Peter Behrens

Architect, painter, designer, graphic artist

• Born: April 14, 1868
• Place of Birth: Hamburg, Germany
• Died: February 27, 1940
• Place of Death: Berlin, Germany

Education: Kunstschule Art School

Significance: Peter Behrens did almost everything in the art world. He was a painter, an architect, a graphic artist, and a designer. He designed everything from logos and typefaces to furniture and cutlery. However, his most famous works are the structures he designed, including a turbine plant and the German embassy in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Background

Peter Behrens was born on April 14, 1868, in Hamburg, Germany. His father was a landowner. His parents never married each other, and both died when Behrens was a teen. The young Behrens had inherited a substantial amount of money, and he lived with a guardian until he came of age. He attended school in the borough of Altona before he decided to enroll in art school and study painting. Behrens first attended Kunstschule Art School in Karlsruhe, Germany. Later, he studied under Ferdinand Brütt in Düsseldorf. He then became a pupil of Hugo Kotschenreiter, studying under him in Munich.

The realists and the impressionists were Behrens's main inspiration in painting. He exhibited his painting Toper by the Yellow Lamplight at the Munich Secession in 1893. Behrens then focused on painting landscapes. However, the artist was interested in many mediums. During that decade, Behrens worked in woodcuts as well. Soon, he turned his attention to designing everything from ceramics and glass to carpets and women's clothing. Some of his designs for goods like dinnerware were made into commercial products.

Life's Work

Behrens never had any formal training as an architect. Still, this did not prevent him from designing buildings. In 1889, Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig invited Behrens and his family to live in an artist colony in Darmstadt. The artists there would exhibit their work regularly. They were meant to live in homes designed by a famous Austrian architect, but Behrens designed his own house instead. While living in the artist colony, Behrens wrote an extensive essay on contemporary theater that was published in 1900. He also drew up designs for a theater that was never built.

Behrens started designing printing types around this time. His first typeface, Behrens-Schrift, was published in 1902. That same year, he helped design the German pavilion at the First International Exhibition of Modern Decorative Arts in Turin, Italy. Behrens's design represented his own take on art nouveau, an artistic style that focused on the use of organic lines. At the exhibition, Behrens also presented his design for a library.

In 1903, Behrens left the artist colony to take a position as the director of the School of Arts and Crafts in Düsseldorf. As director, he made some significant changes to the school's curriculum. While building his house in Darmstadt, Behrens had spared no expense. He had focused on the aesthetics of the home rather than the price or the practical aspects of it. Behrens changed his mind-set while working at the school and had students focus more on the cost of practical designs. During his time at the school, Behrens also continued designing new typefaces.

Behrens left the school in 1907. It was then that he began a long relationship with Allgemeine Elektricitäts Gesellschaft (AEG), a large German manufacturing company. Behrens soon became the artistic consultant for AEG. In this role, he designed all the graphic materials for the company, from its brochures and catalogs to the company's logo. All of these materials had a unifying design, creating an easily recognizable corporate identity for AEG. This was a breakthrough in company branding. Prior to this, there was little concern about using materials with consistent fonts, colors, and images in business. Behrens changed all of this with his vision for the company's products.

In addition to redesigning AEG's corporate materials, he also revamped the company's line of fans, radiators, clocks, coffee pots, and lamps. Behrens then began designing buildings for AEG. The most famous of these was the company's turbine factory in Berlin. The building, completed around 1909, combined Behrens's new focus on international style with the needs of the employees who would be working in the factory. Behrens went on to design a high-tension materials factory in 1910 and an assembly hall for large machines in 1912.

Another major architectural commission for Behrens was designing the German embassy in St. Petersburg, Russia, which was also completed around 1912. Two years later, Behrens designed the festival hall for the Deutscher Werkbund Exhibition.

Behrens continued to design buildings, including the Gasgesellschaft (1911–1912), which included a series of cylindrical towers. In 1914, the architect ended his work with AEG. Following World War I (1914–1918), Behrens published the text Vom sparsamen Bauen (1918), which focused on economical design.

Behrens later served as a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Austria, from 1922 to 1927. Additional architectural works toward the end of his career included a design for a factory for the Austrian Tobacco Administration at Linz (1930) and the design for the Ring der Frauen Pavilion (1931).

Impact

Behrens truly had his hands in many aspects of the art world. His work helped inspire modern architecture in Germany and Europe. In addition, he helped companies understand the importance of design in branding, which now allows consumers to easily associate logos and even certain fonts with specific businesses. Due to his influence in this area, many experts consider Behrens the father of corporate identity. Behrens’ legacy remained strong in the twenty-first century, with an exhibition of his work, Peter Behrens in Berlin and Brandenburg, on display in Berlin, Germany, in April and May 2024.

Personal Life

Behrens married Lilli Krämer in 1889. The couple had two children together. Behrens died in Berlin on February 27, 1940.

Bibliography

Bass, Jennifer Durham. "Behrens, Peter." World Cultural Leaders of the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries. 2nd ed., vol. 1, Grey House Publishing, 2007, pp. 77–8.

Johnson, Donald Leslie, and Donald Langmead. "Peter Behrens." Makers of 20th-Century Modern Architecture: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook.Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997, pp. 22–7.

"Peter Behrens: The First Designer." ENSO, enso.readymag.com/peter-behrens/late-years/. Accessed 27 Sept. 2024.

“Retrospective and Perspective: Exhibition 'Peter Behrens in Berlin and Brandenburg'." Potsdam University of Applied Sciences, 16 Apr. 2024, www.fh-potsdam.de/en/news-media/news/retrospective-and-perspective-exhibition-peter-behrens-berlin-and-brandenburg. Accessed 27 Sept. 2024.

Sennott, R. Stephen, editor. "Behrens, Peter (1868–1940)." Encyclopedia of Twentieth Century Architecture. Vol. 1, Fitzroy Dearborn, 2004, pp. 125–27.

Stott, Roy. "Spotlight: Peter Behrens." Arch Daily, 14 Apr. 2020, www.archdaily.com/619290/spotlight-peter-behrens. AAccessed 27 Sept. 2024.