Erwin Anton Gutkind

Erwin Anton Gutkind (May 20, 1886, Berlin – 7 August 1968, Philadelphia), was a German-Jewish architect and city planner, who left Berlin in 1935 for Paris, London and then Philadelphia, where he became a member of the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania. Of his work in Germany, all but one building remains and as of 2013 most if not all have historical protection orders on them. Some of them have also been restored.

Gutkind was born in Berlin on May 20, 1886. He studied from 1905 to 1909 in the Technischen Hochschule (Berlin-) Charlottenburg and the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. In 1910 he married Margarete Jaffé, with whom he had two children. In 1914 he was awarded the degree of Doktor-Ingenieur (Dr.-Ing.) by the Technischen Hochschule Charlottenburg for his thesis Raum und Materie.

In 1933 Gutkind left Berlin for Paris. He then moved to London in 1935, and finally in 1956 to Philadelphia, where he became a member of the faculty of the School of Fine Arts, University of Pennsylvania. That year he married his partner — the Sinologist Anneliese Bulling — as his first wife, from whom he had become estranged, died during World War II in Germany.

Gutkind and his contemporaries were commonly referred to as the “circle of friends of the Bauhaus” or “children of the 1880s” as they followed their mentors and the “Fathers” of modern architecture ( or Neues Bauen ) of Peter Behrens and Walter Gropius.

He was a Siedlung architect, post-war reconstructionist, urban planner, historian of urbanization and writer. His buildings were “bold combinations of stucco and exposed brick, with large windows and strikingly individual corners”. He was a ‘Bauhausian’ architect incorporating their philosophy of light, air and sun. Like many others,

The Siedlung, essentially workers (or social) housing though the word means community, was about providing accommodation for working people in a harmonious, attractive and a well provided for shelter and environment. They included gardens, kindergartens, shopping facilities, laundry areas and playgrounds. They were, in part, a response to Berlin’s shortage of housing, as the city grew and grew, developing from garden cities and the harshness of tenements. The building of the German Siedlungen reached its peak between 1926 and 1930.

Gutkind and his contemporary architects participated in the building of the Siedlungen and also in the architectural discussion groups that were an important part of these times. "The Ring of Ten," for example, included Hans Poelzig, Eric Mendelsohn, Ludwig Hilberseimer, the Taut brothers, Otto Bartning, Martin Wagner, Walter Gropius, Erwin Gutkind and they met at Mies van der Rohe’s office. In 1931, The Ring was denounced by the National Socialists .

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