Frühmoderner

Frühmoderner (German for “early modern”) denotes the first phase of modernist architecture and design that emerged in Central Europe, especially Germany and Austria, around the turn of the 20th century. The term is used to differentiate these pioneering works from later, more fully developed movements such as the International Style and the Bauhaus school. Its time span is loosely defined as 1895–1915, a period in which architects and designers began to question historicist ornamentation and to explore new structural and material possibilities.

The stylistic core of the frühmoderner approach lies in a restrained simplification of form, the honest expression of construction, and the selective use of emerging technologies such as steel framing, reinforced concrete, and large‑scale glazing. Influences include the Arts and Crafts movement, Jugendstil (the German variant of Art Nouveau), and the rationalist ideas of figures like Auguste Perret. While decorative motifs were not entirely abandoned, ornamentation was typically geometric, abstract, or derived from functional elements.

Notable practitioners include Peter Behrens, whose 1901 AEG Turbine Hall combined exposed steel structures with modest ornament; Bruno Taut, whose glass houses (e.g., the 1914 Glass Pavilion in Cologne) expressed utopian ideals through colour and light; and the early work of Walter Gropius, especially the 1908 Fagus Factory, often cited as a prototype of modern industrial architecture. The frühmoderner phase also encompassed urban planning experiments, such as the garden‑city concepts of Hermann Muthesius.

Although the movement was short‑lived, its emphasis on functional clarity, material truth, and the integration of art and industry set the groundwork for later modernist milestones, influencing the Bauhaus curriculum and the broader International Style that dominated mid‑20th‑century architecture.