Erwin Anton Gutkind

Personal

Vocation

Notable

German-Jewish architect and city planner, who left Berlin in 1933 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. He wrote ten books. 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), Peter Behrens and Walter Gropius. 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 (Nazis). Erwin Anton Gutkind died on 7 August 1968 in Philadelphia, aged 82. Link to Wikipedia biography