Erich Mendelsohn

Erich Mendelsohn (21 March 1887 – 15 September 1953)^[1] was a Jewish German architect, known for his expressionist architecture in the 1920s, as well as for developing a dynamic functionalism in his projects for department stores and cinemas.

Biography[link]

Erich Mendelsohn was born in Allenstein (Olsztyn), East Prussia. He was the fifth of six children; his mother was a hatmaker and his father a shopkeeper. He attended a humanist Gymnasium in Allenstein and continued with commercial training in Berlin.

Einstein Tower in Potsdam

In 1906 he took up the study of national economics at the University of Munich. In 1908 he began studying architecture at the Technical University of Berlin; two years later he transferred to the Technical University of Munich, where in 1912 he graduated cum laude. In Munich he was influenced by Theodor Fischer, an architect whose own work fell between neo-classical and Jugendstil, and who had been teaching there since 1907; Mendelsohn also made contact with members of Der Blaue Reiter and Die Brücke, two groups of expressionist artists.

From 1912 to 1914 he worked as an independent architect in Munich. In 1915 he married the cellist Luise Maas. Through her, he met the cello-playing astrophysicist Erwin Finlay Freundlich. Freundlich was the brother of Herbert Freundlich, the deputy director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institut für Physikalische Chemie und Elektrochemie (now the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society in the Dahlem district of Berlin). Freundlich wished to build a suitable astronomical observatory to experimentally confirm Einstein's Theory of Relativity.

Hat Factory in Luckenwalde

Through his relationship with Freundlich, Mendelsohn had the opportunity to design and build the Einsteinturm ("Einstein Tower"). This relationship and also the family friendship with the Luckenwalde hat manufacturers Salomon and Gustav Herrmann helped Mendelsohn to an early success. From then until 1918, what is known of Mendelsohn is, above all, a multiplicity of sketches of factories and other large buildings, often in small format or in letters from the front to his wife.

Architecture career[link]

At the end of 1918, upon his return from World War I, he settled his practice in Berlin. The Einsteinturm and the hat factory in Luckenwalde established his reputation. As early as 1924 Wasmuths Monatshefte für Baukunst (a series of monthly magazines on architecture) produced a booklet about his work. In that same year, along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius, he was one of the founders of the progressive architectural group known as Der Ring.

His practice employed as many as forty people, among them, as a trainee, Julius Posener, later an architectural historian. Mendelsohn's work encapsulated the consumerism of the Weimar Republic, most particularly in his shops: most famously the Schocken Department Stores. Nonetheless he was also interested in the socialist experiments being made in the USSR, where he designed the Red Banner Textile Factory in 1926 (together with the senior architect of this project, Hyppolit Pretreaus). His Mossehaus newspaper offices and Universum cinema were also highly influential on art deco and Streamline Moderne.

Weizmann residence, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot

In 1926, he bought an old villa, and in 1928, he designed Rupenhorn, nearly 4000 m², which the family occupied two years later. With an expensive publication about his new home, illustrated by Amédée Ozenfant among others, Mendelsohn became the subject of envy.

De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill on Sea

In the spring of 1933, in the wake of growing antisemitism and the rise of the Nazis in Germany, he fled to England. His fortune was seized by the Nazis, his name struck from the list of the German Architects' Union, and he was excluded from the Prussian Academy of Arts.

In England he began a business partnership with Serge Chermayeff, which continued until the end of 1936. Mendelsohn had long known Chaim Weizmann, later President of Israel. At the start of 1934 he began planning on Weizmann's behalf a series of projects in Palestine during the British Mandate. In 1935, he opened an office in Jerusalem and planned Jerusalem stone buildings in the International Style that greatly influenced local architecture.^[2] In 1938, after dissolving his London office, he took UK citizenship and changed his name to "Eric." In Palestine, Mendelsohn built many now-famous buildings: Weizmann House and three laboratories at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Anglo-Palestine Bank in Jerusalem, Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus, Rambam Hospital in Haifa and others.

From 1941 until his death, Mendelsohn lived in the United States and taught at the University of California, Berkeley. Until the end of World War II his activities were limited by his immigration status to lectures and publications. However, he also served as an advisor to the U.S. government. For instance, in 1943 he collaborated with the U.S. Army and Standard Oil in order to build "German Village", a set of replicas of typical German working-class housing estates, which would be of key importance in acquiring the know-how and experience necessary to carry out the firebombing of Berlin.^[3] In 1945 he established himself in San Francisco. From then until his death in 1953 he undertook various projects, mostly for Jewish communities.

