''The Gray Cloth with Ten Percent White: A Ladies' Novel'' (in German, ''Das graue Tuch und zehn Prozent Weiß: Ein Damenroman'') is an
avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
novel by the fantasist and visionary writer
Paul Scheerbart
Paul Karl Wilhelm Scheerbart (8 January 1863 in Danzig – 15 October 1915 in Berlin) was a German author of speculative fiction literature and drawings. He was also published under the pseudonym ''Kuno Küfer'' and is best known for the bo ...
, first published in
1914
This year saw the beginning of what became known as World War I, after Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the Austrian throne was Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, assassinated by Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip. It als ...
. The book expresses its author's commitment to the use of glass in modern architecture, which had a significant impact on the concepts of
German Expressionism
German Expressionism () consisted of several related creative movements in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin during the 1920s. These developments were part of a larger Expressionist movement in north and central ...
.
Glass architecture
Scheerbart had advocated a transformative new architecture of glass from his first novel, ''Das Paradies'', through many subsequent works. In 1913 he attempted to organize a "Society for Glass Architecture," an effort that brought him into contact with the Expressionist
Bruno Taut
Bruno Julius Florian Taut (4 May 1880 – 24 December 1938) was a renowned German architect, urban planner and author of Prussian Lithuanian heritage ("taut" means "nation" in Lithuanian). He was active during the Weimar period and is know ...
. In the following year Scheerbart published not one but two books on the subject: his non-fictional ''Glass Architecture'' made the case for its subject in a more rational and pragmatic basis, while ''The Gray Cloth'' provided a far more imaginative and lavish presentation of the same matter.
Plot summary
The novel is set in the middle of the twentieth century, and opens in Chicago, where the protagonist Edgar Krug has designed an enormous colored-glass exhibition hall. An art exhibit is held there, accompanied by an organ concert. Krug, fiercely dedicated to his esthetic concepts, is unhappy that the bright colors of women's fashions clash with his architectural scheme. When he meets Clara Weber, the organist, he is struck by her gray dress with white lace trim; he finds it the perfect complement to the color effect of his hall. Krug impulsively asks Clara to marry him — providing she agrees to wear the same style of clothing. Clara accepts Krug's terms, which are specified in their marriage contract. Once married, the couple leave for the
Fiji Islands
Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists ...
in Krug's private
dirigible
An airship or dirigible balloon is a type of aerostat or lighter-than-air aircraft that can navigate through the air under its own power. Aerostats gain their lift from a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air.
In early ...
(it has a glass-walled cupola, and air conditioning).
Though Clara accepts Krug's strange terms for their marriage, other women do not. Clara maintains a telegraphic correspondence with her American friend, Amanda Schmidt; and Amanda is highly critical of Clara's subservience in the arrangement. Later in the book, other women also protest its terms. Scheerbart provides portrayals of a number of strong female characters through the book, supporting its subtitle, "a Ladies' novel."
Krug goes to Fiji because he has an ongoing project there, a retirement home for airship pilots. He clashes with the project's sponsor over how much colored glass the building will accommodate. From Fiji, Krug and Clara travel to other sites throughout the world, to visit other projects.
Their first stop is "Makartland" at the
South Pole
The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole, Terrestrial South Pole or 90th Parallel South, is one of the two points where Earth's axis of rotation intersects its surface. It is the southernmost point on Earth and lies antipod ...
, an artists' colony for twenty women artists. There, a seamstress makes outfits for Clara that arrange her gray-and-white wardrobe scheme in imaginative ways. Käte Bandel, one of the artists, joins the Krugs in their further travels; she debates artistic assumptions and values with Krug as they travel to Australia and then to Borneo. Bandel enrages Krug when she convinces Clara to wear a plaid scarf.
Leaving Bandel behind, they fly to Japan; but Japanese women also react negatively to the gray and white. In the
Himalayas
The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 100 ...
and in
Ceylon
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
, Krug visits another projects; later the couple travel to an experimental station by the
Aral Sea
The Aral Sea ( ; kk, Арал теңізі, Aral teñızı; uz, Орол денгизи, Orol dengizi; kaa, Арал теңизи, Aral teńizi; russian: Аральское море, Aral'skoye more) was an endorheic basin, endorheic lake lyi ...
