Dissertation
“Zauberland des Sichtbaren” - Architecture in the Transformation of Vision around 1900

Dissertation
Yue Zhao
Leiter: Prof. Dr. Maarten Delbeke
 


Bild: Nature Study from August Endell, Zauberland des Sichtbaren, Berlin-Westend: Verlag der Gartenschönheit, 1928: 97. Collection Zhao Yue.

The doctoral project investigates the reflective formation of the emerging discourses of optical psychology and modern architecture at the turn of the nineteenth century. It tests the problems and hypotheses of one discipline against the other in the context of the radical social, cultural and epistemological reform in Germany. The works of the autodidact architect August Endell (1871–1925), who has an extensive academic background in philosophy and psychology, as well as various practices in literature, applied art, architecture and design pedagogy, serve as a pivot to illustrate how certain notions and instructions took shape and migrated from one field to another.