Carl Cuno

Cuno family grave, Frankfurt main cemetery

Carl Cuno (born May 24, 1823 in Ratibor ; † March 19, 1909 in Frankfurt am Main ; full name: Carl Albert Sigismund Cuno ) was a German architect and construction clerk .

Life

Carl Cuno was the fourth of nine children of the mountain judge , judicial commissioner and 1st syndic of the Upper Silesian Principality Landscape in Ratibor, Carl Friedrich August (1785-1851) and his wife, Christine Henriette Caroline, née. Peter (1793–1864), born. Of his eight siblings, only two survived childhood. Although he was sickly himself early on, he lived to be 85 years old. His father suffered from gout and sought relief from repeated spa stays in various baths in Austrian Silesia . Carl was also allowed to accompany him on extensive business trips, which explains his lifelong joy in traveling. After private lessons and attending elementary school and high school in his hometown, instead of studying law, as his parents would have liked to see it, he studied higher construction. In addition to his musical interests, he discovered his love for drawing and handicrafts early on.

In Xanten , at the age of 38, he married the daughter of his hosts, Natalie von Ziemietzky (1843–1912), who was twenty years his junior and who gave birth to two boys and two girls. With them he moved to Koblenz and then to Frankfurt am Main, where he founded the branch of the Cuno family that still lives there today.

In addition to his diverse interests in the natural sciences and music, as a draftsman and collector and as a long-time presbyter of the Reformed community, as a genealogist he ensured the continuation of the now 500-year-old Cuno genealogy. He and his cousins ​​discovered, among other things, the relationship to Otto von Bismarck in 1892 , which he confirmed. His great-grandmother was a sister of Bismarck's great-grandmother, Louise Menken nee. Witte. After his death, he was buried in the Cuno family grave in the Frankfurt main cemetery on March 22, 1909.

His youngest son Hellmuth Cuno also became an architect.

Act

After completing his field surveyor training , he studied in Berlin from 1848, where he passed the building foreman examination in 1850 and the master builder examination in agriculture in 1851. After his first practical activities in Gleiwitz , Tarnowitz and Oppeln , after a one-year break when he was temporarily earning his living in Berlin with drawings after the death of his father, he managed the road construction from Rosenberg to Jellowa. In 1855 he acquired the qualification as a builder for agriculture in Berlin. For a short time he took over in Grünberg i. Schl. Representing a district building inspector who had just been transferred before he was commissioned to build the Protestant church in Gliwice based on a design by Friedrich August Stüler . In 1856, when the foundation stone was laid , he was appointed district master builder in Geldern . Since his main task was to renovate the exterior of St. Viktor's Church in Xanten (with some colored glazing), he took up residence there and familiarized himself with the new subject - including trips to various Gothic domes. Posterity owes its description to an internship at the construction of Cologne Cathedral , which was then completed by Ernst Friedrich Zwirner . The 13-year-old work at Xanten Cathedral was positively assessed by experts, later honored by the city of Xanten with the naming of a Carl-Cuno-Strasse and recognized by the Prussian king with the award of the Red Eagle Order IV class .

By taking an additional exam in water, road and rail construction, Cuno was qualified for all positions in the civil service in 1869. He would have liked to continue working in Xanten in Naumburg , but the position was taken. From 1869 to 1875 he came to Koblenz as a district building officer , where he worked during the Franco-German War . In 1875 he got one of the newly established post construction council positions at the Imperial Post Office and thus switched to the Reich Service. He was assigned his place of residence in Frankfurt am Main and initially looked after the five main post offices in Kassel , Frankfurt, Darmstadt , Koblenz and Trier. The last two were separated in 1890 with the general limit to two to three districts per position. Cuno helped set up the German postal system. During his time, the new buildings in Fulda, Kassel, Darmstadt, Worms, Offenbach, Bingen, Trier, Koblenz, Eschwege, Fritzlar, the renovation in Wiesbaden, several smaller post offices and the designs for Wetzlar, Marburg and Offenbach were made. He designed the facades of the post offices in Fulda, Darmstadt and Koblenz himself. But he also had to supervise the maintenance of older buildings (e.g. Mainz, Gießen ). A varied travel activity awaited him. His creative urge seemed infinite, so that at the age of 70 - in the rank of (Imperial) Secret Post Building Councilor - he had to be complimented into retirement. The inauguration of the newly built Frankfurt Post Office on October 1, 1895 was chosen as the crowning glory of a career. At the ceremony, State Secretary Heinrich von Stephan said: "In Mr. Baurath Cuno we have a classic master builder and deep-feeling artist who has already delivered and executed many beautiful buildings for the Reich Postal Administration".

For his services he was awarded the Commander's Cross II. Class of the Grand Ducal Hessian Order of Philip the Magnanimous (1891), after the Red Eagle Order IV. Class (see above, 1868) with the Red Eagle Order III. Class with a bow (1895).

Fonts

• Carl Cuno: History of the restoration construction of St. Viktor's Church (Cathedral) in Xanten in the years 1857-68. (edited by Hans-Dieter Heckes) In: The collegiate church of St. Viktor zu Xanten. 12. Volume VII Part 1.
• Carl Cuno: Notes about the operation, the mechanical facilities and the management of the cathedral building in Coeln. (Ed. by Holger Schmenk)

literature

• Johannes Cuno: News of the sex and faring of the Cunoen (1672–1957). (supplemented and edited by Reiner Stephany) Monsenstein and Vannerdat, Münster 2012, ISBN 978-3-86991-554-8 ( book on demand ), in particular pp. 306-527.
• M. Losse: Cuno, Carl . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 23, Saur, Munich a. a. 1999, ISBN 3-598-22763-9 , p. 2 ..
• Holger Schmenk: Xanten in the 19th century. A Rhenish city between tradition and modernity. Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2008.
• Holger Schmenk: A “beautiful Gothic building that has been very damaged by the ravages of time”. The Cologne Cathedral and St. Viktorskirche as reflected in the national interest in the 19th century. In: Lectures from Xanten on the history of the Lower Rhine , Volume 47. Duisburg 2006.

Web links

• Holdings on Carl Cuno at the Architekturmuseum der Technische Universität Berlin

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Johannes Cuno: News of the sex and the going of the Cunoen (1672-1957). (Ed. by Reiner Stephany) Monsenstein and Vannerdat, Münster 2012, p. 291
2. ↑ Drawings e.g. Some of them are kept at the LVR Office for Monument Preservation in the Rhineland in Brauweiler, in the archive of the Xanten Cathedral Building Association; 14 sketchbooks in the Germanic National Museum in Nuremberg
3. ↑ Johannes Cuno: News of the sex and the going of the Cunoen (1672-1957). (Ed. by Reiner Stephany) Monsenstein and Vannerdat, Münster 2012, p. Xff.
4. ↑ Johannes Cuno: News of the sex and the going of the Cunoen (1672-1957). (Ed. by Reiner Stephany) Monsenstein and Vannerdat, Münster 2012, p. 435ff.
5. ^ Carl Cuno: Notes about the operation, the mechanical facilities and the management of the cathedral building in Coeln. Collected by Cuno, Köngl, during an 8-day stay in Cologne in November 1856. District architect in Xanten. Edited by Holger Schmenk. Cologne 2009.
6. ↑ Johannes Cuno: News of the sex and the going of the Cunoen (1672-1957). (Ed. by Reiner Stephany) Monsenstein and Vannerdat, Münster 2012, p. 450.