Puhl & Wagner
The company Puhl & Wagner, founded in 1889 and headquartered in Berlin-Neukölln, was the most important and largest German manufacturer of glass mosaics and stained glass . Puhl & Wagner's own glassworks made it independent of the supply of mosaic stones by Italian competitors, and a new setting process enabled the cost-effective production of mosaics. The 15-year merger with Gottfried Heinersdorff's art institute for glass painting, lead glazing and glass mosaic in the spring of 1914 promised an artistic renewal, since its founder was close to the reform movement Deutscher Werkbund . The difficult economic situation during the First World War and the post-war period brought the company, which is heavily dependent on government and church orders, close to collapse, and export contracts ensured its survival. A conflict between the two partners August Wagner and Gottfried Heinersdorff that had been simmering since the mid-1920s led to Heinersdorff's departure in 1933, who - declared a " half-Jew " by the National Socialists - had to leave the company. With that, the reform efforts ended. The company, which has even been declared a “war-important operation” because of the supplies for the buildings of the “ World Capital Germania ”, supplied equipment for numerous buildings of the National Socialists. Repair work, but also new orders, made it possible to continue operations in West Berlin in the post-war period . The shrinking order volume led to the liquidation of the company in 1969 , and the architecturally significant factory building by the architect Franz Schwechten gave way to road construction in 1972.
The renaissance of glass mosaics in the 19th century
The art of mosaic in late antiquity and the Middle Ages, with its impressive achievements in Rome , Ravenna , Venice and Sicily, was finally extinct in the 18th century. With the growing interest in historical architectural styles in the 19th century, interest in mosaics also grew. In Prussia , King Friedrich Wilhelm IV , who was interested in art, bought the apse mosaic of the broken church of San Cipriano on the island of Murano near Venice in 1834 and had it installed in the Potsdam Church of Peace . The architectural style of the early Christian and Byzantine churches stood in the eyes of the king for his political and religious convictions with his unshakable belief in the divine right of his rule. Many of the church buildings commissioned by him, such as St. Nikolai in Potsdam or the chapel of the Berlin City Palace , show Byzantine style elements inside. The gold mosaics of the models were replaced by paintings on a gold background, since the technique of making mosaics was lost.
In Venice, with its important glass tradition, where the art of mosaic had lasted the longest, Antonio Salviati succeeded in reviving the mosaic technique in the mid-19th century by rationalizing the time-consuming and wage-intensive setting process. Rationalization made mosaics cheaper and affordable and so the need for “permanent painting and decoration” with which the mosaics were associated grew - initially for church interiors but also quickly for new areas of application such as house facades.
Until the 1890s, glass mosaics in Berlin had to be made by Antonio Salviati's Italian mosaic artist. In 1873, for example, Salviati made the mosaic in the base of the Berlin Victory Column based on a design by Anton von Werner and in 1886 the ceiling mosaic designed by Otto Lessing in the entrance hall of the Museum of Ethnology (which was destroyed in World War II) . Even the glass mosaics with the allegories of cultures and arts on the facade of the Berlin Museum of Decorative Arts , which was supposed to demonstrate the efficiency of German arts and crafts, were supplied by Antonio Salviati between 1879 and 1881.
Company history
From the studio for decorative painting to the German Glass Mosaic Institute
As early as 1886, the 20-year-old businessman August Wagner and the 35-year-old painter Wilhelm Wiegemann, who was trained at the Berlin Academy of the Arts , founded a studio for decorative painting. In addition to decorations for interiors, Puhl & Wagner also carried out facade paintings and quickly discovered their low durability. In their search for a more permanent technique, they came across glass mosaics, the manufacture of which they tried to copy and thus try to break the Italian monopoly.
The setting procedure was easy to copy. So the two initially concentrated on the glass production process - after all, it was a matter of competing with the centuries-old tradition of Venice and the well-kept workshop secrets of its glassworks . Wiegmann's brother-in-law, the engineer Friedrich Puhl, brought in the necessary technical knowledge. In an old blacksmith's workshop on Ackerstrasse in the north of Berlin and from 1889 in Rixdorf, today's Berlin-Neukölln , they made countless attempts at melting with the unused furnace of a brass caster. They found further support in Julius Lessing , the first director of the Berlin Kunstgewerbemuseum, who accompanied the experiments. After a year, they had mastered the manufacturing process to such an extent that the first test work could be made. With the completion of the tests, the three had a weather-resistant glass material with a standardized and reproducible color scale as the basis for starting regular production. In October 1889 they merged to form the Deutsche Glasmosaik-Anstalt von Wiegmann, Puhl and Wagner and had the glassworks engineer Robert Dralle build a harbor furnace with four ports, each holding 50 to 60 kilograms, on a rented factory site at Berliner Straße 97/98 , which was fired half with gas and half with coal in continuous operation . After the street was renumbered in 1895, the property near Hermannplatz was given the new number 7–9.
Influential Sponsors, Success and Growth
The young company found influential sponsors. The Vice President of the Prussian House of Representatives , Clemens August Freiherr Heereman von Zuydwyck , suggested in the session on February 24, 1893 that the government should also consider the use of mosaics in state buildings where jewelry is necessary. But he also recommended to the whole public that they direct their attention and their benevolence to the ornamentation of mosaics, that one no longer has to go to Venice to get such works , but now has the opportunity to promote this branch of the arts and crafts domestically . However, Puhl & Wagner found the greatest sponsor in Kaiser Wilhelm II , who called the Rixdorf-based company on board for countless state contracts, including for the 2,740 m² mosaic area in the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church . In the service of foreign policy, Puhl & Wagner received orders such as the German Fountain on the Hippodrome in Istanbul , a gift from Kaiser Wilhelm II to the Sultan Abdülhamid II, and the Assumption Church in Jerusalem . In 1901, as a token of his appreciation, the Kaiser conferred the title of purveyor to the court of His Majesty The Emperor and King .
