Ernst Robert Fiechter

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Ernst Robert Fiechter (born October 28, 1875 in Basel , † April 19, 1948 in St. Gallen ) was a Swiss architect and building researcher .

Life

Ernst Fiechter was the oldest son of the Basel doctor and had been a university lecturer for clinical medicine Dr. med. Robert Fiechter (1848–1887) and his wife Sophia (born Jung, 1852–1938), sister of the architect Ernst Jung in Winterthur. The well-known psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung was his cousin. After graduating from the humanistic grammar school, Fiechter wanted to study theology or classical philology. However, at the urging of his widowed mother, he turned to more practical architecture. After an internship as a bricklayer and carpenter apprentice and attending the trade school in Basel , Fiechter studied architecture at the University of Munich from 1895 to 1899 . August Thiersch , who was then professor of structural design , had a great influence on him. Thiersch also the invitation came, Fiechter should after his diploma in the expedition of Ernst von Sieglin participate to Alexandria. Fiechter, who was, among other things, enthusiastic about antiquity through Adolf Furtwängler's Glyptothek tours, happily accepted the offer for the winter of 1900/01.

In Alexandria, however, Fiechter began to doubt the usefulness of his work: The mainly art-historical reference to antiquity that was cultivated in Munich only allowed Fiechter to record the remains of the ancient streets and graves. So he did not think twice when Adolf Furtwängler tried to win him over as a building researcher for the excavations of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in the Aphaia sanctuary on Aegina , and in 1901 set out directly from Alexandria to Aegina. Fiechter was so captivated by Greek architecture, the country and its people that he returned there nine times after the 1901 campaign.

In close cooperation with Furtwängler and Hermann Thiersch , the son of his former teacher, site plans, floor plans and reconstructions of the sanctuary of the Aphaia, individual buildings and components were created. In 1904 he received his doctorate from August Thiersch at the TH Munich with the thesis "The Temple of Aphaia on Aegina". Furtwängler took over Furtwängler almost unchanged into the publication of the temple of 1906. However, Fiechter's contribution here extended not only to the model of the late archaic temple, but also to the simultaneous, earlier and later buildings as well as to various items such as bases, devices and roof tiles, especially the reconstruction of the gable acroteries.

With his publication of the architecture of a Greek sanctuary, Fiechter succeeded in creating a model that was to remain exemplary for a long time and determined the understanding of the late Archaic Greek temple architecture. Fiechter's perspective reconstruction of the Temple of Aphaia serves in many - also more recent - manuals to make the tectonics of Doric temple architecture understandable.

Fiechter was also one of the first to draw attention to the color design of Greek buildings and works of art and his detailed notes on the still visible paint residues on triglyphs , kyma , architraves, etc. as well as their colorful reconstructions, above all, earned him the respect of the newer ones Research in which these things become increasingly important.

After a trip to Italy , Fiechter completed his habilitation in 1906 with the thesis “The Ionian Temple at the Ponte Rotto in Rome”. While he took on independent construction tasks as an architect, he repeatedly traveled to Greece for research purposes, be it on Aegina or the Amyklaion of Sparta .

In 1911, Fiechter had to choose between succeeding Wilhelm Dörpfeld at the German Archaeological Institute in Athens and a call to the TH Stuttgart . He chose the apprenticeship and taught building forms, architectural drawing and building history. In 1912 he traveled again to Greece and Asia Minor and began extensive documentation on Greek theater architecture. Between 1921 and 1933 he traveled five more times to Greece to continue these studies. His obligations in Stuttgart, however, increasingly demanded him and also directed his attention to the archaeological and monument preservation tasks of his surroundings. From 1919 he was an employee and later an expert at the State Office for Monument Preservation in Stuttgart. In connection with the Waldorf School , which opened in 1919, and the activities of Friedrich Rittelmeyer with regard to the Christian community , there was an encounter with Rudolf Steiner and anthroposophy . In 1923 he turned down a call to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich because of his three children (Sophia Charlotte * 1909, Paul Hieronymus * 1911, Niklaus * 1914), who attended the Waldorf School in Stuttgart.

After his retirement in 1937, after 40 years abroad, he returned to Switzerland and dedicated the rest of his life entirely to anthroposophy . He moved into the Christian Community's seminary in Zurich. In addition to his work as a priest in the cantons of Zurich and St. Gallen, he continued to deal with the preservation of monuments and excavations.

Ernst Fiechter died on April 19, 1948 at the age of 74 in St. Gallen, where he met his future wife Paula Zollikofer in 1907.

buildings

Publications (selection)

  • The Temple of Aphaia on Aegina . Dissertation, University of Munich 1904.
  • The Ionian Temple at Ponte Rotto in Rome. In: Communications of the German Archaeological Institute, Roman Department . Volume 21, 1906, p. 220 ff.
  • Collaboration with: Adolf Furtwängler: Aegina. The sanctuary of Aphaia. 1906.
  • The historical development of the ancient theater. A study . Beck, Munich 1914 ( digitized version ).
  • Amyklae. The throne of Apollo. In: Archäologischer Anzeiger. Year 1910, p. 66 ff. And yearbook of the German Archaeological Institute. Volume 33, 1918, p. 107 ff.
  • Ancient Greek theater buildings. 9 volumes, Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1930–1950.
  • The theater in Thera. In: Wilhelm Dörpfeld . Festschrift for the 80th birthday. Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, Berlin 1933, p. 28 ff.

literature

  • Ernst Fiechter. The artist, the researcher, the person. Memories, letters, diaries, last notes. Connected and supplemented by Sophia Charlotte Fiechter. Urachhaus, Stuttgart 1950 (with bibliography of his writings and a list of his buildings. Portrait in the frontispiece).
  • Ernst-Ludwig Schwandner : Enst Robert Fiechter . In: Reinhard Lullies , Wolfgang Schiering (Hrsg.): Archäologenbildnisse . Portraits and short biographies of classical archaeologists in the German language . von Zabern, Mainz 1988, ISBN 3-8053-0971-6 , pp. 190-191.
  • Dietrich W. Schmidt: Fiechter, Ernst. In: Maria Magdalena Rückert (Ed.): Württembergische biographies including Hohenzollern personalities. Volume I. On behalf of the Commission for Historical Regional Studies in Baden-Württemberg. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-17-018500-4 , pp. 77-79.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ List of monuments of the state capital Munich , file no. D-1-62-000-641, accessed December 10, 2017
  2. ↑ List of monuments of the state capital Munich, file no. D-1-62-000-6557
  3. ↑ List of monuments of the state capital Munich, file no. D-1-62-000-642
personal data
SURNAME Fiechter, Ernst Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss building researcher
DATE OF BIRTH October 28, 1875
PLACE OF BIRTH Basel
DATE OF DEATH April 19, 1948
Place of death St. Gallen