Hugo light

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Hugo Licht on a photograph by Hermann Walter (around 1900)

Hugo Licht (born February 21, 1841 in Niederzedlitz (today Siedlnica) near Fraustadt ; † February 28, 1923 in Leipzig ; full name: Hugo Georg Licht ) was a German architect and municipal building officer .

Life

Portrait medallion by Hugo Licht in the Leipzig City Hall fountain
Hugo Licht tomb

Licht was the son of the landowner Georg Hugo Licht. He attended secondary school and then began an apprenticeship as a bricklayer. Between 1862 and 1863, Licht learned from Hermann Ende and Wilhelm Böckmann in the renowned Berlin architecture firm . At that time, these shaped the architecture of late classicism in Berlin, especially in the case of villas and other private magnificent buildings .

In 1864, Licht enrolled at the Berlin Building Academy , where he became a student of Friedrich Adler . With his recommendation, Licht was later able to move to the studio of the architect Richard Lucae in Berlin. Adler had often based himself on the work of Karl Friedrich Schinkel , Lucae favored more the formal language of the Italian Renaissance . Licht later moved from Berlin to Vienna and worked there for the architect Heinrich von Ferstel .

From 1869 until the end of 1870, Licht traveled to Italy . This study trip took him all over the country, but the focus was on Rome and Pompeii . When he returned to Germany, he married Clara Heckmann (1847–1913), the granddaughter of the entrepreneur Carl Justus Heckmann, who came from a respected industrial family in Berlin that same year . In the spring of the following year he settled in Berlin as a freelance architect and worked as such until 1879. During his time in Berlin, Licht undertook several study trips to Paris and London , where he also exchanged ideas with other architects.

At the suggestion of Lord Mayor Otto Georgi , Licht was entrusted with the management of the building construction office of the city of Leipzig on April 4, 1879 without a tender and he was awarded the title of city ​​planning director . In 1879 the building authority was reorganized. Subsequently, with the support of numerous employees, Licht took over the planning of almost all important new municipal buildings. Licht managed to shape the appearance of the city of Leipzig by taking up typical style elements in all of its buildings. Light often uses composite stones and emphasized elements of the architecture with visible sandstone . Light preferred distinctive tower solutions such as the police station on Wächterstrasse or the market hall he built. For individual buildings, such as the Predigerhaus at the Nikolaikirche, Licht resorted to a simplified Renaissance style that fitted the buildings into the historical environment.

In 1896 he was elected to the city council.

After winning the first prize in the competition for the new building of the Leipzig City Hall in 1897, he was given leave of absence between 1898 and 1905 as a city planner and, as a private architect, was entrusted with the construction management of the New City Hall . He held the position of town planning officer until his retirement in 1906.

From 1901, Licht acted as editor of the magazine Die Architektur des XX. Century and from 1905 he also published the magazine Der Profanbau .

At the age of 82 he died in Leipzig and was buried in the Südfriedhof . (Grave site: V. Rab. 240–243)

Honors

buildings

In Leipzig

Mourning hall at Neuer Johannisfriedhof
Johanniskirche after Lichts renovation
Old Grassi Museum
new town hall
"Round corner"
  • 1881–1884: Chapel and mortuary of the New Johannisfriedhof , in front of the hospital gates (destroyed in the war)
  • 1883–1884: 8th district school, Scharnhorststraße 13/15 (later polytechnic high school, 1995–2000 high school "Immanuel-Kant-Schule" and elementary school "Hugo-Licht-Schule", since 2001 only high school)
  • 1883–1886: Reconstruction and expansion of the Municipal Museum , Augustusplatz 6 (after severe war damage, the ruins were demolished in 1962, today's location of the "New Gewandhaus")
  • 1885–1887: Royal Saxon Conservatory of Music , Grassistraße 8 (partially preserved)
  • 1886–1887: “Predigerhaus” of the Nikolaikirche , Nikolaikirchhof 3/4
  • 1886–1888: Municipal slaughterhouse , Kantstrasse 71/73
The facility was later expanded several times, some of the structures that have been preserved today belong to the headquarters of the Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR), which was otherwise built on the slaughterhouse area after 1995 .
From 1950 the building housed the district administration of the Ministry for State Security ("Stasi") of the GDR , which is why it went down in history in 1989/1990 as the "round corner" .
  • 1912/1913: Matthäistift, Kommandant-Prendel-Allee 85
  • 1913–1915: Zeppelin bridge on Jahnallee across the Elster basin
  • 1918: Löwenbrunnen , Naschmarkt (based on the wooden predecessor and re-using the cast iron lions, which are around 100 years older, based on a design by Schadow )
  • 1919: Tomb for Lord Mayor Otto Georgi in the Südfriedhof (last work by Hugo Licht)

In addition, from 1879 he designed the layout of the Leipzig South Cemetery together with the gardening director Otto Wittenberg (1834–1918) .

In other places

Bonn, Villa Heckmann

Fonts

  • Travel album. Prague, Vicensea, Venice, Salzburg, Vienna. Composed by Hugo Licht. Burchard, Berlin 1864. (39 sheets)
  • Architecture of Berlin. Collection of excellent construction works from the last few years. Wasmuth, Berlin 1882.

In addition, Hugo Licht was co-editor of the following specialist magazines:

  • The architecture of the XX. Century (published from 1901 to 1914)
  • The secular building (published from 1905 to 1922)

literature

Press release
  • Andreas Tappert: Ingenious politicians, resourceful inventors - business journalist Helge-Heinz Heinker caused a sensation with an in-depth lecture in the city archive on Leipzig's industrial history. He found out that one of the secrets of the success of the rapid rise of the old Leipzig was based on the close cooperation between the far-sighted Lord Mayor Otto Georgi and his building officer Hugo Licht. In: Leipziger Volkszeitung , half-page article, March 8, 2016, page 15

Web links

Commons : Hugo Licht  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Dörte Döhl: Ludwig Hoffmann. Building for Berlin 1896–1924. Ernst Wasmuth, Berlin 2004. p. 27
  2. ↑ Max Schmid (ed.): One hundred designs from the competition for the Bismarck National Monument on the Elisenhöhe near Bingerbrück-Bingen. Düsseldorfer Verlagsanstalt, Düsseldorf 1911. (n. Pag.)
personal data
SURNAME Light, Hugo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Licht, Hugo Georg (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German architect and municipal building officer
DATE OF BIRTH February 21, 1841
PLACE OF BIRTH Niederzedlitz
DATE OF DEATH February 28, 1923
Place of death Leipzig