Haas Type Foundry

The Haas'sche Schriftgiesserei was a type foundry in Basel and Munich stone.

Company History

The company went back to Johann Jakob Genath (1582-1654), who owned a printing press with type foundry in Basel. In the third generation under Johann Rudolf Genath it was about 1740 to Johann Wilhelm Haas from Nuremberg, who was in 1718 occurred in the font foundry. 1758 was Johann Wilhelm Haas Basel citizens.

His son Wilhelm Haas Münch (1741-1800) invented an improved hand press of metal and expanded it with a printing company. Thanks to him and his son Wilhelm Haas Decker (1766-1832) introduced typographical renewals and systematically building international business, the company became the leading type foundry of Switzerland at that time and the most important in Europe. As of 1786, the operation was performed under his own name. In 1852, the font foundry of the sons of the younger William, Georg Wilhelm Haas ( 1792-1853 ) and Karl Eduard Haas ( 1801-1853 ) was sold.

In the 1920s, the company moved into a new building in München stone at the Gutenberg Street, where, among other things, Berthold Bodoni and Helvetica fonts created. In 1989, Linotype took over the Haas'sche type foundry. The unapplied lead type business was continued as Walter Fruttiger AG. The operation in Munich stone was shut down. In the former foundry building the Rudolf Steiner School in Munich Stein moved a.

Architecture

The idiosyncratic factory building in Munich stone was by architect Karl Gottlieb Koller, who had previously created a reputation with large hotel resorts in the Engadine. Characteristic are the roofs of individual, strung together into a hall house, resting on pillars whose parabolic cross vault. In the spandrels of the roofs are roof window to have enough daylight for the work of Schriftgiesser. Since 1993, located in Building a Rudolf Steiner School.