Willi Cahn

Willi Hanns Cahn (born May 9, 1889 in Hagen ; † February 29, 1960 in Tucson , Arizona , USA; also: William H. Carr ) was a German-American architect . Between 1921 and 1935, Cahn carried out numerous construction projects in Frankfurt am Main . After fleeing via Switzerland and London, he came to Tucson in 1941, where he worked in the office of the Swiss-American architect Josias Thomas Joesler before setting up on his own.

education

Willi Cahn was born on May 9th, 1889 as the youngest of three children of the private teacher Baruch Cahn and his wife Hedwig in Hagen in Westphalia. From April 1898 to March 1907 he attended the secondary school there and then worked from April to October as a volunteer at the municipal building department in Hagen. From 1907 to 1911 Cahn studied architecture for seven semesters at the Technical University of Darmstadt , where he passed the preliminary examination in October 1909 and the main diploma examination for structural engineering on July 19, 1911. Still officially registered as his place of birth, he married Regina Martha Salomon on January 10, 1913 in Darmstadt, who was born there on February 23, 1890. The marriage, which was divorced on July 6, 1929, resulted in a son: Hanns Werner Cahn (born December 22, 1915).

Willi Cahn in Frankfurt

According to the municipal registration cards and housekeeping registers in Frankfurt, Cahn was deregistered in Darmstadt on October 25, 1920 and moved with his wife and child to the house at Rheinstrasse 23 in Frankfurt and from there on May 2, 1924 to the house at Kettenhofweg 98, while his family stayed on Rheinstrasse. From July 10, 1931, he lived in the house at Grillparzerstraße 5, from where he moved to an unknown destination on November 19, 1935, according to the household register; in fact, however, he moved to London (see below). Cahn had his headquarters as an architect with three employees between 1925 and 1935 in the building Börsenstrasse 2-4.

According to Thomas Zeller, Cahn carried out at least 19 construction projects between 1921 (at that time still part of the Stich and Cahn architects' association) and 1935, which included villas, single-family houses, terraced houses and apartment buildings as well as commercial buildings. In addition, there is its most important building, namely the business and broadcasting building of the Südwestdeutsche Rundfunk AG from 1929/1930. It is noticeable that in the early 1920s Cahn mainly built in the tradition of Frankfurt town houses of the 19th century, i.e. with natural stone plinths, plastered facades, natural stone walls on doors and windows and the pitched roof covered with slate.

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  Villa Cahn in Frankfurt-Bockenheim

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  Villa Cahn in Frankfurt-Bockenheim

The Villa Cahn , Frauenlobstraße 1 in the Frankfurt district of Bockenheim , from 1928/1929, which is still used today as the guest house of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University , is a good example of this. In the volume of his retrospective works published in 1928 (cf. literature ) there are mainly photos of those town houses; his two most important buildings for the "New Frankfurt" , namely the broadcasting building on Eschersheimer Landstrasse, which is used today by the University of Music and Performing Arts (HfMDK), and the "Haus Malakoff" (Onkel-Jordan-Haus, Liebfrauenstrasse 1 -3 / Bleidenstrasse), but are already included as drawings.

The broadcasting building of the Südwestdeutscher Rundfunk and other buildings

View of the transmitter building

Malakoff office building (around 1930)

The 4,000 square meter radio or broadcasting building of Südwestdeutscher Rundfunk AG , Eschersheimer Landstrasse 29-33 in Frankfurt am Main (construction started in 1929, commissioning on December 15, 1930; only slightly modified), is now part of the complex of the University of Music and Performing Arts Art (HfMDK). The building, which appears strictly functional and cubic from the outside , offered completely new sound technology solutions for its time thanks to its trapezoidal floor plan. The house entrance, originally emphasized by a canopy resting on five pillars, was sacrificed in the early 1990s as part of the new building for the music college when it came to connecting the old to the new building. The large broadcasting hall itself inside the building has a length of 27 m, an average width of 17 m and a height of 10 m, with the organ at the head end and soundproof control rooms underneath and a gallery on the opposite side . In addition to the main hall, the building also contains two smaller broadcasting halls with a control room and a harmonium for chamber music performances, various orchestral rooms, a library, a canteen and rooms for other technical facilities. The most modern technology was used throughout the building. In order to keep outside noise at bay, double windows and double doors were installed, and since neither windows nor doors were allowed to be opened during the recording, a complex heating and ventilation system was installed. The large broadcasting hall itself still has a lot of the original interior. The large, colorful ornamental window opposite the hall entrance is striking, as is the walnut wall paneling in the upper area.

