Egon Eiermann
Egon Fritz Wilhelm Eiermann (born September 29, 1904 in Neuendorf ; † July 19, 1970 in Baden-Baden ) was a German architect , furniture designer and university professor . He is considered one of the most important German architects of post-war modernism . Eiermann was a full professor at the architecture faculty of the Technical University of Karlsruhe .
family
Egon Eiermann's father, who came from Buchen in the Odenwald , was a designer at the Orenstein & Koppel locomotive factory in Nowawes . His mother was Emma Gellhorn from Berlin. He had a younger sister.
In 1940 Eiermann married the interior designer Charlotte Friedhelm. The marriage, which lasted until 1952, resulted in a son. In 1954 he married the architect Brigitte Feyerabendt (1924–2019). From this marriage a son and a daughter were born.
Architectural work
Training and first successes
After graduating from high school at Althoff-Gymnasium and studying architecture at the Technical University of Berlin with Hans Poelzig from 1923 to 1927, Egon Eiermann went to the construction office of Rudolph Karstadt AG in Hamburg (under the direction of Philipp Schaefer ) and then to the Berlin electricity works .
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From 1931 on, he initially designed various residential buildings in Berlin and the surrounding area in an office founded together with Fritz Jaenecke (1903–1978). The order situation improved rapidly. Jaenecke left the office partnership in 1934 due to personal differences with Eiermann. Between 1934 and 1938, according to instructions and under the direction of Eiermann, all branches of the Berlin funeral home Grieneisen were redesigned in a uniform corporate design (facades, interior fittings, as well as a three-armed chandelier with lettering and year as a logo). For the propaganda exhibition Give me four years time , which was shown in Berlin in 1937, Eiermann designed the main hall of the exhibition hall at the radio tower with, among other things, an 18-meter-high portrait of Hitler and a sophisticated lighting and sound control system. From 1938 the office planned industrial buildings, e.g. B. for the Auergesellschaft in Berlin (1938), the Total-Werke Foerstner & Co. in Apolda (1939-1942), the factory Märkischer Metallbau Oranienburg (1939-1941) and the Rickmerswerft in Bremerhaven (1940-1941). In 1942, Eiermann designed the Beelitz special hospital facility (the so-called alternative hospital ) in Beelitz-Heilstätten near Berlin. From 1943 to 1945 he moved his office and residence from Berlin to Beelitz-Heilstätten in an outbuilding of the hospital, as the forest location seemed safer to him in the event of bombings.
post war period
Since Eiermann primarily devoted himself to industrial construction in National Socialist Germany, he was able to continue developing stylistically in a modern direction. He used his architecture , which conveyed lightness and freshness and symbolized progress, even in armaments factories, e.g. B. the Rickmerswerft in Bremerhaven, without political concerns. He managed to continue his career unhindered in post-war West Germany, which ultimately made him one of the most influential architects of his time. His steel- framed industrial buildings, such as the handkerchief weaving mill in Blumberg that was built between 1949 and 1951 , a clearly structured factory (demolished in autumn 2009) for which he received the Hugo Häring Prize , became a role model in the years of reconstruction.
From 1946 to 1948 he was initially a freelance architect in Mosbach im Odenwald. Between 1951 and 1953, the Matthäuskirche was built in the Pforzheim district of Arlinger according to plans by Egon Eiermann . The tower was not added until 1956. The design elements are a simple concrete skeleton that allows the wall surfaces to be filled with honeycomb window elements with colorful thick glass panes. The use of rubble from the destroyed Pforzheim provided a material example of life after death. The coloring of the honeycomb windows of the Matthäuskirche, designed by the designer Hans Theo Baumann , can be described as expressive compared to the later Berlin Memorial Church . The windows behind the crucified Jesus - suspended above the altar from the ceiling through a symbolic heavenly gate - are red and directly backlit by the sun in the morning. The Matthäuskirche is one of the most important new church buildings of post-war modernism. The model for Eiermann's church building was certainly the French Notre-Dame church in Le Raincy near Paris by the architect Auguste Perret (1922).
