The Jewish Contribution to Modern Architecture, 1830-1930

Book excerpt: A book about architecture and society, a wide-ranging cultural and historical depiction of successful Jewish entrepreneurs in an increasingly industrialized Europe, from the dissolution of the ghetto and the 1848 liberation movement to Hitler's assumption of power in Germany. Inspired by Jewish messianism, they pursued a modern culture, free from the old feudal society. The principal characters are bankers, merchants, and industrialists together with their architects, from Schinkel and Semper to Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier. They build in Paris, Berlin, and Vienna, Budapest and New York, and in more remote centers of Jewish entrepreneurial activity, such as Oradea (Nagyvarad) in present-day Romania and Lodz in Poland, Stockholm and Gothenburg in Sweden. The buildings shed new light on the Europe of today, but also on a Europe that is lost beyond recall.