Otto and Walter Senn

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As Swiss architects, Otto and Walter Senn ran an office community in Basel from the 1930s on , after their younger brother Walter had started working in the older Otto Heinrich's office in 1933. Over time, a partnership developed in which the brothers sometimes planned joint projects, but sometimes also built independently and in some cases even provided competing designs for a building project.

Otto Heinrich Senn

Otto Heinrich Senn (born November 19, 1902 in Basel ; † May 4, 1993 there ) studied at the ETH Zurich from 1922 to 1927 . Senn belongs to the generation of architects whose formation is strongly influenced by new building. After graduating from Karl Moser , the first president of CIAM , he visited the programmatic architecture exhibition of the Weissenhofsiedlung that same year . He initially worked in Basel with Hans Schmidt , who was then built more radical and programmatic in the sense of the modern villas (Huber, Schaeffer, Colnaghi), and went in 1928 shortly after Thun to Arnold activities , but soon moved on to at Rudolf Steiger in To work in Zurich. Both architects were hardly older than him and were planning the Bella Lui sanatorium above Crans-Montana. In early 1930 he went on an extensive study trip, first to England, where he researched the concept of the garden city, namely Welwyn Garden City and Letchworth . He also dealt with urban planning as a core topic on the second stop of the trip, in the United States, where he collaborated with Knud Lönberg-Holms on the study on Detroit that was to be presented at the CIAM's Athens Congress in 1933. In the USA he also got to know works by Frank Lloyd Wright , Richard Neutra , Rudolph Schindler and William Lescaze . In 1932 he returned to Basel, where he opened his office in early 1933. In the middle of the year he brought his younger brother into the office and the collaboration lasted throughout his career.

Walter Senn

Walter Senn (* July 12, 1906 ; † July 12, 1983 in Lötschental ), in contrast to his brother, chose not the academic, but the professional path to becoming an architect.

From 1922 to 1925 he completed an apprenticeship as a structural draftsman with Hans Bernoulli and then studied to become a structural engineer at the Biel Technical Center . After graduating, he moved to Paris for two years, where he worked at Le Corbusier , mainly on the planning for the Maison Clarté in Geneva. Back in Basel, he initially worked in the cantonal city map office, which was a new and highly controversial institution at the time. Therefore, Walter Senn moved to his older brother Otto Heinrich Senn's studio in mid-1933. Especially towards the end of his own career, Walter realized building projects independently of his brother Otto Heinrich. Senn died of heart failure on a mountain hike on his 77th birthday.

plant

Otto Heinrich took on the role of designer in the partnership, while Walter was mostly responsible for implementation planning and construction management. The academically trained Otto Senn also appeared much more publicly in terms of architectural theory and journalism, so that although many of the buildings were written by the two brothers together, Otto Heinrich was mostly perceived as the one who set the tone, the opinion maker, the representative of the office Has.

Early work, residential buildings from the 1930s

With the early buildings of the 1930s the office managed a sensational start: The family house in Riehen (BS) (1934), which from a family of ribbon manufacturer erected coming architects for her younger brother Willy, the leader of a band weaving, the country house in Gerzensee (1935) and the villa in Binningen were all published and discussed in the specialist literature. These villas, which, in the spirit of New Building, represented variants of compositions of different volumes and also otherwise used the vocabulary of modernity (flat roofs, ribbon windows, free floor plan) were created for an upper-class clientele, a (double) garage was already a matter of course, there were still separate rooms for girls, gardeners and cooks. The multi-family car park in Basel, an apartment building that Otto Heinrich had built together with Rudolf Mock, was also uncompromisingly modern in terms of the construction and design language of the building and the facades, while the treatment of materials with polished natural stone and the interior with equally noble and bourgeois materials Tailored to a wealthy audience who should be able to realize their living ideas there without having to submit to the paradigms of an overly dogmatic modern age. What is remarkable about the residential buildings are some common peculiarities that are part of Senn's stylistic signature, his personal style : The emphasis on the central room, the living room, the salon, by increasing or even doubling the height of the room there; Library / study or dining rooms reach into the central room as independent volumes, often with a curved wall; the extreme contrast between spacious living and tight sleeping and working areas. This already refers to Senn's theory of the relationship between the individual volumes, the immaterial interspace .