On study trips to the USA in 1950 he met Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer , and in 1956 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe as well .
Another highlight of his career was the internationally acclaimed realization of the German Pavilion for the World Exhibition in Brussels , which he created in collaboration with Sep Ruf , which he built as a pavilion group of eight elegant, transparent glass cubes. This building, like the Chancellor's bungalow by Sep Ruf in Bonn, became a symbol of a new, modest and cosmopolitan Germany of the post-war period.
In 1967 Egon Eiermann chaired the jury in the architecture competition for the Olympic Park in Munich . Behnisch & Partner's proposal with the famous tent roof construction emerged as the winner from among 93 entries.
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The most important buildings of the last creative period are the Eiermann-Campus for IBM in Stuttgart-Vaihingen (1967–1972) as well as the high-rise towers of the company Olivetti in Frankfurt am Main (1968–1972) raised on funnel-like concrete pillars , which were only completed two years after his death were.
A much criticized aspect in Eiermann's biography is his work for Merkur, Horten & Co. in Stuttgart. There he was involved in building a new department store on the site of Erich Mendelsohn's famous Schocken department store . In order to realize his own building, he accepted the demolition of this architectural work of the century despite the protests of Stuttgart architecture students and numerous German and foreign architects and art scholars. The new building for Horten was one of the first buildings with a protruding abstract facade, which almost completely clad the building, making no reference to the urban context and making the internal structure and scale of the building impossible to read. Since the building floor plans can be designed very flexibly with these hydrangea tiles and with a maximum amount of floor space by avoiding windows, this facade system was very popular in the construction of department stores in the following years . It can also be seen as an early attempt to build a corporate identity through structural standardization and ornamentation .
Other works
- 1936: Paul Henckel's house in Kleinmachnow , Am Weinberg 5.
- 1946–1948: New home settlement for expellees in Buchen-Hettingen
- 1953–1956: Administration and storage building of the United Seidenweberei, VerSeidAG for short, in Krefeld, multi-part building complex with a remarkable low-rise building with a canopy and a high-rise; Today the Krefeld town hall , an important monument of German post-war architecture of the 1950s
- For Neckermann Versand AG , he built the six-story, 300-meter-long company headquarters in Frankfurt am Main (1958–1961).
- For the Essener Steinkohlen-Bergwerke AG (later Ruhrkohle AG, RAG) he designed the Ruhrkohlehaus II (built 1956 to 1960). The building is now a listed building and was renovated and expanded in 1994 by Kohl: Fromme Architekten for STEAG AG. The design of the facade with black ceramic tiles is striking .
- Two private houses he had planned were built in Baden-Baden between 1958 and 1962: his own house (Krippenhof 16-18) and the Graf Hardenberg house (Hermann-Sielcken-Straße 47).
- In 1956, Eiermann won the competition for the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin. After revising the design, he was awarded the contract in 1957, on condition that the ruins of the tower had to be preserved. In the final design from 1959–1963, the historic tower ruin was placed on a platform raised by steps from an octagonal main building and a hexagonal, slim tower. The Matthäuskirche (Pforzheim) has been a model and reference.
- He designed the German Embassy in Washington, DC (1959–1964) as a terrace-shaped facility for 140 employees, which takes the shape of the terrain into account.
- Administration building of MiRO Karlsruhe, 1963
- In 1965 four model prefabricated houses were built for Neckermann Versand in Offenbach-Lauterborn according to Eiermann's design . These all have a spacious atrium .
- In 1967 an extension for the Hotel Prinz Carl in Buchen (Odenwald) was built under Eiermann's management . This building is still in operation today, including the rooms and facilities that it designed.
- Administration building of Hochtief AG in Frankfurt am Main (1966–1968), demolished in 2004
- Administration building of the Zettelmeyer company in Konz with exterior frescoes by Georg Meistermann (1979), today the city library
- The Chamber of Deputies high-rise of the Bundestag in Bonn (1965-1969), and later Langer Eugen dubbed, shows the characteristic filigree structure of Eiermann's architecture.