Buildings (selected)[link]

Interior view of the Hat Factory in Luckenwalde

Mossehaus in Berlin

Petersdorff department store in Breslau, now Wrocław (Detail)

Schocken department store in Chemnitz

• Work hall of the Herrmann hat factory, Luckenwalde (1919-1920)
• Einsteinturm (solar observatory on the Telegraphenberg) in Potsdam, 1917 or 1920-1921 (building), 1921-1924 (technical equipment). The building, its expressionistic form giving the impression of concrete as a building material, was mostly built in brick and then covered with plaster. Mendelsohn explained this was because of delivery problems; however, it is presumed that the real reason for the choice of building materials was problems with constructing the casing.
• Steinberg hat factory, Herrmann & Co, Luckenwalde (1921-1923) with a strict, angular form
• Mossehaus, conversion of the offices and press of Rudolf Mosse, Berlin (1921-1923)
• Schocken department store, Nuremberg (1925-1926)
• Red Flag Textile Factory, Leningrad, 1926. Mendelsohn authored the building of the power station of the factory; the other buildings were authored by S. O. Ovsyannikov, E. A. Tretyakov, and Hyppolit Pretreaus, who was the senior architect of this project. The complex of buildings of this factory is included in the List of the objects of historical and cultural heritage issued by the government of Saint Petersburg in 2001 (with additions of 2006).
• Extension and conversion of Cohen & Epstein department store, Duisburg (1925-1927)
• Schocken department store, Stuttgart (1926-1928). The department store, together with the Tagblatt-Turm (1924-1928) of Ernst-Otto Oßwald across the way, constituted an impressive ensemble of modern architecture, and was damaged only lightly in World War II. In 1960, the city of Stuttgart demolished the store, despite international protest. In its place today stands Egon Eiermann's unremarkable department store building (Galeria Kaufhof, previously Horten).
• Exhibition pavilion for the Rudolf Mosse publishing house at the Pressa in Cologne (1928)
• Woga-Komplex and Universum-Kino (cinema), Berlin (1925-1931)
• Schocken department store, Chemnitz (1927-1930), known for its arched front with horizontal strips of windows.
• His own home, Am Rupenhorn, Berlin (1928-1930)
• Columbushaus, Potsdamer Platz, Berlin (1928-1932), not to be confused with the "Columbia-Haus" in Berlin-Tempelhof, which was torn down in 1938
• Jewish youth center, Essen (1930-1933)
• The De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex, England (1934). In collaboration with Serge Chermayeff.
• Cohen House, Chelsea, London (1934-1936). In collaboration with Serge Chermayeff.
• Weizmann House, Weizmann Institute campus, Rehovot near Tel Aviv (1935-1936)
• Built around the same time: a cluster of three buildings on the Weizmann Institute campus, presently housing high-resolution NMR, biological MRI, and the Kimmel Center for Archeology, respectively
• Hebrew University, Jerusalem (1934-1940)
• Synagogue B'Nai Amoona, now Center of Creative Arts, University City, Missouri (1946-1950)
• Maimonides Hospital, San Francisco (1946-1950)
• Park Synagogue, Cleveland Heights, Ohio (1947-1951)
• Russell House, San Francisco, California (1951)

• David Palterer (a cura di)"Erich Mendelsohn Nuove riflessioni New reflections" Ed. Tre Lune Edizioni 2004 ISBN 8887355843100 p.ill.
• David Palterer, "Tracce di Mendelsohn", in Domus, 646, 1984, pp. 4–9
• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
• Erich and Luise Mendelsohn papers, 1894-1992. Research Library at the Getty Research Institute. Los Angeles, California. The archive, from the estate of Luise Mendelsohn, comprises the personal correspondence and documents of the Mendelsohn family. Includes transcripts or originals of correspondence between Erich and Luise Mendelsohn (1910-1953) reflecting Erich Mendelsohn's architectural, aesthetic, and political development. Other papers concern Erich's architectural legacy and include manuscripts of Luise's unpublished autobiography and biographical notes on her husband, photographs of family life and architectural projects, microfilm copies of typescripts and drawings, audiotapes of lectures, and five drawings by Erich's students.

