Ludwig Burgemeister

Ludwig Burgemeister (born October 19, 1863 in St. Johann (Saar) ; † February 13, 1932 ) was a German architect , construction officer and monument conservator .

Life

Ludwig Burgemeister was a son of the master bricklayer and architect Christian Burgemeister and his wife Lina Burgemeister nee. Gottlieb. He attended the royal grammar school in Saarbrücken , where he passed the final examination in 1883. He then studied architecture for nine semesters at the Technical University (Berlin-) Charlottenburg and passed the first state examination in February 1888. On March 5, 1888, he was sworn in as a government building supervisor ( trainee lawyer ) in Saarbrücken, but before taking up his activity he first postponed his military service as a one-year volunteer , which he performed from April 1888 with the 8th Rhenish Infantry Regiment No. 70 in Saarbrücken . He then worked in the state training service in the Trier administrative district . Above all, he was involved in the construction of the new grammar school in Saarbrücken. He passed the second state examination on February 28, 1893. He received a position as a government master builder ( Assessor ) in the technical office of the structural engineering department of the Prussian Ministry of Public Works in Berlin. His work there was interrupted by a study trip to Italy , which he was able to finance with a state premium that he had received on the occasion of the second state examination.

At the beginning of 1895 he was transferred to Breslau , where he married Wally Busse on November 16, 1895, with whom he had their daughter Elsa. Burgemeister received his doctorate on September 12, 1901 with the thesis The Jesuit Art in Breslau, in particular the Matthias Church and the University building in Breslau to the Dr. phil. in art history. In 1902 he was appointed Royal Agricultural Inspector. After the first Silesian provincial conservator Hans Lutsch was appointed to Berlin, Burgemeister became his successor in 1905. In 1909 he was promoted to the Royal Building Council and in 1912 to the Royal Government and Building Council.

In the period from 1909 to October 1, 1915, he knew the business of the Royal Building Department Strehlen , in the First World War also that of the Building Department of Wroclaw I . On April 1, 1917, he resigned from the civil service and was appointed regional building officer in the structural engineering department of the Provincial Administration of the Province of Silesia . At the same time he remained provincial curator. He received several medals and on May 5, 1922 was appointed an external member of the Prussian Academy of Building in Berlin. Burgemeister was also chairman of the advisory board of the town's building police, member of the board of the Association for History and Antiquity of Silesia, member of the board of trustees of the Wroclaw Museum of Fine Arts, board member of the Historical Commission for Silesia and second chairman of the Silesian Federation for Homeland Security.

He was retired on April 1, 1929; However, he remained provincial curator until his death. The successor was the art historian Günther Grundmann . According to the obituary of his successor, Burgemeister's professional life had three important contents: his buildings, his publications and his work in the preservation of monuments.

buildings

Burgemeister created only government buildings; In the years 1895 to 1903, these were mainly university expansions, which were mostly planned by someone else, for example by Georg Thür , or had to be based on parts of the building that already existed. From 1904 to 1911, the Technical University of Wroclaw was built according to Burgemeister's plans in the neo-Renaissance style. It is considered one of his main works. Then Burgemeister had to work out a design for the new building of the university's agricultural institute in Breslauer Hansastraße. Its wings were built from 1913 to 1916; the central building followed later and no longer corresponded to Burgemeister's original plans. Burgemeister was also involved in the planning of the high presidential service building on Neumarkt; however, the design was largely due to building officer Loewe. Burgemeister took care of the renovation and expansion of the sanatorium and nursing home in Plagwitz as well as the construction of new nursing homes for the provincial institutions in Leubus , Bunzlau , Plagwitz and Lüben . He designed a gym for the Provincial Welfare Institution in Wohlau , the new construction of the so-called Krüppelheim with workshop building and the director's residence in Rothenburg, and a retirement home for Namslau . The children's convalescent home in Jannowitz , which was built from 1928 to 1931, also goes back to plans by Burgemeister, but was realized in a more economical way than originally planned.

Monument preservation

Burgemeister was Provincial Curator of the Province of Silesia from 1905 to 1932, which was the first Province in Prussia to undertake monument conservation efforts. A provincial commission for the preservation and research of the existing art monuments was established there, and the list of art monuments in Silesia was published between 1886 and 1894. The register volume, on which Burgemeister had worked under Hans Lutsch, did not appear until 1903, as did the pictures of the Silesian art monuments, in which Burgemeister was also involved. From 1905 he was responsible for the further development of the Silesian monument preservation.

During the First World War, he also had the special task of advising on the confiscation of bells that were to be melted down for armament purposes. In this capacity he was able to save a number of artistically valuable bells.

