Karl Gildemeister (11 October 1820 – 8 February 1869) 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 ...

Life

Gildemeister was born in

Bremen Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie Hansestadt Bremen''), a two-city-state consis ...

, where he was first apprenticed to his relative, the Bremen J. E. Polzin. In 1843 he enrolled at the Karlsruhe Polytechnic School, later transferring to the Berliner Bauakademie; there followed study trips to

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

and

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

. In the wake of the revolution of 1848 he emigrated to New York where in collaboration with Georg Carstensen he designed the

New York Crystal Palace New York Crystal Palace was an exhibition building constructed for the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations in New York City in 1853, which was under the presidency of the mayor Jacob Aaron Westervelt. The building stood in Reservoir Square ...

which was part of the

Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations The Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations was a World's Fair held in 1853 in what is now Bryant Park in New York City, in the wake of the highly successful 1851 Great Exhibition in London. It aimed to showcase the new industrial achievements ...

in New York City. His business affected by the Depression of 1857, he returned to Germany, where he taught at the commercial art school in Bremen until his early death there. He is known for his detailed historical study of the

Bremen Town Hall The Bremen City Hall (german: Bremer Rathaus) is the seat of the President of the Senate and Mayor of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen. It is one of the most important examples of Brick Gothic and Weser Renaissance architecture in Europe. Si ...

and Marketplace.

Family

He was the son of Senator Johann Carl Friedrich Gildemeister; the brother of Mayor

Otto Gildemeister Otto Gildemeister (13 March 1823 Bremen - 26 August 1902) was a German journalist and translator. Biography In 1850 he became editor-in-chief of the ''Weser-Zeitung'' of Bremen. He is known for his German language, German renderings of Lord Byron ...

, also a translator and journalist; and stepson of the architect Jakob Ephraim Polzin.

References

* Lewis, Michael J., “Der Rundbogenstil und die Karlsruhe-Philadelphia Achse,” in ''Dauer und Wechsel: Festschrift für Harold Hammer-Schenk'' (Berlin: Lukas Verlag, 2004), . *

Herbert Schwarzwälder Herbert Schwarzwälder (14 October 1919 – 11 September 2011) was a German historian. With his decades of work and his extensive publications, he has had a major influence on the research and communication of the . Life Schwarzwälder was born ...

, ''

Das Große Bremen-Lexikon ''Das Große Bremen-Lexikon'' is an 18th-century encyclopaedia by the Freie Hansestadt Bremen, written by Herbert Schwarzwälder about * the region, as Territory of Bremen, as Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen (Bremen Archbishopric), as Bremen-Verd ...

'' (2 vols.), 2, Bremen, 2003, .

External links

* 1820 births 1869 deaths 20th-century German architects Architects from Bremen 19th-century German architects {{germany-architect-stub