August Kirstein

August Kirstein (born August 21, 1856 in Cosel , Prussian Silesia , † June 7, 1939 in Vienna ) was an Austrian architect and Viennese master builder .

Life

Roman Museum in Bad Deutsch-Altenburg (1901–1904)

Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Magdeburg

Franz von Assisi Church in Vienna (1902–1913); Completion after the death of Victor Luntz

August Kirstein's father was a stonemason at Cologne Cathedral , his brother Otto embarked on a career as a writer. August completed the high school in Ratibor , Upper Silesia , then two years of apprenticeship with the renowned architects Kyllmann and Heyden in Berlin . In 1875 he passed the Matura at the Staatsgewerbeschule in Vienna and studied from 1876 at the Vienna Art Academy with Friedrich von Schmidt . Cathedral builder Schmidt, with whom Kirstein's father had been friends during his time in Cologne, became the decisive figure for August Kirstein, who was ultimately appointed cathedral builder of St. Stephan himself in 1921 .

In Schmidt's studio, Kirstein was initially primarily concerned with the recording of medieval churches and the creation of restoration plans in the sense of the historicist "improving restorations" of the 19th century. In 1882 Kirstein became the site manager for Schmidt's work on the cathedral in Fünfkirchen . After Friedrich Schmidt's death (1891), Kirstein completed this restoration on his own responsibility.

For mainly financial reasons, Kirstein entered into a "company relationship" with Friedrich Ohmann in 1892 . With this he built, among other things, 1901–1906 the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum in Magdeburg and 1901–1904 the Roman Museum in Bad Deutsch-Altenburg , a two-story museum building in the style of a Roman villa rustica . In possession of Austrian citizenship since 1902 , Kirstein redesigned the St. Peter and Paul Cathedral in Brno from 1901–1909 . After the architect Victor Luntz died during the construction of the Franz von Assisi Church in Vienna in 1903, Kirstein completed the construction. In 1915 he became honorary director of the Wiener Bauhütte and in 1921 master builder of St. Stephen's Cathedral. In the 1930s he was involved in the restoration of the Maria am Gestade church .

Kirstein has received numerous awards and honors. He was buried in the Helenenfriedhof in Baden near Vienna .

literature

• Inge Scheidl: Nice appearance and experiment. Catholic church building in Vienna at the turn of the century. Böhlau, Vienna et al. 2003, ISBN 3-205-77138-9 .
• Kirstein August. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 3, Publishing House of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1965, p. 346 f. (Direct links on p. 346 , p. 347 ).

Web links

Commons : August Kirstein  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• August Kirstein. In: Architects Lexicon Vienna 1770–1945. Published by the Architekturzentrum Wien . Vienna 2007.