See also main article: Business and broadcasting building of Südwestdeutsche Rundfunk AG

In addition to the broadcasting house, there were and are other buildings designed by Cahn in Frankfurt. First of all, the "Malakoff House" opposite the Church of Our Lady , which was opened in the spring of 1928 and survived the Second World War relatively unscathed, should be mentioned here. Originally, after the breakthrough of Liebfrauenstrasse in 1855 towards the south to Liebfrauenberg , several houses on the west and east side of this road connection were built between 1855 and 1858 by Rudolf Heinrich Burnitz, the son of the architect Rudolf Burnitz , in the style of Historicism had been designed. After the western building was demolished in 1927/1928, Cahn designed a new building here, which was still called "Haus Malakoff" based on the defensive exterior of the previous building, but is now also known as the shoe store "Uncle Jordan". The cladding was made of Dutch clinker bricks and was completely committed to the brick expressionism of the 1920s - in fact, one could think that Martin Elsaesser had helped design the facade. Particularly noticeable in the building are the vertical, striking protrusions in the facade between the first and third floors ( pilaster strips ), which make it appear comparatively slim. The five-storey house was originally labeled Nobel , and clothing dolls can be seen in the shop windows on old photos, which suggests that this is the forerunner of the later men's outfitter Nobel on Frankfurter Zeil , which went bankrupt in 1990 .

Another Cahn project in 1927/1928 was the renovation and, above all, the interior design of the Gustav Carsch & Co. department store (“The house for elegant men's and boys' clothing, sports and livery clothing + men's fashion items”), Zeil 121 / Liebfrauenstrasse. Photos show that the same travertine was used in the ground-level exhibition hall as it was later in the radio building. All balconies and cornices of the original house have been removed and the facade smoothed in the style of the time and given Art Deco elements. In 1936 the retail company Gustav Carsch & Co. - like many other department stores - was "aryanized" ; his two Frankfurt shops - besides the one on the Zeil one in Frankfurt-Höchst - were sold for a contractually agreed purchase price of 700,000 Reichsmarks to Ott & Heinemann KG, founded specifically for this purpose by the merchants Hans Ott and Erich Heinemann.

Another outstanding example of how Cahn implemented the formal idiom of the Neue Bauens is the three-story boarding school of the Julius and Amelie Flersheim and Sichel Foundation , Ebersheimer Straße 5, which was built in 1929 and has largely been preserved in its original state, with a flat roof is used as a private residence.

Escape from Frankfurt to Switzerland, London and the USA

In August 1935, the Reich Chamber of Culture forbade Cahn to continue practicing his profession as an architect and denied his authorization to hold the academic degree of graduate engineer . In this context, a tax audit took place on October 22nd, in which it was found that between 1925 and 1935, Cahn had “not subjected his sales and income to the appropriate amount of taxation”. He was specifically reproached for not specifying discounts of 10% for taxes granted by companies: “The granting of a discount was such that the companies issued two invoices with different invoice amounts. The customer received the invoice with the higher invoice amount and the accused received the invoice with the lower invoice amount. This lower invoice amount also appeared in the company's books. ”In total it is said to have been 18,709.00 Reichsmarks. Cahn in turn "stubbornly" denied that he had ever received any architect discounts; the penalty notice (today penalty order) of November 27, 1937, on the other hand, brings up several witnesses as well as the fact that “the accused had himself denied while taking the B test, despite his presence. If, as he states, he had had a clear conscience, he would not have had to fear the result of the test ... (He) left for Switzerland on the same day and did not return. This does not allow any other conclusion than that he has deliberately not correctly disclosed his tax situation. "

