On Exhibition: Presentation and Mediation of the International Style (Univ.-Ass.Mag.art.Dr.phil. Brigitte Franzen)

The International Style of the Twenties in Germany generated it's own way of presenting and mediating the aims of modern architecture. Artists as well as architects and designers worked together for a "gesamtkunstwerk", a synesthetic approach to what the modern impact on life and on human beeings would be. Unusual ideas needed a special way to raise understanding in a mass-society. Two types of architecture-exhibitions were developed during that time: the housing-exhibition and the exhibition-housing. The first devoted a housing-project to be a short time exhibition for the newest tendencies. Exhibition-housing was developed as a one-to-one presentation of real architecture meant as models of representation. It was a congenial approach to "exhibitions" as an art-medium, which implied architecture, modern media and typography.