Fritz Bornemann (architect)

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America Memorial Library, Berlin
German Opera, Berlin
Bonn University Library (1961)

Fritz Bornemann (* 12. February 1912 in Berlin , † 28. May 2007 ) was a German architect of postwar modernism with outstanding regional importance in Berlin.

Life

Bornemann studied architecture at the Technical University of Berlin . After graduating in 1936, he was assistant for equipment at the Städtische Oper Berlin-Charlottenburg and from 1945 construction manager for the city of Berlin. He had been a freelance architect since 1950 and as such worked primarily in Berlin. The designs for the Amerika-Gedenkbibliothek (1951–1955, together with Willy Kreuer ), the Deutsche Oper Berlin (1956–1961), the Theater der Freie Volksbühne (1961–1963, since 2001 Haus der Berliner Festspiele) and for the Museum productions in the Dahlem Museums (1966–1972) celebrated worldwide as the “Dahlem Model” . Above all, the dramatic staging of the Museum of Indian Art , the Museum of Islamic Art and the Pacific Department of the Berlin Ethnological Museum, produced exclusively with artificial light , caused a sensation due to the extensive dematerialization of the objects. It was one of the earliest stagings of non-European art based purely on aesthetic considerations . He also designed the headquarters of Commerzbank in Berlin (1969–1974). In 1972 the Dankeskirche was built in Berlin-Wedding . In 1974 he realized the Institute for Materials Technology for Rosenthal in Selb (today used by a fashion outlet). His draft for a new opera in Cairo (Egypt) from 1973 remained unrealized.

He designed the German pavilion for the 1970 World Exhibition in Osaka ( Japan ). Here Bornemann largely dispensed with large architectural gestures and sunk the exhibition areas underground; a spherical auditorium served the multimedia presentation of current trends in electronic music.

Museum Center Berlin-Dahlem

Later, the extension for the Wedding Town Hall in Berlin and the university library in Bonn were added. He never built houses.

The extension of the town hall in Berlin-Wedding

Little is known about his multimedia work. He designed several exhibitions, including Atom (1953) and Farmer Smith (1957). The Osaka pavilion crowned this work.

Bornemann's architecture was and is the subject of a heated debate about modernism in the 1950s and 1960s. The critics speak of cold or strict architecture and devalue the buildings with sentences such as elegance in exposed aggregate concrete . His followers see examples of modern architecture in his works, especially modern theater architecture. The functionality of his buildings was also recognized by the critics, because visitors were able to follow and understand what was happening on the stage very well from all seats.

Bornemann used a design motif introduced into the modern age by the architect Le Corbusier for many of his buildings. Their large, cubic bodies get a little distance from the earth through elevation or protruding elements and thus appear light and floating despite their mass.

Fritz Bornemann was chairman of the Association of German Architects for over 16 years .

Competition participation

Awards

literature

  • Susanne Schindler (Ed. With the collaboration of Nikolaus Bernau): Staged Modernism. On the architecture of Fritz Bornemann Jovis-Verlag, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-936314-03-9

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Bornemann, Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German architect
DATE OF BIRTH February 12, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH May 28, 2007
Place of death Berlin