Ella Briggs

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Ella Briggs (born March 5, 1880 in Vienna , † June 20, 1977 in London ; born Ella Baumfeld ) was an Austrian architect .

Life

Ella Baumfeld was the daughter of Josef Baumfeld (* around 1840; † February 7, 1904), a lawyer from Vienna, and Caroline Baumfeld, b. Bryk (born June 6, 1842; † 1935). She had two brothers (Maurice * October 6, 1868; † March 4, 1913 and Friedrich * October 14, 1870; † March 26, 1953) and a sister (Friederike * March 5, 1873; † June 22, 1943).

Since it was not yet possible for women to study architecture in the monarchy , she studied painting in the painting school of the Vienna Women's Employment Association with Adalbert Seligmann and later with various teachers at the Vienna School of Applied Arts .

After the death of his first wife Angelika in 1898, her brother Moritz emigrated to New York with their two children Angela and Joseph in 1899, where he was later director of the German-speaking Irving Place Theater from 1907 until his death in 1913 . In the years 1903 and 1907, Ella Baumfeld can prove two overseas voyages from Bremen and Cuxhaven to New York.

On September 16, 1907, she married the lawyer Walter J. Briggs in New York, who was born in Vienna in 1865 as Brix; they were divorced in 1912. From 1916 to 1918 she was an extraordinary guest student in drawing classes at the Technical Building School . In 1919 she graduated from the state trade school in Salzburg with a degree in building construction . This was followed by two years of study with Theodor Fischer at the Technical University of Munich , where she graduated with a diploma and has since been allowed to call herself a qualified engineer .

The Pestalozzi farm

In 1920 she went to the USA , where she worked in New York and Philadelphia . She also published there in various specialist journals. The American designs were also exhibited in the Vienna Künstlerhaus . From 1921 she was the first woman to be a member of the Austrian Association of Engineers and Architects . In addition, she was the first authorized architect in Austria.

In the 1920s she traveled to southern Italy to work on a book on national architecture for an American publisher, which, however, never appeared. In this context, the daily press reported at the end of December 1925 that she was arrested in Palermo on suspicion of espionage and that she was to be expelled from there as an “American”. She escaped this fate only because it was established that she was an Austrian citizen.

After her return from New York, she planned and built the Pestalozzi-Hof in Red Vienna in 1925 and then a single home in 1926 . She was next to Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky the only woman in the interwar council executed for the City of Vienna.

From 1927 she lived in Berlin , where she was able to build a block of flats and individual houses. But she also wrote specialist articles in newspapers and magazines or designed exhibition stands for trade fairs. For example, at the 1931 building exhibition, the exhibition room for the Berlin Housing Welfare Society. It is also represented at this show with its own buildings and projects: In Hall 1, “The building of our time”, it is exhibiting alongside Peter Behrens , Erich Mendelsohn , Bruno Taut and Max Taut .

After the seizure of power by the Nazis , it was in 1933 from the Association of German Architects excluded, the had been a member since 1929th As a Jew , she had to flee back to Vienna for the time being from the Nazis . In September 1935 she emigrated from Berlin to England , but initially did not get a work permit there. Soon afterwards, designs emerged for a housing association in Enfield . She received British citizenship in 1947 . She opened an office in London where she worked until her death.

In 1950, 1951, 1955 and 1959, Ella and her brother Friedrich Baumfeld filed several redress lawsuits from England in Berlin , relating to household effects, art and cultural goods, life insurance, assets and a bank account. As Friedrich's heir, Ella continued the lawsuits alone after his death in 1953; the outcome of the proceedings against the German Reich is not known. A lawsuit against a private individual due to outstanding cash claims resulted in a settlement.

Works

Honors

  • In 2012 the former drawing room 7 of the Faculty of Architecture and Spatial Planning at the Vienna University of Technology was renamed "Ella Briggs-Baumfeld drawing room ".
  • In 2016, the font used at Pestalozzihof was documented and digitally recreated by students of the Visual Communication Department at the Art University Linz as part of the exhibition Community Show - Typography in Municipal Housing in Vienna . The font Bella Black was named in honor of Ella Briggs from a combination of her first and last name and is free to download under the SIL Open Font License (OFL).
  • In 2019 it was decided to honor Ella Briggs in Vienna with her own community building. The building at Philippovichgasse 6-10 with 43 residential units will in future be called “Ella-Briggs-Hof”.

literature

  • Kerstin Dörhöfer: pioneers in architecture. A building history of the modern age. Wasmuth Verlag, Tübingen 2004, ISBN 3-8030-0639-2 .
  • Katrin Stingl: Ella Briggs (-Baumfeld) . Diploma thesis University of Vienna, Vienna 2008 ( online version )
  • Ulrike Eichhorn : Architects. Your job. Your life . Edition Eichhorn, Berlin 2013. ISBN 978-3-8442-6702-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ United States Census, 1900
  2. ↑ Dr. Maurice Baumfeld dead Director of Irving Place Theater a Victim of Appendicitis New York Times March 5, 1913
  3. ^ New York Passenger Arrival Lists (Ellis Island), 1892-1924
  4. ^ New York Passenger Arrival Lists (Ellis Island), 1892-1924
  5. ^ New York City Marriage Records, 1829-1940
  6. ↑ Der Burggräfler December 24, 1925
  7. ↑ An American woman arrested for no reason and expelled from the Berliner Volkszeitung on December 29, 1925
  8. ↑ Berliner Tageblatt December 30, 1925
  9. ^ Supplement Deutsche Bau Zeitung No. 57/58 July 15, 1931
  10. ↑ Bauhaus and Tessenow students dissertation in the Department of Architecture - Urban Planning - Landscape Planning at the University of Kassel, presented by Corinna Isabel Bauer, 2003
  11. ↑ WGA database
  12. ↑ drawing rooms architecture | Drawing room collective of the Vienna University of Technology
  13. ↑ Naming of the drawing room ( memento of the original from April 12, 2018 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / htu.at
  14. ↑ Community Show - Typography in Municipal Housing in Vienna Students in the visual communication department show their typographic work.
  15. ↑ The ABC of the “scribes” letter by letter. Students from the Art University Linz analyzed the typography of municipal housing in Vienna.
  16. ↑ Bella Black 2015 Adrianna Koziar Valentina Recheis
  17. ↑ Vienna to get an “Ella-Briggs-Hof” in Döbling. Outstanding architect of Red Vienna is honored with her own municipal building. Source: SPÖ Vienna, September 6, 2019
personal data
SURNAME Briggs, Ella
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Baumfeld, Ella (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian-British architect
DATE OF BIRTH March 5, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH June 20, 1977
Place of death London