Theodor Fischer (28 May 1862 – 25 December 1938) was a German

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 teacher.

Career

Fischer planned public housing projects for the city of Munich beginning in 1893. He was the joint founder and first chairman of the

Deutscher Werkbund The Deutscher Werkbund (; ) is a German association of artists, architects, designers and industrialists established in 1907. The ''Werkbund'' became an important element in the development of modern architecture and industrial design, parti ...

(German work federation, 1907), as well as member of the German version of the

garden city movement The garden city movement was a 20th century urban planning movement promoting satellite communities surrounding the central city and separated with Green belt, greenbelts. These Garden Cities would contain proportionate areas of residences, i ...

. In 1909, Fischer accepted a position as professor for architecture at the

Technical University of Munich The Technical University of Munich (TUM or TU Munich; ) is a public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. It specializes in engineering, technology, medicine, and applied and natural sciences. Established in 1868 by King Ludwig II ...

Notable pupils

Famous pupils of Fischer include Paul Bonatz, Hugo Häring, Ernst May,

Erich Mendelsohn Erich Mendelsohn (); 21 March 1887 – 15 September 1953) was a German-British architect, known for his expressionist architecture in the 1920s, as well as for developing a dynamic functionalism in his projects for department stores and cinem ...

, JJP Oud,

Bruno Taut Bruno Julius Florian Taut (4 May 1880 – 24 December 1938) was a renowned German architect, urban planner and author. He was active during the Weimar period and is known for his theoretical works as well as his building designs. Early l ...

, German Bestelmeyer and Paul Schmitthenner.

Style

Originally an imitator of historical styles, he changed direction, seeking a style which was closer to German tradition; his rediscovery of the expressive qualities of stone influenced many of his pupils, and his search for a more genuinely volkisch style explains his nationalist utterances in the early part of 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 ...

. Fischer described his own style as something between

historicism Historicism is an approach to explaining the existence of phenomena, especially social and cultural practices (including ideas and beliefs), by studying the process or history by which they came about. The term is widely used in philosophy, ant ...

and

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau ( ; ; ), Jugendstil and Sezessionstil in German, is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. It was often inspired by natural forms such as the sinuous curves of plants and ...

. He tried to always work in the local context, and the socio-cultural character of the region, with an eye toward the social effect of his plans.

The German garden city

Fischer's work and teaching inspired a number of medieval style garden cities in Germany. These include the 1906

Hellerau Hellerau is a northern quarter ''(Stadtteil)'' in the city of Dresden, Germany, slightly south of Dresden Airport. It was the first garden city in Germany. The northern section of Hellerau absorbed the village of Klotzsche, where some 18th cent ...

settlement and the

Falkenberg Falkenberg is a locality and the seat of Falkenberg Municipality, Halland County, Sweden, with 27,813 inhabitants in 2019 (out of a municipal total of about 45,000). It is located at the mouth of river Ätran. The name consists of the Swedish ...

quarter constructed between 1913 and 1914. The garden city movement in Germany planned

suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area. They are oftentimes where most of a metropolitan areas jobs are located with some being predominantly residential. They can either be denser or less densely populated ...

an housing estates, rather than self-contained greenbelt towns. In the 1920s garden cities were considered essential in Germanic urban planning.

References

19th-century German architects 1862 births 1938 deaths People from Schweinfurt Technical University of Munich alumni Academic staff of the Technical University of Munich Art Nouveau architects 20th-century German architects Bavarian architects People from the Kingdom of Bavaria {{Germany-architect-stub