Theodor Dierksmeier

Theodor Dierksmeier (born February 27, 1908 in Münster , † April 10, 1979 in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe ) was a German architect and construction clerk .

Life

Dierksmeier studied architecture at the Technical University of Hanover and the Technical University of Danzig . In 1931 he passed the main diploma examination in Hanover. In 1935 he passed the state examination to become a government architect ( Assessor ) in Berlin and was employed by the construction department of the Deutsche Reichsbahn; later delegated to the Prussian Ministry of Finance in Berlin. In 1936 Dierksmeier moved to the building department of the Reich Ministry of Transport in Berlin. There he was appointed chief architect and consultant for railway construction in 1942 .

In 1936 he won first prize in the architectural competition for the House of Tourism in Berlin. The House of Tourism was the first and only completed structure on the round square on the north-south axis of the so-called world capital Germania , according to the plans of the General Building Inspectorate under Albert Speer . Construction began in 1938, construction work on the largely completed building shell was discontinued in 1942. In 1964, the building, which had fallen into ruin, was demolished.

In 1938 Dierksmeier won another first prize in the competition for a diplomatic receiving station in Berlin, the so-called Mussolini station , which should have been built in place of the Heerstrasse station . In addition, he was awarded the design contract for the he designed North Station on the east-west axis of the entire Berlin city railway with the station Charlottenburg , Bahnhof Zoo , Friedrichstrasse train station , the Silesian Station and the Lehrter and Stettin Station should summarize.

For the project of a 3000 mm wide-gauge railway , he also planned the interior design of the 1st and 2nd class passenger cars with bar cars, reading and social cars based on an upscale hotel design from the 1940s. In 1942 , Adolf Hitler commissioned the Reich Ministry of Transport and the Deutsche Reichsbahn to plan the broad-gauge railway . All of these projects did not get beyond the planning stage until the end of the war.

In the summer of 1944, Albert Speer appointed him to the task force for the reconstruction of bombed-out cities .

After the war in 1945 Dierksmeier acted in the British occupation zone in Bielefeld as a consultant for railway construction. From 1949 to 1953 his activity was limited to the territory of the Münster Federal Railway Directorate . There he planned and built the administration building of the Münster Federal Railway Directorate and the new reception building of the main train station. He also designed some residential buildings there. Furthermore, in his hometown of Münster, he won 3rd prize in the competition for the new town hall and was entrusted with the artistic direction for this project.

In 1953 Dierksmeier was appointed chief architect and structural engineer at the headquarters of the Deutsche Bundesbahn in Frankfurt am Main . In this function, he steered and influenced the reconstruction of the high-rise railway structures and, in particular, the railway stations throughout Germany.

Dierksmeier was also successful in the field of vehicle design and the interior design of rail vehicles. In 1958, the saloon car for the Shah of Persia was built according to his designs and implementation plans, and in 1968 he was successful and active with his design for the Blue Train pullman suit on behalf of the German wagon construction industry for South Africa .

Dierksmeier retired on January 1, 1973 as structural engineering consultant for the Deutsche Bundesbahn and ministerial director . He died of cancer on April 10, 1979 in Bad Homburg.

Fonts

• New buildings for the Deutsche Bundesbahn. In: Planning and Building in the New Germany. Cologne / Opladen 1960. pp. 50–59.
• The building construction at the Deutsche Bundesbahn. In: Deutsche Bundesbahn (Hrsg.): New buildings of the Deutsche Bundesbahn. Bonn 1962, p. 9 f.

literature

• Anton Joachimsthaler: The broad gauge railway. 1981.
• Ulrich Langner: A railway architect between dictatorship and democracy. Dipl.-Ing. Theodor Dierksmeier (1908–1979). In: Martin Schack: New train stations. B. Neddermeyer, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-933254-49-3 , pp. 73-105.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Sylvaine Hänsel, Stefan Rethfeld: Architecture Guide Münster. Dietrich Reimer, Berlin 2008.