Karl Schneider (architect, 1892)

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The Müller-Drenkberg house at Bredenbekstrasse 29 in Hamburg-Wohldorf-Ohlstedt was a political issue . In 1928, the client needed a special permit from Senior Building Director Fritz Schumacher for this avant-garde building .

Karl Rudolf Schneider (born May 15, 1892 in Mainz ; † December 11, 1945 in Chicago ) was a German architect and urban planner who had worked in Hamburg since 1921 and emigrated to the USA in 1938.

Life

Schneider was the son of the carpenter Josef Schneider. From 1898 to 1906 he attended primary and secondary school in Mainz. From 1906 to 1909 he did an apprenticeship with the Mainz architect Jacob Secker. He then studied architecture at the Mainz School of Applied Arts until 1911 . After completing his studies, he worked in the office of Lossow and Kühne in Dresden from 1911 to 1912, then in the office of Walter Gropius & Adolf Meyer until 1914 and in 1915/1916 with Peter Behrens , where he saw the dawn of modern architecture in the years before witnessed the First World War and met the architect and publicist Heinrich de Fries . In 1917 he joined the Altona artists' association . From 1916 to 1919 he did military service.

After the war he found a job in Hamburg with Fritz Höger , who was then working at the Chilehaus . In 1920 he married Emma Leon, they both had two children. In 1921 he opened an architecture office that was initially run jointly with Karl Witte and Jakob Detlef Peters. Schneider caused a sensation as early as 1923 with the construction of the Villa Michaelsen , one of the earliest buildings in Germany, in which cubist form elements were realized. The building was presented in 1925 as an example of a new conception of building in the Bauhaus exhibition organized by Walter Gropius in Weimar . In addition to private builders, he was also able to win housing cooperatives as clients. With the 1st prize in the competition for the Jarrestadt came his professional breakthrough in 1926, followed by numerous housing estate projects. In doing so, Schneider developed numerous innovations from urban planning to home furnishing. In 1928 he took part in the founding of the Rationell housing association , in which Paul Frank was also involved.

Schneider had his projects documented mostly by the Hamburg photographer Ernst Scheel , whose work has been featured in numerous publications on contemporary Hamburg architecture.

His private contacts with artists such as Max Beckmann led to a strong commitment to modern art. He achieved a high international reputation with the design for the Kunstverein building on Neue Rabenstrasse. The model for this was also on view in 1932 in the exhibition The international style at the Museum of Modern Art in New York . In the opening speech by Fritz Schumacher on the occasion of an exhibition of buildings and projects by Schneider in the Kunstverein in 1931, he emphasized individual quality and personal handwriting , thereby underlining Karl Schneider's prominent position in Hamburg architecture in the 1920s.

In 1930 he was unanimously elected director of the State Art School, but the election was not implemented by the Hamburg Senate. He finally took over the management of the architecture class at the Landeskunstschule am Lerchenfeld - also for economic reasons - which was withdrawn from him on September 1, 1933 for political reasons. After that he received as a "cultural" building ban, following his 1937 emigrated girlfriend Ursula Wolff in January 1938 to Chicago, where he worked as a designer for the department store Sears, Roebuck & Co. worked. In 1942 Schneider married Ursula Wolff. Not until 1945, shortly before his death, was he accepted into the American professional association of architects. Since May 15, 1945, he had a better paid position as an architect at Loebl & Schlossman in Chicago, which he had to give up in September 1945 due to his heart condition. His own building designs were no longer realized under his name, as he could not work as an architect without an exam recognized in the USA. He died of a heart condition in 1945.

His models and drawings that remained in Hamburg were burned in 1943 in the bombing of Hamburg. His legacy from his American career is in the Getty Center , Santa Monica, California.

Preserved buildings

  • Landhaus Michaelsen in Hamburg-Blankenese

  • Karl-Schneider Hall in Hamburg-Farmsen

  • Apartment block with shops Maria-Louisen-Str. 63-67

  • Block of flats on Habichtstrasse

  • Heussweg / Osterstraße

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Franklin Kopitzsch , Daniel Tilgner (ed.): Hamburg Lexikon. 2nd, revised edition. Zeiseverlag, Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-9805687-9-2 , p. 421.
  2. ^ Hans Eckstein: New residential buildings . F. Bruckmann, Munich 1932, p. 47 .
  3. ^ Karl Schneider Passages. Rosenhof property management, accessed on May 16, 2019 .
  4. ^ Karl Schneider Archive
  5. ↑ Guido Harbers : The detached single-family house. Callwey Verlag, Munich 1932, p. X.

literature

  • Heinrich de Fries : New work by the architect Schneider – Hamburg . In: Die Form / magazine for creative work. , Vol. 4, Issue 24, 1929, pp. 650-655 ( digitized version ).
  • New work by Professor Karl Schneider - Hamburg. In: The builder. Monthly booklets for architecture and building practice, vol. 29 (1931), booklet 10, pp. 377-417 + 14 panels. ^
  • R. Heyken: Country houses by architect Karl Schneider, Hamburg. In: Das Schöne Heim , 1st year (1930), pp. 295–301.
  • Robert Koch, Eberhard Pook (ed.): Karl Schneider - Life and Work (1892–1945). Dölling and Galitz Verlag , Hamburg 1992, ISBN 3-926174-50-1 .
  • Karl Schneider - Buildings . From the Neue Werkkunst series , with an introduction by Heinrich de Fries. Friedrich Ernst Huebsch Verlag, Berlin, Leipzig and Vienna 1929 (reprinted by Roland Jaeger. Gebr. Mann Verlag , Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-78612365-9 ).

Web links

Commons : Karl Schneider  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Schneider, Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schneider, Karl Rudolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German architect and urban planner
DATE OF BIRTH May 15, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Mainz
DATE OF DEATH December 11, 1945
Place of death Chicago