Finsterlin, a painter, toy designer, and architectural theorist, is associated with German Expressionist architecture of the 1920s. Molded or cast models like this one played an important part in Finsterlin’s design process. “He proposed an architecture that would essentially be hollow sculpture, free of functional considerations,” wrote MoMA curator Arthur Drexler when the exuberantly colorful model was acquired in 1969. Finsterlin had a habit of retroactively dating his postwar pieces to the 1920s; the missing completion date here reflects this ambiguity.

Gallery label from

2020

Medium Polychromed plaster and paint
Dimensions 10 1/4 x 12 3/16 x 15 1/2" (25.4 x 31 x 39.4 cm)
Credit Gift of D.S. and R.H. Gottesman Foundation
Object number 1936.1968
Department Architecture & Design

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Architectural model

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