Walter Joss

Walter Joss (born November 4, 1875 in Bern ; † March 24, 1915 there ) was a Swiss architect of the Heimat style .

Education and career

After graduating from high school in 1894, Joss received his first training in his uncle's construction business in Worb, before studying at the Royal Württemberg Building Trade School in Stuttgart from 1896 to 1898 . After graduating from the more practically oriented university, he continued his studies until 1901 at the Technical Universities of Stuttgart with Gustav Halmhuber and in Karlsruhe , among others with Josef Durm and Carl Schäfer . Towards the end of his studies he worked for Curjel and Moser in Karlsruhe from 1899 to 1900 , for whom he was allowed to take over the construction management of the Pauluskirche in Bern from 1902 to 1905 . He was then able to set up his own office in Bern in 1906, and the following year he teamed up with Hans Klauser (1880–1968) to form Joss & Klauser . From 1907 to 1909 he was also a professor at the Burgdorf Technical Center .

The majority of the relatively short creative work of the architect arose from this office partnership; he only planned the Villa Hermon from his position at Curjel and Moser. The office community achieved a number of competition successes, for example at the National Bank building in Bern (1908), the post office in Aarau, the cantonal bank in Chur (1909) and the art museum in Basel at Elisabethenschanze (1910). The Berner Schulhaus on Breitfeld, the school and community center in Oftringen (1911 to 1912) and the Zunfthaus zur Schmieden with the Grosch & Greiff department store (1912 to 1913) were built, as well as the Berner Kunsthalle posthumously in a redimensioned form (design 1911, Execution 1917 to 1918). The office was also successful in bridge competitions, such as the Rhine bridges in Rheinfelden (1909, together with Robert Maillart ), Laufenburg (1912) and the Lorraine Bridge , competition from 1910, also with Maillart, which was then built posthumously in 1929 according to changed plans.

Joss, who was one of the founders of the BSA in 1908 (its president from 1911 to 1914) and a member of the GSMBA (Society of Swiss Painters, Sculptors and Architects) and the Heimatschutz, was the main architect of the 1914 Swiss National Exhibition together with Eduard Joos and Wilhelm Bracher . In addition, the office built a number of villas and single-family houses in what was then the suburbs of Bern, especially Kirchenfeld, Länggasse and Mattenhof. Joss died unexpectedly of appendicitis after serving as an officer for eight months as an officer in the field watch.

literature

• Anne-Marie Biland: Joss, Walter. In: Isabelle Rucki and Dorothee Huber (eds.): Architectural Lexicon of Switzerland - 19./20. Century. Birkhäuser, Basel 1998. ISBN 3-7643-5261-2 . P. 300
• NN: Walter Joss (Nekrolog) . In: Schweizerische Bauzeitung . tape 65 , no. 14 , 1915, p. 159 f . ( [1] ).
• NN: Walter Joss (Nekrolog) . In: Swiss architecture . tape 7 , no. 5/6 , 1915, pp. 36 ( [2] ).
• Doris Wild : Joß, Walter . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 19 : Ingouville – Kauffungen . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1926, p. 181 .
• Renate Treydel: Joss, Walter . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 78, de Gruyter, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-11-023183-0 , p. 357.

Web links

Commons : Walter Joss  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ NN: House on Habsburgerstrasse in Bern . In: Schweizerische Bauzeitung . tape 47 , no. 8 , 1906, pp. 92, 93-94 , doi : 10.5169 / seals-26059 .
2. ^ Bl. (= Hans Bloesch): The Breitfeldschule in Bern . In: Werk . tape 47 , no. 8 , 1906, pp. 1–12 , doi : 10.5169 / seals-1741 .
3. ^ NN: The new building of the blacksmith's guild in Bern . In: Schweizerische Bauzeitung . tape 65 , no. 19 , 1915, pp. 218 ff ., doi : 10.5169 / seals-32235 .