|
Hoffmann, Ludwig (Ernst Emil)
(b Darmstadt, 30 July 1852; d Berlin, 11 Nov 1932). German architect and writer. He attended the Kunstakademie, Kassel (1873), and the Bauakademie, Berlin (1874–9), where his teachers included Johann Heinrich Strack and Richard Lucae, and he won the Schinkel prize. In 1879 he took the government examination in architecture and became a government architect (1884). In 1885 he won a competition, with Peter Dybwad (1859–1921), for the Reichsgericht in Leipzig and a subsequent commission to revise the design; work was carried out on this monumental, neo-classicist law court between 1887 and 1895. In early April 1896 Hoffmann was elected city architect of Berlin, a post he retained until 1924 (see BERLIN, §I, 4). As city architect he was responsible for all types of public buildings in Berlin: swimming baths, bridges, fountains, monuments, fire stations, hospitals, arts and festival buildings, residential buildings, schools, social facilities, municipal and administration buildings. Notable examples include the swimming baths (1896–1901), Kreuzberg; the Märkisches Museum (1896–1908); a complex of nursing homes (1899–1929; now the Städtisches Klinikum), Buch; the fairy-tale fountain (1901–13) in the public park in Friedrichshain, with sculptures by Josef Rauch, Ignatius Taschner and Georg Wrba; and the execution of the Pergamonmuseum (1909–30), designed by Alfred Messel. Hoffmann worked in a neo-classical style influenced by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, and in the 1920s he became a target for attack by German modernists, particularly the radical group Der Ring; a member of Der Ring, Martin Wagner, followed Hoffmann as city architect in 1926. Hoffmann received several honours during his career, including membership of the Königliche Akademie der Künste in Berlin (1906).
|
