Test your design IQ
MANILA, Philippines - Who is the 20th-century Jewish German architect known for his expressionist architecture in the 1920s, as well as for developing a dynamic functionalism in his projects for department stores and cinemas?
He was born in 1887 in Allenstein, East Prussia, the fifth of six children of a hatmaker and a shopkeeper.
From 1912 to 1914, he worked as an independent architect in Munich. It was during this time that he met cello-playing astrophysicist Erwin Finlay Freundlich. It was through his relationship with the latter that he had the opportunity to design and build the Einstein Tower. The building, in its expressionistic form giving the impression of concrete as a building material, was mostly built in brick and then covered with plaster.
His practice grew with projects like the Steinberg Hat Factory with a strict angular form; and the Red Flag Textile Factory in Leningrad, the complex of buildings that is included on the list of the objects of historical and cultural heritage issued by the government of Saint Petersburg in 2001.
In the spring of 1933, in the wake of growing anti-semitism and the rise of Nazis in Germany, he fled to England. In 1934, he began planning on behalf of Chaim Weizmann, later the president of Israel, a series of projects in Palestine during the British mandate.
In 1935, he opened an office in Jerusalem, and planned Jerusalem buildings in international style that greatly influenced local architecture. Here, he built many famous buildings: Weizmann House and the three laboratories at the Weizmann Institute of Science, the Anglo Palestine Bank in Jerusalem, Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus, and Rambam Hospital in Haifa, among others.
From 1941 until his death, he lived in the US and taught at the University of California in Berkeley.
Last week’s question:
Who is the Swiss architect and furniture designer best-known for his collaborations with his cousin Le Corbusier and for his urban planning work in Chandigarh, India?
Answer: Pierre Jeanneret
Winner: Sheryll Morales of Diliman, Quezon City
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Text your answer to 0915-6486414 with your name and address. One winner will be chosen through a raffle of texts with the correct answer. The winner will receive P2,000 worth of SM gift certificates for use at Our Home, SM Department Store, or SM Supermarket. They can claim their prize at Our Home in SM Megamall. Call the store manager at 634-1943. Bring photocopies of two valid IDs and a clipping of the Design Quiz issue in which you appear as winner.
