L’imprenditore e l’architetto. La modernità dei grandi magazzini Schocken e il ruolo di Erich Mendelsohn

This proposal intends to explore the logic of commercial networks in the first modern buildings constructed by Erich Mendelsohn for the entrepreneur Salman Shocken. The Schocken department stores were built in Germany between the early 1910s and 1933 by a German family of Jewish origin who wanted to sell goods with a not too high price, but still with a certain quality. Starting with the first shops in Saxony, Schocken promoted the construction of its retail spaces in the most important German cities in blocks close to railway stations. The corner was always equipped with a very pronounced vertical thrust, which became an urban fulcrum with a strong evocative charge. Both the architect (Mendelsohn) and the client (Schocken) were forced into exile due to the well-known events linked to the racial laws and were unable to complete this strategic commercial network, which was only partially realised. Indeed, in addition to the sale of the commercial outlets (Schocken decided to go to Jerusalem, while Mendelsohn practically toured the globe), their proximity to railway stations meant that the department stores were almost all destroyed by Anglo-American bombing. Some were rebuilt, but with a logic far removed from its initial promoters.