Möglichkeitsarchitektur im Werk Paul Scheerbarts

The literary architecture in Paul Scheerbart's narrative work is analyzed systematically and interdisciplinarily for the first time. The fantastic buildings in the novels and treatises react to changes and upheavals of the early 20th century. In this way, Scheerbart reflects on questions of material and reception aesthetics just as he takes up architectural discourses. Literary architecture first functions as part of a utopia before increasingly becoming a utopia itself. For their part, his architectural designs had an effect beyond the fictional medium, inspired contemporary architectural theory, and gained factual presence: Bruno Taut, for example, realized Scheerbart's Glasarchitektur (1914) in an exhibition building.