Emil Fahrenkamp (November 8, 1885,

Aachen Aachen is the List of cities in North Rhine-Westphalia by population, 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, 27th-largest city of Germany, with around 261,000 inhabitants. Aachen is locat ...

– May 24, 1966,

Ratingen-Breitscheid Breitscheid is a quarter of the city Ratingen in Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixt ...

) was a German architect and professor. One of the most prominent architects of the period between the first and second World Wars, he is best known for his 1931

Shell-Haus The Shell-Haus (Shell House) is a modernist building that overlooks the Landwehrkanal in the Tiergarten, Berlin, Tiergarten district of Berlin, Germany. It was designed by Emil Fahrenkamp and was built in 1930–31. Building and design In ...

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

Life and career

Born in Aachen, Fahrenkamp came to

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...

to work in the office of

Wilhelm Kreis Wilhelm Kreis (17 March 1873 – 13 August 1955) was a prominent German architect and professor of architecture, active through four political systems in German history: the Wilhelmine era, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, and the found ...

from 1909 to 1912. He became an assistant, then professor, at the Düsseldorf Academy of Art. His work in the 1920s and early 1930s was an integration of progressive Neues Bauen—simplified forms, flat roofs, repeated window patterns—with features of traditional styles. The Shell-Haus is widely considered Fahrenkamp's masterpiece, and one of the most significant office block designs of the

Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was the German Reich, German state from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclai ...

. It didn't escape criticism, however: One of the only times

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

inveighed against a specific building in Berlin, as opposed to modern urban architecture in general, was when he told Fahrenkamp, "You're the man who committed the crime of the Shell Building." Despite this, Fahrenkamp received

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

commissions for exhibition buildings, and had dealings with Propaganda Minister

Joseph Goebbels Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazism, Nazi politician and philologist who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief Propaganda in Nazi Germany, propagandist for the Nazi Party, and ...

;

Hermann Göring Hermann Wilhelm Göring (or Goering; ; 12 January 1893 – 15 October 1946) was a German Nazism, Nazi politician, aviator, military leader, and convicted war criminal. He was one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party, which gov ...

, the head of the

Luftwaffe The Luftwaffe () was the aerial warfare, aerial-warfare branch of the before and during World War II. German Empire, Germany's military air arms during World War I, the of the Imperial German Army, Imperial Army and the of the Imperial Ge ...

and the Four Year Plan; and

Albert Speer Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer (; ; 19 March 1905 – 1 September 1981) was a German architect who served as Reich Ministry of Armaments and War Production, Minister of Armaments and War Production in Nazi Germany during most of W ...

, Hitler's favorite architect and later Minister of Armaments and War Production. When Fahrenkamp was "de-Nazified" after the war, he remained active as an architect but withdrew from public life. He died on May 24, 1966, leaving behind a wife and two daughters.

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*
on the Shell House in Berlin
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fahrenkamp, Emil 1885 births 1966 deaths 20th-century German architects People from Aachen

Life and career

See also

References

External links