Karl Otto (architect)

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Karl Otto (born August 25, 1904 in Charlottenburg near Berlin ; † March 29, 1975 in Berlin ) was a German architect , professor and director of the State University of Fine Arts in Berlin-Charlottenburg .

Education and early employment

Attended school and studied in Berlin

Karl Otto was born in Charlottenburg as the son of the sculptor Wilhelm Otto and his wife Emma, ​​née Grüneberg. A year earlier, on July 24, 1903, his sister Ingeborg had been born. Karl Otto attended the Städtische Realgymnasium zu Charlottenburg and received the school leaving certificate on March 9, 1923, which Kaufmann names as a career goal. However, Otto began studying architecture at the Technical University of Berlin-Charlottenburg in the winter semester of 1923 . This required a manual internship, which he completed from April 16 to September 29, 1923 at Berlin-Anhaltische Maschinenbau AG (BAMAG) in Berlin-Moabit . He worked in the model carpentry, turning and locksmithing departments; the assessment states that he had “acquired notable knowledge in practice”.

During their studies, Karl Otto and some of his fellow students, who belonged to the student working group Working Group of the New Form under the direction of Richard Rothschild , made contact with the architects of New Building working in Berlin such as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe , Hugo Häring , Erich Mendelsohn , Max and Bruno Taut , Ludwig Hilberseimer and the brothers Hans and Wassili Luckhardt . During a visit to his studio, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe offered Karl Otto and his fellow students Wilhelm Pabst and Kurt Liebknecht the opportunity to work on his block for the Weissenhof Estate in Stuttgart, which was built as part of the Werkbund exhibition in 1927 under Mies' overall direction. After Karl Otto had passed the intermediate diploma in 1926, he was accepted into Hans Poelzig 's seminar in the winter semester of 1926/1927 . Karl Otto also worked in Poelzig's studio from 1927 during his student days, but at the same time worked on various projects in Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's studio. In February 1929 Karl Otto completed his university education with a diploma. In addition to his architecture studies, he had also attended seminars as a visiting student at the Charlottenburg School of Applied Arts , where his father taught.

First job as an architect

After completing his studies, Karl Otto joined Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's studio on March 1, 1929. He was included in the planning for the German section of the 1929 World Exhibition in Barcelona , which was created under Mies' direction. After his return to Berlin in July 1929, Karl Otto found a job in Hans Poelzig's studio that same month and was involved in the Haus des Rundfunks project, the construction of which had started in May. From September 1930 Karl Otto worked again for Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. He worked on the plans for the new construction of the VerSeid AG dye works in Krefeld and also on a competition for a golf club house, also in Krefeld. From 1931 Karl Otto became self-employed as an architect. In 1931 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe gave Karl Otto, together with Mia Seeger, the technical management of the department “The Apartment of Our Time”, which Mies was responsible for, as part of the German Building Exhibition in Berlin from May 9 to August 2, 1931. In addition, Karl Otto and Jan Ruhtenberg were able to make their own contribution to the exhibition by designing a model apartment. From October to mid-December 1931 Otto worked again for Hans Poelzig on his competition design for the Palace of the Soviets in Moscow .

In June 1932 Karl Otto moved to Mannheim , where he ran an architecture office together with his college friend Wilhelm Pabst and mainly planned private houses. In 1932 Karl Otto was elected to the board of directors of the Deutscher Werkbund , which, as he reported to his parents, “went back to an initiative by Hans Poelzig and Martin Wagner, who wanted young people to be in charge”. As early as 1933 Otto ended his activity in Mannheim and returned to Berlin, where he was able to carry out a few projects for school buildings in the Berlin area and in Mannheim. His modern architectural style , which he preferred, was no longer desired when the National Socialists came to power , which is why, apart from a few contracts from private individuals, no building contracts to secure a living were awarded to Karl Otto, because now it was supposed to be pompous, large and defensive in the style of neoclassicism . His family was also subjected to the harassment of the new rulers: After his wife was briefly arrested, her license to practice medicine was revoked, and her own father was forced into retirement due to his political stance. His father-in-law emigrated to Switzerland. In 1934 Karl Otto worked again for Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who included him in the exhibition German People - German Work . Ludwig Mies van der Rohe also called on Otto again as an employee for the competition work for the construction of the German pavilion for the World Exhibition in Brussels in 1935 .

