Hans Wittwer

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Heinrich Koch : Hans Wittwer
Restaurant at Halle / Leipzig Airport (1929–1931)

Hans Wittwer (born February 4, 1894 in Basel ; † March 19, 1952 there ) was a Swiss architect who worked in Switzerland and from 1927 to 1934 in Germany.

Life

After graduating from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich , Wittwer first worked with Karl Moser , then completed an apprenticeship as a bricklayer in order to get closer to his ideal as a “building craftsman” (cf. Friedhof am Hörnli , Basel 1922). As an architect, Wittwer was committed to New Building and attached great importance to the sensual and artistic aspects of modern architecture.

In 1926/27 Wittwer - together with Hannes Meyer - ran a studio in Basel . In 1927 Wittwer was engaged by Walter Gropius at the Bauhaus Dessau to take a course in technical installation and design. In 1928, under the new direction of the Bauhaus from Hannes Meyer, the Bauhaus u. a. shaped by the order of the Federal School of the ADGB in Bernau . Wittwer headed the construction department from 1928 to 1929.

In 1929, Wittwer took over the architecture and interior design class at the Burg Giebichenstein State School of Applied Arts in Halle (Saale) .

At the same time he worked as an architect for Flughafengesellschaft Halle / Leipzig mbH . From 1929 to 1931 he realized the airport restaurant at Halle / Leipzig Airport, which opened in 1927 in Schkeuditz . The building, which opened in May 1931 on an artificially created hill directly at the airfield, is considered to be Wittwer's main work. The functional building, which was destroyed in the Second World War , consisted of a cubic guest room, glazed on all sides, and a terrace with outside stairs extending beyond the front of the building. The new reception and administration building for the airport, also planned by Wittwer, a reinforced concrete structure completely glazed on the air side , could no longer be built in 1931 due to a lack of funds. The takeover of power by the National Socialists prevented the implementation of further designs, as a result of which Wittwer was dismissed from his teaching post at Giebichenstein Castle in 1933. He worked as a freelance architect in Halle until 1934 and then returned to Basel.

His estate is in the gta archive of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.

Works

  • 1925: Geneva-Cornavin train station competition 1925
  • 1925/26: Competition office building in Basel
  • 1926: Petersschule Basel competition (together with Hannes Meyer; complete revision in 1927 for publication, for the first time in bauhaus 2/1927, p. 5)
  • 1926/27: "League of Nations" competition in Geneva (together with Hannes Meyer)
  • 1928–1929: Federal School of the ADGB and teachers' houses in Bernau (together with Hannes Meyer and the building department of the Bauhaus Dessau)
  • 1929–1931: Airport restaurant and design of a reception building at Halle / Leipzig Airport
  • 1930: WOBA terraced house, Basel (homage to the Schaeffer house in Riehen by Hans Schmidt)
  • 1930: Interior construction of the meeting room of the Merseburg regional directorate with workshops in Giebichenstein Castle
  • 1930: Semi-detached house in Halle
  • 1931: Competition Restaurant Zoologischer Garten, Basel

Honor

A street near Leipzig / Halle Airport in Schkeuditz bears his name in honor and in memory of Hans Wittwer .

literature

  • Emil Roth, Hans Schmid (ed.): ABC contributions to building. 5/1925 and 6/1925
  • Hans-Jakob Wittwer (Ed.): Hans Wittwer 1894–1952. gta Verlag, Zurich 1988, ISBN 3-85676-026-1
  • Jonas Geist, Dieter Rausch: The Federal School of the ADGB in Bernau near Berlin 1930-1993. Hannes Meyer and Hans Wittwer - an approximation. Potsdamer Verlagbuchhandlung , Potsdam 1993, ISBN 3-910196-12-8
  • Isabelle Rucki, Dorothee Huber (Hrsg.): Architects Lexicon of Switzerland 19./20. Century. Birkhäuser, Basel, Boston, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-7643-5261-2

Web links

Commons : Hans Wittwer  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. https://www.postostalen.de/suche/schkeuditz-hans-wittwer-str , accessed on April 19, 2020