Rainer G. Rümmler

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rainer G. Rümmler (actually Reinhard Erich Gerhard Rümmler , born July 2, 1929 in Möckern near Leipzig ; † May 16, 2004 in Berlin ) was a German architect and construction clerk . He designed a large number of Berlin subway stations .

Life

Reinhard Erich Gerhard Rümmler was born on July 2, 1929 in Möckern near Leipzig. Due to several transfers of his father, Rümmler attended schools in Plauen , Berlin-Weißensee , Lissa ( Posen ) and Berlin-Spandau . There he completed his school days in 1948 with the Abitur at the Freiherr-vom-Stein-Gymnasium .

From autumn 1948 Rümmler studied architecture at the Technical University of Berlin . He attended seminars with Willy Kreuer , Hans Hertlein and Hans Scharoun, among others . Rümmler obtained his diploma in 1954.

Rümmler had been employed in the building construction department of the Berlin-Spandau district office since 1953. A secondary school in Berlin-Siemensstadt became his first building here. In 1956, Rümmler switched to the Berlin Senate Department for Building and Housing as a government building referendar . This position ended in 1958 with the Grand State Examination for Higher Technical Administrative Officials. Then Rümmler worked briefly in a private studio and at the Federal Building Department before he was again employed in the Senate Department for Building and Housing in 1959. Appointed there as a government building assessor , he was deputy to Bruno Grimmek , the head of the planning and design group.

In 1960 Rümmler was appointed building officer and in 1964 senior building officer. The next steps in his career were the appointment as construction director in 1968 and as senior construction director in 1971. When he was appointed senior building officer in 1964, Rümmler was entrusted with the management of a sub-department. Here he was responsible for the areas of design of building construction and monument preservation measures, design of building construction measures for traffic, construction management of traffic building construction and traffic expansion measures as well as for technical engineering. In 1994 Rümmler retired from this position.

Rümmler died on May 16, 2004 at the age of 74 in Berlin. He was buried in the “ In den Kisseln ” cemetery in Berlin-Spandau.

plant

Rümmler became known not by his actual first name "Reinhard Erich Gerhard", but by "Rainer Gerhard". Rümmler himself mostly used "Rainer G.", but he also published under "Gerhard Rainer" or just under "Gerhard".

The stations of the Berlin subway that he designed in large numbers are to be regarded as the main work of Rümmler . The importance that Alfred Grenander achieved for the second development epoch of the Berlin elevated and underground railway fell to Rümmler in the third epoch.

Berlin subway stations designed by Rainer G. Rümmler

From the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s, Rümmler designed almost all newly built underground stations. Grenander strived for a uniform appearance for the "entire underground system" and often only differentiated the stations themselves by the color of the tiles. Rümmler put the individual structure in the foreground, in which he mostly focused on the environment or the station name for his work and derived the design from it. In his first drafts, this theme was still very discreet. At Bayerischer Platz he had the walls clad in blue and white asbestos cement panels based on the Bavarian national colors . In the 1980s, the design became more and more pompous. Some critics criticized the fact that the actual function of the subway station was partly in the background and the design was more reminiscent of “theater sets” than of traffic structures. In addition to the exclusively underground stations, Rümmler's work for the Berlin subway can also be examined on the surface in reception buildings or access structures, as in the design of the reception building for the Fehrbelliner Platz subway station .

At the last subway station designed by Rümmler, the Hermannstrasse station , he turned to a rather timeless, businesslike style, the reasons for this certainly being the limited financial possibilities of the reunified Berlin. On the other hand, the reason is to be found in the neighboring "Grenander stations". The handling of the long history of the station shell construction received general recognition. Rümmler arranged glazed areas in some places between the tiles so that the lettering from the time of the Second World War , in which the shell was used as an air raid shelter , was retained as a warning. Obviously, the preservation of the remains of the old Berlin Urania was part of his efforts to combine new architecture with old elements.

In addition to the subway stations, Rümmler designed other buildings constructed by the State of Berlin. These were fire stations , depots, administration buildings and the like. The Dreilinden service station designed by him is one of the few buildings in the pop architecture style in Berlin and is therefore a listed building .

