Nawiązania do tradycji nowożytnej w ceglanej architekturze wczesnomodernistycznej północnych Niemiec

One of the manifestations of the so called ‘conservative modernism’ was the reference to the brick building tradition in Northern Germany. The trend was primarily associated with the activities of Fritz Schumacher and Fritz Höger in Hamburg and Bremen in the 1920s and 1930s, but the genesis of this architecture dates back to the first decade of the 20th century and is associated with the attempts to shape North German patriotism. Just as in the art of neo-Gothic, brick architecture of ‘conservative modernism’ was meant to express the ‘North German Identity’, and in fact help in the creation of identities of the Bismarck Germany. Like the late neo-Gothic architecture, this architecture was perceived as a kind of ‘Hanseatic style’, reflecting the specificity (perceived in a mythologized way) of the Hanseatic League as a prefiguration of the New Germany and their power in maritime trade. Early-modern architecture continued to refer to the art of the past. However, the way of referring to the past changed: with only few quotes from the old art, with a considerable simplification of historical styles’ and so did the historical point of reference. In addition, the modernists became more interested in the brick building of the 17th and 18th centuries, the times of the Baroque and early Neoclassicism. Tis is evident in the works of the most important architects of North German modernism, including Fritz Höger, Fritz Schumacher, or Bruno Möhring but also works of lesser-known, though certainly interesting artists like Johann Garlef, Erich Blunck or Eugen Prinz. The interest of the North German architects of early modernism in brick construction is an element of a wider process that had been thriving in Northern Germany since the early 1900s. Interestingly enough, this process was equally intense in great artistic centres (Hamburg and Bremen) as well as in less-significant cities which were looking for their identity or tried to recreate it, as was the case in Kiel, Lubec or Szczecin. Tis paper is an attempt to show the evolution of this architecture and its most important features. The examples have been selected to show the most important characteristics of this architecture and its geographical range.