Taut, Max (1884–1967). German architect. He joined Franz Hoffmann (d.1950) and his brother, Bruno, in partnership in 1914, and remained with Hoffmann until the last's death. He designed various buildings before 1914, including a Pavilion for the International Building Trades Exhibition, Leipzig (1913), and in 1918 became a founder of various left-wing groups, including Arbeitsrat für Kunst, Novembergruppe, and later Der Ring. He contributed to Bruno Taut's Gläserne Kette group and built the extraordinary Wissinger family-vault, Stahnsdorf, Berlin (1920), one of the few Glass-Chain designs ever realized. He built a formidable reputation as an architect with the offices for the Allgemeiner Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund (Federation of German Labour Unions—1923) and other works for trade-unions and similar organizations, one of which (the Verband der Deutschen Buchdrucker—Headquarters of the German Printers' Union—1922–5) he designed with Mart Stam, where the con-crete frame was expressed. Other works in the International Modernist style by him included two houses at the Weissenhofsiedlung, Stuttgart (1927), the German Trade Union Building, Frankfurt-am-Main (1931), and the Co-operative Department Store, Berlin (1932). After the 1939–45 war he was active as an architect and teacher, designing the Reuter Housing, Bonn (1949–52), the August-Thiessen Siedlung, Duisburg (1955–64), and an extension to his brother's Hufeisensiedlung (Horse Shoe Estate), Berlin-Neukölln (1954). He was an important figure in the evolution of the Neue Sachlichkeit.

Bibliography

Akademie der Künste (1964);
Kühne et al. (1984);
Posener (1964);
Rehm (2002);
Jane Turner (1996);
M. Taut (1927, 1984);
Wasmuths Monatshefte für Baukunst, xvi (1932), 257–69