Otto Kohtz

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Otto Kohtz (born February 23, 1880 in Magdeburg , † December 22, 1956 in Berlin ) was a German architect , architectural theorist and author .

life and work

Otto Kohtz was a younger brother of the painter Rudolf Kohtz (* 1874 in Magdeburg; † 1945), who later also resided in Berlin . After completing an apprenticeship as a bricklayer and training at an arts and crafts school or building trade school , he worked in various architectural offices in Hanover and Kassel from 1898 to 1901 . He then studied at the Technical University of Charlottenburg . In 1907 he founded a law firm in Berlin with Emil Schütze , but separated from Schütze a few years later. Between 1905 and 1908 he traveled to numerous European countries to study. During the First World War he was captured by the British, from which he was released in 1919. Little is known about his further private life.

Single home for men in Berlin-Moabit

Kohtz's early work included the administration building for the Association of German Farmers (1909/1911) in Schöneberg and a single dormitory in Moabit (1913/1914). The latter has echoes of a classifying Art Nouveau . After the First World War, the architect became increasingly concerned with questions of urban development . The best-known contribution is his design for the “Reichshaus” (1920/1921), a pyramid-like staggered, approximately 200 m high office building in the immediate vicinity of the Reichstag building in Berlin's Spreebogen . Several Reich authorities should have their seat in this building. The fondness for monumentality and high-rise buildings dominated the practical and theoretical work of the architect throughout his life.

In his architectural theoretical treatises Otto Kohtz expressed criticism of the workers' housing, the so-called tenement barracks . His counter-proposal was "German high-rise buildings" to differentiate them from American construction. Several high-rise projects, u. a. at Friedrichstrasse station , followed. For socio-psychological considerations, based on the experience with the large housing estates of the post-war period, these approaches should be considered obsolete, at least for residential buildings.

Otto Kohtz's private house in Berlin-Dahlem

Otto Kohtz's self-designed private house (1922/23) in the villa suburb of Berlin-Dahlem presents itself as straightforward and formal rigor with reduced, classicist quotations, such as a columned portico . In its form it is a solitaire. Until 2011, the owner was the Technical University of Berlin , whose architecture museum also includes numerous of his design drawings. Like many of his other buildings, the villa is a listed building . It was renovated in the 2010s in accordance with a listed building.

In 1925, according to his plans, the new building of the Scherl- Verlag was built in the Berlin press quarter near Kochstrasse .

At the end of the 1920s, Kohtz built the UFA's first sound film studio , which is also known as the “sound cross” because of its layout. In the following years he was responsible for the new construction and renovation of other UFA studio buildings on Oberlandstrasse in Berlin-Tempelhof and Neubabelsberg . In 1936/1938 the administration building of the Reichsnährstand with reliefs by Herbert Volwahsen in Dresden was built according to his plan . The staggering of the building can be seen here, similar to his design for the “Reichshaus”. Mostly out of consideration for the historical surrounding buildings, namely the Frauenkirche , there was no greater vertical emphasis. With functionalist rigor, all buildings are characterized by monumentality and the influences of a “coarse” classicism .

In the late 1930s, the artist designed the vision of a university town that was to be built on the site of today 's Teufelsberg in Berlin-Grunewald . Once again, Kohtz envisaged monumental, lined up high-rise slabs, the forecourt of which was to be flanked by long, solid-looking building blocks. Instead, the execution of another design was started, which reached the shell, but was largely used as building material after the war and covered with rubble.

During the Second World War , Otto Kohtz played a key role in building projects for the Heinkel works in Oranienburg .

In the early post-war period he continued his high-rise concepts as a reconstruction plan and realized a few buildings in Berlin, such as a dubbing studio in Berlin-Tempelhof (1946–1948), before he died shortly before Christmas 1956 at the age of 76 in his long-term adopted home.

