Klaus Humpert

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Klaus Humpert (born September 21, 1929 in Frankfurt am Main ) is a German architect and urban planner .

Life

Kurhaus Badenweiler

Humpert grew up in the Black Forest and was a student at the Jesuit college of St. Blasien . From 1949 to 1954 he studied architecture at the Technical University of Karlsruhe , among others with Egon Eiermann and Otto Ernst Schweizer . From 1955 to 1965 he worked in the state building administration in Freiburg im Breisgau . Important projects during this time were the so-called round high-rise buildings in Lahr (1960–62 together with Hans-Walter Henrich ; today as an ensemble under monument protection) and the planning of the new Kurhaus in Badenweiler (execution 1969–72, construction management: Erwin Heine ). In 1965 he moved to the Freiburg City Planning Office and was head of the planning office from 1970 to 1982.

From 1982 to 1994 he was a professor at the Urban Development Institute of the University of Stuttgart . From 1987 to 1994 he carried out research into the regularities of the spread of human settlements as part of a special research area. Since 1990 he has been researching the method and practice of medieval urban planning.

In addition, Humpert was a judge in over 500 competitions in the fields of urban planning, architecture, landscape architecture and art for over 30 years. Among other things, he was a judge and jury chairman for the new Stuttgart Central Station ( Stuttgart 21 ), the expansion of Frankfurt Airport and the Westend campus of the University of Frankfurt am Main. Humpert is a member of the Academy of Arts in Berlin and the German Academy for Urban Development and Regional Planning as well as the German Werkbund Baden-Württemberg. Today he lives in Freiburg.

Research on medieval town planning

In 1990 Humpert discovered measuring tracks, rows of modules and radii in the city plan of Freiburg, which he understood as an indication that geometric measuring structures form the basis of the city plan. According to Humpert, studies in many other medieval cities show the same or very similar geometrical phenomena.

The following cities were examined: Freiburg, Villingen , Offenburg , Rottweil , Esslingen am Neckar , Munich , Lübeck , Wismar , Speyer , Bern , Breisach , the Campo of Siena , Neumarkt in the Upper Palatinate , Abensberg , Bräunlingen and Deggendorf .

According to Humpert, the same measuring method was also demonstrated in medieval miniatures, in the Manessian manuscript and in the image of God as the creator of the world . The research shows that the common notion of the grown medieval city is wrong. The medieval planners were not only able to measure and build monasteries and churches exactly, but would have also measured out major concepts in the great epoch of the city's foundation from 1100 to 1350 (approx. 3000 new foundations in German-speaking countries). According to Humpert, the working method has now largely been clarified and is essentially the same everywhere.

In the initial area of ​​research, the large circular arcs were explained with circular strokes using a long rope. It is now clear that the large arches are constructed on a triangle using the quarter method and that long ropes do not have to be used. The centers of the circular arcs, as assumed at the beginning of the research, can largely be given up, since the arc is replaced on a straight line that can be detected in the measuring frame. This newer, deeper finding answers very easily many previously open questions.

In large field tests, the medieval working technique was reproduced and its accuracy was proven. With the help of Google Earth , a measuring field south of Schwerin with the geometric planning of the city of Wismar was marked by a plow.

Two films deal with this research:

  • God's plan and man's hand: The discovery of medieval town planning . A documentation by Dominik Wessely , SWR, 2004
  • Beauty can be planned . A film by Meinhard Prill , Bayerisches Fernsehen, 2009

Humpert's main thesis is that the medieval cities did not grow “naturally”, but were planned by city planners according to a fixed scheme. It is based on the floor plan analysis of modern cadastral plans. Comparable research in Austria operating Erwin Reidinger .

Despite some positive reviews, in the opinion of many experts, the work is far too uncritical in terms of method and terminology to be really convincing. Research results from the archeology of the Middle Ages contradict Humpert's reconstructions in many cases. The urban planning concept of Speyer reconstructed by Humpert would have had an essential point of reference in the middle of the then course of the Rhine, excavation findings in Villingen and elsewhere showed that the current building lines do not go back to the founding phase of the city and therefore cannot be used as a source in the Humpertian sense.

The Klaus Humpert Prize for innovative urban development is awarded every two years at the Städtebau-Institut in Stuttgart.

Awards

Fonts

  • Process and form “natural constructions”. Collaborative Research Center 230. Ernst & Sohn, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-433-02883-4 .
  • Introduction to urban planning. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1997 ISBN 3-17-013060-9 .
  • (together with M. Schenk): Discovery of medieval town planning. The end of the myth of the grown city. Theiss, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-8062-1464-6 .
  • (together with Klaus Brenner and Sibylle Becker): Fundamental Principles of Urban Growth. Müller + Busmann, Wuppertal 2002, ISBN 3-928766-51-1 .
  • Running tracks. edition esefeld & traub, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-9809887-1-1 .
  • The medieval plan of the city of Abensberg. Abensberg 2008, ISBN 978-3-00-024713-2 .
  • The hidden geometric constructions in the images of the Manesse song manuscript Freiburg i.Br., 2013 PDF Online

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lahr: Round skyscrapers , badische-zeitung.de 18 November, 2010
  2. ↑ Stuttgart Central Station . In: Bauwelt , year 1997, p. 1658 f.
  3. ↑ The discovery of medieval urban planning (video, 52:03 min)
  4. ↑ cf. Forewords by Dieter Planck and Gottfried Kiesow in Humpert / Schenk 2001
  5. ↑ Review in: Zeitschrift für Archäologie des Mittelalters 30, 2002, pp. 226–228 (R. Schreg)
  6. ↑ Office of the Federal President
personal data
SURNAME Humpert, Klaus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German architect and urban planner
DATE OF BIRTH September 21, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt am Main