Frederick FC Curtis

Frederick Francis Charles Curtis (born August 9, 1903 , † June 16, 1975 ) was a German- British architect .

Life

Curtis was born on August 9, 1903 in Frankfurt am Main . From 1922 to 1927 Curtis studied at the Technical University of Darmstadt , where his father Francis Curtis worked as a lecturer in English. He then worked from 1927 to 1933 at the same university as an assistant and private lecturer.

After the seizure of power by the Nazis in the spring of 1933, Curtis went to Britain. There he first worked with Charles Holden . He then taught from 1936 to 1942 as a lecturer at the Liverpool School of Architecture .

At the end of the 1930s, Curtis was targeted by the police forces of National Socialist Germany, who classified him as an important target: In the spring of 1940, the Reich Security Main Office in Berlin put him on the special wanted list GB , a directory of people who were considered particularly dangerous or by the Nazi surveillance apparatus important, which is why, in the event of a successful invasion and occupation of the British Isles by the Wehrmacht, they should be located and arrested by the special SS commandos following the occupation forces.

From 1942 to 1945 Curtis was a member of the British Army as a member of the Royal Engineers at their headquarters in Delhi. In 1945 he received the rank of major.

After the Second World War Curtis was in the service of the Great Western Railway Company and then - after their nationalization - worked as chief architect of British Railways . During this time he was responsible for the construction of numerous railway structures, which he carried out on behalf of the Railway Executive, the British Transport Commission and the British Railways Board . He was responsible for the conception of the building for Hanger Lane Station, which was built as part of the western expansion of the Central Line of the British Railways, which began in 1947, and the mechanical engineering works museum of the British Railway Technical Center in Derby . In 1968 he retired.

Curtis was married to Hertha († 1972), with whom he had three daughters.

literature

• General artist lexicon. KG Saur, Munich 1999, p. 183.
• Royal Institute of British Architects (Ed.): RIBA Journal , Vol. 82 (1975), p. 266. (Obituary)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Meeting of the British House of Commons on July 30, 1942, HC Deb July 30, 1942 vol. 382, col. 815
2. ^ Entry on Curtis on the special wanted list GB (reproduced on the website of the Imperial War Museum in London) .