Oskar Bloch

Oskar Bloch (approx. 1934)

Oskar Bloch , also Oscar Bloch , (born March 4, 1881 in Zurich ; † January 6, 1937 in Stuttgart ) was a German architect of Swiss origin. He worked independently in a shared office with Ernst Guggenheimer in Stuttgart.

Life

Oskar Bloch was born in Zurich on March 4, 1881. From 1883 he lived in Stuttgart with his parents and sisters. After graduating from the Karls-Gymnasium Stuttgart , he studied architecture at the Technical University of Stuttgart and in 1909 passed the 2nd state examination to become a government master builder ( assessor in the public building administration), but preferred to pursue an independent professional career as a construction clerk . From 1910 he shared an office with Ernst Guggenheimer, whom he met in 1909.

Oskar Bloch died at the age of 55 in Stuttgart. The urn with his ashes was buried in the Israelite part of the Prague cemetery in Stuttgart in 1937 (urn grave XXII, III, no. 148).

plant

Oskar Bloch's first new building was a residential building in the north of Stuttgart. From 1909/1910, Oskar Bloch and Ernst Guggenheimer operated under the name Bloch & Guggenheimer for 25 years , their architectural office was in Königstraße 25. From the time before the First World War, there are mainly two industrial buildings and the Jewish orphanage in Eßlingen am Neckar ( name at the time) and a nurses' home in Stuttgart are remarkable.

Jewish orphanage in Esslingen am Neckar

Theodor Rothschild House in Esslingen am Neckar

The new building for the Jewish orphanage in Eßlingen am Neckar , Mühlbergerstraße 146, was built in 1913 after an architectural competition that Bloch and Guggenheimer won. The house has been preserved and is now called Theodor Rothschild House . The Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums wrote during the construction period in 1913:

“The exterior of the house is, so to speak, finished and, viewed from the plateau behind the castle, presents itself as a spaciously developed building with a Baroque flow. The floor area of ​​the house then rises slightly to gain the height, which offers a delicious panoramic view of the Schwabenland offers. (...) The north-facing corridors are in turn at the service yard. The southeast corner of the area is divided into a school yard, ornamental garden, kitchen garden, tree garden and kindergarten. Even the rich natural dress of the gardens arouses full sympathy with the whole architectural idea, but significantly enlarged by the inclusion of the house itself, which, the work of architects Bloch and Guggenheimer, Stuttgart, promises to be a mature example of such systems. The middle of the upper half of the property is roughly expressed by the actual main building. Its longitudinal axis is directed towards the valley and can also be seen from there. This building also contains the main rooms of the house, while the wing adjoining to the west with the head wing on the Panoramastraße contains the actual classrooms. "

In November 1913, the Jewish orphanage was inaugurated by King Wilhelm II of Württemberg .

In the 1920s

House on Bopserwaldstrasse, Stuttgart, 1929

Bloch and Guggenheimer designed the memorial erected in 1925 in Stuttgart's Prague cemetery for the Jewish soldiers who died in the First World War. In 1926 they converted a gold and silver goods factory in Schwäbisch Gmünd into a synagogue for the local Jewish community. The architecture of the New Building , in particular the formal language of the Weißenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart, also influenced the architectural style of Bloch and Guggenheimer. In this style, Bloch and Guggenheimer expanded the Stuttgart workers' settlement "Im Eiernest" from 1928 to 1930. They built a group of houses in a modern design language for Jewish clients. The seven houses were nicknamed "Little Palestine" by the vernacular, which was mockingly charged during the time of National Socialism. Myra Warhaftig names the original reason for the nickname that “both the architects and the builders were Jews” . Bloch and Guggenheimer also built a chemistry laboratory and the Villa Dr. Oppenheimer.

time of the nationalsocialism

After 1933, Oskar Bloch and Ernst Guggenheimer were not admitted as Jews to the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts , which amounted to a far-reaching ban on self-employed architects. They were only allowed to work for Jewish clients. Oskar Bloch was subject to these restrictions in his professional practice until his death.

Hans Oppenheimer tells us that Oskar Bloch built a Jewish school in the courtyard of the Israelite community center:

“The solution to the question of space for the Jewish elementary school, which has now become necessary again, presented particular difficulties in Stuttgart. The recently deceased architect Oscar Bloch - incidentally also the builder of the Jewish nurses' home in Stuttgart and the Israelite orphanage in Esslingen - undertook this task with skill. In the courtyard of the parish hall he built a modern building with a workshop and gym, with a veranda and washrooms, with seven classes that currently accommodate 265 students. (...) Bright, airy rooms, many and large windows, modern benches and tables show that all objects have been carefully selected. "

Extension of the Wilhelmsruhe in Heilbronn-Sontheim

The Wilhelmsruhe building, inaugurated in 1907 by the Stuttgart architects Heim & Früh, which initially served as a Jewish retirement home, then as a gynecological clinic and aftercare clinic, was expanded by 30 single rooms in 1936 and 1937. Officially, only Oskar Bloch was named as the architect, as he had Swiss citizenship. After Bloch's death in 1937, the National Socialist rulers allowed his partner Ernst Guggenheimer to finish the expansion.