Kohtz was a member of the Association of German Architects (BDA) and the Free German Academy of Urban Development .

plant

Buildings (selection)

Drafts (selection)

  • 1911: Competition design for the Bismarck National Monument on the Elisenhöhe near Bingerbrück - Bingen .
  • 1911: Competition design for the expansion of Freiberg Cathedral (with E. Schütze)
  • 1913: Idea sketch for the construction of the Königl. Opera House in Berlin on Bismarckplatz
  • 1920: Tower house for Blücherplatz in Berlin
  • 1920: Skyscraper on Friedrichstrasse on the grounds of the Friedrichstadtpalast
  • 1920–1921: Design for the Imperial House on Königsplatz
  • 1921: High-rise office building in the Minister Gardens in Berlin
  • 1920: Group of office towers on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse in Berlin
  • 1922: Competition design for the skyscraper at Friedrichstrasse station (4th place)
  • 1930–1931: Competition design for the Ukrainian State Theater Kharkov
  • 1935: High-rise project for the renovation of the old town in Berlin-Mitte, Alte Schönhauser Strasse
  • 1935: Friedrichs Theater in Dessau
  • 1937–1938: Design for a university town in Berlin-Charlottenburg
  • 1938–1940: Drafts for the German Film Academy Babelsberg
  • 1945: Reconstruction plan with high-rise windows for Berlin

Fonts

  • Thoughts on architecture. Baumgärtel, Berlin 1909.
  • The Reichshaus on Koenigsplatz in Berlin. A proposal to reduce the housing shortage and unemployment. Architecture publisher “Der Zirkel”, Berlin 1920.
  • Office tower houses in Berlin. Self-published , Berlin-Friedenau 1921.
  • Designs for buildings by Universum Film A.-G. in Babelsberg 1939 to 1940. o. year (approx. 1940) (according to KOBV database)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Renovation of the Otto Kohtz country house (video) on bauport.de, accessed on January 18, 2020.
  2. ↑ 10 sheets in the Architekturmuseum der TU Berlin , accessed on January 24, 2020
  3. ↑ a b Berliner Architekturwelt 1/1912
  4. ↑ Entry in the list of monuments in Berlin
  5. ↑ Berliner Architekturwelt 6/1913
  6. ↑ Berliner Architekturwelt 13/1911 (with E. Schütze, destroyed)
  7. ↑ Entry in the list of monuments in Berlin
  8. ↑ Modern designs , issue 8/1915.
  9. ↑ History: The demolition of Villa Griebenow in Vetschau ( Memento from September 7, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  10. ↑ Entry in the list of monuments in Berlin
  11. ↑ Wasmuth's monthly magazine for architecture , issue 11/1927
  12. ↑ Wasmuth's monthly magazine for architecture , issue 3/1930
  13. ↑ a b Wasmuth's monthly magazine for architecture , issue 11-12 / 1931
  14. ↑ digital.ub.uni-duesseldorf.de One hundred designs from the competition for the Bismarck National Monument on the Elisenhöhe near Bingerbrück-Bingen
  15. ↑ Die Kunst , issue 11/1913
  16. ↑ Der Städtebau , No. 11/1907
  17. ↑ a b c d e f Ariane Leutloff: Tower house, large house, cloud scraper: a study on Berlin skyscraper designs
  18. ↑ Modern designs , issue 8/1924
  19. ↑ 9 sheets in the Architekturmuseum der TU Berlin , accessed on January 24, 2020.
  20. ^ View in the architecture museum of the TU Berlin
  21. ↑ 5 design sheets for the university town by Otto Kohtz, 1 by Albert Speer , newly accessed on January 24, 2020.
  22. ↑ 4 design sheets for the skyscraper slabs , in the architecture museum of the TU Berlin , new on January 24, 2020.
personal data
SURNAME Kohtz, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German architect, architectural theorist and author
DATE OF BIRTH February 23, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH Magdeburg
DATE OF DEATH December 22, 1956
Place of death Berlin