Magnus Backes

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Magnus Backes (born September 17, 1930 in Cologne ; died May 21, 2019 in Wiesbaden ) was an art historian and monument conservator . From 1983 to 1991, succeeding Werner Bornheim gen. Schilling and Hartmut Hofrichter, he was the third state curator to head the State Office for the Preservation of Monuments of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate in Mainz .

Life

Origin and education

Born in Cologne, Magnus Backes first attended a grammar school in Bonn before studying art history and archeology at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität there. In 1957 he was given the title of Dr. by Heinrich Lützeler with Julius Ludwig Rothweil , a Rhenish-Hessian baroque architect. phil. doctorate , his dissertation was also awarded the Paul Clemen scholarship .

Career

Following his studies and doctorate, Backes found employment from 1958 to 1961 as custodian at the Marksburg , which is owned by the German Castle Association . These years had a lasting impact on his further life, but also as a monument conservator. He met at the Marksburg, the only hilltop castle on the Middle Rhine that remained undamaged over the centuries, but not only got to know his future wife, whom he married in 1960 and with whom he had two daughters. About the work on this memorial, "probably his career path decided to deal with the monuments of history directly and practically and to make them clear to people, to make them understandable and not least to preserve them for the following generations." the episode several times, sometimes in larger editions.

In the following years up to 1964 Magnus Backes was entrusted with art-historical work for the Beltzer publishing house and in particular the Dehio Association . His most important work from this period is the Hesse edition from the series of the Handbook of German Art Monuments founded by Georg Dehio and continued by Ernst Gall .

Conservationist

In 1964 he finally joined the State Office for Monument Preservation in Rhineland-Palatinate as a research assistant. Initially employed, he rose to the position of curator and ultimately to senior curator, before moving to the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation in Munich in 1973 . As an "area officer, department head and representative of the general curator", he not only learned more in-depth information about the Franconian culture, but also about the skills to lead a department. Experiences that would be of use to him after his appointment as the new state curator of Rhineland-Palatinate by the then Minister of Education, Georg Gölter, on January 1, 1983.

During his tenure, which lasted until June 30, 1991, his office grew with simultaneous restructuring towards decentralization to at times up to 160 employees.

In addition to his official activities, during which, among other things, he developed a financing model for the start of the monument topography in Rhineland-Palatinate, Magnus Backes also belonged to numerous organizations, associations and corporations. The external reputation was just as important to him as the "internal consolidation" and the expansion of the office he headed. This is the name given to his multi-year vice-presidency in the German national committee of ICOMOS . At UNESCO level , he represented the Federal Republic of Germany during the talks taking place in Australia regarding the inclusion of the Speyer Cathedral and the Residence in Würzburg (1981) on the list of world cultural heritage.

The initiative to found the Institute for Stone Conservation for Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland also went back to Backes, who also received teaching commitments at the technical colleges in Koblenz , Augsburg and the Bavarian Administration School .

Fonts (selection)

Web links

literature

  • Dedicated to Magnus Backes: Preservation of monuments in Rhineland-Palatinate. Annual reports 1989–1991. Born 44–46, published by the Rhineland-Palatinate State Office for Monument Preservation, Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, Worms 1994, ISSN  0341-9967 .
  • Regine Dölling: Magnus Backes and the Marksburg. In: Castles and Palaces. Vol. 43, No. 4, 2002, ISSN  0007-6201 , p. 247.
  • Veit Geißler: Dr. Magnus Backes. In: Preservation of monuments in Rhineland-Palatinate. Annual reports 1989–1991. Year 44–46, published by the Rhineland-Palatinate State Office for Monument Preservation, Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, Worms 1994, ISSN  0341-9967 , pp. 11–13 including list of publications, pp. 14–20.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Obituary notice
  2. ↑ a b c d Veit Geißler: Dr. Magnus Backes. In: Preservation of monuments in Rhineland-Palatinate. Annual reports 1989–1991. Year 44–46, published by the State Office for Monument Preservation Rhineland-Palatinate, Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, Worms 1994, pp. 11–13 including the list of publications, pp. 14–20, here p. 11.
  3. ↑ Magnus Backes. In: Rheinische Heimatpflege . Vol. 28, No. 3, 1991, ISSN  0342-1805 , p. 231.
  4. ↑ Veit Geißler: Dr. Magnus Backes. In: Preservation of monuments in Rhineland-Palatinate. Annual reports 1989–1991. Year 44–46, published by the State Office for the Preservation of Monuments in Rhineland-Palatinate, Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, Worms 1994, pp. 11–13 including the list of publications pp. 14–20, here p. 13.
  5. ^ A b Veit Geißler: Dr. Magnus Backes. In: Preservation of monuments in Rhineland-Palatinate. Annual reports 1989–1991. Year 44–46, published by the State Office for the Preservation of Monuments in Rhineland-Palatinate, Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, Worms 1994, pp. 11–13 including the list of publications, pp. 14–20, here p. 12.
personal data
SURNAME Backes, Magnus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art historian and monument conservator, state curator of Rhineland-Palatinate
DATE OF BIRTH 17th September 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH May 21, 2019
Place of death Wiesbaden