Die Form: Zeitschrift für gestaltende Arbeit was the official journal of the Deutscher Werkbund, published in Berlin between 1922 and 1935. It emerged from a founding conviction of the Werkbund itself: that industrial-age design, from architecture to everyday objects, required a coherent public forum. After an initial run of five issues in 1922, cut short by hyperinflation, the journal resumed in 1925 and became one of the central publications of Weimar-era modernism, publishing Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, Ludwig Hilberseimer, Richard Neutra and many others alongside debates on housing, typography, and the Werkbund's own institutional politics.
The journal's first editor was the critic and historian Walter Curt Behrendt, who steered it from 1925 until late 1926. He was succeeded by Walter Riezler, a classical archaeologist and art historian who edited the journal through its most influential years, 1927 to 1933.
The rise of the National Socialist government brought this run to an abrupt end. In April 1933, Riezler was suspended from his post as museum director in Stettin for his refusal to conform to "völkisch" (nationalist-racialist) doctrines of art, and Wilhelm Lotz took over editorship of Die Form. The Werkbund continued to operate under the constraints of the new Reich Chamber of Fine Arts before being formally dissolved in 1938. The journal published its final issue in 1935, as a special number subtitled "Schönheit der Arbeit" (Beauty of Labour), a title that signalled how thoroughly its original programme had been co-opted.
The scans reproduced here are drawn from the Heidelberg University Library digital collection, supplemented with additional front matter, back matter, and cover pages digitized by the Architectural Periodicals Database using original material held at the saai Archiv für Architektur und Ingenieurbau, Karlsruhe.
| Project | Architect(s) | Location | Year |
|---|
1,688 buildings and projects have been extracted from the issues; a selection is listed here, each opening the issue at its page. See all 1,688 projects in the project directory.
The full editorial timeline of Die Form, as documented by the Deutscher Werkbund and the Heidelberg digital library.
Founding editor of the journal's continuous run from 1925; architecture critic and historian. Left the post in late 1926.
Classical archaeologist, art historian, and museum director in Stettin. Edited the journal through its most influential years before being suspended by the Nazi regime in April 1933.
Took over editorial responsibility after Riezler's forced removal, overseeing the journal's final, politically compromised years until its closure in 1935.
The journal was the official organ of the Werkbund throughout its run, published in Berlin by Verlag Hermann Reckendorf.
Selected scholarship on the journal, and the institutional sources from which the database draws its scans and transcripts.
The reproductions are sourced from the Heidelberg University Library digital collection, supplemented with additional front matter, back matter, and cover pages digitized directly by the Architectural Periodicals Database using original material held at the saai Archiv für Architektur und Ingenieurbau, Karlsruhe. Scans were assembled into PDF booklets, processed for Character Recognition, and re-uploaded as flipbooks.
Given that more than 70 years have passed since original publication (1922–1935), the content of Die Form is considered to be in the public domain under EU law (Directive 2006/116/EC, which sets protection at 70 years from an author's death or from publication for unattributed/corporate content). This material is republished here for educational and research purposes as part of a non-profit archive. If you believe you hold rights to any of the material published here and have concerns about its use, please contact us as soon as possible at info@architecturalperiodicals.com.