Erich Mendelsohn (1887–1953) was a German-British architect known for the expressionist architecture of the 1920s and for the "dynamic functionalism" of his department stores and cinemas. His Mossehaus of 1921 made him a pioneer of Art Deco and Streamline Moderne. Born to a Jewish family in Allenstein, East Prussia, he fled Germany for England in 1933 as the Nazis rose, opened an office in Jerusalem in 1935, and settled in San Francisco in 1945.
Read moreShow less
The Einstein Tower in Potsdam (1921), built to house a solar telescope for testing Einstein's theory of relativity, was meant as sculpture in reinforced concrete, though it was built partly of brick; it is still a working observatory. The Schocken Department Store in Chemnitz (1930) is known for its curved front with long horizontal strips of windows. In England, with Serge Chermayeff, he designed the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea (1935), described by Historic England as the UK's first modernist public building. In Jerusalem he built the Schocken Library (1936) and the Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus (1939). Erich Mendelsohn's buildings are studied for the expression of movement in curves and long horizontal bands.
Einstein Tower1921 · Potsdam
Schocken Department Store, Chemnitz1930 · Chemnitz
Hadassah Hospital, Mount Scopus1939 · Jerusalem
Red Banner Textile Factory1926 · Saint Petersburg
De La Warr Pavilion1935 · Bexhill-on-Sea
Schocken Library1936 · Jerusalem