During the Second World War , the silk ribbon weaving mill was established in Ziefen near Liestal. The central production hall is a shed structure that was constructed with wood due to the war. Construction of the In den Klosterreben housing estate in Basel also began during the war, with 246 linear apartments, predominantly oriented towards east and west.

Urban planning and secular buildings of the post-war period

After the urban development of Basel had been a source of conflict in the city for several decades, the opportunity arose at the beginning of the 1950s to present a specific proposal for city expansion when the Meriansche Foundation , one of the largest landowners in Basel, decided to develop the Gellert area structurally. In 1950, a working group was formed from the eight leading Basel architectural offices, which developed proposals and submitted plans. The area was finally built over by various architects in the early 1960s according to a development plan by Hermann Baur . However, attention was also paid to the in many respects standout and different contribution that Otto Senn explained and published in thought about the design of the residential area . These considerations, which emphasized the differentiation of the development with a simultaneous mixture of functions, helped Otto Senn to participate in the Interbau 1957 in Berlin, as the only Swiss architect (apart from the Unité d'Habitation by Le Corbusier , which is located outside the IBA area ). The house, which takes on a kind of hinge function, shows for the first time the fanning out of the floor plan at Senn, creating a pentagonal floor plan. Senn also arranged the Swiss contribution to the accompanying exhibition at Interbau, together with the graphic artist Armin Hofmann. This article also dealt mainly with urban planning issues, based on the development of Lausanne.

The concept of the high-rise at Hechtliacker in Basel, a strictly designed, 16-storey residential building on a pentagonal floor plan, was also based on urban planning considerations. After the wooded slope, two and a half kilometers south of the city center, had passed into the hands of the city - the condition for the approval of the loan was the development according to building law, i.e. a use that would have required a closed two-storey district - the problem arose, among other things that the slope was in a slippery area, so the individual foundations of the buildings meant a lot of effort. This suited Otto Senn's urban planning ideas, who, based on Scandinavian concepts from the 1950s, propagated the construction of point houses in the periphery (i.e. high-rise buildings on a small area, with the floor area kept as green as possible). The slope of the Hechtliacker was supposed to take on a kind of hinge function with individual, high accents between the continuous four-story development of the inner city and the single-family houses on the hill of the Burgholz. This concept was explicitly rejected by the planning office of the city, whose planning actually only envisaged high-rise buildings in the center and which did not approve the high-rise buildings on the hill, so instead of the three planned houses distributed over the slope, only one was built on half the hill . In terms of the floor plan, Senn developed the idea of ​​the pentagon further. All 15 normal storeys are identical: the five differently sized apartments extend from a central, also pentagonal distribution corridor in such a way that they each occupy one of the corners and thus look in two directions. The shape of the apartment blanks allows very short traffic routes inside and a kitchen / dining / living area that merges into one another.

In 1962, the third and, for the time being, the last outdoor pool in the city of Basel, the Gartenbad am Bachgraben, which is now a listed building. In the center there are angled pools for non-swimmers and swimmers (with diving boards). Two cloakroom buildings, each with three two-storey rows arranged in a comb-like manner, frame the actual bathing area, the terraces in front provide an overview and the (then) view of the vastness of the Vosges, Black Forest and Jura. To the north of this ensemble, spatially separated from it, is the learning pool for school swimming. The structural end to the southwest is the restaurant. Artistic interventions consist of a concrete sculpture by Hansjörg Gisiger and a climbing fence by Werner Blaser .

