(b Eltville, 17 March 1873; d Bad Honnef, 13 Aug 1955). German architect and teacher. He studied at the Technische Hochschule in Dresden, where he worked with Paul Wallot. Until 1914 a large proportion of his work involved monuments and memorials. In 1896 he won a competition for the Battle of Leipzig monument; this was followed by his Burschenschafts monument (1901), Eisenach, and more than 50 Bismarck towers throughout Germany. Built in rough masonry, they revealed an abstract, geometric approach with powerful effect. Other work of this period, which tended to echo historical precedents, included the Rheinbrücke (1904–9), Düsseldorf, the Tietz department store (1912–14), Cologne, and the Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte (1913–14), Halle, as well as exhibition centres and houses. In 1902 Kreis began to teach at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Dresden; he succeeded Peter Behrens as Director of the Kunstgewerbeschule (1909–20) and was Professor of Architecture at the Kunstakademie (1920–26), both in Düsseldorf. Finally he followed German Bestelmeyer and Heinrich Tessenow as Professor at the Technische Hochschule in Dresden (1926–36). After 1918 he built for industry and moved away from the monumentality and tectonic approach of his early, imperial buildings towards a modern style, as seen in the coal tower (1920) at Krupp’s Hannibal colliery, Essen. In 1928 he became President of the Bund Deutscher Architekten. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Kreis reverted to a classicizing approach stripped of decorative details and using megalomaniac dimensions that created buildings with ritualistic aspirations. Buildings for the state, such as the Luftgaukommando (1937), Dresden, and the design (1937; unexecuted) for the army headquarters on the proposed North–South Axis of Albert Speer’s monumental new plan for Berlin, as well as numerous plans for memorials and war cemeteries, were redolent of military, war and hero worship. Kreis was thus responsible for the translation of Nazi ideals into architecture; he became President of the Nazi Reichskammer bildender Künstler (1943). After 1945 he designed and built mostly for large companies.

• Kreis, Wilhelm
  • Germany, §II, 7(i): Architecture, 1900–39
  • pupils
    • Breker, Arno
  • restorations by others
    • Hentrich, Helmut
  • staff
    • Heckel, Erich
  • works
    • Brick, §II, 3(ii)(d): Western world: 20th century
    • Dresden, §I, 3: History and urban development, after 1763
    • Düsseldorf, §1: History and urban development
    • Lehmbruck, Wilhelm
    • Mausoleum, §VIII: 20th century
    • Nazism, §2: Art and architecture