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Eggert, (Georg Peter) Hermann
(b Burg, nr Magdeburg, 3 Jan 1844; d Weimar, 1920). German architect. He studied architecture at the Bauakademie in Berlin with Johann Heinrich Strack. Early in his life he won prizes in competitions, for example with his designs (unexecuted) for Berlin Cathedral (1869) and the Niederwald national monument (1873). From 1875 he worked in Strasbourg, where he won further prizes for his urban planning schemes and his designs (1878; unexecuted) for the Kaiser-Wilhelm Universität. He also built an observatory (1877–82). In 1883 he was awarded the prestigious commission for the Kaiserpalast (1883–9; now the Palais du Rhin). His design followed Palladian principles in its monumental planning, but Eggert stressed the building’s national significance through ornamental and decorative details derived from the German Renaissance. During his time in Strasbourg, Eggert won the competition (1880) for the railway station in Frankfurt am Main. This was seen as the most significant and influential of the many competitions for railway stations in the last third of the 19th century. Eggert was commissioned to execute the building (with some alterations) despite criticism from the architectural press. The critics saw the architecture of the façade and the station building as being too plain and taking second place to the engineering design of the train shed. In 1889 he was called to Berlin, to the Ministerium für Öffentliches Arbeiten, where he was mainly responsible for church building. Eggert left the Civil Service in 1898 for Hannover, to oversee the execution of his designs for the new Rathaus (1898–1913), a large building with a central dome in the German Renaissance style. In 1909, however, with only the exterior completed, the town council terminated Eggert’s contract because he refused to comply with the council’s wishes for interior designs in the new Art Nouveau style. He was replaced by the younger Gustav Halmhuber. Eggert then moved to Weimar, where he lived until his death.
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