Alfred Wiener (architect)

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Alfred Wiener (born August 9, 1885 in Berlin ; † around 1977 in Tel Aviv ) was a German, Jewish architect.

Life path

Wiener attended the Friedrichswerder high school in Berlin. After graduating from high school, he studied structural engineering at the Technical University of Charlottenburg . After eight semesters of study in Berlin, Munich and Dresden , Wiener passed his diploma in building construction at the Technical University of Dresden in autumn 1909 . After completing his studies, he worked for a few months in the architecture office of government builder Heilbrun und Seiden. In the spring and summer of 1910, Wiener stayed for several months to study in Paris , London , Brussels and Antwerp , where he studied the architecture of the department stores there. With his dissertation on the construction and furnishing of department stores, he was awarded a Dr.-Ing. In December 1910 at the Technical University of Dresden. PhD. His doctoral thesis was published in an expanded form in 1912 by Ernst Wasmuth Verlag , Berlin, under the title: "The department store, department store, business, office building".

After about half a year working in a Berlin construction company, Wiener went into business for himself in the summer of 1911. He designed and planned several large apartment buildings in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, for example at Brandenburgische Strasse 40 (with Paul Müller), and led the renovation of commercial buildings, among other things, took part in architectural competitions and carried out interior design designs.

In 1914 he directed the architecture department of the special exhibition "The Merchant" at the International Exhibition for Book Trade and Graphics ( Bugra ) in Leipzig, which opened in May 1914 .

In the years 1911 to 1914 Wiener published several articles in architectural journals such as the Berliner Architekturwelt , Bauwelt and the New German Bauzeitung. He also wrote articles on compilations, especially on goods and commercial building.

He was a member of the German Werkbund and worked on the 1913 Werkbund yearbook.

During the First World War, Wiener initially worked for the Red Cross from 1914 to 1915, and then until June 1916 in the Reich Committee for War Disabled Welfare in the Department for Settlement of War Disabled Persons. From July 1916 to December 1918, Wiener was in the army, as a soldier he was sent to Berlin, where he resumed but did not complete a degree in economics that had begun before the First World War. After his discharge from military service, Wiener worked on several settlement projects, wrote for various architecture, housing and socio-political magazines and taught as a lecturer at the Wilmersdorf Adult Education Center and the Humboldt Academy .

From October 1919 he was head of department in the housing department of the city of Berlin. Since December 1919 he was a member of the Berlin Architects and Engineers Association (membership number 7247).

From 1925 to 1930 Wiener and his brother-in-law, the architect Hans Sigmund Jaretzki , ran an architecture office in the house designed by Wiener at Brandenburgische Strasse 40 in Berlin-Wilmersdorf. Among other things, they designed a steel-framed commercial building in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg (around 1927), a residential complex in Berlin-Pankow and a residential building in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg. The joint architectural works by Wiener and Jaeretzki include:

  • Apartment building in Berlin-Schmargendorf, Ilmenauer Straße 2 / 2a, from 1925 to 1927 (State monument list: 09070295 )
  • Residential development in Berlin-Pankow, Florastraße 63–64, Dusekestraße 1–8, from 1928 (State monument list: 09085239 )
  • Garage complex with apartments in Berlin-Pankow, Stubbenkammerstraße 7, from 1929/30 (State monument list: 09075123 )
  • Weißensee settlement of GeWoSüd in Berlin-Weißensee, Jacobsohnstrasse, Pistoriusstrasse 70–77, Seidenberger Strasse 1–14 and 20–33, from 1930 (with Jakobus Goettel and Werner Berndt)

The architects Wiener and Jaretzki each received third place for their 1929 design for a synagogue on Klopstockstrasse in Berlin-Tiergarten and for the redesign of Reichskanzlerplatz (today: Theodor-Heuss-Platz ) in 1930. Gusti Hecht and Hermann Neumann won first prize in the architectural competition for the new synagogue building in Klopstockstrasse .

According to the definition of the National Socialists, Wiener was considered a “full Jew”. He was a member of the Jewish Community in Berlin . His application for membership in the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts was rejected.

From 1930 Jaretzki and Wiener went their separate ways.

In 1938 Alfred Wiener fled to Palestine with his sick daughter . His wife and mother-in-law, who remained in Germany, were deported and murdered in the concentration camp .

Alfred Wiener died in Tel Aviv around 1977.

Publications by Alfred Wiener (selection)

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  • Myra Warhaftig , German Jewish Architects before and after 1933 - Das Lexikon. 500 biographies , Reimer, Berlin 2005, Lemma: "Alfred Wiener", pp. 468/469

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Berliner Architekturwelt, edition 15.1913, issue 11, p. 448, https://digital.zlb.de/viewer/image/14192916_1913/477/
  2. ^ So: Myra Warhaftig, "German Jewish Architects before and after 1933 - Das Lexikon. 500 biographies ”, Reimer, Berlin, 2005, p. 469. According to Myra Warhaftig,“ They laid the foundation stone - the life and work of German-speaking Jewish architects in Palestine 1918–1948 ”, Wasmuth, Berlin, 1966, was the location of the architectural office Wiener und Jaretzki in the Kantstr. 5 in Berlin-Charlottenburg; see: Directory of Architects, p. 387
personal data
SURNAME Wiener, Alfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German architect
DATE OF BIRTH August 9, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH around 1977
Place of death Tel Aviv