(1871-1925)
German architect and designer Endell is widely known for the expressive, flowing forms of the façade and interiors of the Elvira photographic studio in Munich (1897-8), his first architectural commission. A leading figure of the German Jugendstil, in 1892 Endell had moved from Berlin to Munich. He moved into the fields of architecture and design, strongly encouraged by Herman Obrist, and, from 1898, was involved with the Munich Vereinigte Werkstätten für Kunst im Handwerk (United Workshops for Art in Craftwork). He designed in several fields including furniture, textiles, jewellery, and graphics, his work featuring frequently in journals such as Pan. In 1901 he returned to Berlin, where he ran a design school from 1904 to 1914. At the 1914 Deutscher Werkbund (DWB) exhibition in Cologne, Endell exhibited a decorative interior design for a railway dining-car for the Van Dr Zypen & Charlier company. In the DWB debates between Hermann Muthesius and Henry van der Velde, respectively representing standardization and the primacy of individual artistic expression, Endell was firmly on the side of van der Velde. Endell argued that unless the DWB recognized the status of the artist in industry, DWB design for industry would be restricted to a form of high-class branding for the companies involved. In 1918 he was appointed to the directorship of Breslau Academy. Originally Endell had studied philosophy, an approach that influenced many of his writings on art theory, including Um die Schönheit (On Beauty) of 1906.
