Share the story of what Open Access means to you
University of Michigan needs your feedback to better understand how readers are using openly available ebooks. You can help by taking a short, privacy-friendly survey.
Topographies of Class: Modern Architecture and Mass Society in Weimar Berlin
Sabine HakeIn Topographies of Class, Sabine Hake explores why Weimar Berlin has had such a powerful hold on the urban imagination. Approaching Weimar architectural culture from the perspective of mass discourse and class analysis, Hake examines the way in which architectural projects; debates; and representations in literature, photography, and film played a key role in establishing the terms under which contemporaries made sense of the rise of white-collar society.
Focusing on the so-called stabilization period, Topographies of Class maps out complex relationships between modern architecture and mass society, from Martin Wagner's planning initiatives and Erich Mendelsohn's functionalist buildings, to the most famous Berlin texts of the period, Alfred Döblin's city novel Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929) and Walter Ruttmann's city film Berlin, Symphony of the Big City (1927). Hake draws on critical, philosophical, literary, photographic, and filmic texts to reconstruct the urban imagination at a key point in the history of German modernity, making this the first study---in English or German---to take an interdisciplinary approach to the rich architectural culture of Weimar Berlin.
Sabine Hake is Professor and Texas Chair of German Literature and Culture at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of numerous books, including German National Cinema and Popular Cinema of the Third Reich.
Cover art: Construction of the Karstadt Department Store at Hermannplatz, Berlin-Neukölln. Courtesy Bildarchiv Preeussischer Kulturbesitz / Art Resource, NY
-
Cover
-
Title
-
Copyright
-
Acknowledgements
-
Contents
-
Introduction
-
CHAPTER 1 Setting the Scene: Weimar Berlin, circa 1920
-
I. Historical Legacies and Reformist Beginnings
-
II. Martin Wagner and the New Berlin
-
III. Case Study: Potsdamer Platz
-
-
CHAPTER 2 Mapping Weimar Society: On Masses, Classes, and White-Collar Workers
-
I. The Rise of the White-Collar Workers
-
II. Weimar Berlin, the Quintessential Modern Metropolis
-
III. Mass Discourse and White-Collar Culture
-
IV. White-Collar Culture and the New Objectivity
-
-
CHAPTER 3 Organizing the Modern Masses: New Building in Weimar Berlin
-
I. Constructing the New Berlin
-
II. The Project of New Building
-
III. Erich Mendelsohn and the Functionalist Aesthetic
-
IV. Ludwig Hilberseimer and the High-Rise City
-
-
CHAPTER 4 Walking in the Metropolis: The City Texts of Franz Hessel and Siegfried Kracauer
-
I. Case Study: The Kurfürstendamm
-
II. Hessel's Urban Flaneries
-
III. Kracauer's Urban Hieroglyphics
-
-
CHAPTER 5 Picturing the New Berlin: Photography, Architecture, and Modern Mass Society
-
I. Architecture and Photography in Weimar Culture
-
II. Case Study: Mossehaus
-
III. Images of Alexanderplatz
-
-
CHAPTER 6 Deconstructing Modern Subjectivity: On Berlin Alexanderplatz
-
I. Case Study: Alexanderplatz
-
II. On the Streets with Franz Biberkopf
-
III. The City Novel and Weimar Literary Culture
-
IV. Alfred Döblin and Berlin
-
-
CHAPTER 7 Reconstructing Modern Subjectivity: On Berlin, Symphony of the Big City
-
I. A City Symphony in Five Movements
-
II. Walter Ruttmann and the City Film
-
III. The Spectacle of White-Collar Culture
-
IV. Critical Reception and Filmic Reinterpretation
-
-
Notes
-
Index of Names
-
Index of Places
-
Index of Titles
- 978-0-472-05038-3 (paper)
- 978-0-472-02519-0 (ebook)
- 978-0-472-07038-1 (hardcover)