Georg Moller

Georg Moller ( born January 21, 1784 in Diepholz, † March 13, 1852 in Darmstadt ) was a in Southern Germany, especially in the former Grand Duchy of Hesse, active architect and urban planner.

Life and family background

Moller comes from an old Norwegian pastor's family who had distinguished himself by the publication of Protestant hymnals in the 17th century. The father, Levin Adolf Moller, grew up in Westphalia and worked as a notary in Celle, since 1777 as an advocate and procurator in Diepholz. Moller's mother, Elizabeth of Castelmur, came from a Swiss noble family of the Upper Engadine Catholic denomination. Moller grew up in a middle-class milieu. The compounds of the family of European national boundaries and across denominations already caused premature to grow up in spiritual liberality and curiosity.

Training and study tours

After graduating from high school in 1800, Moller took on to study architecture at Diederich Ludwig Christian Witting in Hanover. Here he met Friedrich Weinbrenner know, whom he succeeded in 1802 in Karlsruhe, to continue his studies at the local school of architecture. In the years 1807-1809 Georg Moller took a study trip to Rome, where he received a decisive impetus by the local German artists' colony. After completion of this journey he was 1810 Oberbaurat and court architect of the Grand Duchy of Hesse -Darmstadt.

Professional work in the secular and religious environment

Among his local major works include the St. Louis Church, the first Catholic religious building in Darmstadt after the introduction of the Reformation, whose shape is modeled on the Pantheon in Rome, and the former State Theatre, the Luis Square and the Masonic Lodge - today's " Moller- house ". In addition, he built the Staatstheater Mainz, which caused by its semicircular facade sensation, as well as the city palace of the Dukes of Nassau Wiesbaden, the present headquarters of the Hessian parliament.

St. Louis Church in Darmstadt

City Palace in Wiesbaden

Staatstheater Mainz

Mainz Cathedral with Moller shear dome

Only two of Georg Moller larger structures have intact the Second World War were: The Grand Ducal Mausoleum on the rose height, and the Ludwig column on the Luis place - both in Darmstadt, while the rest was reconstructed partly destroyed and demolished or usually greatly simplified.

Moller also worked for the Landgrave of Hesse -Homburg: the reconstruction of the Homburger and Meisenheimer castle ( Wolfgangsbau ) fall within this range. He also worked for the Prince Klemens von Metternich and designed the Schloss Johannisberg new. He was probably in Hanover, where he was said to be the construction of the Wangenheimpalais advisory capacity.

Moller applies besides Karl Friedrich Schinkel and Leo von Klenze as an important architect of German Classicism and Romanticism. His extraordinary ingenuity as an engineer and creator of valuable spatial compositions occurs certainly the most impressive in the Darmstadt Ludwig church to day and is facing the barriers of provincialism Darmstadt more amazing.

In his office Moller made ​​a number of successful architect and later professor of the German language area of, including August Heinrich Andreae (Hannover), Rudolf Wiegmann ( Dusseldorf ) and Ferdinand Stadler ( Zurich ), Ernst Georg Gladbach, Wilhelm Mithoff (Hannover ), Christoph Riggenbach (Basel), Hugo von Ritgen (casting ) and Friedrich Maximilian Hessemer (Frankfurt).

In addition to his work as an architect also be listed nursing work must be acknowledged. He is partly due to the rescue of the Carolingian gatehouse at Lorsch, now protected as a UNESCO protected World Heritage Site. In 1818 he persuaded the Grand Duke of Hesse -Darmstadt to enact the first monument protection regulation. It is the first legal basis for the protection of architectural monuments in Germany. His well-known compilation Monuments of German architecture was ahead of his time.

Moller also played an important role in the completion of Cologne Cathedral. He discovered in 1814 a half of the 4.05 -meter facade revised plan of the cathedral architect Arnold in an attic near Darmstadt again, the other was in 1816 Sulpiz Boisserée in Paris.

Works

Other private contacts and family ties

Private Moller was with illustrious figures of the time such as JW von Goethe, the politically and medically motivated George Fhr. of Wedekind and the local brewing family Hessemer known or used. Moller married in 1811 Amalie Merck, Darmstadt pharmacist with connection to family Merck. In turn belonged to the inner circle of industrialist family Merck later descendants of Moller's second marriage with Helene Hille (1839 ). Georg Moller died 1852 in Darmstadt, at the age of 68 years. He is buried at the old cemetery in Darmstadt.

  • Monuments of German architecture. Baer Publisher: Frankfurt 1852-54. 3 volumes. DOI: 10.3931/e-rara-4613

Exhibition

  • 2011: Architecture in the book. Theoretical Architecture Publications of the grand-ducal architect Georg Moller, University and State Library '
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