Moritz Hauser (architect)

Moritz Hauser (born June 27, 1891 in Graz ; died October 5, 1970 in Zurich ) was a Swiss architect .

Live and act

Hauser grew up in Graz and St. Gallen , where he attended school, as the son of a knitting trader. He then went to study in his hometown, where relatives began studying architecture at the Technical University . He then took his diploma in architecture at the Technical University in Munich and went to Frankfurt in 1914/15, where, after two positions in architecture offices, he worked at the local building department. From 1916 he was a soldier in the First World War , as an Austro-Hungarian lieutenant he was taken prisoner in Italy. From the summer of 1919 he was back in St. Gallen, where he started his own business in 1920. In 1931 the devout Jew Hauser moved to Zurich because of “anti-Semitic activities”, but he kept a smaller office in St. Gallen. The residential and commercial building on Lämmlisbrunnenstrasse, a building complex committed to modernity , protrudes from its St. Galler shows . But the arcade house in Dianastrasse and the Bruggwiesen settlement from the mid-1930s also bear witness to his work in St. Gallen, which was committed to the New Building.

In Zurich, his first important building, the Urbank complex on Bellevue from 1934–35, was unfortunately demolished in 1970. Hotel Touring, on the other hand, was built a little earlier, and residential buildings in the 1940s: The house on Zeltweg from 1942, which united four artists under one roof, as well as a painter, a sculptor and a graphic artist as well as the organist and organ expert Viktor Schlatter , is trapezoidal The floor plan is inscribed into the property in a complex manner, the four units, each with their own entrance, form to a certain extent houses in the house, and because of the topography and the needs of the residents - the sculptor's studio has a clear height of 3.70 m, the organist let himself Install an organ that was shown at the State Exhibition in 1939 - the result is a wide variety of spatial relationships, ceilings and internal stairs. In 1944 residential buildings were built on Merkurstrasse and in 1948 a larger development on Rotfluhstrasse in Zollikon , including the architect's own home. The point house on Kapellenstrasse on the slope of Freudenberg in St. Gallen, which was built in 1953, is remarkable.

Hauser was president of the Zurich Zionist local group for decades; in the 1940s he built for the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde on Lavaterstrasse and in 1952 renovated the synagogue built in 1884 on Löwenstrasse . In Jerusalem he designed the grave of Theodor Herzl .

Selection of works

• Kinotheater Palace , St. Gallen 1923–24
• Lämmlisbrunnenstr. , Residential and commercial building, St. Gallen 1931–32
• Laubenganghaus Dianastr. , St. Gallen 1933
• Hotel Touring , Zurich 1931–32
• Hotel and Cinema Urban , Zurich 1934–35 (broken off in 1970)
• Bruggwiesen settlement , St. Gallen 1934–35
• Zeltweg semi-detached house , Zurich 1941
• Multi-family house Merkurstr. , Zurich 1944
• Development on Rothfluhstr. , Zollikon 1946-48
• Multi-family house Kapellenweg , St. Gallen 1952–53

literature

• Daniel Studer: Hauser, Moritz [Moses]. In: Isabelle Rucki and Dorothee Huber (eds.): Architectural Lexicon of Switzerland - 19./20. Century. Birkhäuser, Basel 1998. ISBN 3-7643-5261-2 . P. 255

supporting documents

1. ↑ Here the architectural dictionary quotes the communication from K. Lichtenstein, Zurich, see Daniel Studer: Hauser, Moritz [Moses]. In: Isabelle Rucki and Dorothee Huber (eds.): Architectural Lexicon of Switzerland - 19./20. Century. Birkhäuser, Basel 1998. ISBN 3-7643-5261-2 . P. 255
2. ^ NN: House on the Geissberg in Zurich . Architect Moritz Hauser, Zurich. In: Schweizerische Bauzeitung . tape 119 , no. 26 , 1942, doi : 10.5169 / seals-52386 .
3. ^ NN: Housing in St. Gallen . In: The work . tape 42 , no. 5 , 1955, pp. 142 f ., doi : 10.5169 / seals-32510 .