Albert Gessner

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Factory and residential building for F. W. Gantenberg in Bahnhofstrasse in Aue (Saxony) , Gessner's first completed buildings

Albert Gessner (also Geßner ) (born March 19, 1868 in Aue ; † June 2, 1953 in Berlin-Kladow ) was a German architect and university professor who mainly worked in the field of apartment building . Gessner's contributions to the development of the metropolitan apartment building attracted particular attention. His buildings are mainly in Saxony and Berlin, as well as in the Berlin area, and almost all of them are under monument protection .

Life

Apartment building Mommsenstraße 6 in Berlin-Charlottenburg , a monument since the 1990s
Kitchenette in Berlin-Friedenau, Wilhelmshöher Strasse 17
Gasthaus Muldental in Aue, built right next to the Mulde and above a company ditch for the Curt Bauer company ; Condition in summer 2012
Villa in Berlin-Grunewald, Höhmannstrasse 9
Apartment building in Berlin-Grunewald, Reinzerzstrasse 15–34

Gessner first attended in Aue the town school , then followed the junior high school and high school in Zwickau , which he completed 1886th He then studied at the Commercial Academy Chemnitz and at the Technical University Dresden and the Technical University (Berlin) Charlottenburg in the subject architecture . He got his first job in Charlottenburg at the architecture office Kayser & von Großheim for three years. At the same time, he took arts and crafts courses, studied medieval and renaissance architecture and expanded his knowledge on numerous trips through Germany and Italy, and he also visited Vienna, Prague and Paris. In 1896 Albert Gessner joined Alfred Messel's studio as an employee .

Gessner received his first architectural commission from his hometown Aue. The linen manufacturer Friedrich Wilhelm Gantenberg had a residential building projected on Bahnhofstrasse. On the basis of his previous studies in Europe, Gessner decided on a four-storey house with a richly structured facade made of a mixture of historicizing elements such as turrets, bay windows, small balconies, the ground floor with a shop and here all windows and entrances as a round arch. The house was completed in 1897. This was followed by work for the Gantenberg factory, which was built next to the house. After these first successful buildings, Gessner gave up his work at Messel and became a freelance architect based in Charlottenburg near Berlin .

Further orders followed from the Saxony area and from other German countries. In addition, Gessner was also active in the arts and crafts during this time and joined the Werkring . His handicrafts were shown at the Paris World Exhibition in 1900 and at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition in 1901 . Gessner also later designed arts and crafts, including the “Else” decor for a coffee and dining service for the Burgau an der Saale porcelain factory in 1911.

Gessner's first building contract for what would later become Berlin was a tenement house with 15 apartments at Mommsenstrasse 6 in Charlottenburg, which was ready for occupancy in 1904. Because Gessner had married Else Harnisch, daughter of the architect and real estate entrepreneur Ferdinand Harnisch, his father-in-law made the building plot available to him. During the construction, he discovered that the architecture had previously hardly taken on the metropolitan apartment building as a building type, this was primarily planned and built by contractors and authorities. With the completion of the building in Mommsenstrasse, Gessner aroused the interest of the specialist public. The house was named "Yellow House I" because of the yellow rough plaster and was positively discussed and reviewed several times.

As a result, Gessner received further orders in Charlottenburg and the neighboring towns of Grunewald , Westend , Deutsch-Wilmersdorf , Zehlendorf ; he even built houses for citizens of Spandau and Kladow . One of his first larger commissioned works was an apartment block with ten houses at the confluence of Bismarckstrasse, Grolmanstrasse and Schillerstrasse (1906/1907).

He began to deal theoretically with the construction and artistic design of apartment buildings. In his book Das deutsche Mietshaus , published in 1909, he complained about the poor construction of these houses and presented innovative solutions to the problems mentioned. In addition to his own work, he also mentioned buildings by Hans Poelzig , August Endell and Paul Mebes as positive examples.

Further results of this occupation were the kitchen houses in Wilhelmshöher Strasse in Friedenau and various individual houses in and around Berlin. Gessner was also active in urban planning, as his design for the competition for the design of Greater Berlin Berlin 1910, which ran from 1908 to 1910 , Cult of the Great Plan, shows, in which he submitted a colored perspective from Südbahnhofstrasse to Müggelsee . The representation was purchased.

On a large scale, Gessner was again active in the villa colony Wilhelmshorst near Potsdam, for which he drew the development plans, designed squares, public buildings such as the train station and many of the individual houses. His father-in-law provided the funds so that Gessner could become an investor here. He had the buildings built on his own account and then rented or sold them.

