by Glass! Love!! Perpetual Motion!!!-A Paul Scheerbart Reader Josiah McElheny
glass buildings are displayed in the glass hal , along with examples of old
German, Venetian, English, Tif any, and handcrafted glass. Max Taut’s
model for a botanical museum (made by Weinert-Steglitz), several of my
own sketches, and Leberecht Migge’s design for a glass garden show that
Paul Scheerbart’s poetic and wonderful proposal cannot be dismissed as
mere utopianism. In fact, there is a wel -founded hope that viewing glass
architecture wil awaken an enthusiasm for its more subtle charms. Current
architecture desperately needs to be freed from depressing, immobile, clichéd
monumentality. This can only be achieved by flowing, artistic lightness.
Translated by Anne Posten
104
Contributors
Construction management: Franz Hof mann (Taut Brothers & Hof mann, architects, Berlin W 9. Linkstraße 20
Construction
Al gemeine Beton- und Eisengesel schaft m. b. H., Al concrete work
Berlin W 57, Bülowstr. 55
Deutsches Luxfer Prismen-Syndikat, Berlin SW 68, Ceiling and floor of the domed hal , outer wal s of the
Friedrichstr. 204
basement, glass stairs
Vereinigte Zwieseler und Pirnaer Farbenglaswerke Wal s and ceiling of the cascade room, cascade and
A. G., Munich, Briennerstr. 9
border
J. Schmidt, (Official purveyor to the Kaiser), Berlin Inner wal and ceiling of ornament room in basement W, Genthinerstr. 3
Vereinigte Werkstätten für Mosaik und Glasmalerei, Inside wal s of ornament room in basement
Puhl & Wagner, Gottfr. Heinersdorf, Berlin-
Treptow
N. Rosenfeld & Co., Berlin W 8, Mohrenstr. 11
Floor and stairs of cascade room
Deutsche Gasglühlicht A.-G. (Auergesel schaft), Instal ation and lighting with Osram half-watt lamps
Berlin O 17, Rotherstr. 8-10
and Osram color-reflect lamps
Master Glassmaker Adolf Baltrusch, Berlin N, Mirroring in dome
Bornholmerstr. 76
Robert Oertling, Fabrik kompletter Geschäftsein-
Glass display cases
richtungen für al e Branchen, Cottbus
H. Scharrer & Koch, Bayreuth, Bavaria
Colored glass beads for cascade
Ed. Liesegang, Fabrik optischer Apparate, Düssel-
Kaleidoscope and projection equipment
dorf, Volmerswerterstr. 21
Jakob Ochs, Gartenbau, Hamburg, Bieberhaus
Glass spheres
J. G. Sauter, Metal ornamentenfabrik, Kupertrei-
Balustrades
berei, Cologne-Sülz
E. de la Sauce & Kloß, Eisenkonstruktion, Berlin- Lattice grating
Lichtenberg, Herzbergstr.
White, Child & Beney, Siroccowerk, Berlin NW, Ventilation system
Dorotheenstr. 35
Weise Söhne, Hal e a. d. Saale, Berlin branch, Kaiser Centrifugal pump for cascade
Wilhelmstr. 59
Dr. Max Levy, Fabrik elektrischer Maschinen und Motors for pumps and kaleidoscope
Apparate, Berlin, Mül erstr. 30
Deutsches Metal warenwerk G. m. b. H., Berlin, Light fixtures in dome (not including lamps)
Lindenstr. 106
Artists
Franz Mutzenbecher, Berlin W, Eisenacherstr. 103
Main glazing in ornament room
Professor Emanuel Margold, Darmstadt
Glazing in ornament room
Professor Arno Körnig, Bromberg
Richard Schischke, Berlin
Charlotte Leyden, Berlin
Wil i Titze, Hamburg
Hans Unger, Berlin
Emil Weinert, Berlin-Steglitz, Hardenbergstr. 36
Wal decorations in cascade room
Franz Mutzenbecher, Berlin
Contents of kaleidoscope
Professor Adolf Hölzel, Stuttgart, and others
Exhibitors in Glass Hal
Georg Leykauf, Nuremberg, Kunstgewerbehaus
Tiffany Glass
Richard L. F. Schulz, Berlin, Bel evuestr
Venetian, German, and English Glass
Vereinigte Werkstätten für Kunst im Handwerk, Handcrafted Glass
Berlin, Bel evuestr. 5 a
Emil Weinert, Berlin-Steglitz, Hardenbergstr. 36
Model of botanical museum
Firms that participate in construction
Glass construction materials and samples
105
The rhyming couplet that closes this brochure, OHNE EINEN GLASPALAST
IST DAS LEBEN EINE LAST (Without a palace of glass / Life is a burdensome
task), is one of the Paul Scheerbart mottoes encircling the base of the dome of
the Glass House. Scheerbart’s letters to Taut regarding these mottoes were later
published by Taut in Frühlicht (Early light) magazine in 1920 and are included
in this book (pages 130–43).
