Konstanty Gutschow

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Konstanty Gutschow (born December 10, 1902 in Hamburg ; † June 8, 1978 there ) was a German architect .

Life until 1945

Konstanty Gutschow was born in Hamburg in 1902. He passed the Abitur at the scholarly school of the Johanneum in Hamburg. He then went on an extensive study trip through Spain before starting to study architecture at the Technical University of Danzig in the winter semester of 1921/1922 . Shortly afterwards he switched to the Technical University of Stuttgart . Heinz Wetzel , Paul Bonatz and Paul Schmitthenner were his most important teachers here. Even before he started his studies, but also during his student days, he worked in Fritz Höger's architecture office , which confirmed his choice of profession. He completed an internship on the Chilehaus construction site in Hamburg, where his brother, the photographer Arvid Gutschow , also lived . In 1926 he passed his main diploma examination at the Technical University of Stuttgart, then worked in various architectural offices before he found a job from 1927 in the building construction department in Hamburg under chief building director Fritz Schumacher . In 1928 Gutschow passed the second state examination to become a government builder ( assessor in public construction). However, he did not go into civil service, but chose to become self-employed and founded his own architectural office in 1929.

“ From 1936 onwards Gutschow acted as a permanent advisor to the Lord Mayor for Wismar on urban planning issues. In connection with this function, some buildings were also built in Wismar, including a cemetery chapel, an extension to the port gate, housing developments by the Dornier works and a group of residential buildings on Techenstraße. "

However, he was not spared the effects of the global economic crisis and was only able to stay afloat with reports for the Reichsforschungsgesellschaft für Wirtschaftlichkeit im Bau- und Wohnungswesen eV (RfG) . During this time he published the book Umbau . After renovation measures in northern Hamburg Neustadt, but above all because of his involvement in the National Socialist SA , which he joined in 1933 (the NSDAP in 1937), he was involved in a small urban housing project in Hamburg-Horn . With further buildings, but above all through his appointment as Hamburg architect trusted by the top construction management of the Reichsautobahnen - responsible for the bridge construction of the autobahn from Hamburg to Lübeck - Gutschow was able to distinguish himself among the rulers of the Third Reich . In 1937 he was invited to a competition to design the northern bank of the Elbe in Hamburg, which he won - at the personal decision of Adolf Hitler. In 1939 Gutschow was named "Architect of the Elbe Bank" by the Hamburg Gauleiter Kaufmann . In January 1940, the production of bricks for the Führerbauten on the banks of the Elbe was set as the most important task of the Neuengamme concentration camp . In 1941 he was awarded the title “Architect for the Redesign of the Hanseatic City of Hamburg”. In accordance with the National Socialist leader principle , Gutschow was directly subordinate to the Gauleiter - outside the structure of the authorities.

He developed a (first) general development plan for Hamburg, which envisaged the expansion of Hamburg into the so-called “ Führerstadt ” - with a 250 m high Gau high-rise, Volkshalle, Elbhochbrücke and port enlargement. (These gigantic plans were, however, soon - due to the increasing destruction during the war - classified as unimportant and dropped.) Gutschow employed numerous Hamburg architects during this time - such as Rudolf Hillebrecht , Georg Wellhausen , Werner Kallmorgen , Bomhoff & Schöne , Dyrssen & Averhoff , Heinrich Bartmann and Rolf Romero - with appraisals and competitions, development plans for various areas of the city, also with the construction of high-rise bunkers as part of the " immediate guide program ". These architects were released from military service for the duration of their employment.

Due to the increasing effects of the aerial warfare , Gutschow was appointed head of the newly created Office for War- related Operations (AKE) in 1941 - responsible for organizing the clearance of rubble, air raid protection measures and the procurement of replacement housing, including the deployment of forced laborers and concentration camp prisoners in these areas. The massive damage caused by the air raids in the summer of 1943 then opened up the possibility of a more radical urban redevelopment than planned in the first general development plan from 1941, and so Gutschow and his employees created a new general development plan in 1944 with the model of organic urban development along the Elbe. Essential ideas from Fritz Schumacher and Gustav Oelsner flowed into both general development plans - guidelines that had already been developed by them during the Weimar Republic . Living, working and traffic should be separated, the city loosened up and greened. The improvement of the hygienic conditions, but also air protection reasons, played an important role in these considerations. Gutschow was appointed in 1943 by Albert Speer as the organizational head of the “Task Force for the Reconstruction of Bomb-Destroyed Cities” and prepared reconstruction plans for Hamburg , Wilhelmshaven and Kassel .

post war period

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Gutschow's exposed position during the “Third Reich” prompted the British military government to forbid him from any further activity and, as part of a denazification process in 1949, he was banned from working for public clients. However, through his former office manager Rudolf Hillebrecht - since 1948 city planning officer in Hanover - Gutschow became an advisor to the " Aufbaugemeinschaft Hannover " and received construction contracts, including for the house of the Inner Mission south of the Kreuzkirche (now the house of the Protestant student community).

According to Gutschow's urban planning concept , the Continental high-rise building on Königsworther Platz, now a listed building and used by the University of Hanover , was built from 1951 to 1953 according to plans by Ernst Zinsser and Werner Dierschke .

