Paul Ludwig Troost (17 August 1878 – 21 January 1934) 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 ...
. A favourite master builder of
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
from 1930, his
Neoclassical designs for the ''
Führerbau
The Führerbau – translated as "the Führer's building" – was built from 1933 to 1937 after the plans of architect Paul Ludwig Troost, at Arcisstrasse 12 in Maxvorstadt, Munich. The first plans were made in 1931. The building was completed th ...
'' and the ''
Haus der Kunst'' in
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...
influenced the style of
Nazi architecture
Nazi architecture is the architecture promoted by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime from 1933 until its fall in 1945, connected with urban planning in Nazi Germany. It is characterized by three forms: a stripped neoclassicism, typified by the ...
.
Life
Early career
Born in
Elberfeld
Elberfeld is a municipal subdivision of the German city of Wuppertal; it was an independent town until 1929.
History
The first official mentioning of the geographic area on the banks of today's Wupper River as "''elverfelde''" was in a docu ...
in the
Rhineland
The Rhineland (german: Rheinland; french: Rhénanie; nl, Rijnland; ksh, Rhingland; Latinised name: ''Rhenania'') is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly its middle section.
Term
Historically, the Rhinelands ...
, Troost attended the
Technical College of Darmstadt and, upon finishing his course, worked with
Martin Dülfer
Martin Dülfer (1 January 1859, Breslau – 21 December 1942, Dresden) was a German architect and professor; best known for designing theatres in the Historical and Art-Nouveau styles.
Life and work
His father, Carl Dülfer, was a publisher ...
in Munich beginning in 1920. He then qualified as a university lecturer.
In the 1920s, he opened his own architectural office and became a member of the modernist ''
Deutscher Werkbund
The Deutscher Werkbund (English: "German Association of Craftsmen"; ) is a German association of artists, architects, designers and industrialists established in 1907. The Werkbund became an important element in the development of modern arch ...
'' association. Troost designed several rooms of
Cecilienhof
Cecilienhof Palace (german: Schloss Cecilienhof) is a palace in Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany, built from 1914 to 1917 in the layout of an English Tudor manor house. Cecilienhof was the last palace built by the House of Hohenzollern that ruled t ...
Palace in
Potsdam
Potsdam () is the capital and, with around 183,000 inhabitants, largest city of the German state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of B ...
. After a trip to the United States in 1922, he designed steamship décor for the
Norddeutscher Lloyd
Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL; North German Lloyd) was a German shipping company. It was founded by Hermann Henrich Meier and Eduard Crüsemann in Bremen on 20 February 1857. It developed into one of the most important German shipping companies of th ...
shipping company before
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, and the fittings for transatlantic liners in a style that combined Spartan traditionalism with elements of modernity. He was in charge of design for all of the company's largest ships, such as
SS ''Europa'',
SS ''Berlin'',
SS ''München'', and
SS ''Homeric'', until 1929.
An extremely tall, spare-looking, reserved
Westphalia
Westphalia (; german: Westfalen ; nds, Westfalen ) is a region of northwestern Germany and one of the three historic parts of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It has an area of and 7.9 million inhabitants.
The territory of the regio ...
n with a close-shaven head, Troost belonged to a school of architects like
Peter Behrens
Peter Behrens (14 April 1868 – 27 February 1940) was a leading German architect, graphic and industrial designer, best known for his early pioneering AEG Turbine Hall in Berlin in 1909. He had a long career, designing objects, typefaces, and i ...
and
Walter Gropius
Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (18 May 1883 – 5 July 1969) was a German-American architect
An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in conne ...
who, even before 1914, reacted sharply against the highly ornamental ''
Jugendstil
''Jugendstil'' ("Youth Style") was an artistic movement, particularly in the decorative arts, that was influential primarily in Germany and elsewhere in Europe to a lesser extent from about 1895 until about 1910. It was the German counterpart of ...
'' movement and advocated a restrained, lean architectural approach, almost devoid of ornament.
Hitler
Troost and Hitler first met in 1929, through the Nazi publisher
Hugo Bruckmann
Hugo Bruckmann (13 October 1863, in Munich – 3 September 1941, in Munich) was a German publisher.
Bruckmann was the younger son of the publisher Friedrich Bruckmann. After his father's death in 1898 Hugo and his brother Alphons became the owner ...
and his wife
Elsa.
Although before 1933 he did not belong to the leading group of German architects, Troost became Hitler's foremost architect whose neo-classical style became for a time the official architecture of the
Third Reich
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
. His work filled Hitler with enthusiasm, and he planned and built state and municipal edifices throughout Germany.
![München Haus der Kunst 2009](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/M%C3%BCnchen_Haus_der_Kunst_2009.jpg)
Hitler commissioned Troost to convert the Barlow Palais in Munich into the headquarters of the
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...
, the "
Brown House",
decorating it in a heavy, anti-modernist style under Hitler's supervision.