His name is also associated with the "Rümmlerbrunnen", those strictly functional street fountains from the 1960s that are used to supply water in emergencies. Set up in large numbers during the Cold War , they are slowly disappearing from the cityscape after 50 years of operation. The design came from Fridtjof Schliephacke , but in this form they were introduced on the streets by building director Rümmler as the head of the road construction department at the senate at the time.

List of works (selection)

Fonts

  • Five new subway stations in Berlin. In: Bauwelt , 69th year 1978, issue 33 (from September 1, 1978), pp. 1206–1208.
  • U-Bahn construction from 1950. In: Berlin and its buildings . Part X, Volume B: Systems and structures for traffic, (1): Urban transport. Wilhelm Ernst & Sohn, Berlin 1979, ISBN 3-433-00842-6 , pp. 78-99.
  • Design of subway stations. U-Bahn line 7 reaches the Spandau district of Berlin, pp. 10–13. (Special print from the Berlin construction industry. Special issue: Berliner Bauwochen 1980).
  • Senator for Building and Housing (Ed.): Design of five underground stations on Line 7. Incentives to develop a design for the unmistakable “U-Bahnhof” location. Extension of underground line 7 to Rathaus Spandau station, pp. 25–29. (Special print from the Berlin construction industry. Issue 18/1984).
  • (with Wolfgang Kramer et al. ): U-Bahn line 8. Extension towards the north (= Senate Department for Building and Housing (Hrsg.): Berlin baut , Volume 15.) Berlin 1994.

literature

  • Senator for Building and Housing (Ed.): Lines C, H - Documentation on underground construction in Berlin. Berlin 1966.
  • Senator for Building and Housing (Ed.): Extension of underground line 7 - southern section. Berlin 1969.
  • Senator for Construction and Housing (Ed.): The extension of the underground lines 7 and 9 - a new underground intersection. Berlin 1971.
  • U-Bahn workshop in Berlin-Britz Süd. In: Bauwelt . 62nd volume, issue 41, October 11, 1971, p. 1629.
  • Senator for Building and Housing (Ed.): U-Bahn line 9 - new end point in the north. Berlin, 1976.
  • Senator for Building and Housing (Ed.): U-Bahn line 8 - extension to Osloer Straße station. Berlin, 1977.
  • Architects and Engineers Association of Berlin (ed.): Berlin and its buildings, Part X, Volume A Systems and buildings for supply, (1) Fire stations. Verlag von Wilhelm Ernst & Sohn, Berlin 1976, ISBN 3-433-00745-4 .
  • Architects and Engineers Association of Berlin (Ed.): Berlin and its buildings, Part X, Volume B Systems and buildings for traffic, (1) Urban transport. Verlag von Wilhelm Ernst & Sohn, Berlin 1979, ISBN 3-433-00842-6 .
  • Senator for Building and Housing (Ed.): U-Bahn line 7 extended to Spandau Town Hall. Berlin 1984.
  • Senator for Construction and Housing (Ed.): U-Bahn line 8 on the way to the Märkisches Viertel. Berlin 1987.
  • Senate Department for Building, Housing and Transport (Ed.): U-Bahn line 8 - extension to the south - opening of the Hermannstraße U-Bahn station. Berlin 1996.
  • Josef Paul Kleihues , Jan Gerd Becker-Schwering, Paul Kahlfeldt (eds.): Building in Berlin 1900–2000. Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-87584-013-5 .
  • Jan Gympel : Berlin subway. Story (s) for on the go. GVE-Verlag, Berlin 2002. ISBN 3-89218-072-5 .
  • Robert Schwandl: Berlin U-Bahn Album. All 192 underground and elevated stations in color. Robert Schwandl, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-936573-01-8 .
  • Verena Pfeiffer-Kloss: The sky under West Berlin: The post-factual subway stations of the building director Rainer G. Rümmler. urbanophil, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3982-0586-0-3 .

Web links


personal data
SURNAME Rümmler, Rainer G.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rümmler, Reinhard Erich Gerhard; Rümmler, Rainer Gerhard; Rümmler, Gerhard Rainer
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German architect and construction officer
DATE OF BIRTH July 2, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Möckern near Leipzig
DATE OF DEATH May 16, 2004
Place of death Berlin