Further reading[link]

• —, Erich Mendelsohn: Das Gesamtschaffen des Architekten. Skizzen, Entwürfe, Bauten (1930) Berlin, Reprinted by Vieweg-Verlag, Braunschweig/Wiesbaden, 1988, ISBN 3-528-18731-X
• —, Erich Mendelsohn - Dynamik und Funktion, Katalog zur Ausstellung des Instituts für Auslandsbeziehungen e. V. (1999) Hatje Canz Verlag
• Julius Posener: "Erich Mendelsohn". In: Vorlesungen zur Geschichte der neuen Architektur, special issue of Arch+ for the 75th birthday of Julius Posener. Nr. 48, December 1997, 8-13
• Ita Heinze-Mühleib: Erich Mendelsohn. Bauten und Projekte in Palästina (1934-1941)
• Sigrid Achenbach: Erich Mendelsohn 1887-1953 : Ideen - Bauten - Projekte. Catalog for an exhibit on the 100th anniversary of his birth, Beständen der Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz. Willmuth Arenhövel Verlag, ISBN 3-922912-18-4

Eric Mendelsohn (born 1 November 1964) is an American film director and screenwriter. Two of his films have been screened in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes: Through an Open Window in 1992^[1] and Judy Berlin in 1999.,^[2] which won the Directing Award at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival.^[3] His third film, 3 Backyards, also earned the Directing Award at the Sundance Film Festival in 2010, making him the only person in history to receive that honor twice.^[4]

He teaches at Columbia University's School of the Arts in New York City.^[5]

Mendelsohn is one of five siblings. One of his brothers is author and critic Daniel Mendelsohn.^[6]

Filmography[link]

• Through an Open Window (1993)
• Judy Berlin (1999)
• 3 Backyards (2010)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Eric Mendelsohn at the Internet Movie Database

This article about a United States film director born in the 1960s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Edie Falco
Falco at the premiere of Tennessee at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival
Born	Edith Falco (1963-07-05) July 5, 1963 (age 48) Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1987 – present

Edith "Edie" Falco ( /ˈiːdi ˈfælkoʊ/; born July 5, 1963) is an American television, film and stage actress, known for her roles in Oz as Diane Whittlesey, as Carmela Soprano on the HBO series The Sopranos, and as the titular character on the Showtime series Nurse Jackie.

Early life[link]

Falco was born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Judith Anderson, an actress, and Frank Falco, a jazz drummer.^[1] Her father was of Italian descent and her mother's ancestry was Swedish and English.^[2][3][4] Falco's siblings are Joseph, Paul and Ruth. Her uncle is novelist, playwright and poet Edward Falco, an English professor at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. She was raised in West Islip,^[5] on Long Island. Falco graduated from Northport High School in 1981, after playing Eliza Doolittle in a production of My Fair Lady. She attended the Acting Program at SUNY Purchase with fellow actors Stanley Tucci and Ving Rhames; she remains friends with both.

Career[link]

Falco in 2007.

Early in her career, Falco made appearances on television shows like Law & Order and Homicide: Life on the Street. Tom Fontana, executive director of Homicide, cast Falco as Eva Thormann, the wife of an injured police officer, after watching Falco's performance in Laws of Gravity, a 1992 film directed by Nick Gomez. Fontana said of her, "She's an actress who's unadorned by any embroidery. She does everything with such simplicity and honesty, it's breathtaking."^[6] A struggling actress at the time, Falco said her salary from these television episodes paid for one month's worth of rent.^[7] Fontana cast Falco as a regular character, prison officer Diane Whittlesey, in his HBO series Oz based on her work in the Homicide episodes "Son of a Gun" and "A Shot in the Dark".^[8]

Her first big break in films was a small speaking role in the 1994 Woody Allen film Bullets Over Broadway. Her friendship with former SUNY Purchase classmate Eric Mendelsohn, who was the assistant to Allen's costume designer, Jeffrey Kurland, helped her to be cast in the role. Mendelsohn would go on to direct Falco in his feature film Judy Berlin, for which he won "Best Director" honors at the Sundance Film Festival. Falco would go on to star in Mendelsohn's next film "3 Backyards", for which he won "Best Director" a second time. Mendelsohn is the only director to ever win this award twice.

Falco, The X-Files star Gillian Anderson, Ugly Betty star America Ferrera, and 30 Rock's Tina Fey are the only actresses to have received a Golden Globe, an Emmy and a SAG Award in the same year. Falco won these awards in 2003 for her performance as Carmela during the fourth season of The Sopranos.

Edie has won four Emmys,^[9] two Golden Globes and five Screen Actors Guild Awards.^[10] Falco is the second actor to have won Emmys for lead acting in both a Drama and a Comedy series (the first actor to do so was Carroll O'Connor).

Falco has appeared in the films Trust, Cop Land, Private Parts (non-speaking part), Random Hearts, Freedomland, and John Sayles' Sunshine State, for which she received the Los Angeles Film Critics Award for "Best Supporting Actress". On Broadway, she appeared in the Tony Award-winning Side Man and in the revivals of Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune opposite Stanley Tucci, and 'night, Mother opposite Brenda Blethyn. She has also appeared as a guest star on the television shows 30 Rock and Will & Grace.

