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Gerhard Michael Kallmann (February 13, 1915 – June 19, 2012) was a
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
-born American
architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...
and academic. Together with Michael McKinnell, Kallman is best known as the lead designer of
Boston City Hall Boston City Hall is the seat of local government in the United States, city government of Boston, Massachusetts. It includes the offices of the List of mayors of Boston, mayor of Boston and the Boston City Council. The current hall was built in ...
, which was constructed in 1968 by their architectural design firm,
Kallmann McKinnell & Wood Kallmann McKinnell & Wood is an architectural design firm based in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1962 as Kallmann McKinnell & Knowles by Gerhard Kallmann (1915-2012), Michael McKinnell (1935–2020), and Edward Knowles. Hi ...
.


Life and career

Kallman was born to Theodore and Olga Jarecki Kallmann in
Berlin, Germany Berlin ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the highest population within its city limits of any city in the European Union. The city is also one of the states of ...
, on February 13, 1915. His family was Jewish and intellectual.">
/ref> They moved to the United Kingdom in 1937 and Kallman enrolled at the
Architectural Association School of Architecture The Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, commonly referred to as the AA, is the oldest private school of architecture in the UK. The AA hosts exhibitions, lectures, academic conference, symposia and publications. Histo ...
in
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. He immigrated to the United States with his family in 1948. He began teaching at the Chicago Institute of Design less than one year after arriving in the U.S. Kallman became an assistant professor of architecture at Columbia University in 1954. In the early 1960s,
Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
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proposed a new city hall as part of plan to revitalize a declining section of the city's downtown. A competition was held to design a new city hall. Kallman, then a professor at Columbia University, and Michael McKinnell, a Columbia
graduate student Postgraduate education, graduate education, or graduate school consists of Academic degree, academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications usually pursued by higher education, post-secondary students who have ...
submitted a design for the proposed Boston City Hall in 1962. Kallman and McKinnell defeated many established, better known architects to win the contest for the new city hall. Kallman and McKinnell founded their new firm in 1962 shortly after winning the competition, Kallmann, McKinnell & Knowles (now called Kallmann, McKinnell & Wood), and moved to Boston to work on their city hall design. Influences for city hall, a large concrete structure, included the Le Corbusier’s monastery at La Tourette, France. Boston City Hall, which they designed in a New Brutalism style popular in 1960s, was completed in 1968. Though controversial and even derided among some Bostonians, who have called it a "giant concrete
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" and a "dungeon," Boston City Hall had an important impact on the city. While called a "hall of shame" by the
urban planning Urban planning (also called city planning in some contexts) is the process of developing and designing land use and the built environment, including air, water, and the infrastructure passing into and out of urban areas, such as transportatio ...
nonprofit,
Project for Public Spaces Project for Public Spaces (PPS) is a nonprofit organization based in New York dedicated to creating and sustaining public places that build communities A community is a Level of analysis, social unit (a group of people) with a shared socia ...
, a 1976 survey of architects named it one of the top ten buildings in the United States. Kallman remained best known for Boston City Hall. However, he also designed the headquarters of the
Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW; French: ''Organisation pour l'interdiction des armes chimiques'', OIAC) is an intergovernmental organisation and the implementing body for the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), ...
in
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and the Embassy of the United States in
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,
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. Kallman also designed entire campuses for the
University of California The University of California (UC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university, research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, California, Oakland, the system is co ...
and buildings for
Ohio State University The Ohio State University (Ohio State or OSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio, United States. A member of the University System of Ohio, it was founded in 1870. It is one ...
and
Brandeis University Brandeis University () is a Private university, private research university in Waltham, Massachusetts, United States. It is located within the Greater Boston area. Founded in 1948 as a nonsectarian, non-sectarian, coeducational university, Bra ...
. Gerhard Kallmann died in Boston on June 19, 2012, at the age of 97.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kallmann, Gerhard 1915 births 2012 deaths 20th-century American architects Columbia University faculty Emigrants from Nazi Germany Immigrants to the United Kingdom Immigrants to the United States