Jakob Wilhelm Mengler

Jakob Wilhelm Mengler (born January 26, 1915 in Höchst im Odenwald ; † June 27, 2001 in Darmstadt ) was a German architect and building contractor .

Life

Jakob Wilhelm Mengler was born in 1915 as the son of master bricklayer and building contractor Philipp Mengler in Höchst in the Odenwald. He went to school in Groß-Umstadt and then attended the engineering school for civil engineering in Darmstadt, from which he graduated. After a brief activity at Merck, he went into business for himself in 1948 and concentrated on administrative and industrial buildings, which he built on a turnkey basis. One of the first larger administration buildings was for the Odenwald hard stone industry in Neckarstrasse in Darmstadt. A number of multifunctional business and administrative centers followed in the 1950s. The first major project of this kind was the City Center on the site of the old train station in Heidelberg , the Menglerbau . More such city centers followed in Bensheim , Frankenthal (Pfalz) and Heilbronn . Mengler also acted worldwide and built larger hotel complexes in Amman and Karachi .

In the 1960s and 1970s Mengler was involved in all major construction projects in Darmstadt. He maintained good relations with the Darmstadt mayors. In 1966, his company built the City-Park Hotel in combination with a parking garage below, the underground car park with a nuclear bunker under Friedensplatz , the high-rise on Neckarstrasse (today's OfficeTower Darmstadt ), parts of the Kranichstein settlement and the Luisencenter .

Jakob Wilhelm Mengler gained nationwide notoriety through his proposal to build public administration buildings at his own expense and then let the public authorities rent them. The police headquarters and an indoor swimming pool were built in Darmstadt based on this model. In 1980 Mengler retired from active business life and transferred the business to his son Detlev Mengler. Jakob Wilhelm Mengler was also active in local politics in Darmstadt. In 1962 he switched from the CDU to the SPD. From 1968 to 1976 he was president of SV Darmstadt 98 .

Jakob Wilhelm Mengler died in Darmstadt in June 2001 at the age of almost 86.

Jakob Wilhelm Mengler Foundation

In 1992, Mengler established a foundation named after him, which has been awarding prizes for excellent work by architecture students at TU Darmstadt ever since . The award is given to work that is particularly characterized by its application orientation, the consistency of the solution down to the last detail and its own profile.

literature

Jakob Wilhelm Mengler , in: Stadtlexikon Darmstadt, Stuttgart 2006, p. 624.