Activity in the Reich Ministry of Aviation

From August 15, 1935, Karl Otto initially found a position as a clerk at the Reich Ministry of Aviation , where he was involved in building halls, military hospitals and settlement planning from April 1936 . The position had been arranged for him by the architect Ernst Sagebiel , a former colleague of Erich Mendelsohn . The activity there enabled him to continue working as an architect and also to represent his functionalist view. From March to May 1938 Otto performed his basic military training as a gunner in the Döberitz flak regiment . In March 1939, Otto was appointed civil servant government building officer in the inspection for civil air protection in the Reich Ministry of Aviation, and with effect from January 1, 1943, he was appointed senior government building officer. Until December 1944 he was group leader, then again a speaker and dealt with the areas of settlement planning, urban works and air raid shelters for the population. Karl Otto became an air protection expert for the Reich Aviation Ministry and, in this context, dealt with the connection between air protection and urban development. Because the end of the war was approaching, the family moved to Altendorf in the Gifhorn district in March 1944 .

From the end of the Second World War to 1947: internment

From April 17, 1945 to March 20, 1947, Karl Otto was a US prisoner of war in camps in France and Germany. According to Otto's own statements, "the imprisonment took place due to the same name as a wanted war crime suspect". Otto himself stated in the denazification documents that he had been a candidate for NSDAP membership from 1942 , but that membership never occurred.

Activity from 1947

Hanover

After his release from captivity, Karl Otto returned to his family in Brome. Here he resumed his work as a freelance architect from July 1947 and worked until 1949 together with his former fellow student from the Poelzig seminar, Max H. Berling , who was active in Osnabrück . Otto and Berling took part in a number of competitions, but their designs did not win any of these competitions. Karl Otto planned to work as a teacher even before the Second World War. Because of the poor order situation, he took advantage of the opportunity from the end of 1948 to take up a lectureship at the Oldenburg State Building School. In 1950 he successfully applied for the position of director of the master school for the creative craft in Hanover , to which he was appointed on August 18, 1950.

While he was the director of the teaching facility, which was renamed the Werkkunstschule in 1952 , Karl Otto continued to work as a freelance architect, took part in architecture competitions, designed furniture and organized numerous exhibitions. In 1951, together with Konstanty Gutschow , he designed the urban and local planning department at Constructa in Hanover. In 1953 he conceived the special show of form-fitting industrial products at the Hanover Fair and in the same year the international wallpaper exhibition in Darmstadt and the exhibition raum - form - Farbe , which presented the work of the Werkkunstschule Hanover. The most prominent exhibition that was carried out under Karl Otto's direction, however, was The City of Tomorrow as part of Interbau Berlin 1957 , in whose executive committee he was appointed in 1955.

In addition to teaching, Karl Otto also took part in several architecture competitions and planned an urgently needed new building for the Werkkunstschule, which was supposed to be built on the Maschsee in Hanover, but was never implemented. During the activity in Hanover, only one project was implemented, the buildings of the Leibniz School and the Werner von Siemens Middle School, which were built on a joint site on Röntgenstrasse in Hanover-Wittekamp (List). These buildings are part of a series of school buildings erected by Karl Otto. School building became the dominant theme in his architectural work.

From 1948 Karl Otto belonged to the re-established Deutscher Werkbund and in 1954 was a founding member of the German Design Council . In 1974 he resigned from the Deutscher Werkbund because he rejected its increasing politicization, especially in Berlin.

Back in Berlin

After Karl Hofer resigned as director of the Hochschule für bildende Künste Berlin on March 23, 1955 (since the 1980s, Berlin University of the Arts ) and died shortly afterwards on May 3, 1955, a suitable successor was sought. In October 1955 the Berlin Senate appointed Karl Otto to this post. The appointment was preceded by a heated argument about filling the vacant director's position, which developed into a decision between Hans Scharoun and Otto. The decision in favor of Otto met with great resistance from the students, as they accused Otto of lacking competence for this office due to his limited experience in practical building and defamed him with leaflets, letters and telegrams . At the same time as his appointment, Otto was appointed full professor of architecture. The disputes with the student body were settled by a declaration of loyalty drawn up by the faculty and Otto's offer of a public discussion to the students on November 3, 1955.

