Oskar Kaufmann
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Oskar Kaufmann (born February 2, 1873 in Újszentanna, Austria-Hungary , today: Sântana , Romania ; † September 6, 1956 in Budapest ) was a Hungarian-Jewish architect who worked in Germany between 1895 and 1933 and whose main focus was on the Theater building lay.
His best-known works include the Krolloper , the Hebbel-Theater , the Freie Volksbühne and the Renaissance-Theater in Berlin as well as the Stadttheater Bremerhaven , the Neue Stadttheater in Vienna and the Habimah in Tel Aviv .
Life
Youth and education
Kaufmann came from a wealthy Jewish family in Hungary . After graduating from high school in Arad , he volunteered for the Arad Hussars and after that time began studying architecture in Budapest. It is possible that disagreements with his parents, who rejected his piano studies (which Kaufmann pursued with the intention of becoming a pianist) and who then refused him financial support, led him to leave Hungary in 1895 and continue his architecture studies at the Technical University of Karlsruhe . During this time he earned his living playing the piano. Through this he came into contact with a number of personalities from the opera circle. Among them was the then music director of the court opera in Karlsruhe , the Austrian composer Felix Mottl , who sincerely valued Kaufmann as a pianist. These contacts probably had a lasting impact on Kaufmann's architectural development.
His architectural teachers in Karlsruhe included Josef Durm , Otto Warth , Carl Schäfer and Max Laeuger . On December 14, 1899, Kaufmann graduated with a degree in engineering with a grade of good .
In Karlsruhe, Kaufmann had also met Emma Gönner, daughter of the then mayor of Baden-Baden , Rudolf Gönner, whom he married in 1903. At the request of his father-in-law, he was baptized on the occasion .
The years in Berlin up to the First World War
In Berlin, Kaufmann worked from 1901 to 1903 in the architecture office of the well-known theater architect Bernhard Sehring , where he was involved in the construction of the Bielefeld City Theater , but without orienting himself to its style in his own work. Rather, he was influenced by the work of Hermann Billings , who had worked as an architect in Karlsruhe since 1892, but had not met the businessman personally. The work of Alfred Messel also shaped his later style.
The establishment phase
Following his work at Sehring, Kaufmann founded his own architecture office, which was located at Luitpoldstrasse 20 in Schöneberg until 1908 , then at Neue Ansbacher Strasse 9 in Charlottenburg . In the years from 1905 to 1907 Kaufmann was involved in smaller projects, such as a commercial building on Ritterstrasse in Berlin, which was destroyed in World War II. This also included furnishing a bedroom for an exhibition by the Wertheim company , which brought him into contact with the theater entrepreneur and director Eugen Robert . He planned the construction of a new theater and commissioned Kaufmann with a design, whereby his experience in building the Bielefeld city theater for Sehring was important. With the completion and opening of the Hebbel Theater in 1908, Kaufmann became known to the public. However, Kaufmann was only invited to the limited competition for the new building of the city theater in Bremerhaven after the theater architect Max Littmann had canceled.
Before that, Kaufmann had won a tender for a new opera building to be built in Charlottenburg. The jury included well-known personalities such as Max Liebermann and Otto March . Although this building was never realized, Kaufmann had made a name for himself as a theater architect with the two projects he carried out. Further theater buildings by Kaufmann are the Vienna City Theater in the 8th district, which was located between Laudongasse, Skodagasse and Daungasse and of which only the rear residential building still exists, and the Volksbühne in Berlin, which has been preserved in a greatly modified form. Both buildings were completed in 1913/1914. In 1913, he also designed the first building in Germany that was used exclusively as a cinema : the windowless Cines , which later became the UFA pavilion on Nollendorfplatz .
In addition to building the theater, Kaufmann also worked as an interior designer. Many of his clients came from the literary scene or the opera world, among them such prominent people as the publisher Siegfried Jacobsohn , the composer Victor Hollaender and the owner and manager of the Berlin Philharmonic Peter Landecker .
The collaboration with Eugen Stolzer
During the construction of the city theater in Bremerhaven , Kaufmann had already met the young Hungarian architect Eugen Stolzer . This was from 1904 to 1908 at the Technical University in Munich studied, in 1909 the Hungarian State Prize for Architecture and a short scholarship at the Paris Ecole des Beaux-Arts won and had in the years 1910 to 1912 as an employee of the architect Heinrich Straumer the garden city Frohnau mitgeplant , in the execution of which he was also involved. From 1916 he became an equal partner of Oskar Kaufmann, for whom he had already made a number of designs. The two of them designed a lot of work together, so that in a number of construction projects the individual parts cannot be separated.
World War I and the 1920s
Although Kaufmann was not called up for military service due to his citizenship and was able to continue his architectural office, the war-related deterioration in the order situation made itself felt. A design for a ballet theater for the then director of the Free Volksbühne , Max Reinhardt , originates from these years, although it is not clear whether it is a real design or a pure fantasy building.
