Hermann Haas

Hermann Haas (born April 2, 1878 in Gießen , † October 15, 1935 in Aachen ) was a German ceramist , painter and architect .

Live and act

After graduating from school, Haas studied architecture and art at the Academy of Arts in Berlin from 1895 to 1897 and at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe from 1897 to 1901 . He was then taken on as an employee with a focus on the design of tile pictures, landscape paintings and designs for utensils in the master studio of the painter and graphic artist Hans Thoma and also in the majolica factory in Karlsruhe. In 1904 he followed a call to the ceramic school in Landshut , where he was given the management, which he held until 1907.

In the meantime, the management of the family company Villeroy & Boch Keramische Werke had become aware of Haas and so before 1910 the general director Roger von Boch-Galhau recruited him as an artistic employee and consultant for the areas of shapes and decors for the factory locations of the Mettlach earthenware factory , the Wallerfangen ceramic factory and Wadgassen crystal factory . Haas won a gold medal at his first major exhibition in 1911, where he and the Berlin architect Richter were responsible for the pavilion at the “Expo Internazionale” in Turin . In addition to numerous catalog entries in the following years, Hass was finally represented in 1914 for his employer again together with Richter with a successful exhibition both at the Cologne Werkbund exhibition and at the “Baltic Exhibition” in Malmö . Disagreements with the new director of Mettlach, Carl Mattfeld, among other things due to different artistic ideas as well as declining sales figures due to the war, led Hermann Hass to resign at short notice in the course of 1914.

After this resignation and a career break due to the war, it was initially quiet about Haas. After the First World War , Haas shifted his work focus back to the Munich area, where he was appointed as a lecturer at the Technical University of Munich in 1925 . Finally, in 1929, Hass moved to RWTH Aachen University , where he was taken on as professor for furniture drawing and interior design . He took over the professorship of the retired August von Brandis . Here, Haas primarily advocated that its students should be offered practical exercises in the various craft businesses, similar to internships in the technical faculties. But despite the support of his incumbent rector Otto Gruber , both his early death in 1935 and other views of the Reich Ministry for Science, Education and National Education , which wanted to suppress artistic freedom and enforce a centralized National Socialist architecture education , prevented the implementation of this idea.

Hermann Haas was a member of the German Werkbund and the Association of German Architects .

plant

• Wallenfanger earthenware, volume 2, catalog and exhibits by Beatrix Adler: [1]

Literature and Sources

• Kürschner's German Scholar's Calendar , 1931 edition, column 980.
• Beatrix Adler: Wallenfanger stoneware ; Volume 1: History and products of the Villeroy / Vaudrevange manufactory (1791–1836) and the Villeroy & Boch stoneware factory, Wallerfangen (1836–1931) , p. 73 ff., Die Mitte publishing house, Saarbrücken, 1994; ISBN 3-921236-72-X
• Beatrix Adler: Wallenfanger stoneware ; Volume 2: Catalog , exhibits (Haas): Pages: 172, 194, 233, 236, Verlag Die Mitte, Saarbrücken, 1994; Volume 2: ISBN 3-921236-73-8
• Ulrich Kalkmann: The Technical University of Aachen in the Third Reich (1933–1945) . Verlag Mainz, Aachen 2003, ISBN 3-86130-181-4 , ( Aachener Studies on Technology and Society 4), (At the same time: Aachen, Techn. Hochsch., Diss., 2003), p. 368 ff. And others (s . Search index), google online .