Wilhelm Cordes
Johann Wilhelm Cordes (born March 11, 1840 in Wilhelmsburg ; † August 31, 1917 in Hamburg ) was a German architect who specialized in cemetery architecture . The Ohlsdorfer Friedhof in Hamburg became his life's work.
Life
Cordes was born as the son of the farmer and miller Christoph Cordes, owner and builder of the Johanna windmill , in Wilhelmsburg , then part of the Kingdom of Hanover . Later he learned the trade of carpenter.
At the Polytechnic in Hanover he was trained as an architect by Professor Karl Karmarsch and was then for more than ten years the assistant to his former university professor, the architect and building advisor Hase , who built and restored church buildings. While working on the neo-Gothic church of St. Trinitatis (Liebenburg) , Cordes met the bassumer Helene Wittekind, whom he married in 1876. He was the only child with their daughter Helene , who supported him in his plans, especially after his mother's death (1909).
From 1874 Cordes worked as an architect in the engineering department of the Hamburg building administration under Franz Andreas Meyer .
He was buried hidden in the middle of rhododendrons in his cemetery .
Ohlsdorf cemetery
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Cordes played a key role in the design and planning of the Ohlsdorf cemetery. From 1877 to 1879 he was the site manager. In 1879 he was hired as an independent cemetery administrator and from 1898 he was cemetery director. Until his death in 1917 he worked at the Ohlsdorf cemetery, which by then had already reached a size of 193 hectares.
Not only was he responsible for the garden architecture, he also created most of the buildings. The chapels number 2 (1886, oldest building in the cemetery) to number 8 (1912, his last planned building), the water tower (1898) and the administration building (1909/10) were created according to his designs, partly with the help of other architects.
In 1879, Cordes was given the residential building of the former Hofschneider farm (today Fuhlsbüttler Strasse 792) as his official residence, where the first cemetery nursery was set up a year later. Later he was able to take the shortcut through the railway embankment tunnel ("Cordes tunnel") to get to his place of work on the cemetery grounds.
other projects
Under Franz Andreas Meyer he was involved in the creation of the Outer Alster from 1874. In 1907 the Bergedorf cemetery was built based on his designs.
For several years Cordes was involved in the planning of the Hamburg city park , the location of which he would have liked to see in connection with the park-like Ohlsdorf cemetery on the northern course of the Alster. For the realization of the final drafts in Hamburg-Winterhude , he was called in as a consultant by the senior civil engineer Ferdinand Sperber and building director Fritz Schumacher until the end .
Another large project was the cemetery on Friedenshügel in Flensburg . Cordes designed it in 1908. It was inaugurated in 1911 with a few changes to the design.
Quotes
The first words of the introduction of the first guide about the Ohlsdorf cemetery from 1897 were:
“The cemetery should not be a place of the dead and of decay. Everything should face the visitor in a friendly and lovely way, thereby lifting the place out of the surrounding landscape and consecrating it. [...] In the correct painterly combination of architecture, sculpture and landscape gardening there is a wide scope for the imagination and an inexhaustible, free field of work; and a cemetery, managed according to these criteria, could become a model for the harmonious interaction of architecture, sculpture and landscape gardening. "
In 1914 he wrote in the Hamburger Zeitung Hamburg and his buildings :
“The joy and longing for nature especially entitle the city dwellers to design cemeteries with trees as much as possible. A quiet walk under the trees, a quiet bench under the trees, that is the general desire. Nature with its silent work, its deep, mysterious laws has merged with religious feeling. "
Honors
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The Cordes monument was inaugurated on March 11, 1920 on his 80th birthday. The design comes from the Hamburg architect Fritz Schumacher , who later also created two structures on the site of the Ohlsdorf cemetery: Chapel 13 and the New Crematorium. The building of the monument was carried out by Friedrich Schünemann, the bust of Wilhelm Cordes was created by Oskar Ulmer .
The entire older (western) part of the Ohlsdorf cemetery is now called the Cordesteil after him .
literature
- Alfred Aust: The Ohlsdorfer Friedhof - Hamburgers earned from life - , 2nd edition, Hamburg 1964, publishing house "Society of Friends of the Fatherland School and Education System", Hamburg 1964, pages 19-34.
- Helmut Schoenfeld, Norbert Fischer , Barbara Leisner, Lutz Rehkopf: The Ohlsdorfer Friedhof. A handbook from A – Z. Edition Temmen, Bremen 2006, ISBN 3-86108-086-9 .
- Michael Goecke, Helmut Schoenfeld: Ohlsdorf Guide - A guide through the park landscape of the Ohldorf cemetery . M + K Hansa-Verlag, Hamburg 1977, ISBN 3-920610-14-8 .
- Barbara Leisner, Helmut Schoenfeld: The Ohlsdorf guide - walks across the largest cemetery in Europe . Christians Verlag, Hamburg 1993, ISBN 3-7672-1177-7 .
- Harald Richert: Wilhelm Cordes - 1907 builder of the Bergedorf cemetery . In: Lichtwark booklet No. 71. HB-Werbung publishing house, Hamburg-Bergedorf, 2006. ISSN 1862-3549 .
- Heiko KL Schulze: ... that one can go with devotion - historical cemeteries in Schleswig-Holstein . Verlag Boyens & Co., Heide 1999, ISBN 3-8042-0834-7 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Alfred Aust, Der Ohlsdorfer Friedhof, page 22
- ^ Alfred Aust, Der Ohlsdorfer Friedhof, page 26
- ^ Hermann Hipp: Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg - History, culture and urban architecture on the Elbe and Alster , DuMont art travel guide, 2nd edition. DuMont Buchverlag, Cologne 1990, p. 446.
- ↑ His grave is therefore not easy to find. The access to the grave is between two other grave sites. (Location on the Ohlsdorf cemetery: grid square AD 12)
- ^ Aust: The Ohlsdorfer Friedhof , page 24
- ↑ Schoenfeld: Graves, History, Memorials , page 11
- ↑ Use of the Cordes tunnel
- ^ Alfred Aust, Der Ohlsdorfer Friedhof, page 33
- ↑ (Location: 54 ° 46 ′ 27.4 ″ N , 9 ° 24 ′ 19 ″ E )
- ↑ (Location of the Cordes monument on the Ohlsdorf cemetery: grid square J 9-10) [20]
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Cordes, Wilhelm |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Cordes, Johann Wilhelm |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German architect and cemetery director |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 11, 1840 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Hamburg-Wilhelmsburg |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 31, 1917 |
| Place of death | Hamburg |