Paul Max Bertschy

Paul Max Bertschy.
Photo from the newspaper art supplement of the Rigaer Tageblatt. 1911, no.3

Paul Max Bertschy ( Latvian Pauls Makss Berči ; born January 1, 1840 in Strausberg ; † March 2, 1911 in Liepāja ) was a German architect working in the Baltic States .

Life

Bertschy was the second oldest of a total of nine children. His father was first an innkeeper and then became a carpenter. He was married to Henriette Caroline, nee Krause. Four children died very early, so that Waldemar Ottomar (Otto) (born October 13, 1837), the eldest, took over the construction company from his father Johann Friedrich Eduard.

Paul Max Bertschy left Strausberg as a teenager, attended secondary school in Berlin and gained practical experience. In Berlin at that time there was an excellent group of architects and master builders - Friedrich August Stüler , Eduard Knoblauch , Hubert Stier , Friedrich Hitzig , Richard Lucae - who were influenced by the architecture of Karl Friedrich Schinkel . Perhaps for this reason Paul Max Bertschy decided to turn east. Well-educated people were needed in the Baltic states to support the economic upswing.

Moved to Latvia

Around 1860 Bertschy came to Riga and worked until 1871 in an engineering office on the construction of the Vitebsk - Dünaburg railway . In 1869 he had graduated from the Imperial Academy of Arts St. Petersburg as an artist, where he received the architectural diploma.

In March 1871, Paul Max Bertschy took up the post of city architect in Libau (Liepāja) and founded his private construction office, as described in the advertisement for the post of city architect. It was during this time that building appraisals were introduced.

From 1871 to 1902 Bertschy was the city architect of Liepāja with an annual salary of 800 rubles. In a comparable position with a salary of 100 rubles, he also served in the city of Aizpute .

Liepāja (Libau)

During this time, merchants, industrialists, handicraft businesses, factories and big banks came to Libau and gave the old city a new character. The young architect received a variety of orders. In addition to factories and warehouses, larger public buildings and private villas were built.

For his project ideas, Bertschy relied on medieval construction theory. He adopted Romanesque and Gothic architectural forms in his buildings. He acquired new ideas and knowledge from German architecture magazines.

architecture

Bertschy's buildings are mostly made of red brick or with the help of the mixed materials brick and plaster (mostly facade details) or made of field stones and brick. Today these red brick buildings represent the economic developments in Liepāja at that time.

With building materials as simple as red brick, Bertschy demonstrated that industrial buildings can also have beautiful architectural forms. Typical Bertschy projects are the station building, the Hotel de Rome , today the business center, and the district court , today the town hall, the Peldu house and others. The archive of his architectural work is in the Liepāja Museum.

Paul Max Bertschy is the only architect who has had the opportunity to shape the architectural image of Liepāja for 40 years. Although his works can also be found in Ventspils , Aizpute and other places in Latvia and Lithuania, his most important architectural achievements were made in Liepāja, so that he is regarded as one of Liepāja's designers.

The architect died in 1911 and is buried in Liepāja in the old cemetery.

buildings

Well-known Bertschy projects:

• 3 Zivju Street (Fischstrasse), Ramedlow Department Store (1881). Now De Rome shopping and business center.
• Kungu-Strasse (Herrenstrasse) 20, house of Hofrat K. Meyer (1876). The facade of the building is rather ascetic; the risalit of the entrance portal stands out. In the facades, the red bricks alternate with some light-colored plaster strips. The building has been rebuilt several times.
• E.-Veidenbauma-Straße 10, Braunsche Girls' School (1875). The architecture of the building is in the neo-renaissance style with Gothic elements.
• Kuršu Square (Kurenplatz) 5/6, reconstruction of St. Anne's Church (1871–1891). The location of the church here has been known since 1587. Originally it was a wooden building, at the end of the 19th century the church was rebuilt according to Bertschy's neo-Gothic project - first the steeple in 1889 and then the nave in 1893.
• Rožu Street (Rosenstrasse) 6, District Court (1889-1891). The entire building project is in the so-called “Reich style”, which was common for administrative buildings in Russia at the end of the 19th century.
• Peldu-Strasse (Badenstrasse) 44, house PM Bertschy (1902). The multi-purpose apartment building is built in the neo-Gothic style.
• Liepu-Strasse (Lindenstrasse) 9, children's clinic (1900). It is a two-story red brick building typical of Max Paul Bertschy's handwriting. The building is located in a park and the functional requirements specific to a hospital have been preserved in the design.
• Hikes-Strasse (Hueckestrasse) 12, Baron von Nolde's villa (1880). Building is built in summer villa style, it is located away from the street and is decorated with carved elements.
• Peldu-Strasse (Badenstrasse) 59, bathing establishment in Libau (1902). The building was built in the style of Roman villas and fits into the park landscape.
• Kūrmājas prospectus (Kurhaus prospectus) 21, W. Riege house (1885). The two-story building has a raised base.
• Kūrmājas prospectus (Kurhaus prospectus) 16, house N. Katzenelsohn (1900–1901), designed according to the design of the Berlin architect Ernst von Ihne . The building is very different from the other buildings designed by Bertschy. It is built in the style of a park villa, the facade is plastered, with a staggered gable, which gives it echoes of neo-Gothic.
• Kūrmājas prospectus (Kurhaus prospectus) 12, residential house and pharmacy H. Grabe (1899–1901). The multifunctional building was built from the red brick preferred by Max Paul Bertschy.
• Kūrmājas Prospect (Kurhaus Prospect) 3, Navigation School (1877). Early Bertschy project on behalf of the Libau Exchange Committee.
• Graudu-Strasse (Kornstrasse) 42, W. Bonitz confectionery (1897). The entire facade is richly decorated, particularly characterized by metal balcony railings and romanticized tower-like extensions.
• K.-Valdemara-Strasse (Wilhelminenstrasse, Salzstrasse) 4, Nikolai-Gymnasium (1884). The building is located away from the building line of the street and has a representative entrance with a portico on granite columns. It has a red brick facade with numerous decorative plaster details and elements made of metal.
• K.-Valdemara-Straße (Wilhelminenstraße) 14, building contractor W. Riege, house with office (1880). The building facades are designed in the style of Italian Renaissance motifs such as free-standing columns surrounding the windows. The ground floor has a rustic structure. Empire elements are used on the cornice.
• K.-Valdemara-Strasse (Wilhelminenstrasse) 16, residential building JW Riege (1874). It is one of the most interesting examples of brick houses with an entrance that is asymmetrical to the facade.

literature

• Imants Lancmanis , Angelika Berči: The work of the architect Paul Max Bertschy and his sons in Liepāja / Libau ( digitized version )

Web links

Commons : Paul Max Bertschy  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Insight into the Bertschy architecture department
• Paul Max Bertschy on the side of the Liepājas muzejā (Latvian)
• Buildings by Paul Max Bertschy (Latvian; PDF; 1.4 MB)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Jānis Gintners: Vēsturisko stilu izpausmes PM Berči arhitektūrā izstādē Liepājas muzejā ( Memento of the original of July 22, 2011 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. (Latvian, viewed September 1, 2011) 
2. ^ Things to do in Liepāja. Tourist Information Office in Liepāja Region