Gothic vs. Modern:
Letterforms and Graphic Design in Weimar Germany
A lecture by Paul Stirton (Bard Graduate Center)

In 1922 the young designer Jan Tschichold traveled to Offenbach to meet Rudolf Koch, the presiding genius of German Schriftkunst (lettering art) and designer of the finest Gothic typefaces. This was a telling moment, revealing two competing views of letterforms in modern German culture, contrasting historicism with modernism, nationalism with universality, and the expressive as opposed to the machine aesthetic of Constructivism. Following this event, Tschichold turned away from Koch, looking instead to El Lissitzky, Kurt Schwitters, and László Moholy-Nagy, pioneers of New Typography. In this talk, Paul Stirton explores these debates of the 1920s and beyond, tracing the development of two opposing views of modernity in German culture.

Tuesday, May 5, 2026 at 6pm
38 West 86th Street, BGC Lecture Hall