ABOUT THE ARCHITECT FRIEDRICH WILHELM KRAEMER IN DÜSSELDORF

Even when he was searching for the "eternal laws of architecture" and imparting them to his students, Friedrich Wilhelm Kraemer still allowed himself the freedom to interpret architecture. For many eventful decades he put his stamp on baukultur and found a design vocabulary in it that was influential for the re-orientation after WWII and in particular from the 1960s. In 2008 his work was presented in an exhibition in Düsseldorf.

THE ARCHITECT

The elegant, flat mussel-shaped dome of the Jahrhunderthalle of Farbwerke Hoechst A.G. in Frankfurt is undoubtedly the most distinctive and most familiar building designed by the ar-chitect Friedrich Wilhelm Kraemer. The hall for concerts and congresses was completed in 1962. It is the expression of Kraemer's international orientation, which contributed to a new profile for German commercial, residential, industrial and cultural architecture in the post-war period. Kraemer enjoyed a holistic cultural education, his work was always based on an ethi-cal-aesthetic understanding of architecture.

Together with Egon Eiermann or Sep Ruf, Kraemer is among the most influential architects after 1945. Fascinated by what was happening in building in Scandinavia (Arne Jacobsen) and the USA (Mies van der Rohe; Eliel Saarinen; Skidmore, Owings & Merrill), in contrast to many of his colleagues he was always concerned about a sensitive approach when building in a historical environment. The conversion of the Herzog August library in Wolfenbüttel (1962-81) is an outstanding example of this. Kraemer's concern here was to preserve the traditional architecture, to separate clearly the old and the new and to qualify the traditional for the pre-sent.

THE EXHIBITION

Friedrich Wilhelm Kraemer (1907–1990) would have been 100 in 2007. This was the occasion to review his life's work in an exhibition. The architect, who founded the nationally renowned "Braunschweig School" in the post-war period, left his imprint on North-Rhine Westphalia as well, in particular in Düsseldorf. His plans were used for the Landeszentralbank, today the head office of the German Federal Bank (1959-64), the Sparkasse (1959-64) and the construction and conversion of the Deutsche and Dresdner Banks (1976-90).

This first global view was developed by an exhibition team around Prof. Dr. Karin Wilhelm from the Institute for Building and Urban Construction History, gtas department, at the Braunschweig Technical University, on the basis of personal discussions with contemporaries of Kraemer, examinations of numerous construction files and plans and an inspection of his few personal drawings. In particular, pictures from famous photographers such as Heinrich Heidersberger have made a significant contribution to the fascination of the architecture of this period. Original plans from projects and competitions, sketches, extracts from essays and letters were displayed. Contemporary witnesses have their say in a film documentation lasting about 35 minutes.

The exhibition was shown in the Haus der Architekten in Düsseldorf. It was presented jointly by the Chamber of Architects North-Rhine Westphalia and the M:AI Museum für Architektur und Ingenieurkunst NRW.