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Peter Behrens is one of the forerunners of twentieth century architecture. He is often referred to as the intellectual father of three modernists: Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Each was apprenticed in his studio in Neubabelsberg around 1910. From 1919, Gregor Rosenbauer, a graduate of the University of Arts and Crafts in Frankfurt am Main, was the head of the Behrens studio. In 1922, he directed the construction of Behrens’ Dombauhütte Pavilion in the Deutsche Gewerbeschau in Munich, where the controversial Crucifix by Ludwig Gies was shown (later bought for the Stadtmuseum in Szczecin). Rosenbauer assisted Behrens in 1923 at his Meisterschule für moderne Kunst unter Berücksichtigung der Monumental- und Industriebauten at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. In the same year, despite the excellent reception by Viennese students, he decided to take on the position of director of the Städtische Handwerker- und Kunstgewerbe-Schule in Stettin (now Szczecin). His mission was to implement the reform initiated by Hermann Muthesius. Rosenbauer employed three Bauhaus graduates: Kurt Schwerdtfeger (from 1924), Else Mögelin (from 1927) and Vincent Weber (from 1931). The Vorkurs was led by Johannes Itten (as a visiting professor) for two years, and Mies came with guest lectures. Theoretical subjects were taught by the Stadtmuseum director Walter Riezler – a member of the Werkbund and publisher in chief of its magazine Die Form. Riezler presented the works of Stettin students in the Mostra internazionale delle arti decorative in Monza (1925 and 1927). An expression of appreciation for the reform of Rosenbauer was an article in The Studio dedicated to the school. In 1930, it moved to a functionalist building and changed its name to the Werkschule für gestaltende Arbeit. The most important designs by Rosenbauer in Stettin included: the interiors of the Provinzialmuseum Pommerscher Altertümer, remodelling of the fair pavilions for the exhibition Die Gesundheitspflege as well as houses and interiors for intellectuals and bourgeois: Richard Biesel, Gero Lüth, Wilhelm Léclair, Gerhard Salzweder, Siegfried Platzer. Most were associated with the Stettiner Museumsverein, in which Rosenbauer was on the board. His formal language combined the inspiration of De Stijl with Expressionism and Neues Bauen. The experience gained in Behrens’ studio played a crucial role for his designs. In the second half of the 1930s, Rosenbauer’s constant “love for tradition” was emphasized. Folk arts and crafts did indeed inspire all the leading artists from the Stettin school. The monument to the victims of the First World War in Massow (now Maszewo), designed by Rosenbauer in 1926, became most famous in 1939. It played a major role in propaganda due to the changing situation in global politics. The Szczecin modernists lost their positions after the Nazis came to power, but the new authorities partly continued to use their talents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the Second World War about half of the 1500 non-European objects of culture belonging to Georg Buschan (1863–1942), a German physician, traveler, author of numerous ethnological publications, survived in Szczecin. Although the non-European objects were not exhibited or available to the general public for a long time, information about their presence reached the small community of Szczecin artists. Appreciating the importance of this collection, Marian Tomaszewski (1904–1968) spoke about it in the context of the compulsive socialist realism of the 1950’s : ‘[...] it is better to admire and imitate primitive but charming folk art, not to mention the art of primitive peoples, or better still, to follow Picasso or Matisse’. However, the Communist authorities had their own ideas on how to use the Buschan collection in their propaganda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This text is an attempt to outline the broad perspective of Szczecin's visual culture in the first five years after the end of World War II. Adopting the nomenclature of natural sciences, the author metaphorically identities the activities of Polish artists, who arrived in a ruined city (biotope), as a process of biocenosis. References to nature may already be witnessed in the first testimony of Polish interest in the German Hinterpommern: Wacław Boratyn'ski's illustrations for the book Earth collects the ashes of Józef Kisielewski (1939). To put aside the evidence of German culture in Szczecin, the mayor Jan Zaremba placed emphasis on the landscape in the early urban plans for the city (1945-1947). The land was treated as a tomb of the older, Slavic culture (Marian Tomaszewski's paintings, interior designs and posters by Stanisław Jezioran'ski), whose resurrection allowed the migrants to create an illusion of returning to the roots. The visual aspect of domesticating the new lands was similar to the conquest of America, in which the Poles allegedly took part (Tomaszewski's fresco depicting Jan from Kolno, 1948, as well as his and Kazimierz Podsadecki's graphic work for the propaganda demonstration "We keep the guard on the Oder", 1946). Henryk Stazewski in his pseudo-social realist picture The Enchanted Land (1950-1951) created an apotheosis of the conqueror. During its inception, the most active pioneers Tomaszewski and Podsadecki left Szczecin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses selected aspects of the architecture in Poznań in the interwar period. Special emphasis is placed on the issue of the influence of German ideas that pervaded the works of the local architectural milieu which accepted them consciously, subconsciously or sometimes suppressed them from consciousness. On the one hand, this was due to the fact that Poznań designers were educated mostly in Berlin, Munich, Dresden or Karlsruhe. On the other hand, German ideas also proved attractive for architects who arrived from Galicia and knew them at least in theory from their education in Lvov, similarly to Viennese concepts. Among the many tendencies in the 1920s, the one that gained greatest prominence was the so-called "Um 1800" style codified by Paul Mebes in his famous book under the same title, but expressionistic transformations of historical, mostly modern styles, were also frequent. The 1930s were characterized by an overlapping of two discourses: functionalization of life in a great modern city and the conservation of its monuments. A significant contribution on the part of the Warsaw milieu must be noted, but business travels and knowledge of the latest textbooks pointed the attention of the Poznań architects to Poland's closest western neighbour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]