Fritz Nathan (architect)

Fritz Nathan (born April 14, 1891 in Bingen , † November 3, 1960 in New York City ) was a German architect .

life and work

Fritz Nathan was born the son of the wine merchant Jacob Nathan and his wife Sara, née Freiberg, in Bingen am Rhein. From 1909 to 1914 he studied architecture at the Technical University of Darmstadt and the Technical University of Munich . One of his teachers in Munich was Theodor Fischer . After graduating, he started a civil service career and began a legal clerkship . He also took up a part-time job as a teacher at the Hessian building trade and trade school in Bingen. 1915–1918 he took part in the First World War as a soldier. Two years after the end of the war, he passed the 2nd state examination in higher construction and was appointed government master builder ( assessor ). However, he decided against a further career as a construction clerk and moved to Berlin, where he worked as an employee of Alexander Beer in the planning of the cemetery of honor of fallen Jewish soldiers at the Jewish cemetery in Berlin-Weißensee . Other projects in Berlin were the conversion and expansion of apartments, factories, department stores and shops. In 1922 Nathan was appointed to the Association of German Architects . In the same year he settled in Frankfurt am Main, where he founded his own office and in 1924 hired the Offenbach-born architect Carl Müller as a permanent employee. In 1927 he married Lucie Mayer, the daughter of a couple of wine merchants from Cochem. The daughter Doris Nathan, born in 1935, emerged from the marriage.

Nathan was initially close to reform architecture before turning to new architecture in the mid-1920s . With the New Jewish Cemetery in Frankfurt am Main (1928–1929) he realized a major work of sacred architecture of the early modern period and thus made his most important contribution to the New Frankfurt . In other cities, too, it made its mark with modern buildings. In Mannheim he created the city's first skyscraper as part of a commercial complex consisting of the headquarters of Samt und Silk GmbH (1926–1927), the German official department store (DEBEWA, 1928–1929) and the Universum cinema (1928–1929). The significant tower made of glass and steel brought him a comparison with Erich Mendelsohn's Schocken department store in Stuttgart. Other outstanding works are the Hochherr cigar factory in Heidelberg (1927–1929), the Wronker department store in Hanau (1928–1929), the Israelite old people's home in Mannheim (1928–1931), the Löwenthal department store in Aschaffenburg (1929–1930) and the commercial building Hertz-Grünstein in Luxembourg (1932–1933).

In 1933, when the National Socialists came to power, the Jewish architect's career ended. As a Jew, he could not be a member of the Reich Chamber of Culture , into which both the German Werkbund and the Bund Deutscher Architekten were incorporated through the synchronization , and thus no longer be able to work independently. Nevertheless, he continued to work under difficult conditions and worked several times for Jewish clients. The Jewish cemetery in Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt (1935–1938) is an important work at this time. He expanded the Israelite old people's home in Mannheim for a hospital (1935–1936) after the co-ordinated city administration released the old Jewish hospital for demolition. In Offenbach he planned a Jewish school (1934–1937), which became necessary because Jewish children were forbidden from attending public schools. In 1937 he repaired the synagogue in Konstanz, which had been set on fire by Nazi thugs on November 1, 1936.

In September 1938 Nathan emigrated to the Netherlands with his wife and daughter. In Amsterdam he waited over a year for the visa to the USA. He and his family did not reach New York City until February 1940, where not only his brother, the economist Otto Nathan , who had emigrated in 1933 , but also his parents, who had fled Germany in 1939, lived.

Nathan developed into a sought-after architect of Jewish communities in the USA. His breakthrough came with the synagogue built in 1950 for the Congregation Sons of Israel in Woodmere (NY) and the 1953–1957 Jewish Community Center in White Plains (NY). In 1951 he was appointed to the advisory board of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. He also worked successfully in commercial and industrial construction. In 1949 he drew attention to himself with the retail store Bernath & Co. in New York City; He worked several times for the Hunter Douglas Corporation and Hartz Mountain Products Co. His two most mature works on American soil are the Mishkan Israel Synagogue in Hamden (CT) (1956–1960) and the B´Nai Jacob community center in Woodbridge, which was only completed after his death (CT) (1957-1961). At the height of his second career, he died of cancer on November 3, 1960 at the age of 69. His estate is in the Leo Baeck Institute in New York.

Nathan's buildings today

Only a few buildings by the architect have survived in Germany: the Jewish cemeteries in Frankfurt am Main and Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, the former Hochherr cigar factory and a small number of residential buildings (in Frankfurt am Main e.g. Cronstettenstraße 14, Georg-Speyer-Straße 63, Kennedyallee 49 and Zeppelinstraße 89). The office building in Luxembourg (Grand-Rue 9-11) still exists. Other buildings were lost in the war and post-war period, such as the department stores in Hanau and Aschaffenburg as well as the Mannheim commercial building group, which had to give way to a new building by the Horten group in 1967 as the Vetter department store . The Israelite old people's home in Mannheim, which was last used as a municipal old people's home (Pauline-Maier-Heim), was demolished in 2010 in favor of a residential complex. Among the synagogues of Nathan in the USA, the Jewish Community Center in White Plains has to be booked as the loss of another important work due to the renovation for the Kol Ami Congregation in 2012.

Web links

• Fritz Nathan Collection, AR 1443 Archival estate at the Leo Baeck Institute, New York

literature

• Fritz Nathan: "Commercial buildings" and "Buildings of the Israelite cemetery in Frankfurt a. M." In: stone, wood, iron. Semi-monthly publication for the new building industry and building design , Volume 44, 1930, No. 19, pp. 419–428 and S 429–431.
• Andreas Schenk, Roland Behrmann: Fritz Nathan, architect. His life and work in Germany and in American exile. Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel 2015, ISBN 978-3-03821-468-7 . (therein further references p. 173–176)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Karl Schwarz : The Israelitische Friedhof in Frankfurt a. M. In: Deutsche Bauzeitung , 65th year 1931, pp. 229–233.
2. ^ Fritz Nathan : Mannheim commercial building group. In: Zentralblatt der Bauverwaltung , Volume 50, 1930, No. 36 (from September 10, 1930), pp. 629–634.