Karl Souradny

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Karl Souradny (born September 27, 1904 in Saaz (Bohemia) ; † November 3, 1973 ) was a German architect who gained importance in the GDR through his work on Stalinallee and its sports buildings.

Live and act

Block F North of Karl-Marx-Allee, photo from 2006

Karl Souradny was born in Saaz in 1904 as the son of a railway worker. After finishing school he did an internship as a carpenter . From 1920 to 1924 Souradny attended the State Trade School in Pilsen and then studied architecture at the Czech Technical University in Prague . After graduating in 1931, he gained his first professional experience in residential construction by 1935 as part of a job in a Prague architecture firm. Souradny also worked there building bridges and factories. Karl Souradny moved to Leipzig in 1936 , where he worked for an architect Richter until 1941 . There is no clear information about his career between 1941 and 1945.

From the end of the Second World War , Karl Souradny was employed by the Leipzig Building Department. He became famous for his 4th place in the competition for the development of Stalinallee in 1951 together with Heinz Auspurg and Werner Burghardt . The evaluation of the competition and the award of the individual construction phases led to execution orders from Souradny and his collective for blocks F North and South .

In addition to residential buildings, Souradny's collective specialized in swimming and sports buildings. For the Friedrich-Friesen swimming stadium with 8,000 seats in the Berlin Volkspark Friedrichshain , for the III. Established the World Festival of Youth and Students , they provided the plans. After the stadium was closed in 1989/90 and it became increasingly neglected, it was demolished in 1999. What remains are two goal posts at the western entrance to the stadium with lanterns mounted on them . Souradny and his employees realized a similar project with the swimming stadium at the Sportforum Leipzig , which in 2004 was demolished except for a grandstand.

From 1954 to 1956, Karl Souradny managed the construction of the Leipzig Central Stadium on the occasion of the Second Gymnastics and Sports Festival . During this time, according to his plans, the theater was rebuilt on the foundations of the destroyed Central Theater. After the theater was completed, Souradny switched to the VEB Leipzig project in 1956, where he worked on various building construction projects until his retirement in 1970.

Buildings (selection)

  • 1950–1951: Friedrich Friesen swimming stadium in Volkspark Friedrichshain, demolished in 1999
  • from 1951: Blocks F north and south of Stalinallee, today Karl-Marx-Allee 132–143
  • 1951–1952: Swimming stadium at the Sportforum in Leipzig, demolished in 2004 with the exception of the north stand
  • 1954–1956: Central stadium at the Sportforum in Leipzig
  • 1955–1956: Schauspielhaus in Leipzig (with Rolf Brummer and Franz Herbst)

Fonts

  • The artistic design of section F on Stalinallee. in: DA (1953), No. 1, pp. 6-12

literature

  • Holger Barth, Thomas Topfstedt (eds.): From building artist to complex designer. Architects in the GDR. Documentation of an IRS collection of biographical data / IRS, Institute for Regional Development and Structural Planning. Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-934669-00-X , p. 216 f.
  • Wolfgang Hocquél : Leipzig - Builders and Buildings - From Romanticism to the Present , Tourist Verlag, Berlin / Leipzig 1990, ISBN 3-350-00333-8 , p. 251.

Web links

Commons : Karl Souradny  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Photo of the goalpost Friesenstadion Berlin from Bergfels on www.flickr.com ; Retrieved December 25, 2013