Rudolf Koch (type artist)

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Koch's residence in Offenbach

Rudolf Koch (born November 20, 1876 in Nuremberg ; † April 9, 1934 in Offenbach am Main ) was a German typographer , graphic artist , calligrapher , book designer and chaser .

Life

Rudolf Koch learned to chisel at the age of sixteen in a metal goods factory in Hanau . At the same time he attended the drawing academy there . This was followed by a visit to the arts and crafts school in Nuremberg and the technical university in Munich . After a job as a draftsman and painter in Leipzig and a stay in London, Rudolf Koch got into the printing trade, which he saw as his true profession.

In 1906 Koch joined the Rudhardsche foundry (later the Klingspor brothers ) in Offenbach. Here he designed pioneering fonts like the cables . However, some of his designs were not completed until after his death. Hugo Eberhardt brought him to what is now the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Offenbach am Main , where an elaborately designed and produced map of Germany was created in 1933. He became friends with the company Heintze & Blanckertz , for whose magazine "Die Zeitgememe Schrift - Zeitschrift für Schrift- und Formgestaltung" he wrote regularly. This also published books by him. Koch also worked as a graphic designer for Insel Verlag . Karl Friedrich Lippmann portrayed Rudolf Koch in a woodcut.

Koch's children opened the Haus zum Fürsteneck workshop in Haus Fürsteneck in Frankfurt , where numerous works by Rudolf Koch were published.

plant

Art sheet by Rudolf Koch

Koch's efforts also related to the renewal of the German cursive script , which in the form of the German cursive script prevailing towards the end of the 18th and early 19th centuries was formally frozen and difficult to write. In contrast to Ludwig Sütterlin , who developed his Sütterlin fonts with the aspect of easy learning for school children, Koch created an expressive character font with his Offenbach font .

Koch once wrote about the Gothic script : "Like dark firs with a spicy scent of resin, like when the blackbird calls out through the evening, like the gently swaying delicacy of meadow grass, the most wonderful, German script, we have loved you for a long time" . Another time he described it as “one of the most beautiful and venerable monuments of the German national spirit” .

In addition to the development of scripts, Koch was interested in the renewal of church handicrafts. He designed candlesticks, paraments , sacrament implements and other objects for church furnishings . The Offenbach Peace Church, of which he was a parish member and church leader, benefited in a special way . His style and the symbols first introduced by him in the drawing book in 1923 (new edition 1984: Insel-Bücherei 1021/2) were so dominant until the late 1960s that there was hardly a Protestant church in Germany that did not have any piece of equipment from Koch's style was influenced.

Together with Fritz Kredel and Berthold Wolpe ( woodcuts ) and with the involvement of other students, Koch (calligraphy) worked until 1933 on a large-format map of Germany and the neighboring areas, which was produced by HF Jütte in six-color printing and in 1935 in Leipzig Insel Verlag appeared.

Known students

Writings by Rudolf Koch

Broken writings by Rudolf Koch
Round writings by Rudolf Koch

Broken Fonts

  • Koch fracture (1910–1921)
  • Spring (1914)
  • Maximilian (1914)
  • German decorative font (1921)
  • German advertising font (1923)
  • Wilhelm Klingspor script (1926)
  • Jessen font (1929)
  • Wallau (1930)
  • New Fraktur (1934)
  • German Werkschrift (1934)
  • Koch-Kurrent (1935), based on Koch's handwriting
  • Offenbach (1936), completed by Friedrich Heinrichsen
  • Claudius (1937), completed by Paul Koch

Round fonts

  • Koch-Antiqua (1922)
  • New territory (1923)
  • Cable (1927)
  • Zeppelin (1929)
  • Prism (1930)
  • Holla (1932)
  • Stahl (1933), completed by Hans Kühne
  • Marathon (1938)

exhibition

  • 2011: Believing in the Exquisite - Siegfried Guggenheim (1873–1961) - A Jewish patron of the art of writing and writing . Klingspor Museum , Offenbach

Commemoration

The memorial plaque on Haus Buchrainweg 29 in Offenbach

In Offenbach am Main there is a grammar school right next to the Hochschule für Gestaltung (HfG) that bears his name. A memorial plaque designed by Karlgeorg Hoefer was attached to his house on Buchrainweg .

Works

  • (edited by the Offenbacher Werkstatt without any indication of the author): This is the drawing book which contains many types of signs and symbols as they were known and used by the German people by craftsmen and merchants, by stonemasons and pharmacists, by astronomers and other wise men and in the holy Christian Church and in Christian life for the glory of God our Heavenly Father. Offenbach am M .: Gerstung 1923
  • The writing booklet, a guide to writing by Rudolf Koch with woodcuts by Frik Kredel, published by Bärenreiter-Verlag zu Kassel-Wilhemshöhe , printed by Heinrich Cramer in Offenbach am Main in 1930.
  • The drawing book. Which contains all kinds of signs as they were used in the earliest times, among the peoples of ancient times, in early Christianity and in the Middle Ages. Collected, drawn and explained with the help of friends. [The characters were made in wood by Fritz Kredel . cut] 2nd significantly expanded edition Offenbach am M .: Gerstung 1926; Leipzig: Insel-Verlag 1936 [The copy about the runes was edited by Friedrich von der Leyen ]; Reprint: Frankfurt / Main, Insel (Insel-Bücherei, No. 1021), 1985; 2nd edition of this edition 1986 ISBN 3-458-19021-X
US edition The Book of signs. New York: Dover 1955
Danish edition: Gamle tegn og symboler. [København]: Note 1972
Finnish edition: Merkkien kirja. Helsingissä: Otava 1984
  • The Offenbach font. Instructions for writing a German and a Latin script from Rudolf Koch . Heintze & Blanckertz, Berlin 1928. ( PDF )
  • Rudolf Koch, The War Experiences of Grenadier Rudolf Koch , with a self-portrait. Insel-Verlag, Leipzig, 1934.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Quoted from Peter Rück : The language of writing - on the history of the Fraktur ban of 1941 , in: Jürgen Baurmann / Hartmut Günther / Ulrich Knoop (eds.): Homo scribens. Perspectives on literacy research , Tübingen, Niemeyer 1993, p. 232.
  2. ↑ Quoted from Wolfgang Neuloh : Der Schriftenstreit von 1911 , in: Die deutsche Schrift, 1981, p. 6.
  3. ↑ The bells of the Friedenskirche. ( Memento of the original from September 24, 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. From: plan-becker.de , accessed on November 18, 2013. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.plan-becker.de
  4. ↑ Jewish-Christian community , in FAZ of August 24, 2011, page 41

Web links

Commons : Rudolf Koch  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Koch, Rudolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German calligrapher, typographer and teacher
DATE OF BIRTH November 20, 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH Nuremberg
DATE OF DEATH April 9, 1934
Place of death Offenbach am Main