Burgemeister also had to initiate the re-edition of the list of art monuments in Silesia, since Lutsch's first inventory had to be considered out of date and incomplete during his tenure. This work was far from complete when Burgemeister died.

The picture archive of the provincial curator with over 10,000 photos also went back to Ludwig Burgemeister.

Publications

Burgemeister concentrated in his scientific work on the research of the art monuments in Silesia . In addition to the history of architecture, he was particularly interested in the Silesian organs and the log churches. In addition to his dissertation, he published several books:

• The wooden churches and wooden towers of the Prussian eastern provinces, Silesia, Posen, East Prussia, West Prussia, Brandenburg and Pomerania. Recorded and drawn by Ernst Wiggert and Ludwig Burgemeister. Berlin 1905.
• The Wroclaw City Hall. Historical and structural description. (with photographs by Heinrich Götz) Breslau 1913.
• The legal and official regulations on monument preservation. (published by the Provincial Commission for the Conservation and Research of Art Monuments) Breslau 1913.
• The town house in Silesia. Berlin 1921.
• Organ building in Silesia. Strasbourg 1925. (= Studies on German Art History , H. 230.)

Burgemeister also wrote numerous essays, including:

• The Matthias Church in Wroclaw. In: Centralblatt der Bauverwaltung , Volume 19, 1899, pp. 563-566 ( digitized version )
• The former imperial castle in Wroclaw. In: Journal of the Association for the History of Silesia , year 1902, p. 36.
• Silesian town halls. In: Colorful pictures from the Silesian region. Volume 2, 1903.
• The former Jacob monastery on the sandy island of Breslau. In: Journal of the Association for the History of Silesia , year 1903, p. 37.
• The house to the golden crown. In: Schlesiens Vorzeit , New Series, Volume 3, 1904.
• The Hedwig Church and the Castle in Brieg. In: Schlesien 2, 1908/9, pp. 249-256
• From the Brieger Piastenschloß. In: Schlesische Heimatblätter 4, 1910/11
• The university building and the Matthias Church. In: Reminder sheets for the 100th anniversary of the University of Wroclaw. Wroclaw 1911.
• Silesian wooden churches. In: Schlesien 5, 1911/12, No. 15, pp. 409–411 ( digitized version )
• The Hochbergsche Chapel at the Vinzenzkirche. In: Schlesiens Vorzeit , New Series, Volume 6, 1912.
• Silesian art. In: Schlesische Landeskunde , Volume 2, 1913.
• Cities and castles. In: Silesia in Color Photography , Volume 2, 1924.
• The Catholic parish church in Rothsürben. In: Schlesische Monatshefte 1, 1924, pp. 145–151.
• The organs of the Protestant parish church of St. Maria-Magdalena in Breslau. In: Schlesiens Vorzeit , New Series, Volume 8, 1924.
• Ancient Wroclaw. In: Grenzgau 2, 1925, H. 11, pp. 27-33
• Ancient Wroclaw Housing. In: The Housing Industry of the City of Wroclaw. Memorandum of the Wroclaw City Council. Wroclaw 1927.
• Building history of Falkenberg Castle. In: History of the Falkenberg rule in Upper Silesia. Falkenberg 1929.
• Johann Christian Valentin Schultze (Schulz). In: Report of the Provincial Curator of Art Monuments of the Province of Lower Silesia , New Series, Volume 2, 1927/29.

Burgemeister also published many articles in daily newspapers, especially in the Schlesische Zeitung.

literature

• Report of the Provincial Curator of Art Monuments of the Province of Lower Silesia on the activities from January 1, 1930 to December 31, 1931 . Breslau 1932 (with biography and list of publications, digitized version )

Web links

Commons : Ludwig Burgemeister  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Ludwig Burgemeister in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ It should be added critically: "... the way that was native to" Silesia at the time of the Renaissance "appears alongside the" modern feeling ". The style pattern becomes ... the starting point of a building that seeks the local context: an attitude that seems to be linked to reform tendencies of homeland security, but actually remains too stuck in the details to really go beyond the mere criticism of the arbitrariness of historical design and to achieve task-specific solutions. ”In: Hans-Dieter Nägelke, Hochschulbau im Kaiserreich, Historical Architecture in the Process of Civil Consensus-Building, Verlag Ludwig, Kiel 2000, p. 274.
2. ↑ on Burgemeister's personal responsibility and participation in the building of the authorities cf. Architecture museum of the Technical University of Berlin
3. ^ Obituary for Ludwig Burgemeister in the report of the Provincial Curator of Art Monuments of the Province of Lower Silesia on the activities from January 1, 1930 to December 31, 1931 (Java plug-in required)