Robert Schmidt (engineer)

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Robert Schmidt's plaque on his tomb

Robert Schmidt (born December 13, 1869 in Frankfurt am Main ; † May 19, 1934 Bad Münstereifel ) was a German civil engineer , urban planner and construction clerk and the first association director of the Ruhr coal district settlement association .

He became known in 1912 for his memorandum on principles for drawing up a general settlement plan for the Düsseldorf administrative region (on the right bank of the Rhine) . This writing gave the decisive impetus for the creation of the settlement association Ruhrkohlenbezirks in 1920 (today Regionalverband Ruhr ) and its early form of regional planning in the Ruhr area .

Life

Robert Schmidt was born in Frankfurt am Main in 1869. He studied civil engineering at the Technical University of Hanover . In 1895 he was government construction supervisor ( trainee ) at the Rheinische Bahngesellschaft , in 1898 at the hydraulic engineering inspection in Düsseldorf and in 1901 as a government building master ( assessor ) at the hydraulic engineering inspection at Ruhrort . Then he joined the civil engineering administration service of the city of Essen as a city planning inspector , where he soon headed the city ​​expansion office .

In 1907 he was elected by the city of Essen as its technical assistant . Under his leadership, his building and planning administration developed new municipal building regulations. Together with the architect Georg Metzendorf , he planned the Margarethenhöhe Garden City Estate from 1906 . The garden city of Essen's Moltkviertel , created from 1908 onwards, also bears his urban planning signature. Schmidt became known through the memorandum published in Essen in 1912 on the principles of drawing up a general settlement plan for the Düsseldorf administrative district (on the right bank of the Rhine) , the principles of which were developed between 1910 and 1912 by a working committee of senior government and local officials in the Düsseldorf administrative district on the initiative of the District President Francis Kruse would have. The memorandum formed an essential conceptual basis for the Lord Mayor of Essen, Hans Luther , to introduce a bill for the establishment of a settlement association for the Ruhr Coal District (SVR) together with other actors in the Prussian state assembly , which it unanimously adopted on May 5, 1920. As a result, it was up to the Ruhr coal district settlement association, which was founded in the same year, to secure spatially significant green areas and main traffic trains in the Ruhr area by means of planning. Schmidt became the first association director of the new planning authority.

From 1922 onwards, together with other experts at the Free German Academy of Urban Development , he discussed questions of housing construction and legal planning instruments. In 1927 these debates resulted in the demand for a Reich law for urban development , which should form a uniform basis for the implementation of planning, reform land law and expand planning expropriation powers. Also in 1927 Schmidt published his memorandum on forest conservation in the Ruhr coal district . The Reich Law on the Development of Housing Settlements of July 22, 1933 put some of his proposals into practice and adopted the concept of the economic plan that he had created .

1929 awarded him the Technical University of Gdansk , the honorary doctorate . Schmidt was a member of the Association of German Architects , President of the Free German Academy of Urban Development, Vice President of the International Association for Housing and Urban Development, Board Member of the Study Society for Automobile Road Construction , Honorary Member of the British Urban Planning Institute and the Planning Committee of the Republic of Mexico, Honorary Citizen of the Technical University of Hanover, and sponsor of the State medal for public health. As a sought-after specialist, he was invited to urban planning congresses in Amsterdam, New York, Vienna, Paris, Rome and Berlin. Robert Schmidt retired from the administration in 1932 and died at the age of 65 on May 19, 1934. The grave of the Schmidt and Imhoff families is located in the old part of the Essen park cemetery .

Tombstone of Robert Schmidt and his family in the Essen park cemetery at field 8 No. 91; just under 150 m southeast of the central roundabout; Location map .

additional

Robert-Schmidt-Strasse and the Robert-Schmidt-Berufskolleg (on the corner of Robert-Schmidt-Strasse 1 and Moltkestrasse) are named after Robert Schmidt in the Moltkeviertel in Essen he was planning .

literature

  • Josef Umlauf: Schmidt, Robert. In: Concise dictionary of spatial planning and spatial research. Hanover 1970, Sp. 2807-2810.
  • Renate Kastorff-Viehmann: The reform of the city, or: Robert Schmidt and the changed role of landscape, park and garden in the industrial city before 1914 . In: Kommunalverband Ruhrgebiet , International Building Exhibition Emscher Park (Ed.): Robert Schmidt Prize 1993, documentation. Essen 1994, pp. 81-95.
  • Ursula von Petz: Robert Schmidt and the green space policy in the Ruhr area (1900–1930). In: Renate Kastorff-Viehmann, Hermann Josef Bausch (ed.): The green city. Settlements, parks, forests, green areas 1860–1960 in the Ruhr area. Klartext Verlag, Essen 1998, ISBN 3-88474-663-4 .
  • Ursula von Petz: Robert Schmidt 1869-1934: City architect in Essen and regional planner in the Ruhr area , Tübingen; Berlin: Wasmuth, [2016], ISBN 978-3-8030-0790-2
  • Renate Kastorff-Viehmann, Yasemin Utku (Ed.): The legacy of Robert Schmidt. 100 years of regional planning in the area. In: RaumPlanung , issue 2/2012, pp. 52–54. ( online as PDF; 2.0 MB)
  • Renate Kastorff-Viehmann: Robert Schmidt: City and state planners in the Ruhr area - world-class regional planners . Forum Geschichtskultur Ruhr, Vol. 10, 2020, Issue 1, pp. 5–9.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ As a reprint published by the Regionalverband Ruhr, co-editor Dieter Nellen, published by Klartext Verlag in October 2009, ISBN 978-3-89861-901-1 .
  2. ^ Rudolf Vierhaus (ed.): German Biographical Encyclopedia . 2nd edition, KG Saur Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-598-25030-9 , p. 55.
  3. ↑ According to other information, 1905 or 1906
  4. ^ Website of the Deutscher Werkbund NW: 1995: Landschafts-Gedanke and IBA Emscher Landschafts-Park , accessed on January 3, 2012.
  5. ↑ The Moltkeviertel in Essen - a great success . Article from October 1, 2013 in the derwesten.de portal , accessed on October 1, 2013.
  6. ↑ Jürgen Hotzan: dtv-Atlas to the city. From the first foundations to modern urban planning. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-423-03231-6 , pages 57-58.
  7. ↑ Biography in the resolution draft 19/2003 of the city of Bottrop from January 10, 2003 on the naming of higher-level hiking / cycling routes - No. 3 - Dr. Robert-Schmidt-Weg
personal data
SURNAME Schmidt, Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German civil engineer, town planner and construction officer
DATE OF BIRTH December 13, 1869
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt am Main
DATE OF DEATH May 19, 1934