In the Berlin university landscape, Otto was particularly involved in the organizational field, he became a co-founder of the School Building Institute of the German States , designed a reorganization program for the University of the Arts and founded the chair for manufacturing design at this university.

He was also a member of the Association of German Architects (BDA), the Deutscher Werkbund, the German Design Council and later chairman of the scientific advisory board of the German school building institute. In 1957 he did practical work in the executive committee of Interbau in the department The City of Tomorrow and in 1960 in the German department of the Triennale in Milan . In addition to his teaching activities, Otto also recognized man's responsibility for the preservation of nature and went public as a co-organizer of a 1959 congress, The Great Destruction of Land .

A longer study trip to the USA in the spring of 1961 gave the impetus to think more about the prefabricated building method in Germany as well . The aim of the study trip was "Getting to know the design of industrially manufactured series products and the development of prefabricated components in American construction" along with a tour of the newest buildings at the time . Further stays abroad and lecturing activities also took him to London, Glasgow, Tokyo, Graz and Chicago.

Between 1960 and 1968, Karl Otto organized an internal competition of the art college with the title Architecture and Fine Arts among the students of the higher semesters, which was given specific guidelines, especially under the aspect of bringing art and architecture closer together in the long term . It was about:

  • Seat in the Hansaviertel (winter semester 1960/1961)
  • Small café in Pichelswerder (winter semester 1961/1962)
  • Community center Britz / Buckow / Rudow (winter semester 1962/1963)
  • Cemetery chapel (winter semester 1963/1964)
  • Pavilion on the Rathenauplatz in Hamburg (winter semester 1964/1965)
  • Dance pavilion (winter semester 1965/1966)
  • Redesign of the ruins on the west side of the HfBK (winter semester 1966/1967)
  • For the first time, however, students were also represented in the jury and the objective was that the object should be technically feasible and, if necessary, be shown at the World Exhibition in Osaka in 1970 (winter semester 1967/1968).
The Martin Luther King Church, built according to a design by Karl Otto

The response waned over the years; moreover, it was only about study projects that were not carried out. In 1969 this competition was discontinued and a first attempt to approach the Bauhaus principles had failed.

Despite the extensive administrative work, Karl Otto still found time to pursue his own architectural plans; for this purpose he ran an office at Wielandstrasse 13 in Berlin-Charlottenburg. In 1967 he received the order from the evangelical congregation Martin-Luther-King in Berlin-Gropiusstadt , Johannisthaler Chaussee, to build a new complex consisting of a church, a parish hall, a rectory, a day care center and a nurses' home . His implemented construction plans consist of three basic elements - a steel frame, reinforced concrete wall fields and ribbon windows. The inauguration took place in Otto's presence on April 25, 1968.

After retiring in 1969

Health problems increased from the mid-1960s, which is why Karl Otto decided to take early retirement in 1969. In August 1969 he retired to the Black Forest to relax . One of his most important pieces of advice from being a director - "Create a comprehensive university of the arts", in which music schools should also be incorporated, was finally implemented in 2002 with the formation of the University of the Arts.

However, he continued to act as a speaker at conferences and repeatedly represented his various school ideas, both in terms of standardized construction and teaching content, as in January 1971 at the symposium of the Rationalization Board of German Business: Flexibility and Mobility in School Construction . In 1970 he activated his architecture office and was here a. a. was involved in the planning and construction of the comprehensive high school middle school center Egelpfuhl in Berlin-Spandau as well as the planning of an engineering school in Ravensburg .

Personal and family

On August 6, 1931, Karl Otto married the physician Charlotte b. Liebknecht (born May 21, 1905, † November 12, 1994), daughter of the lawyer Theodor Liebknecht , niece of Karl Liebknecht and cousin of Otto's college friend Kurt Liebknecht . In 1941, their daughter Jutta-Ingeborg was born, who also studied architecture after graduating from high school, initially at the Technical University of Berlin , then after the family moved to the Technical University of Darmstadt and from 1966 at the Technical University of Munich , where she also earned her diploma.

