Ludwig Hofmann (architect)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ludwig Hofmann

Ludwig Hofmann (* 1862 in Herborn ; † June 26, 1933 there ) was a German architect of historicism and monument conservator . He lived and worked in Herborn, from 1904 to 1933 he was the church builder of the Evangelical Church in Nassau .

Life

Ludwig Hofmann was a son of the damask weaver Philipp Ludwig Hofmann from Herborn and his wife Katharine Jakobine nee. Petry. Ludwig and his older brother Karl Hofmann made considerable careers: Ludwig worked as a freelance architect and church builder in the consistorial district of North and South Nassau of the Evangelical Church. Ludwig learned freehand drawing as a schoolboy by tracing architectural publications and sketching striking buildings.

Ludwig Hofmann's residential and studio building in Herborn, built in 1888

At around 22 he was a freelance architect in Herborn. His activity as a church builder began with the construction of the new church in Fleisbach in 1882, which was significantly encouraged by the intercession of a family friend, the general superintendent Ernst. Up to the year of his death in 1933, Hofmann planned and built around 60 new churches and restored at least twice as many, which was made possible for him as a church builder for the Wiesbaden consistorial district . He also restored other buildings, including architectural monuments . He built schools, train stations, hospitals, residential buildings and entire streets in Herborn and Worms, the Ritter von Marx Bridge in Bad Homburg, and the Bismarck Tower on the baptismal font. These large-scale projects were always associated with aspects of urban development and landscape architecture such as routing, planting or creating visual axes . From Hofmann's open space planning are u. a. the park of Villa Haas . and his own garden in Herborn. Other projects, such as the Weilburg waterfall (1904), were not carried out for reasons of cost.

After the First World War , he designed social buildings and memorials for 40 communities. Hofmann was active in around 550 locations within a 150 km radius of Herborn.

The achievement of Hofmann's life's work consists not only in the large number of his buildings, including some well-known ones, but lies in the comprehensive, architecturally and structurally sophisticated care of an entire region that is as large as half of today's state of Hesse. It extends (clockwise) over Siegen , Marburg , Gießen , Frankfurt am Main , Fürth (Odenwald) , Worms, Bad Sobernheim , Koblenz , Bad Godesberg , Kircheib (Westerwald) and Plettenberg (Sauerland).

After his death in 1933, his son Hans Hofmann took over the office in Herborn and, after his death in 1954, his son-in-law Friedrich Wilhelm Gerecke, who gave it up in 1994 for health reasons.

Honors

plant

Buildings (selection)

Villa Haas in mind
The Evangelical Monastery of St. Martin in Koblenz around 1900
Evangelical Church in Philippstein

drafts

literature

  • Friedhelm Gerecke: Historicism, Art Nouveau, Heimatstil in Hesse, the Rhineland and the Westerwald. The buildings of the architect and monument conservator Ludwig Hofmann. Verlag Michael Imhof, Petersberg 2010, ISBN 978-3-86568-458-5 .
  • Robert Mielke : The picture in the farmhouse. In: Heinrich Sohnrey (ed.): Art in the country. Velhagen & Klasing, Bielefeld / Leipzig / Berlin 1905.

Web links

Commons : Ludwig Hofmann (architect)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hessisches Staatsarchiv Marburg (HStAMR), Best. 911 No. 4135, p. 82 ( digitized version ).
  2. ↑ living in house Mühlgasse 11 (part of today's building Mühlgasse 11–15, the Ludwig-Hofmann-Haus, in which the city library and the domicile of the city archivist are housed)
  3. ^ Friedhelm Gerecke: Historicism - Art Nouveau - Heimatstil in Hessen and in the Rhineland. The life's work of the architect and monument conservator Ludwig Hofmann (1862–1933) from Herborn. A catalog . M. Imhof, Petersberg 2010, ISBN 978-3-86568-458-5 .
  4. ^ Klaus F. Müller: Park and Villa Haas. Historicism, Art and Lifestyle. Verlag Edition Winterwork, 2012, ISBN 978-3-86468-160-8 , pp. 138–142 and pp. 172–204.
  5. ↑ Fred Kahle: A waterfall should attract more visitors to Weilburg. In: Herborner Tageblatt of September 1, 2013, p. 13. (as a newspaper clipping in the inventory of planning maps and magistrate meetings from 1904 in the historical archive of the city of Weilburg)
  6. ^ Father of Friedhelm Gerecke, the author of the Hofmann monograph from 2010 (see literature )
  7. ↑ Centralblatt der Bauverwaltung , Volume 21, 1901, No. 11 (from February 9, 1901), p. 65.
  8. ↑ Evangelical Church Community Geisenheim. Accessed January 31, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Evangelical Heilandsgemeinde - Heilandskirche †. Accessed January 31, 2019 .
  10. ↑ Historical Archives of the City of Weilburg, BI, No. 12b
  11. ^ Building with an imperial gift of grace. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of July 5, 2014, page 49.
personal data
SURNAME Hofmann, Ludwig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German architect and church builder
DATE OF BIRTH 1862
PLACE OF BIRTH Herborn
DATE OF DEATH June 26, 1933
Place of death Herborn