Eiermann as a teacher
In 1947 Egon Eiermann accepted an appointment as professor at the Faculty of Architecture at the Technical University of Karlsruhe. He taught there until shortly before his death in 1970 and shaped the profile of the university for a long time.
In architecture and teaching, he was the antipode of Hans Scharoun , who taught in Berlin , whose organic architecture Eiermann opposed the geometric rigor and precision of modern architecture in the tradition of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
design
Eiermann was not only valued as an architect, he also left a lasting mark on a design generation in furniture design. Eiermann was the first to develop series furniture in Germany after the Second World War (1948/1949) that withstood international standards of form and functionality. It is thanks to him that Germany, after years of National Socialist isolation, was able to pick up on its past ( Deutscher Werkbund , Bauhaus ) and join the group of exemplary design nations. As the leading leader of the Second Modernism in the field of furniture design, Eiermann's role in modern German furniture design should not be underestimated.
In 1953 Egon Eiermann designed the Eiermann 1 table frame with inclined cross braces lying in one plane. A slightly modified frame from 1965, known as the Eiermann 2 table frame , did not come from Eiermann himself. Adam Wieland, the workshop manager at the Technical University of Karlsruhe, modified the original so that it could be dismantled and easily transported. This version of the table frame is still manufactured and sold under the name E2 in Karlsruhe.
In the early 1960s, Eiermann developed innovative coffins for the Berlin funeral home Grieneisen, for which he had already worked in the 1930s. B. for transfers by plane.
His pioneering designs include a. the tubular steel chair SE 68 (1950), the wicker chair E 10 (1952), the wooden folding chair SE 18 (1953; selected for the Museum of Modern Art in New York) and the church chair SE 121 (1960/1961) - still to be seen in the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin. Many of his designs are still available today.
The name Eiermann is still attached to some objects today. The Eiermann frame mentioned above is still used in many architectural offices today. The rope rail for ink drawing, which is wrongly called the Eiermann rail , especially in Karlsruhe , will rarely be found there. The desk chair designed for the furniture manufacturer Wilde + Spieth is still known today as the Eiermann chair .
SE 68
E 10
SE 18
Evaluation and impact
Egon Eiermann's architecture and work are characterized overall by their simplicity, strict geometry and direct recognizability of function. As with many architects of this time, Eiermann's works generally make no reference to the surrounding urban landscape, although in his opinion it seemed important to create a successful fusion of building and surroundings. Oswald Mathias Ungers is one of his students . More than 30 Eiermann's buildings are listed in Germany. His extensive work archive is in the Southwest German Archive for Architecture and Civil Engineering .
Honors
- 1962: Berlin Art Prize
- 1968: Honorary Corresponding Member of the Royal Institute of British Architects , London
- 1965: Honorary doctorate from the Technical University of Berlin
- 1968: Grand Prize of the Association of German Architects
- 1968: Large Federal Cross of Merit
- 1969: Hugo Häring Prize
- 1970: Member of the Order Pour le Mérite for Science and the Arts of the Federal Republic of Germany
One of the lecture halls in the architectural building of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology , where Eiermann worked, bears his name. On the occasion of his 100th birthday, a special stamp of the Federal Republic of Germany was issued in September 2004 (face value 100 euro cents ). In 2009, a street in Karlsruhe-Knielingen was named after the architect, Egon-Eiermann-Allee.
With the Egon Eiermann Prize for students and young graduates in the field of architecture, innovative architectural designs of social relevance are promoted in the spirit of Eiermann. The prize is awarded every two years and is donated by Eternit GmbH Germany. It is endowed with a total of 5000 euros.
Egon Eiermann was buried in the family grave in the cemetery in Buchen (Odenwald) .
literature
- Egon Eiermann: Letters from the Architect . Ed .: Institute for Building History at the University of Karlsruhe. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 978-3-421-03071-9 .
