Initial purpose of The Deutscher Werkbund was to establish a partnership of product manufacturers with design professionals to improve the competitiveness of German companies in global markets. The Werkbund was less an artistic movement than a state-sponsored effort to integrate traditional crafts and industrial mass-production techniques, to put Germany on a competitive footing with England and the United States. Its motto “Vom Sofakissen zum Städtebau” (from sofa cushions to city-building) indicates its range of interest.

The Deutscher Werkbund emerged when the architect Joseph Maria Olbrich left Vienna for Darmstadt, Germany, in 1899, to form an artists’ colony at the invitation of Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse.[1] The Werkbund was founded by Olbrich, Peter Behrens, Richard Riemerschmid, Bruno Paul and others in 1907[2] in Munich at the instigation of Hermann Muthesius, existed through 1934, then re-established after World War II in 1950. Muthesius was the author of the exhaustive three-volume “

The English House” of 1905, a survey of the practical lessons of the English Arts and Crafts movement. Muthesius was seen as something of a cultural ambassador, or industrial spy, between Germany and England.

The organization originally included twelve architects and twelve business firms. The architects include Peter Behrens, Theodor Fischer (who served as its first president), Josef Hoffmann, Bruno Paul, and Richard Riemerschmid. Other architects affiliated with the project include Heinrich Tessenow and the Belgian Henry van de Velde. The Werkbund commissioned van de Velde to design a theatre for its 1914 Cologne Exhibition in Cologne. The exhibition was closed and the buildings dismantled, ahead of schedule, because of the outbreak of WW I. Eliel Saarinen was made corresponding member of the Deutscher Werkbund in 1914 and was invited to participate in the 1914 Cologne exhibition. Among the Werkbund’s more noted members was the architect Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe, who served as Architectural Director.

Key dates of the Deutscher Werkbund:

1907, Establishment of the Werkbund in Munich
1910, Salon d’Automne, Paris
1914, Cologne exhibition
1920, Lilly Reich becomes the first female Director
1924, Berlin exhibition
1927, Stuttgart exhibition (including the Weissenhof Estate)
1929, Breslau exhibition
1938, Werkbund closed by the Nazis
1949, Reestablishment

Text taken from www.wikipedia.de