The evolution of the profession and education of architects in Germany from the mid-eighteenth century to 1933

Abstract

The aim of this article is to show the range of responsibilities, professional and business titles and the evolution of the system of architectural education, functioning on the territory of selected German states, which in 1871 formed the Second German Reich. Other German-speaking countries, such as Austria or Switzerland, have been omitted, as were those Polish territories under the Prussian and Austrian partition. These issues, despite numerous German-language publications (Bolenz 1991; Schnier 2009; Mai 2012) and English publications (Kostofa 1986), pose many problems for Polish researchers, especially those researching the history of architecture of former German-speaking regions, and the lack of research is not compensated for by modest Polish publications (Serdyńska 2015). The main research questions that are posed concerned issues related to the education of architects and the conditions within their profession. The 18th century was the starting point for my reflections, when the first academic centres for the education of architects in the German-speaking area were established. The thought of the 18th century as a caesura for the architectural profession is also dictated by the effects of the Industrial Revolution, which determined the emergence of professional specialisations in construction and, in the long term, determined the modern understanding of the words architect and engineer. The year 1933 marks the endpoint of the ensuing paper, when, as a result of the takeover of power by the National Socialists, a violent and radical process of building a totalitarian society began in Germany, in which higher education and the fine arts, especially architecture, were subordinated to Nazi ideology