The Wilhelmine Reform Milieu Reconsidered: The Deutscher Werkbund, the Prussian Commerce Ministry, and Germany’s Global Commercial Ambitions

This presentation explores the disciplinary fault lines separating two fields: modern German history, on the one hand, and the history of art and architecture in modern Germany on the other. Its thesis: that in a case study of the relationship between design reform and economic development in Wilhelmine Germany, surprisingly “hard,” fixed boundaries separate the disciplines and respective literatures of modern German history and German art/architectural history; and, further, that these boundaries have structured the respective knowledge production in these two disciplines in ways that have distorted important aspects of the historical record in Wilhelmine Germany. By examining the seminal Wilhelmine design association known as the Deutscher Werkbund through the lenses of both design history and German political and economic history, this paper will offer new insights into Wilhelmine-era political dynamics and institutional improvisation.