Oskar Mothes

Oskar Mothes around 1877

Oskar Mothes , also Oscar Mothes (born December 27, 1828 in Leipzig , † October 4, 1903 in Dresden ) was a German architect and art historian .

Life

Oscar Mothes' tombstone from the New Johannisfriedhof ; now in the Lapidarium Alter Johannisfriedhof Leipzig

Mothes was born in 1828 as the son of court director August Ludwig Mothes. He completed his architecture studies with Gottfried Semper in Dresden from 1845 to 1847 . At the age of twenty he designed the village church in Rüdigsdorf and in 1848 was accepted into the Leipzig Freemason Lodge Minerva to the three palm trees . After military service and study trips to Italy and Spain in 1851 and 1852, he settled in Leipzig as an architect in 1853. 1865 doctorate in the Faculty of Arts, it Leipzig University to Dr. phil.

Under Mothes' leadership, the Industrial Education Association was founded in Leipzig in 1861 . In addition, in 1867 he co-founded the Society for the History of the City of Leipzig (today's Leipzig History Society ), and from 1869 to 1872 also its chairman. The historical collection of the association forms the basis of the Leipzig City History Museum .

He mainly dealt with the conversion of stately buildings such as palaces and villas , and later also with sacred buildings and several castles, for example the Rudelsburg . As a church building officer, he built churches and chapels inside and outside Saxony. Mothes was an advocate of neo-Gothic and thus combined romantic impulses with basic evangelical ideas.

In 1884 Mothes moved to Zwickau . He also made a name for himself as an author of works of art and architecture history. In 1870 Oskar Mothes was awarded the honorary title of Royal Saxon Building Councilor .

Mothes wrote his first name in his books Os c ar, while posterity and more modern secondary literature mostly wrote it Os k ar, including Meyer's Konversationslexikon from 1894.

A great-grandson of Oskar Mothes was the painter Peter-Andreas Mothes .

buildings

Representation of the Rudelsburg after the renovation by Mothes, wood engraving based on a drawing by himself

• 1847: Draft for the village church in Rüdigsdorf , district of Frohburg (today Christ Church, built 1848–1849, his first independent commission)
• English chapel in Karlsbad
• Churches in Lemsel, Krostewitz and Neukirchen
• Wiesenburg Castle in Wiesenburg / Mark
• 1855: Reconstruction of the castle church in Leipzig-Lützschena
• 1855: Palace extension in Leipzig- Kleinzschocher (destroyed in World War II)
• 1857: Conversion of a farm to a Huttenburg in Meißen
• 1864: Construction of the Lützschena Palace
• 1870: Shell-shaped clay hall in the Trianongarten of the old Leipzig rifle house
• 1871–1872: Restoration or partial reconstruction of the Rudelsburg near Bad Kösen
• 1872: War memorial 1870/71 as a national memorial for the fallen corps students, on the Galgenberg near Bad Kösen
• 1873–1874: own house " Zur Julburg ", in Leipzig, Käthe-Kollwitz-Straße 70
• 1875–1884: Renewal of the interior of the Annenkirche in Annaberg
• 1879–1880: Reconstruction of the Matthäikirche in Leipzig (destroyed in World War II)
• 1884–1885: Anglo-American church in Leipzig, Schreberstrasse / Sebastian-Bach-Strasse (destroyed in World War II)
• 1885–1891: Renewal of the St. Marien Church in Zwickau (his main monumental work)
• 1891: Completion of the neo-Gothic St. Jacobus Church in Reinsdorf near Zwickau
• 1894: Completion of the Pohlitz village church in Pohlitz near Greiz

Fonts

• General German construction dictionary, that is the encyclopedia of architecture for all who have to do with building construction, low-rise construction, mining, mechanical engineering . 2 volumes. Leipzig: Verlag von Heinrich Matthes, 1858-1859.
• with Hermann Alexander Müller : Illustrated archaeological dictionary of the art of Germanic antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, as well as iconography, costume, armory, building, equipment, heraldry and epigraphy (German, French, English and Latin) related to the visual arts . Vol. 1: A-H, Vol. 2: I-Z. Leipzig, Berlin: Spamer 1877 (vol. 1) and 1878 (vol. 2)
• Illustrated construction lexicon. Practical help and reference book in the field of structural and low-rise construction, land and hydraulic engineering, mill and mining, shipbuilding and war engineering as well as the trades, arts and science related to construction. (3 or 4 volumes)

2nd edition 1863–1868

3rd edition 1874–1877

4th edition 1881-1884

• History of architecture and sculpture in Venice. (2 volumes) Leipzig 1858–1860
• The form of a basilica among Christians in the first centuries. Leipzig 1865
• The architecture of the Middle Ages in Italy. (5 parts) Jena 1882–1883
• Handbook for homeowners and builders. Leipzig 1883
• The new book of inventions, trades and industries. Review in all areas of commercial work. First volume: Introduction to the history of inventions. Course of education and means of education of humanity. 5th edition. Otto Spamer, Leipzig / Berlin 1864 (with Julius Zöllner, Franz Luckenbacher). Mothes is also one of the editors of the complete series The new book of inventions, trade and industries (6 main volumes + 4 supplementary volumes, 5th edition published 1864–1867)

literature

• Katharina Flügel, Hartmut Mai:  Mothes, Oscar. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 18, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-428-00199-0 , p. 224 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Horst Riedel: Stadtlexikon Leipzig from A to Z. Pro Leipzig, Leipzig 2005, ISBN 3-936508-03-8 , p.
• Rudolf Mothes: Memoirs. Typescript , 5 volumes (in the Leipzig city archive) ( Vol. 1 , in it the uncle Oskar Mothes appears).

Web links

Commons : Oskar Mothes  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Oskar Mothes in the catalog of the German National Library