Walter Butzek

Walter Butzek , also Walther Butzek (born February 10, 1886 in Laurahütte near Kattowitz , † March 23, 1965 in Rostock ) was a German architect .

biography

Butzek was born the son of a teacher. He obtained secondary school leaving certificate and was referred to the construction profession by his grandfather. He completed an apprenticeship as a bricklayer and then attended the Royal Prussian Building Trade School in Katowice . From 1904 he worked first as a construction technician and site manager in his hometown, later in Berlin-Charlottenburg . In 1908 he enrolled as an “extraordinary student” at the Technical University of Stuttgart . He studied here until 1909, also in Theodor Fischer's master studio . After completing his studies, Butzek first worked in the “Saalecker Werkstätten” in Saaleck near Bad Kösen . The workshops founded by Paul Schultze-Naumburg in 1903 were an important institution of the reform movement of the Deutscher Werkbund and exerted a great influence on architecture and design.

In 1912 Butzek moved to Güstrow in Mecklenburg and worked here as a freelance architect. Until the First World War, it was based on a simplified neo-baroque style , which was characteristic of the progressive reform architecture at that time .

From 1915 to 1918 Butzek served as a soldier in the First World War. After his return from the war in 1919, he worked in the building advice center at the Mecklenburg-Schwerin Chamber of Agriculture until 1922 . In 1919 Butzek co-founded the Rostock Artists Association . From 1922 he was a freelance architect in Rostock. Butzek was chairman of the Rostocker Künstlerbund. In the following years he created both important residential ensembles and industrial buildings in the style of New Building and New Objectivity .

During the Second World War, he was conscripted for service in occupied Poland from 1940 to 1942, after which he was an appraiser for war-related structural damage in Rostock. In order to meet the housing shortage, it was necessary after the end of the war to create sufficient living space quickly. For this purpose, Butzek developed concepts for rationalized housing construction. From 1950 he was brigade leader in the design office for structural and industrial construction, but gave up this position in 1955 for health reasons, but was deputy to the chief architect of the city of Rostock until 1958.

Buildings and designs

• Hotel Erbgroßherzog in Güstrow
• Palace Theater (later "Theater of Peace") in Rostock
• Blue house and single-family houses in Ahrenshoop
• Colorful room in Ahrenshoop (1929)
• "Teepavillon" restaurant in Warnemünde (predecessor of the Teepott )
• Housing development in the Hansaviertel in Rostock
• Housing construction between Dethardingstrasse and Saarplatz in Rostock
• Housing development on Adolf-Becker-Straße in Rostock
• Interior design of the Warnemünde Kurhaus
• Kosegartensiedlung in Rostock
• Expansion of the Mahn & Ohlerich brewery in Rostock (1936–1938)
• Reconstruction of the excursion restaurant of the Mahn & Ohlerich brewery in Rostock (1936–1938), later the House of Friendship
• Concepts for rationalized housing
• Shipbuilding hall of the Warnow shipyard in Warnemünde
• Competition draft for the war memorial in Ribnitz (1926; not executed)
• War memorial in Warnemünde (1927; demolished in 1937 as "degenerate")

Honors

• In Rostock a street in the district of Dierkow was named after Walter Butzek.
• A memorial plaque was attached to his house at Kosegartenstrasse 5.

literature

• Students of the Goethe Gymnasium Rostock: Rostock - Neue Sachlichkeit , script from denkmal aktiv, 2004.

Web links and sources

• Butzek's biography on www.p7q.de (entire domain offline on January 16, 2020)