An "additional penalty notice" was issued two years later, on August 5, 1939. This was about the non-taxation of fees when declaring sales tax and income tax that Cahn had received for his work at Frau von Opel's country house (Mörfelder Landstrasse 277) between 1931 and 1933. In both cases, the actual case files have disappeared. Only three months after the second penal order was issued with the decision of November 8, 1939, both proceedings were discontinued without giving any reason. How long Cahn stayed in Switzerland and when he traveled on to Great Britain can no longer be determined; in the aforementioned penalty notice of 1937, London is already given as the place of residence. In a letter dated August 16, 1939 from Cahn's secretary T. Barker to Cahn's German attorney Siegfried Popper in Frankfurt, Barker protested against any further contact from the German side on Cahn's behalf: “Mr. Cahn has (...) told me to destroy any letters coming from his banks or in any way concerning his former property. (...) As I take it you had intended doing something on Mr. Cahn's behalf, I thought it fairer, to inform you, before you waste any time and energy. Mr. Cahn is on a job in the North for the time being, but anyhow my instructions are definite and final. ”At that time, Cahn had been living and working in the UK for several years as a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects at Ladbroke Square 5, London WL

Life and work under a new name in Tucson, Arizona

Booth-Fickett School

1940 - according to the German Reichsanzeiger / Prussian State Gazette of May 27, 1940, Cahn had meanwhile been deprived of his German citizenship - he married his second wife Margaret, born in Great Britain. Bartmann Hahn, a native of Frankfurt. With a visa issued in London , the Cahns left Great Britain and emigrated to the United States, where they arrived in August 1941 and settled in Tucson, Arizona. A draft notice dated April 26, 1942 to Willy (sic!) Hanns Cahn, residing in 1015 N. Martin Ave. in Tucson has a Mr. Joelser as an employer. Obviously, this is a typographical error: the Swiss-American architect Josias Thomas Joesler is meant. With the construction, planning and execution of countless buildings in the Tucson style , Joesler is considered the most important architect in the city in the first half of the 20th century.

How the connection between Cahn and Joesler came about can no longer be determined; that Joesler had a strong influence on Cahn is beyond question. This is already clear in Cahn's first project, the Campo Bello subdivision settlement area built south of Tucson in 1946 with large residential buildings in the traditional hacienda style. On the other hand, his next project, the Country Club Plaza Lush Shopping Center in downtown Tucson, also from 1946, could almost be interpreted as a recourse to the New Building and its Frankfurt era in the same year built the second mall, the Park Avenue Shops Building. The Tucson Musicians Building, built in 1948, is a clear reminiscence of the broadcasting building of the Südwestdeutscher Rundfunk in Frankfurt that he built in 1929, as both buildings have a similar stepped floor plan.

For reasons not known, Willi Cahn changed his name to William H. Carr in 1949 . Under this name he became a member of the Arizona Chapter of the American Institute of Architects . A name change in the United States in the 1940s was a simple administrative process that usually required no more than a personal appearance before the local judge.

Although Carr also built a few very spacious ranch houses for citizens of Tuscon, he soon concentrated on public buildings. In 1950 he designed Pueblo Gardens , a settlement in the south of the city with parks, churches and a shopping center; however, only the Pueblo Gardens School, which is still in use today, was carried out. Other schools he built are the Sewell / Lizzie Brown Elementary School (1953/1954) with their shading elements typical of the time (several architects were involved in the construction, including Josias Joesler), the Ann E. Rogers Elementary School (1955) and Booth Fickett Junior High School (1959/1960). The Fire Station No. 3 from 1953 - now part of the Sunshine Mile, a collection of historically valuable buildings in downtown Tucson - the Himmel Park Library (1959) and the Grace Episcopal Church (1953). There are also gas stations, medical practices, a bank building and other public buildings such as the Arizona College of Commerce or the Social Security Office Bureau of Old Age and Survivors Insurance (1950), many of which, however, have now been demolished or built over.

Like Fritz Nathan , who continued to work there as a sought-after architect after his escape to New York, or Eugen Kaufmann , who ran his own architecture office under the name Eugene Charles Kent after emigrating to London, Carr also succeeded very quickly in his new home to gain a foothold. The basis of his success was the adaptation to the geographical, local, but above all to the cultural context and the consideration of the architectural parameters that were new to him without denying his own stylistic identity. In Tucson in the 1950s, this meant that, on the one hand, the building was not built in height, but in width, and, on the other hand, traditional Spanish-Mexican style elements were taken into account, as Joesler had already specified before the Second World War. So are z. B. almost all of Carr's public buildings are clad with the local brick facade.

