Rudolf Schwarz (architect)

St. Corpus Christi Aachen

St. Corpus Christi in Aachen - a path church

Museum of Applied Arts Cologne (formerly: Wallraf-Richartz-Museum Cologne)

Museum of Applied Arts, hall with stairs

Alt St. Alban , Gürzenich , inner courtyard with the sculpture: The grieving parents (1954; artistic concept: Ewald Mataré ; father: Joseph Beuys ; mother: Erwin Heerich )

Rudolf Schwarz (born May 15, 1897 in Strasbourg , † April 3, 1961 in Cologne ) was a German architect , author , architecture professor, church and town planner who shaped the reconstruction of war-torn Cologne and Catholic church building in West Germany after 1945.

life and work

Rudolf Schwarz grew up in Strasbourg. There his father ran a high school. After graduating from high school in Strasbourg, he went to Berlin and studied architecture at the Technical University of Berlin-Charlottenburg from 1914 to 1919 . Here he met Romano Guardini , with whom he remained connected throughout his life. From 1919 to 1923, Schwarz was a master student of Hans Poelzig at the Berlin Academy of the Arts and completed his architecture studies in 1923 with a dissertation on early types of rural churches in the Rhineland .

As a member of the Catholic youth movement Quickborn (1920–1934), whose spiritual mentor was Romano Guardini, Schwarz took over the editorial management of the magazine Die Schildgenossen and in 1924 became "castle builder" at the youth castle Burg Rothenfels , which he repaired as the center of Quickborn. and remodeled. From 1923 to 1925 he was a construction trainee in Cologne. In 1925 Dominikus Böhm brought him to the building and arts and crafts school in Offenbach am Main as a government builder and teacher . Together they worked on the competition Frauenfriedenskirche Frankfurt (1st prize) in 1927 and Johannes Krahn , a master student of Dominkus Böhm, became Schwarz's close collaborator from 1928 onwards.

In 1927, Schwarz switched to the Aachen School of Applied Arts and headed it until the National Socialists closed it in 1934. He was a member of the board of directors of the Deutscher Werkbund and, together with Hans Schwippert, founded a new theory of work related to human and regional issues. The Corpus Christi Church, the House of Youth and the Social Women's School in Aachen, as well as his publication Wegweisung der Technik, made him known as a critical pioneer of the new building .

From 1934 to 1940 Schwarz worked as a freelance architect and author in Frankfurt am Main , Cologne and Berlin, where, together with Emil Steffann, he established the St. Anne's Church in Berlin-Lichterfelde (competition in 1934) and first typological foundations for a liturgical renewal of the Church, which he published in 1938 in his book Vom Bau der Kirche .

From 1941 to 1944, Schwarz worked as a regional planner in Lorraine after he had turned down an offer to go to Turkey as an architect. Members of his planning staff were Emil Steffann and Rudolf Steinbach , with whom Schwarz 1943–1951 rebuilt the Johannisberg parish church (Rheingau), which was destroyed in the war in 1942, according to its Romanesque origins in the sense of a lively understanding of monument preservation as a trace of history . After serving in the war and being a prisoner of war, he initially participated as an architect in Frankfurt a. M. resident with his employees Karl Wimmenauer , Paul Schneider-Esleben u. a. on reconstruction projects and was responsible as general planner for the reconstruction of Cologne from 1946 to 1952 . In accordance with the thoughts on regional planning in his book Von der Bebauung der Erde , published in 1949, Schwarz developed the model of the twin city for Cologne , that is, the south and west of the metropolis on the Rhine as a landscape of education and trade and its north as a landscape of work . A key employee of Rudolf Schwarz in the Cologne Reconstruction Society was Fritz Schaller from 1947 to 1952 . Rudolf Schwarz summarized his thoughts on the reconstruction of Cologne in the text Das Neue Köln . They formed an open contradiction to the functionalist urban planning of the CIAM .

