Rudolf Klophaus

City-Hof in Hamburg (1954 - 2019)

Mohlenhof (1928/29)

Press house (1938), today "Helmut Schmidt House"

Bartholomayhaus (1938/39)

Rudolf Klophaus (born January 14, 1885 in Wald near Solingen ; † July 3, 1957 in Hamburg ) was a German architect . He worked mainly in Hamburg from 1920 and until his death created numerous residential and commercial buildings that defined the cityscape. His most famous buildings include the press building on Speersort and the City-Hof high-rises on Klosterwall.

Life

The son of a working-class family, after completing an apprenticeship as a bricklayer, attended the building trade schools in Barmen and Aachen from 1901 to 1906 and then initially worked for the architect Otto Frings in Düsseldorf. Seriously wounded in the First World War, he was employed by the Hamburg architect Theodor Speckbötel in 1916 . In 1920 he founded his own office with August Schoch , and in 1927 Erich zu Putlitz joined as a third partner.

Together they built numerous office and commercial buildings, but also cooperative residential complexes in Harvestehude, Winterhude, Finkenwerder, Ohlsdorf and Hamm. The office was particularly involved in the construction of the large Dulsberg housing estate designed by Fritz Schumacher . According to the judgment of the art historian Hermann Hipp , Klophaus was “one of the best of the moderately modern Hamburg brick architects in the twenties”. He achieved international fame through his competition designs for the Geneva Palace of Nations , the expansion of the Reichstag in Berlin and the Columbus monument in Haiti .

In 1932 Klophaus separated from his previous partners and continued to work alone from then on. On May 1, 1933, he joined the NSDAP , having previously been a member of the German Democratic Party and the Hamburg Freemasons' Lodge, Hanseatentreueue , since 1923 . Together with Artur Tachill (1903–1981), Klophaus successfully participated in ideas competitions for the construction of a Reichsführer-school in Munich and for a planned but unrealized SS memorial on the Moorweide in Hamburg in 1933/34 . Also in Hamburg, he received further major orders in the following years, including for the Altstädter Hof residential complex, the office building for the businessman Robert Bartholomay and the press house at Speersort, the foundation stone of which was laid in 1938 in the presence of Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels . In the same year Klophaus am Klosterwall began building a monumental administrative center for the Hamburger Hochbahn , which was stopped after the outbreak of World War II and was torn down again after the end of the war.

During the war Klophaus worked temporarily in occupied Lorraine in 1942/43, where he was responsible for the repair of war damage for the Reconstruction Office. In September 1943, however, after the heavy air raids on Hamburg, he was ordered back to the Hanseatic city, where he was entrusted with the construction of makeshift apartments until the end of the war. After the end of the war, Klophaus was initially classified as "less polluted" in the course of denazification and was temporarily not allowed to work as an architect. In the appeal process in 1948, however, he was classified as a “fellow traveler”, so that he could resume his work. In the following years he was mainly involved in the construction and reconstruction of apartments, but also realized several theaters as well as banks and commercial buildings. His most distinctive work of those years are the City-Hof high-rise buildings on Klosterwall, which he built from 1952 onwards in place of the demolished high - rise building.

Shortly after its completion in 1957, Rudolf Klophaus suddenly died during a court hearing, his then office manager Hans Jochem went into business for himself with Peter Hauske and both continued to run the Klophaus office under the new name Peter Hauske and Hans Jochem Architects BDA with some former Klophaus employees.

Buildings (selection)

• 1923–1924: Reconstruction and extension of the house of the Patriotic Society in Hamburg, Trostbrücke 4 (changed)
• 1925: Reconstruction and extension of the Klockmannhaus in Hamburg
• around 1925: Factory building for the cigarette factory Haus Neuerburg (later: Reemtsma ) in Hamburg-Wandsbek, Walddörferstrasse
• 1927: Lake water warm bathing establishment in Niendorf
• 1928-1929: Kontorhausviertel Mohlenhof in Hamburg, Burchardstraße 17 (Hermes sculpture by Richard Kuöhl )
• 1936–1937: Residential development Altstädter Hof in Hamburg, Steinstrasse 13–19a u. a. (sculptural jewelry by Richard Kuöhl)
• 1938: Press building in Hamburg, Speersort 1 (sculptural jewelry by Richard Kuöhl, heavily modified after war damage, location of the weekly newspaper Die Zeit )
• 1938–1939: Bartholomayhaus in Hamburg, Steinstrasse (builder: Robert Bartholomay; the last office building built in the classic style with a large gable based on old Hanseatic town houses)
• 1939–1941: Luftgau settlement in Hamburg-Osdorf
• 1950: Reconstruction of the Thalia Theater in Wuppertal, which was destroyed in the war, for Robert Bartholomay
• 1955: City-Hof high-rise buildings in Hamburg; demolished since 2019.

literature

• Hans Walden: Klophaus, Rudolf . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 6 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-8353-1025-4 , p. 164-166 .
• Werner Hegemann : Klophaus, Schoch, to Putlitz. (= New Work Art ) FE Hübsch, Berlin / Leipzig / Vienna 1930.
• Ralf Lange : Architecture Guide Hamburg. Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-930698-58-7 .

Web links

Commons : Rudolf Klophaus  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Architect portrait of Rudolf Klophaus

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hermann Hipp, lecture at the Catholic Academy Hamburg, November 23, 2006 ( Memento of the original from July 7, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 116 kB) 
2. ↑ Werner Hegemann: Klophaus, Schoch, to Putlitz. (= Neue Werkkunst) FE Hübsch, Berlin / Leipzig / Vienna 1930 ( - quoted on the website of the Hamburg Architecture Archive ( Memento from April 18, 2012 in the Internet Archive )).
3. ^ "Klophaus - creative, enterprising, adapted" in Die Zeit from September 15, 2015, accessed on September 15, 2015.
4. ^ Hans Walden: Hamburg biography . tape 6 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-8353-1025-4 , p. 165 .
5. ^ Image index of art and architecture
6. ^ Philipp Koep: Thalia. A touch of the big city. The history of the Thalia Theater in Wuppertal. 2nd revised edition, Wuppertal 1994, ISBN 3-928766-07-4 , p. 102.