In the 1920s, Kaufmann continued to work for private clients and realized a number of villas in and around Berlin. The most spectacular buildings here included the villa of a young lady (1922/1923) in Berlin-Schmargendorf , which still exists in a significantly different form, and the Villa Konschewski on Hundekehlesee in Berlin-Grunewald , which the client never moved in, but due to was divided into individual apartments due to financial difficulties, but was also preserved in a different form.
In Berlin, Kaufmann also took care of the interior fittings for the Schottenhaml café on Kemperplatz.
Of the theater buildings from this period, the Theater am Kurfürstendamm , the Komödie , also located there, and the Renaissance theater have been preserved. The most important building of this phase, however, remained the construction of the Kroll Opera , which Kaufmann worked on from 1920, the date of the first draft, to 1929, when the gardens were completed.
The crisis at the end of the 1920s and emigration
The global economic crisis at the end of the 1920s did not put Kaufmann in such a catastrophic situation as many of his colleagues due to the orders he still had for renovations and extensions, but his orders also fell noticeably. With the " seizure of power " by the NSDAP , that should not change for Kaufmann, on the contrary, the situation deteriorated noticeably. In this situation, his partner Eugen Stolzer went into exile in Palestine in May 1933 ; Kaufmann followed him in September of the same year.
Palestine was also chosen because the Habimah Ensemble from Moscow , which had settled permanently in Tel Aviv in 1932, wanted to build a theater there. Originally, the project was awarded to the Berlin architect Erich Mendelsohn , who, however, - according to his client - showed too little interest in the order. Therefore, the ensemble turned to Kaufmann, who accepted the contract. In October 1933, Kaufmann and his family reached Palestine.
In addition to the Habimah Theater, Kaufmann built a cinema for the Histadrut union in Haifa and a number of residential buildings for private clients. Nevertheless, he did not succeed in building on his Berlin successes. Although his reputation as an architect was undiminished, the economic situation in Palestine ensured that he did not receive any more commissions after 1937.
Return to Europe
In this situation, Kaufmann decided to return to Europe in 1939. Friends allowed him to travel, but the outbreak of World War II prevented his entry into Britain . At the same time, Britain's restrictive immigration laws made it impossible for him to return to Palestine. He stayed in Bucharest until September 1940 . The increasing pressure on the Jewish population under the fascist regime of Ion Antonescu forced him to move to Hungary. The situation for Jewish refugees there was comparatively better than in the surrounding states, but his wife did not survive the years and died in 1942. Oskar Kaufmann survived the deportations that began in May 1944 , but he was without income and therefore penniless and on the support of Friends. His financial situation improved little after the end of the war.
The last few years
In 1947, the Hungarian government under President Zoltán Tildy decided that 25 artists who had passed the age of 60, including the now 74-year-old Oskar Kaufmann, should be granted a state pension retrospectively from August 1, 1946 . Kaufmann was also able to resume his work from January 1949 - albeit for the Budapest State Design Bureau for Urban Development (BUVATI).
Until his death in 1956, he carried out the renovation of the Hungarian State Opera and the renovation of the Erkel Theater . Kaufmann did not live to see the completion of his last contract, the new building of the Madách Theater - he died at the age of 79 shortly after construction began, which had been delayed by four years.
literature
- Oskar Bie (preface): The architect Oskar Kaufmann. Ernst Pollak Verlag, Berlin 1927.
- Antje Hansen: Oskar Kaufmann. A theater architect between tradition and modernity. Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-7861-2375-6 .
- Dirk Jonkanski: The Hebbel Theater by Oskar Kaufmann . In: The Bear of Berlin . 1989/1990 yearbook of the Association for the History of Berlin. 38th and 39th episodes 1989/1990. Edited by Gerhard Kutzsch. Westkreuz-Verlag, Berlin / Bonn: 1990, pp. 77-94.
- Julius Posener: Merchant, Oskar. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 11, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1977, ISBN 3-428-00192-3 , p. 351 f. ( Digitized version ).
Web links
- Literature by and about Oskar Kaufmann in the catalog of the German National Library
- Postcards of Oskar Kaufmann's theaters
- Café Schottenhaml / Café am Tiergarten / "Moka Efti", interior design by Oskar Kaufmann
- Oskar Kaufmann. In: arch INFORM . (Biography and list of works)
- Oskar Kaufmann (portrait photo, short biography and works with contemporary photos)
Individual evidence
- ^ MO: "Café Schottenhaml" Berlin. By architect Oskar Kaufmann . In: Interior decor, vol. 38, 1927, pp. 312-320 ( digital copy ).
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Kaufmann, Oskar |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Hungarian architect |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 2, 1873 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Újszentanna, Austria-Hungary , today Sântana , Romania |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 6, 1956 |
| Place of death | Budapest |