Ernst Cramer (architect)

Ernst Cramer ( Ernst Friedrich Cramer, born December 7, 1898 in Zurich; † 7 September 1980 in Rüschlikon ), was one of the most important Swiss landscape architects of the 20th century, whose creative influence extends to the present day landscape architecture.

Life

After training as a gardener in Zurich under the direction of landscape architect Gustav Ammann and with the apprentice and journeyman years in Switzerland, Germany and France, 1918-1922 Cramer visited the horticultural school in Oeschberg in Switzerland until 1923. In 1929 Cramer his first own office for Garden design in Zurich and began teaching at schools for gardeners. Between 1972 and 1980 he also taught at the Athenaeum Ecole d'Architecture in Lausanne in specialist garden architecture. Cramer realized over a thousand projects, including gardens, parks and squares in Switzerland, Germany and Italy and developed in 1950 - after years of traditional garden design - one for those times unusual, minimalist, architectural landscape architecture with sculptural character. The enthusiasm for modern art and architecture, as well as its involvement in the Swiss Werkbund, who aspired to the Second World War by an aesthetically - moral renewal of the country, as a trigger to the striking change in the style of Ernst Cramer works.

The Garden of the Poets, temporarily emerged in 1959 at the G59, the first Swiss horticultural exhibition of archaic lawn pyramids, Erdkegeln, an architecturally designed water pool and modern sculpture Lean aggression by Bernhard Luginbuhl is internationally recognized as one of the first works of garden architecture of the 20th century, which placed the boundary between landscape architecture and fine art into question some ten years before the American land Art. The Museum of Modern Art in New York paid tribute to this work in 1964 as an icon of modern garden architecture. A partial reconstruction of the temporary garden of the poet with three large grass pyramids located since 2003 at the Leibniz Universität Hannover in front of the Institute of Landscape Architecture.

Appreciation

Since the 1980s, the radical abstract works of Ernst Cramer rediscovered in landscape architecture and are a source of inspiration for some of the most interesting new park and gardens in Europe. In the context of a landscape historical and theoretical research at the ETH Zurich from 1997 to 2002 the estate of the landscape architect was inventoried in collaboration with the Archives of the Swiss landscape architecture in Rapperswil SG and scientifically evaluated over the years. The research results are visionaries gardens in the publication. The modern landscapes of Ernst Cramer by Udo Weilacher comprehensively documented and documented by the formative influence that had the design approach of Ernst Cramer on the modern landscape architecture in Switzerland. " Design from the perspective of the people. Order in versatility. Return to simplicity. Keeping pace with the modern architecture and art. " Named Ernst Cramer, 1967 in a public lecture as the fundamental principles of its work. The renowned Swiss landscape architect Dieter Kienast called these basic principles in Cramer's work and its concise design stance as timeless and was inspired demonstrably of these principles in his works of the eighties and nineties of the twentieth century.

Works

  • Berlin, International Building Interbau 57, Hansaviertel (gardens ) 1957
  • Menzingen, teachers ' training college in 1958
  • Garden Theater, Hamburg IGA ( ramparts ) 1963
  • Winterthur, Sulzer high-rise in 1966
  • Aarau, town square in 1969
  • At Basel, Bruderholzspital 1973
  • Winterthur, pilot plant in 1974
  • Italy, War Cemetery at Passo la Futa (1969 ) with Dieter Oesterlen and Walter Rossow
  • Sisseln, Roche AG 1975
  • Vaduz, Postal Square 1979
September 7 G59 – 1st Swiss Horticulture Exhibition Internationale Bauausstellung Integrated Authority File
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