Willi Hanns Cahn or William H. Carr died on February 29, 1960 in Tucson.

Projects in Frankfurt am Main (selection)

• 1927–1928: "Haus Malakoff" office building, Liebfrauenstrasse 1–3 (damaged in World War II, rebuilt in 1948 by Georg Scotti)
• 1927–1929: Remodeling of the Gebrüder Hoff office building , Zeil 121
• 1928–1929: Villa Cahn, Frauenlobstraße 1 (preserved)
• 1929: Boarding school of the Julius and Amelie Flersheim Foundation , Ebersheimer Straße 5 (preserved)
• 1929–1930: Business and broadcasting building of the Südwestdeutscher Rundfunk AG , Eschersheimer Landstrasse 29–33 (preserved)
• 1931: Modifications to the Opel Landhaus, Mörfelder Landstrasse 277 (demolished in the 1990s)

Projects in Tucson (selection)

Grace Episcopal Church

• 1946: Country Club Plaza, 2744 East Broadway Boulevard (demolished)
• 1946: Park Avenue Shops, Park Avenue and Speedway Boulevard (demolished)
• 1948: Tucson Musicians Building, 620 South 6th Avenue (preserved)
• 1950–1953: Pueblo Gardens School, 2210 East 33rd Street (preserved)
• 1950–1958: Grace Episcopal Church, 2331 East Adams Street (preserved)
• 1957: Arizona Savings and Loan Association Branch, 3427 E. Speedway (demolished)
• 1959: Himmel Branch Library, 1035 North Treat Avenue (preserved)
• 1959–1960: Booth-Fickett School, 450 South Montego Avenue (preserved)

literature

• Dipl.-Ing. Willi Cahn, Frankfurt a. M. Aida-Verlag Gustav Ewald Konrad, Vienna / Berlin 1928.
• Heike Risse: Early Modernism in Frankfurt am Main 1920–1933. Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1984, ISBN 3-7973-0422-6 .
• Thomas Zeller: The architects and their building activities in Frankfurt am Main from 1870 to 1950. (= contributions to monument protection in Frankfurt am Main , Volume 14.) Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-921606-51-9 , p. 62.
• Christina Graewe: Cahn, Wilhelm (Willi). In: Evelyn Brockhoff (Ed.): Actors of the New Frankfurt. Biographies from architecture, politics and culture. Frankfurt am Main 2016, ISBN 978-3-95542-160-1 , p. 95.
• Klaus Strzyz, Roswitha Väth: Wrongly forgotten. The architect Willi Cahn. In: maybrief , issue 52, pp. 4–9.
• Klaus Strzyz, Allison Diehl: The second life of Willi Cahn. In: maybrief , issue 53, pp. 10-11.

Web links

Commons : Willi Cahn  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Cahn, Willi in the Frankfurt personal dictionary

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The date of birth stated in various publications April 25, 1880, u. a. also in the book Actors of the New Frankfurt is wrong. Indeed there was a Willy (!) Cahn, who was born on April 25, 1880 not in Berlin but in Cologne, then lived in Berlin for many years and was deported to Auschwitz in 1944 and murdered there; However, this is a hat maker of the same name, who is also remembered by a stumbling block in Berlin's Hornstrasse. We take our information from various documents from the Frankfurt archive for city history (registration card, housekeeping book, the trade tax file of the cash and tax office and Cahn's Darmstadt marriage certificate).
2. ↑ see [1]
3. ↑ All information was taken from the criminal case file against the architect Willi Cahn from Frankfurt, now in London (born 9.5.1889 in Hagen iW) for tax evasion (HHStAW inventory 474/3 No. 180)
4. ↑ Nicole Kerstin Berganski, Andreas Krawczyk: The new Frankfurt station house. (Documentation on behalf of the University of Music and Performing Arts) Frankfurt am Main 2009.