In 1953, Schwarz accepted a call to the Düsseldorf Art Academy , where he taught town and church construction until his death in 1961. In his contribution Bilde Künstler, do not speak , published in 1953 in the architecture magazine Baukunst und Werkform , he questioned mechanical functionalism . This led to an open discussion with Walter Gropius and prompted the so-called Bauhaus debate in West Germany. With the Wallraff-Richartz Museum Cologne (1952–1957) he demonstrated his understanding of architecture, created the first museum architecture in the Federal Republic of Germany and the model of a history - conscious post-war modernism . In 1959 Schwarz published his monograph “World before the Threshold”, in 1960 he received first place in the competition for the reconstruction of the Reichstag in Berlin and was appointed to the Berlin Academy of the Arts.

Schwarz died in 1961 at the age of 63 and was buried in the Müngersdorf cemetery in Cologne (hall 12 no. 6/7).

After his death, his wife, the architect Maria Schwarz (née Lang), continued the open orders - including ten churches - as the Schwarz und Partner architectural office . She campaigned for the preservation of Rudolf Schwarz's work and handed over his estate to the Historical Archives of the Archdiocese of Cologne.

"First Architecture"

Schwarz developed his extraordinarily rich architectural work based on fundamental considerations into a “first architecture” “which is ahead of all architecture” and he developed it in three books: On Building the Church (1947), On Building the Earth (1949) and finally World Before Schwelle (1960) explained. For him, building was a representation of creation and its archetypes, from the geological stratification, through the forms of plants, the landscape and architecture, which, with its appearances as the last or first layer of the earth's structure, illustrates the life of people and creation.

Quotes

"It is a moving sight when a builder finally, finally gets his glass cube, the pretext for this may be a factory building, and it is calming and almost metaphysically necessary when it rains in from above and the whole thing functions as a greenhouse"

- Rudolf Schwarz: Educate artists, don't talk . January 1953

Rudolf Schwarz sees two “archetypes” in church construction: (pure) path or “holy journey” on the one hand and dome or “holy ring” on the other. In contrast to the Wegekirche building type, there are strictly centralized solutions. Schwarz describes the “holy way” in the way church he developed, which is characterized by a linear orientation towards the front:

“The people have made the departure […], their existence is the way. Row after row is drawn to God. Nobody sees the other's face, all look into the light that shines far in front of them and from there are connected to the church. Wegform is sparse, renouncing form without the close bond of the one in the other, unless the reliable camaraderie of the many who are on the way. The procession begins in the darkness of the gate and ends in the light. [...] All of this happens in the standing form. In the path form, the process has stepped inward and takes place there from beginning to end as a breaking up and pulling out and reaching the end. "

- Rudolf Schwarz: Church building. World before the threshold. Heidelberg 1960.

Honors

• 1951 Cross of Merit (Steckkreuz) of the Federal Republic of Germany
• 1952 Fritz Schumacher Prize
• 1958 Grand Art Prize of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia

The Rudolf Black Course in Frankfurt-Kalbach was named in April 2013 after it.

In 2018 Rudolf Schwarz and his wife Maria were named deserving citizens of the city of Cologne. The common burial site is preserved as an honor grave .

plant

Buildings (selection)

Church buildings make up about 60% of the work, secular buildings were mainly built at a young age.

