Johannes Rascher

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Johannes Rascher (born October 6, 1904 in Petersdorf in the Riesengebirge , † January 24, 2006 in Wiesbaden ) was a German architect .

Life

The west side of Dresden's Altmarkt in 1959, Johannes Rascher's most important design

Rascher was born in 1904 as the son of a master builder and attended a high school in Hirschberg . After finishing school, he trained as a bricklayer and then went to Görlitz , where he completed a technical college degree at the State Building School. From 1926 to 1929 he studied architecture at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts . He was part of Wilhelm Kreis' master class . He then worked in Dresden for Ludwig Wirth and in the architecture office of Schilling & Graebner as a lead architect. In 1944 he moved to the Reichsheimstättenamt Berlin, where he worked on plans for the German Labor Front (DAF) for reconstruction.

After the end of the Second World War , Rascher initially worked as a freelance architect. An important work of this time is the planning for the conversion of the Apollo Theater in Leuben into an operetta theater, commissioned by Bruno Just - the conversion was completed in 1947. At that time, the State Operetta was the first theater in Dresden that could be replayed.

From 1951 Rascher - later also as chief architect - headed one of the two design departments at VEB Bauplanung Sachsen with Herbert Schneider . Among other things, he was responsible for planning the Grunaer Strasse area. On November 20, 1952, his team, like Herbert Schneider's team, was awarded first prize in the competition to rebuild Dresden's old market . While Schneider continued to work on the east side of the old market, Rascher was entrusted with the further work on the future west side of the old market. Numerous other (preliminary) designs followed for buildings in Dresden, but also on Usedom or in Schwedt / Oder .

Originally, Rascher was supposed to be the chief architect for the construction of the Dresden Palace of Culture , but in the run-up to this, there were disputes with the district party leadership. Rascher, who did not belong to any party in the GDR, went with his family to the FRG shortly before the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961. He settled in Wiesbaden and worked in various architecture firms before he became self-employed again for a short time in old age.

Rascher lived in Wiesbaden.

reception

The buildings on the west side of Dresden's Altmarkt , which were carried out until 1958, are Rascher's “most important design” . In addition to apartments, this also included, for example , Café Prague , which was designed as a variety show . Walter Ulbricht praised Rascher's design and said: “The designs by the architects Schneider and Rascher prove that it is possible to incorporate the historical monuments into the new buildings so that the overall composition will secure Dresden's old fame as a city of art.” The buildings were criticized on the other hand by the younger generation of architects, who lamented the “non-fighting recognition of the prescription-based, traditional building” and “missed the commitment to modern contemporary architecture”. Among other things, Rascher quoted the arcades of the Dresden Stallhof with the presented columns , but as a pupil of Wilhelm Kreis otherwise represented "a rather timeless, clear and manageable architecture".

Wolfgang Hänsch , at that time one of the critics of the Altmarkt buildings, praised Rascher in retrospect in 2005 as “never tired, always passionately arguing, but also often desperately doubting [...] to whom the city of Dresden owes so much in a time of political and cultural new beginnings. "His buildings are now part of the" silverware of the city ", his legacy is" an obligatory architectural model, which should not be easy to add something equivalent. "

Works

The State Operetta in Dresden-Leuben
Model design by Herbert Schneider and Johannes Rascher for the "House of Young Pioneers" in Dresden
  • 1936: Competition design for the Döbeln crematorium (1st prize, but not recommended for execution)
  • 1945–1947: Conversion of the Apollo Theater in Leuben into the Dresden State Operetta
  • 1947–1950: Factory conversion of the curtain and lace manufacture in Dresden- Niedersedlitz
  • 1948–1949: Conversion of the main pond office
  • 1949–1950: Residential buildings in Moritzburg
  • 1953–1958: Reconstruction of the west side of the Dresden Altmarkt and the Dr.-Külz-Ring
  • 1957: Development plan and type design for the special housing program in Dresden- Johannstadt (in the architects' collective with Wolfgang Hänsch and Herbert Terpitz , VEB Hochbauprojektierung Dresden)
  • 1960–1961: Social building for the paper and board mills in Schwedt
  • Manfred von Ardenne's holiday home in Bansin on Usedom
  • School buildings in Dresden and in the Saxon region, including the then Dresden Middle School on what was then Goethestrasse in Seevorstadt-Ost, Dresden (1958)
  • 1st prize for building a school in Rodewisch
  • 1st prize for the construction of the Freiberg crematorium
  • 1st prize for the Catholic youth center in Fulda
  • Preliminary draft for the Lingner Castle in Dresden (realization by Gerhard Guder )
  • 1954: Design of the north-south main line in Dresden (purchase)
  • 1954: Design of the central square in front of the Leipzig Opera House (purchase)
  • 1960: Design for the House of the Council of Ministers in Berlin
  • 1983: Draft for the regional council Gießen (with Gerd Dettmar )

literature

  • Matthias Lerm: Farewell to old Dresden - Loss of historical building fabric after 1945 . Forum, Leipzig 1993, ISBN 3-86151-047-2 .
  • Susann Buttolo (editor): On the 100th birthday of the architect Johannes Rascher . Saxon Archive for Architecture and Civil Engineering, Dresden 2005.
  • Gisela Raap: Contemporary witnesses. Architecture and civil engineering in Saxony in the second half of the 20th century . Saxon Archive for Architecture and Civil Engineering Dresden.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Johannes Rascher on das-neue-dresden.de
  2. ^ Matthias Lerm: Farewell to old Dresden - Loss of historical building fabric after 1945 . Forum, Leipzig 1993, pp. 103f.
  3. ↑ a b c Conversation with Prof. Gerhard Guder about the years we worked together with Johannes Rascher . In: Susann Buttolo (editor): On the 100th birthday of the architect Johannes Rascher . Saxon Archive for Architecture and Civil Engineering, Dresden 2005, p. 26.
  4. ↑ a b Gisela Rapp: CV Johannes quicker . In: Susann Buttolo (editor): On the 100th birthday of the architect Johannes Rascher . Saxon Archive for Architecture and Civil Engineering, Dresden 2005, p. 5.
  5. ↑ cit. after: Matthias Lerm: Farewell to old Dresden - Loss of historical building fabric after 1945 . Forum, Leipzig 1993, p. 108f.
  6. ↑ a b c Wolfgang Hänsch: a legend becomes one hundred . In: Susann Buttolo (editor): On the 100th birthday of the architect Johannes Rascher . Saxon Archive for Architecture and Civil Engineering, Dresden 2005, p. 21.
  7. ^ Art and architecture of the German cremation facilities in a historical context. Dissertation Ulrich Hübner, 2013, p. 191
  8. ↑ Scheffler: Charm and esprit instead of monotony. In: Wolfgang Hänsch - Architect of Dresden Modernism. 2009, p. 57.
  9. ^ Special housing program in Dresden-Johannstadt. In: German architecture. 6th year 1957, issue 3, p. 121 f.
personal data
SURNAME Rascher, Johannes
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German architect
DATE OF BIRTH October 6, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Petersdorf in the Giant Mountains
DATE OF DEATH January 24, 2006
Place of death Wiesbaden