Ludwig Maier

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St. Bonifatius Church in Mannheim

Ludwig Maier (born March 15, 1848 in Kehl ; † September 24, 1915 in Heidelberg ) was a German architect . As an important representative of historicism , he was involved in the planning and execution of around 100 Catholic churches in Baden .

Life

Maier was born the son of a Protestant innkeeper in Kehl. He attended high school in Strasbourg and from 1865 studied architecture at the Karlsruhe Polytechnic , where Jakob Hochstetter and Heinrich Lang were among his teachers. In 1869 he finished his studies without a degree; then he took part in the Franco-German War . He then gained practical experience at a construction company and the Grand Ducal Building Directorate. As a private architect, he took part in several competitions. Maier was so fascinated by the sacred buildings and rites of the Catholic Church that he converted from Protestant to Catholic belief in the 1870s . That was also a prerequisite for working for the Archdiocese of Freiburg.

In 1875 Maier was employed by the Archbishopric Heidelberg of the Archdiocese of Freiburg . Two years later he was transferred to the building authority in Freiburg because of his good performance. From May to June 1881 Maier was involved as assistant to the building inspector Franz Baer in the uncovering of the frescoes of St. Georg in Reichenau-Oberzell , which are now part of the world cultural heritage and which he later had copied in the Georgskirche in Elztal-Rittersbach . In 1883 he became head of the Archbishop's Building Office in Mosbach , from 1888 head of the Archbishop's Building Office in Heidelberg. In 1908 he received the Knight's Cross First Class of the Order of the Zähringer Löwen . In 1911 he was appointed superstructure inspector. Maier was married and had four children.

architecture

Maier's architecture was shaped by the style of historicism typical of the time . Most of his buildings are to be assigned to the neo-Gothic and the neo-Romanesque . The earlier buildings are neo-Gothic, as this style was prescribed for the Catholic building authorities by Freiburg building director Max Meckel . Only after he left the service was Maier able to orient his designs to other eras, especially the Romanesque. In his late work he turned to the Neo-Baroque and occasionally used elements of Art Nouveau . His three most important church buildings are the St. Bonifatius Church in Heidelberg's Weststadt (1886-1903), the St. Martin Church in Tauberbischofsheim (1910-1914) and the St. Bonifatius Church in Mannheim (1909-1915 ). Due to the rapid population growth during industrialization, most of the Catholic churches in the districts of Mannheim and Heidelberg, but also in many villages in North Baden, originate from Maier's planning.

Buildings and designs

literature

  • Sabine Bruss: The work of the architect Ludwig Maier (1848–1915). Kiel 1999, ISBN 3-933598-04-4 .
  • Hans Gercke: Churches in Heidelberg . Schnell und Steiner publishing house, Regensburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-7954-2413-8 .
  • Konrad Exner: Ludwig Maier - architect of style pluralism. In: hierzuland , Karlsruhe 2019, pp. 4–9

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Joachim Hennze: "Stylish but simple and worthy". Catholic churches in the Heilbronn area from the end of the Old Reich to the First World War . In: Heilbronnica. Contributions to the city and regional history . Volume 4. (= sources and research on the history of the city of Heilbronn 19, = yearbook for Swabian-Franconian history 36). Heilbronn City Archives, Heilbronn 2008, ISBN 978-3-940646-01-9 , pp. 351–382, here pp. 364–365 ( digitized version ).

Web links

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personal data
SURNAME Maier, Ludwig
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Maier, Carl Ludwig (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German architect
DATE OF BIRTH March 15, 1848
PLACE OF BIRTH Throat
DATE OF DEATH September 24, 1915
Place of death Heidelberg