Business began to suffer with the First World War . Many of Gessner's employees were called up for military service, and the economic crisis that began in 1914 severely damaged his real estate business. At the same time, however, the public appreciation of his work began. In 1915 he was elected to the Charlottenburg city council, in 1919 a member of the Prussian Academy of Building, and in 1923 a member of the Prussian Academy of the Arts. From 1925 to 1937 he taught as an associate professor at the Technical University of Berlin , in 1926 Gessner was elected to the board of the Association of German Architects (BDA) . He now carried out his construction projects primarily in Wilmersdorf and Schmargendorf. These included a housing estate for civil servants and several housing estates with small apartments.

In the 1920s Albert Gessner was also involved in architectural politics. He feared the internationalization of German building by architects such as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe , Hans Poelzig, Walter Gropius , Hans Scharoun and others. When those architects founded the association Der Ring to promote their architectural ideas, Gessner founded the group Der Block as a counter-movement . His nationalism took shape in his later years: Gessner promoted a typical German architectural style and was involved in German national organizations such as the Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur and the Nordic Ring , which led to his joining the NSDAP in 1932. However, he has not received any new construction contracts since 1931, so that the decline of his fortune continued even during the Nazi era .

Albert Gessner's grave in the Heerstrasse cemetery in Berlin-Westend

Gessner was denazified in 1948 . Albert Gessner died in Berlin-Kladow in early June 1953 at the age of 85. His grave is on the state's own cemetery in Heerstraße in Berlin-Westend (grave site: II-W-9). His wife Else Gessner nee was also at his side. Harnisch (1877–1963) is buried.

family

In 1901 Albert Gessner rented an apartment at Großgörschenstrasse 7, where he also set up his “Atelier for Architecture”.

He married in 1902, and after a daughter was born to him, the family and their architecture office moved to Wartenburgstrasse 25 in 1903. In 1911 they set up new premises at Bismarckstrasse 109, and two daughters were added. From 1932 to 1938 the Gessners lived at Düsseldorfer Straße 35a. Then the family moved into the expanded country house in Berlin-Kladow. Albert Gessner died here in 1953.

plant

Buildings and designs

  • 1896/1897: House and factory in Aue for the linen manufacturer Gantenberg
  • 1897–1898: Country house for the enamel goods manufacturer Gustav Gnüchtel in Lauter in the Ore Mountains , Schwarzenberger Strasse
  • around 1899: Warehouse for the Erler company in Chemnitz
  • around 1900: Gasthaus Muldental in Aue (later a hotel, since the 21st century trading facility) ( location )
  • 1901: House with and for Paul Schultze-Naumburg in Saaleck
  • 1903/1904: Apartment building, so-called Yellow House I , in (Berlin-) Charlottenburg , Mommsenstraße 6
  • 1904/1905: Apartment building, so-called Yellow House II , in (Berlin-) Charlottenburg, Niebuhrstraße 78
Memorial plaque on the green house , Niebuhrstrasse 2, in Berlin-Charlottenburg
  • 1904/1905: Apartment building, so-called Green House , in (Berlin-) Charlottenburg, Niebuhrstraße 2
  • 1906: Apartment building, so-called Yellow House III , in (Berlin-) Charlottenburg, Mommsenstraße 5
  • 1906/1907: Part of a residential complex in (Berlin-) Charlottenburg, Schillerstraße 12–15
  • 1908/1909: School building with teacher's apartment in Zernsdorf
Gessner was praised for this building because it deviated from the previously common community schoolhouse type, while paying attention to functionality and architectural details. A contemporary assessment of this building read: “How Gessner knows how to do justice to a variety of tasks, although he always knows how to preserve his individuality, can also be seen from the small schoolhouse in Zernsdorf, where he is quite suitable for the quiet, intimate charms of the Mark has put down a small, distinctive creation, simple, plain and yet animated. With its yellowish tint, the light window crosses and shutters, the trellis frame, the door, the simple fence, it looks very appropriate and unadorned and yet as a whole it has a well thought-out, well-felt beauty that makes it appear as a pattern for a village school ... "
  • 1909–1912: Kitchenette houses in (Berlin-) Friedenau , Wilhelmshöher Strasse 17–20
  • around 1911/1912: country house for Ludwig Aschoff in Wünsdorf , Seestrasse 19
  • 1911/1912: Country house in (Berlin-) Grunewald , Höhmannstrasse 9
  • 1911/1912: Country house "Guckegönne" or "Geßner's Guckegönne" (High German: (Gessners) can look, i.e. view) as a summer house in (Berlin-) Kladow , Am Schwemmhorn 3
  • 1912/1913: House for Carl Bruhns in (Berlin-) Charlottenburg-Westend , Ebereschenallee 14
  • 1920: Apartment building in Berlin-Grunewald , Reinerzstraße 15–34
  • 1925: Housing development in Berlin-Wilmersdorf , Württembergische Strasse / Wittelsbacherstrasse / Zähringerstrasse
  • 1925/1926: Conversion of the Dr. Frankel in Berlin-Kladow
  • 1926/1927: Apartment building in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, Zähringerstraße 24–24A
  • 1926–1928: Housing development on Hoffmann-von-Fallersleben-Platz in Berlin-Wilmersdorf
  • 1927–1930: Residential development by Heimstättengesellschaft Primus in Berlin-Wedding
  • 1928: House in Berlin-Zehlendorf, Jaehnstrasse 7–9
  • 1929–1931: Housing development in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, Düsseldorfer Strasse 33–36