Karl Otto's grave slab in the Engesohde city cemetery, Hanover

During his work as director of the Berlin University of the Arts, Karl Otto went on several family vacations abroad, for example in Tyrol. Between 1964 and 1969 he needed regular cures, which he completed in Braunlage , Bad Wörishofen and Bad Orb . Nonetheless, his work increasingly burdened him, so that his request for early retirement on his 65th birthday was granted. The Senator for Science and Art, Werner Stein, had planned the award of the Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany as a public honor for Otto's life's work in 1975 , which was no longer possible due to the sudden death of Karl Otto.

Other completed buildings

Two views of the international German School in Brussels
  • Homes in Kiel and Mannheim
  • Settlement projects
  • Leibniz Gymnasium in Hanover (1952)
  • Werner von Siemens Middle School (Realschule) in Hanover (1952)
  • Higher business school in Pforzheim (1962), today's Pforzheim University
  • New building for the industrial school for automotive and aircraft construction in Hamburg, Hammerweg 9 (1965–1967), in the 21st century. State industrial school for automotive and aircraft technology (G9)
  • On behalf of the Berlin Senate building director, he planned the German School in Brussels in 1967 , which was inaugurated in 1970. Here Otto worked for the first time in a new school building with a range of precast elements, the Brockhouse system .
  • Electrotechnical Faculty of the Technical University of Braunschweig (1968)
    It is a five-axis high-rise with a prefabricated façade made of reinforced concrete, which stands on sloping stilts.

Publications

In addition to several articles for the daily press, numerous lectures and specialist articles such as On the Situation of the Arts in the Technical Age , Work Education as Part of Art Education in Schools , the following publications by Karl Otto have appeared:

  • On the development of the Berlin School of Fine Arts , 1956
  • The city of tomorrow , Berlin 1959
  • School building (1961) (1st edition) in the Building and Living series; 1963 (2nd edition in German and English)
  • Industrial Design in USA (1963; industrial design in the USA: reports on the trip of a Berlin study group), Berliner Industriebank (ed.)
  • School Building, Volume II (1964)
  • The German Art School (1970)

Namesakes

The register book of the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich lists an art student Karl Otto (* 1831), whose father was a shoemaker and came from Osterode near Hanover, for the period from 1854 to 1855.

In the architecture museum of the Technical University of Berlin there are two project sheets by a Karl Otto from the Königlich Technische Hochschule Berlin , who was therefore active in Berlin at the end of the 19th century.

A ship known as a "war fish cutter" was launched in 1943 as a German naval boat. After serving in the Danish service from 1945 to 1947, it became the property of Captain Karl Otto. He had it converted into a fishing cutter and christened Captain Karl Otto in his own name (1949). - The architect and university professor described here did not serve as namesake in any of the cases and was also not related to the skipper.

literature

  • University of the Arts Berlin (ed.), Christine Fischer-Defoy: Art, in the construction a stone. The West Berlin art and music colleges in the post-war area of ​​tension. Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89462-078-1 .
  • Fabian Ludovico: Karl Otto - architect and teacher. A biographical contribution to German post-war modernism. Marburg 2010, ISBN 978-3828825529 . (Zugl .: Heidelberg, Univ. Diss. 2010)
  • In the architecture archive of the Academy of Arts there is another extensive collection of documents on the life and work of Karl Otto.

