Deutscher Werkbund

Deutscher Werkbund, English German Association of Craftsmen, important organization of artists influential in its attempts to inspire good design and craftsmanship for mass-produced goods and architecture. The Werkbund, which was founded in Munich in 1907, was composed of artists, artisans, and architects who designed industrial, commercial, and household products as well as practicing architecture.

The group’s intellectual leaders, architects Hermann Muthesius and Henry van de Velde, were influenced by William Morris, who, as leader of the 19th-century English Arts and Crafts Movement, proposed that industrial crafts be revived as a collaborative enterprise of designers and craftsmen. Van de Velde and Muthesius expanded Morris’ ideas to include machine-made goods. They also proposed that form be determined only by function and that ornamentation be eliminated.

Soon after the Werkbund was founded, it divided into two factions. One, championed by Muthesius, advocated the greatest possible use of mechanical mass production and standardized design. The other faction, headed by van de Velde, maintained the value of individual artistic expression. The Werkbund adopted Muthesius’ ideas in 1914.

The Werkbund exerted an immediate influence, and similar organizations soon grew up in Austria (Österreichischer Werkbund, 1912) and in Switzerland (Schweizerischer Werkbund, 1913). Sweden’s Slöjdföreningen was converted to the approach by 1915, and England’s Design and Industries Association (1915) also was modeled on the Deutscher Werkbund.

The Werkbund’s influence was further enhanced by its exhibition of industrial art and architecture in Cologne (1914). Among the buildings exhibited were some of the most notable examples of modern architecture in steel, concrete, and glass. These included a theatre by van de Velde and an administrative office building, the Pavilion for Deutz Machinery Factory, and garages by the architect Walter Gropius.

World War I interrupted the Werkbund’s activity, but after the war it reasserted itself with a significant exhibition in Stuttgart (1927). Organized by the German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the exhibition formed a compendium of contemporary European developments in domestic architecture and construction. Many of the exhibiting architects, such as Mies, Gropius, and Le Corbusier, followed the ideas of Muthesius and employed a high degree of standardization of materials and design, making it possible to build housing units inexpensively on a large scale.

The Werkbund also participated in the Paris exhibition of industrial arts and building held in 1930. The Werkbund’s displays were organized by Gropius, along with László Moholy-Nagy, Marcel Breuer, and Herbert Bayer.

The association was disbanded in 1933 with the advent of Nazi rule in Germany. It was revived, however, after World War II.