My Silo Dreams. Tipologia industriale nell’immaginario grafico e progettuale ii Erich Mendelsohn

In 1924, architect Erich Mendelsohn travelled to Buffalo, New York – the world’s largest grain port at the time – to photograph and sketch the monumental grain elevators. His interest in these industrial structures was first sparked by Walter Gropius’s 1911 lecture Monumentale Kunst und Industriebau, which introduced German architects to American industrial architecture. While most European modernists continued to engage with these buildings only through photos or drawings, Mendelsohn was the only one among them who witnessed these structures firsthand. This direct encounter deeply shaped his visual and conceptual vocabulary, offering an alternative to the ornamental traditions of 19th-century architecture. Mendelsohn’s imaginary sketches distill the dynamic forms of industrial silos into visionary compositions, revealing their typological potential. Merging 19th-century engineering influences with futurist ideals, his work reflects a shift toward an architecture shaped by process, functionality, and hybrid typologies. Decades later, Reyner Banham noted the paradox of silos in modernism: praised for their form but misunderstood in function. Yet, in Mendelsohn’s hands, they became models of a new architectural sensitivity, defined not by static typologies but by variation, modularity, and openness to transformation. Far from rigid classifications, Mendelsohn’s depictions of silos reveal a typological fluidity rooted in adaptation and abstraction. Within this discourse, the grain elevator – originating as a purely functional and anonymous structure – stands as a key example of port architectural typology. This contribution explores the grain elevator as a generative typological device. Contemporary port silos reflect this legacy through standardized, repeatable elements that allow adaptability. Their hybrid nature challenges fixed typologies, blending infrastructure, machinery, and industrial architecture into a continuously evolving formal and spatial language.