The number of workers grew to 30–40 mosaic workers by 1896, and one even had to recruit Italian workers in order to train enough more workers more quickly. Nevertheless, Puhl & Wagner tried other lines of business in addition to glass mosaics - the Berlin address book 1895 lists the glass mosaic department as well as a second department for artificial marble and terrazzo .
After a study trip to Italy and Sicily in 1896, Wilhelm Wiegmann opened his own company in the Stadtbahnbögen 483-487 near the Tiergarten station , the Wilhelm Wiegmann mosaic studio . Already in the following year was renamed it in society glass mosaic Wilhelm Wiegmann German order. The Rixdorf company also changed the company to Deutsche Glasmosaik-Gesellschaft Puhl & Wagner . With the change of name a change of ownership was connected, because the Berlin address book 1897 now only names Friedrich Puhl and August Wagner as owners.
August Wagner took over the commercial management and the acquisition of new orders from the remaining partners , while Friedrich Puhl supervised the production of the glass masses and mosaics as technical manager. His area of responsibility also included the research and development of new products, such as new color nuances for the glasses or improved cement compounds for fastening the mosaics.
The new construction of the factory building in Rixdorf
At the turn of the century, urban development in the steadily growing city of Berlin had reached Hermannplatz . An expansion at the previous location was therefore not possible; In addition, the company's economic success enabled the acquisition of its own property for the new building. This was found at Kiefholzstrasse 72-75 in Rixdorf, near the Ringbahn and on the border with Treptow . In 1903 the renowned architect Franz Schwechten was commissioned to build the new workshops. Schwechten, who was highly valued by the emperor, had already designed well-known buildings such as the Anhalter Bahnhof or the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church with the framing Romanesque houses on Auguste-Viktoria-Platz, today's Breitscheidplatz .
He also chose neo-Romanesque forms on behalf of Puhl & Wagner . On the parcel he planned the actual factory in the back part of a spacious and loose development and an administrative and residential building in front on Kiefholzstrasse. Extensive gardens should enclose the buildings. From the overall design, only the factory was built in 1904.
The buildings of the factory complex were grouped around the rectangular inner courtyard. An archway reminiscent of a cloister , into which, according to the original plans, an identically designed connecting corridor from the residential building should open, closed the courtyard from the street side. The capitals, as well as the central vaulted area, at which the connecting passage to the residential building should open, covered glass mosaics from our own production. On the opposite side of the courtyard was the single-storey glassworks with the towering chimney of the glass melting furnace, completely covered with colored mosaics based on designs by Hermann Schaper . The widely visible landmark of the factory also served as an effective advertising medium for Puhl & Wagner's products.
The other two sides of the courtyard were closed off by two three-story factory wings. The right wing on the ground floor accommodated the storage for the glasses and glass mosaic stones and was directly connected to the glassworks. The drawing room on the first floor and the high typesetting room on the second floor, like the warehouse, took up the entire floor, well lit by the large arched windows. A subsequent part of the infrastructure, designed as a tower, took up the stairwell, toilets and the director's office as well as a goods lift system connecting all floors . A glass mosaic sundial in the gable above the central axis of the courtyard facade again demonstrated the use of Puhl & Wagner products.
A passage to the courtyard cut through the first floor of the left wing. On the ground floor and first floor there was space for further facilities of the factory such as the joinery and packing shop for the dispatch of the finished mosaics and glass windows, chemical storage, office , cloakroom and refreshment room. While the lower floors were divided into many smaller rooms, the exhibition space took up the entire third floor. Large works could also be presented in the extra-high room and the visitors were given a better overview from a raised gallery. Large arched windows, like those in the opposite wing, provided good lighting.
Merger to form the United Workshops for Mosaic and Glass Painting Puhl & Wagner, Gottfried Heinersdorff
On April 1, 1914 , the Deutsche Glasmosaikanstalt Puhl & Wagner merged with Gottfried Heinersdorff, an art institute for glass painting, lead glazing and glass mosaic to form the United Workshops for Mosaics and Glass Painting Puhl & Wagner, Gottfried Heinersdorff . Heinersdorff moved his company into the Puhl & Wagner factory building on Kiefholzstrasse. He was close to the German Werkbund founded in 1907 . In this reform movement of the arts and crafts, which emerged from overcoming historicism , he had acquired the reputation of a reformer of glass art and had excellent contacts to artists such as Henry van de Velde , Hans Poelzig , Lyonel Feininger and Heinrich Vogeler or to the patron of the arts Karl Ernst Osthaus , founder of the Folkwang Museum . During the merger, Wagner pushed his previous partner Friedrich Puhl, with whom he had worked for 26 years, out of the company. The new owners, the nearly 50-year-old August Wagner and the 31-year-old Gottfried Heinersdorff, signed a partnership agreement for an initial period of 15 years.
