Hans and Oskar Gerson

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Hans Gerson (born March 19, 1881 in Magdeburg , † October 14, 1931 in Hamburg ) and Oskar Gerson (born July 11, 1886 in Magdeburg, † December 25, 1966 in Berkeley , California) were two German architects . The two brothers had a joint architecture office in Hamburg, which was also known as Gebr. Gerson . The youngest brother Ernst (born October 10, 1890 in Hamburg; † November 12, 1974 in Palmerston North, New Zealand ) worked temporarily in the office as an architect.

Life

In 1887 the Gerson family moved to Hamburg, where the father Ernst Gerson worked as a coffee and sugar broker and helped the family to earn a good income. The two older brothers Hans and Oskar began studying architecture at the Technical University of Munich , but had not completed them. Hans Gerson worked for the architects Hart & Lesser in Berlin from 1904 to 1907 and then returned to Hamburg. In 1907 Hans and Oskar Gerson founded an architecture office in Altona . By the First World War , they built twenty private and country houses for wealthy Hamburg merchants (e.g. Nicolaus Darboven , Paul Böger , Max Warburg ) and thus gained contacts with the local Hamburg elite. The family relationships through the marriage with the sisters Elisabeth and Martha Rosenfeld resulted in a relationship with the Hamburg Finance Senator Carl Cohn (1857-1931), who was a brother of the mother-in-law of the two. Through Cohn they made friends with the Hamburg mayor Carl Wilhelm Petersen (1868–1933). By building and selling houses for their own account, the brothers acquired a certain wealth that allowed them to act as art patrons . Oskar collected woodcuts by Emil Nolde and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff as well as works by Paul Klee , Franz Marc and Paula Modersohn-Becker . The Hamburg sculptors August Henneberger and Ludwig Kunstmann also belonged to the circle of friends, and they supplied some sculptures for the jewelry of Gerson's buildings.

After an interruption due to the First World War, they reopened their office and in 1920 took their brother Ernst into the office after their return from Russian captivity . They carried out their buildings predominantly with vertically structured clinker facades .

In 1922, the Thaliahof am Alstertor was the first large office building to be built into which they relocated their office after completion.

In the years 1922–1924, the Ballinhaus, which is immediately adjacent and which was renamed Messberghof in 1938, was built at the same time as the Chilehaus . The architecture critic Herman Sörgel described it as a sharp-edged and uncompromising facade , as a counterpoint to Fritz Höger's Chilehaus . Incidentally, Höger had also submitted a design for the Ballinhaus, which was much softer and emphasized the horizontal.

In 1925, the Gersons and Höger began work on another monumental building in the Kontorhaus district , the Sprinkenhof . The facade of the building complex located directly next to the Chilehaus is covered by a diamond-shaped clinker pattern and thus emphasizes the block character.

Werner Hegemann , who regularly praised their buildings in the specialist journals Der Städtebau and in Wasmuth's monthly magazine for architecture , wrote an introduction to the Gersons' work show volume in the publication series Neue Werkkunst in 1929 .

The buildings of the Gersons have been shown in international architecture exhibitions, e.g. B. in New York (1925), London (1928) and Budapest (1930).

In October 1933 Ernst and Oskar Gerson, who had continued the company under the old name after Hans Gerson's death, were excluded from the Association of German Architects because of their Jewish origins . Ernst first emigrated to Bulgaria and later to New Zealand . Oskar initially stayed in Hamburg and was able to carry out a few projects for Jewish clients. In 1938 he emigrated via London to Berkeley (California, USA), where he mainly worked as an architect for private clients.

buildings

  • 1908: Landhaus S. Bondy, Hamburg- Othmarschen , Jungmannstrasse 3
  • 1910: Landhaus Kröncke, Wohltorf
  • 1910: Heilbuth House, Hamburg- Rotherbaum , Feldbrunnenstraße 70 (today: Faculty of Education / Sport at the University of Hamburg)
  • 1911: Schnackenberg house, Hamburg-Othmarschen, Reventlowstrasse 6
  • 1911: Köbke house, Hamburg-Uhlenhorst , Feenteich 12
  • 1912: Landhaus Wesselhoeft, Hamburg- Groß Flottbek , Quellental 65
  • 1912: Villa Grüneck (later Falkenstein seaman's school)
  • 1913–1914: Zadik House, Hamburg-Othmarschen, Jungmannstrasse 1
  • 1914–1915: House for the John-Fontenay-Fideikommiß, Hamburg-Rotherbaum, Alsterufer 36
  • 1921–1922: Thaliahof office building, Hamburg-Altstadt, Alstertor 1 (conversion and partial demolition in 1975)
  • 1922: Landhaus Brüder Gerson, Groß Flottbek, Papenkamp 41–43 (only the garage house, Papenkamp 41, is preserved)
  • 1922–1924: Ballinhaus office building (today Meßberghof), Hamburg-Altstadt, Meßberg 1
  • 1923: Apartment block Haynstrasse 2-4, Sudeckstrasse 2 Hamburg-Eppendorf
  • 1924–1925: Dr. Walter Magnus, Hamburg-Rotherbaum, Mollerstraße 20 (hidden, flat, single-storey brick building with a small copper-covered dome)
  • 1924–1925: Expansion of the MM Warburg & Co. bank , Hamburg-Altstadt, Ferdinandstrasse 69–75
  • 1926: Kellinghusenpark residential complex, Hamburg-Eppendorf, Gustav-Leo-Straße (with Ernst Gerson)
  • 1926: Hanseatenhalle north of the city park (with Fritz Höger , not executed)
  • before 1927: Dr. Nottebohm, Hamburg
  • 1927: Small apartments in Hamburg-Dulsberg (partially destroyed)
  • 1927: Landhaus Warburg
  • 1927: Nordquist house
  • 1927–1928: Sprinkenhof office building, 1st construction phase (with Fritz Höger), Hamburg-Altstadt, Burchardstrasse 6–14
  • 1929: Apartment block Otto-Speckter-Straße, Hamburg-Barmbek-Nord
  • 1929: Competition at the Großmarkthalle am Deichtor (with Fritz Höger, not carried out)

For a long time the Gerson brothers were the only industrial building that was mistakenly assigned the power station of the Kant AG chocolate factory (since 1954: Wikana biscuit factory) in Wittenberg , which was built in 1912 ; It was only in 2014 that old documents revealed that this building was planned and executed by the Berlin architects Wittling & Güldner .

  • Thaliahof at the Alstertor

  • Messberghof, former Ballinhaus

  • Sprinkenhof, building over the Springeltwiete

  • Villa Heilbuth

literature

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Gerson Brothers. In: Hamburg Architecture Archive. Retrieved July 19, 2020 .
  2. ↑ a b Hugo Koch: The garden path to its design. Ernst Wasmuth, Berlin 1927.
  3. ^ Mathias Tietke: Hans and Oskar Gerson. Traces of the builder. In: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung , Wittenberg edition, January 26, 2015 ( online , accessed October 16, 2018)