Georg Germann

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Georg Germann (2007)

Georg Germann (born January 5, 1935 in Basel , † September 11, 2016 in Bern , legal resident in Frauenfeld ) was a Swiss architectural historian .

Life

Georg Germann was born as the son of the professor for criminal law at the University of Basel Oscar Adolf Germann and his wife Elisabeth, daughter of the advocate Carl Martin.

Germann studied art history in Basel with Joseph Gantner , Emil Maurer and Hans Reinhardt , at the Sorbonne 1956–1957 with André Chastel and Elie Lambert , at the Università dello Stato in Rome 1958–1959 with Carlo Cecchelli and Mario Salmi . His doctoral thesis on Protestant church building in Switzerland, presented in Basel in 1962 and published in Zurich in 1963, was well received. Germann then turned to the inventory of the patrimony and published in 1967 in the series Die Kunstdenkmäler der Schweiz the volume on the district and monastery of Muri , Canton Aargau .

From 1969 to 1971 he enjoyed a scholarship that allowed him to spend several months in London and study the history and theory of Neo-Gothic . He presented the result as a habilitation thesis in Basel in 1971 and published it in English in 1972 and in German in 1974.

With the support of the Society for Swiss Art History and the Swiss National Fund for the Promotion of Scientific Research , he established the inventory of recent Swiss architecture 1850–1920 (11 volumes, 1984–2004) in 1972 .

In 1978 he became an employee of the Swiss Institute for Art Research in Zurich (SIK – ISEA), where from 1980 to 1983 he headed the editorial department. He became a member and in 1983 President of the Cantonal Monument Preservation Commission of Zurich .

From 1984 to 1996 he headed the Bernisches Historisches Museum . During this time, the four departments (history, archeology, ethnology, numismatics) organized numerous well-known exhibitions and started inventory catalogs (which have since been successfully completed and published).

In addition to the aforementioned activities, Germann taught at ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich as well as at the universities of Basel, Bern , Geneva , Lausanne and Neuchâtel . From 1997 to 2010 he taught at the Bern University of Applied Sciences for Architecture, Wood and Construction (AHB Burgdorf BE ) in the Master’s degree in Monument Preservation and Conversion, which he co-founded.

Writings on architectural vocabulary, architectural theory, historical textbooks and civil engineering techniques as well as the ethics of monument preservation testify to the broad interests of this polyglot teacher and researcher. Their list can be found in the appendix to Aux origines du patrimoine bâti (2009).

Georg Germann married Katharina Christen in 1976 and has twins with her.

Fonts (selection)

  • Protestant church building in Switzerland. From the Reformation to Romanticism. Zurich 1963.
  • The art monuments of the canton Aargau V. The district of Muri (= The art monuments of Switzerland. Volume 55). Basel 1967.
  • Gothic Revival in Europe and Britain. Sources, Influences and Ideas. London 1972 / Cambridge (Mass.) 1973.
  • Neo-Gothic, history of its architectural theory. Stuttgart 1974.
  • Introduction to the history of architectural theory. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1980; 3rd edition 1993.
  • Vitruve et le vitruvianisme. Introduction à l'histoire de la théorie architecturale. Lausanne 1991.
  • Aux origines du patrimoine bâti. Gollion 2009.
  • The all-rounder Philipp Gosset 1838–1911. Alpinist, glacier researcher, engineer, landscape gardener, topographer. Baden 2014.

Web links

swell

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ obituary portal.ch  ; Peter Hoegger, “In memory of Georg Germann”, Art + Architecture in Switzerland 2016/4, p. 81.
personal data
SURNAME Germann, Georg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss architectural historian
DATE OF BIRTH January 5, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Basel
DATE OF DEATH 11th September 2016
Place of death Bern