Martin Wagner (architect)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Berlin memorial plaque , Wannseebadweg 25, in Berlin-Nikolassee
Memorial plaque on the house at Röblingstrasse 29 in Berlin-Tempelhof
Memorial plaque , Klosterstrasse 47, in Berlin-Mitte

Martin Wagner (born November 5, 1885 in Königsberg (East Prussia) ; † May 28, 1957 in Cambridge (Massachusetts) ) was a German urban planner , architect and urban theorist .

Life

From 1905 to 1910 Wagner studied architecture, urban planning and economics at the Technical University (Berlin-) Charlottenburg and in Dresden. He then worked as a draftsman in Hermann Muthesius' office .

Rüstringen (1911-14)

On October 1, 1911, Wagner took up the post as the first head of the structural engineering department in the newly formed town of Rüstringen . He held this position until June 1, 1914. During this activity, which lasted less than three years, he influenced the development of the two Jade cities of Rüstringen and Wilhelmshaven in many ways. To counteract the negative points found in urban planning, such as a missing center and a fragmented settlement, Wagner developed a concept that aimed at the later amalgamation of the two Jade cities.

The first projects were the Rüstringen city park and the subsequent development of the so-called city park colony. The Hamburg horticultural architect Leberecht Migge was selected for the design of the city park , with whom Wagner continued to work in later years. The design of the Bordumplatz, a green area with a fountain directly in front of the old Banter Town Hall, which was destroyed in the Second World War, was planned by Wagner as a “social recreation and experience space”. Against the prevailing housing shortage in the rapidly growing city, he designed the eighth house group in 1912, a row house development that was built on with the help of municipal funds for families with more than six children.

On his initiative, the city of Rüstringen built so-called commercial houses on communal land from 1912, which were sold after completion. So he was able to have a say in the design of these houses. In the same year he introduced a municipal building consultancy with the aim of "not leaving the design of cities to arbitrariness and personal chance". In 1913 he issued a zoning code that was supposed to "combat the ugliness of the newer urban expansion". In May 1913, the city of Rüstringen launched a competition for the construction of a new Rüstringen town hall. Wagner submitted his own draft for this, but the plans for the construction were no longer pursued because of the beginning of the First World War . Further plans in Rüstringen were no longer carried out because Wagner left Rüstringen for Berlin in June 1914.

Berlin (1914-35)

In 1915 he received his doctorate with his dissertation “The sanitary green of cities, a contribution to the theory of open spaces” with Josef Brix in Berlin .

In 1918 Wagner was appointed city ​​building officer for the city of Schöneberg (since 1920 Schöneberg district of Greater Berlin ). In this function, he designed and planned the “Lindenhof I” (1918–1920) development together with Heinrich Lassen , for which Bruno Taut designed a dormitory for single people, which was demolished after being damaged in the Second World War, and Leberecht Migge designed the open space.

In 1920, Wagner and August Ellinger founded the Association of Social Construction Companies (VsB), which he headed until 1925. In the VsB at that time construction huts, mostly union- related , the urban ideal of the garden city and the social idea of ​​the guild organized associations of workers or employees willing to build. The objectives of the associations united here differed from those of other building cooperatives in that the demand for public benefit was more prominent. The purpose of the Bauhütte is, according to the journal Soziale Bauwirtschaft, the organ of the VsB, "not to promote the acquisition of its members, but simply to serve the common good." But essentially only a certain rationalization of the construction process of the respective settlements.

In 1924 the General German Trade Union Federation (ADGB) founded a central institution for the promotion of trade union companies (REWOG, later DEWOG ), which Wagner took over as head. DEWOG coordinated the entire non-profit construction industry in the German Reich through branch organizations. The Berlin subsidiary GEHAG was also under Wagner's management between 1924 and 1926. During this period, he and Bruno Taut designed the “ Hufeisensiedlung ” (1924–1926, World Heritage Site since 2008 ) in Berlin-Britz (residential row “Rote Mauer”). In this large housing estate, Wagner's ideas of typification, standardization and rationalization in residential construction were implemented for the first time, without, however, reducing the actual costs of construction.

In 1926 Martin Wagner moved to the central building authority of Berlin as a town planning officer. Under his leadership, in close cooperation with GEHAG and with the help of the house interest tax that it had been demanding since 1916 and introduced in 1924, the city planning office was able to implement an extensive housing construction program - especially in large estates. Architects such as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe , Walter Gropius , Hans Scharoun and Hugo Häring were consulted for these building programs . According to his own testimony, Wagner himself dealt more intensively with the redesign of the city center of Greater Berlin. The aim was to develop it into a “cosmopolitan city”, to make it a “place of happy work and happy leisure”, as it was called in 1929 in the magazine Das neue Berlin , edited by Wagner and Adolf Behne . The expansion of the underground (from 1926), the planning for the Platz der Republik (1927) in front of the Reichstag building , the reconstruction of Alexanderplatz (from 1929), the conception for the exhibition grounds in Charlottenburg (1927–1930, with Hans Poelzig ) , for the lido Wannsee (1928–1930, with Richard Ermisch ) and for the lido Müggelsee (1929–1930) are largely due to Wagner.