year	image	place	object	state	comment
1929		Alsdorf-Mariadorf	Cross of the dead as a memorial for the fallen of the First World War	North Rhine-Westphalia
1929-1930		Aachen	Social women's school	North Rhine-Westphalia	New building together with Hans Schwippert .
1930		Aachen-Burtscheid	Parish home of the parish of St. Johann Baptist	North Rhine-Westphalia	New building
1930		Aachen	Catholic parish church: St. Corpus Christi	North Rhine-Westphalia	New building, executed together with Hans Schwippert
1932		Kreuzau-Leversbach	Catholic Chapel: St. Albertus Magnus	North Rhine-Westphalia	New building
1935		Berlin-Zehlendorf	House for Romano Guardini , Niklasstraße 50	Berlin
1946-1950		trier	Installation of a new altar island in the Liebfrauenkirche	Rhineland-Palatinate
1946-1950 1950-1952		Cologne-Kalk	Kalk Chapel Reconstruction of St Mary's	North Rhine-Westphalia	New construction of the Chapel of Mercy and reconstruction of the parish church
1947-1948		Frankfurt am Main	Paulskirche in Frankfurt	Hesse	Reconstruction together with Eugen Blanck , Gottlob Schaupp and Johannes Krahn .
1949-1951		Cologne-Deutz	Catholic parish church: Neu St. Heribert	North Rhine-Westphalia	Reconstruction together with Josef Bernard .
1947-1954		Cologne-Ehrenfeld	Catholic parish church: St. Mechtern	North Rhine-Westphalia	New building at the execution site of St. Gereon and his soldiers.
1952-1953		Duisburg-Neudorf	Former Catholic parish church: St. Anna	North Rhine-Westphalia	New building together with Nikolaus Rosiny . The church was profaned on February 4, 2007.
1952-1954		Cheeky	Catholic Parish Church: St. Mary Queen	North Rhine-Westphalia	New building
1952-1955		Cologne	Gürzenich	North Rhine-Westphalia	Reconstruction together with Karl Band .
1952-1955		Cologne-Braunsfeld	Catholic Parish Church: St. Joseph	North Rhine-Westphalia	New building together with Josef Bernard.
1951-1956		Düren	Catholic parish and pilgrimage church: St. Anna	North Rhine-Westphalia	New building with Rudolf Steinbach , tower added in the 1960s according to plans by Maria Schwarz.
1953-1957		Cologne	Wallraf-Richartz-Museum , since 1989 the Museum of Applied Arts .	North Rhine-Westphalia	New construction with Joseph Bernhard
1953		Frankfurt-Nordend	Former Catholic Parish Church of St. Michael	Hesse	New building, rebuilt by Maria Schwarz as a mourning and baptismal church, since 2007 center for mourning pastoral care of the Diocese of Limburg .
1952-1954		Then after	Catholic parish church: St. Albertus Magnus	Rhineland-Palatinate	New building. The church was profaned on November 25, 2018.
1954-1957		Essen-Rüttenscheid	Catholic parish church: St. Andreas	North Rhine-Westphalia	New building
1957		Bottrop	Former Catholic Parish Church: Holy Cross	North Rhine-Westphalia	New building with glass paintings by Georg Meistermann . The church was profaned in 2008 and is now used as a cultural church.
1956-1958		Dusseldorf	Atelier building of the Art Academy Düsseldorf	North Rhine-Westphalia	New building
1956-1959		Saarbrücken	Catholic Parish Church: St. Mary Queen	Saarland	New building
1958-1959		Essen-Frohnhausen	Catholic parish church: St. Antonius	North Rhine-Westphalia	New building
1959-1960		Aschaffenburg-Schweinheim	Catholic parish church: St. Gertrud	Bavaria	New building
1959-1962		Linz-Keferfeld	Catholic parish church: St. Therese	Upper Austria	New building
1959-1964		Wetzlar	Catholic parish church: St. Boniface	Hesse	New building, executed by Maria Schwarz, Werner Strohl
1960-1964		Wuppertal	Catholic branch church: St. Pius X.	North Rhine-Westphalia	New building
1961		Aachen Forest	Catholic branch church: St. Bonifatius	North Rhine-Westphalia	New building
1961-1963		Vienna-Matzleinsdorf	Catholic parish church: St. Florian	Vienna	New building, executed by Maria Schwarz.
1961-1964		Wuppertal-Vohwinkel	Catholic parish church: St. Ludger	North Rhine-Westphalia	New building
1964-1965		Berlin-Kreuzberg	Catholic branch church: St. Michael	Berlin	New building, construction management by Hans Schaefers.
1965		Berlin-Gatow	Former Catholic branch church: St. Raphael	Berlin	New construction, construction management and execution by Maria Schwarz and Werner Michalik. The church was profaned on March 15, 2005 and demolished in July 2005.
1939-1948		Menden - Oberrödinghausen	Mary Queen of Peace	North Rhine-Westphalia	The plans of the quarry stone hall with roof turret were drawn up in 1937 by Rudolf Schwazz and Johannes Krahn. Construction began in 1939. The foundations were poured in the same year, after which construction came to a standstill. The building was not completed until 1948.
1966		Dortmund-Neuasseln	Catholic parish church: St. Nikolaus von Flüe	North Rhine-Westphalia	New building

