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SCHINKEL, Karl
Friedrich (1781-1841)
One
of the greatest German architects of the 19th century,
Karl Friedrich Schinkel is remembered principally for the
many neoclassic buildings he designed for the city of
Berlin.
Having been trained in both painting and architecture,
Schinkel initially worked as a painter, winning a
reputation as a high romantic artist and commissions
throughout his life for the design of stage settings. His
architectural designs received acclaim early in his
career, and in 1815 he was appointed state architect.
Schinkel's plans for the Neue Wache (New Guard House,
1815; restored 1950-60) in Berlin's Unter den Linden
reveal his early interest in the Grecian style, and the
Berlin Schauspielhaus (1819-21; restoration in progress)
further exhibits his ability to organize complicated
spatial units. By contrast to these Greek-inspired
structures, his memorial in Berlin (1819-21), executed in
cast iron, involves a lacy Gothic design.
Schinkel's finest work, Berlin's Altes Museum (1824-28;
restored 1951-66), represents the skillful manipulation
of Greek and Roman motifs in a classically romantic
manner. The exterior, with its unbroken colonnade, in no
way suggests the domed, Pantheon-like interior. This
combination of contrasting yet logical elements was a
triumph of rationalism. In his later works, Schinkel
shifted from classical to Italianate precedents. His
involvement with Renaissance revival was interrupted by
his death, but his students at the Berlin Akademie, where
he taught from 1820 on, perpetuated his spirit for the
next two decades.
BORSIG, Johann
(1804-1854)
Borsig was seen as one of the
forerunners of the German Railroad industry, he founded
the biggest locomotive factory on the European continent
and had the nickname: "Locomotive King". He came to
Berlin in 1823 to the Beuth'sche Gewerbeinstitut,
Klosterstraße 36, and departed there prematurely
again in 1825 to re-orient himself occupationally. After
his years of working and studying in the Neuen Berliner
Eisengießerei von Woderb & Egells, Borsig
founded his own company in 1837 on the land in front of
the Oranienburger Tor, Chausseestraße
1/Torstraße. The iron foundry and machine
construction body of Borsig was seen at the time as
exemplary and the was also the largest machine factory
Prussia. The company expanded in 1847-1849 through the
building of the Borsig press works in Moabit and in 1850
through the take-over of the machine construction body by
the Prussian Ocean trade in Moabit. Borsig lived in
Torstraße 53 until 1849, and thereafter in the
Villa Borsig, Alt-Moabit. He was buried in the cemetery
of the Dorotheenstädtischen and
Friedrichswerderschen Gemeinden. Borsig received several
Berlin honors, one of which was the naming of the Berlin
Borsigstraße. A memorial in Chausseestraße 1
reminds one of the company founding by Borsig.
TROOST,
Paul Ludwig (1879-1934)
German architect and interior
designer. Studied under Ludwig Hoffmann at the Technische
Hochschule in Darmstadt. After 1901 the artist worked in
Giessen until becoming head of the Munich office of
Martin Dülfer. Most of his works in this period were
designs for the remodelling of the interiors of private
houses. His first work was the interior (c. 1905) of the
house of the painter Benno Becker at Maria-Theresien
Strasse in Bogenhausen, Munich, where Troost designed the
complete interior. In 1906, with Carl Jäger and
August Biebricher, he won second prize in the competition
for the Deutsches Museum, Munich, with a geometrical
Biedermeier design. The house that he designed for Rudolf
Chillingsworth (1910; destr.) at Prinzregentenufer 24,
Nuremberg, was notable for its simple but elegant
exterior and the elaborated and colourful, slightly
historicist interiors. In 1897 Troost had been one of the
founders of the Vereinigte Werkstätten für
Kunst im Handwerk, Munich, modelled on English Arts and
Crafts precedents. As an architect he made his reputation
in 1931 with the remodelling of the former Palais Barlow,
Munich, into the Brown House. Troost was promoted as the
first architect of the Reich. In 1933 work began on the
Haus der Deutschen Kunst in Munich, which was to be a
showpiece of Populist paintings and sculptures, and which
became an icon of German architecture. Its construction
and eventual completion were accompanied by a huge
publicity and various ceremonies and festivities. The
large classical colonnade at the front was reminiscent of
the Greco-Prussian austerity of Karl Friedrich Schinkel's
Altes Museum in Berlin. Rooted in early 20th-century
neo-classicism, Troost was not oblivious to modernist
developments. Troost's remodelling of the
Königsplatz, Munich, into a centre for a cult of the
dead was begun in 1934. His two Temples of Honour (destr.
1947), commemorating the fallen of the abortive putsch in
1923, were large open classical pavilions, austere and
almost barren. Troost did not live to see the completion
of these two works. His unfinished works were completed
by his wife Gerdy, an interior designer, who published
Das Bauen im Neuen Reich (Bayreuth, 1938&endash;43) in
two volumes.
