Gottfried Boehm
Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate
1986
Contents of this Page:
...About Gottfried Boehm,
a brief biography
Photo Gallery
Citation from the Pritzker
Jury
Acceptance Speech
by Gottfried Boehm
On Architecture
by
Kevin Roche, architect and Pritzker Juror
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List Of Laureates Page
...about Gottfried Boehm
1986 Laureate
Gottfried Böhm is an architect practicing in Cologne, Germany. His
work ranges from the simple to the complex, using many different kinds
of materials, with results that sometimes appear humble, sometimes monumental.
He has been described in the sixties as an expressionist, and more recently
as post-Bauhaus, but almost always he stands alone in departing from the
conventions of established architecture, seeking to go one step beyond.
Böhm himself prefers to be thought of in terms of creating "connections"
— for example, the integration of the old with the new, the world of ideas
with the physical world, the interaction between the architecture of a
single building with the urban environment, taking into account the form,
material, and color of a building in its setting.
The Bensberg City Hall, as well as the restaurant he designed at Bad Kreuznach,
both built on historic ruins, illustrate his creativity in joining the
old with the new.
Some of the connections he refers to are also between private and public
or semi-public spaces, new uses for deserted urban areas, and the analyzing
of a design problem as both a boundary and a link. One of his projects,
the Zueblin Corporate Headquarters in Stuttgart, straddling two newly incorporated
townships, embodies many of Böhm's connections.
Many of Böhm's projects and proposals illustrate his concern for urban
planning, i.e., the area around the Cathedral and the Heumarkt area in
Cologne; the Prague Square in Berlin; the area around the castle at Saarbruecken;
the Lingotto Quarter in Torino; and the city center in Boston. Hans Klumpp,
writing in Bauen und Wohnen, said, "For Böhm, architecture
and urban planning are inseparable."
Böhm has said, "I think the future of architecture does not lie so
much in continuing to fill up the landscape, as in bringing back life and
order to our cities and towns."
In 1981, Peter Davey in Architectural Review, described some of
Böhm's buildings as "unique subjective works of art that showed Germany—and
Europe—that the Expressionist tradition was still alive. His brut modern
concrete meets ragged medieval stone with contrast yet sympathy: the new
forms are as complex as the old..." Davey was referring in this instance
to the town hall at Bensberg and the Pilgrimage Church at Neviges.
But his article went on to review a more recent building, the civic center
at Bergisch Gladbach. Davey acknowledged that "as usual with Böhm,
everything new is new: there is no attempt to copy." And further, Davey
stated, "Böhm has traveled a very long way from Neviges, but he has
never, in anything he has built, lost his wonderful, original humanity."
Bergisch-Gladbach marked a major change in the materials used by Böhm,
from molded concrete to glass and steel. of this change, Böhm has
said simply, "I use different kinds of materials on different kinds of
projects. Today we can do things with steel and glass that we could not
do before. flexible enough to change."
In an article that same year in Architecture and Urbanism (May),
Donald E. Olsen praised Böhm's works in the highest terms, saying
of the Church of the Pilgrimage at Neviges, "Böhm's ability to dematerialize
this massive structure of modern concrete technology through the application
of sheer volume, shape and light-modulation, advances many of the goals
of modern architecture and transcends and even transgresses some of its
alleged precepts."
Olsen added, "Neviges, together with a significant portion of Böhm's
other work, preceded by far, the current attempts to create architecture
in a new paradigm described as "post-modern ... earlier examples of his
work ... predated by two decades or more the superficial parodying-of-history
theme which is presently the avant-garde rage in America."
Praising the Bensberg City Hall, Olsen stated, "...he has fused the new
construction with the old with an ease that seemingly closed the chronological
gap ... it should not be surprising that such high quality should emanate
from an architect of rich eclectic predilection."
Gottfried Böhm was born in Offenbach-am-Main on January 23, 1920,
the son of Dominikus Böhm, one of Europe's most respected architects
of Roman Catholic churches and ecclesiastical buildings. Since his paternal
grandfather had been an architect as well, it is not surprising that Gottfried
started on that path.
His academic career began in 1942, when he the Technische Hochschule in
Munich. He received degree in 1946. For another year, he continued his
education, studying sculpture at the Academy of Fine That training has
been applied often, since he models in clay of his building exteriors as
he evolves a plan.
