Martin Dülfer

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Martin Dülfer (1908)

Martin Dülfer (born January 1, 1859 in Breslau ; † December 21, 1942 in Dresden ) was a German architect and university professor who was particularly noted for his theater buildings and designs and became an important representative of historicism and German Art Nouveau architecture heard.

life and work

Dülfer was born in 1859 in Breslau as the son of the publisher Carl Dülfer. After the secondary school in Breslau, he first attended the trade school in Schweidnitz . He then studied from 1877 to 1879 at the Technical University of Hanover with Conrad Wilhelm Hase and from 1879 to 1880 at the Technical University of Stuttgart (presumably) with Christian Friedrich von Leins . In Hanover he joined the Corps Visurgia . In 1880/81 Dülfer did his military service. He then decided to do a practical job and worked in the prestigious Berlin architectural office of Heinrich Kayser and Karl von Großheim , and later in his home town of Breslau in the Brost und Grosser office . In 1885/86 he completed his studies at the Technical University of Munich under Friedrich von Thiersch .

Martin Dülfer's house in Krailling near Munich
Leopoldstrasse 77 residential building in Munich (1901/1902) designed by Dülfer, the architect's residential building from 1902 to 1906
Memorial for Martin Dülfer on the Old Annenfriedhof in Dresden

Dülfer began his independent activity in Munich in 1887, initially building in the neo-baroque variant of historicism typical of the time and region . Around 1900 he turned to Art Nouveau , whose floral, geometric and textural repertoire he combined with Baroque and Classicist style elements to create an individually shaped, Baroque-style Art Nouveau. Façade designs, apartment buildings, commercial buildings and villas for the upper class were created.

1899–1900 Dülfer was able to build his first theater in Merano in the Burggrafenamt , which was to be followed by four more over the years. In addition to the five completed projects, there were also a large number of non-implemented competition designs, some of which failed due to adverse external circumstances despite being awarded first prize.

In 1902 Dülfer received the honorary title Royal Bavarian Professor ( titular professor ). In 1906 he was appointed full professor of building design at the Technical University of Dresden as the successor to Karl Weißbach . From 1912 Dülfer was “head” ( dean ) of the building construction department, rector from 1920 to 1921 and immediately afterwards prorector of the university for two years . He was a member of several professional associations and artists' associations, from 1908 to 1912 he was chairman of the Association of German Architects (BDA). In Dresden he joined the artists' association Die Zunft , which was first headed by the city planner Hans Erlwein and later by Georg Wrba . In 1909 he was a founding member of the Dresden Artists' Association .

In the summer of 1911 Dülfer was awarded the Prussian Crown Order III. Class excellent. In 1913 the Dresden University of Technology awarded him an honorary doctorate (Dr.-Ing. E. h.), And a second honorary doctorate in 1928 from the Berlin University of Technology . In 1929 Dülfer retired from Dresden University . After that, the public did not notice him again until his 80th birthday (1939); despite a Freemason - Lodge had listened and thus actually considered "unreliable" in the sense of Nazi cultural policy, it was to mark the occasion Goethe Medal awarded.

In 1893 Dülfer had Käte, born in 1865, also in Breslau. Weigand (t) married, the marriage apparently remained childless. After Dülfer's visit to the 1904 World Exhibition in St. Louis (USA), an illegitimate daughter was born there in 1905, to whom he openly confessed. In 1915, the Dülfer couple adopted a nine-year-old boy named Kurt, whom some contemporary witnesses also believed to be Dülfer's illegitimate child; According to other information, this child is said to have belonged to Käte Dülfer's relatives.

Martin Dülfer died at the end of 1942, Käte Dülfer came during the air raid on Dresden on 13/14. Killed in February 1945 , during which Dülfer's estate was also destroyed. Dülfer's grave in the Old Annenfriedhof was destroyed in 1945. His is commemorated today in the memorial for professors of the Technical University of Dresden in the cemetery.

Buildings and designs (selection)

  • State and City Library Augsburg, facade by Martin Dülfer (1893)

  • House facade at the Münchner Freiheit

  • City Theater in Meran (1899/1900)

  • City Theater in Lübeck (1907/1908)

  • Beyer building at TU Dresden (1910/1913)

  • Bulgarian National Theater in Sofia (1925/1929)

literature

Web links

Commons : Martin Dülfer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Martin Dülfer  - sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 100 years of Weinheim Senior Citizens' Convention. Bochum 1963, p. 142.
  2. ↑ Georg Sperlich. Lord Mayor of Münster in the Weimar Republic. Münster 2006, p. 211.
personal data
SURNAME Dülfer, Martin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German architect and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH January 1, 1859
PLACE OF BIRTH Wroclaw
DATE OF DEATH December 21, 1942
Place of death Dresden