Overleaf: The Glass House by Bruno Taut, Cologne Werkbund Exhibition, 1914. Note the
last few words of the Scheerbart motto from the brochure opposite just below the dome on
the left-hand side of the building.
107
BRU NO TAUT
THE CRYSTAL VISION OF PAUL S C H E E R B A R T
NOAM M. ELCOTT
Noam M. Elcott
“Kaleidoscope-Architecture”:
Scheerbart, Taut, and the Glass House
“The Glass House has no purpose [Zweck] other than to be beautiful.”1
With these words the architect Bruno Taut commenced his promotional
pamphlet for his glass industry promotional pavilion. Where stained
glass once propagandized church teachings and divine light, Taut’s Glass
House showcased a host of new, often proprietary construction mate-
rials, not least Luxfer Prisms, an innovative type of glass tiles that, as
their name announced, carried light into the dark recesses of rooms.2
Purposelessness — to adapt Kant’s famous definition of beauty — acquired
purpose as exhibition architecture. Taut’s portentous prose and industry
backing notwithstanding, the architect had his sights set on goals loftier
than patented building materials or even a universal sense of beauty. For
the structure was dedicated to Paul Scheerbart, that inscrutable evan-
gelist of glass, and was emblazoned with the poet’s maxims: rhyming
couplets — “Colored glass / destroys all hatred at last” was inscribed above
the entrance — too direct to be mystical and too romantic to be function-
alist. In its debt to Scheerbart, the Glass House oriented its temporary
inhabitants toward the uncharted utopia of glass architecture.3 Beauty
and functionality were but facets of this new prismatic culture.
Taut and others described in detail one’s passage through the Glass
House. Concrete steps led to a terrace; walls of Luxfer Prisms enclosed
the interior; two iron staircases, outfitted with Luxfer glasses, ascended
The Glass House by Bruno Taut, Cologne Werkbund Exhibition, 1914. Interior view showing
the domed exhibition hall and the railed oculus opening into the cascade room below. An
exhibition including historical Venetian, German, and British glass; contemporary examples
of Tiffany and German glass; a model of a botanical museum inspired by Scheerbart’s writings;
and samples provided by the glass industries involved in the construction of the Glass House
of the most recent developments in glass architectural materials were showcased in the vitrines
surrounding the oculus. The dome of the Glass House was constructed of colored and clear
glass, but little i
s known about the colors themselves except that, as Taut described, there were
“reflections of light whose colors began at the base with a dark blue and rose up through moss
green and golden yellow to culminate at the top in a luminous pale yellow.”
111
NOAM M. ELCOTT
The Glass House by Bruno Taut, Cologne Werkbund Exhibition, 1914. Interior view from the
lower part of the cascade room with the oculus to the exhibition hall visible at the top of the
cascade. Taut’s brochure credits the many artists, artisans, and companies that provided the
experimental construction materials, glass prisms and brick, stained glass, metalized ceramic
tiles, glass globes, and other new uses of glass and concrete documented in the installation
views illustrating this essay (see page 105).
