Karl Gruber (architectural historian)

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Karl Erwin Gruber (born May 6, 1885 in Konstanz ; † February 12, 1966 in Darmstadt ) was a German architect , urban planner , monument conservator and architectural historian . He is the younger brother of the architect Otto Gruber .

education

After graduating from high school in Konstanz in 1903, Gruber began studying architecture at the Grand Ducal Technical University in Karlsruhe in the winter semester of 1904 . His most important teacher was Friedrich Ostendorf , whose understanding of architecture was formative for him. On June 30, 1909, Gruber graduated with a diploma and became an assistant at Ostendorf for three years, followed by his legal clerkship in 1912 and a year later as a Baden government master builder . In 1914 he received his doctorate on the development of the German city.

Act

Since 1909 he worked as a graduate engineer in the public service and in February 1914 became head of the new municipal office for the university clinics in Freiburg im Breisgau . After serving in the military from 1914 to 1918, Gruber took over the management of the municipal building department in Freiburg in 1919. He devoted himself to settlement planning in the Haslach district and managed the restoration of the historic department store . The 1915 discontinued by the war plans for reconstruction of the Augustinian monastery he took to the museum again, from 1919 to 1923, the building became the Augustinermuseum rebuilt.

In autumn 1924 he was appointed to the chair for medieval architecture and design at the Technical University of Danzig and on April 1, 1925 he moved from Freiburg to Danzig. At the Technical University, he succeeded Friedrich Ostendorf , who had taught there from 1904 to 1907 since it was founded. Gruber was a member of the Monument Council of the Free City of Danzig. He led the restoration of the Danzig Marienkirche and the Thorner town hall . In 1927 he won first prize in the competition for the new building at Heidelberg University, and in 1928 he was commissioned to carry it out. When leading conservative architects founded the block against the Ring as an organization for new building , Gruber became a member. In June 1932 he also became a founding member of the Association of German Architects and Engineers - local group Danzig .

In 1933 he was appointed to the chair for urban planning at the Technical University of Darmstadt , where he worked until his retirement in 1955. From 1934 to 1945 he was also a monument conservationist for the provinces of Upper Hesse and Rheinhessen .

In 1945 he became a church builder for the Evangelical Church in Hesse and Nassau . In this role he also designed churches, for example in Lampertheim , Neu-Isenburg , Offenbach am Main , Rüsselsheim , Mainz , Weitengesäss am Main and Zell im Odenwald , and directed the reconstruction of St. Johannis in Mainz. Outside the area of ​​the Evangelical Church in Hesse and Nassau, he participated z. For example, the restoration of the Minster St. Maria and Markus in Mittelzell on the island of Reichenau , the Mainz Cathedral , St. Martin in Oberwesel and the reconstruction of the Marienkirche in Hanau .

After the Second World War , he drafted the overall plan for the reconstruction of several cities destroyed by the war. He was the author of numerous studies on urban morphology from ancient to modern times , in which he showed the relationship between the forms of cities and their political, religious and economic organization. For his reconstruction plans, Karl Gruber submitted drafts with a historical orientation and suggested the restoration of historical references with slight corrections of the buildings in favor of functionality. The quality of public spaces and their design, based on his model, Camillo Sitte , with their central importance for humane urban development, was a major concern for him. In his mission as a relentless champion for artistic urban development in the tradition of Sitte, Karl Gruber shaped a generation of architects such as Otto Spengler , Ullrich Craemer , Tassilo Sittmann and Jochem Jourdan in Darmstadt.

His first published in 1937 and repeatedly Lay-work The shape of the German city is still considered a standard work for architects, in 1985 published a French edition ( formes et caractères de la ville anglaise ).

Karl Gruber was buried in the old cemetery in Darmstadt (grave site: II wall 63a).

Honors

Street in Freiburg

plant

Drawing by Karl Gruber:
Grave monument of Count Philipp Ludwig I. von Hanau-Münzenberg in the Marienkirche in Hanau (the grave monument was destroyed in the Second World War)

Urban planning (selection)

Buildings (selection)

  • 1919–1921: Conversion of the former Freiburg City Theater into the Augustinian Museum
  • 1928–1931: Main building and west wing of the New Heidelberg University (“Schurman-Bau”) (winning competition design 1927, execution 1928–1931, 2nd construction phase 1934)
  • 1942/43: New building for technical physics and plastics (four-year plan institute) at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Hochschulstrasse
  • 1949–1956: Restoration of the St. Johannis Church in Mainz
  • 1951–1961: Reconstruction of the Marienkirche in Hanau
  • 1952–1953: Market square in Rüsselsheim with town hall
  • 1952–1953: Reconstruction of the city ​​church in Darmstadt, which was destroyed in 1944
  • (Mid-1950s): Redesign of the Pauluskirche in Darmstadt

Fonts (selection)

  • A German city. Pictures of the development history of urban architecture. Bruckmann, Munich 1914.
  • The new Augustinermuseum in Freiburg im Breisgau. In: Ekkhart , magazine of the Landesverein Badische Heimat eV, 6th year 1925, pp. 40–50.
  • The sacred precinct in the future city. Regensberg, Münster 1949.
  • Architectural image of Mainz. To design the cathedral environment. In: Jahrbuch Bistum Mainz , 4, 1949, pp. 50–67.
  • The German town hall. Munich 1943.
  • The shape of the German city. Your change from the spiritual order of the times. 4th edition, Callwey, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-7667-0694-2 .
  • Aschaffenburg . City between castle and monastery. In: Aschaffenburg yearbook for history, regional studies and art of the Untermaing area , 4th year 1957, pp. 33–48.
  • The Worms cathedral district . In: Der Wormsgau , Scientific Journal of the City of Worms and the Worms Antiquities Association, 2, 1934/43, pp. 234–241

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Andrew MacNeille: Between Tradition and Innovation - Historic Places in the Federal Republic of Germany after 1945. Dissertation, University of Cologne, 2004, p. 235
personal data
SURNAME Gruber, Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gruber, Karl Erwin (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German architect, urban planner and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH May 6, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Constancy
DATE OF DEATH February 12, 1966
Place of death Darmstadt