, Bauten (Stuttgart: KarlKrämer, 1965), pp. 60-63 (mytranslation).

25. Boerschmann, ChinesischeArchitektur, vol. 2, p. 50, from thelast chapter entitled ‘Das Wesenchinesischer Architektur’ (mytranslation).

26. From the reprinted version inJoedicke and Lauterbach, pp. 60-63

(my translation).27. Ibid.28. ‘A natural order will assert itself,

with the tendency for each part tofind its appropriate relation withthe sun, so that the house openstowards the south and swingsround from east to west, while itturns its back to the north. Itbehaves like a plant presenting itsorgans to the sun.’ Extract fromArbeit am Grundriss (Work on theGround Plan) (1952; mytranslation). For further commentsee Blundell Jones, Hugo Häring,pp. 150-153.

29. Andrea Schmitz, the daughter ofHäring’s last major client,remembers a water-diviner beingconsulted about the site of theSchmitz house, and its positionbeing changed in consequence(oral information).

30. Specific instances are toonumerous to list here, but manycases can be found in EnricoGuidoni, Primitive Architecture(London: Faber/Electa, 1987). In histime, Häring certainly knew thework of Frobenius which discussedAfrican examples. Interpretationsvary between cultures, and ideasabout fortunate directions can becontradictory, but always there is asystem for giving directionmeaning. The only near universalseems to be an association of eastand sunrise with birth, west andsunset with death.

31. Boerschmann, Baukunst undLandschaft in China, pp. V to VII (mytranslation).



University of Sheffield School ofArchitecture and funded by the AHRC(grant number AR119293). Much ofthe material originated in theScharoun and Häring Archives at theAkademie der Künste in Berlin,particularly the typed minutes whichwere the starting point for thisinvestigation, and I gratefullyacknowledge their cooperation overthe last thirty years. Andrea Schmitz,daughter of Häring’s last patron, hasalso provided material and crucialinformation.

BiographyPeter Blundell Jones is Professor ofArchitecture at the University ofSheffield. His research, primarilyfocussed on the alternative or organicmodernist tradition, has producedmany publications, including HansScharoun (London: Phaidon, 1995),Hugo Häring: The Organic versus theGeometric (Stuttgart: Menges, 1999),Günter Behnisch (Basel: Birkhäuser,2000), Modern Architecture through CaseStudies (Oxford: Architectural Press,2002), Gunnar Asplund (London:Phaidon, 2006) and Peter Hübner:Building as a Social Process (Stuttgart:Menges, 2007). As a journalist andcritic, he is a frequent contributor toThe Architectural Review, The Architects’Journal and other internationalperiodicals.

Author’s addressProf. Peter Blundell JonesArts TowerUniversity of SheffieldWestern BankSheffield, S10 [email protected]

32. Boerschmann, ChinesischeArchitektur, vol. 2, pp. 48-53 (mytranslation). I added the numbersin the last sentence to clarify thestructure.

33. Ibid., p. 52.34. For further discussion see Blundell

Jones, Hugo Häring, pp. 183-185.35. Boerschmann’s key books were

published 1925-27, Rudolf Kelling’sDas chinesische Wohnhaus was basedon a thesis written 1920-23 inDresden, though not publisheduntil 1935, and then in Japan (seenote 14).

36. Introduction to Häring, Fragmente,p. X (my translation).

37. See note 3. 38. See Claudia Vierle, Camillo

Schneider: Dendrologe undGartenbauschriftsteller, eine Studie zuseinem Leben und Werk (Berlin:Technische Universität Berlin,1998).

39. Hans Scharoun, ChinesischerStädtebau, included in PeterPfankuch, Hans Scharoun: Bauten,Entwürfe, Texte (Berlin: Gebr. Mann,1974), pp. 121-123.

40. Ibid. (my summary). No fullEnglish translation is yet available.

41. In a conversation in Berlin on 24

September 1993, Schinz told methat not only had he prepared thehistorical plans of Mannheim buthe had also conducted aninvestigation for Scharoun intodifferent theatre types. He alsoundertook research for theDarmstadt school project,involved in discussions witheducators and doctors. Heconfirmed that Ruegenberg wasthe ace draughtsman, and indeed

the perspectives of the projects inthat phase are often his.

42. Schinz, The Magic Square.43. Mattern designed the garden for

the Philharmonie, but it wassomething of an afterthought andnot maintained. Scharoun’sintentions for the Kuturforumwere never carried through andthere were many changes of mind,producing isolated objects ratherthan the intended continuity.Change of site after thecompetition of 1956 to the thencompletely barren Tiergartencorner did not help.

44. I am thinking of the reductivenature of Durand’s typologies andof the way that ‘composition’around axes became an automaticprocess in early-twentieth-centuryarchitectural education.

45. An advance specifically datable tothe Schminke House completed in1933: sources as in note 3.

Illustration creditsarq gratefully acknowledges:Author, 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12, 13

Ernst Boerschmann, 2Häring Archive at the Akademie der

Künste, Berlin, 3, 4, 9, 10, 15, 16

Hermann Mattern catalogue at theAkademie der Künste, Berlin, 14,17, 18

Andrea Schmitz, 11

AcknowledgementsThis paper is an extended version ofthe session paper given at the SAHconference in Pittsburgh, April 2007,and it is part of the research on East-west connections in modernarchitecture undertaken at The



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