Peter Behrens published “The art in the technology”, in 1907, in which “Perfekt in Form und Function” (Perfect in form and function) has its origins, that is why the AEG company became interested in his services. In the same year, Behrens held the AEG’s artistic consultant post, being in charge of fashioning all the products of the company and at the same time, he designed the corporate image, becoming this way the first “industrial designer of history. There famous architects such as Mies van der Rohe (that became involved in the design of the turbine factory) and Le Corbusier were at his command. Behrens was the precursor of the ideas of these architects and others as Adolf Meyer, Jean Kramer and Walter Gropius.
Behrens designed and erected the AEG’s Turbine Factory for the electric company Allgemeine Elektricitäts Gesesells (AEG), located in Berlin, Germany, between 1908 and 1910. The building is one of the most significant of proto-rationalism and one of the first in the utilization of industrialized elements in architecture. The industrial building has a modular and rectangular ground plan and the Behrens’ subsequent industrial buildings are predicated on it and became a milestone within this type of construction. The building was placed in the South extreme of the existing AEG’s complex, between Huttenstraße and Berlichingenstraße streets. Behrens conceived a building made of steel and glass that shared the prospect of its owner, Emil Rathenau, a building that showed his prosperity. Meanwhile, Behrens hoped to achieve the harmonious tradition of the Greek and Egyptian temples, with a clear desire of celebrate the industry power.
Against all the “materialism”, Behrens focused his project on the certainty of the artist and art power. As an outcome, he obtained a glass wall that represents the victory of art over the banality of life in an increasingly industrialized society. The plan was the conclusion of the determined concentration of an industrial characteristic anthology leaked by the mind of one artist.
The building
The mean materials used in this building were glass and steel, with trees holding rubblework in the metallic arcs.
The main Behrens obstacle, in aesthetic terms, was the glass and steel façade tectonics proposed by the engineer Karl Bernhard to control the structure and be able to carry out the idea of “Stereotomie”, which Behrens defended since the Oldenburg’s Art Exhibition. That turned into an ideological and technological change, in which unavoidably Behrens made forced concessions to Bernhard.
In a beginning the building had a 207 metres length, 39 metres wide and 25 metres high rectangular ground plan, with a framework formed by 22 porticos separated by a 9 metres distance and at the same time they are used as gantry cranes of 50 tons; for this reason, the building is considered as the first integral industrial integral design of the history. The plan has a basement, a ground floor and a first floor.
The porticos of the framework follow a regular rhythm, visible from the exterior and where the mullions that have big picture windows are placed.
In 1936, the architects Jacob Schallenberg and Paul Schmidt were asked to take over the extension of the building which became 247 metres long. The building is protected since 1956 being remodelling in 1978.