He also received orders from Düsseldorf , where numerous employees from Albert Speer's reconstruction staff quickly regained a foothold immediately after the end of the war - for example Friedrich Tamms as head of the city planning office or Julius Schulte-Frohlinde as head of the building construction office. A fact that was strongly criticized by the Düsseldorf Architects' Ring, founded by Bernhard Pfau , and prompted the comment in a memorandum: “Düsseldorf is actually becoming a center of former Nazi celebrities”.

Work after the war

Gutschow was no longer active as an urban planner, but some of his approaches were continued by his former employees ( Hans Bernhard Reichow , Rudolf Hillebrecht or Wilhelm Wortmann ). He himself set up an office again and designed clinics in Helgoland, Tübingen and Düsseldorf, at times in collaboration with Godber Nissen . In 1964 the North Rhine-Westphalian state government awarded him the title of professor. Gutschow left his office in 1972. He died in Hamburg in 1978.

The architect and building historian Niels Gutschow is his son.

Fonts

  • Konstanty Gutschow, Hermann Zippel: Conversion: Facade changes, shop fitting, residential building conversion, apartment subdivisions ... 86 examples with 392 comparative views, floor plans and sections , in the series Die Baubücher , Volume 13, Stuttgart: J. Hoffmann, 1932
  • Konstanty Gutschow (edit.): Hannover-Oststadt - "the Raschplatztangente". Contributions to the construction planning of the capital Hanover , Hanover: Madsack, 1951
  • Konstanty Gutschow, Albrecht Schmidt: New Hospitals (= New Hospitals ), with photos by Peter Ammon u. a., in the series architecture competitions , double issue 26, Stuttgart: Krämer, 1959
  • Konstanty Gutčov, K. Aleksandera: Gradostroitel'nye osnovy: Planirovka i zastrojka žilych rajonov , in the series Urban Planning Basic Material (Russian), Moskva: Izd. literatury po stroitel'stvu, published in German translation in: Deutsche Bauzeitschrift. 1958-1960 , 1967

literature

  • Sylvia Necker : Konstanty Gutschow 1902–1978. Modern thinking and community utopia of an architect , Dölling und Galitz Verlag, Hamburg, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-86218-020-2 .
  • Werner Durth : German architects: biographical entanglements 1900-1970 , in the series dtv-Wissenschaft , Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, 1992, ISBN 3-423-04579-5 , p. 508 and passim
  • Werner Durth, Niels Gutschow : Dreams in ruins: plans for the reconstruction of destroyed cities in western Germany 1940-1950 , Volume 2: Cities . Braunschweig-Wiesbaden: Vieweg, ed. by Heinrich Klotz on behalf of the Department of Culture and Leisure of the City of Frankfurt am Main, Deutsches Architekturmuseum Frankfurt am Main, in the series of writings of the Deutsches Architekturmuseum on the history of architecture and the theory of architecture , 1988, ISBN 3-528-08706-4 , p. 662 u. ö.
  • Helmut Knocke , Hugo Thielen : Gutschow, Konstanty. In: Hanover Art and Culture Lexicon , passim
  • Helmut Knocke: GUTSCHOW, Konstanty. In: Dirk Böttcher , Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein, Hugo Thielen: Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2002, ISBN 3-87706-706-9 , p. 142 and others; online through google books
  • Helmut Knocke: Gutschow, Konstanty. In: Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein (eds.) U. a .: City Lexicon Hanover . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2009, ISBN 978-3-89993-662-9 , p. 243f.
  • Folckert Lüken-Isberner, Large plans for Kassel 1919–1949, urban development and urban planning projects . Marburg 2017

Web links

Commons : Konstanty Gutschow  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon
  2. ↑ Roland Jaeger: Arvid Gutschow printed: work records of the photographer in book and press. In: From the Antiquarian Bookshop , New Series 10 (2012), No. 6, pp. 256–274, p. 267
  3. ^ Sylvia Necker: Konstanty Gutschow (1902-1978): Modern thinking and community utopia of an architect, p. 180
  4. ^ Sid Auffarth , Wolfgang Pietsch: The University of Hanover. Their buildings, their gardens, their planning history , ed. on behalf of the Presidium of the University of Hanover, Imhof, Petersberg 2003, ISBN 3-935590-90-3 , pp. 257-266
  5. ↑ Hans-Herbert Möller (Ed.): Monument topography of the Federal Republic of Germany , architectural monuments in Lower Saxony, City of Hanover, Part 1, [Bd.] 10.1 , ISBN 3-528-06203-7 , center annex . In: List of architectural monuments according to § 4 (NDSchG) (except for architectural monuments of the archaeological monument preservation) , as of July 1, 1985, City of Hanover, Lower Saxony State Administration Office - Institute for Monument Preservation , p. 3f.
  6. ^ Jan Lubitz: Portrait of an architect, 2002
personal data
SURNAME Gutschow, Konstanty
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German architect and urban planner
DATE OF BIRTH December 10, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH June 8, 1978
Place of death Hamburg