Paul Zucker (August 14, 1888 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 ...

– February 14, 1971 in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

) 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

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 ...

art historian Art history is the study of artistic works made throughout human history. Among other topics, it studies art’s formal qualities, its impact on societies and cultures, and how artistic styles have changed throughout history. Traditionally, the ...

art critic An art critic is a person who is specialized in analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating art. Their written critiques or reviews contribute to art criticism and they are published in newspapers, magazines, books, exhibition brochures, and catalogue ...

and author. Between 1919 and 1935, he practiced architecture in Berlin.

Education

Paul Zucker studied architecture and art history in Berlin and Munich; he graduated with the degree of ''Diplom-Ingenieur'' (Dipl.-Ing.) from the Technische Hochschule (Berlin-)Charlottenburg. The same institution awarded him a doctorate in engineering in 1913. He wrote his thesis ("Spatial Representations and Pictorial Architectures in the Florentine Painters of the First Half of the Quattrocento") under Richard Borrmann's supervision.

Career

From 1918 to 1937, he worked as a freelance architect in Berlin, designing numerous country houses, store interiors, and major buildings. Only one of them survives today. In 1916, he began teaching as a lecturer in art history, architecture and urban planning at the Lessing-Hochschule in Berlin; from 1928 he lectured at the Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Kunst (later called the

Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the , was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined Decorative arts, crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., ...

). In 1933, he was dismissed from the Bauhaus for being a Jew. The Lessing-Hochschule followed suit in 1935, and in 1937 Zucker was banned from teaching anywhere in the

Third Reich Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...

New York

He emigrated to the United States in 1937, became a U.S. citizen in 1944, and worked in New York as a lecturer in architectural and art history at the

New School for Social Research The New School for Social Research (NSSR), previously known as The University in Exile and The New School University, is a graduate-level educational division of The New School in New York City, United States. NSSR enrolls more than 1,000 stud ...

and at the Cooper Union Art School. After moving to New York, he no longer worked as a commercial architect, but in 1943, Zucker and others created the "German Village," a realistic replica of Berlin tenements, at the

Dugway Proving Ground Dugway Proving Ground (DPG) is a United States Army facility established in 1942 to test biological and chemical weapons, located about southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah and south of the Utah Test and Training Range. Location Dugway Provin ...

test site in Utah. Here, various explosive and incendiary bombs were tested for their effect on these dwellings. Zucker's writings ranged from the history of

scenic design Scenic design, also known as stage design or set design, is the creation of scenery for theatrical productions including Play (theatre), plays and Musical theatre, musicals. The term can also be applied to film and television productions, wher ...

to modern

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 ...

. He often returned to the topic of ruins, decay, and relics.

Awards

* 1953: Arnold W. Brunner Scholarship Award from The

American Institute of Architects The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is a professional organization for architects in the United States. It is headquartered in Washington, D.C. AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach progr ...

(AIA) * 1968:

Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (, or , BVO) is the highest state decoration, federal decoration of the Federal Republic of Germany. It may be awarded for any field of endeavor. It was created by the first List of president ...

(First Class) * 1969: Rossi-Prize from Cooper Union Art School in New York

References

External links

Entry in the Dictionary of Art HistoriansBiography on Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zucker, Paul 20th-century German architects 20th-century American architects German art historians American art historians 1888 births 1971 deaths Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States Officers Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany 20th-century American historians American male non-fiction writers German male non-fiction writers Architects from Berlin 20th-century American male writers Cooper Union faculty