Buildings and drafts (overview)

• 1910: House Krieg / Kittler in Stuttgart-Nord
• 1912–1913: “Wilhelmspflege” Jewish orphanage in Eßlingen am Neckar
• 1913–1914: Jewish nurses' home in Stuttgart-Nord, Dillmannstrasse
• 1915–1917: Villa for the manufacturer Albert Levi in ​​Stuttgart, Lenzhalde 83
• 1927–1928: Villa Oppenheimer in Stuttgart-Ost, Gerokstraße 45 (demolished in 1972)
• 1928: Expansion of the “Im Eiernest” estate in Stuttgart-Süd, Karl-Kloß-Straße
• 1928–1929: Frankenstein House in Stuttgart-Ost, Bopserwaldstrasse
• 1929–1930 Beifuss House in Stuttgart, Gaußstrasse 95
• 1929–1930: Alice Bloch-Tank's house in Stuttgart-West, Zeppelinstrasse 32
• 1930–1933: “Little Palestine” colony in Stuttgart, below the Doggenburg
• 1932: Villas Ullmann and Heilbronn in Gailingen
• 1934–1935: Jewish School Stuttgart
• 1936–1937: Extension of the Jewish retirement home in Heilbronn-Sontheim , Hermann-Wolff-Straße 31

Ownership history

The Hauptmannsreute 88 building was built in 1930 as the first of the house group of the "Little Palestine" colony for the Jewish factory owner Simon Krautkopf Mechanische Knitting and Knitwear Factory. He had to sell his house after the seizure of power and emigrate to the USA. He got the house back after the war. His factory was right next to the Herold-Bücher publishing house of the brothers Erich and Richard Levy in Rosenbergstrasse, Stuttgart. The Levy brothers - officially in Lenk since 1929 - were Krautkopf's immediate neighbors in the "Little Palestine" colony. They too had to emigrate and sell their houses. The daughter Olga Levy Drucker recorded her memories of the time in Caesar-Fleischlen-Strasse and the circumstances of the loss in "Kindertransport-Alone on the Flight", 1995.

literature

• Christine Breig: The construction of villas and country houses in Stuttgart 1830-1930. Stuttgart 2004, p. 221.
• Joachim Hahn: Friedhöfe in Stuttgart, Volume 3: Pragfriedhof, Israelite part. Klett-Cotta Verlag, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3-608-91618-0 , p. 47.
• Dietrich W. Schmidt: The Bloch-Tank House in Stuttgart by Bloch & Guggenheimer. Modern Architecture Reshaped after 1933 into a Traditional "German Home". Docomomo Journal, 1996, Conference Proceedings - 4th C, p. 245.
• Gudrun Silberzahn-Jandt, Jürgen Knodel: 100 years Theodor Rothschild House 2013 in Esslingen, Festschrift
• Esther Walther, Dietrich W. Schmidt, Rolf Bohland (eds.): The Stuttgart architects and government builders Oskar Bloch and Ernst Guggenheimer. (published on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Wilhelmspflege in Esslingen) leaflet, Stuttgart / Zurich 2013.
• Myra Warhaftig: German Jewish Architects before and after 1933. The Lexicon. Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-496-01326-5
• Olga Levy Drucker (from the American English by Klaus Sticker): Kindertransport: alone on the flight , Göttingen 1995. ISBN 3-88977-420-2 (online as PDF In the wake of the Weißenhofsiedlung )
• Dietrich W. Schmidt and Ulrike Plate: In the wake of the Weißenhofsiedlung: residential building ensemble in Stuttgart half-height location "Little Palestine" by the Jewish architects Bloch & Guggenheimer from 1930. In: Denkmalpflege in Baden-Württemberg , issue 3/2017, p. 203– 207.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Alemannia Judaica : Stuttgart (state capital of Baden-Württemberg) Jewish buildings and new synagogue 1945 to 1952
2. ^ ^{A b c d e} Myra Warhaftig: German Jewish architects before and after 1933. The lexicon. Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin 2005, p. 77.
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Esther Walther, Dietrich W. Schmidt, Rolf Bohland (eds.): The Stuttgart architects and government architects Oskar Bloch and Ernst Guggenheimer. (published on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Wilhelmspflege in Esslingen) leaflet, Stuttgart / Zurich 2013.
4. ↑ Yvonne Weihrauch: Insight into Jewish history. The Theodor Rothschild House was built as an orphanage shortly before the First World War. Imaginative stone work and a great view. In: Eßlinger Zeitung of September 13, 2008 ( online )
5. ↑ Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums of August 29, 1913 ( online )
6. ^ Myra Warhaftig: German Jewish architects before and after 1933. The lexicon. Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin 2005, p. 33.
7. ^ Hans Oppenheimer: Stuttgart and Ulm. Image of two parishes. In: Central-Verein-Zeitung, Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums , 16th year, 2nd supplement, No. 10 / March 11, 1937. ( online  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically defective Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this note. as a PDF document with 13.32 MB)  
8. ↑ Hans Franke : History and Fate of the Jews in Heilbronn. From the Middle Ages to the time of the National Socialist persecution (1050–1945). Stadtarchiv Heilbronn, Heilbronn 1963, ISBN 3-928990-04-7 , p. 181, note 11 ( online as a PDF document with 1.2 MB)
9. ↑ ^{a b c d} Dietrich W. Schmidt / Ulrike Plate: In the wake of the Weißenhofsiedlung : residential building ensemble in Stuttgart half-height location "Little Palestine" by the Jewish architects Bloch & Guggenheimer before 1930 . In: Preservation of monuments in Baden-Wuerttemberg news sheet of the state preservation of monuments . 46th year (2017) No. 3 , p. 203-207 .