Rudolf Skoda

Felix Rudolf Skoda (born September 26, 1931 in Leipzig ; † April 2, 2015 there ) was a German architect and university professor . He was chief architect for the New Gewandhaus in Leipzig.

Life

The New Gewandhaus in Leipzig on Augustusplatz (2004)

Exhibition office building, as seen from the City History Museum in 1966

Robotron building Leipzig (2009)

Rudolf Skoda Tomb (2016)

Felix Rudolf Skoda was the son of the painter and graphic artist Felix Skoda . After graduating from Humboldt High School in Leipzig in 1950 , he completed a two-year apprenticeship as a bricklayer. From 1952 to 1957 he studied architecture at the Weimar College of Architecture and Construction . He then worked as a research assistant at the universities in Weimar and Cottbus . He was awarded a Dr.-Ing. In 1968 in Weimar with his work Housing and Housing Conditions for Urban Poverty . PhD . In 1986 he completed his habilitation .

From 1960 to 1975 he worked as a design architect in Leipzig project planning offices, where he designed several buildings that shape the cityscape of Leipzig. In 1976 he became chief architect of the Leipzig District Council . From 1977 he was also chief architect for the construction of the New Gewandhaus. He carried out both activities until 1981. The Gewandhaus building is considered to be Skoda's main work; it was the only pure new concert hall in the history of the GDR. The West German trade press also praised the design with its wealth of forms as extraordinary for the GDR, "in which - given the dreary uniformity of series production from common assembly parts, the architecture was almost forgotten" ( Bauwelt ).

2011 it was announced that Skoda during the communist era as travel squad unofficial collaborator (IM) of the Ministry for State Security was. According to his own admission, he pointed out his status to West German interlocutors. This is confirmed in a letter to the editor from Manfred Sack . His Stasi files also contain activities in his private sphere.

After he had already taught as an honorary lecturer at the Technical University of Leipzig , he was appointed full professor for residential and community buildings there in 1981. In numerous publications he devoted himself particularly to the topic of concert hall construction. He had been a member of the Free Academy of the Arts in Hamburg since the mid-1980s . In 1991 he founded the Skoda & Partner architectural association . From 2001 onwards, he was mainly active as an expert in competitions as well as in an advisory and journalistic capacity.

Rudolf Skoda died at the age of 83 and was buried in the Südfriedhof Leipzig .

plant

buildings

• 1965: Building of the Leipzig trade fair office on the market (with Rudolf Rohrer and Ulrich Quester), demolished in 2001
• 1968/1969: VEB Robotron-Anlagenbau Leipzig plant in Gerberstrasse (with Ulrich Quester), demolished in 2013
• 1969–1972: Lecture hall complex at the Karl Marx University Leipzig (with Ulrich Quester), renovated in 2007/08
• 1976–1981: Neues Gewandhaus Leipzig (with Eberhard Göschel, Volker Sieg and Winfried Sziegoleit )
• 1993/1994: Lindenau office and service center Lützner Straße
• 1994–1996: Reconstruction and complete renovation of the Leipzig University of Music and Theater
• 1996: Conversion of the small hall of the Gewandhaus to the Mendelssohn hall
• 1998: Residential building Inselstrasse 13/15

Fonts (selection)

• The Voigtland. Houses and housing conditions of the urban poor in the Rosenthaler Vorstadt of Berlin 1750–1850. Kulturbund, Berlin 1985.
• New Gewandhaus Leipzig. Architectural history and present of a concert building. Verlag für Bauwesen, Berlin 1985.
• The structural development of the Gewandhaus in Leipzig as a reflection of international developments and tendencies in concert hall construction. 1986. (Habilitation thesis)
• The Leipzig Gewandhaus buildings. International comparison of concert buildings. Verlag für Bauwesen, Berlin 2001, ISBN 978-3-345-00781-1 .

Awards

• 1971: Art Prize of the City of Leipzig
• 1981: National Prize of the GDR, 2nd class
• 1982: Prize for urban development and architecture in the Leipzig district
• 1986: Member of the Free Academy of Arts (Architecture Section) Hamburg

literature

• Klaus Gallinat, Olaf W. Reimann:  Skoda, Rudolf . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Heinz Lohse (Ed.): The Humboldt School through the ages. On the 100-year history of a Leipzig high school, part 1. Leipzig 2010, p. 32.
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Wolfgang Hocquél : Leipzig. Architecture from the Romanesque to the present. Passage-Verlag, Leipzig 2001, ISBN 3-932900-54-5 , p. 284.
3. ↑ Bauwelt , No. 16/17, 1982, p. 690. Quoted from Hermann Heckmann: Architectural tendencies in both parts of Germany from 1945 to 1980. In: Culture in divided Germany. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1984, pp. 83-108, at p. 106.
4. ↑ Leipziger Volkszeitung , October 4, 2011
5. ↑ Armin Görtz: Gewandhaus architect was with the Stasi - "I actually never felt like an IM". In: Leipziger Volkszeitung (online), September 19, 2011.
6. ↑ Chief architect of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Rudolf Skoda has died
7. ^ Obituary notice for Rudolf Skoda , published in the Leipziger Volkszeitung on April 11, 2015.
8. ↑ Robert Nößler: Halfway through the demolition of the Robotron building in Leipzig - basements are filled with rubble. In: Leipziger Volkszeitung (online), June 17, 2013.
9. ↑ ^{a b} Horst Riedel: Stadtlexikon Leipzig A - Z . PRO LEIPZIG, Leipzig 2005, ISBN 3-936508-03-8 , p. 553.
10. ^ Free Academy of the Arts in Hamburg