. They also visit Babylon and Egypt. Despite his enthusiasm for colored glass, Krug turns down an offer to build large glass obelisks atop the
Pyramids of Giza
The Giza pyramid complex ( ar, مجمع أهرامات الجيزة), also called the Giza necropolis, is the site on the Giza Plateau in Greater Cairo, Egypt that includes the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Pyramid of Khafre, and the Pyramid of Men ...
. In the "Kurian Murian Islands" off the eastern coast of Arabia, Krug meets the tycoon Li-Tung, who commissions him to design houses suspended in mid-air (so that they don't scratch the
majolica
In different periods of time and in different countries, the term ''majolica'' has been used for two distinct types of pottery.
Firstly, from the mid-15th century onwards, was ''maiolica'', a type of pottery reaching Italy from Spain, Majorca a ...
tiles with which the islands are paved). Li-Tung is passionate about color, and has Clara change into more varied silk outfits. Krug allows this.
Their journey is not a parade of triumphs, however; in most places, Krug's ideas are resisted, criticized, and rejected to greater or lesser degrees. At
Malta
Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...
, though, a glass architecture museum in established. The Krugs end the novel at their glass house in Switzerland.
At Babylon, Krug gives up on his determination about Clara's wardrobe, and agrees to strike the binding clause out of their marriage contract. By this time, though, Clara has become a convert to her husband's ideas about glass architecture, and maintains the gray fashion by her own choice.
Impact
Scheerbart certainly influenced Bruno Taut's
Glass Pavilion
The Glass Pavilion, designed by Bruno Taut and built in 1914, was a Cupola (geometry), prismatic glass dome structure at the Cologne Werkbund Exhibition (1914), Deutscher Werkbund Exhibition. The structure was a brightly colored landmark of the exh ...
at the 1914
Werkbund Exhibition — the first, last, and only design of German Expressionist glass architecture that was actually constructed. Taut inscribed the fourteen sides of the structure with fourteen quotations from Scheerbart's works. Scheerbart's writings also influenced
Carl Krayl
Carl Christian Krayl (17 April 1890 – 1 April 1947) was a German architect and artist of the early twentieth century, who was associated with several of the leading avant-garde art movements of German Expressionism.
Krayl was born in Weinsb ...
,
Wenzel Hablik
Wenzel August Hablik, also known as Wenceslav Hablik and Wilhelm August Hablik (4 August 1881 – 23 March 1934), was a painter, graphic artist, architect, designer, and craftsman of the early twentieth century, associated with German Expressio ...
, and other members of the
Glass Chain The Glass Chain or Crystal Chain sometimes known as the "Utopian Correspondence" (german: Die Gläserne Kette) was a chain letter that took place between November 1919 and December 1920. It was a correspondence of architects that formed a basis of e ...
group.
It is an open question how much influence the German Expressionists' work had on the glass skyscrapers of
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ( ; ; born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies; March 27, 1886August 17, 1969) was a German-American architect. He was commonly referred to as Mies, his surname. Along with Alvar Aalto, Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Frank Lloyd ...
and other
Modernist architects
Modern architecture, or modernist architecture, was an architectural movement or architectural style based upon new and innovative technologies of construction, particularly the use of glass, steel, and reinforced concrete; the idea that form ...
later in the century. The modernists rejected Scheerbart's strong emphasis on the use of colored glass. In one view, though, the modernist glass skyscrapers of the mid-twentieth century "came closer to realizing Scheerbart's vision than the utopian projects of Taut and other Expressionist architects."
Genre
''The Gray Cloth'', like other Scheerbart works, is a challenge to classification. It can be termed a
fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving Magic (supernatural), magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy ...
, though it also shares some characteristics of
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
(a temporal setting in the future, and advanced technology).
English edition
Chronologically, ''The Gray Cloth'' is the last of Scheerbart's novels; but it is also the first to receive an English translation.
[Paul Scheerbart, ''The Gray Cloth: Paul Scheerbart's Novel on Glass Architecture'', Introduced, Translated, and with Drawings by John A. Stuart, Cambridge, MA, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 2001.]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gray Cloth
1914 German-language novels
German science fiction novels
1914 science fiction novels
Novels about architects
1914 German novels