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Reviews
| Werner Hegemann and the Search for Universal Urbanism. By Christiane Crasemann Collins. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2005. 417 pp., 63 illus. & diags., notes, bibl., index. $50 hb (ISBN 0-393-73156-1).
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In most professions, there are figures whose lives and works are endlessly appealing as sources of investigations, exhibitions, and reassessments from the biographical standpoint as well as from the influence they had on contemporaries and subsequent generations. There are others who were notable during their lifetimes but are obscure today; little is known of their lives, and their works are unknown to all but a few. Werner Hegemann (1881–1936), a German-born urban theorist, writer, and critic, falls into the second category, although at the time of his premature death, Hegemannn's acclaim was "comparable to that of Le Corbusier, Raymond Unwin, and Lewis Mumford." (p. 368). Christiane Collins's authoritative work should go a long way toward elevating Hegemann's status and become the vehicle through which he becomes better known among urban historians, landscape architects, architects, and urban theorists. Carefully researched and dense with detail, this study will eliminate the need for future biographical investigations on Hegemann, and, like any work of substantial scholarship, it should certainly inspire future investigations into Hegemann's influences on early-20th-century architecture and urban theory.
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Hegemann's career parallels the rise of 20th-century cities, modern urban theory, city planning, modern architecture, and new attitudes about housing among design professionals and the public. His present-day obscurity is due mainly to the characteristics of his career and, to a lesser degree, to his peripatetic lifestyle. As a critic and a theorist and not as a designer, his works are mainly writings, and they lie in the shadows of his more famous contemporaries' buildings. Somewhat of a nomad, Hegemann traveled around Europe from an early age, came to America first in 1905, then went back and forth to Europe, with lecture trips to South America, until 1933, when he returned to America to teach. What he may have lost in being a gypsy, however, he gained in a worldview of architecture and urban experiences throughout major cities of Europe and the Americas.
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This exhaustive biography, organized in six chronological chapters, illuminates Hegemann's life and examines the development of his planning theories. Along the way, the author discusses Hegemann's contemporaries—just about everyone involved in architecture and city planning in Europe and America—and illustrates how important less-obvious characters are to a comprehensive understanding of 20th-century urban form. Images are included, illuminating projects related to Hegemann and his career.
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Painstakingly, the author demonstrates that Hegemann's importance comes from several sources: the pioneering exhibitions he mounted in Europe and America in the early 1900s, documented here for their important role in educating the public about new urban issues; his lecturing in Europe and South America; his writings and editing of influential European publications; and his work in America with now-obscure landscape architect Elbert Peets (1886—1968), including built projects and books. In addition, Hegemann actively communicated with prominent architects of the period about urban theories and projects that were emerging in early-20th-century Europe and America. He engaged in lively correspondence among family members, friends, and professional colleagues, discussing his observations and opinions about projects and professional activities. The author is the first to examine Hegemann's extensive correspondence and writings as a unified body of work. Together, they provide insight into evolving trends in architecture and urban form in the 20th century's first decades. By having lengthy access to both (and by translating them), the author puts Hegemann's writings into the context of their times and the people with whom he was associated.
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Perhaps the work most associated with Hegemann and, to a lesser degree, Peets is their The American Vitruvius: An Architect's Handbook to Civic Art (1922). Influential when it appeared, Civic Art was described at the time of its publication as a "landmark in architecture and planning literature"(p. 144), according to Collins, but over the years, it sank, along with both authors, into obscurity. Civic Art enjoyed a brief renaissance in the last decade or so when it was embraced as the origin and defining gospel of "New Urbanism," an urban design fad and architectural trend that remains popular among some. A handsome facsimile reprint of Civic Art appeared in 1988 (Princeton Architecture Press), and it included several accompanying essays (including one by Collins) that discuss the book's context, its significance, and the authors' individual careers.
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A particularly rewarding part of this work is its contribution to a better understanding of the intersection of the careers of Hegemann and Peets, detailed in chapter 3. Hegemann was an immigrant with a background in housing and economics; Peets was a Harvard-educated landscape architect known for his facile hand and writing. The two men were partners, and, as the author notes, their association was "of lasting significance for both" (p. 119). Together, they were effective in both convincing potential clients, such as Wisconsin plumbing industrialist Walter J. Kohler, of the value of their proposals and in collaborating on writing projects. The author discusses both: an industrial village (from 1915) for Kohler that incorporated Hegemann's theories about housing with Peets's skill in large-scale site design and illustration and their joint writing projects—Civic Art and the posthumous, multivolume City Planning: Housing, vols. 1–3 (1936–38).
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Also a writer, Peets became infamous for a controversial and incendiary essay ("The Landscape Priesthood," 1927) that excoriated the nascent profession of landscape architecture and its professional organization, and, arguably, marginalized him from future professional recognition (Collins does not discuss this essay here). The professional relationship between Hegemann and Peets may not be the author's primary focus; nevertheless, by discussing these two men and their intertwined careers, she informs the reader's understanding of the evolving and intersecting professions of planning and landscape architecture in the early-20th century, a critical time for each and a period about which little has been written. Similar discussions about entwined careers of early-20th-century architects, planners, and urbanists occur throughout, and they contribute to the value of this work.
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| Clearly, this is a work for readers with specific interests in 20th-century urbanism. As such, there is much to admire here, including content, impressive attention to detail, and the author's capacity to maintain a consistently high level of scholarship throughout 400-plus pages. Collins's work, with its scholarly minutiae, is for the truly dedicated (others should read her essay in the reprinted Civic Art). Engaging but sometimes nearly impenetrable with detail, this biography will certainly find acceptance as the standard work on its subject. In addition, it should also pave the way for a better understanding of the evolution of modern urban theories and 20th-century landscape architects, planners, and architects. |
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