Hubert Matthes (landscape architect)

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Hubert Matthes (born March 22, 1929 in Söllichau ; † December 21, 2018 in Berlin ) was a German landscape architect .

Life

Hubert Matthes was born the son of a worker . In his hometown he first attended elementary school, but was drafted into the Volkssturm at the age of 16 . There he deserted .

After the end of the war, Matthes did an apprenticeship as a gardener in Bad Düben , then (1948/1949) he studied horticultural technology at the technical college for horticulture in Dresden - Pillnitz , which later became part of the college for technology and economics . Between 1950 and 1953 he worked for Reinhold Lingner , first in the main office for green planning at the Magistrate of Greater Berlin , then at the German Building Academy in Berlin. Based on a design by Lingner, he planned the park at the official residence of the President of the GDR , at Schönhausen Palace . Since 1954, Matthes has been a member of the Buchenwald collective together with Ludwig Deiters , Hans Grotewohl , Horst Kutzat , Kurt Tausendschön and Hugo Namslauer , which designed the layout of the three most important memorials in the GDR in Buchenwald , Ravensbrück and Sachsenhausen in the second half of the 1950s . From 1955 to 1957, Matthes worked in North Korea as part of the reconstruction planning there. From 1960 to 1962 he was a research assistant at the Deutsche Bauakademie, from 1962 to 1977 head of the open space design department in the VEB Berlin project (later VEB BMK Ingenieurhochbau Berlin), where he was involved in numerous other projects .

From 1977 to 1980, Matthes headed the open space design department in the urban development office of the East Berlin City Council . From 1965 to 1970, Matthes completed a distance learning course to become a certified gardener at the Humboldt University in Berlin , and in 1978 he was appointed professor at the University of Architecture and Building (HAB) in Weimar .

After German reunification , Matthes kept the professorship in Weimar and taught there until his retirement in 1992. He then worked as an honorary lecturer at the same institution and as a freelance garden planner until 1995. For his competition design for the design of the Federal Horticultural Show in Magdeburg in 1993 he received a 3rd prize.

Thanks to many open space projects carried out, especially in Berlin, and competition successes as well as as a university teacher, Matthes was one of the most important landscape architects in the GDR. His written estate is in the scientific collections of the Leibniz Institute for Spatial Social Research (IRS) in Erkner .

Matthes finally retired from professional life in 1998 and most recently lived in Berlin-Biesdorf . His grave is in the local cemetery .

Other works (selection)

Awards

literature

  • Peter Fibich: Hubert Matthes. In: Holger Barth, Thomas Topfstedt u. a. (Ed.): From building artist to complex designer. Architects in the GDR. Documentation of an IRS collection of biographical data (= document series of the IRS , No. 3), Erkner 2000, pp. 154f., ISBN 3-934669-00-X .
  • Short biography for:  Matthes, Hubert . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
  • Christoph Bernhardt (Ed.): The Scientific Collections of the Leibniz Institute for Regional Development and Structural Planning (IRS) on the building and planning history of the GDR (= sources, finding aids and inventories of the Brandenburg State Main Archive , Vol. 25), Frankfurt / M. 2012, pp. 52f., ISBN 978-3-631-62325-1

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Obituary notice in: Berliner Zeitung , 2./3. February 2019, p. 14
  2. ↑ a b c From the biography of the Federal Foundation for Processing (see web link ).
  3. ↑ New center? New desert! In: Der Tagesspiegel , May 5, 2013
personal data
SURNAME Matthes, Hubert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German landscape architect
DATE OF BIRTH March 22, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Söllichau
DATE OF DEATH December 21, 2018
Place of death Berlin