SOCKS

An online magazine of Art, Architecture, Media, Culture, Sounds, Territories, Technology)

  • Media
  • Art
  • Architecture
  • Culture
  • Sounds
  • Territories
  • Visual Atlas

The “Haus der Freundschaft” (House of Friendship): a Megaform in Istanbul by Hans Poelzig (1916)

July 19, 2015 by Mariabruna Fabrizi Leave a Comment

In 1916 an invited architectural competition was held in order to decide the scheme of a building which should have celebrated the alliance between Germany and Turkey. The never built construction was meant to be a multi-purpose complex able to host various cultural activities with spaces for concerts, exhibitions, festivals as well as a library and a cafe.

The competiton for the “Haus der Freundschaft” (House of Friendship) in Istanbul was opened to twelve German early modernist architects, among them: Peter Behrens, Walter Gropius, Theodor Fischer and German Bestelmeyer who was declared as the winner.

A deeply imaginative, yet rationally controlled project was the one submitted by Hans Poelzig (see also on Socks: the Festspielhaus in Salzburg and the Sulphuric Acid Factory in Luboń, Poland), an anti-rethorical exercise in finding a common language among East and West.

The architect proposed an expressionist symmetrical building made of a series of cascading terraces with a double set of stairs on the extremes of each level, in one version of the project, or a continuos ascending arched gallery on the sides of the building, in a posterior version. The project follows a strictly rational plan articulated on a grid distorted to follow the site limits. The plan develops around two main courtyards, while the facades materialize the geometrical control through an obsessive sequence of elongated arches.

A series of drawings collages show the massive building as a landmark emerging from the skyline of the city.

British historian Kenneth Frampton considered Poelzig’s project as an early example of “horizontal megaform” which assumes the connotation of a geological formation, outcropping from the Istanbul’s skyline.

 

poelzig-house-friendship-01

 

poelzig-house-friendship-02x

 

poelzig-house-friendship-03x

 

poelzig-house-friendship-32

 

poelzig-house-friendship-37

 

poelzig-house-friendship-47

 

poelzig-house-friendship-48

 

poelzig-house-friendship-49

 

poelzig-house-friendship-50

 

poelzig-house-friendship-51

 

poelzig-house-friendship-55

 

poelzig-house-friendship-56

 

poelzig-house-friendship-57

 

poelzig-house-friendship-58

 

poelzig-house-friendship-59

 

poelzig-house-friendship-60

 

poelzig-house-friendship-61

 

poelzig-house-friendship-62

 

poelzig-house-friendship-63

 

poelzig-house-friendship-64

 

poelzig-house-friendship-65

 

poelzig-house-friendship-66

 

poelzig-house-friendship-67

 

poelzig-house-friendship-74

 

Further reading:
Megaform as urban landscape, Kenneth Frampton

Other articles about Poelzig on Socks

Images via:
europeana.eu (about 70 images of all the stages of the project), Marten Kullman on Flickr and Archive of Affinities

Related Posts

  • Matter, Structure and Form of Life: Der Fels ist mein Haus, by Werner Blaser (1976)

    In “Der Fels ist mein Haus = La rocher est ma demeure = The rock…

  • Corner Solutions of Mies Van Der Rohe's towers (John Winter, 1972)

    In the February 1972 issue of The Architectural Review, the architect, writer and Architectural Association teacher John…

  • A Prototypal House at the Bauhaus: The "Haus am Horn" by Georg Muche (1923)

    The "Haus am Horn" is an experimental building erected and furnished as a part of…

  • Various Forms of Architecture (1636), A Selection of Etchings

    Joanne Vredemanni Vriesio, also known as Hans Vredeman de Vries (1527–c.1607) was a Dutch Renaissance…

  • Microcities' "The Field" at The Storefront for Art and Architecture, NYC

    Hello and sorry for the long hiatus, due to overwork at Microcities, lately. This quick…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Tumblr

Socks is a non-linear journey through distant territories of human imagination.

About | Visual Atlas | Topics

We are Mariabruna Fabrizi and Fosco Lucarelli from Microcities. Ask us anything

  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Tumblr


SOCKS is a project by Fosco Lucarelli and Mariabruna Fabrizi of MICROCITIES, Architecture Cityscape, Landscape.
Except where otherwise noted, the content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license.
Whenever possible we try to attribute content (images, videos, and quotes) to their creators and original sources. Please feel free to write us if you notice misattributions or wish something to be removed.
SOCKS is powered by WordPress.