Franz Ehrlich

Franz Ehrlich ( born December 28, 1907 in Leipzig Reudnitz, † November 28, 1984 in Bernburg (Saale ) ) was a German architect, graphic artist and designer.

Life

Franz Ehrlich attended from 1914 to 1922 the primary school in Leipzig. 1923 Ehrlich's interest in architecture movement Neues Bauen was awakened at a Bauhaus exhibition in Weimar, which was then visited the 16- year-old. After an apprenticeship as a machinist, he was from 1927 to 1930 student and employee at the Bauhaus in Dessau. He lay there at first a trade test as a carpenter and later worked from time to time in the office of Walter Gropius. In addition to the first professional activities in Berlin and Leipzig, Franz Ehrlich engaged in the communist youth movement. During the Nazi dictatorship of the Communist Ehrlich was convicted of " conspiracy to commit high treason", then first detained in Waldheim and in the penitentiary Zwickau in 1937 deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp. There he was active in the resistance camp of the concentration camp. In 1939 he was released from his imprisonment. As ruled " unfit for military service " from military service, he was then working obliged in SS construction office Buchenwald and in the SS Main Office Budget and Construction, Berlin. He designed the commander Villa in Buchenwald with the inventory, houses, barracks and the camp zoo. 1943 to 1945 he was a soldier in the penal battalion 999 to Greece and then in Yugoslav captivity.

In 1946, Franz Ehrlich returned to Germany and became head of the Office for Reconstruction in Dresden. In the 1950s he was involved included the construction of the radio house Nalepastraße in Berlin- Oberschoeneweide, the television center in Berlin- Adlershof, the reconstruction of the building complex of the Deutsche Bank and the Franz Volhard Clinic on the grounds of mental hospitals in Berlin-Buch. He was the chief architect of the Leipzig Fair, for which he designed a fair tower, which was not built. Honestly, as mandated by the Broadcasting Committee ( since 1953 ), served as architect of the Ministry of Foreign Trade for the construction of embassies and trade missions ( 1955-1958 ) and later for the Academy of Sciences of the GDR ( 1959-1962 ). Between 1963 and 1966 he served as chief architect of the Leipzig Fair in 1968 and the house architect of the German workshops Hellerau, for which he worked as a freelancer for many years. So was his styled furniture - type series " 602 " has been producing since 1957 there. At the German workshops he showed his versatility as an artist and architect through drafts, exhibition facilities and furniture ranges to the test. In Broadcasting House Berlin, designed by Franz Ehrlich furniture, fixtures and wall panels are still preserved from the workshops Hellerau and listed building. Franz Ehrlich worked in addition to his permanent positions whatsoever as a freelance architect. In addition to urban projects, he designed new buildings for cultural institutions (eg, Gewandhaus Leipzig - not realized) and was commissioned by the Academy of Sciences of the GDR. Thus, the Central Institute for Cardiovascular Research in Berlin-Buch (1954-1957) is still one of his most famous buildings.

The artist and sculptor Franz Ehrlich is less known. His often three-dimensional drawings are often reduced and strictly on the basic forms mainly preliminary studies of the detailed forms of its exterior and interior design, the sculptures. His artistic estate is now managed in the archives of the Bauhaus Dessau.

Franz Ehrlich was controversial during his lifetime. Part of its formalism and functionalism, he was criticized for some of its critical attitude to construction in the GDR. He called for the artistic freedom with respect to economy and social aspects and adapted itself ultimately politically motivated standards to. As a versatile architect and designer Franz Ehrlich coined the architectural history of the GDR and is now considered one of the few architects who were able to retain a degree of autonomy in the form of language yet. The architecture critic Dieter Hoffmann- ax handle describes the architects Ehrlich as functionalist on the narrow but possible ridge " between Bauhaus Modernism and shape conservatism ".

2013 published the Central German Broadcasting parts of about 900 pages long, hitherto unknown Stasi file Ehrlich. Accordingly, the architect was in 1954 as a GI ( secret informant ) with code name " Neumann " been recruited by the Stasi to educate " hostile elements in the construction of the GDR". Accordingly, he reported to 1975 extensively about work-life leading architects of the GDR.