Paul Kossel

Paul Kossel (* 16th June 1874 in Mellen in Lenzen (Elbe) , † 2. May 1950 in Bremen ) was a German building contractor in Bremen and a pioneer of reinforced concrete construction .

biography

Kossel was the son of a dairy owner. Nothing is known about his training. Since the beginning of the 20th century he was a partner in the cement goods and concrete business Baumhold & Co. GmbH in Bremen, Werderstrasse 47. There was a branch in Geestemünde . In 1920 he became the sole personally liable partner of Paul Kossel & Cie. KG , concrete and reinforced concrete construction company , which was later represented with branches in Bielefeld, Braunschweig, Dortmund, Hamburg, Hanover, Cologne, Oldenburg, Osnabrück, Wesermünde-Geestemünde (Bremerhaven) and Wilhelmshaven.

Because of his creativity and inventiveness, Kossel is one of the most important German building contractors of his time. The company developed new processes in reinforced concrete construction . Settlements, barracks, industrial plants, water towers and motorway bridges emerged in Europe. a. in Bremen, Hanover, Wilhelmshaven, Kassel and Hamburg.

In Bremen, the company carried out the concrete and reinforced concrete work and a. for the water tower in Walle (1904–1906), for the New Town Hall (1909–1913), for the chapel in the Osterholz cemetery (around 1914), for houses in Oslebshausen (Finkenau) (1918–1920), for the Heymann department store & Neumann , Obernstraße  15 (1911–1912, destroyed in 1944), for the extension of the Hansa-Mühle im Holzhafen (1915–1916), for the extension of the Rolandmühle (1925) and for the Wulsdorf residential water tower in Bremerhaven (1927).

Concrete hull ship Paul Kossel

The concrete ship Paul Kossel , a motor tug from 1920 that is now on display at the German Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven, became famous. The concrete roof of the consumer bakery in Hanover- Laatzen (1913–1914) also attracted a lot of attention.

1945 Kossel withdrew from the company. In 2003 his work was honored in a special exhibition in the LWL industrial museum Ziegelei Lage in Lage (Lippe) .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Concrete hull ship Paul Kossel ( Memento of the original from July 20, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 

literature

• Herbert Black Forest : The Great Bremen Lexicon . Volume: supplementary volume . A – Z. Edition Temmen, Bremen 2008, ISBN 978-3-86108-986-5 .
• Nils Aschenbeck: Houses, towers and ships made of concrete. Paul Kossel, pioneer of concrete construction 1874–1950. Aschenbeck & Holstein, Delmenhorst 2003, ISBN 3-932292-39-1 .