Wilhelm W. Hoffmann

Wilhelm Wendelin Hoffmann (born July 8, 1890 in Mannheim ; † December 30, 1969 ) was a German architect and architectural historian .

Life

Hoffmann was a son of the architect and builder Joseph Hoffmann and the great-nephew of the Ludwigshafen mayor and builder Joseph Hoffmann . Through his mother he was a great-grandson of the industrialist Joseph Vögele .

After attending the Karl-Friedrich-Gymnasium in Mannheim, where he passed his Abitur in 1909, and the military service in the field artillery regiment No. 50 in Karlsruhe , Hoffmann studied architecture at the Technical University of Dresden from 1910 . His studies were interrupted by the First World War, in which he participated as a reserve lieutenant. In December 1918, he temporarily returned to Mannheim for practical work in his father's company. In autumn 1919 he passed the main diploma examination in Dresden. In 1920 he finally joined his father's architectural office, which he ran together with the architect Rudolf Tillessen from 1920 . In 1923 Hoffmann received his doctorate at the Technical University of Darmstadt with a thesis on the buildings of the Palatine court architect Franz Wilhelm Rabaliatti in Mannheim, Schwetzingen and Heidelberg. The work was inspired by the then director of the Kurpfälzisches Museum in Heidelberg, Karl Lohmeyer , with whom he later became a close friend. Both went on several study trips together. In the following years Hoffmann wrote further articles on the history of the Palatinate Baroque and in 1934 another larger monograph on Rabaliatti, which appeared in the series "Masters and Works of the Rhenish-Franconian Baroque" by Carl Winter Verlag in Heidelberg.

As early as 1925, the father had left the architecture office, which Wilhelm W. Hoffmann initially ran together with Tillessen and after his death in 1926 alone. In the years up to 1958, numerous buildings in Mannheim and the wider region were built according to his plans, including larger new villas, commercial and industrial buildings, among others for the Bürgerbräu brewery in Ludwigshafen, the Dresdner Bank in Mannheim, the Mannheimer Malzfabrik and the machine factory Joseph Vögele.

After the Second World War he was also involved in the reconstruction of the city of Mannheim, most recently with the restoration of the church of the Catholic Citizens Hospital . Due to his commitment to the preservation of the remnants of the historical building fabric, Hoffmann was appointed volunteer caretaker for the architectural and art monuments of the Mannheim district in 1946; he held this function until 1958. He created a directory of art monuments and campaigned for the restoration of historical buildings from the 18th century. When the Society of Friends of Mannheim and the former Electoral Palatinate was reconstituted after the war , Hoffmann was also involved and was a member of the board for several years. In 1958 he retired and moved to Baden-Baden .

Awards

• Schiller plaque of the city of Mannheim (1957)

Fonts

• Karl Theodor and architecture in Mannheim. In: Alt-Düsseldorf , 1924.
• On the building history of the Mannheim observatory . In: Mannheimer Geschichtsblätter , 1925. ( online ; PDF; 1.3 MB)
• Sigismund Zeller. In: New Archive for the History of the City of Heidelberg , 1927.
• Franz Wilhelm Rabaliatti. Court architect of the Palatinate. Heidelberg 1934.
• The former Mühlauschlößchen in Mannheim. In: Festschrift for Karl Lohmeyer. 1954.
• The restoration of the church of the Catholic community hospital in Mannheim. In: Mannheimer Hefte , No. 3/1957.

literature

• Gustaf Jacob: Wilhelm W. Hoffmann in memory. In: Mannheimer Hefte . Year 1970, pp. 43–48.