Fonts

Schwarz published photographs by the photographer Albert Renger-Patzsch (1897–1966) in the first volume of the “Aachener Werkbücher” with the title “Wegweisung der Technik” . These 14 photo panels are free photographs from the artistic work created up to 1928.

St. Michael Frankfurt

• Direction of technology. (= Aachener Werkbücher), Vol. 1. / 1928 Original edition that was taken over as a book trade edition by the Berlin publishing house Müller & Kiepenheuer.

  Müller & Kiepenheuer, Potsdam 1928 (original edition).

  Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne 2008 (new facsimile edition, edited by Maria Schwarz and Ann and Jürgen Wilde (Albert Renger-Patzsch Archive), with an afterword by Wolfgang Pehnt and short biographies on Schwarz and Renger-Patzsch).

• From building the church. Schneider, Heidelberg 1947 (reprint of the 1st edition, Würzburg 1938), ISBN 3-7025-0376-5 .
• From the cultivation of the earth. Schneider-Verlag, Heidelberg 1949, ISBN 3-7025-0521-0 .
• The doubled man . In: Bruno E. Werner: New building in Germany , Munich: Bruckmann 1952, [p. 18-19]
• with Andreas Feldtkeller : Churches of Today. Krämer, Stuttgart 1959.
• Church building. World before the threshold. Kerle, Heidelberg 1960, ISBN 3-7954-1961-1 (reprint).
• Think and Build. Kerle, Heidelberg 1963.

literature

• Maria Schwarz, Klaus Rosiny, Joachim Schürmann, Oswald Matthias Ungers: Rudolf Schwarz. Catalog for the memorial exhibition of the BDA Cologne, Kerle Verlag, Heidelberg 1963.
• Manfred Sundermann, Claudia Lang, Maria Schwarz (eds.): Rudolf Schwarz . Academy of the Chamber of Architects NRW, Düsseldorf, German UNESCO Comm. 1981, ISBN 3-922343-11-2
• Karl R. Kegler (Ed.): Sacral Objectivity. Rudolf Schwarz and his contemporaries. Architectural theory / ETH Zurich, Zurich 2013, ISBN 978-3-9524085-3-7 .
• Wolfgang Pehnt , Hilde Strohl: Rudolf Schwarz 1897–1961. Inhabited pictures - architect of a different modernism. Hatje, Ostfildern-Ruit 2000. ISBN 3-7757-0642-9 .
• Walter Zahner: Rudolf Schwarz - master builder of the new community. A contribution to the conversation between liturgical theology and architecture in the liturgical movement. Oros-Verlag, Altenberge 1992, ISBN 3-89375-046-0 .
• Ulrich Conrads… (Ed.): The Bauhaus Debate 1953, documents of a repressed controversy. Braunschweig, Wiesbaden: Vieweg 1994, ISBN 3-528-06100-6
• Thomas Hasler: Architecture as Expression - Rudolf Schwarz. gta Verlag, Zurich 2000, ISBN 978-3-85676-082-3 .
• Sylvia Böhmer, Adam C. Oellers , Maria Schwarz, Ann and Jürgen Wilde (eds.): Rudolf Schwarz, Albert Renger-Patzsch. The architect, the photographer and the buildings in Aachen. Catalog for the exhibition in the museums of the city of Aachen - Suermondt Ludwig Museum. Aachen 1997.