The children Irmgard, Bernd and Sabine emerged from the marriage with Gertrud Wagner. The family lived in the Eichkamp settlement, which was built in several stages until 1929 , until they emigrated .

After the collapse of the construction industry in 1931 and a visit to the Soviet Union , Wagner developed planned economy approaches for the city of Berlin, which, however, no longer came to fruition. The Berlin building exhibition in 1931 and the exhibition “Sun, Air and House for All” in 1932, at which proposals for a “growing house of the future” were compiled, were the last important activities of the city planning council. In February 1933 Wagner resigned from the Berlin Academy of the Arts to protest against the expulsion of Käthe Kollwitz and Heinrich Mann . As a long-time member of the SPD and as a representative of New Building, Wagner came into increasingly clear opposition to National Socialist (NS) politics. In March 1933, together with the social democratic members of the magistrate, he was “given leave” by the Nazi rulers as town planning officer.

Istanbul (1935-38)

In 1935 Wagner, who had been largely unemployed up to that point, was appointed urban planning advisor to the city of Istanbul on a recommendation by Poelzig . There he worked out a number of urban planning reports and a general development plan for the city. In the summer of 1937 he (probably with Bruno Taut, who was also in Turkey) designed an exhibition on the achievements of the Ataturk government .

USA (1938-57)

In 1938 he left for the USA, where he held a professorship for urban and regional planning at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts until his retirement in 1950 . He developed a prefabricated housing system from domed houses (MW system, 1940-1941) and laid the conceptual basis for the planning of “ New Towns ” (1945) composed of “neighborhoods” with 5,000 inhabitants each . 1945 Wagner was in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences elected

In 1952 Wagner, who had been an American citizen since 1944 , returned to Germany and toured the reconstruction cities of Dortmund, Essen, Bonn, Cologne, Hanover, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Darmstadt, Frankfurt am Main, Stuttgart, Freiburg and Tübingen. The disappointment about the lack of urban and residential construction in the Federal Republic from his point of view emerged shortly before his death in 1957 in his pamphlet “Potemkin in Westberlin”, in which he considered the planning for the Hansaviertel in Berlin too expensive and not meeting current social needs criticized accordingly.

Projects and works (selection)

Fonts

Literature (selection)

  • Bernard Wagner: Martin Wagner (1885-1957). Life and work. A biographical story. Hamburg 1985.
  • Edited on behalf of the Akademie der Künste: Ludovica Scarpa / Martin Kieren / Klaus Homann: Martin Wagner 1885–1957. Housing construction and world city planning. The rationalization of happiness. Berlin 1985. Academy Catalog No. 146
  • Ludovica Scarpa: Martin Wagner and Berlin. Architecture and urban development in the Weimar Republic. Braunschweig 1986.
  • Bernd Nicolai : World dynamite. Martin Wagner's (lost) years in (E) migration. In: the same (ed.): Architecture and Exile. Cultural transfer and architectural emigration 1930–1950. Trier 2003, pp. 145–156.
  • Martin Kieren: From business to science. Martin Wagner's cultural contribution: The struggle for the program of the German Building Exhibition Berlin 1931 In: ders. (Mithersg.) Martin Wagner 1885–1957. Housing construction and world city planning. The rationalization of happiness. Berlin 1985. Academy Catalog No. 146, pp. 66-82
  • Ingo Sommer : On the trail of an outstanding master builder. Martin Wagner was born 100 years ago today. City planning officer in Rüstringen. In: Wilhelmshavener Zeitung. 5th November 1985.
  • Ingo Sommer: Martin Wagner 1911–1914. Urban planning and architecture . Catalog Kunsthalle Wilhelmshaven . Verlag Kunsthalle Wilhelmshaven. Wilhelmshaven 1986.
  • Ingo Sommer: City of Rüstringen was Martin Wagner's test laboratory , in: Wilhelmshavener Zeitung January 10, 1986.

Web links

Commons : Martin Wagner (architect)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Werner Brune (Ed.): Wilhelmshavener Heimatlexikon , Volume 1–3. Brune, Wilhelmshaven 1986-1987, volume 3, pages 413-414
  2. ↑ a b Senate Department for Urban Development with a chronicle of settlement development in Berlin
  3. ↑ Isi Fischer-Sperling: 1999. Franz Hoffmann - a review. Self-published, 1999, pp. 30–31.
  4. ↑ Area monument of the Lindenhof I settlement
  5. ↑ Architectural ensemble Hospital Berlin-Buch
  6. ↑ Architectural ensemble Strandbad Wannsee
  7. ↑ Monument to the Müggelsee lido, Fürstenwalder Damm 838
  8. ^ Alexanderplatz / State of Berlin. In: stadtentwicklung.berlin.de. Retrieved March 6, 2019 .
  9. ^ Senate Department for Urban Development with information on Messe Berlin
  10. ^ Landesdenkmalamt Berlin: White City. In: berlin.de. Retrieved March 5, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Wagner, Martin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American architect and urban planner
DATE OF BIRTH November 5, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Königsberg (Prussia)
DATE OF DEATH May 28, 1957
Place of death Cambridge