Alfred Roth (architect)

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Alfred Roth (born May 21, 1903 in Wangen an der Aare ; † October 20, 1998 in Zurich ) was a Swiss architect , designer and university professor. Roth is regarded as an important representative of the New Building and as a spokesman for modernism. In addition, he had made it his business to systematize the color concepts of modernity.

Life

Roth was born in 1903 as the son of Adolf and Ida Roth-Obrecht in Wangen an der Aare. He actually wanted to become a painter. After attending grammar school in Solothurn, however, he first decided to study mechanical engineering. After just one semester, he switched to architecture. During his spare time, however, he painted. From 1922 Alfred Roth studied architecture at the ETH Zurich and finished his studies in 1926 with a diploma under Professor Karl Moser . After completing his studies at the Bauhaus , he applied, but through the mediation of Prof. Moser, he worked in the Paris studio of Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret from 1927 to 1928 .

He worked for Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret in Paris on the League of Nations project for Geneva and then became Le Corbusier's site manager. During this time he built u. a. the two Corbusier houses of the Weissenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart. He was also later significantly influenced by Corbusier's work. His artistic work was strongly influenced by the artist Piet Mondrian , whom he also knew personally. According to him, he also had a real Mondrian in his possession; He gave the picture in red, blue and yellow to the Kunsthaus Zürich while he was still alive. He collected the art of his time.

House of Alfred Roth and Ingrid Wallberg in Prytzgatan in Gothenburg.

In 1928 he planned his first own building. It was a warehouse for the family's own horsehair spinning mill in Wangen, which was not completed until 1929. Also in 1928 he opened his first own office in Gothenburg with the architect Ingrid Wallberg. Two years later he returned to Switzerland, where he opened an office in Zurich in 1932 in a shared studio with his cousin Emil Roth .

From 1935 to 1936, Roth built the Doldertal houses in Zurich together with Emil Roth and Marcel Breuer , which remained true to Le Corbusier's style: the two apartment buildings stand on pillars and the floor plans follow plan libre . In the following years Roth worked intensively on public buildings, especially school buildings, and implemented numerous projects in the Middle East.

A bed design was made in 1927; for a long time it was mistakenly called the Corbusier bed. However, Alfred Roth had developed the prototype because he needed a sliding bed with runners for a niche.

He was visiting professor at Washington University in St. Louis, 1953 at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA and from 1951/57? until 1971 full professor at the ETH Zurich. Roth was an honorary doctor of the Technical University of Munich and the Istituto Universitario di Architettura (Venice). Even in old age, Alfred Roth still gave lectures at universities and architecture schools and also looked after architecture students in his house. The students could work and live there.

At the beginning of the 1980s, he supported the proposal of the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart that the neighboring Weissenhofsiedlung , which was in need of renovation, or at least parts of the building ensemble should be used by the university in the future, a plan that was supported by the city of Stuttgart but rejected by the state of Baden-Württemberg has been. His project proposal "Additions to the 'Weissenhof-Siedlung' in Stuttgart" from 1981 was fully in line with the idea of ​​expanding the university's campus.

In 1984 the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart made him an honorary member. Alfred Roth died in Zurich in 1998, his grave is in Wangen an der Aare.

Contemporaries / encounters

Willi Baumeister and Alfred Roth met in 1927 at the Stuttgart Werkbund exhibition (Weissenhofsiedlung) when Roth was an employee in Le Corbusier's office. Baumeister contributed the cover image and the typography to Alfred Roth's book about the two Stuttgart houses of Le Corbusier. Roth also managed to persuade Willi Baumeister to hang several pictures in the Corbusier houses during the building exhibition.

Buildings

  • first planning (according to Roth's information) a pigsty in Wangen an der Aare - during his studies
  • 1928–1929: Warehouse in Wangen (Switzerland) - horse hair spinning
  • 1932: Neubühl settlement in Zurich-Wollishofen (with Emil Roth )
  • 1934: Factory expansion in Wangen - no longer exists
  • 1935–1937: Howald factory building in Wangen
  • 1935/36: Doldertal apartment buildings , Zurich
  • 1936: Summer house in Mammern
  • Corn and salt house conversion into barracks, Wangen
  • Military warehouse in Wangen
  • 1939: Bungalow in Holderbach, Oberägeri for the doctor Marie Meierhofer , later his friend Henry van de Velde lived in this house with his daughter Nele van de Velde . In 1957 van de Veldes left the house and moved into a nearby new building that Alfred Roth had planned in collaboration with him. A few months later, Henry van de Velde died at the old age of 94.
  • 1951: Howald factory expansion in Wangen
  • In the 1960s he built schools in St. Louis, Skopje and Kuwait
  • 1966/67: Howald house, Wangen
  • 1966–1968: Schönbühl shopping center , Lucerne
  • 1970: Banque Sabbag, Beirut (Lebanon)

Publications

  • Alfred Roth (ed.): The new architecture . Les Editions d'Architecture, Erlenbach-Zurich 1948.
  • Alfred Roth: Two houses by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret . Krämer, Stuttgart 1977, ISBN 3-7828-0447-3 (facsimile reprint of the German edition from 1927).
  • Alfred Roth: Dos casas de Le Corbusier y Pierre Jeanneret . Colegio Oficial de Aparejadores y Arquitectos Técnicos, Murcia 1997, ISBN 84-920177-7-5 .
  • Arthur Rüegg, Andres Giedion, Alfred Roth: A major piece of new building in Zurich: The Doldertal houses 1932-1936 . gta exhibitions, Zurich 1996, ISBN 3-85676-070-9 .
  • Werner Oechslin (ed.): Le Corbusier & Pierre Jeanneret: The competition project for the League of Nations in Geneva 1927 . Ammann, Zurich 1988, ISBN 3-250-50103-4 (with contributions by Alfred Roth).
  • Alfred Roth: Amusing experiences of an architect . Ammann, Zurich 1988, ISBN 3-250-50105-0 (autobiography).
  • Alfred Roth: Architect of continuity . Waser, Zurich 1985, ISBN 3-908080-17-7 .
  • Alfred Roth (Ed.): La nouvelle architecture . Verlag für Architektur Artemis, Zurich / Munich 1975, ISBN 3-7608-8053-3 .
  • Alfred Roth: Encounters with pioneers: Le Corbusier, Piet Mondrian, Adolf Loos, Josef Hoffmann, Auguste Perret, Henry van de Velde . Birkhäuser, Basel / Stuttgart 1973, ISBN 3-7643-0669-6 .
  • Alfred Roth, Jean-Paul Haymoz: The new school building . 4th edition. Verlag für Architektur, Zurich / Stuttgart 1966.
  • Alfred Roth: The new school . Girsberger, Zurich 1950.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Alfred Roth: Architect of Continuity / Architect of Continuity . Introduction by Stanislaus von Moos / Introduction by Stanislaus von Moos. Waser Verlag für Kunst und Architektur, Zurich 1985, ISBN 3-9080-8017-7 , pp. 184-187, with illus .
  2. ↑ See Wolfgang Kermer : Willi Baumeister and the Werkbund exhibition "The Apartment" Stuttgart 1927 . State Academy of Fine Arts, Stuttgart 2003. (Wolfgang Kermer (Ed.): Contributions to the history of the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart. Volume 11. ISBN 3-931485-55-2 )
personal data
SURNAME Roth, Alfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss architect, designer and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH May 21, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Cheeks on the Aare
DATE OF DEATH October 20, 1998
Place of death Zurich