Fritz Schaller

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Fritz Schaller (born May 29, 1904 in Berlin ; † March 4, 2002 in Cologne ) was a German architect . His best-known buildings are the Kalkberg Stadium in Bad Segeberg and the Domplatte , and he also designed numerous Catholic churches.

Life

Schaller studied at the Technical University of Karlsruhe and from 1929 initially worked in the Prussian building administration. At the end of 1933 he was already self-employed; he received his most important assignments from the Nazi organization “ Office Beauty of Work ”. He supported the thing game movement , choral mass theater as a community experience, as a leading designer of thing places . Hundreds of Thing stages were planned in 1933/1934, but the Propaganda Ministry stopped the Thing movement in 1935 because the Thing movement, originally founded in the Catholic Workers' Movement , seemed too difficult to control under the Nazi dictatorship. Nevertheless, Schaller joined the NSDAP in 1937 . During the Second World War he was “ indispensable ” as an employee at the facilities of the Ernst Heinkel Flugzeugwerke .

Several of his Thing theaters became very important after the war, whether in the GDR (in a use very closely related to the intended aesthetics) z. B. the "Volksplatz Borna", which served FDJ mass games until 1989, or in the west z. B. the "Gesundbrunnen" in Northeim / Harz, which still offers a unique backdrop for pop-rock festivals. The Bad Segeberger Kalkbergstadion found international recognition - since 1952 the main stage of the Karl May Games there .

In 1947, Schaller received an invitation from Rudolf Schwarz to participate in the reconstruction society in Cologne, for which Gottfried Böhm was also won over. From then on, Fritz Schaller exercised greater influence with his own architectural office in Cologne from 1949, as the main impetus for the new Catholic church building in Germany came from here. With the liturgical movement, the external aestheticization of the community idea and the stronger centering of the liturgy brought about in the Second Vatican Council , Schaller was able to fall back on his experience as a thing architect. In 1950, Schaller and refugees from Silesia set up a Catholic in the center of Hessisch-Oldendorf ( Weserbergland ). Refugee church made of brick and wood, handcrafted and self-help.

He designed a total of 64 sacred buildings and realized 30, including buildings that have become “classic” in the dioceses of the Rhineland. He was the curator of church building exhibitions (Italy, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal) that were recognized throughout Europe, which contributed to the broadcast of his concepts beyond the Cologne area.

His most famous buildings include the eastern, northern and western parts of the Domplatte , which was controversial for a long time in terms of urban planning and which fundamentally redefined the area around Cologne Cathedral . The eastern part was fundamentally changed when the former Wallraf-Richartz-Museum (now Museum Ludwig) was built in 1980–1986, and the northern staircase to the main train station was redesigned in 2005 by his son Christian Schaller.

Works

Thing sites

Waldbühne Northeim 1936
Domforum, Cologne
Domplatte Cologne, demolition work on concrete mushrooms, bus stop north side, photo: Raimund Spekking, 2013

Sacred buildings

Urban design

estate

The estate (5 m files + 71 rolls of plans) is archived in the historical archive of the Archdiocese of Cologne .

literature

  • Emanuel Gebauer: Fritz Schaller. The architect and his contribution to sacred buildings in the 20th century (= Stadtspuren 28), Cologne 2000 ISBN 3-7616-1355-5 . Contains many detailed works. Print version of
  • Emanuel Gebauer: The "Thing" and the church building. Fritz Schaller and the Modern Age 1933-74 . Phil. Diss. Mainz 1995.
  • Christian Schaller, Hans Schilling, Dr. Martina Langel: "Fritz Schaller. Retrospective." (Catalog for the 1994 exhibition) ISBN 3-932248-02-3

Web links

Commons : Fritz Schaller  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Fritz Schaller: Two churches by Fritz Schaller, 1) Catholic refugee church in Hessisch-Oldendorf . In: Alfons Leitl (Hrsg.): Baukunst und Werkform . No. 1 . Frankfurter Hefte, Frankfurt am Main 1952, p. 30 - 31 .
  2. ↑ schaller & partner gbr architects city planners bda - news. Retrieved September 15, 2019 .
  3. ^ Fritz Schaller: Two churches by Fritz Schaller, 2) Draft for a Catholic church in Brühl-Heide near Cologne . In: Alfons Leitl (Hrsg.): Baukunst und Werkform . tape 1 . Frankfurter Hefte, Frankfurt am Main 1952, p. 32 - 35 .
  4. ↑ Historic sites of the city of Leverkusen, shield
personal data
SURNAME Schaller, Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German architect
DATE OF BIRTH May 29, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH March 4, 2002
Place of death Cologne