Johannes Krahn (17 May 1908 – 17 October 1974) 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 an academic teacher.

Career

Born in

Mainz Mainz () is the capital and largest city of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Mainz is on the left bank of the Rhine, opposite to the place that the Main joins the Rhine. Downstream of the confluence, the Rhine flows to the north-west, with Ma ...

, Johannes Krahn studied architecture from 1923 to 1927 at the Technische Lehranstalten Offenbach. He continued his studies 1927 to 1928 at the

Kölner Werkschulen The ''Kölner Werkschulen'' (Cologne Academy of Fine and Applied Arts), formerly Cologne Art and Craft Schools, was a university in Cologne training artists in visual arts, architecture and design from 1926 to 1971. History Origins The origins ...

as ''Meisterschüler'' of

Dominikus Böhm Dominikus Böhm (23 October 1880 – 6 August 1955) was a German architect specializing in churches. He built churches in Cologne, the Ruhr area, Swabia, and Hesse. Many of his buildings are examples of Brick Expressionism. Life and caree ...

, who interested him in building churches. Krahn worked with Rudolf Schwarz from 1928 to 1940. He graduated as a civil engineer at the RWTH Aachen University. In

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on it ...

he was in charge of the rebuilding after World War II of the

Paulskirche St Paul's Church (german: Paulskirche) is a former Protestant church in Frankfurt, Germany, used as a national assembly hall. Its important political symbolism dates back to 1848 when the Frankfurt Parliament convened there, the first publicl ...

, starting in 1947, later he was on the team to rebuild the Städel. In 1950 he built the French Embassy in

Bad Godesberg Bad Godesberg ( ksh, Bad Jodesbersch) is a borough ('' Stadtbezirk'') of Bonn, southern North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. From 1949 to 1999, while Bonn was the capital of West Germany, most foreign embassies were in Bad Godesberg. Some buildings ar ...

. In 1954 he completed at the Konstablerwache in Frankfurt the early skyscraper Bienenkorbhaus (Beehive House). His church building St. Wendel, Frankfurt (1957) has been compared to Le Corbusier in terms of materials and flow of light. In 1962 he built the St. Nikolaus von Flüe Catholic church in Wörsdorf. In 1965 Krahn created a variation on the interplay of stonemasonry, glass and concrete of St. Wendel in St. Martin, Idstein. In 1966 he built St. Sebastian in Frankfurt. In 1973 he built the in Frankfurt, together with Richard Heil. Among his last projects was in 1974 the design of St. Aegidius in , realized after his death by his son Johannes Krahn in the firm Krahn-Lorenz-Sauer, Frankfurt am Main, in 1978 to 1980. He died in

Orselina Orselina is a municipality in the district of Locarno in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland. History Orselina is first mentioned in 1182 as ''Concilio Meziano''. In 1323 it was mentioned as ''Orsarina''. During the Middle Ages and into the Ea ...

, Switzerland. Krahn was a teacher at the

Kunstgewerbeschule A Kunstgewerbeschule (English: ''School of Arts and Crafts'' or S''chool of Applied Arts'') was a type of vocational arts school that existed in German-speaking countries from the mid-19th century. The term Werkkunstschule was also used for thes ...

Aachen and since 1954 a professor of architecture at the

Städelschule The Städelschule (), Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste, is a tertiary school of art in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It accepts about 20 students each year from 500 applicants, and has a total of approximately 150 students of visual a ...

Frankfurt. He was the director of the Städelschule from 1965 to 1970. With dedication to detail, he stressed function, construction and material, and refrained from pure ornament.

Awards

* 1955 Member of the Akademie der Künste, Berlin * 1951 Gold medal for the Krahn-Stuhl (Krahn chair) at the 9th

Triennale di Milano The Triennale di Milano is a design and art museum in the Parco Sempione in Milan, in Lombardy in northern Italy. It is housed in the Palazzo dell'Arte, which was designed by Giovanni Muzio and built between 1931 and 1933; construction was fi ...

Literature

References

External links

St. Wendel, Frankfurt
(in German)

(in German)
St. Martin, Idstein
{{DEFAULTSORT:Krahn, Johannes 1908 births 1974 deaths 20th-century German architects Modernist architects from Germany RWTH Aachen University faculty Architects from Rhineland-Palatinate People from Mainz People from Rhenish Hesse