Max Berg (architect)

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Max Berg around 1909
Signature of Max Berg
Own house in Wroclaw
Centennial Hall in Wroclaw
Chapel at the Oswitzer Friedhof in Breslau
Hydroelectric power station on the Süderoder in Breslau

Max Paul Eduard Berg (born April 17, 1870 in Stettin ; † January 22, 1947 in Baden-Baden ) was a German architect and construction clerk . His most important work is the Centennial Hall in Breslau , which was completed in 1913.

Life

Youth and beginnings of the career (1870–1909)

Max Berg was born in Szczecin, the son of a high school teacher. After graduating from high school in Stettin, he studied at the Technical University of Charlottenburg from 1889 to 1893 , where he a. a. attended the lectures of the Gothic connoisseur Carl Schäfer . From 1893 to 1895 Berg served in the military in his hometown of Szczecin. In 1898 he passed the second state examination and became a government architect ( assessor ). Some designs from this period are known, e.g. B. for a neo-Gothic Protestant church (1895) and for a tram stop on Nollendorfplatz in Schöneberg (monthly competition, October 1898). In 1899 Berg worked briefly for the Szczecin Building Administration. This was followed by a job as a building inspector at the city administration in Frankfurt am Main , during which he got to know the urban planning ideas of Camillo Sitte and in 1908 went on a study trip to Great Britain.

City planning officer in Breslau (1909–1925)

On December 17, 1908, Max Berg was elected city building officer for building construction (full-time member of the magistrate, roughly equivalent to the current job title of building department ) in Breslau , as the successor to Richard Plüddemann, who was retiring for reasons of age . He took up the position on April 1, 1909. During this time (1909–1910) he took part in the urban planning competition for Greater Berlin .

After the First World War, Berg competed unsuccessfully in the Reichstag elections as a member of the SPD .

While the possible construction of high-rise buildings in Germany was hotly debated shortly after the World War , Max Berg proposed his own high-rise design to the Wroclaw City Council. On January 7, 1920, he presented his plans for a new town hall (technical town hall) on the site of the former gas works on Lessingplatz (today Plac Powstańców Warszawy ) to the Wroclaw City Council . In July 1920, this design was published along with three other high-rise designs by Berg. On July 12, 1920, he asked the Silesian provincial administration to appraise the designs. At the same time he tried to reform the building code with the Prussian government, which should regulate high-rise construction in general. His proposal failed, however, and in November 1920 the government decided that high-rise buildings should in future be approved with an exemption for deviating from the building regulations in individual cases. The provincial administration criticized the skyscraper designs in their statement. It was claimed that the skyline of Wroclaw was defaced by high-rise buildings. Several artists' associations, including the German Werkbund , as well as the writer Gerhart Hauptmann , with whom the architect had been friends since 1913, then took protection of Max Berg. The high-rise buildings were still not implemented because no financing could be found.

The city council also stood behind Max Berg and in 1921 he was elected for a second twelve-year term. At the start of the second term of office, Berg was busy organizing a large urban planning competition for the development of Wroclaw. In the jury sat next to him u. a. Alfred von Scholtz , the conservative-oriented city planning officer for urban development and Bruno Möhring , Berg's comrade in the Greater Berlin competition and high-rise proponent. However, the selected entries in the competition contradicted Berg's ideas. It came to a head when Berg refused to sign the final report. This was sharply criticized in the local press and in the city council, although the city council was dominated by Berg's party comrades from the SPD.

Due to numerous conflicts with the city council, Max Berg left the SPD and left office on January 30, 1925.

Retired (1925–1947)

Berg left his post by mutual agreement and kept his civil servants' salaries in full until 1933, when he officially retired. He moved to Berlin and dealt with journalism, theosophy and Christian mysticism . Despite the scandal about his departure, Berg retained his reputation in Breslau. In 1929 he was a judge there in the architecture competition for a high-rise building for the municipal Sparkasse am Ring . In 1930 a retrospective solo exhibition was dedicated to his work.

Max Berg moved to Baden-Baden during the Second World War . At the end of the war, together with Martin Mächler, he signed an appeal to Martin Bormann to spare the monuments of Rome during the war . In fact, Rome was declared an open city in June 1944 .

Private

Max Berg was born with Edelgarde. Gerlach married. Their son is Michael Berg (* 1922 in Schreiberhau ).

Architectural work

Executed buildings in Frankfurt am Main (selection)

  • 1901–1902: Bonifatius School at Moltkeallee 43 (now: Hamburger Allee) in Frankfurt-Bockenheim, preserved with changes
  • 1902–1906: Mühlbergschule at Lettigkautweg 8 in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen, preserved

Executed buildings in Wroclaw (selection)

  • 1910: own house on Copernicus Street (now: ulica Mikołaja Kopernika) (conversion and extension of an older villa, preserved)
  • 1911: Infant home (now "Municipal Children's Hospital") on Schulgasse (ulica Józefa Hoene-Wrońskiego) (preserved)
  • 1911–1913: " Jahrhunderthalle " (together with the civil engineer Günther Trauer , preserved with minor changes)
  • 1912: Municipal bathing establishment on Tiergartenstrasse (now: ulica Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej) (preserved, today used by a pizzeria and as an office building)
  • Facade of the IV Lyceum, Brockauer Straße (now: ulica Stacha Świstackiego) (preserved)
  • 1924–1925: exhibition pavilions and halls, a. a. large exhibition hall with wooden parabolic roof trusses (destroyed in World War II)
  • 1921–1924: Southern hydropower plant on the Oder, below the Werder Bridge South (with Ludwig Moshamer , preserved)
  • 1921–1925: Northern hydropower plant on the Oder, above the Werder Bridge North (with Paul Schreiber and Wilhelm Anders, preserved)

Unrealized projects

One of Berg's unrealized designs was the construction of a high-rise building with a facade made of steel and glass next to the Wroclaw City Hall . The design provoked violent protests in the city, but inspired the construction of the first German high-rise buildings in Düsseldorf and Cologne . The plans for the redevelopment of the city center of Hindenburg ( Upper Silesia ), today Zabrze , from 1928 also remained unrealized. Max Berg's ideas for Wroclaw town planning became the basis for the town planning competition in 1922.

literature

Web links

Commons : Max Berg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
predecessor Office successor
Richard Plüddemann Wroclaw City Planning Council (building construction)
1909–1925 		Hugo Althoff
personal data
SURNAME Berg, Max
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Berg, Max Paul Eduard (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German architect and construction officer
DATE OF BIRTH April 17, 1870
PLACE OF BIRTH Szczecin
DATE OF DEATH January 22, 1947
Place of death Baden-Baden