Interferenzen. Interférences

From Karl-Friedrich Schinkel to Gottfried Semper, Viollet-le-Duc, Le Corbusier and Rudolf Schwarz to Jean Nouvel, the reader is introduced to the work of important architects, artists and intellectuals who worked and still work at the interface of German and French culture. The publication devotes special attention to the mutual influence of major cities such as Paris and Berlin. Another focus is on the situation of border regions whose shape – as in the case of Strasbourg, Metz, the Rhineland and the Saarland – was permanently shaped by annexation and occupation.

In nine chapters, some 20 authors explain the debates over Gothic and classical architecture, the industrial age, new forms of settlement and nationalism at the end of the 19th century, the reform style, modern architecture between the two world wars, the period of occupation and reconstruction, the staging of architecture, the crisis of modernism between 1960 and 1980, and finally European developments since the fall of the Berlin Wall.