Otto Senn and the reformed church building

Otto Senn began to comment on the development of the modern (reformed) church building in the early 1950s, by means of competition entries - the competition project on Wasgenring, a church that was finally realized by Hermann Baur , may have given the impetus -, in specialist magazines and with lectures at the numerous church building congresses. He thus took part in a discussion that was widespread at the time, and that in all Christian denominations. Keywords on the Catholic side were, for example, Le Corbusier's Chapel at Ronchamp and the discussions at the Second Vatican Council . His reasoning was roughly as follows: The contemporary debate is essentially about translating the liturgy into spatial correspondences - so that 'congregation' corresponds to the church, 'sermon' to the pulpit and 'Eucharist' to the altar or sacrament table. As a result, these spatial areas would have to be arranged sensibly, e.g. B. in the form of a central church, if the congregation should gather around the altar. This is a way of thinking stemming from romanticism, to which Senn countered his own position that it was more about structure, not about geometric relationships, about the spaces between the volumes. Although Senn's position was well recognized in the debate and can be seen as significant in terms of architectural theory, he was not allowed to apply it in practice: Despite numerous competitions and projects, Otto Senn was unable to build his own church in his career, and he saw himself well hindered by discouraged decision-makers, which is probably why he got bitter in old age.

List of works (selection)

Joint works

  • Single-family house Schnitterweg. Riehen 1934.
  • Landhaus Turmguet. Gerzensee 1935.
  • In the monastery vines. Siedlung, Basel, 1944–1948
  • Weaving. Factory, factory headquarters and residential buildings, Ziefen 1945–1948
  • Viaduct garage. Basel 1954.
  • Garden pool at the Bachgraben. Outdoor swimming pool, Basel 1961–1962
  • Hechtliacker high-rise. Basel 1962–1965
  • General Treuhand office building. Basel, 1965.

Works by Otto Heinrich Senn

Basel, university library

Fonts

  • Protestant church building in an ecumenical context: Identity and variability - tradition and freedom. Birkhäuser, Basel 1983, ISBN 3-7643-1555-5 .
  • Protestant church building: reflecting on the basics . In: The work . tape 39 , no. 2 , 1952, pp. 32 ff ., doi : 10.5169 / seals-30199 .
  • Space as form . In: The work . tape 42 , no. 12 , 1955, pp. 386 ff ., doi : 10.5169 / seals-32568 .

building

  • Detached house. Binningen, 1935-1938
  • Parking garage Zossen. Basel, 1935–1938
  • Model house in wood construction. St. Gallen, 1937.
  • Detached house. Liestal, 1940.
  • Zoning plan for the Gellert site. Project, Basel 1950.
  • En coulet. Villa, St. Prex, 1953.
  • Detached house. Dornach, 1954.
  • Apartment building. IBA 57, Berlin, 1957.
  • Parish Hall. Basel, 1958
  • Kindergarten and day care center. Basel, 1959–1960
  • University library. Basel 1962–1968
  • Detached house. Riehen, 1963.
  • University library. Extension, Freiburg i. Ü., 1970-1975
  • Wittigkofen residential development . Bern 1972–1980 (with Thormann and Nussli)

Works by Walter Senn

  • Kindergarten field vines. Muttenz 1962.
  • SBB staff house. Muttenz 1966.

literature

  • Ulrike Jehle-Schulte Strathaus: Senn, Otto Heinrich. In: Isabelle Rucki, Dorothee Huber (Hrsg.): Architectural Lexicon of Switzerland - 19./20. Century. Birkhäuser, Basel 1998, ISBN 3-7643-5261-2 , p. 494 f.
  • Georges Weber: In memory of Walter Senn, architect BSA . In: Werk, Bauen + Wohnen . tape 70 , no. 10 , 1983, p. 80 . ( online at: E-Periodica ).
  • Rolf Gutmann: Otto H. Senn . In: The work . tape 80 , no. 11 , 1993, p. 74 ff . ( online at: E-Periodica ).
Exhibitions

In 1990 the Swiss Architecture Museum in Basel showed an exhibition of Senn's work, for which a catalog was published, which is also the most extensive monograph to date:

  • Patrik Birrer among others: Otto Senn - space as form. Architekturmuseum in Basel, Basel 1990, ISBN 3-905065-12-4 .