The reasons and motives for the merger of Puhl & Wagner with the much smaller Heinersdorff company were complex. On the one hand, both companies had been producing the same products since 1908 - Heinersdorff, whose father had already successfully operated a glass painting workshop, had also been producing glass mosaics since 1908, and Puhl & Wagner had been running its own glass painting department since 1908 under the direction of the painter Adolf Becker . The establishment of this department probably took place in connection with the invention of the "mosaic glass", for the manufacture of which the Rixdorf company had held the Reich patent no. 193370 since 1905. Conventional glasses only appear colored when light shines through. In the case of mosaic glasses, a metal skin melted between two layers of glass ensures that the color effect occurs both in incident and in incident light. The companies no longer competed with the association. Puhl & Wagner benefited from the many years of experience and relationships of Heinersdorff's glass painting workshop, while the latter was free to use the glass mosaic patent. On the other hand, the merger also promised an artistic renewal and solution from the historicist models through Heinersdorff's good connections to the Werkbund. Access to Puhl & Wagner's own glassworks was certainly also attractive for Heinersdorff.
Economic difficulties in the First World War
The outbreak of World War I in the year of the merger worsened the order situation of the company, which is active in the luxury goods sector and dependent on government and church orders. With a folder Heroes Honor , which contained designs by artists such as César Klein or Jan Thorn Prikker for mosaic memorial plaques and memorial windows for churches or cemeteries, one attempted the delicate commercial evaluation of the lists of dead who soon arrived from the battlefields of the war. The Kaiser was also asked for help - a letter sent to Wilhelm II in 1916 vividly described the existence of the company, which was seriously threatened by the discontinuation of the imperial orders. His reply from September 8, 1916, in which he would deplore if it were not possible to not maintain the institute, which was highly deserved for German art and the German arts and crafts , was used as an "Kaiserbrief" by various architects, museum directors and artists forwarded in the hope of receiving orders with the imperial rifle aid.
As early as October 27, 1916, the company again reached the most gracious, most powerful emperor, king and lord, and asked to be awarded the title of court mosaic art institute and court glass painting of his majesty . On the one hand, the old rating was lost with the merger in 1914 because Heinersdorff's company did not have one; on the other hand, the planned merger with Königl. Bayerischen Hofmosaik-Kunstanstalt (Bavarian Court Mosaic Art Institute), Prof. Theodor Rauecker used the pretext to demand a designation equivalent to the Munich workshops instead of the previous title of court supplier . In the last year of the war in 1918, Puhl & Wagner actually merged with the Royal Bavarian Court Mosaic Art Institute, which was founded in the 1890s and which in future operated as the United Workshops for Mosaic and Glass Painting, Munich-Solln . With the merger, the company got a second production facility and was able to eliminate the only significant competitor in Germany. The merger also gave Puhl & Wagner a monopoly-like position worldwide.
Checkered developments in the 1920s
The order situation did not improve significantly in the post-war period. They tried their hand at the production of electric lighting fixtures, which they showed for the first time at the Leipzig trade fair in 1919. In the most critical period from 1919 to 1921, Gottfried Heinersdorff's father-in-law Otto Bolte made 800,000 marks, the majority of his fortune, available to the United Workshops, thus saving it from bankruptcy .
Further activities were aimed at developing new sources of income and revitalizing government contracts that were so important to the company. In December 1920, Gottfried Heinersdorff submitted to Wilhelm Waetzoldt , a high official in the Prussian Ministry of Culture and later director of the Berlin museums, the proposal to add a state training center to the company in order to reorganize the company through state contributions. In 1921 Mosaik in Not was published - memorandum on the plight of German mosaic art with 18 expert opinions from well-known artists as well as representatives from church and economy. The unnamed publishers behind the richly illustrated writing were the United Workshops for Mosaic and Glass Painting Puhl & Wagner, Gottfried Heinersdorff and the United Workshops for Mosaic and Glass Painting, Munich-Solln , which in this way brought the young Weimar Republic to the resumption of the so numerous in the empire Wanted to initiate government contracts. Another target audience were architects and private builders who were supposed to use mosaics in the design of bathrooms, halls or fountains.
From the beginning of the 1920s, the workshops in Berlin-Neukölln and Munich-Solln worked on several large export orders. Among them were the Golden Hall of the townhouse in Stockholm , actually a pre-war order, and orders in the USA, such as the cathedral in St. Louis , the Cincinnati train station and in New York the Irving Trust Bank and the Hotel Waldorf-Astoria . Business in America grew so strongly that in 1923 an agency was opened in New York and an assembly workshop in St. Louis under the name United Mosaic Studio , which later traded under the name of Ravenna Mosaic Company . The office was a joint venture with the St. Louis Art Glass Studio owned by Emil Frei. Important major orders after the economic recovery in Germany were the mosaics in the baths during the renovation of the Berlin Hotel Excelsior and mosaics for the sister ships Europa and Bremen of Norddeutscher Lloyd . New techniques were included in the offer - the inexpensive plaster mosaics, where a large part of the wall was made of plaster and only ornaments and figures as a mosaic. Natural stone mosaics and mosaics with larger glass fragments followed the changing taste of the time.