SPEER,
Albert (1905-1981)
Albert
Speer studied at the technical colleges in Karlsruhe,
Munich and Berlin and thereafter became Heinrich
Tessenow's assistant. He received in 1927 his license as
architect. After a long period of unemployment, Albert
Speer received his first building contract for the NSDAP
through a friend named Hanke, who was the head of the
Berlin Administrative District. He redesigned the newly
acquired Berlin Administrative Office in
Voßstraße 11. In 1933 when Paul Ludwig Troost
renovated and extended the Old Reichs Chancellery, Albert
Speer was appointed site manager. Albert Speer appeared
more frequently with the high German leadership at
receptions and lunchions. He soon received prestigious
contracts, for example the programme for the
Nürnberg Congress of 1934, filmed by Leni
Riefenstahl, for which he designed the well-known Light
Dome. He also designed the Zeppelinfeld in Nürnberg
and organised the whole layout of the arena. In 1937 he
was appointed "General Construction Inspector", in short
GBI, for redesigning the Reichs capitol. Albert Speer
revised sketches that Hitler had made for that purpose
and designed some of the main buildings for the new
Prachtstraße. His main task however, was the
coordination of the different architects and artists.
Parallel to this work he completed designs for the new
construction of the Reichs Chancellery in 1935. He only
received the building contract later on in 1938. With
this contract Speer showed off his incredible talent for
organisation on construction sites. During this period of
time, he created Europe's largest newly constructed
building in one year. Everyone recognized Speer's
leadership in being a great organiser and was considered
Hitler's confidant, he was later appointed Minister of
Defence in 1942, after Minister Todt's fatal accident.
Under his management in 1944, the economic production
reached its summit, even though Germany was being
attacked by the Allied forces. After the war, Speer was
sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment at the
Nürnberg Trail. He wrote his memoirs during his time
in prison. In 1966, Albert Speer was released from prison
in Spandau and was eventually sought after by historians.
Albert Speer died in 1981 during a London tour while
conducting interviews with the media.
BREKER,
Arno (1900-1991)
German sculptor Arno Breker was
born in Elberfeld, on July 19th, 1900. In his late teens
be began the study of stone-carving and anatomy and at
age 20 began attending the Duesseldolf Academy of Arts
where he began his study of sculpture and an immensely
successful art career. The artist moved to Paris (1927),
returned to Berlin (1933), where he taught at the school
of fine arts (1938-45). He developed an ideal of beauty
based on Antiquity and the Renaissance. His work between
1933 and 1942 was most noted for its classical approach
to the human form which depicts men and women in timeless
glory, youth, potential, honor, desire, hope, and
possibility. Works such as Comradeship (1940) express a
powerful anguish as the state of the world and a
simultaneous promise to one's comrades that their loss
will be redeemed. In a similar vein are Torchbearer
(1940), Sacrifice (1940), and Predestination
(1941) (Pic).
Touching on the traditional relationships between men and
women are the powerfully naturalistic You and I (1940)
and the classically inspired Apollo and Daphne (1940).
After the war, Breker turned to bust portraiture and
graphics and then concentrated on writing: in 1970,
'Hitler et moi' was published (Paris); in 1972 'Im
Strahlungsfeld der Ereignisse'. ek. Breker died in
Düsseldorf in 1991. Most of Breker's sculptures for
the olympic stadium (1936) and for many other
representative state buildings have been destroyed.
Though the return to a classical era of beauty and human
potential was shattered with the collective national loss
in World War 2, the vast inspiration of his art lives
on.
For more information about the
artist visit:
http://www.hitler.org/art/breker/
THORAK,
Josef (1889-1952)
Born the son of a master potter,
Josef Thorak learned the craft of pottery in his fathers'
workshop. At the age of 23 he attended the arts academy
in Vienna and went on to Berlin in 1915 to continue his
art education there. From 1918 Thorak earned his keep as
freelance sculptor. At this stage most of his work was
created from wax as he had no money for bronze casts.
Thorak found his first contractors in the general public.
In 1928 Josef Thorak was awarded the state prize of the
Prussian Academy of arts for his work. He finally
received large contracts, which was awarded by Albert
Speer. Thorak's advancement was secured with several
contracts and so he created monuments for the official
buildings, freeways, and the famous horses for the
terrace of the New Imperial Chancellery. He also created
a name for himself internationally with the reliefs for
the Kemen Atatürk-Denkmal in Ankara. Included among
the portrait busts created by Thorak were portraits of
Friedrich Nietzsche, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. A
Paracelsus-Denkmal of Thorak still stands in Salzburg
today. In 1944 Thorak participated in an official
exhibition for the last time in "Haus der Deutsche Kunst"
in Munich with seven of his artworks. After his period of
fame as state artist, Thorak retired from May 1945 and
lived a mostly isolated life in Bavaria. Acquaintances
described him in 1949 as a "broken man". Thorak died in
Hartmannsberg am Chiemsee on 26 February 1952.