Maria Queen Saarbrücken

• Katholisches Pfarramt Maria Königin (Ed.), Rudolf Mang, Marco Kany: A song for Maria Königin - 50 years parish church Maria Königin in Saarbrücken. Paulinus-Verlag, Trier 2009, ISBN 978-3-7902-1630-1 .
• Thomas Hasler:  Black, Rudolf. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-428-11205-0 , pp. 9-11 ( digitized version ).
• Johannes Madey :  BLACK, Rudolf. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 16, Bautz, Herzberg 1999, ISBN 3-88309-079-4 , Sp. 1431.
• Adam Caruso, Helen Thomas (eds.): Rudolf Schwarz and the Monumental Order of Things. gta Verlag, Zurich 2016, ISBN 978-3-85676-362-6 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Heinrich Böll: MAKK Cologne: Museum for Applied Arts, renovation of the windows, from 2015. In: Architekt-Boell.de. Retrieved February 21, 2019 . 
2. ^ Manfred Sundermann; Claudia Lang and Maria Schwarz (eds.): Rudolf Schwarz . Bonn 1981, ISBN 3-922343-11-2 , pp. 38 .
3. ↑ Manfred Sundermann, Claudia Lang and Maria Schwarz (eds.): Rudolf Schwarz . Bonn 1981, ISBN 3-922343-11-2 , pp. 39 .
4. ↑ Stefan Seewald: Bauhaus and church building "Gropius can obviously not think". In: The world. April 26, 2019, accessed on October 18, 2019 (German). 
5. ↑ Alexander Henning Smolian: Series or personality - on Rudolf Schwarz's understanding of technology. In: Wolkenkuckucksheim, international journal on the theory of architecture. Vol. 19, Issue 33 ,. 2014, accessed August 5, 2019 . 
6. ^ Gerhild Krebs: Rudolf Schwarz and spatial planning around Thionville. (PDF) In: Places of cross-border memory - traces of the networking of the Saar-Lor-Lux area in the 19th and 20th centuries. Lieux de la mémoire transfrontalière - Traces et réseaux dans l'espace Sarre-Lor-Lux aux 19e et 20e siècles, Saarbrücken 2002, 3rd, technically revised edition 2009. Published on CD-ROM and on the Internet at www.memotransfront.uni- saarland.de. Rainer Hudemann with the assistance of Marcus Hahn, Gerhild Krebs and Johannes Großmann, accessed on March 17, 2017 (2002, 2009). 
7. ↑ Alfons Leitl: The Reconstruction of the Johannisberg Church in the Rheingau - An Example of Living Monument Preservation . In: Alfons Leitl (Hrsg.): Baukunst und Werkform . No. 1 . Frankfurter Hefte, Frankfurt am Main 1952, p. 36 - 43 .
8. ^ Manfred Sundermann, Maria Schwarz, Claudia Lang: Rudolf Schwarz . In: Academy of the Chamber of Architects of North Rhine-Westphalia, Manfred Sundermann ... (Ed.): Architecture and preservation of monuments . tape 17 . German Unesco Commission, Bonn 1981, ISBN 3-922343-11-2 , p. 19-22, 59-63 .
9. ^ Wolfram Hagspiel : Cologne. Marienburg . Buildings and architects of a villa suburb (= city ​​traces, monuments in Cologne , volume 8). 2 volumes, JP Bachem Verlag, Cologne 1996, ISBN 3-7616-1147-1 , p. 947 f.
10. ↑ P. Hermann Keller OSB: Design and Creation - To Rudolf Schwarz book "From the cultivation of the earth" . In: Alfons Leitl (Hrsg.): Baukunst und Werkform . No. 1 . Frankfurter Hefte, Frankfurt am Main 1952, p. 44-48 .
11. ^ Ulrich Soénius: On the history of urban development in Cologne. In: The master plan for Cologne, Albert Speer's vision for downtown Cologne. Cologne 2009, p. 14.