Conflicts - commerce against ideal aspirations, Wagner against Heinersdorff
The economically difficult times after the merger were poor conditions for the hoped-for artistic renewal. However, as a businessman, Gottfried Heinersdorff was ready to walk the tightrope between commerce and ideal aspirations. The bright spots in 1917 were the furnishing of the exhibition rooms of the Berlin art dealer Wolfgang Gurlitt with colored glazing based on designs by Max Pechstein or in 1919 his house with stained glass and mosaics based on designs by César Klein. This conflict between commerce and ideal aspirations was reflected in the assortment in its mix of commercial series goods and modern and historical commissioned art - but also personified in the two owners, the "loyal to the emperor" Wagner and the "reformist" Heinersdorff. The two came to terms for almost twelve years, but at the beginning of 1926 August Wagner tried to force his partner out of the company. In a memorandum , he prematurely terminated the 15-year partnership agreement concluded in 1914 . He wanted to bring the company into the sole possession of the Wagner family and install his son Hans as his successor. Heinersdorff took legal action, supported by affidavits by the artists Max Pechstein and Franz Becker-Tempelburg and by Reichskunstwart Edwin Redslob , who confirmed his importance for the economic and artistic development of the company. The judgment of the arbitration court forced Wagner to withdraw his notice of termination. More gratifying for Heinersdorff was the artistic collaboration with Josef Albers , who found a new partner in the Rixdorf factory after the Bauhaus glass workshops closed in 1923. Significant results in 1927 were the halls and staircase windows designed by Albers in the new building of the Ullstein printing house in Berlin, built according to plans by the architect Eugen Schmohl . The company was hit hard by the Great Depression of 1929, as much of its production went to America. In addition, the boycott of American workers' organizations prevented the continuation of exports and the American partner, the St. Louis Art Glass Studio, parted ways with the Ravenna Mosaic Company at the end of 1929/1930.
Heinersdorff retired in 1933 and state commissioned art for the National Socialists
August Wagner reached after the seizure of power of the Nazis in 1933 by a further process, the resolution of the Shareholders' Agreement of 1914 with his business partner Jewish descent. He appointed Hans W. Wagner, one of his sons, as the new director. Declared half-Jewish on the basis of the Nuremberg Race Laws in 1935, Heinersdorff was able to emigrate to France in 1937 (through the intercession of Reich Economics Minister Hjalmar Schacht ) , where he died in 1941, deprived of his economic livelihood.
After Heinersdorff left the company, from 1935 onwards, the company was named August Wagner, a unified workshop for mosaics and glass painting . The new rulers ordered mosaics and glass windows with National Socialist emblems for their large building projects. The orders began in 1935 with windows for the Haus der Kunst in Munich , followed in 1936 by the Berlin Reich Aviation Ministry and in 1937 the construction of the grandstands on the Zeppelinwiese for the Nazi party rally grounds in Nuremberg designed by Albert Speer . August Wagner supplied equipment for the German House at the 1937 World Exhibition in Paris , as well as for the KdF passenger ship Wilhelm Gustloff . In 1939, the workshops received two further prestigious state contracts with mosaics for the soldier tower in the Tannenberg Imperial Memorial and for the New Reich Chancellery in Berlin . Work was also carried out as part of the planned relocation of twelve embassies to the embassy district , such as the skylight for the new Yugoslav embassy in 1939/1940 . At the old square, the messages were in the way of the GBI plan for the “ World Capital Germania ”.
The outbreak of World War II cut the last ties to the American branch. Paul Heuduck, who emigrated to America on behalf of Puhl & Wagner in 1923, took over the Ravenna Mosaic Company , which continued to exist under his son Arno Heuduck until 1988. The declaration of the former parent company as a war-important operation illustrates its importance in the plans for the “world capital Germania”, where August Wagner was to furnish numerous monumental buildings, such as the triumphal arch on the north-south axis, with mosaics. For the dome mosaic in Albert Speer's Great Hall of the People, tons of gold mosaic stones were made, which were still found in the bankruptcy estate decades later and were used in the restoration and reconstruction of the mosaics on the Martin-Gropius-Bau .
Economic decline in post-war Germany
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The first significant commission in the post-war period was the mosaics in the pavilion of the Soviet memorial in Treptower Park, built between 1946 and 1949 . Otherwise, more sacred and private commissions shaped the new beginning after the Second World War. In the 1950s, newly built or rebuilt churches needed glass windows and banks had their counter halls furnished with mosaics. The collaboration with artists that Gottfried Heinersdorff had cultivated at the time was also resumed and works were created based on designs by Hann Trier or Heinz Trökes .
The steadily decreasing order volume led to the abandonment of the factory in 1969 and the liquidation of the company, which in 1965 still had over 50 employees. A new beginning in Austria failed. In 1971 the state of Berlin acquired the former factories for DM 475,000 and had the factory building demolished in 1972 for the construction of a bypass road. The important company archive with numerous photographs of executed works, draft boxes and around 300 linear meters of other files is kept by the Berlinische Galerie .
The film Tattoo with Helga Anders and Christof Wackernagel was shot in the mosaic factory Puhl & Wagner built by the architect Franz Schwechten. It had been found by the production designer Götz Heymann as the main motif for the film.
Manufacturing processes
As a specialty, Puhl & Wagner united all branches of trade for the production of glass mosaics under one roof. In 1908, further workshops for grinding and etching glasses followed for glass painting .