to the Glass Hall or cupola; an opening in its floor descended into a base-
ment with walls of silver and gold glass furnished by the firm Puhl &
Wagner, a cascade waterfall assembled by United Zwieseler and Pirnaer
Colored Glass Works, and, strangely, a darkened niche for kaleidoscopic
projections. The commercial and utopian aspirations of glass industrialists
and evangelists culminated paradoxically in an obscure niche whose dark
drapery swallowed the light carried inward and downward by Luxfer
Prisms so as to enhance the brilliance of the infinitely variable and varie-
gated forms rear-projected onto a milky glass screen by a giant projecting
kaleidoscope.4 The inclusion of a milky glass screen was sensible on com-
mercial and aesthetic grounds. The glass industry was promoting dulled
and silvered plate-glass projection surfaces — in short, mirror-screens! — as
a more luminous alternative to painted canvas or plaster film screens.5 And
Scheerbart himself had recently announced the imminent arrival of glass
theater, featuring glass sheets of no more than 2 to 3 meters [61⁄2–9 feet]
in width.6 (The Glass House’s glass screen measured a tolerable 120 cm
112
“K ALEIDOSCOPE-A RCHITECT U R E”
The Glass House by Bruno Taut, Cologne Werkbund Exhibition, 1914. Interior view showing
the upper part of the cascade room. Among the list of collaborators are a number of electri-
cal and technology companies (including the famous Osram Lighting Corporation) and the
companies providing the motors and pumps for the cascade, whose rushing water formed a
soundtrack for the artistic images displayed by the kaleidoscope.
[4 feet] across.) The curiosity lay instead in the kaleidoscope, which pro-
duced the last images consumed by visitors before they exited the Glass
House. Why crown a glass pavilion with projected, abstract moving images?
A first answer might again be gleaned from Taut’s pamphlet: “The
Glass House has no purpose other than to be beautiful.” The glass bead
filling of the kaleidoscope was assembled by artists — not least Franz
Mutzenbecher and Adolf Hölzel, both significant, if not highly success-
ful artists; Hölzel, in particular, was an influential teacher of younger
abstract painters. Here, perhaps, was the fulfillment of purposive pur-
poselessness: even though chance played a role, artists could still create
individualized works. Alternatively, the achievements were of a techno-
logical kind. As Taut avowed, visitors might remember the kaleidoscope
from childhood, but here was a larger projection version, indeed the first
successful projection kaleidoscope. The assertion was, at best, half right.
Earlier attempts at projection kaleidoscopes may have met with varying
degrees of success, but they date back to the invention of the apparatus.
113
NOAM M. ELCOTT
Sir David Brewster, a nineteenth-century scientist who vastly improved
the stereoscope and invented the kaleidoscope, enumerated its applica-
tion to the magic lantern, solar microscope, and camera obscura: “It is
by no means difficult to fit it [the kaleidoscope] up in such a manner as
to exhibit them [the pictures] upon a wall to any number of spectators.”7
Once again, Taut’s exploits cannot easily be restricted to artistic whimsy
or techno-commercial utility. A third way was initiated by Scheerbart.
Scheerbart had long admired kaleidoscopic effects and peppered
his prose with the moniker. Comets and stars, color and light-plays,
appeared like “a perpetually spinning kaleidoscope.”8 A fictional World’s
Exposition in Melbourne boasted “kaleidoscopic ornamentation.”9 But
in the years just prior to the Werkbund Exhibition that hosted the Glass
House, Scheerbart described in detail a fictional glass exhibition in Peking
that closely anticipated the kaleidoscopic ensemble produced by Taut and
company. “To begin, a hall with kaleidoscopes on the walls. Everything
else black velvet. In the middle of the sixteen walls, however, appeared
a large circle with kaleidoscopic effects. The kaleidoscope transformed
every minute. Always different. Every magic lantern overhead, above
the black velvet ceiling.”10 With the perfunctory shift from front to rear
projection, Scheerbart’s 1912 fantasy described almost perfectly the dis-
position of elements at the terminus of the Glass House circuit. A dozen
years prior, at the turn of the century, Scheerbart had named this dispo-
sition with a terminological precision matched only by Taut’s later design:
“kaleidoscope-architecture.”11 For Scheerbart, kaleidoscope-architecture
was but one of many half-rhymes for the glass architecture he system-
atically and devoutly prophesied. But it behooves us to take the term
seriously and literally in regard to Taut’s Glass House. Already Brewster,
the inventor of the kaleidoscope, had envisioned kaleidoscopic images
enlarged with the help of magic lanterns and other devices. Taut and
Scheerbart recognized the power and potential of expanding not only
the image but also the apparatus, so as to create a kaleidoscope one could
enter. The raked steps, darkened niche, luminous screen, and moving
images channeled nineteenth-century attractions like the diorama and
Rear view of the Glass House by Bruno Taut, Cologne Werkbund Exhibition, 1914. Note
the last words of the Scheerbart motto DAS LICHT WILL DURCH DAS GANZE ALL UND IST
LEBENDIG IM KRISTALL (Light passes through the universe / And comes to life in crystal)
beneath the dome, as well as the epigraph to Scheerbart’s Glass Architecture, Honi soit qui
mal y pense (Shamed be he who thinks evil of it), inscribed beneath the row of mirrored glass
globes.
