German Werkbund Hessen
The German Werkbund (Work Alliance) was founded in 1907 by 12 artists - including Peter Behrens, Josef Hoffmann, Josef Olbrich, Richard Riemerschmied - and 12 companies - two of which were Deutsche Werkstätten and Klingspor Type Foundry. Similar organizations were set up at the same time in Austria and Switzerland. Personalities who have worked with and stamped the image of the Werkbund are Hermann Muthesius, Henry van der Velde, Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Bruno Taut, Wilhelm Wagenfeld, Theodor Heuss, Egon Eiermann, Max Taut, Gerhard Marcks, Hans Scharouns and many others.
The Werkbund is committed to the responsible use of our environment. This covers the interlinked assignments of regional and city planning, architecture, design, media structure, landscape architecture, art and monument protection. Today's vehemently demanded sustainability, meaning environment-responsible action, incorporates fundamentals to which the Werkbund has always been committed. The Werkbund regards sustainability as a category extending beyond ecological understanding: social, political and cultural considerations have no less importance in planning and design concepts.
High aesthetic quality combined with high utility value and social compatibility are only feasible with these disciplines when planners and designers find the support of partners with similar convictions in business, science, administration, politics and the media.
The Werkbund is not a professional but a programmatic alliance of persons from these disciplines, who were nominated as members due to their involvement with environment planning and design. The principle of critical plurality applies.
Furnished with such many-sided viewpoints the Werkbund promotes its ideas, criticism and proposals by forums, lectures and exhibitions, excursions and city tours, opinion-forming and intervention in politics, administration and the public.
Werkbund discussions - interdisciplinary forum for contemporary art
With the implementation of the Werkbund discussions - interdisciplinary forum for contemporary art - the DWB Hessen is trying to establish a forum for Frankfurt- based artists that takes into account the need for interchange, cooperation and presentation. Goal of the project is not to bring artistic concepts closer to an interested public, but to intensify discourse between participating originators.
DWB Hessen is financing the project. This will guarantee continuity in the Werkbund discussions. Other projects that result from the cooperation will also be supported. The regional approach is intended to ensure that as many artists as possible in the region are reached to allow the closest possible cross-linking of this group of persons. The institutional affiliation with the DWB Hessen facilitates the contact and cooperation with other institutions working along similar lines. Now, after 19 discussions a preliminary positive stocktaking is possible. Apart from the discursiveness of the forum, various opportunities arose for cooperation between the participating artists.
The interest that this series of events generates among Frankfurt artists can be best shown by the sheer diversity of the artistic provenances. Participants in the Werkbund Discussions to date include musicians, composers, media artists, film- makers, designers, label marketers, gallery proprietors, networkers, actors and actresses, stage directors, set designers, performance artists, dancers, singers, visual artists and writers.
The project is intentionally regional in order to optimize cooperation between participants on the one side and promote the characteristics of local art on the other. Participants in the Discussions also have the opportunity to invite persons with whose work they are preoccupied.
The first 10 meetings were recorded and documented in writing. A procedure designed to enable absent members to keep abreast developments. Since the 11. meeting speakers give a brief introduction, which may give rise to subsequent discussion. An agenda can be ordered from the office of DWB Hessen. Meetings are held regularly on the 15. of the month at 20.00 in the DWB Hessen offices.