The Man-Machine

Photo Gallery: The Man-Machine

The eye is a camera, the nose is a turbine, the internal organs are a series of cogs, levers and interconnected pipes -- Fritz Kahn's unusual take on biology became hugely popular in the 1920s. Now a Berlin museum has dusted off the long-overlooked illustrations and is paying tribute to his industrial vision of biology.

Fritz Kahn (1888-1968) took his lead from the industrialised urban environment of Berlin during the Weimar Republic. In his illustrations he explained human biology in purely mechanical terms.

His technical graphics were compiled in a five-volume series "Das Leben des Menschen" ("The Life of Man"), which became an internationally admired best seller. This illustration shows how erections work.