Web links

Commons : Karl Otto  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ School-leaving certificate of March 9, 1923, in: Baukunstarchiv der Akademie der Künste Berlin, Karl Otto Archive, box 5.
  2. ^ Testimony from Berlin-Anhaltische Maschinenbau AG dated September 29, 1923, in: Baukunstarchiv der Akademie der Künste Berlin, Karl Otto Archive, Box 5.
  3. ↑ Helmut Hentrich: construction time. Notes from the life of an architect. Düsseldorf 1995, p. 72.
  4. ↑ Notes on the work of Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Karl Otto, in: Baukunstarchiv der Akademie der Künste Berlin, Karl Otto Archive, Box 5.
  5. ↑ Testimony from December 29, 1931, in: Baukunstarchiv der Akademie der Künste Berlin, Karl Otto Archive, box 5.
  6. ^ German Building Exhibition Berlin 1931, Official Catalog and Guide , ed. from the Exhibition, Trade Fair and Tourism Office of the City of Berlin 1931, p. 160 ff.
  7. ↑ Testimony from December 23, 1931, in: Baukunstarchiv der Akademie der Künste Berlin, Karl Otto Archive, box 5.
  8. ^ Letter from Karl Otto to his parents dated November 19, 1932, in: Baukunstarchiv der Akademie der Künste Berlin, Karl Otto Archive, box 9c.
  9. ↑ University of the Arts Berlin, University Archives, holdings 16 II 124 (Karl Otto personal file)
  10. ↑ Christine Fischer-Defoy: Art, in the construction a stone. The West Berlin art and music colleges in the area of ​​tension in the post-war period, Berlin 2001, p. 47.
  11. ↑ Questionnaire on denazification, in: Baukunstarchiv der Akademie der Künste Berlin, Karl Otto Archive, box 5.
  12. ↑ Ibid.
  13. ^ Johann Friedrich Geist , Klaus Kürvers : The Berlin tenement house 1945-1989. Munich 1989, p. 109.
  14. ↑ Questionnaire on denazification, in: Baukunstarchiv der Akademie der Künste Berlin, Karl Otto Archive, box 5.
  15. ↑ Ibid.
  16. ↑ Appendix 2 to the questionnaire on denazification, in: Baukunstarchiv der Akademie der Künste Berlin, Karl Otto Archive, box 5.
  17. ^ Letter from Max Berling to Friedrich Hetzelt dated September 9, 1954, in: Baukunstarchiv der Akademie der Künste Berlin, Karl Otto Archive, folder 21.
  18. ↑ Copy of the certificate of appointment from August 18, 1950, in: Baukunstarchiv der Akademie der Künste Berlin, Karl Otto Archive, folder 33a.
  19. ^ Report on the development of the Werkkunstschule Hanover from August 1, 1950 to February 29, 1956, in: Baukunstarchiv der Akademie der Künste Berlin, Karl Otto Archive, folder 34.
  20. ↑ Notes on the work of Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Karl Otto, in: Baukunstarchiv der Akademie der Künste Berlin, Karl Otto Archive, Box 5.
  21. ^ Letter from Karl Otto to Walter Rossow dated May 30, 1974, in: Baukunstarchiv der Akademie der Künste Berlin, Karl Otto Archive, folder 62.
  22. ^ Letter from the Senator for Popular Education of November 2, 1955, in: Baukunstarchiv der Akademie der Künste Berlin, Karl Otto Archive, box 5.
  23. ↑ Correspondence concerning appointment as director, ASTA, in: Baukunstarchiv der Akademie der Künste Berlin, Karl Otto Archive, folder 30e.
  24. ^ Certificate of appointment dated March 22, 1956, in: Baukunstarchiv der Akademie der Künste Berlin, Karl Otto Archive, box 5.
  25. ^ Information from the Deutscher Werkbund NRW with details about the 1959 congress ( Memento of March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ); Retrieved September 20, 2012
  26. ↑ The jubilee ›fled‹ to the Black Forest. Professor Otto turns 65 - His advice for the future: create a comprehensive university of the arts . In: Welt am Sonntag of August 24, 1969
  27. ↑ a b c d e f g h University of the Arts Berlin, University Archives, holdings 203, Karl Otto Collection, call number 200/3
  28. ↑ Homepage of the vehicle school, here: Timeline 197
  29. ^ Karl Otto: On the development of the Berlin School of Fine Arts. In: Bibliographie der Deutschen Zeitschriften-Literatur, Volume 112, Issues 1-8, 1956; Retrieved March 4, 2010
  30. ↑ The city of tomorrow. (1959), printed in: Stefanie Schulz, Carl-Georg Schulz: The Hansaviertel: Icon of Modernism . Braun Verlag Berlin, 2007
  31. ^ Register book ADK Munich; online, accessed March 4, 2010
  32. ^ Seminar papers (project sheets) Karl Otto in the Architecture Museum of the TUB; Retrieved March 10, 2010
  33. ↑ Figure and brief information on the fishing cutter Kapitän Karl Otto ; Retrieved March 4, 2010
  34. ↑ Brief description of the holdings on Karl Otto in the architecture archive
personal data
SURNAME Otto, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German architect and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH August 25, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin-Charlottenburg
DATE OF DEATH March 29, 1975
Place of death Berlin