A Factory in the Style of a Mosque: The Yenidze and the Paradoxes of German Orientalism

Vis­i­tors to the city of Dres­den are often sur­prised, when tak­ing in the sky­line from the banks of the Elbe Riv­er, to see a
promi­nent minaret and bul­bous glass dome just west of the his­toric old city. Rec­og­niz­able to non-spe­­cial­ists as relat­ed to Islam­ic archi­tec­tur­al ele­ments, they stand in strik­ing con­trast to the Baroque and neo-Renais­­sance forms of the Frauenkirche, Res­i­den­zschloss, and Sem­per­op­er. Known local­ly as the Tabak­moschee (Tobac­co Mosque), the Yenidze Tobac­co Fac­to­ry, com­plet­ed in 1909, is a strik­ing mon­u­ment to Ger­man Ori­en­tal­ism, Dresden’s indus­tri­al her­itage, and broad­er his­to­ries of archi­tec­ture as adver­tise­ment.

This pre­sen­ta­tion will explore how the Yenidze’s exte­ri­or drew on forms from four­teenth and fif­teenth cen­tu­ry Mam­luk funer­ary archi­tec­ture to appeal to ear­ly twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry Ger­man tobac­co con­sumers. Although the design like­ly ref­er­ences spe­cif­ic mon­u­ments in Cairo, the Yenidze was both mar­ket­ed and per­ceived by the pub­lic as “a fac­to­ry in the style of a mosque.” I will show how the  factory’s dome and minaret-like chim­neys acti­vate a visu­al short­hand that con­tin­ues to stand in for Euro­pean imag­i­nar­ies of the “Ori­ent.” I will argue that the Yenidze should be under­stood in rela­tion to con­tem­po­rary archi­tec­tur­al exper­i­ments like Peter Behrens’ AEG Tur­bine Hall in Berlin, com­plet­ed the same year. While the AEG has been can­on­ized as a “tem­ple of work” and a land­mark of mod­ernist design, the rel­a­tive­ly unknown exam­ple of the Yenidze sim­i­lar­ly employed cut­t­ing-edge con­struc­tion tech­nolo­gies and inte­grat­ed a total brand­ing strat­e­gy into its archi­tec­tur­al form. Dis­course sur­round­ing both fac­to­ries mobi­lized reli­gious imagery to dig­ni­fy indus­tri­al labor and mod­ern pro­duc­tion. Yet the Yenidze’s invo­ca­tion of Islam­ic archi­tec­ture also pro­voked ambiva­lent respons­es in Wil­helmine Ger­many, gen­er­at­ing anx­i­eties around for­eign­ness, gen­der, moral­i­ty, and mech­a­nized labor. By ana­lyz­ing the building’s form, recep­tion, and rep­re­sen­ta­tion­al strate­gies, this talk exam­ines the para­dox­es of Ger­man Ori­en­tal­ism and the role of archi­tec­ture in shap­ing ear­ly twen­ti­eth-cen­­tu­ry con­sumer cul­ture.

Meet­ing-Link:
https://uni-erfurt.webex.com/uni-erfurt/j.php?MTID=m4f9de952007053651487dcacdf037c9f

Meet­ing num­ber:
2734 391 1009

Meet­ing-Pass­­code:
8rfQFD8JYi7