Edie stars as the title character in the Showtime dark comedy series Nurse Jackie, which premiered in June 2009.^{[11][12][13][14]}

She recently played the part of Bananas in the Broadway revival of House of Blue Leaves in New York City with Ben Stiller and Jennifer Jason Leigh, for which she received her first and only Tony Award nomination.^[15]

Politics[link]

During the 2004 U.S. presidential election, Falco appeared in a 30-second television commercial on behalf of M.O.B. (Mothers Opposing Bush) in which she said "Mothers always put their children first. Mr. Bush, can you say the same?" referring to George W. Bush who was running for re-election.^[16]

Records show that she donated $1,000 to John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign, $300 to the Democratic National Committee in 2004, and two separate sums of $1,000 and $300 to Hillary Clinton in 2005.^[17]

Edie Falco has become the spokesperson for Health Care for America Now (HCAN) and appeared on CNN on June 25, 2009.^[18]

Personal life[link]

In 2003, Falco was diagnosed with breast cancer. She chose not to make the news public until the following year.^[19]

Falco had problems with alcohol and decided to become sober after "one particular night of debauchery." She said in an interview that it is hard to be around the hard-partying cast of The Sopranos; "This cast (of The Sopranos) in particular, they really love to hang out and party. They make it look like fun. And it was fun for me! They spend a lot more time without me than with me, by my own choice—I'm always invited, and I'm always there for two minutes and I leave, because I can't live in that world anymore. It's too dangerous."^[19] She is an advocate of Alcoholics Anonymous's 12-step program.^[20]

Falco adopted a son, Anderson, in 2005 and a daughter, Macy, in 2008.^[21]

Awards and recognition[link]

Awards won[link]

Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress - Comedy Series

• 2010: Nurse Jackie (episode submitted: "Pilot")

Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress - Drama Series

• 1999: The Sopranos (episode submitted: "College")
• 2001: The Sopranos (episode submitted: "Second Opinion")
• 2003: The Sopranos (episode submitted: "Whitecaps")

Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series - Drama

• 1999: The Sopranos
• 2002: The Sopranos

Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series

• 1999: The Sopranos
• 2002: The Sopranos
• 2007: The Sopranos

Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series

• 1999: The Sopranos
• 2007: The Sopranos

Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress

• 2002: Sunshine State

Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture - Drama

• 2002: Sunshine State

Award nominations[link]

Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress - Comedy Series

• 2011: Nurse Jackie (episode submitted: Rat Falls)

Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play

• 2011: The House of Blue Leaves

Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress - Drama Series

• 2000: The Sopranos (episode submitted: "Full Leather Jacket")
• 2004: The Sopranos (episode submitted: "All Happy Families...")
• 2007: The Sopranos (episode submitted: "The Second Coming")

Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress - Comedy Series

• 2008: 30 Rock (episode submitted: "Episode 210")

Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series - Drama

• 2000: The Sopranos
• 2001: The Sopranos
• 2004: The Sopranos
• 2006: The Sopranos
• 2007: The Sopranos

Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series - Musical or Comedy

• 2009: Nurse Jackie
• 2010: Nurse Jackie

Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series

• 2000: The Sopranos
• 2001: The Sopranos
• 2004: The Sopranos
• 2006: The Sopranos

Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series

• 2000: The Sopranos
• 2001: The Sopranos
• 2002: The Sopranos
• 2004: The Sopranos
• 2006: The Sopranos

Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series

• 2009: Nurse Jackie
• 2010: Nurse Jackie

Chlotrudis Award for Best Supporting Actress

• 2002: Sunshine State

Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actress

• 2002: Sunshine State

Filmography[link]

• Nurse Jackie
• 3 Backyards
• 30 Rock
• Celeste Cunningham
• The Sopranos
• Freedomland
• The Quiet
• The Great New Wonderful
• The Girl from Monday
• Will & Grace
• Family of the Year
• Fargo
• Sunshine State
• Jenifer
• The Sight (uncredited)
• Oz
• Death of a Dog
• Random Hearts
• Judy Berlin
• Law & Order
• A Price Above Rubies
• Blind Light
• Firehouse
• Cost of Living
• Trouble on the Corner
• Cop Land
• New York Undercover
• Homicide: Life on the Street
• Childhood's End
• Private Parts (uncredited)
• Hurricane
• Breathing Room
• The Funeral
• Layin' Low
• Backfire!
• The Addiction
• The Sunshine Boys
• Bullets Over Broadway
• Time Expired (short)
• I Was on Mars
• Laws of Gravity
• Trust
• Sidewalk Stories
• The Unbelievable Truth
• Sweet Lorraine

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Edie Falco

• Edie Falco at the Internet Broadway Database
• Edie Falco at the Internet Movie Database
• Biography at Hollywood.com
• Sopranos cast biography
• Edie Falco at Emmys.com