David Gilly

David Gilly ( born January 7, 1748 in Schwedt; † 5 May 1808 In Berlin) was a German architect, urban and regional planners and Baureformer at the beginning of the era of classicism.

Family

Gilly came from a Huguenot family from the area of Nîmes, who had settled in 1689 in French -Buchholz in Berlin. In 1771 married David Gilly Friederike Ziegenspeck, the daughter of a regiment equerry. The couple's son was the architect Friedrich Gilly, the daughter Minna married the politician Friedrich Gentz ​​, a brother of the architect Heinrich Gentz ​​. After the death of his wife in 1804 married David Gilly in 1805 her sister, Juliane.

Life

Teaching and beginnings in Pomerania

With 14 years of Gilly began as a Baueleve Baulehre in the Construction Department of the Neumark. He worked for the colonization of the Warta rupture and reconstruction of Küstrin and Zantocher suburb of Landsberg on the Warta River with Franz Balthasar Schoenberg of Brenkenhoff. On his recommendation Gilly 1770 acquired the first test specimen of the newly formed upper Examinationskommission at Bouman in Berlin qualification as a master builder. In the same year he was given a job in Altdamm. From there, he headed the lowering of Madüsees and the establishment of Kolonistenbauten. He married and in 1772 came the son. A separate district took Gilly 1772 in Stargard and from 1779 on he had the position of Planning Director General of Pomerania held.

Chief Planning in Pomerania

It was not until 1782 took Gilly, promoted to Chief Planning, the provincial capital Szczecin. He was responsible for all publicly funded construction and agricultural construction in Pomerania: the expansion of piers and jetties of Swinoujscie, the Lastadien in Stettin and Kolberg, the new planning and building of the burnt cities Jakobshagen and Zachan and the expansion of urban water supply in Szczecin. Among its tasks, the development of typed housing and stables, magazines, barns and factories for rural and small urban settlements as well as the preparation of expert reports and expert reports on land reclamation for the king Frederick the Great was.

In Berlin

Appointed to the Privy Oberbaurat In 1788 and appointed to the Upper Baudepartement to Berlin, Gilly was responsible for the management of the state construction of the provinces of Pomerania, East and West Prussia. After the second and third partitions of Poland 1793/95 Gilly held next to the Pommern Office for South Prussia. In those years he was responsible for the construction of the Bydgoszcz Canal, the responsible and expansion of the port facilities of Danzig and Elbing and the construction of the cadet school in Kalisz.

Gilly had already begun in 1760, to draw maps. In 1789, appeared in six sections a map of pre-and Pomerania and in the years 1802-03 one of South Prussia in 13 sections. Were stung the cards from Daniel Friedrich Sotzmann.

Gilly met alongside the state and numerous private contracts for the construction of farm houses and equipment. The system established for the Marshal of the Court and director of the royal châteaux Valentin von Massow in Steinhofel ensemble of castle, park and garden architecture, economic and residential buildings attracted the attention of Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm and Luise. They commissioned Gilly thus to transform the village complex Paretz'and and build 1796/97 a manor house without any traditional forms of dignity as a summer residence. Friedrich Wilhelm appointed Gilly after his accession in 1798 to the Deputy Director of Oberhof Building Authority.

In the years around 1800 Gilly reached the peak of his career. Were characterized for Zopfstil his buildings in Pomerania even by the transition from a baroque late style, he found since 1790s, probably under the influence of his son into a simple classicism which approached the Revolution architecture. Characteristic were symmetrical and functional structure with smooth, rhythmic and sparingly ornamented facades, often with the mid -hugging flat arched windows. His style prevailed in the construction of public buildings in the central and eastern provinces of Prussia and also influenced the private construction.

The exceptionally Gothic reshaping of the medieval church in the core and the inn in Paretz apply to the first examples of the Gothic Revival in Germany.

Teacher and journalist

Gilly had become in 1790 a member of the Royal Prussian Academy of Arts and mechanical sciences. To educate qualified young people in the building profession, he founded in 1793 together with younger members of the upper Baudepartements in Berlin, a private educational institution, but was forced to close in 1796. It was not until after the accession of Frederick William III. continued in 1799 by the group of education reformers, were among the next Gilly architects and Baupraktiker Johann Albert Eytelwein, Friedrich Becherer, Heinrich August Riedel, Carl Gotthard Langhans and the Minister Schroetter and Heynitz, the establishment of the state of Berlin Building Academy. Gilly taught the specialized water and dykes art and was one of their directors annually changing.

As a teacher and writer to Gilly made ​​by the dissemination of cost-saving building ideas as to the screed binder roof and pisé construction deserves. He was the main author of the manual for land architecture 1797/98, which proclaimed the modernization of agricultural utilities and published by the Upper Baudepartement magazine collection of useful articles and news concerning the architecture for aspiring architects and friends of architecture. She was the first issued in Germany architecture magazine and also reported on current English and French contributions to architecture and construction.

Last years

Heavy blows were the death of his son Frederick in 1800 and four years later his wife for Gilly. His creative force abated. Consequence was a three-month study tour in 1803 /04 to Paris with his pupil August Crelle and Leo von Klenze, who probably also was his student.

Due to the tremendous decline in government revenues after the Peace of Tilsit, the Prussian state could not pay for more officers of the Upper Building Authority, Building Authority of Oberhof and from the Academy of Architecture in 1807. His shortened by 80 % remuneration had to be used for the billeting of French officers in his Berlin home Gilly. At the age of 60 years, David Gilly died very sick and impoverished on May 5, 1808 in Berlin and was buried in the cemetery II of Jerusalem and a new church community in a self-made grave system. The 1937 re-discovered site is a grave of honor today.