Dankwart Guratzsch

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Dankwart Guratzsch (born June 14, 1939 in Dresden ) is a German journalist . He has made a name for himself above all as an architecture critic .

Life

Dankwart Guratzsch was born in Dresden in 1939 as the son of the writer and teacher Curt Guratzsch (1891-1965). In 1957 he left the city of his birth and went to West Germany . After studying history and German in Marburg , Munich and Hamburg , he joined the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Hamburg in 1970 with power through organization. The foundation of the Hugenberg press empire , a dissertation on Alfred Hugenberg , for Dr. phil. PhD .

Guratzsch began in the mid-1970s as a feature - an editor at the daily newspaper Die Welt , where he focused on the subject areas Architecture and urban planning and urban development specialist. Even before this was picked up in other media, Guratzsch advocated careful handling of the architectural heritage and urban planning based on the traditions of the respective location. He particularly disliked the urban development in the GDR . In critical articles he reported on the demolition of old building quarters there , rejecting satellite towns , large estates and prefabricated building quarters as “red urban development”. He always campaigned for private home ownership and for the preservation and sustainable maintenance of old building districts - especially those of historicism from the Wilhelminian era - in West and East. The Ministry for State Security of the GDR observed Guratzsch suspiciously, his Stasi files comprise 200 pages.

Guratzsch remained particularly connected to his hometown Dresden, the destruction of which in the Second World War had sharpened his view of architecture and urban planning. After the fall of the Berlin Wall , he was involved in numerous reports and reports as well as in various committees for a history-oriented reconstruction of the city, especially the Frauenkirche as its centerpiece. Guratzsch is a co-owner of land in Dresden Neustadt and a member of the Haus & Grund Sachsen e. V. He also provided intensive journalistic support for the so-called “ Dresden Bridge Dispute ” and the associated construction project “ Waldschlößchenbrücke ”. He welcomed the reconstruction of the Berlin City Palace .

Dankwart Guratzsch suggested the establishment of a "bomb war museum" in Dresden. He suggests the large Erlwein gasometer in Dresden-Reick as the location . For him, Dresden symbolizes the horrors of the bombing war like no other city in Europe .

During the 1980s, in the course of the debate about the so-called “ forest dieback ”, he also dealt with the phenomenon of new types of forest damage as a journalist and published the book Treeless in the future? (1984), which brought together technical contributions from twelve experts, including several forest scientists.

Dankwart Guratzsch received several awards for his publications in terms of monument protection and as an architecture critic. The German National Committee for Monument Protection awarded him the German Prize for Monument Protection twice : the Journalist Award in 1976 and the Silver Hemisphere in 1980 . Guratzsch is on the board of trustees of the German Foundation for Monument Protection .

The journalist is one of the critics of the 1996 reform of German spelling .

Dankwart Guratzsch lives and works mainly in Frankfurt am Main .

Fonts

  • Power through organization. The foundation of the Hugenberg press empire. Dissertation, Hamburg 1970 (in print as Volume 7 of the series Studies on Modern History, Bertelsmann-Universitätsverlag, Gütersloh 1974, ISBN 3-571-09011-X ).
  • as editor: Treeless into the future? Kindler, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-463-00874-2 .
  • as editor: Das neue Berlin. Concepts from the International Building Exhibition 1987 for urban development with a future. Mann, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-7861-1527-3 .
  • How much is Braunschweig worth its center? The city, the castle and the center. (= Braunschweig Museum Lectures, Volume 5). Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum, Braunschweig 2003, ISBN 3-927939-67-6 .

Awards

Quote

"Only the city of short distances, the city of density, diversity and comfort is viable."

- Dankwart Guratzsch, 2007

“Today, the apostles of a 'new' building are always on the defensive. A still growing majority of the population is tired of the abstract, geometric, Talmi-like structures that threaten to dominate the image of cities and are increasingly approximating the chimeric flatness of screen simulations. All over Germany, between Leipzig and Frankfurt / M., Wismar and Karlsruhe, citizens' movements demand the reconstruction of buildings that have disappeared. The day of the open monument with its multitudes of pilgrims of millions of monument visitors has become a mass demonstration against the blandness and weakness of expression of modern architecture. "

- Dankwart Guratzsch, 2002

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Greetings from Dr. Dankwart Guratzsch for the Association Day of the Saxon Haus & Grund owners 2007. In: Stadtforum-Chemnitz.de. May 19, 2007. Retrieved February 14, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Employee of the week: Dankwart Guratzsch. In: Welt.de. August 15, 2015, accessed February 14, 2019 .
  3. ^ A b Rainer Haubrich: The story, the city, the house: Dankwart Guratzsch is 65. In: Welt.de. June 14, 2004, accessed February 14, 2019 .
  4. ↑ a b Dankwart Guratzsch: Cultural turning point. In: Welt.de. July 6, 2002, accessed February 13, 2019 .
  5. ^ Dankwart Guratzsch: Does Dresden need a bomb war museum? In: DNN.de. December 27, 2018, accessed February 13, 2019 .
  6. ^ Committees of the German Foundation for Monument Protection. In: Denkmalschutz.de. Retrieved February 14, 2019 .
  7. ↑ Dankwart Guratzsch: Nothing but botch. In: Welt.de. November 15, 2013, accessed February 14, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Guratzsch, Dankwart
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist
DATE OF BIRTH June 14, 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden