Paul Schmitthenner (architect)

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Emil Stumpp Paul Schmitthenner (1926)

Paul Schmitthenner (born December 15, 1884 in Lauterburg in Alsace , German Empire , † November 11, 1972 in Munich ) was a German architect and influential university professor . Along with Paul Bonatz, he is one of the main representatives of the Stuttgart School , of Heimatschutz architecture and - internationally seen - of the traditionalist architectural trend .

Life

Schmitthenner was born in Lauterburg in Alsace in 1884. In 1889 the family moved to Barr in Alsace. He then attended the humanistic grammar school in Schlettstadt . From 1902 to 1907 he studied architecture at the Technical University of Karlsruhe and at the Technical University of Munich . During his studies in 1902 he became a member of the Karlsruhe fraternity of Ghibellinia . Until 1909 he worked at the building department in Colmar (Alsace), from 1909 to 1911 in the office of the architect Richard Riemerschmid in Munich . From 1911 to 1913 he was the first independent head architect of the garden city Carlowitz near Breslau. From 1913 to 1918 he carried out urban planning for the garden cities in Staaken , Plaue near Brandenburg and Forstfeld near Kassel for the Reich Office of the Interior , interrupted by military service and service with the head of the civil administration for the organization of the "Kurland Show" . Since 1913 he made the construction of “people's apartments” his concern. His concept of the " garden city " convinced the experts with the special qualities of the spatial layout and the house shapes. The value of living at ground level with work surfaces and relaxation areas in the garden was recognized and emphasized. In the period that followed, Schmitthenner published many articles about “the German people's apartment”, which was supposed to be healthy and inexpensive as well as well-designed and inexpensive furniture. In his writings, both soil reform theses and the first guiding principles for the ecological building of his role model Theodor Fischer were incorporated .

In 1918 he was appointed professor of building construction and design at the Technical University of Stuttgart by Paul Bonatz . Between the two world wars he was a representative of the “first” Stuttgart school. In 1928 he co-founded the architectural association Der Block - conservative architects in contrast to Der Ring, which was founded in 1924 by leading representatives of modernism . In 1931 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Technical University of Dresden , a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin and the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and the Munich Art Academy . In 1932 Schmitthenner published the book "Das deutsche Wohnhaus".

In 1933 Schmitthenner joined the NSDAP and was appointed to Berlin, where he was head of the State University of Art, was to hold a professorship at the Technical University of Berlin-Charlottenburg and was to fill the department for art education in the Reich Ministry. For a short time he was considered the first master builder of the National Socialist state , but then turned down the offer and came into opposition to the party. In 1941 he turned away from the common monumental architecture with his critical lecture The gentle law in art, especially in architecture . In 1944, after his house on the Killesberg and the Technical University of Stuttgart had been destroyed, he moved to a wing of Kilchberg Castle near Tübingen , where he continued to hold university lectures. In the final phase of the Second World War , Adolf Hitler included him in the God-gifted list of the most important architects in August 1944 , which freed him from military service, including on the home front .

After the Second World War , he was discharged from civil service on the orders of the American military government. In 1947 he was acquitted in front of a ruling chamber as exonerated, but his reinstatement in his university office failed. From 1949 Schmitthenner was a member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts . In 1952 he was made an honorary citizen of his place of residence in Kilchberg near Tübingen, and in the same year he was awarded the order Pour le mérite for science and the arts . In 1953 he retired , in 1954 honorary member: German Academy for Urban Development and Regional Planning . In 1955 he was again awarded an honorary doctorate from the Technical University of Dresden. In 1964 he received the Great Cross of Merit with Star of the Federal Republic of Germany. Due to an eye disease, he moved to his son in Munich in 1971, where he died the following year at the age of 87, who was ultimately blind.

From 1908 Schmitthenner was married to Marie Charlotte, b. Schütz, († 1959) from Barr; the marriage resulted in the two sons Martin († 1940 in France) and Hansjörg as well as the daughter Barbara. After the death of his first wife, Schmitthenner married Elisabeth Prüß (1921–2017) from Neustadt (Holstein) in 1960 and had another son with her, Johannes.

reception

In a detailed article in 1985, Wolfgang Voigt pointed to the importance of Schmitthenner's work, curated and showed the exhibition Beauty rests in order in 2003 at the DAM ( German Architecture Museum Frankfurt) . Paul Schmitthenner 1884–1972 (catalog).

plant

Buildings and designs

  • Queen Olga Building in Stuttgart

  • Villa Zerweck in the Feuerbacher Heide

  • The villa for the Roser family of manufacturers (Villa Roser)

  • Piesteritz factory settlement

  • Main building of the war cemetery at Bourdon

Fonts

  • The German house. (Volume 1 of the planned series “Building Design”) Wittwer, Stuttgart 1932.
  • with Otto Graf, H. Reiher, Erich K. Hengerer and Fritz Kreß / Verein Deutsches Holz (Ed.): The 25 single-family houses of the wooden settlement on the Kochhof. Publishing house Julius Hoffmann, Stuttgart 1933.
    • Andreas K. Vetter (Hrsg.): The 25 single-family houses of the wooden settlement on the Kochhof. Annotated edition of the font from 1933. Spurbuchverlag, Baunach 2006, ISBN 3-88778-305-0 .
  • Architecture in the New Kingdom. Callwey, Munich 1934.
  • The gentle law in art, especially in architecture. Speech. Hünenburg, Strasbourg 1943.
  • Built form. Variations on a theme with 60 drawings in facsimile . Edited from the estate and edited by Elisabeth Schmitthenner. Koch, Leinfelden-Echterdingen 1984, ISBN 3-87422-603-4 .

literature

  • E. Fiechter: Paul Schmitthenner. In: Württemberg. Monthly in the service of the people and homeland. 1932, pp. 386-395.
  • Interview Paul Schmitthenner (= publications on scientific films , Section History & Journalism, Series 5, No. 9), Göttingen 1981 (digitized version)
  • Ulrike Pfeil: On the 100th birthday of the architect Paul Schmitthenner. Goethe and the Germanenhaus. In: Schwäbisches Tagblatt. 15th December 1984.
  • Gerhard Müller-Menckens (Ed.): Beauty rests in order. Paul Schmitthenner on his 100th birthday. A memorial book. Wolfdruck, Bremen 1984, ISBN 3-925245-00-6 .
  • Wolfgang Voigt, Hartmut Frank (eds.): Paul Schmitthenner 1884–1972. Wasmuth, Tübingen et al. 2003, ISBN 3-8030-0633-3 .
  • Wolfgang Voigt:  Schmitthenner, Paul. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 23, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-428-11204-3 , pp. 246-248 ( digitized version ).
  • Franz-Severin Gäßler: Poetry of Beauty. Paul Schmitthenner 1884–1972. Hechingen town hall, late work, context. Gäßler, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-9817915-1-8 ;. (at the same time accompanying the exhibition of the same name in the Hohenzollerisches Landesmuseum Hechingen)
  • Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume II: Artists. Winter, Heidelberg 2018, ISBN 978-3-8253-6813-5 , pp. 615–617.

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Willy Nolte (Ed.): Burschenschafter Stammrolle. Directory of the members of the German Burschenschaft according to the status of the summer semester 1934. Berlin 1934, p. 437.
  2. ↑ Honorary doctorates of the TH / TU Dresden according to year .
  3. ^ Ernst Klee : The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , p. 533.
  4. ↑ Wolfgang Voigt: The architect Paul Schmitthenner: Memory of an unfashionable. In: The time. January 4, 1985. Retrieved January 10, 2018 .
  5. ↑ Hubertus Adam: Measure, order, providence. In: NZZ. October 8, 2003, accessed January 10, 2018 .
  6. ^ Karl Kiem: The garden city of Staaken (1914-1917). Types, groups, variants. (= The buildings and art monuments of Berlin. Supplement 26). Gebr. Mann, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-7861-1885-X .
  7. ^ Paul Schmitthenner: The Plaue settlement near Brandenburg a. H. In: Wasmuths monthly books for architecture. Vol. 4, No. 5/6, 1919, pp. 161-173. (Digitized version)
  8. ↑ Stefanie Plarre: The Kochhofsiedlung - the counter model to the Weißenhofsiedlung. Paul Schmitthenner's settlement project in Stuttgart from 1927 to 1933. (= Publications of the Stuttgart City Archives. 88). Hohenheim, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-89850-972-9 .
  9. ↑ Andrew MacNeille: Between Tradition and Innovation. Historical places in the Federal Republic of Germany after 1945. Dissertation . University of Cologne, 2004, p. 234 (digitized version)
  10. ^ Franz-Severin Gäßler: Poetry of Beauty. The town hall in Hechingen, work of the architect Prof. Paul Schmitthenner. In: Journal for Hohenzollern History. 45th volume, 2009, pp. 239-305.
personal data
SURNAME Schmitthenner, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German architect
DATE OF BIRTH December 15, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Lauterbourg
DATE OF DEATH November 11, 1972
Place of death Munich