Adolf Gustav Schneck

Adolf Gustav Schneck (born June 7, 1883 in Esslingen am Neckar , † March 27, 1971 in Schmiden ) was a German architect , furniture maker and university professor who became known for the New Building style , especially in the context of the Bauhaus .

Life

Rest home "Haus auf der Alb" in Bad Urach, 1930

Before 1933

Born the son of a furniture maker, Schneck completed a three-year saddler and upholstery apprenticeship in his parents' company in 1897. He then began his journeyman years with a period of hiking and attending the trade school in Basel . When he returned to Esslingen in 1907, he took over his parents' business and at the same time began studying at the Stuttgart School of Applied Arts , among others with Bernhard Pankok . In 1912 he enrolled to study architecture at the Technical University of Stuttgart and graduated there in 1918 with a thesis on the Stuttgart main station with Paul Bonatz . During his studies in 1919 he was able to work as a freelance architect and furniture designer, two years later he was given a teaching position at the arts and crafts school. There he became head of the furniture and interior design department in 1922, and professor in 1923. A year later he worked as a curator for the exhibition "Die Form [without ornament]". In 1926/1927, Schneck designed the type furniture program “The cheap apartment” for Karl Schmidt-Hellerau , which was produced with great success in the Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau until the 1930s . As the second Stuttgart architect after Richard Döcker , Schneck was involved in the Weißenhofsiedlung . In 1926/1927, Schneck designed and built two single-family houses; House 11 in Friedrich-Ebert-Straße 114, which he lived in himself, and house 12 in Bruckmannweg 1. He also designed the interior of an apartment in the house of the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe . Several houses followed on the site in 1928. In the following year, he was entrusted with another major order that was to further increase his awareness: he designed the house on the Alb near Bad Urach .

1933 to 1945

During the time of National Socialism, Schneck showed a very conservative style of design in his work. His function as professor and head of the department for furniture construction and interior design at the Württ. Staatl. Kunstgewerbeschule am Weißenhof, which was run in 1941 as the “Department of Applied Arts” with the Württ. Academy of Fine Arts (now “Department for Free Art”) in Urbanstrasse under the same management, but maintaining the spatial separation with the name “State Academy of the bildenden Künste Stuttgart “was organizationally united, remained unaffected, especially since he had joined the NSDAP . When, at the end of 1938, the Berlin High Command of the Army started a competition to set up General Command V on the site of the Weißenhofsiedlung , defamed by the Nazis as the “Schandfleck von Stuttgart” , Schneck, himself in 1927 with two buildings, was involved in the settlement, which was now threatened with demolition Competition invited. Other participants were Paul Bonatz and his son-in-law Kurt Dübbers, Paul Schmitthenner , Alfred Kicherer, Ernst Horsch with Walter Hehl and Herbert Hettler as well as the Eisenlohr und Pfennig office . The Horsch-Hehl-Hettler group came into play, and the Stuttgart architect Hans Herkommer worked out detailed work plans for their design of a “gigantic facility” ( Frank Werner ) . However, these were not implemented because in 1941 General Command V emigrated to Strasbourg. At the beginning of February 1945, at a time when the main academy building in Urbanstrasse was destroyed by aircraft bombs and its inventory, the arts and crafts school at Weißenhof was partially damaged and lessons had already been suspended, Schneck was appointed after his predecessor in this office, who worked in the Nazi cultural sector Integrated designer Hermann Gretsch , who was “submerged”, was appointed deputy to the sculptor Fritz von Graevenitz , who had been director of the institution since 1938 (with interruption). Schneck's office was still the arts and crafts school.

After 1945

Even after the end of the war, Schneck remained deputy director - with lessons still inactive - without, however, belonging to the planning committee set up by the cultural authorities to prepare for the reopening of the academy, until 1946, instead of Fritz von Graevenitz, who was no longer employed, the sculptor Hermann Brachert initially provisional , later, as the elected rector, took over the management of the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart, newly constituted by Theodor Heuss, in the rooms of the former arts and crafts school at Weißenhof.

