Thekla shield

Thekla sign during an excursion, 1911

Thekla Augusta Anna Gerda Schild (born March 8, 1890 in Karlsruhe , † November 13, 1991 in Stuttgart ) was a German architect . She was the third woman in 1913 in Germany, pursuing a degree as Diplom - Engineer was able to acquire in architecture.

Youth and education

Schild spent a large part of her youth in the Black Forest , where her father worked as a civil servant surveyor. During this time she took part in extensive hikes with him, the beginning of an active life.

At the age of 12 she became a student at the girls' high school in Karlsruhe , which was founded in 1893 and was one of the first educational institutions of its kind in Germany. Like her classmates, she was proud of her own school, where qualified staff knew how to stimulate the girls' ambition to graduate successfully. Her favorite subjects were math and Greek. She also took music lessons at a conservatory . The parents, who showed a progressive attitude towards the education of girls, paid quite a bit. The mother in particular, trained as a teacher and artist herself, stimulated the daughter's aesthetic inclinations. In the spring of 1908, Schild graduated from high school .

With only one exception, all of the girls in their final year went on to university. Schild, undecided what to study, was inclined to medicine . Her mother advised her against doing this because she considered her daughter's artistic inclinations and her sense of beauty to be incompatible with certain aspects of the training of doctors, such as the dissection of corpses. Instead, she suggested architecture. The daughter found this idea very appealing, but had doubts whether, as a woman, she would be accepted into a corresponding course of study. At the urging of their mother, they both sought advice from Hermann Billing , professor of architecture at the Technical University of Karlsruhe . Billing expected his students not only to have artistic qualifications, but also - in keeping with the architect's contemporary image - physical fitness, a requirement that Schild was able to convince him of through their sporting activities.

Schild followed Billing's encouragement to apply to the Technical University of Karlsruhe and was accepted. She was the only woman in her degree course, a situation with which, after initial obstacles, she soon came to terms. Teaching staff and fellow students accepted them. Schild not only made friends with some of her fellow students, but also participated in their social activities, which in the society of the time could be found offensive. Occasionally her role as the only woman in a male environment caused complications, for example on the occasion of an excursion to Switzerland , on which one of her professors took a relative with him so that Schild was not the only female participant.

After completing her preliminary diploma examination, Schild went to Munich for a year with some of her fellow students , as she was attracted to the urban student life there and wanted to become independent from her parents. The step, which was unusual for a student at the time, found the - reluctant - approval of the parents. In the Bavarian metropolis, Schild also took an active part in the social life of the students, but was occasionally confronted with restrictive gender role models, for example when neighbors were offended that she received male visitors in her room. In her free time, she repeatedly went skiing or climbing in the Alps .

After her return to Karlsruhe, Schild prepared for the main diploma examination. She graduated in December 1913, where she was one of the best of the year. She became the first woman in the Grand Duchy of Baden and only the third woman in Germany to hold the title of graduate engineer in architecture.

In 1916 she married the Düsseldorf architect Wilhelm Firgau (1889–1969). The daughter Susanne Firgau, born in 1919, was a graphic artist and children's book illustrator, the son Werner Wilhelm Firgau, born in 1921, was an engineer.

The experiences of Schild as one of the first students of architecture in Germany are recorded in - unpublished - memoirs that are in the possession of her family.

literature

• Despina Stratigakos: "I Myself Want to Build." Women, Architectural Education and the Integration of Germany's Technical Colleges. In: Paedagocica Historica , Vol. 43, No. 6, 2007, ISSN  0030-9230 , pp. 727-756, here pp. 748-750.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Birth register StA Karlsruhe, No. 390/1890
2. ↑ Death register StA Stuttgart-Sillenbuch, No. 110/1991
3. ↑ Despina Stratigakos: "I Myself Want to Build." Women, Architectural Education and the Integration of Germany's Technical Colleges. In: Paedagocica Historica , Vol. 43, No. 6, 2007, ISSN  0030-9230 , pp. 727-756, here p. 750.
4. ^ Marriage register StA Karlsruhe, No. 435/1916