The glass manufacturing
The types of glass used for the glass mosaic stones belong to the lead glasses , where the alkaline earth oxides such as calcium oxide that are common in other glasses are replaced by lead oxide . Metal oxides added in small amounts color these glasses - cobalt oxides lead to blue, iron oxides to green-blue-green, yellow or brown-black colors. The uranium oxides no longer used today because of their radioactivity color the glasses yellow. The crushed raw material, preferably iron-free sand, potassium and lead oxide, were heated to 1200–1300 ° C and melted down in the approximately 60 kilogram ports. In the glass press, the ironworkers pressed the still soft glass mass into plate-sized cakes of different thicknesses, which they then allowed to cool slowly for five days. In the next step, they used a pointed hammer and chisel to break up the cakes to make the mosaic stones, the tesserae . These glass mosaic stones are also known as smalts . The golden and silver mosaic stones, in which a thin gold or silver foil is melted between two panes of glass, required special skills in production. One of these layers of glass is usually made of darker or opaque glass so that the incident light is better reflected. Each batch was given a number and a stone was placed as a sample in the so-called color pyramid, a pyramid-shaped shelf with all available colors. This system allowed quick access to all color shades and the batches of the stored stones. The number of shades available, a key competitive advantage, increased from 8,000 to 10,000 in 1903 to 15,000 in 1925.
Mosaic production
With the conventional working technique, the positive or direct setting process , the mosaic worker transferred the artist's design to the damp plaster on the wall. Then he put the individual mosaic stones directly into the damp plaster. This method required the artist's presence for control, at least at crucial steps like transferring the cardboard to the wall. In the negative or indirect typesetting process developed by Antonio Salviati , which Puhl & Wagner took over from their competitor, draftsmen transferred the artist's design on a 1: 1 scale onto cardboard. In the next step, the cardboard was copied the wrong way round with the help of tracing paper and at the same time divided and numbered into smaller sections, the compartments. The mosaic workers then glued the mosaic stones onto these compartments with the face down. The numbering of the colors and batches of the mosaic stones ensured an exact implementation of the artist's design, but also the consistency of the work of the various mosaic setters.
Packed in layers in boxes, the finished compartments were sent to their destination, where specialized workers attached the individual parts to the wall or ceiling, which had been prepared with a damp layer of plaster, and assembled them into a complete mosaic using the numbers. If the mosaic stones were anchored in the plaster layer, they loosened the transparent paper by moistening it. After repairing the imperfections and closing the "seams" between the different parts of the mosaic, they filled in the joints and tamped them down. In the last step they cleaned the assembled and no longer mirror image mosaic.
The negative setting process with the separation of the place of manufacture and place of installation of the mosaics brought various advantages. The division of the original picture into the compartments allowed the production process to be organized based on the division of labor, where different typesetters could work on a mosaic at the same time, which was usually not possible with the conventional typesetting process for reasons of space. The division into individual segments made the mosaics transportable as a further advantage, which opened up larger sales markets for the manufacturer. For the client, the construction time was shortened, as the mosaics could already be prepared in parallel with the construction of the building. Once the shell of the walls and ceilings to be decorated was completed, the mosaics only needed to be attached, whereas in the conventional process, the mosaic workers could only begin work at this point in time. For the designing artist, as well as for the client, the new process ensured controllable results and easier corrections by allowing the mosaic parts to be checked and corrected before they were attached - in the wrong direction. In the conventional method, the mosaics had to be knocked off again.
The rationalization of the traditional, slow, labor-intensive and thus expensive stone-by-stone setting process was desired and required. Nonetheless, the result shouldn't look too perfect and industrial, on the contrary, it should look handcrafted. On request, the setters built in deliberate flaws such as crooked mosaic stones and small cracks or used stones that were slightly different in color. The artist Max Seliger, for example, wrote to Puhl & Wagner about the execution of his design for the Emperor Barbarossa mosaic in Kyffhäuser in the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin : Even if you wanted to put quite wide gaps, cracks and higher stones in less important areas, you would I will be delighted.
The multiple uses of glass mosaics
In addition to the traditional use in the interior decoration of churches, glass mosaics quickly conquered new areas of application. In a company publication from 1897, Puhl & Wagner was convinced that glass mosaic still has a wide range of uses ahead of it , and that no other method, facades and interiors that are exposed to strong temperature or humidity influences, can be assisted by color decoratively decorate, withstand comparison with mosaic .
The quality of the rediscovered building material was particularly evident on the facades, which with its permanent, almost indestructible surface was superior to the previously used frescoes and other wall paintings in the outdoor area and could also be easily adapted to livelier architectural forms. The technical advantages of the modern and progressive material combined with the monumental character , the prestige of the mosaics from their historical application as a symbolization of luster, wealth, representation and almost something “imperial dignity”, later surely promoted by their intensive use in prestige projects of Wilhelm II. For example, mosaics on commercial building facades with their luminosity provided for advertising in shops and on state buildings, such as town halls or on the buildings of the Reichspost, permanent colored emblems in the form of coats of arms and imperial eagles were emblazoned - the latter were produced as series work in the most varied of sizes (up to 12 m²) .
The Byzantine mosaics, or their appropriate replicas, were an important trigger for the renaissance of glass mosaics and initially formative for the style of church furnishings, the reinvented mosaic technique made any style possible. The company publication expressly emphasizes that the present demands its right , and that not only significantly different claims can be made, but can also be satisfied . In addition to mosaics, specially designed and manufactured for a single object, Puhl & Wagner also delivered artistically rather undemanding but technically solid series works. Examples are copies of ancient mosaics or mosaics for tombs such as an angel carrying a palm branch designed by Paul Mohn .
