Heinrich Metzendorf

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Heinrich Metzendorf (around 1920)

Franz Heinrich Metzendorf (born October 4, 1866 in Heppenheim , † February 15, 1923 in Bensheim ) was a German stonemason and architect .

Life

Heinrich Metzendorf came from an old stonemason family who came from Schlitz in Upper Hesse and moved to Bergstrasse at the beginning of the 19th century . He was the oldest of five children, the only sister and the youngest brother Jakob died young. After elementary school and high school in Bensheim, Heinrich learned masonry and stonemasonry in his parents' business. After the Sunday drawing school at city architect Klein in Heppenheim and two courses at the Hessian State Baugewerkschule Darmstadt (in the winter semester 1882/83 and 1883/84; predecessor of the University of Darmstadt ), he worked as an assistant and a volunteer in two architectural firms. In the winter semester of 1886/87 he was enrolled as an intern at the Technical University of Darmstadt for one semester . Before he even obtained a degree, he gained experience as a site manager and aspired to become a construction official . On July 18, 1887, he began as a district building overseer-aspirant at the Darmstadt Garrison Building Office . After a year and a half, he asked for a leave of absence, as he moved to the architectural office of Georg Haude (1864-1916) in Elberfeld . There he obviously made a career and soon rose to become a partner in the economically strong office.

Presumably for health reasons, he moved back to Bergstrasse in 1895 and opened his own architecture office in Heppenheim that same year. Shortly afterwards, he moved to neighboring Bensheim. In the environment and with the support of his most important sponsor, the paper manufacturer Wilhelm Euler (1847-1934), he built numerous officials 'houses, villas, factories and workers' houses. A particularly striking example of his architectural style is the villa that he created around the turn of the century for the government councilor Karl Weber (1859–1940) in Darmstadt. In 1901 the Hessian Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig appointed him professor for this purpose. In 1902 he moved into his newly built house at Ernst-Ludwig-Strasse 25 in Bensheim.

In 1904 Heinrich Metzendorf built a factory for the Deutsche Milchwerke AG by Arthur Sauer with a factory in Stockheim in Upper Hesse. This project established the decades of collaboration between Heinrich Metzendorf's office and Deutsche Milchwerke AG.

From 1908 to 1912 he built a number of villas with associated farm buildings for the neurologist Rudolf Laudenheimer (1869–1947) in Alsbach , by which the sanatorium was expanded. The acquaintance with Laudenheimer brought him in contact with important artistic personalities of the time as well as the circle of life reformers . Heinrich Metzendorf built the nursery school for gardeners on the Orbishöhe in Zwingenberg . From 1910 he was the architect for Paul Geheeb's Odenwald School in Ober-Hambach near Heppenheim.

Heinrich Metzendorf's gravestone in the Bensheim cemetery

After 1900, Metzendorf hardly took part in architecture competitions. Instead, he was very often appointed to the jury of such competitions. In 1911, he was a member of the twelve-person, high-ranking jury that had to decide on the redevelopment of the Johannisthal-Adlershof airfield in Berlin .

Metzendorf joined the German Werkbund , founded in 1907, in 1908, but left it in 1919, four years before his death. His last major project was the factory building of the Marx company in Bensheim in 1919/1920.

Heinrich Metzendorf committed suicide on February 15, 1923 in Bensheim. After his death, the office was initially continued by his previous site manager Joseph Winter (until early 1927) and then by Georg Fehleisen (until 1928). Formally it was a branch of the Essen office of his brother Georg Metzendorf and Jacob Peter Schneider. The final dissolution of the office in Bensheim took place in 1940 after the last office manager, Richard Buschning (1909–1941), had received the draft.

Franz took over the parental stonemason business from the two younger brothers Franz and Georg, who both also became architects. Georg Metzendorf worked in Heinrich's office in 1897, became a partner in 1901 and went into business for himself in 1905.

buildings

The life's work of Heinrich Metzendorf manifests itself above all in 130 building projects in Bensheim (which later earned him the name “Master Builder of Bergstrasse”), but also in the draft of the settlement concept and the design of the Dortmund garden city . From 1913 to 1914, in collaboration with his site manager Joseph Winter, he realized 47 villas and house units in the style typical of the Metzendorf brothers.

