Niels Gutschow

Niels Gutschow (born November 27, 1941 in Hamburg ) is a German architect and building historian with a focus on the architectural history of Asia and urban planning during the Second World War and in the post-war period in Central Europe.

Life

The son of the architect Konstanty Gutschow began his training with a trip through Asia and a stay as a monk in a Buddhist monastery in Rangoon . In 1962/63 he completed an internship as a carpenter in Japan. From 1963 to 1970 he studied architecture at the Technical University of Darmstadt . In 1971 he was a team member in the first bilateral protection project in the small Nepalese royal city of Bhaktapur , where the priestly house Pujari Math was restored. 1973 followed the doctorate on Japanese castle towns in the field of building history.

From 1974 to 1978 he conducted research on the one hand in Nepal and India on the subject of cities and rituals and on the evidence of processional routes, on the other hand at the TH Darmstadt on the revitalization of historic old towns in Europe.

While as a monument conservationist in Münster from 1978 to 1980 he was significantly involved in the establishment of the lower monument authority, architecture and urban planning in West Germany during the Second World War and in the post-war period became a research focus (with Werner Durth , among others ), which he began researching in 1989 expanded architecture and urban planning in the GDR from 1945 to 1960 (with Jörn Düwel, among others ).

His building research in South Asia with twelve long-term projects has been supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) since 1970 : For the Society for Technical Cooperation , he prepared an expert report on the social structure in Bhaktapur and accompanied the measures there for maintenance and development until 1990. From 1980 to 1988 he included villages, palaces and temples in a monument inventory in Nepal, and from 1986 he dealt with the construction type of stupas .

Since 2004 he has been an honorary professor at the Institute for Indology at Heidelberg University and lives in Abtsteinach and Bhaktapur .

Niels Gutschow has been a member of the Free Academy of the Arts in Hamburg since 2013 . As curator of the exhibition The Expected Catastrophe in summer 2013, he evaluated his father's estate.

His publications include around 150 journal articles and 37 books, some of which were written with other authors. In September 2009 he received the Literature Prize of the Association of German Architects and Engineers in Hamburg and in February 2015 he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit.

Fonts (selection)

• The Japanese castle town (=  Bochum geographical works . Issue 24). Schöningh, Paderborn 1976, ISBN 3-506-71204-7 (dissertation).
• Benares. Temple and religious life in the holy city of the Hindus . DuMont, Cologne 1993, ISBN 3-7701-2849-4 .
• Mania for order: Architects plan in the "Germanized East" 1939–1945 . Birkhäuser, Basel 2001, ISBN 978-3-7643-6390-1 .
• with Werner Durth : Architecture and Urban Development in the 1950s. (= Series of publications of the German National Committee for Monument Protection , Volume 33.) Bonn 1987, ISBN 3-922153-04-6

Web links

• Website at the South Asia Institute at Heidelberg University
• Website at Cluster Asia and Europe