Hubert Göbbels

Anton Hubert Göbbels (born June 28, 1835 in Cologne , † September 9, 1874 in Istanbul ) was a German architect , Prussian state building officer and co-founder of the Deutsche Bauzeitung .

Life

origin

Hubert Göbbels was born as the son of master bricklayer Tilmann Joseph Friedrich Göbbels and his wife Elisabeth Göbbels, née Auler was born in the house at Marzellenstrasse 48 in the immediate vicinity of the Jesuit Church . During the structural densification of Cologne's old town that began a few years later, his father worked in the vicinity of the previous city architect Johann Peter Weyer , who was one of the most active protagonists of this phase.

Career

After attending the municipal high school in Kreuzgasse in Cologne, which he left with the completion of the school year 1852/53 after taking the school- leaving examination , he entered the Berlin building academy in autumn 1855 to study . He had previously passed the compulsory construction eleven year . In Berlin , Göbbels also passed the site manager examination, for which he was awarded a travel grant . Afterwards employed for several years in railway construction in the Rhineland , he finally returned to Berlin to continue his studies. In 1862 he took part in the Schinkel competition of the Berlin Architects' Association with the design of a railway bridge , with which he almost won first prize before he passed the master builder examination in 1863 .

As a master builder (ie as an assessor in the state building administration) he initially found employment as an unskilled worker with the Gumbinnen district government , but also continued to deal with “theoretical studies in the field of engineering”. In 1865 he then returned to Berlin. In the area of ​​the Royal Ministerial Building Commission, he was entrusted with the execution of the front building of the Wilhelms-Gymnasium designed by Adolf Lohse . In the same position he moved in 1867 to the building department of the Royal Prussian Ministry of Commerce, to which he belonged until the beginning of the Franco-German War . During the war, which lasted from July 1870 to May 1871, he led an engineering company as commander , the last place of work was Geestemünde . Shortly after his return in July 1871, Göbbels initially received his appointment as master builder at the Royal District Government of Erfurt , but was already on leave for a year in the following month to take over the management of the new building of a legation hotel for the German Empire in Constantinople .

Constantinople

German Embassy Istanbul (before 1907)

The order for the preliminary planning for an embassy in Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire at that time , was entrusted to Hubert Göbbels by the Reich Chancellery . It was the first such building after the founding of the empire , with which the newly formed German empire was given the opportunity to display its newly gained strength. Göbbels initially spent six months working out a design in Berlin before moving to Constantinople in the spring of 1872. The difficult search for a building site and the resulting repeated design changes ultimately meant that construction could only begin in the summer of 1874. Held in Constantinople by these and other delays, Hubert Göbbels intended to return to Germany in September 1874 for a long-planned visit. But he died on September 9, 1874 of typhus in Constantinople, where he was buried on September 12.

Albert Kortüm was responsible for the completion of the embassy , under whose direction the building, which cost 2.25 million marks , was completed by its intended handover on December 1, 1877. The legation built on the site of a former cemetery on the boulevard of Ajas-Pascha in Pera above the Bosporus was already heavily criticized shortly after its establishment. Both its massive effect, in the middle of what was then still a very small area with low buildings, which is still favored by the hillside location, and the chosen architecture were attacked. The cost of the 300-room building was influenced not least by the laborious transport of building materials from Germany, France, Italy and other countries.

“The accusation that the building is always made because of its closed masses ... is all the more explainable in Constantinople as the German palace is actually the first modern building that was carried out in such a strict style and with the use of brickwork . Compared to Pera's private buildings, the dainty imperial palaces and the airy mosque architecture, one cannot help but get a peculiar impression that the straight lines, the large areas, the simple structures and the gloomy colors of the German embassy building create. The latter, not insignificant moment, was mainly due to a change which was popular with regard to the first project set up by the master builder Göbbels. While he intended to have the facades in brick mosaic, similar to the bank in Berlin, they now show ashlar plaster up to the first floor, while on the two upper floors they show simple brickwork made of brown stones, the color of which gives the building a particularly serious atmosphere. ... If it was the intention of the architects to give the building an appearance commensurate with the power and size of Germany, it has succeeded in any case. "

- German construction newspaper, 1878

German construction newspaper

As a member of the Architects' Association in Berlin , Hubert Göbbels submitted an application in 1866, "whether a permanent connection between the local and those members of the association who have left Berlin could not be established, for example through weekly communications from the association." was ultimately the impetus to found the Deutsche Bauzeitung. In the same year a founding committee was formed, which was composed of Wilhelm Böckmann , Hermann Blankenstein , Johann Eduard Jacobsthal , Felix Sendler , Hubert Stier and Hubert Göbbels. On January 5, 1867, the first edition appeared under the title "Wochenblatt, edited by members of the Architects' Association in Berlin"; from 1868 it was known as the Deutsche Bauzeitung.

plant

Construction year	District	address	image	object	measure	Remarks
1865 ff	Berlin	Bellevuestrasse 15		Wilhelms-Gymnasium	New building	Execution and construction management of the front building based on a design by Adolf Lohse ; from 1935 seat of the People's Court ; 1945 destroyed by the war
1871-1877	Istanbul			Embassy of the German Empire	New building	Monument protection; Completion under the direction of Albert Kortüm

References and comments

1. ^ ^{A b} Landesarchiv Nordrhein-Westfalen, civil status archive Rhineland, civil status register, regional court district Cologne, registry office Cologne, births, 1835 Volume 3, No. 1254.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Deutsche Bauzeitung , Volume 8, 1874, No. 75 (from September 19, 1874), p. 297. (Obituary)
3. ^ Ralf Gier: St. Claren. A fruit estate in the middle of the city. In: Werner Schäfke (Ed.): Am Römerturm. Two millennia of a Cologne district. (= Publications of the Cologne City Museum , Volume 7.) Cologne City Museum, Cologne 2006, ISBN 3-927396-99-0 , p. 186 f. and note 200.
4. ↑ Municipal high school and secondary school in Kreuzgasse in Cologne 1828–1928. Festschrift for the centenary of the institution October 13-15, 1928. Cologne 1928, p. 167, no. 170.
5. ^ Deutsche Bauzeitung , Volume 5, 1871, No. 29 (from July 20, 1871), p. 232.
6. ↑ Deutsche Bauzeitung , Volume 5, 1871, No. 32 (from August 10, 1871), p. 256.
7. ↑ Messages. 50 years of foreign buildings in the Federal Republic of Germany. (Exhibition catalog, Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning Bonn) Wasmuth, Tübingen / Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-8030-0600-7 , pp. 74–77.
8. ↑ ^{a b c} Deutsche Bauzeitung , Volume 12, 1878, No. 10 (from February 2, 1878), p. 41 f.
9. ^ Deutsche Bauzeitung , Volume 11, 1877, No. 103 (from December 26, 1877), p. 514.
10. ↑ Deutsche Bauzeitung , Volume 50, 1916, No. 101 (from December 15, 1916), p. 530.
11. ↑ Deutsche Bauzeitung , Volume 50, 1916, No. 101 (from December 15, 1916), p. 530.
12. ↑ Deutsche Bauzeitung , Volume 50, 1916, No. 101 (from December 15, 1916), p. 532.