114
“K ALEIDOSCOPE-A RCHITECT U R E”
coincided with the emergent architectural form of cinemas. The Glass
House, in short, was kaleidoscope-architecture in its most literal — that
is, etymological — sense: καλός (kalos, beautiful), εἶδος (eidos, a form),
and σκοπέω (skope¯o, to see).12 A machine for seeing, the Glass House did
not oppose purpose and beauty. Rather, to amend Taut’s declaration, the
Glass House had no purpose other than the viewing of beautiful forms.
NOTES
1. Bruno Taut, “Glashaus: Werkbund-Ausstellung Cöln 1914” (1914). This book, Taut,
“Glass House Colog
ne Werkbund Exhibition,” 101.
2. The Luxfer Prism Company was founded in Chicago in 1897 and quickly established
locally owned syndicates in several countries, including Germany. Among its first
designers was the young Frank Lloyd Wright. The German Luxfer Prism Company
produced the glass prisms for Taut’s Werkund project and for The Fairy Palace
(1919–20), his children’s game in glass.
3. See, most immediately, Scheerbart’s contemporaneous treatise: Paul Scheerbart, Glass
Architecture, trans. James Palmes (New York: Praeger, 1972). This book, 22–90.
4. Taut later described the apparatus as a “großprojizierten Kaleidoskop,” a description
from which “projecting” was inexplicably dropped in the contemporaneous English
translation. Bruno Taut, Die neue Baukunst in Europa und Amerika (Stuttgart:
J. Hoffmann, 1929), 28; Bruno Taut, Modern Architecture (London: Studio, 1929), 56.
5. See, for example, Frank Herbert Richardson, Motion Picture Handbook (New York:
Moving Picture World, 1916), 173. These glass screens were for front, not rear,
projection. Accordingly, the promotional value of the milky glass screen in the Glass
House, which employed rear projection, was admittedly nominal.
6. See Paul Scheerbart, “Das Glas-Theater,” Die Gegenwart 78 (1910): 914. This book,
Scheerbart, “The Glass Theater,” 187.
7. David Brewster, The Kaleidoscope: Its History, Theory, and Construction, 2nd ed.
(London: John Murray, 1858), 117.
8. Paul Scheerbart, Kometentanz: Astrale Pantomine in Zwei Aufzüge (Leipzig: Insel-
Verlag, 1903), 42.
9. Paul Scheerbart, Münchhausen und Clarissa (Berlin: Oesterheld, 1906), 29.
10. Paul Scheerbart, “Auf der Glasausstellung in Peking,” in Das große Licht: Ein
Münchhausen-Brevier (Leipzig: Sally Rabinowitz, 1912), 94–95. This book, Scheerbart,
“At the Glass Exhibition in Peking: The Old Baron’s Diary Entries,” 200.
11. Paul Scheerbart, “Die wilde Jagd: Ein Entwicklungsroman in acht anderen
Geschichten,” in Rakkóx der Billonär und Die wilde Jagd (Berlin: Insel-Verlag,
1900), 97. Enticing precedents for kaleidoscope architecture include the improbable
convergence of “Oriental” and glass architecture in a replica of the Alhambra’s
Hall of Abencerrages, presented in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham; according to