Fonts

  • The German rental house. A contribution to contemporary urban culture. F. Bruckmann, Munich 1909 ( bildsuche.digitale-sammlungen.de ).
  • The rental house. In: Scoreboard for Architecture, Crafts and Construction Industry. Vol. 13, Issue 3, 1910, pp. 35-38 ( digital.zlb.de ).

literature

Web links

Commons : Albert Gessner  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The artist designs - Albert Gessner, Erich Kuithan, Albin Müller, Franz Seeck and Rudolf Wille work for the manufactory. Exhibition by the Burgau Manufactory, accessed on December 8, 2012.
  2. ↑ Architectural monument residential building Mommsenstrasse 6
  3. ↑ Design sheet A. Geßner in the Architecture Museum of the Technical University of Berlin.
  4. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende : Lexicon of Berlin tombs . Haude & Spener, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-7759-0476-X . P. 195.
  5. ↑ Geßner, Albert . In: Address book for Berlin and its suburbs , 1901, part 1, p. 441.
  6. ↑ Geßner, Albert . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1903, Part 1, p. 479.
  7. ↑ Geßner, Albert . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1911, part 1, p. 790. "Prof.".
  8. ↑ Geßner, Albert . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1932, part, p. 900.
  9. ↑ Albert Gessner on wilhelmshorst-online.de
  10. ^ Siegfried Sieber:  Gnuechel, Gustav. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 6, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1964, ISBN 3-428-00187-7 , p. 490 ( digitized version ).
  11. ↑ View into the interior of the Gasthaus Muldental in Aue
  12. ↑ Monument Yellow House I , Mommsenstraße 6, tenement
  13. ↑ Monument Niebuhrstrasse 78, Yellow House II , tenement house
  14. ↑ Monument Niebuhrstraße 2, green house , tenement house, shops
  15. ↑ Monument Mommsenstrasse 5, Yellow House III , tenement house
  16. ↑ Three yellow houses and the green house. In: District lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein
  17. ↑ Architectural monument Schillerstraße 12–15, part of a residential complex
  18. ↑ Alte Schule in Zernsdorf on zerndorf.de, accessed on December 8, 2012
  19. ↑ Architectural monuments Wilhelmshöher Strasse 17-20, kitchenettes
  20. ↑ Hiltrud Preuss: The summer house of the secret medical council Dr. Aschoff in Wünsdorf. In: Heimatjahrbuch Teltow-Fläming 2005.
  21. ↑ Monument Ferienhaus Aschoff in Wünsdorf (PDF; 373 kB) in the Brandenburg State Monument List, p. 56
  22. ↑ Höhmannstrasse 9, Landhaus
  23. ↑ Monument Am Schwemmhorn 3, country house “Geßners Guckegönne”, residential building with outbuildings, access gate, gardener's house, farm building, garden pavilion, bath house, boathouse, patio; Extension in 1927 Monument Am Schwemmhorn 3, Landgarten
  24. ↑ Monument Ebereschenallee 14, residential building
  25. ↑ Monument complex Reinerzstraße 15–34, residential complex
  26. ↑ Architectural monuments Württembergische Strasse 15–20 / Wittelsbacherstrasse 3–5A / Zähringerstrasse 3838A, apartment block
  27. ^ Project sheets Fraenkel Garden in the Architecture Museum of the Technical University of Berlin
  28. ↑ Zähringerstraße 24–24A monument, tenement house
  29. ↑ Monuments Rudolstädter Strasse 94–108, 108A – 108B, 110–110B, 112–124, residential complex Hoffmann-von-Fallersleben-Platz 2/3 Warneckstrasse 2–10
  30. ↑ Architectural monument complex of residential complexes of the Heimstättengesellschaft Primus : Ostender Strasse 6–28B, 30–38 / Amrumer Strasse 2–10 / Antwerpener Strasse 13/14 / 38/39 Genter Strasse 47–49 / Limburger Strasse 1–19 / Lütticher Strasse. by Albert Geßner, Friedrich Hennings , Bruno and Rudolf Möhring , Franz Seeck
  31. ↑ Jaehnstrasse 7–9, residential building
  32. ↑ Monument complex residential complex Düsseldorfer Straße 33–36
personal data
SURNAME Gessner, Albert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Geßner, Albert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German architect and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH March 19, 1868
PLACE OF BIRTH Aue (Saxony)
DATE OF DEATH June 2, 1953
Place of death Berlin-Kladow