Puhl & Wagner's company typeface from 1897 lists the cost of a simple, smooth background as 50–100 marks per square meter. Gold ground made from the expensive gold mosaic stones, simple ornaments, inscriptions or heraldic representations cost 100–200 marks per square meter. For richer ornaments, the builders had to reckon with 200–300 marks per square meter, and rich ornaments cost more than 300 marks per square meter. The most expensive at 300–400 marks per square meter were the individually made figurative representations in connection with ornaments.
Examples of buildings with mosaics and glass paintings by Puhl & Wagner
In the eight decades of its existence, Puhl & Wagner furnished countless buildings at home and abroad with mosaics and glass windows. Much of this equipment was destroyed in the Second World War or fell victim to changing tastes.
Sacred buildings
| 1890-1893 | Emmauskirche , Berlin-Kreuzberg |
| 1891-1895 | Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church , Berlin-Charlottenburg (largely destroyed) |
| 1891-1893 | New Nazareth Church , Leopoldplatz , Berlin-Wedding |
| 1891-1895 | Gnadenkirche , Invalidenstrasse, Berlin (destroyed) |
| 1893 | Mosaic depicting Christ blessing in the main portal of the Immanuelkirche , Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg |
| 1893-1895 | Kaiser-Friedrich-Gedächtniskirche , Berlin-Hansaviertel (destroyed) |
| 1893-1898 | Church of the Redeemer , Jerusalem |
| 1898 | Georgenkirche , Berlin-Mitte , destroyed |
| 1900-1902 | Drum mosaics in the Aachen Cathedral , Aachen |
| 1903-1907 | Mosaics in the octagon and in the imperial box based on designs by Hermann Schaper , Aachen Cathedral, Aachen |
| 1903-1910 | Mosaics in the palace chapel of the Imperial Palace in Poznan |
| 1905 | Mosaics in the dome and above the main portal of the Berlin Cathedral , Berlin-Mitte |
| 1908 | Church of the Redeemer , Bad Homburg vor der Höhe |
| 1910 | Mosaic altarpiece depicting Christ blessing in St. Michaelis , Hamburg |
| 1912 | Altarpieces in the Church of the Resurrection , St. Petersburg |
| 1910-1914 | Assumption Church, Jerusalem |
| 1907-1913 | Church of the Redeemer , Gerolstein |
| 1923-1924 | Choir window in St. Michael (Saarbrücken) based on the design by Reinhold Ewald |
| 1927/1928 | Augustinuskirche , Berlin, mosaic based on a design by Otto Hitzberger |
| 1929 | Frauenfriedenskirche , Frankfurt-Bockenheim , mosaics and mosaic sculpture |
| 1942 | Parish church St. Antonius , Potsdam-Babelsberg , monumental apse mosaic based on a design by Egbert Lammers |
| 1942/1943 | Preparatory work for the colored round window of a phoenix above the altar of the cemetery chapel in Wismar based on the design by Carl Otto Czeschka (execution only after the Second World War) |
| 1957 | Glass mosaics by Charles Crodel in the new building of the Kaiser-Friedrich-Gedächtniskirche , Berlin-Hansaviertel |
Profane buildings - facade decorations and advertisements
| 1891/1892 | Advertising mosaic with the allegory of the muse of art for the New Theater (today Theater am Schiffbauerdamm ), Schiffbauerdamm 5, Berlin-Mitte |
| 1889-1893 | Coat of arms and year numbers on the facade and in the atrium of the Ständehaus , Rostock |
| 1896/1897 | Mosaics at the official gate of the AEG , Brunnenstrasse 107a in Berlin-Gesundbrunnen |
| 1896-1898 | Coats of arms and dial on the facade of the Lichtenberg Town Hall , Möllendorffstrasse 6, Berlin-Lichtenberg |
| 1900-1902 | Glass mosaics on the facade of the Schmargendorf town hall and glass windows in the main stairwell, Berlin-Schmargendorf, which were renewed in 1964/1965 |
| 1906/1907 | Hotel Adlon , mosaics in the inner courtyard (Goethe Garden), Unter den Linden , Berlin-Mitte (destroyed) |
| 1910 | Glass mosaics based on cardboard boxes by Max Friedrich Koch on the Hohenzollerndamm Bridge , Berlin-Wilmersdorf , “Departure for the hunt under Elector Joachim II from the Grunewald Hunting Lodge ” (removed when the bridge was rebuilt in 1957, restored in 1963 and slightly changed on the street facade of the Königsallee 15 senior citizens' home ) and “ Handover of the city of Teltow "(torn down and destroyed in 1950) |
| 1911 | Mosaic in the pedestrian entrance to the St. Pauli-Elbtunnel , Hamburg |
| 1912-1914 | Stadtbad Neukölln , wall mosaics, Berlin-Neukölln |
| 1956 | Gold mosaics at the entrance of the Kaufhaus des Westens , Tauentzienstrasse , Berlin-Schöneberg |
Profane buildings - interior decorations
| 1902-1906 | Glass mosaics based on designs by August Oetken in the Elisabeth-Kemenate of the Wartburg , Eisenach |
| 1911 | Haus Vaterland , balcony mosaics in Cafe Picadilly, Berlin-Mitte (destroyed) |
| 1913 | Marble House , Berlin, expressionist glass ceiling in the foyer based on a design by César Klein (not preserved) |
| 1914 | Wall cladding in the ornaments hall of Bruno Tauts Glashaus at the Cologne Werkbund exhibition (not preserved) |
