Walter Lucas

Residential buildings Ranstädter Steinweg (Walter Lucas).

Soviet pavilion , night view (designed in 1950 by Walter Lucas)

Walter Lucas (born July 22, 1902 in Dresden , † September 14, 1968 in Leipzig ) was a German architect . From 1954 to 1963 he was city planning director and chief architect of the city of Leipzig.

Life

Lucas studied architecture at the TH Dresden and then worked as a freelance architect in Dresden. In 1932 he opened an architecture office in Leipzig.

Lucas joined the NSDAP in 1928 and, as an old fighter , wore the gold party badge from 1934 . Because of his early party membership, he received numerous commissions after 1933. During the time of National Socialism , Lucas was head of the Gauheimstätten Office in Saxony and therefore "one of the most important National Socialist architects in Saxony during the Third Reich". After the Second World War, Lucas was interned in Special Camp No. 4 in Bautzen from 1945 to 1950 .

In 1950 Lucas asked for a job as an architect in the VEB Projektierung Sachsen and was involved in projects in Leipzig and on Berlin's Stalinallee . In 1954 he was taken on as city planning director in the municipal service and received a lucrative individual contract as chief architect in 1956. Because of his unclear political position - in 1960 Lucas employed eight Nazi functionaries or party members and five Wehrmacht officers in the administration assigned to him - the Leipzig SED repeatedly pushed for his dismissal, which was successful in 1963.

During his time as chief architect in Leipzig, Lucas represented the style of the national building tradition , an attitude that was supported by his experiences before 1945. It was only with the “Perspective Plan for the City Center” drawn up under his direction in 1959 that this orientation was radically broken and a thorough redesign of the Leipzig city center was envisaged from the perspective of industrialized construction. This planning led to the demolition of numerous historical buildings, including the Deutrichs Hof , the Hôtel de Saxe , the ruins of the Gewandhaus and the tower of the Johanniskirche . According to Wolfgang Hocquél , Lucas had nevertheless acquired "special services for the reconstruction [...]".

Works

1933–1936: two-story row house settlement in Kitzscher in the Borna district
1950–1951: Residential complex Straße der III. World Festival (today Ranstädter Steinweg ; together with Heinz Auspurg ) in the style of socialist neoclassicism in "traditional forms"
1950–1952: Conversion of the war-damaged exhibition hall 9 into the "Soviet Pavilion"

Publications

with Walter Schulze: Modern housing construction. A recommended bibliography. Publishing house for books and libraries, Leipzig 1957.
The construction of the city center of Leipzig. 10 years of construction in the city center. In: German architecture. Issue 9, 1960, pp. 469-478.

literature

Peter Leonhardt: "... a dignified man of solid ability". About the controversial architect Walter Lucas (1909–1968) . In: Leipziger Blätter . No. 56 , 2010, p. 16-31 .
Harry Waibel : Servants of many masters: former Nazi functionaries in the Soviet Zone / GDR. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2011, ISBN 978-3-631-63542-1 , p. 205.

Web links

Literature by and about Walter Lucas in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d Martha Koehler: Lucas, Walter. (No longer available online.) In: Person Wiki of the SLUB. Archived from the original on July 7, 2015 ; Retrieved July 6, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d Jay Rowell: L'Etat totalitaire en action. Les politiques du logement en RDA (1945–1989). Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 2001, p. 233-234 ( online ).

^ Mathis Nitzsche: Birk Engmann: Building for Eternity. Monumental architecture of the twentieth century and urban planning in the fifties. In: Markus Cottin, Detlef Döring , Cathrin Friedrich: City history. Announcement from the Leipziger Geschichtsverein e. V .: Jahrbuch 2006. Sax, Markkleeberg 2012, pp. 216-218 ( Google Books ).

^ GDR architecture as an object of monument preservation. Example Leipzig: Peter Leonhardt . In: Bernfried Lichtnau (ed.): Architecture and urban development in the southern Baltic Sea region from 1970 to the present . Lukas Verlag for art and intellectual history, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-936872-85-9 , p. 397 f .

^ Wolfgang Hocquél : Leipzig. Builders and buildings from the Romanesque to the present day . Tourist Verlag, Berlin and Leipzig 1990, ISBN 3-350-00333-8 , p. 237 .

↑ ^a ^b Joachim Schulz, Wolfgang Müller and Erwin Schrödl: Architectural Guide GDR . Leipzig district . VEB Verlag für Bauwesen, Berlin 1976, p. 11 and 72 (No. 123 [Housing, Friedr.-Ludw.-Jahn-Allee], No. 207 [Kitzscher terraced housing estate, 1933–1936 by development by W. Lucas for two-storey houses with 695 apartments] ).

^ Peter Leonhardt: Modernism in Leipzig. Architecture and urban planning 1918 to 1933 . Pro Leipzig, Leipzig 2007, ISBN 978-3-936508-29-1 , pp. 92 .

personal data
SURNAME	Lucas, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German architect
DATE OF BIRTH	July 22, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH	Dresden
DATE OF DEATH	September 14, 1968
Place of death	Leipzig

[SLUB-1] Martha Koehler: Lucas, Walter. (No longer available online.) In: Person Wiki of the SLUB. Archived from the original on July 7, 2015 ; Retrieved July 6, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2

[Howell-2] Jay Rowell: L'Etat totalitaire en action. Les politiques du logement en RDA (1945–1989). Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 2001, p. 233-234 ( online ).

[Nitzsche_217-3] Mathis Nitzsche: Birk Engmann: Building for Eternity. Monumental architecture of the twentieth century and urban planning in the fifties. In: Markus Cottin, Detlef Döring , Cathrin Friedrich: City history. Announcement from the Leipziger Geschichtsverein e. V .: Jahrbuch 2006. Sax, Markkleeberg 2012, pp. 216-218 ( Google Books ).

[4] GDR architecture as an object of monument preservation. Example Leipzig: Peter Leonhardt . In: Bernfried Lichtnau (ed.): Architecture and urban development in the southern Baltic Sea region from 1970 to the present . Lukas Verlag for art and intellectual history, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-936872-85-9 , p. 397 f .

[Hocquel_237-5] Wolfgang Hocquél : Leipzig. Builders and buildings from the Romanesque to the present day . Tourist Verlag, Berlin and Leipzig 1990, ISBN 3-350-00333-8 , p. 237 .