- Chris Gerbing: Luminous walls in concrete. The Matthäuskirche Pforzheim (1951–53) by Egon Eiermann . Schnell + Steiner, Regensburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-7954-2704-7 .
- Annemarie Jaeggi (Ed.): Egon Eiermann (1904–1970). The continuity of modernity . Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern-Ruit 2004, ISBN 3-7757-1436-7 (with contributions by Sonja Hildebrand, Friederike Hoebel, Annemarie Jaeggi, Gerhard Kabierske, Kai Kappel, Clemens Kieser, Carsten Krohn, Arthur Mehlstäubler and Wolfgang Pehnt ).
- Arthur Mehlstäubler: Egon Eiermann. The furniture (= Lindemann's library . No. 293 ). 3rd updated edition. Info-Verlag, Karlsruhe 2017, ISBN 978-3-88190-236-6 (first edition: 1999).
- Wulf Schirmer (Ed.): Egon Eiermann 1904–1970. Buildings and projects . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-421-02805-2 (With contributions by Immo Boyken, Rudolf Büchner, Brigitte Eiermann, Klaus Lankheit ).
Web links
- Literature by and about Egon Eiermann in the catalog of the German National Library
- Egon Eiermann. In: arch INFORM .
- Egon Eiermann Society V.
- Egon Eiermann Prize
- Exhibition " Egon Eiermann DIGITAL " on the website of the Badische Landesbibliothek
Individual evidence
- ↑ eiermannbauten.de ( Memento from August 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ pfarrer-magnani.de
- ↑ Stadtlexikon Karlsruhe on the city's official web portal
- ↑ a b history of the company . ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF: 34 kB) Ahorn-Grieneisen.de
- ↑ Christoph Kivelitz: The propaganda exhibition in European dictatorships. Dissertation, Berlin 1999, p. 93.
- ^ Wolfgang Pehnt: Egon Eiermann. German Olivetti . Hirmer, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-7774-3312-7 .
- ↑ Thomas Borgmann: A fifty year old sin. ( Memento of the original from May 8, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Stuttgarter Zeitung , May 6, 2010; Judith Breuer: Lost, but not forgotten: the Schocken department store in Stuttgart ... In: Preservation of monuments in Baden-Württemberg. Newsletter of the State Monument Preservation, Volume 48, 2019, pp. 151–153, 156
- ↑ vilmoskoerte.wordpress.com
- ^ Project description on the website of the Eiermann-Magnani Documentation Center
- ↑ Egon-Eiermann-Gesellschaft ( Memento of the original of July 21, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Excerpt from the list of monuments of the city of Essen (PDF; 738 kB); Retrieved January 5, 2017
- ↑ Clemens Kieser: "I didn't want to build a house anymore". Egon Eiermann's villa buildings in Baden-Baden. In: Denkmalpflege in Baden-Württemberg , 29th year 2000, issue 4, pp. 254–260 ( online ).
- ↑ Clemens Kieser: "But where there is danger, there is also something that can save". Egon Eiermann's MiRO administration building in Karlsruhe. In: Preservation of monuments in Baden-Württemberg , 39th year 2010, issue 4, p. 271 f. ( online ).
- ↑ State Office for the Preservation of Monuments Hesse (ed.): Johann-Strauss-Weg 7-13 In: DenkXweb, online edition of cultural monuments in Hesse .
- ↑ cf. List of high-rise buildings in Frankfurt am Main
- ↑ History of the "Eiermann 2" table frame drawentisch.com - Adam Wieland E2 history
- ^ Oswald Mathias Ungers . Academy of Arts
- ^ Egon Eiermann - Listed Buildings. (PDF; 39 kB) Eiermann Society; accessed on February 14, 2014
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Eiermann, Egon |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Eiermann, Egon Fritz Wilhelm (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German architect, furniture designer and university professor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 29, 1904 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Neuendorf |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 19, 1970 |
| Place of death | Baden-Baden |