Poelzig, Hans

SUBJECT AREA: Architecture and building

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b. 1869 Berlin, Germany

d. June 1936 Berlin, Germany

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German teacher and practising architect, the most notable individualistic exponent of the German Expressionist movement in the modern school.

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In the last decade of the nineteenth century and in the first of the twentieth, Poelzig did not, like most of his colleagues in Germany and Austria, follow the Jugendstil theme or the eclectic or fundamentalist lines: he set a path to individualism. In 1898 he began a teaching career at the Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland) Academy of Arts and Crafts, remaining there until 1916. He early introduced workshop practice into the curriculum, presaging Gropius's Bauhaus ideas by many years; the school's workshop produced much of the artisan needs for a number of his buildings. From Breslau Poelzig moved to Dresden, where he was appointed City Architect. It was there that he launched his Expressionist line: which was particularly evident in the town hall and concert hall in the city. The structure for which Poelzig is best known and with which his name will always be associated is the Großes Schauspielhaus in Berlin; he had returned to his native city after the First World War and this great theatre was his first commission there. Using modern materials, he created a fabulous interior to seat 5,000 spectators. It was in the form of a vast amphitheatre with projecting stage and with the curving area roofed by a cavernous, stalactited dome, the Arabic-style stalactites of which were utilized by Poelzig for acoustic purposes. In the 1920s Poelzig went on to design cinemas, a field for which Expressionism was especially suited; these included the Capitol Cinema in Berlin and the Deli in Breslau. For his later industrial commissions—for example, the administrative building for the chemical firm I.G.Far ben in Frankfurt—he had perforce to design in more traditional modern manner.

Poelzig died in 1936, which spared him, unlike many of his contemporaries, the choice of emigrating or working for National Socialism.

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Further Reading

Dennis Sharp, 1966, Modern Architecture and Expressionism, Longmans.

Theodor Heuss, 1966, Hans Poelzig: Lebensbild eines Baumeister, Tübingen, Germany: Wunderlich.

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