Einstein Tower 1917-21
1. Astrophysicist Erin Finlay Freundlich commissioned Mendelsohn to design the Einstein Tower as a research facility for the theory of relativity. Between 1917-1920, Mendelsohn made numerous sketches of the facility, attempting to create a dynamic functionalist structure which would give form to Einstein’s groundbreaking theories.
2. Building commenced in Potsdam, Germany in 1921. It houses a telescope, a laboratory and housing facilities for a limited number of scientists and technicians.
3. The resulting plan revealed a centralized observatory tower, banded by rings of windows, raised on top of a wavelike platform that would house the laboratories. The experiments being carried out in the tower needed a laboratory completely isolated from the outside light and temperature changes, in order to accurately study the theories of Einstein. Hence the widening of the base of the building that achieve the objective through the thickness of the walls and antechambers prior to the laboratory. To get the light captured by the telescope to the lab than were available a system of mirrors at 45 degrees that reflected light from the top of the tower to its base.
4. The exterior was originally conceived in concrete, but due to construction difficulties with the complex design and shortages from the war, much of the building was actually realized in molded brick, covered with stucco.
This house accentuated the nature of institutional purpose as Mendelsohn’s functionalist ideology
1. Astrophysicist Erin Finlay Freundlich commissioned Mendelsohn to design the Einstein Tower as a research facility for the theory of relativity. Between 1917-1920, Mendelsohn made numerous sketches of the facility, attempting to create a dynamic functionalist structure which would give form to Einstein’s groundbreaking theories.
2. Building commenced in Potsdam, Germany in 1921. It houses a telescope, a laboratory and housing facilities for a limited number of scientists and technicians.
3. The resulting plan revealed a centralized observatory tower, banded by rings of windows, raised on top of a wavelike platform that would house the laboratories. The experiments being carried out in the tower needed a laboratory completely isolated from the outside light and temperature changes, in order to accurately study the theories of Einstein. Hence the widening of the base of the building that achieve the objective through the thickness of the walls and antechambers prior to the laboratory. To get the light captured by the telescope to the lab than were available a system of mirrors at 45 degrees that reflected light from the top of the tower to its base.
4. The exterior was originally conceived in concrete, but due to construction difficulties with the complex design and shortages from the war, much of the building was actually realized in molded brick, covered with stucco.
This house accentuated the nature of institutional purpose as Mendelsohn’s functionalist ideology