  • 1892–1893: Row houses in (Wuppertal-) Elberfeld, Roonstraße 41/43 (together with Georg Haude)
  • 1893–1894: Extension to the villa of Friedrich Bayer jun. in (Wuppertal-) Elberfeld , Königstraße 146 (today Friedrich-Ebert-Straße 146; together with Georg Haude)
  • 1890–1893: Villa for Gustav Hueck in (Wuppertal-) Elberfeld, Viktoriastraße 64 (together with Georg Haude; demolished before 1935)
  • 1896: Official residence of the Euler paper mill in Bensheim
  • 1897–1900: Villa for Max and Ria Esser in (Wuppertal-) Elberfeld, Goebenstraße 16 (construction management by Georg Haude; with an Art Nouveau interior by Hans Eduard von Berlepsch-Valendas )
  • 1898: Villa for August Karl Weber , called Haus Haardteck , in Darmstadt, Herdweg 99
  • 1898–1899: Villa Eulennest in Bensheim, Heidelberger Strasse 46
  • 1900: Synagogue in Heppenheim
  • 1902: Villa for Gustav Guntrum in Bensheim
  • 1902: South wing of the Hotel Halber Mond in Heppenheim
  • 1902: Workers' house at the Euler paper mill in Bensheim
  • 1902: Bismarck tower in Bensheim, on the Hemsberg
  • 1903: Rhode house in Darmstadt, Herdweg 101
  • 1904: Extension to "Haus auf der Höhe" in Seeheim-Jugenheim , Helene-Christaller-Weg 13
  • 1904–1905: Branch with workers' houses for the Deutsche Milchwerke Dr. A. Sauer in Stockheim
  • 1905: Hummel house in Darmstadt, Osannstrasse 53
  • 1905: Conversion of the Merck family's Engel pharmacy in Darmstadt
  • before 1906: Landhaus Dr. Wetz in Heppenheim
  • before 1906: Landhaus Höhling in Bensheim
  • before 1906: Landhaus Sr. Brandt in Auerbach
  • before 1906: Landhaus Bahner in Bensheim
  • before 1906: Landhaus A. Müller in Auerbach
  • before 1906: Landhaus E. Heuser in Auerbach (with Georg Metzendorf)
  • before 1906: Landhaus RE Rnodt in Bensheim (with Georg Metzendorf)
  • 1906–1907: "Haus Rheinhorst" in (Krefeld-) Uerdingen
  • 1906–1907: Residential and commercial building of the Wilhelm Mainzer furniture store in Heppenheim
  • 1908: "Villa Rasteck" for Friedrich Voith in Lindau (Lake Constance)
  • 1908: Extension of the Euler paper mill in Bensheim
  • 1908–1912: Schönberger Tal country house colony in Bensheim
  • 1912–1913: Evangelical parish church in Gadernheim
  • 1912–1913: Westend settlement in Worms
  • 1910–1912: Villa for Carl Duisberg in Leverkusen
  • 1910–1921: Odenwald School in Ober-Hambach
  • 1912: "Villa Eulenhorst" in Bensheim
  • after 1918: Heyl's settlements in Worms
  • 1921: Official residence for Max Cassirer in Berlin-Wilmersdorf

  • Heinrich Metzendorf's house, Ernst-Ludwig-Strasse 25 in Bensheim

  • Evang. Parish church in Gadernheim

  • Old Town Hall in Bensheim (1905)

  • Villas at Ernst-Ludwig-Strasse 30 and 32 in Bensheim (photo 1905)

  • Villa Eulenhorst

  • Villa Eulenhorst, back side

Later perception

Like many other architects of so-called traditional modernism, Metzendorf was only hesitant to gain public awareness and research. It was not until the 1970s and 1980s that the architectural heritage began to be considered, but even after that, its buildings were demolished - for example, his 1908 paper mill Euler in Bensheim , which was praised by Walter Gropius at the time and which was closed in 2010.

In 2005 the Bensheim vocational school was named after Heinrich Metzendorf.

In 2013, an exhibition about Heinrich Metzendorf and his contribution to reform architecture on Bergstrasse took place in the Museum Bensheim under the title Habitat Design . At the same time, the first comprehensive monograph was presented, looking at the work that was built and the architect's social networks. (see literature )

Exhibitions

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bernd Philipp Schröder: Georg Fehleisen and the end of the Bergstäßer architectural tradition. In: Geschichtsblätter Kreis Bergstrasse , year 2003, pp. 245–287.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g News from the Bergstrasse . In: Moderne Baufformen, Issue 1/1906 ( digitized version )
  3. ↑ Heinrich Metzendorf on the Heinrich-Metzendorf-Schule website, accessed on December 5, 2018
  4. ^ Eva Bambach: Metzendorf as a designer of living spaces. In: morgenweb.de. October 4, 2013, accessed October 10, 2016 .
  5. ↑ Builder of the Bergstrasse. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of October 14, 2016, page 40.

literature

Web links

Commons : Heinrich Metzendorf  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
  • Heinrich Metzendorf on the Heinrich-Metzendorf-Schule website, accessed on December 5, 2018
  • City of Bensheim (ed.), Manfred Berg, Frank Oppermann: Historical tour of Metzendorf. (Brochure, online as PDF with 1.3 MB) Bensheim 2013.
personal data
SURNAME Metzendorf, Heinrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Metzendorf, Franz Heinrich (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German stonemason and architect
DATE OF BIRTH October 4, 1866
PLACE OF BIRTH Heppenheim
DATE OF DEATH February 15, 1923
Place of death Bensheim