Ernst Conrad Peterson

Ernst Conrad Peterson , also Ernst Konrad Peterson , (born June 18, 1778 in Kolberg ; † November 13, 1841 in Bromberg ) was a German architect in the era of classicism .

family

Peterson was one of 22 children of the Kolberg fortress builder Johann Gottfried Peterson and his second wife Dorothea Elisabeth, née. Mursinna (1742–1807), who, like her first wife Anna Gertrud Mursinna (1733–1763), was a sister of the well-known Berlin military doctor and professor Christian Ludwig Mursinna . The Peterson family originally came from Berlin, the grandfather Martin Friedrich Peterson had emigrated to Kolberg as a bricklayer. Ernst Conrad Peterson is a half-brother of the 22-year-old architect and master builder Johann Philipp Peterson (1752–1816), who passed his exams in Berlin in 1781, worked closely with David Gilly and became known as building director in Danzig and Marienwerder. Another brother, Detlev Georg Peterson, was a building inspector in Warsaw and Posen. Ernst Conrad Peterson was married to Dorothea Elisabeth, b. Senff (1785–1842) and father of Ernst Emil Peterson (1840–1844 mayor of Bromberg ), Wilhelm Peterson and Franz Peterson. His grandson Julius Peterson (1852–1935) was President of the District of Bromberg from 1881–1889 .

Youth and education

At the age of 14 years Peterson was in 1792 when master builder Wibelitz in Belgardt ( Bialogard ) for construction Eleven adopted and prepared there by a practical training for the exam of the upper Construction Authority. In 1795, his half-brother Johann Philipp Peterson put him in charge of the construction work on the Bromberg Canal on behalf of David Gilly. As employees of the War and Domain Office, the Peterson brothers were employed in making the Drevenz in Masuria navigable in the years 1796–1797, then Peterson received follow-up orders to measure the nets and met Ludwig Catel at the construction site of the Bydgoszcz Canal .

In September 1799 Ernst Conrad Peterson was accepted into the newly founded Berlin Bauakademie , where he was taught together with Karl Friedrich Schinkel and Carl Christoph Steinmeyer in the classes of Friedrich Gilly (optics and perspective), Friedrich Becherer (construction) and Heinrich Gentz (urban architecture) . Peterson also took courses with David Gilly (lock construction) and Aloys Hirt (building history).

As early as October 1799, Peterson passed his surveyor 's examination, immediately afterwards he was hired by the Berlin merchant Sigmund Otto Joseph von Treskow as site manager for the new buildings of the Owinsk manor near Posen. In Owinsk, Peterson carried out numerous ancillary buildings made of blasted field stones and, from 1799–1800, the Radojewo mansion on a ridge above the Warta .

He spent the winter of 1800/1801 again as a student at the Bauakademie in Berlin. In addition to plans for the facilities of Owinsk Castle , on which he agreed with the equally committed Ludwig Catel, he also designed commercial buildings for the Propstei Meseritz (Międzyrzecz) not far from Poznan, which the Prussian diplomat Marchese Girolamo Lucchesini ordered from Friedrich Wilhelm II in 1797. received as endowment . In the summer of 1800, Peterson corresponded with his teachers Friedrich Gilly and Johann Albert Eytelwein about an essay on the architecture of Oranienburg, Neustrelitz, Neubrandenburg, the Irmsack estate and the observatory in Remplin (“Comments, on a small trip made in December 1799 from Berlin to Mecklenburg ") For the magazine" Collection of useful essays relating to architecture "published by David Gilly.

From 1801, in addition to his work in Owinsk, on the mediation of David Gilly, Peterson took on another task in the renovations of the old town in Poznan, which Gilly led. In April 1801 he passed the exam at the Berlin Building Academy. He turned down the travel grant to Italy offered by David Gilly in order to instead take over the office of master builder in Bromberg in 1801 with a salary of 200 thalers . He supervised the completion of the construction in Owinsk until 1804 as part of his extensive inspection trips.

Building inspector and city planning officer in Bromberg

In addition to the office of master builder, Peterson took over the office of master lock builder for the city of Bromberg in 1803 for an additional salary of 300 thalers. The main task here was the maintenance of the economically important Bromberg Canal, including its lock systems and weirs. Peterson designed numerous commercial buildings, side canals and administrative buildings in the following years. From 1815, Peterson went into business for himself as an architect and entrepreneur: he ran three brickworks , which had been laid out in 1792 for the expansion of the Bromberg Canal, as well as a grain and a paper mill. As an independent architect, he designed a number of classicist town houses and functional buildings that still shape the cityscape of Bydgoszcz today.

Ernst Conrad Peterson belonged in 1815 to the delegation of the citizens of Bydgoszcz, which the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III after reunification with Prussia. As a member of the magistrate, he also worked as a site manager on all major construction projects in the city. In 1817 he had an orphanage and a school built at his own expense. In 1836 he was awarded the Prussian Order of the Red Eagle for his multiple engagements . Until his death he represented the city of Bromberg as a member of the Provincial Landtag of the Grand Duchy of Poznan. Ernst Conrad Peterson's estate, including his unpublished correspondence with his brother Johann Philipp Peterson and his teacher David Gilly from 1799–1808, is now in the State Archives in Bromberg (Archiwum Panstwowe w Bydgoszczy). He was a member of the Bydgoszcz Freemason Lodge Janus .

Significance and aftermath

Peterson was the avowed favorite student of David Gilly and was massively supported and mentored by him. The completed building projects by Peterson in Posen, Meseritz, Owinsk and Radojewo were discussed in detail with Gilly, as evidenced by the extensive correspondence. The wood-saving brick kilns designed by Ernst Conrad Peterson were praised by David Gilly in 1805 in his 4th edition of the "Handbook of Land-Building Art". Peterson's activity in Bromberg shows how far the Berlin early classicism of the Gilly School and the new aesthetics of the Berlin Building Academy radiated into the remote eastern provinces. The paths crossed with Karl Friedrich Schinkel in Berlin in 1799-1800, in Owinsk in 1805 and in Bromberg in 1826, where Schinkel designed the new facade of the Jesuit Church.

literature

• Ernst Konrad Peterson. In: New Nekrolog der Deutschen , year 1841 (1843), pp. 1090–1100.
• From the diary of the building councilor Peterson in Bromberg. In: Yearbook of the historical society for the network district to Bromberg. Bromberg 1899, pp. 5-48.
• Ernst Konrad Peterson. In: Commission for the History of Germans in Poland V. (Ed.): Contributions to a biographical lexicon of Germans from the area of ​​the province of Posen. (= Contributions to the history of Germans in Poland and German-Polish relations , Volume 2.) Martin Opitz Library Foundation , Herne 2003, ISBN 3-923371-26-8 .
• Stanisław Błażejewski, Janusz Kutta, Marek Romaniuk: Bydgoski Słownik Biograficzny. Tom II. Bydgoszcz 1995, p. 115 f.
• Rüdiger von Treskow: The Owinsk country castle near Posen. Palac w Owinskach kolo Poznania 1803–1806. Berlin 2011.