In the autumn of 1933, he was commissioned to rebuild and refurnish Hitler's dwellings in the
Reich Chancellery
The Reich Chancellery (german: Reichskanzlei) was the traditional name of the office of the Chancellor of Germany (then called ''Reichskanzler'') in the period of the German Reich from 1878 to 1945. The Chancellery's seat, selected and prepared s ...
in
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
. Along with other architects like
Ludwig Ruff
Ludwig Ruff (29 May 187815 August 1934) was an architect during the National Socialist regime in Germany. Born in Dollnstein, he was the father of Franz Ruff, who would later be responsible for completing the Nuremberg Party Congress Hall left un ...
, Troost planned and built State and municipal edifices throughout the country, including new administrative offices, social buildings for workers and bridges across the main highways. One of the many structures he planned before his death was the ''
Haus der Deutschen Kunst
The ''Haus der Kunst'' (, ''House of Art'') is a non-collecting modern and contemporary art museum in Munich, Germany. It is located at Prinzregentenstraße 1 at the southern edge of the Englischer Garten, Munich's largest park.
History
Na ...
'' ("House of German Art") in Munich, modeled on Schinkel's ''
Altes Museum
The Altes Museum (English: ''Old Museum'') is a listed building on the Museum Island in the Mitte (locality), historic centre of Berlin. Built from 1825 to 1830 by order of King Frederick William III of Prussia according to plans by Karl Friedrich ...
'' in Berlin. The museum was constructed from 1933 to 1937 following Troost's plans, and was
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
's first monumental structure of
Nazi architecture
Nazi architecture is the architecture promoted by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime from 1933 until its fall in 1945, connected with urban planning in Nazi Germany. It is characterized by three forms: a stripped neoclassicism, typified by the ...
.
[Hickley, Catherine (March 1, 2017)]
Should Munich contemporary art museum reveal or obscure its Nazi history?
''The Art Newspaper
''The Art Newspaper'' is a monthly print publication, with daily updates online, founded in 1990 and based in London and New York City. It covers news of the visual arts as they are affected by international politics and economics, developments ...
'' Hitler intended it to be a great temple for a "true, eternal art of the German people". It was a good example of the imitation of classical forms in monumental public buildings during the Third Reich, though subsequently Hitler moved away from the more restrained style of Troost, reverting to the more elaborate imperial grandeur that he had admired in the 19th century
Vienna Ring Road
The Vienna Ring Road (german: Ringstraße, lit. ''ring road'') is a 5.3 km (3.3 mi) circular grand boulevard that serves as a ring road around the historic Innere Stadt (Inner Town) district of Vienna, Austria. The road is located on sites where ...
(''Ringstraße'') boulevard of his youth.
Troost also redesigned
Königsplatz in Munich to include new Nazi Party buildings and a "Temple of Honour".
Hitler's relationship to Troost was that of a pupil to an admired teacher. According to
Albert Speer
Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer (; ; 19 March 1905 – 1 September 1981) was a German architect who served as the Minister of Armaments and War Production in Nazi Germany during most of World War II. A close ally of Adolf Hitler, he ...
, who later became Hitler's favorite architect, the ''
Führer
( ; , spelled or ''Fuhrer'' when the Umlaut (diacritic), umlaut is not available) is a German word meaning "leader" or "guide". As a political title, it is strongly associated with the Nazi Germany, Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
Nazi Germany ...
'' would impatiently greet Troost with the words: "I can't wait, Herr Professor. Is there anything new? Let's see it!" Troost would then lay out his latest plans and sketches. Hitler frequently declared, according to Speer, that "he first learned what architecture was from Troost"'. The architect's death on 21 January 1934, after a severe illness, was a painful blow, but Hitler remained close to his widow
Gerdy Troost
Gerhardine "Gerdy" Troost (née Andresen; 3 March 1904 – 30 January 2003), was a German architect interior designer and interior decorator and the wife of Paul Ludwig Troost.
Life and work
Troost was born in Stuttgart, the daughter of the ...
, whose architectural taste frequently coincided with his own, which made her (in Speer's words) "a kind of arbiter of art in Munich".
Death
Troost died on 21 January 1934 at the age of 55.
Hitler posthumously awarded him the
German National Prize for Art and Science
Through statutes of 30 January 1937, the German National Order for Art and Science (german: Der Deutscher Nationalorden für Kunst und Wissenschaft) was an award created by Adolf Hitler as a replacement for the Nobel Prize (he had forbidden German ...
in 1937. He was buried in the Munich ''
Nordfriedhof'' (Northern Cemetery). The gravestone still survives.
See also
*
Nazi architecture
Nazi architecture is the architecture promoted by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime from 1933 until its fall in 1945, connected with urban planning in Nazi Germany. It is characterized by three forms: a stripped neoclassicism, typified by the ...
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Troost, Paul
1878 births
1934 deaths
Architects in the Nazi Party
20th-century German architects
Architects from Wuppertal
Technische Universität Darmstadt alumni
Burials in Germany