Gerhard Mensch (civil engineer)

Gerhard Mensch (born September 1, 1880 in Schötmar ; † August 5, 1940 ) was a German civil engineer who worked with renowned Berlin architects in the 1920s and 1930s. His steel skeleton constructions of interesting buildings and other special technical measures made it possible to erect some of the now listed commercial buildings in the Berlin area on a less portable subsoil or by taking advantage of the building height. In addition to the architects and construction companies involved, a good civil engineer is at least as important for the building and is rarely mentioned.

Life

Gerhard Mensch attended secondary school in Bad Salzuflen , then studied architecture and civil engineering at the Technical University of Charlottenburg . He then got a job in the engineering office of the building councilor and designer Karl Bernhard , interrupted by military service in the First World War . For a few years, Mensch also worked part-time as an assistant for statics and engineering designs at Paul Müller in Breslau and Siegmund Müller in Berlin. In 1921 Gerhard Mensch founded his own office in Berlin (Charlottenburg, Knobelsdorffstraße 95). He became a partner of well-known architects such as Emil Fahrenkamp , Heinrich Wolff , Ernst Ziesel and Jean Krämer . For a time there was a partnership with the engineer Georg Padler . Man's creed was to strive for bold and modern building constructions. In a publication from 2003, Mensch is also referred to as one of the great Berlin structural engineers of the interwar period.

Gravestone of Gerhard Mensch on the cemetery Heerstraße (with bomb fragments )

He was married to Else Sawade and had a son, Karl Mensch (* 1907).

Gerhard Mensch died four weeks before his 60th birthday on August 5, 1940. His grave is in the Heerstrasse cemetery in Berlin-Westend (fields 14–15).

Buildings in which Gerhard Mensch played a key role

On behalf of the Berliner Straßenbahn-Betriebs-GmbH , Gerhard Mensch created the first supporting structures from 1923 together with the architect Jean Krämer for the new construction of the tram depots in the districts of Wedding ( depot Müllerstraße ), Charlottenburg ( depot Charlottenburg ) and Britz ( depot Britz ) and in the reconstruction of the tram station in Wilmersdorf ( Halensee depot ). He also calculated the static proof of the traffic tower at Potsdamer Platz .

The company AEG had founded in 1900 subsidiaries, for the land in today's Treptow-Koepenick , district Oberschöneweide was acquired. This is how the Oberspree cable works (KWO) came into being with a number of factories made of yellow bricks based on designs by Peter Behrens . The extensions that were necessary in the 1920s were planned by various architects. Ernst Ziesel , who had been working closely with the engineer Gerhard Mensch since 1924 on the structural engineering tasks, was able to create two new aisles for the copper rolling mill, a building for a generator gas system (1927), a telecommunications cable factory (1928) and the Oberspree transformer works ( TRO) realize a large transformer hall (1928/1929) in the style of “radical functionalism ”. Gerhard Mensch was responsible for the load-bearing function of the buildings and, with steel frame constructions for the production buildings, provided spacious, light-flooded storey halls with only a few central supports. The new buildings of the cable factory fulfilled their function for decades, the East Berlin building supervision placed them under monument protection in 1977 . After the end of the GDR and with it the end of cable production in Oberschöneweide, the factory premises fell to the Berliner Landesentwicklungsgesellschaft (BLEG) in 1993 , which was looking for a new investor and user. A contract with the Berlin Senate for the preservation of the building (1996) led to renovation work worth one million euros (removal of arsenic-containing industrial slag, installation of sheet piling in the groundwater area). In 2003, planning work began on a campus for the facilities of the FHTW on the KWO site. An appraisal showed that the renovation of the old cable factory, the centerpiece of all buildings, should cost more than 20 million euros and thus greatly exceeded the investment volume provided. Despite a broad protest movement from students, HTW Berlin and members of the Berlin Chamber of Architects, the large buildings were demolished in 2006. The work of Ziesel and human is lost. The large transformer hall on a nearby area was preserved and is now the core of the Rathenau Technology and Culture Center (Rathenauhallen).