| 1915 | Dome mosaics based on designs by Max Unold in the Wiesbaden Museum , Wiesbaden |
| 1923 | Golden Hall of Stockholm City House , Stockholm |
| 1926 | Staircase glazing based on designs by Josef Albers of the Grassimuseum , Leipzig, reconstruction of the glazing destroyed in the Second World War in 2011 by Peters stained glass |
| 1926 | Glass windows and glass ceilings based on designs by César Klein in the white linen department of the Wertheim department store , Leipziger Platz , Berlin-Mitte (destroyed) |
| 1926/1927 | Glass ceiling designed by Albert Croll in the new cash hall of Dresdner Bank , Französische Ecke Markgrafenstrasse, Berlin (destroyed) |
| 1927 | Staircase glazing Ullstein-Druckhaus , Mariendorfer Damm, Berlin-Tempelhof (glazing destroyed) |
| 1927/1928 | Hotel Excelsior , Berlin, ceiling mosaics of the bathing facilities during the renovation by Johann Emil Schaudt (destroyed) |
| 1927/1928 | Bar window depicting cockatoos in the " Kakadu " bar , Joachimstaler Strasse 10, Berlin-Charlottenburg (destroyed) |
| 1930 | Staircase glazing, Ramelow department store (architect: Fritz Ebhardt) in Stendal , preserved |
| 1935 | House of Art , Munich |
| 1936 | Reich Ministry of Aviation , Berlin-Mitte |
| 1937 | Grandstand construction on the Zeppelin meadow in Nuremberg |
| 1937 | German house at the world exhibition in Paris , dismantled |
| 1937 | Mosaic floors and gold-plate mosaic columns for Hermann Göring's Carinhall property , destroyed |
| 1939 | New Reich Chancellery , Berlin-Mitte, destroyed |
| 1957 | Glass mosaic for the XI. Triennale of Milan based on a design by Heinz Trökes . Acquired in 1958/59 by the Hamburg Senate for the elementary school at the Katharinenkirche. Restored and implemented by the Munich court manufactory in 2009/10. New location: Katharinenschule, Hamburg-Hafencity. |
| 1960 | Wall mosaic in Lohmühlenstraße underground station , Hamburg |
| 1962/1963 | Large glass mosaic Sport , designed by Eduard Bargheer on the facade of a sports hall of the former Lower Saxony Stadium in Hanover, in their demolition the mosaic next to the south entrance of today was Niedersachsenstadion displaced |
Fountains, monuments and funerary monuments
| 1895 | Three Emperors Memorial Hall of the lighthouse in Kiel-Holtenau |
| 1897-1899 | Ceiling mosaics designed by August Oetken in the Grunewald Tower , Berlin-Grunewald |
| 1900/1901 | Kaiserbrunnen, today the German fountain in Istanbul - a gift from Kaiser Wilhelm II to Sultan Abdülhamid II. |
| 1916 | Mosaic of an angel on the tomb of the factory owner August Werner, based on a design by Hermann Schaper, Engesohde city cemetery , Hanover, |
| 1926 | Mosaic fountain for the Dresden horticultural exhibition, designed by Hans Poelzig ("Poelzig fountain"), Great Garden , Dresden |
| 1933 | Mosaic-decorated niche behind the catafalk in the crematorium Hamburg-Ohlsdorf (today "Bestattungsforum") designed by Heinrich Jungbloedt |
| 1939 | Soldier tower in the Tannenberg realm memorial , destroyed |
| 1966 | Mosaic fountain in front of the Cologne Opera on Offenbachplatz, designed by Jürgen Hans Grümmer |
Miscellaneous
| 1929 | Equipment of the sun deck and the fountain wall in the swimming pool for the ocean liner Bremen and its sister ship Europa of North German Lloyd , destroyed |
| 1938 | Equipment of the KdF ship Wilhelm Gustloff , destroyed |
literature
- Without author: German Glass Mosaic Society Puhl & Wagner - Rixdorf, Berlin . Company publication published by Ernst Wasmuth, Berlin 1897, supplementary sheets 1899.
- Christoph Josef Cremer (ed.): The commercial life in the Teltow district. At the instigation of the 'Berlin Trade Exhibition 1896' on behalf of the district committee . Heymann, Berlin 1900.
- Josef Ludwig Fischer : German mosaic and its historical sources. Verlag Karl W. Hiersemann, Leipzig 1939. (This work documents in the extensive panel section works by Puhl & Wagner that were created during the Empire, the Weimar Republic and the time of the Third Reich).
- Hubertus Lossow : August Wagner, united workshops for mosaic and glass painting Berlin . In: The Minster. Journal for Christian Art and Art History. , 15, 1962, pp. 449-456.
- Annemarie Richter: In Kaiser's and Onassis' service. The German Glass Mosaic Institute Puhl & Wagner in Berlin-Neukölln . Kunstamt Neukölln, Heimatmuseum, Berlin 1985 (catalog for the exhibition of the same name from March 13 to May 18, 1985 in the Neukölln Heimatmuseum).
- Helmut Geisert, Elisabeth Moortgat (Red.): Walls made of colored glass. The archive of the United Workshops for Mosaic and Glass Painting Puhl & Wagner, Gottfried Heinersdorff . Berlinische Galerie, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-927873-01-2 (catalog for the exhibition from December 8, 1989– January 21, 1990 in the Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin; Contemporary Museum . No. 9).
