Heinrich Alfred Kaiser

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Self-portrait 1937

Heinrich Alfred Kaiser (born June 12, 1883 in Remscheid , † June 25, 1946 in Dresden ) was a German architect and painter .

Life

Heinrich Kaiser moved with the family to Wiesbaden in 1886, where his father, senior lecturer in mathematics, Dr. Ludwig Kaiser, director of the secondary school in Oranienstrasse. From there they moved to Kassel in 1901, because the father became a secret government and provincial school councilor of Hesse. Heinrich Kaiser studied architecture in Munich and Hanover and took his exams there. After working for a few years as a government architect, he moved to Berlin in 1910 and turned to painting as a pupil and later collaborator of Bruno Paul . At times he was also an employee of Prof. Hans Sautter (1877–1961), who was appointed director of the Kunstgewerbeschule in Kassel in 1931 .

During the First World War Heinrich Kaiser was a war draftsman in the West; Drawings of destroyed buildings in France were printed in magazines, e.g. B. in Berliner Illustrirten Zeitung No. 22, 1915, p. 293.

In the 1920s he became very well known in Berlin. In 1922, for example, he received first prize for a “Tiergartenstrasse” design that “ preserved the old West Schinkel tradition”, as Fritz Stahl wrote in the Berliner Tageblatt . In 1916 he had already received a first prize for the design of the Rathausplatz in Spandau (plate 31 of the double booklet “ Der Städtebau ”; see literature). For the city of Potsdam , he developed the development plans for the Neue Luisenstrasse settlement and later - apparently together with Karl Wagenknecht - built the Stadtheide settlement on Zeppelinstrasse (B1), opposite the building of the Bundeswehr Military History Research Office .

Heinrich Kaiser also excelled as a dancer: in 1914, he received a gold pocket watch as an honorary award at a dance tournament in Berlin's Admiralspalast . As a teacher of the Argentine tango he became so well known that the elector's son took lessons from him. In 1926 he danced with Josephine Baker on the occasion of a performance in Berlin .

Heinrich Kaiser achieved his first major successes as a portrait and landscape painter in Berlin in the 1930s. In high society circles he was highly valued as a portraitist by the aristocracy and the military; one of his pictures (“The girl with the red cap”) made it onto the cover of the magazine “Die Dame” (year 67, issue 3, January 1940), which was even distributed in the USA. In addition to family portraits, there are the portraits of Colonel General Ludwig Beck , who is said to still be in the family's possession, Privy Councilor Dr. Fresenius, Wiesbaden, the piano virtuoso Wilhelm Kempff , the singer Carla Henius and dancer Deborah Kay.

He received building contracts until the 1940s from the mayor at the time, SA General Friedrichs. He valued his classical style, which was sensitively based on the tradition of Potsdam before the First World War. The settlements, whose architectural style is called Neo-Baroque, are under monument protection.

On 18./19. November 1943, the large studio at Kurfürstenstrasse 99 in Berlin, opposite the elephant gate of the zoological garden , was completely destroyed in a bomb attack . Most valuable paintings, frames and furniture were destroyed. Numerous conspiratorial meetings between civil resistance ( Carl Goerdeler ) and representatives of the military resistance ( July 20, 1944 ) took place in this studio . All three brothers, Captain d. Res. Hermann Kaiser , senior military d.Res. Ludwig Kaiser and Heinrich Kaiser were arrested on July 21, 1944 in Kassel, where they were staying on July 19 for the baptism of Heinrich Kaiser’s only son, Peter Michael. Hermann Kaiser was executed on January 23, 1945 in Berlin-Plötzensee . After his release from prison in Wehlheiden in Kassel, Heinrich Kaiser moved back to Dresden with his family, where they were attacked on February 13, 1945 and again completely bombed out. Heinrich Kaiser died on June 25, 1946 as a result of his imprisonment. He was buried in the Weißer Hirsch forest cemetery in Dresden. His grave has not been preserved.

plant

Residential buildings (selection)

  • Villa RA Ludwig Kaiser, Kassel, Kurhausstr. 50 (1920s)
  • Two more houses in Kassel
  • Apartment building or settlement in Berlin-Köpenick
  • Stadtheide settlement, Potsdam (1919–23, Heinrich Kaiser and Willy Wagenknecht)
  • Neue Luisenstrasse housing estate, Potsdam
  • Harlinger Strasse settlement, Berlin-Wilmersdorf (1928, Heinrich Kaiser & Willy (Paul?) Wagenknecht)

Commercial buildings

  • 1924 - House on Kemperplatz, Berlin

Competitions

  • 1924 - Ideas competition for the development of the Prinz Albrecht Gardens in Berlin (purchase)

Exhibitions

Heinrich Kaiser had exhibitions in Berlin, Munich and Paris.

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Kaiser, Heinrich Alfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German architect and painter
DATE OF BIRTH June 12, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Remscheid
DATE OF DEATH June 25, 1946
Place of death Dresden