Albert Speer, between the homage for Roman architecture and fascist's megalomania.

Albert Speer(1905~1981) was Hitler's the first architect, minister of armaments and war production for the Third Reich. According to the record, he was one of few intelligent officers in Nazis and talented as an architect, as an minister.

Just as an architect, he aimed to design buildings with immortal aesthetic as Roman architecture.

For his talent and sense of architecture, he could have named on Neo-Classicist's list.

However, he met Adolf Hitler and nowadays we can easily find his name beside the word 'Fascist architect'.

Albert Speer and his plan model

old picture of 'Zeppelin Tribune', one of his buildings that still remains.

Speer's architecture is normally defined with adoration for Roman(imperial) architecture, overwhelming scale and straight lines.

model of Hitler's world capital(brand new Berlin) plan named 'Germania'. Looking north toward the Volkshalle at the top of the frame.

As we can see, the main avenue and the triumphal gate were inspired by Paris's. The only difference from original was the scale. The width and length of main avenue were wider and longer than 3 times of Paris's Champs-lysées, also the triumphal gate was even bigger than the twice of Arc de Triomphe.

Fortunately, with the fall of Third Reich in World War 2, this 'concept by Hitler and designed by Speer' plan was dispersed.

model of 'Volkshalle', The Hall of nations, it was the zenith of his(also Hitler's) megalomaniac design.

This was designed to contain 180,000 people and the height was about 320 metres.

If you cannot see how tremendous this was, please check model of the famous Brandenburg Gate at the lower right for a sense of scale.

Just in personal opinion, magnified dome design slightly overlaps with Byzantine dome or Islamic mosque rather than Roman Classicism. Nevertheless, it looks uncomfortable for me, because the dome is even bigger than main building.

It is very lucky that we can just see 'only' models and photographs of these buildings from the age of tragedy.

We can learn what happens when the humanism is overwhelmed by the phenomenon, by looking Albert Speer's works.

H.G. Kim

(all photographs are from google)