Achim Reese
A prominent feature of Erich Mendelsohn’s work is the integration of electric lighting into his architecture. Less attention has been paid to Mendelsohn’s particular focus on the architecture of power plants. Apart from presenting them in his publications, Mendelsohn designed several power plants electricity himself. Furthermore, he highlighted electricity generation in the production facilities he planned: Prominently positioned in the main axis of the hat factory in Luckenwalde, the power plant of the Leningrad textile factory occupies a prominent position on the street corner. Not alone an expression of modernity, Mendelsohn also showed great interest in the Atlantropa infrastructure project. If the architect thus assumed that a common power supply could connect different countries and thus obtain a peacemaking function, it must finally also be asked whether Mendelsohn’s relationship to electricity is even spiritually grounded.
Achim Reese studied architecture at RWTH Aachen und the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. Working as editorial staff of the Berlin-based architecture journal ARCH+ from 2012 to 2015, he begun his dissertation Places for the Self. The Architecture of Charles W. Moore and its Socio-political Aspirations as a pre-doctoral fellow at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence, Italy, in 2016. Completing the thesis in 2021, Achim Reese is now working as an editor in Berlin. Moreover, he is teaching architectural history and theory at the Technical University in Munich.