Auguste Endell, Architect of the Month, May 2016

August Endell was born on 12 April 1871 and grew up in Berlin. In 1892 he went to the University of Munich to study aesthetics, philosophy and art. Always an intellectual he became interested in the aesthetics of art and design and wrote a number of papers on the subject including 'On Beauty' in 1896 which can be considered an anticipation of abstract art. He befriended Jugendstijl sculptor and designer Hermann Obrist who influenced and encouraged him to move from academia.

A self-taught artist, Endell began working on translating his theories into architecture and the built environment and in 1896 received his first commission. Endell's design for the façade and interior of the Hofatelier Elvira, an existing building in Munich

Interior of Hofatelier Elvira 

which he embellished with typically turbulent Jugendstijl forms and motifs, made him famous overnight. The Atelier was to be run as a photographers' and artists' studio by Anita Augspurg and Sophia Goudstikker and was said to have been the first such business in Germany created and run by women. The building was vandalised by the Nazis and later destroyed by bombing during WWII.     

From 1898 Endell joined other artists and designers in the Munich arts and crafts movement where he became regarded as an innovative leader. He continued to publish articles and papers including in 1901 on "Originality and Tradition". At the same time he moved from Munich to Berlin which encouraged him to move from the flamboyance of Jugendstijl design and towards Modernism. He contributed to the design of the Theater Bunte, in Berlin Germany, which has since been destroyed.



In 1902 Endell began the design for what is certainly his most important surviving building, the Hackesche Hofe, a notable commercial and residential development complex in the centre of Berlin. The construction of the project, launched in 1906, follows a pattern of clear separation between residential areas, crafts, trade and culture, which distinguishes it from earlier more random developments which were common in the 19th century. 

Berlin's celebrated Hackesche Höfe complex, built 1906

He also completed a design for a sanatorium in Wyk auf Föhr built in 1902.  By 1904 Endell was also head of a small design school which he established in Berlin, this lasted until the outbreak of the first world war. Other projects included town houses and villas in Berlin and Potsdam. Later designs included for two racecourse grandstands at Mariendorf in 1911-12.

Racecourse Grandstand C 1912

In 1914 August Endell was proposed as the  successor to Henry van de Velde as head of the Weimar School of Arts and Crafts, but Walter Gropius was appointed. However his teaching career continued when in 1918 Endell was appointed director of the Breslau Academy of Art, in which position he served until he fell ill and died on 13 April 1925 at the age of only 54. He left a wife, Anna Meyn and a young daughter.

Apart from his designs, books and papers, August Endell has another claim to fame. His first wife, who he married in 1901, was a young, exuberant artist and actress named Else Plötz. Their marriage was short and turbulent and ended when she ran away with Endell's best friend, Felix Paul Greve. Both Greve and Plötz would become much more famous under subsequent names. He ended up in Canada where he was knows as the author Frederick Philip Grove, while she became the infamous Dada Baroness, Elsa von Freytag-Loringhven.

_______________________________________________________________________________

http://www.august-endell.com/

Architect of the Month is an occasional feature.