In 1928/1929 Ernst Ziesel and Gerhard Mensch designed a new factory building for the AEG subsidiary Hydrawerk in the Gesundbrunnen district (Drontheimer Strasse 30A – B, 34–34A, 36, 38).

Shell House , 2005

View of part of the main hall of the former Reichsbank after complete renovation

The  administration building of the former Rhenania-Ossag Mineralölwerke (later part of Shell AG ) is located on the Landwehr Canal in Berlin's Mitte district, Tiergarten ( Reichpietschufer 60 / Stauffenbergstrasse ). The Düsseldorf architect Emil Fahrenkamp designed the stepped high-rise building with a staggered facade in 1929. Gerhard Mensch was responsible for the constructive engineering work and used modern building technologies to ensure high stability and a vibration-free stand. The building complex is based on a reinforced concrete tub that is about nine meters below street level . The side walls of the tub are separated from the components above by a two centimeter wide air slot and thus absorb the vibrations in the building caused by traffic. A steel skeleton ensures the necessary rigidity of the entire building, which has two basement floors, three large staircases, elevators and flat roofs on a trapezoidal floor plan with an inner courtyard. The Shell house , which was extensively restored between 1998 and 2000, is the headquarters of the administration of the energy supply company GASAG .

Together with the architect and Reichsbank building director Heinrich Wolff worked Gerhard man with his partner George Padler 1933 the construction documents for an extension of the Reichsbank in Berlin's Mitte district , local situation Friedrichswerder ( Werderscher market with hunters, Oberwall-, spa and underwater road). Although there had been an architectural competition, Heinrich Wolff's preliminary designs were given preference after Adolf Hitler had personally influenced them . For the construction work, a working group Reichsbank-Extension was founded, which had previously arranged for the demolition of old Berlin buildings such as the Weydingerhaus or Raules Hof and the relocation of streets. The planned renovations took place in the period 1934 to 1940. The extensive building complex with several inner courtyards is clad inside and outside with natural stone material ( granite , porphyry or marble ). The structure is based, in turn, on a steel skeleton designed and calculated by Gerhard Mensch, which enabled a column-free main hall suspended above the lower rooms. The monumental ensemble of buildings withstood all times, all changes in use and the associated structural changes. The capital city resolution 1996-2000 led to the renovation for the Federal Foreign Office , which was assigned to the architect Hans Kollhoff . Kollhoff was able to preserve remnants of the original interior and thus the construction of Gerhard Mensch from the 1930s and the GDR changes of the 1960s such as vaults, entrance areas, hall of honor, connecting bridges, stairwells, paternoster , plenary hall, foyer, cloakrooms and conference room.

Other buildings in which Gerhard Mensch played an important role are:

In Berlin

• A machine glass factory for the Osram company in Berlin-Siemensstadt
• 1922 Machine and boiler houses for the Southwest Berlin power station , a predecessor of Bewag . Various buildings in this factory were later used as a light laboratory for Berlin's street lighting. The buildings that have been preserved have been owned by the Jewish Community of Berlin since 2004 and have been reconstructed and rebuilt according to plans by architect Sergei Tchoban . In 2007 the “Jewish Family and Culture Center and Synagogue Münstersche Strasse, Berlin” opened here.
• 1928–1930 together with Hans Hertlein the eleven-story administration building of the Wernerwerk in Berlin-Siemensstadt

In other German cities

• A 12-storey editorial building for the Magdeburger General-Anzeiger in Magdeburg

Abroad

• A bridge over the Drina in what was then Serbia .

