Otto Heuss

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Otto Heuss GmbH
legal form GmbH
founding February 15, 1953
Seat Lich
management Stefan Otto Heuss & Julian Philipp Heuss
Number of employees 45
Branch Organ building
Website http://www.ottoheuss.de/
Status: 2018

Headquarters in Lich

Otto Heuss is a supplier of organ components in Lich ( Central Hesse ). The family company is run by the fourth generation and supplies organ builders around the world with mechanical, electrical and electronic organ parts and keyboards .

history

Licher company sign

The company's founder Otto Heuss (1895–1965) learned organ building from Xaver Mönch in Überlingen until the First World War interrupted his training. In 1917 he was used to expand the tin pipes that had to be delivered as a metal donation from the German people for the armaments industry. After his journeyman years at Mönch, Heuss worked for Josef Ziegler in Heidelberg and from 1923 at Karl Reinisch & Sons in Steinach am Brenner , from 1927 he was foreman at Förster & Nicolaus in Lich.

Heuss founded the Lich company on February 15, 1953 at the age of 58 and initially built console tables for organs in a small basement workshop in the residential building in Kreuzweg . In 1956, Heuss developed the first gaming table with spring set contacts and a non-return valve and from 1959 built motors to operate the loops . After a few years, the workshop moved to Gießener Straße and in 1958 to Licher Amtsgerichtsstraße 12. The building was later extended and an annex was added in 1961. The construction of gaming tables remained the core area, but was expanded over the years to include the entire gaming and register system . Electrical and electronic innovations found their way into the production of components and systems at Heuss.

Former console of the Fulda Cathedral Organ (today in the Valley Organ Center )

The son Otto Josef Heuss (born September 5, 1925; † January 4, 2000) was trained as an apprentice at Förster & Nicolaus from 1939 to 1942. After military service and imprisonment, he continued at EF Walcker & Cie. continued his work as an organ builder, which he completed in 1955 with the master's examination. In 1963 Heuss joined his father's company, which was converted into a limited partnership and later into a GmbH . After the company's founder passed away, Otto Josef Heuss took over management. Setter combinations have been marketed since 1965 and continuously developed, initially mechanical, then with relay stations, from 1975 purely electronic and since 1980 with permanent memories. Optical fibers have been used since 1987 . The company has been building blind controls for swell systems since 1989 and coupling magnets since 1995.

The grandson Stefan Otto Heuss (* 1964) learned organ building from Werner Bosch . He deepened his education in the USA before returning to the family business in 1986. Here he became managing director in 1990 and took over the company in 1992. In 2004 the Oberhessische Klaviaturen GmbH was founded as a subsidiary , which manufactured keyboards for organs, grand pianos and pianos, harpsichords and spinets and exported them to China, among others. In 2009 the company Oberhessische Klaviaturen GmbH was renamed Otto Heuss Klaviaturen GmbH . Around 2,400 keyboards were produced annually.

In the fourth generation, the eldest son Julian Philipp (* 1990) learned organ building at Klais in Bonn. He is responsible for the areas of electrics and electronics and is the managing director. Julian Heuss developed a gaming table with touchscreen control . The playing aids can now be switched via a smartphone and enable the musician to use new functions. His brother Tristan Felix (* 1993) did an apprenticeship at Förster & Nicolaus and is workshop manager, organ console designer and machine programmer.

In 2017 the two companies Otto Heuss GmbH and Otto Heuss Klaviaturen GmbH were merged under the name of Otto Heuss GmbH.

In 2018 the company employed 45 people on a 2700 m² production area. More than 1000 organ builders worldwide are supplied with organ parts. The parts of the organs in Berlin's St. Hedwig's Cathedral , the Elbphilharmonie , the concert hall of the National Kaohsiung Center for Art and Culture and the Passau cathedral organ come from Heuss .

Awards

  • 2016: Bavarian State Prize for special technical achievements in the craft for the "Traktursystem 2".

literature

  • Hans-Joachim Falkenberg: Epochs in the history of the organ. Förster and Nicolaus 1842–1992. Organ building specialist publisher Rensch, Lauffen 1992, ISBN 3-921848-24-5 .
  • Otto Heuss, Wolfgang Guhswald: 400 years of organ building tradition in Lich. In: Paul Görlich (arr.); Magistrate of the city of Lich (Ed.): Licher Heimatbuch. The core city and its districts. Selbstverlag, Lich 1989, pp. 229-240.
  • Otto Heuss organ building 1953–1978. 25 years, commemorative publication of Otto Heuss KG. Schotten, Lich 1978.

Web links

Commons : Otto Heuss  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Gießener Anzeiger of April 5, 2016: New system revolutionizes organ building , accessed on April 8, 2016.
  2. ↑ Heuss, Guhswald: 400 years of organ building tradition in Lich. 1989, p. 232.
  3. ^ Hans Martin Balz : 175 years Förster & Nicolaus. In: Ars Organi . 65, 2017, pp. 7–16, here: p. 14.
  4. ↑ Heuss, Guhswald: 400 years of organ building tradition in Lich. 1989, p. 234.
  5. ^ Falkenberg: Epochs of Organ History. 1992, p. 109.
  6. ↑ Homepage of the company: Company Chronicle of Products , p. 12, accessed on May 5, 2019 (PDF).
  7. ↑ a b c Deutsche Handwerks-Zeitung of May 29, 2015: Heuss pulls out all the stops in keyboard construction , accessed on April 8, 2016.
  8. ↑ Heuss, Guhswald: 400 years of organ building tradition in Lich. 1989, pp. 235-236.

Coordinates: 50 ° 31 ′ 16.2 "  N , 8 ° 48 ′ 51.6"  E