Rudolf Perco

Rudolf Perco (born July 14, 1884 in Gorizia , † January 31, 1942 in Vienna ) was an Austrian architect.

Life

Rudolfo Perco was of Italian and Slovenian descent, his father Andrea Perco was a simple worker. In 1890 the family moved to Vienna. Since Perco was very talented in drawing, he was a draftsman in Rudolf Peschel's office from 1898 to 1900 and was able to attend the state trade school as a scholarship holder from 1900 to 1904 . He then drew in 1905 in the office of Albert Hans Pecha and studied 1906–1910 at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna , where he was a student of Otto Wagner . In 1908 he received the Peinpreis, for his thesis he received a state travel grant , the "Rompreis". During his studies, Perco also worked as chief draftsman in Hubert Gessner's office.

Perco then started working for Friedrich Ohmann before setting up his own business as an architect in 1913. During the First World War he did military service all the time, planning some projects for the military authorities. He disarmed as a lieutenant in the reserve, but was taken prisoner in Italy from 1918 to 1919.

In the first years after the war, with the country's poor economic situation, Perco had only one commission, the renovation of the Villa Toscana in Gmunden for Margarethe Stonborough-Wittgenstein . That is why he studied at the Technical University from 1920 to 1923 and at the same time from 1920 to 1924 law, which he completed with a doctorate.

The comprehensive housing construction program of the City of Vienna, which began in the mid-1920s, brought Perco back to work as an architect. He received several orders for large projects from the social democratic city administration. After a few years, when there was hardly any public funding for further housing projects due to the economic crisis, Perco's productive phase came to an end. In addition, from 1933, when everything social democratic was pushed back in what was now the Christian-social corporate state, it was also not politically acceptable to the new regime.

After countless unsuccessful attempts to win tenders in the 1930s, he therefore welcomed the end of the Austro-Fascist dictatorship in 1938 with the annexation of Austria to the German Reich. The previously unemployed Perco was immediately given a position by the National Socialist authorities in Ludwig Stigler's planning office and then from 1938 to 1941 in Franz Kaym's office . Finally he came to the building department of the Reichsleiter Baldur von Schirach , where he was busy with expansion plans for the newly created Greater Vienna . In 1942 he was suddenly dismissed for unknown reasons, with internal intrigues within the building department being assumed to be the cause. He was considered lonely and difficult, a notorious complainer who remained unmarried all his life. Perco could not cope with this new setback and he died by suicide.

In 1990, Percostraße in Vienna- Kagran was named in his honor .

meaning

In his work, Rudolf Perco always had a tendency towards monumental, representative construction, which can be seen both in his work before the First World War, especially in the large residential buildings of Red Vienna (superblocks), as well as in his later plans for the Nazi regime expressed. The new power of the workers was to be reflected in the large municipal housing, whereby the monumentality of his largest and most important work, the residential complex on Engelsplatz, expressed itself in the style of a modern objectivity. In other buildings his architecture was characterized more with traditional elements. Characteristic of Perco is the boldness of his mostly unexecuted designs.

Works

photo		Construction year	Surname	Location	description
		1913	"Fürstenhof" residential and commercial building Wikidata	Vienna 2, Praterstraße 25 / Zirkusgasse 8 location
		1913-1914	Residential and commercial building	Vienna 2, Taborstraße 1–3 / Obere Donaustraße 10	destroyed
		1914-1923	Reconstruction and furnishing of the Villa Toscana BDA-ID:  37282 Wikidata	Gmunden, Upper Austria location
		1915-1917	Wikidata hero monument	Trient Cemetery / Trento, Italy	changed
		1925-1926	Professor-Jodl-Hof BDA-ID:  52507 Wikidata	Vienna 19, Döblinger Gürtel 36 / Guneschgasse / Sommergasse Location	Note: with Rudolf Frass and Karl Dorfmeister
		1926-1927	At the Wienerberg Wikidata	Vienna 12, Wienerbergstrasse 16-20 location	Note: with Rudolf Frass and Karl Dorfmeister
		1928-1929	Holyhof BDA-ID:  52260 Wikidata	Vienna 17, Heigerleinstraße 104 / Halirschgasse / Gräffergasse location
		1929-1933	Housing complex Friedrich-Engels-Platz BDA-ID:  51521 Wikidata	Vienna 20, Engelsplatz / Forsthausgasse / Wehlistaße / Leystraße / Robert-Blumgasse location

literature

• OA Graf: The forgotten Wagner school. Munich 1969.
• Hans Hautmann, Rudolf Hautmann: The municipal housing of the Red Vienna 1919-1934. Vienna 1980.
• Unbuilt Vienna 1800–2000. Exhibition catalog. Historical Museum of the City of Vienna, 1999.
• Ursula Prokop: Rudolf Perco 1884–1942. From the architecture of Red Vienna to Nazi megalomania. Böhlau, Vienna 2001, ISBN 3205993047 . ( Digitized version )

Web links

Commons : Rudolf Perco  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Rudolf Perco in the catalog of the German National Library
• Rudolf Perco. In: Architects Lexicon Vienna 1770–1945. Published by the Architekturzentrum Wien . Vienna 2007.
• Rudolf Perco. In: dasrotewien.at - Web dictionary of the Viennese social democracy. SPÖ Vienna (Ed.)

 Map with all coordinates: OSM | WikiMap