Literature / publications

• Ines Tetzlaff: Gerhard Mensch - civil engineer between modernism and National Socialism . Master's thesis 2002
• Werner Lorenz, Torsten Meyer (ed.): Technology and responsibility in National Socialism . In: Cottbus studies on the history of technology, work and the environment , issue 25; with a section Gerhard Mensch - civil engineer between modernism and National Socialism . Waxmann-Verlag, ISBN 978-3-8309-1407-5
• Gerhard Mensch: The bracing of steel frame high-rise buildings . In: Der Stahlbau , 4, 1931, pp. 43–48;
• Gerhard Mensch: The construction of the Rhenania-Ossag administration building . In: Zentralblatt der Bauverwaltung , 52, 1932, pp. 548–552 ;.
• Heinrich Wolff, Gerhard Mensch, Georg Padler: Berlin steel high-rise buildings 1936 . P. 32ff.
• Heinrich Wolff, Gerhard Mensch, Georg Padler: The extension of the Reichshauptbank . In: Bauwelt , 28, 1937, 34, pp. 771–776
• Heinrich Wolff, Gerhard Mensch, Georg Padler: The extension of the Reichshauptbank . In: Wasmuthsmonthshefte für Baukunst , 21, 1937, pp. 289–290.
• Gerhard Mensch: To calculate the changes in shape of full-walled structures with a variable cross-section . In: Der Bauingenieur, 20, 1955, H / 45/46
• Günter Worch : Gerhard Mensch zum Gedächtnis , Bautechnik, Volume 18, 1940, p. 491
• Ines Prokop: Steel construction, supporting structures and their protagonists in Berlin 1850-1925 , Mensch und Buch Verlag 2012

Web links

Commons : Gerhard Mensch (civil engineer)  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Seidel, Dame: 1920 - supply buildings for Greater Berlin . (PDF; 3.20 MB)
• Ines Prokop: From iron construction to steel construction: Richard Cramer - Otto Leitholf - Gerhard Mensch , lectures at the German Museum of Technology March 2018, momentum magazine (with photo)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Biographical information from the “Reichs Handbuch der Deutschen Gesellschaft”, 1930. Copy sheet under No. PD 2342 in the “German Museum of Technology” in Berlin.
2. ↑ Werner Lorenz, Torsten Meyer (ed.): Technology and responsibility in National Socialism . In: Cottbus studies on the history of technology, work and the environment , issue 25. Waxmann-Verlag, ISBN 978-3-8309-1407-5 , p. 13
3. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende : Lexicon of Berlin burial places . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 . P. 491.
4. ↑ ... residential complexes and former tram depot; Queen Elisabeth Street
5. ↑ Inspection of files in the Berlin State Archives , File B Rep. 202/5154, Sheet 10 and Sheet 15
6. ↑ Information about the student protest movement. ( Memento of the original from July 1, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved March 21, 2009 
7. ↑ krg.htw-berlin.de ( Memento of the original from September 20, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
8. ↑ Thomas Steigenberger: The monument as an opponent of itself, a prime example of a failed monument policy: demolition of the telecommunication cable factory in Berlin-Oberschöneweide has been a reality in Berlin since the end of 2006. Despite vehement protests, one of the most important industrial monuments of the 1920s was demolished: the telecommunications cable factory in Oberschöneweide, built by Ernst Ziesel in 1927/1928 . In: Deutsche Bauzeitung , February 12, 2007
9. ^ Nikolaus Bernau: Under time pressure. Nobody wants the Ziesel house in Oberschöneweide to be demolished, and yet it should fall . In: Berliner Zeitung , February 10, 2006
10. ↑ Monument Preservation Day 2000. (PDF; 1.7 MB) Senate Department for Urban Development
11. ↑ AEG-Hydrawerk,… factory building, 1928–1929 by Ernst Ziesel and Gerhard Mensch
12. ↑ Shellhaus in Berlin-Tiergarten
13. ↑ The architectural and art monuments of the GDR, Berlin I , Institute for Monument Preservation at Henschelverlag, Berlin 1984, p. 137
14. ↑ Extension of the Reichsbank on Werderschen Markt
15. ↑ Hagalil. Retrieved March 25, 2009
16. ^ Originated from her dissertation in Berlin: Iron Structures in Berlin. 1850-1925. Influence of material on structures, 2011 . Update of the study of steel construction in Berlin and Potsdam by Werner Lorenz until 1850.