Max Gerntke

Max Gerntke (born July 17, 1895 in Hamburg ; † May 4, 1964 there ) was a German architect , artist and designer .

Live and act

Max Gerntke completed an apprenticeship as a bricklayer and attended the Hamburg building trade school. He then studied at the Hamburg School of Applied Arts , in particular with Hermann Maetzig and Johann Michael Bossard . From 1922 he worked as a freelance architect. Together with Heinrich Esselmann , he had an office partnership from 1925 to 1932. During this time Gerntke's most creative buildings were built, which can be found in Altona in particular .

Gerntke received his ideas in particular from his teacher Bossard, who built his own expressionist art temple in Lüllau . The architect designed private buildings according to his own imagination, excited and crystalline. He exaggerated the proportions and stretched the structural members, but always retained references to traditional rural Low German construction. In doing so, he took up forms of design by Bernhard Hoetger and occasionally Fritz Höger . One of the medium-sized villas that were built in the suburbs of Hamburg during this time was the ensemble Gottorpstrasse 3–7 in 1922, which had rural decorations. One year later, the houses at Cranachstrasse 27 and 29 were built, the latter of which was demolished in 1973, the combination of local style elements and expressionist execution was unusual for Hamburg conditions at the time. In 1925, together with the sculptor August Henneberger , Gerntke designed the Fallen Memorial for Infantry Regiment 31 in front of St. John's Church . The building of the Elbschloss brewery on Elbchaussee, which was converted in 1927/28, has also been preserved . Most of Gerntke's late works no longer exist, including the renovation of the former Schiller Opera .

In his later years, Gerntke was less successful. He mostly built for the commercial sector or dedicated himself to interior fittings. After the end of World War II , he began to rebuild the destroyed Alster pavilion , which Ferdinand Streb later redesigned. Gerntke owned an attic apartment on Papenhuder Strasse on Uhlenhorst , which was considered to be legendary in design and is partly documented with photographs. Further pictures show that the architect also decorated artist parties in the Curiohaus with a lot of energy and irony.

Gerntke, whose formal language was only taken up again decades later, died on May 4, 1964 in his hometown.

buildings

Fallen Memorial of Infantry Regiment 31 (1925)

• 1922: Villa group at Gottorpstrasse 3-7
• 1923: Factory at Waidmannstrasse 16
• 1923: Houses at Cranachstrasse 27-29
• before 1926: Landhaus Herms in Othmarschen
• before 1926: Clubhouse of the Groß-Flottbeker tennis and hockey club
• before 1926: Wolf semi-detached house in Groß-Flottbek
• before 1926: Landhaus Tümmler-Klee
• before 1926: Landhaus Neumann in Othmarschen
• before 1926: Landhaus Günther in Hochkamp
• before 1926: St.-Pauli-Fährhaus restaurant
• before 1926: Restaurant Fischertal
• 1925: Memorial of the fallen of the 31st Infantry Regiment
• 1927–1928: Conversion of the Elbschloss brewery on the Elbchaussee
• 1927–1928: Residential and commercial building Winterhuder Marktplatz 10
• 1932: Reconstruction of the Schiller Opera

literature

• Jan Lubitz: Gerntke, Max . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 5 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-8353-0640-0 , p. 131-132 .
• Martin Feddersen: To the buildings by Esselmann & Gerntke, Altona . In Moderne Baufformen, issue 12/1926

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i} Modern designs , issue 12/1926