Station: [161] Epilogue

Mendelsohn wasn’t ever able to reconcile himself with Germany and he refused to return. He attained further large building contracts in San Francisco, but was never able to reach the level of his professional success in 1920s Germany.  

On 24th August 1953, Mendelsohn wrote to a friend:

„As this letter will reach you in Frankfurt, I need not explain the reasons for my long silence, or indeed, hint at them. Beyer knows why and as for the details we are both, I believe, old enough to know that each of us will come to a standstill one day. This certainty initially destroys all future plans […]

At the moment I am deciding whether or not to give up my San Francisco office and alone in the time remaining to me, dedicate myself to inner peace – the source of all creative life...“

Erich Mendelsohn died in San Francisco three weeks later on 15th September 1953. His wife Luise talks about his life work and life at his side in an interview here at the last point of interest on this floor.

You will come across Erich Mendelsohn again in the second and third-floor oriel exhibitions as the architect of the Chemnitz Schocken Department Store and Salman Schocken’s library in Jerusalem.