He was able to continue his work as a professor of furniture construction and interior design - classified as a follower in the denazification process - until 1949. He worked as an architect again and took up the style from before 1933. He also continued to work as a specialist writer. In 1948 he was one of the founding members of the new Werkbund Baden-Württemberg . He received numerous honors until his death in 1971.

Buildings (selection)

House on Bruckmannweg 1 in the Weissenhof housing estate in Stuttgart, 1927

• 1926–1927: Two houses in the Weißenhofsiedlung , Stuttgart
• before 1929: Hotel Singer, Berwang (Tyrol)
• 1929–1930: Recreation home Haus auf der Alb , Bad Urach
• 1947–1950: Home for the deaf, Stuttgart-Botnang
• 1949: Residence for Dr. Eberle, Stuttgart
• 1949: Residence for Dr. Schairer, Stuttgart
• 1950–1954: Rest home, Brühl
• 1956: House for Dr. Stoll, Reutlingen

Publications

• Basic shapes in furniture construction . In: Die Form, vol. 1, 1925/26, issue 11, pp. 235–240 ( digitized version )
• Furniture as a commodity , Julius Hoffmann Verlag, Stuttgart 1929 (published on behalf of the Württemberg State Trade Office).
• The upholstered furniture , Julius Hoffmann Verlag, Stuttgart 1933.
• Interior fittings, equipment, furniture types - Göschen Collection 1101 , Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin 1936.
• Construction of simple furniture , Julius Hoffmann Verlag, Stuttgart 1948.
• New furniture from Art Nouveau to today , F. Bruckmann Verlag, Munich 1962.

literature

• State Center for Political Education Baden-Württemberg (ed.): Haus auf der Alb, Stuttgart 1994, pp. 2–7.
• Dresdner Geschichtsverein eV: Gartenstadt Hellerau , The everyday life of a utopia . Michel Sandstein Grafischer Betrieb und Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Dresden 1997, ISBN 3-910055-42-7 , ISSN  0863-2138 .
• Walter Riezler: New furniture by Adolf G. Schneck. Executed in the Deutsche Werkstätten A.-G. Dresden-Hellerau . In: Die Form, Vol. 2, 1927, pp. 129-138 ( digitized version ).
• Adolf Gustav Schneck (illustration); Arno Votteler (editor); Herbert Eilmann (editor); Monika Daldrop (contributions); Kurt Weidemann (catalog design): Adolf G. Schneck 1883 - 1971. Life, teaching, furniture, architecture. Attempt to document the work on the interior designer's 100th birthday. An exhibition at the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart from June 7th to July 15th 1983 , Stuttgart 1983.
• Andreas K. Vetter: Adolf G. Schneck, The silent reform on the Weissenhof, Spurbuch Verlag, Baunach 2003.

Web links

Commons : Adolf Gustav Schneck  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Adolf Gustav Schneck in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ cf. State Center for Political Education Baden-Württemberg (Ed.): Haus auf der Alb, Stuttgart 1994, p. 2
2. ↑ Wolfgang Kermer : Data and images on the history of the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart . Stuttgart: Edition Cantz, 1988 (= improved reprint from: The State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart: a self-portrayal . Stuttgart: Edition Cantz, 1988), o. P. [9].
3. ↑ Wolfgang Kermer: Address for the opening of the exhibition "Adolf G. Schneck 1883–1971 - Life, Teaching, Furniture, Architecture" on June 7, 1983 . In: Wolfgang Kermer: "1968" and the reform of the academy: from the student unrest to the reorganization of the Stuttgart Academy in the 1970s . Ostfildern-Ruit: Cantz, 1996 (= contributions to the history of the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart , edited by Wolfgang Kermer; 9), ISBN 3-89322-446-7 , p. 104.
4. ^ Frank Werner: Stuttgart Architecture until 1945 . In: Helmut Heißenbüttel (Ed.): Stuttgart Art in the 20th Century: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture . Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1979 ISBN 3-421-02532-0 , p. 204 with illustration of the Horsch-Hehl-Hettler-Herkommer model.
5. ↑ Fig. In: Die Form , Jg. 4, 1929, p. 125 ( digitized version ).