12. ↑ Rudolf Schwarz: What is the subject of urban planning? In: Ulrich Conrads and Peter Neitzke (eds.): The cities open to the sky, speeches and reflections on the reconstruction and the return of the new building 1948/49 . Bauwelt Foundations, No. 125 . Birkhäuser, Basel, Boston, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-7643-6903-5 , pp. 186-190 .
13. ↑ Ivica Brnić: Near Distance: Sacred Aspects in the Prism of the Profane Buildings by Tadao Ando, ​​Louis I. Kahn and Peter Zumthor . Park Books, Zurich 2019, ISBN 978-3-03860-121-0 , pp. 85 .
14. ↑ Melanie Pfifferling: "The Wallraf-Richartz-Museum by Rudolf Schwarz, a museum building between tradition and modernity" . Ed .: University of Vienna. Vienna 2009, p. 1 and 8 .
15. ↑ ^{a b} Cologne Council resolution of June 25, 2018. Accessed on December 16, 2018 . 
16. ↑ Annette Krapp: Interview with Maria Scharz: Our buildings were our children. kölnarchitektur.de the internet portal for the architecture city of Cologne, April 13, 2016, accessed on December 17, 2017 . 
17. ^ Herbert Muck: A "First Architecture" . In: Manfred Sundermann, Claudia Lang, Maria Schwarz (eds.): Rudolf Schwarz . Bonn 1981, ISBN 3-922343-11-2 , pp. 26-27 .
18. ^ Manfred Sundermann, Claudia Lang, Maria Schwarz (eds.): Rudolf Schwarz . Bonn 1981, ISBN 3-922343-11-2 , pp. 41 f .
19. ↑ Ivica Brnić: Near Distance: Sacred Aspects in the Prism of the Profane Buildings by Tadao Ando, ​​Louis I. Kahn and Peter Zumthor . Park Books, Zurich 2019, ISBN 978-3-03860-121-0 , pp. 85-89 .
20. ^ Rudolf Schwarz: Church building. World before the threshold. Heidelberg 1960. (Reprint: Regensburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-7954-1961-5 , pp. 76-78)
21. ^ Reprint: Regensburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-7954-1961-5 , p. 78f.
22. ↑ Official Journal for Frankfurt am Main , Volume 144, No. 17, City of Frankfurt am Main, Feb. 25, 2020.
23. ↑ Entry in the Berlin State Monument List
24. ^ Rudolf Schwarz (1897–1961) Three “other churches” in the Essen diocese. (PDF; 2.2 MB) (No longer available online.) Association of German Architects , 2011, archived from the original on April 2, 2016 ; Retrieved April 2, 2016 . 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.  
25. ↑ Angela Pfotenhauer: The Gürzenich and Alt St. Alban . Ed .: City of Cologne. JP Bachem Verlag , Cologne 1993, ISBN 3-7616-1127-7 , p. 64 .
26. ↑ Melanie Pfifferling: "The Wallraf-Richartz-Museum by Rudolf Schwarz, a museum building between tradition and modernity" . Ed .: http://othes.univie.ac.at/24894/1/2012-12-31_0705714.pdf . Vienna 2013.
27. ^ Rhein-Zeitung Last service in November: Andernach Church of St. Albert will soon close its doors forever, Rhein-Zeitung September 4, 2018.
28. ↑ St. Albert on the website of the parish community Andernach , accessed on November 27, 2018.
29. ↑ Heinrich Lützeler, Christian visual art of the present , Herder-Verlag, Freiburg 1962, pages 22, 23, 31, illustration 34.
30. ^ Wolfgang Pehnt , Hilde Strohl: Rudolf Schwarz 1897–1961. Inhabited pictures - architect of a different modernism. Hatje, Ostfildern-Ruit 2000, ISBN 3-7757-0642-9 , p. 296.
31. ↑ BauNetz St. -Raphael Church by Rudolf Schwarz demolished in Berlin, BauNetz 11 July 2005.

Web links

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

• Literature by and about Rudolf Schwarz in the catalog of the German National Library
• Rudolf Schwarz (architect). In: arch INFORM .
• Route to buildings by Rudolf Schwarz at baukunst-nrw