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Patrik Birrer and others: Otto Senn - space as form. Architekturmuseum in Basel, Basel 1990, p. 94.
  2. ^ NN: Two country houses of the Arch. O. & W. Senn in Basel . In: Schweizerische Bauzeitung . tape 107 , no. 7 , 1936, pp. 72 ff ., doi : 10.5169 / seals-48250 .
  3. ^ NN: home of a scientist: architect Otto Senn, Basel . In: Schweizerische Bauzeitung . tape 109 , no. 7 , 1937, pp. 72 ff ., doi : 10.5169 / seals-49042 .
  4. ↑ Ueli Kräuchi: The house on Schnitterweg in Riehen. In: Patrik Birrer and others: Otto Senn - space as form. Architekturmuseum in Basel, Basel 1990, p. 52.
  5. ↑ Ulrike Jehle-Schulte Strathaus: Starting from the interior. In: Patrik Birrer and others: Otto Senn - space as form. Architekturmuseum in Basel, Basel 1990, p. 8 f.
  6. ↑ Ueli Kräuchi: The house on Schnitterweg in Riehen. Section: The typical solutions for Otto Senn's houses. In: Patrik Birrer and others: Otto Senn - space as form. Architekturmuseum in Basel, Basel 1990, p. 58.
  7. ↑ NN: silk ribbon weaving in Ziepfen in Liestal - built in 1945 by O. & W. Senn . In: The work . tape 33 , no. 10 , 1946, pp. 322 ff ., doi : 10.5169 / seals-26359 .
  8. ^ NN: Cooperative housing on the Rhine in Basel . In: The work . tape 37 , no. 2 , 1950, p. 40 ff ., doi : 10.5169 / seals-29007 .
  9. ^ Hermann Baur : Planning and development of the Gellertareal in Basel . In: The work . tape 48 , no. 5 , 1961, pp. 154 , doi : 10.5169 / seals-37578 .
  10. ↑ Otto H. Senn: Thoughts on the design of the residential area . In: The work . tape 38 , no. 5 , 1951, pp. 304 f ., doi : 10.5169 / seals-82097 .
  11. ^ Hans Zollinger : The Interbau Berlin 1957 . In: Living . tape 32 , no. 5 , 1957, pp. 281 f ., doi : 10.5169 / seals-102925 .
  12. ^ Bh: "The city of tomorrow": Swiss department at Interbau Berlin . In: The work . tape 44 , no. 10 , 1957, pp. 344 , doi : 10.5169 / seals-34219 .
  13. ↑ Simone Thalmann: skyscraper Hechtliacker. In: Patrik Birrer and others: Otto Senn - space as form. Architekturmuseum in Basel, Basel 1990, pp. 70–79.
  14. ↑ NN: skyscraper Hechtliacker in Basel: architect Otto and Walter Senn . In: The work . tape 53 , no. 2 , 1966, p. 47-49 , doi : 10.5169 / seals-41168 .
  15. ^ NN: Gartenbad am Bachgraben in Basel . In: The work . tape 50 , no. 7 , 1963, pp. 272–275 , doi : 10.5169 / seals-87091 .
  16. ↑ Christof Martin Werner: Otto Senn in the contradiction. In: Patrik Birrer and others: Otto Senn - space as form. Architekturmuseum in Basel, Basel 1990, pp. 20–27.
  17. ↑ Protestant Church Building: Reflecting on the Basics . In: The work . tape 39 , no. 2 , 1952, pp. 32 ff ., doi : 10.5169 / seals-30199 .
  18. ↑ Ulrike Jehle-Schulte Strathaus: Senn, Otto Heinrich. In: Isabelle Rucki, Dorothee Huber (Hrsg.): Architectural Lexicon of Switzerland - 19./20. Century. Birkhäuser, Basel 1998, ISBN 3-7643-5261-2 , p. 494 f.
  19. ^ Carmen Humbel: Otto Heinrich Senn: Basels Moderne . In: raised ground floor . tape 3 , no. 3 , 1990, p. 86 f . ( online at: E-Periodica ).