Happy Birthday to Erich Mendelsohn, the Potsdam Einstein Observatory architect. This seminal structure was conceived in 1917 and built three years later of masonry covered in stucco due to concrete and steel shortages. The expressionist form was Mendelsohn’s manifestation of Einstein’s Relativity theory. The building is still in use today. Mendelsohn left Germany for the UK in 1933 following a wave of anti-Semitism. He continued design there as well as in burgeoning Israel. During the war he emigrated to the United States, settling in the San Francisco bay area. Ironically, he designed vernacular German buildings for the US military to test fire-bombing, which was then employed with gusto. Many of his buildings survive on both continents.
