Georg Moller

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Georg Moller, before 1852

Georg Moller (born January 21, 1784 in Diepholz ; † March 13, 1852 in Darmstadt ) was an architect and town planner active in southern Germany , especially in the former Grand Duchy of Hesse .

Life and family background

Moller comes from an old Norwegian pastor family who excelled in the 17th century by publishing evangelical hymn books. The father, Levin Adolf Moller, grew up in Westphalia and worked as a notary in Celle, and since 1777 as a lawyer and procurator in Diepholz. Moller's mother, Elisabeth von Castelmur, came from a Swiss noble family of the Upper Engadin of Catholic denomination. Moller grew up in a middle-class environment. The family's connections across European national borders and denominations ensured that people grew up in intellectual liberality and curiosity at an early stage.

Georg Moller was buried in the old cemetery in Darmstadt (grave site: I Mauer 141).

Training and study trips

After graduating from high school in 1800, Moller began studying architecture with Diederich Christian Ludwig Witting in Hanover. Here he met Friedrich Weinbrenner , whom he followed to Karlsruhe in 1802 to continue his studies at the local building school. In the years 1807–1809 Georg Moller went on a study trip to Rome, where he received decisive impulses from the German artist colony there. After completing this trip, in 1810 he was appointed senior building officer and court building director of the Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt .

Professional work in secular and ecclesiastical surroundings

His main works there include St. Ludwig's Church , the first Catholic sacred building in Darmstadt after the introduction of the Reformation, the shape of which is based on the Pantheon in Rome, as well as the former State Theater , Luisenplatz and the box house of the Freemasons - today's "Moller -House". He was a member of the Darmstadt Masonic Lodge Johannes der Evangelist zur Eintracht . He also built the Mainz State Theater , which caused a sensation with its semicircular facade, as well as the Wiesbaden City Palace of the Dukes of Nassau , today's seat of the Hessian Parliament .

Only two of Georg Moller's larger buildings survived the Second World War unscathed: the grand ducal mausoleum on Rosenhöhe and the Ludwigsäule on Luisenplatz - both in Darmstadt, while the rest was partially completely destroyed and demolished or mostly reconstructed in a simplified manner.

Moller also worked for the Landgraves of Hesse-Homburg : the reconstruction of the Homburg and Meisenheim palaces (Wolfgang building) fall into this area. He also worked for Prince Klemens von Metternich and redesigned his Johannisberg Palace . He probably also worked in Hanover , where he is said to have advised on the construction of the Wangenheim Palace.

Alongside Karl Friedrich Schinkel and Leo von Klenze, Moller is considered an important German architect of classicism and romanticism. His extraordinary inventiveness as an engineer and creator of valuable room compositions is certainly most impressively evident in the Ludwigskirche in Darmstadt and is all the more astonishing with a view to the limits of Darmstadt's provinciality.

In his office, Moller trained a number of successful architects and later university teachers in the German-speaking area, among them August Heinrich Andreae (Hanover), Rudolf Wiegmann (Düsseldorf) as well as Ferdinand Stadler (Zurich), Ernst Georg Gladbach , Wilhelm Mithoff (Hanover) and Christoph Riggenbach (Basel), Hugo von Ritgen (Gießen) and Friedrich Maximilian Hessemer (Frankfurt).

In addition to his work as an architect, his monument preservation work must also be recognized. He owes, among other things, the rescue of the Carolingian gate hall in Lorsch , which is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In 1818 he persuaded the Grand Duke of Hessen-Darmstadt to issue the first monument protection ordinance. It is the first legal basis for the protection of architectural monuments in Germany. His well-known collection of Monuments of German Architecture was way ahead of its time.

Moller also played an important role in the completion of Cologne Cathedral . In 1814 he rediscovered one half of the 4.05 meter revised facade plan by the cathedral builder Arnold in an attic near Darmstadt, the other half was found in 1816 by Sulpiz Boisserée in Paris.

Works

Further private contacts and family ties

In his private life, Moller was known or related to illustrious figures of the time such as JW von Goethe, the politically and medically committed Georg Freiherr von Wedekind and the local brewer family Hessemer. Moller married Amalie Merck in 1811, with ties to the Darmstadt-based pharmacist family Merck. Descendants from Moller's second marriage to Helene Hille (1839) belonged to the inner circle of the later industrial family Merck. Georg Moller died in Darmstadt in 1852 at the age of 68. He is buried in the old cemetery in Darmstadt . His tomb was created by Johann Baptist Scholl .

Fonts

exhibition

  • 2011: Architecture in the Book. Architectural theoretical publications by the grand ducal master builder Georg Moller , Darmstadt University and State Library

Georg Moller Prize

Georg Moller is commemorated by the Georg Moller Prize , an architecture prize awarded annually by the City of Darmstadt , which is awarded for study projects created at the Technical University of Darmstadt that deal with construction and planning tasks in the Darmstadt city area. The prize money amounts to a total of 2600 euros and has been donated by Bauverein AG since 2000 .

Honors

literature

  • Reinhard Wegner:  Moller, Georg. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-428-00198-2 , pp. 742-744 ( digitized version ).
  • Bernd Krimmel: Darmstadt in the time of classicism and romanticism . Hess. State Archives Darmstadt, 1979
  • Eckhart G. Franz : Georg Moller. Hess. State Archives Darmstadt.
  • Article Georg Moller, in: Stadtlexikon Darmstadt, Stuttgart 2006, p. 638f.
  • Werkbundakademie Darmstadt e. V. (Ed.): Georg Moller (1784–1852): Buildings and projects of the grand ducal state master builder in Hessen-Darmstadt. Jovis, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-868593587
  • Wolfgang Lück, Mollersche Landkirchen Working Group; The Mollerschen country churches in Starkenburg and Rheinhessen ; Leaflet of the Evangelical Church in Hesse and Nassau (undated <= 2016).
  • Sascha M. Salzig: From bourgeois representation to event culture. The architecture of Georg Moller's city theater in Mainz undergoes cultural and historical change . Kunstverlag Josef Fink, Lindenberg 2016, ISBN 9783959760119 .

Web links

Commons : Georg Moller  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Helmut Knocke : Andreae, (1) August Heinrich. In: Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein (eds.) U. a .: City Lexicon Hanover . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2009, ISBN 978-3-89993-662-9 , p. 27.
  2. ^ Georg Lasius : Prof. Ernst Gladbach, honorary member of the Swiss Association of Engineers and Architects. (Nekrolog) in: Schweizerische Bauzeitung Vol. 29 (1897) No. 3 S. 15. Online
  3. ↑ Karin Walz: Darmstädter Echo, Friday, June 30, 2017, p. 12
personal data
SURNAME Moller, Georg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German architect
DATE OF BIRTH January 21, 1784
PLACE OF BIRTH Diepholz
DATE OF DEATH March 13, 1852
Place of death Darmstadt