Munich: Künstlerhof

1930

Architect: Uli Seeck

Fountain: Emil Manz

Zum Künstlerhof 13-25, Munich

Künstlerhof

From 1929 to 1930, Uli Seeck designed seven sculpture studios on the Neuhausen estate. Due to the plot layout and applicable building regulations, the site could not be built on any higher.

Each studio consists of a two-story workroom with 45 square meters of floor space, an adjoining room, a storage room, a bathroom, and attic storage space for materials.

Thirteen additional studio apartments are located in the attics of the neighboring apartment buildings Zum Künstlerhof 1-11 and Schluderstraße 41-47.

Studios

Currently, thirty artists have studios in the Künstlerhof.

Two long, four-story apartment buildings border the narrow access road. The studios are arranged in a square at the end of the road.

They have large windows, dark wooden doors, sculptural fireplaces, and high double doors at the back.

A fountain featuring a group of storks, created by the sculptor Emil Manz in 1929, sits in the square in front of the studio entrances.

Neuhausen Housing Estate

The complex is part of the large Neuhausen housing development, which was built from 1928 to 1930.

Construction of the housing estate was entrusted to a newly formed stock corporation, Gemeinnützige Wohnungsfürsorge AG (GEWOFAG), which has since become a municipal company.

On the outskirts of Neuhausen, where the city of Munich had meadows and farmland in the 1920s, GEWOFAG built 1,600 apartments, several stores, small craft businesses, four restaurants, and two kindergartens on nearly 200,000 square meters.

Hans Döllgast

Architect Hans Döllgast oversaw the Neuhausen housing estate project.

Döllgast grew up in Bergheim and the Upper Old Town of Neuburg an der Donau.

He studied architecture at the Technical University of Munich from 1910 to 1914. From 1912 to 1913, he assisted Michael Kurz.

From 1919 to 1922, Döllgast worked in Richard Riemerschmid’s studio. From 1922 to 1926, he worked in Peter Behrens‘ studio and master class in Vienna, Berlin, and Frankfurt am Main.

From 1927 to 1929, he worked as an independent architect in Munich, Vienna, and Augsburg.

Buildings by Hans Döllgast

Döllgast received his first lectureship in interior design at the Technical University of Munich in 1929. He was appointed associate professor in 1939 and full professor in 1943, both at the same university.

Before World War II, Döllgast had already made a name for himself in Munich with several new churches, including the Heilig Blut parish church in Munich-Bogenhausen. He also planned the Neuhausen housing estate from 1928 to 1931.

After the war, Döllgast influenced generations of architects through his work as a professor of architectural drawing and spatial art.

Critical Reconstruction

The Alte Pinakothek was one of the first major projects of Critical Reconstruction. The building was severely damaged by a bombing during World War II.

The architect achieved an abstract reconstruction by closing off the outer walls with unplastered rubble bricks, leaving the bomb damage visible and distinguishing it from the original Klenze building.

The structure of the building was preserved using slender steel columns, concrete lintels, and cornices. The newly created, spacious staircase is one of the most striking in Germany.