Friedrich Kutzbach

Friedrich Albert Kutzbach (born June 19, 1873 in Trier ; † December 21, 1942 there ) was a German architect and preservationist in Trier.

Life and accomplishments

Friedrich Kutzbach was the son of a merchant family in Trier. His brother Karl Kutzbach worked as a professor for mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Dresden . Friedrich Kutzbach attended the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium in Trier. Even as a schoolboy he expressed his intention to make the preservation of the historical building fabric in Trier his life's work. After graduating from high school in 1891, he studied architecture at the Technical University of Aachen and the Technical University of (Berlin-) Charlottenburg until 1901 . He became an active member of the Catholic student union Carolingia Achen in the KV . Even as a student in 1900 he was a member of a commission for the inventory of the monuments of his hometown.

From 1902 to 1914 Kutzbach worked as the royal government architect in Ratibor , Birnbaum , Posen and Opole . For health reasons, however, he was retired on October 1, 1915 with the title of royal building councilor and returned to Trier. There he began his excavation and research work without an official mandate, but in close cooperation with the Provincial Museum. In 1917 he found a crypt with Carolingian paintings in the area of ​​the former Imperial Abbey of St. Maximin , which are now among the treasures of the Episcopal Museum. From 1918 he dealt among other things with the completely neglected building of the Romanesque Simeonstift next to the Porta Nigra , a two-story cloister from the 11th century, the oldest of its kind in Germany. He recognized the historical importance of this facility and fought for the preservation and reconstruction of the building, which was threatened with demolition.

On July 1, 1921, the city of Trier entrusted him with the newly created task of city conservator . This put him in a position to intervene in an advisory and rescue manner in the event of upcoming changes to listed buildings, whereby his technical knowledge as an architect was of great benefit to him. The list of buildings rescued from demolition and ruin is long; In addition to the Simeonstift, which was restored until 1936, the Dreikönigenhaus , the Frankenturm and the half-timbered houses on the main market should be highlighted . His duties as a curator also included the responsibility for the local history museum in the Red House, whose collections he added through carefully selected new acquisitions. These belong to the basis of the later Moselle Museum and today's Simeonstift city museum . In the course of the planning for a large museum in Trier, the responsibilities of the preservation of monuments were rearranged contrary to Kutzbach's ideas and Kutzbach and his colleague, the architect and draftsman Karl Delhougne, were dismissed from the city service on June 30, 1936. His political stance, which was negative for National Socialism , probably contributed to this. However, he was able to continue his research work in the service of the provincial administration under the previous conditions until his death in 1942.

Kutzbach's extensive estate of sketches and descriptions of the excavations and examined monuments was found in the ruins of his apartment in 1945 and transferred to the city archive. After the war, the drawings formed the basis for restoration in many cases. B. the Steipe on the main market. In 2008, the state of Rhineland-Palatinate made 15,000 euros available to restore this estate and make it available to the Department of Art History at Trier University for scientific analysis. Just one year after his death, the city of Trier named Simeonstiftstraße next to the building he saved after him on the occasion of his 70th birthday.

Fonts

A bibliography with 97 entries (mostly short journal articles) can be found at:

• Udo Köhler: Bibliography Friedrich Kutzbach. In: New Trierisches Jahrbuch 1993 ( ISSN  0077-7765 ), pp. 173-177.

literature

• Eberhard Zahn: On the 20th anniversary of Friedrich Kutzbach's death. In: New Trierisches Jahrbuch 1962 , pp. 131–133
• Helmut Lutz: Friedrich Kutzbach's great services to Trier. In: New Trierisches Jahrbuch 1993 ( ISSN  0077-7765 ), pp. 155-172.
• Heinz Monz (Hrsg.): Trier Biographical Lexicon. Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, Trier 2000, ISBN 3-88476-400-4 , p. 242.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Siegfried Koß, Wolfgang Löhr (Hrsg.): Biographisches Lexikon des KV. 5th part (= Revocatio historiae. Volume 6). SH-Verlag, Schernfeld 1998, ISBN 3-89498-055-9 , p. 72.