- Dorothea Müller: Colorful cubes of power. An overview of the history and importance of the mosaic in Germany at the time of historicism. Lang, Frankfurt am Main a. a. 1995, ISBN 3-631-48505-0 .
- Bettina Berendes: Carl Otto Czeschka - Beauty as a message. The glass window of the Hamburg School of Applied Arts , 2005
- Roland Jaeger: Painting in glass and stone - Eduard Bargheer's mosaic work. ConferencePoint Verlag, Hamburg 2007.
Web links
- The Puhl & Wagner company archive at the Berlinische Galerie
- Factory building on Kiefholzstrasse: illustration of the chimney covered with glass mosaics at www.bildindex.de
- Factory building on Kiefholzstrasse: picture of the exhibition hall at www.bildindex.de
- Site on the history of Ravenna Mosaic Company (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Berlinische Galerie (ed.): Walls of colored glass: the archive of the United Workshops for Mosaic and Glass Painting Puhl & Wagner, Gottfried Heinersdorff. , Berlinische Galerie, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-927873-01-2 , p. 5.
- ^ Hubertus Lossow: August Wagner, united workshops for mosaic and glass painting Berlin . In: The Minster. Journal for Christian Art and Art History. , 15, 1962, pp. 449-456; Different founding date 1884 in: Architects Association of Berlin and Association of Berlin Architects (ed.): Berlin and its buildings , Volume I, Verlag Wilhelm Ernst & Sohn, Berlin 1896, p. 595.
- ↑ Christoph Josef Cremer (Ed.): The commercial life in the Teltow district: from the instigation of the 'Berlin Commercial Exhibition 1896' on behalf of the district committee. , Heymann, Berlin 1900, quoted in the company publication Deutsche Glasmosaik-Gesellschaft Puhl & Wagner - Rixdorf, Berlin .
- ^ Architects' Association of Berlin and Association of Berlin Architects (ed.): Berlin and its buildings , Volume I, Verlag Wilhelm Ernst & Sohn, Berlin 1896, p. 595.
- ^ Berlin address book: using official sources. Verlag Scherl, Berlin 1895, p.?.
- ^ Berlin address book: using official sources. Verlag Scherl, Berlin 1896 and 1897, pp.?.
- ^ Berlin address book: using official sources. Verlag Scherl, Berlin 1897, p.?.
- ^ [Without author]: German Glass Mosaic Society Puhl & Wagner - Rixdorf, Berlin. Ernst Wasmuth 1897, p. 7.
- ↑ Gottfried Heinersdorff sees in his affidavit dated June 24, 1926, given in the August Wagner trial against Gottfried Heinersdorff, the same reason for the ousting of Puhl as in his case: Wagner wanted to bring the entire company into the hands of his children. See Annemarie Richter: Gottfried Heinersdorff (1883–1941). A reformer of German glass art. Dissertation TU Berlin, 1983, p. 180.
- ↑ quoted from: Annemarie Richter: Gottfried Heinersdorff (1883–1941). A reformer of German glass art. Dissertation TU Berlin, 1983, p. 174.
- ↑ quoted from: Annemarie Richter: Gottfried Heinersdorff (1883–1941). A reformer of German glass art. Dissertation TU Berlin, 1983, p. 175.
- ^ Berlin address book: using official sources. Verlag Scherl, Berlin 1935, p.
- ^ History of the Ravenna Mosaic Company at Saint Louis University .
- ↑ Winnetou Kampmann and Ute Weström: Martin Gropius Bau - The history of its restoration , Prestel Munich, ISBN 3-7913-2061-0 , p. 71.
- ↑ Annemarie Richter: Gottfried Heinersdorff (1883–1941). A reformer of German glass art. Dissertation TU Berlin, 1983, p. 134.
- ↑ Annemarie Richter: Gottfried Heinersdorff (1883–1941). A reformer of German glass art. Dissertation TU Berlin, 1983, p. 135.
- ↑ see also photos at: picture index
- ↑ Tattoo (1967) Johannes Schaaf . 4th August 2015
- ↑ Deutsche Bauzeitung 1904, p. 570.
- ↑ Berlinische Galerie (ed.): Walls of colored glass: the archive of the United Workshops for Mosaic and Glass Painting Puhl & Wagner, Gottfried Heinersdorff. , Berlinische Galerie, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-927873-01-2 , p. 116.
- ^ Archive of the company Puhl & Wagner in the Berlinische Galerie, file 15. Quoted from: Berlinische Galerie (ed.): Walls made of colored glass: the archive of the United Workshops for Mosaic and Glass Painting Puhl & Wagner, Gottfried Heinersdorff , Berlinische Galerie, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-927873-01-2 , p. 180.
- ^ [Without author]: German Glass Mosaic Society Puhl & Wagner - Rixdorf, Berlin. Ernst Wasmuth 1897, p. 2.
- ^ [Without author]: German Glass Mosaic Society Puhl & Wagner - Rixdorf, Berlin. Ernst Wasmuth 1897, p. 11.
- ^ [Without author]: German Glass Mosaic Society Puhl & Wagner - Rixdorf, Berlin. Ernst Wasmuth 1897, pp. 4 and 5.
- ^ [Without author]: German Glass Mosaic Society Puhl & Wagner - Rixdorf, Berlin. Ernst Wasmuth 1897, p. 9.
- ↑ Restoration report .
Coordinates: 52 ° 28 ′ 56.5 ″ N , 13 ° 27 ′ 44 ″ E