Imaginary Practice: Ideology and Form in the Unlived-in House of Peter Behrens on the Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt

Peter Behrens’s 1901 house on the Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt, never occupied by his family, emerged as a symbolic showcase of progressive design, challenging traditional interpretations. While historian Tilmann Buddensieg celebrated it as a harbinger of democratic design, a Marxist perspective reframes this relationship as feudal, suggesting Behrens’s work instead reinforced new forms of domination. The study contrasts these viewpoints to expose the ideological underpinnings of architectural practice in early 20th-century Germany.

Deicher, S., & Whyte, I. B. (2011). Imaginary Practice: Ideology and Form in the Unlived-in House of Peter Behrens on the Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt. Art in Translation, 3(2), 213–240. https://doi.org/10.2752/175613111x12988932045751