He worked in his father's office as an assistant architect from 1947 to
1950. During that time he collaborated with the Society for the Reconstruction
of Cologne under the direction of Rudolph Schwarz.
In 1948, he met and married Elisabeth Haggenmueller, who also is a licensed
engineer and architect. They have four sons, three of whom have become
architects.
Feeling the need for other points of view, in 1951, Böhm journeyed
to New York where he worked in the architectural firm of Cajetan Baumann
for six months. Several more months were spent on a study tour of the United
States, during which time he had the opportunity to meet Mies van der Rohe
and Walter Gropius, two of the architects for whom he holds great admiration.
His study tour over, Böhm went back to work with his father in 1952.
His father's influence plus the ideas and theories of Bauhaus, to quote
Klumpp again, "were, clearly apparent in his first independent projects.
Nevertheless, his many sided skills enabled him to overcome this phase
quickly. He did not discover a different style; what he discovered was
a clear conviction of the importance of every single architectural assignment,
no matter how small, and he learned that, along with the factors of time
and place, man is the most important value to be taken into consideration."
When his father died in 1955, Böhm took over the family firm. In the
three decades since, he has accomplished many buildings, including churches,.
museums, theatres, cultural and civic centers, city halls, office buildings,
public housing, and apartment buildings, many of the latter with mixed
use.
In his teaching, he warns against "the exaggerations of the historicizing
movement, and mindless imitation of earlier eras." in the past, he has
insisted on "spiritually enriching human values in architecture," speaking
out against "overcrowding the environment with unnecessary design features."
He has opposed both the reductivist sterility, and the brutalism that reigned
for a time. Although the language of his forms is not in the of modernist"
style, he adheres to many of the ethical principles of the Bauhaus such
as "austerity, honesty, and expressing one's own time in one's work."
Citation from the Pritzker
Jury
Son, grandson, husband, and father of architects, Gottfried Böhm has
reason to recognize the nourishment that traditional ways and means provide
in architecture, as in all the arts. In the course of a career of over
forty years, he has taken care to see that the elements in his work which
suggest the past also bear witness to his ready acceptance, whether in
the design of churches, town halls, public housing, or office buildings,
of the latest and best in our contemporary technology. His highly evocative
handiwork combines much that we have inherited from our ancestors with
much that we have but newly acquired—an uncanny and exhilarating marriage,
to which the Pritzker Architecture Prize is happy to pay honor.
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Gottfried Boehm's
Acceptance Speech
Last year I built a small chapel with my son Paul. It is almost four feet
square and not quite eleven feet high (47¼" by 47¼" by 10'
93/4" to be precise). I mention this building because rarely did anything
come so naturally I think I may say this because the chapel is so small
and because of my son's contribution.
The chapel shelters a figure of Christ for which it is both frame and habitat.
Figure and chapel have become one; indeed the figure is the heart of the
whole. And a little 9f the drama and love contained within the
chapel is expressed on the exterior.
The chapel has clean lines, not in the sense in which such lines today
are often equated with geometry-even a complex shape can have clean lines-but
in the sense that you cannot add to it, and you would not want to take
anything away, either.
I think the influence of my father, Dominikus, who was my guide, can be
discerned in this small building. It seems to me a good thing when a building
has not been designed entirely on a moment's inspiration.
Although the chapel is clearly new and of our time, it has formed a bond
with the other buildings in the neighborhood-it seems to have been there
all the time. Despite its small size, it and the others form a living space.
Its details are not very complicated, but they were applied with great
feeling. In this too perfect, streamlined time details are especially important,
because by having to take a close look, we discover new things. Because
of this, details will remain part of the building in the mind's eye.
Fortunately, I have been entrusted with larger projects,
including city planning, yet all have presented me with the same problems
as the little chapel:
A building is a human being's space and the background for his dignity
and its exterior should reflect its contents and function. New buildings
should fit naturally into their surroundings, both architecturally and
historically, without denying or prettifying the concerns of our time.
You cannot just quote from history and above all you cannot take it out
of context, in however humorous a fashion. On the contrary history has
a natural continuity which must be respected.
Especially after World War II, we have cut wide gashes into the fabric
of our cities the world over-we put great traffic arteries through them
and erected buildings whose function, shape, size, materials, and colors
had no bearing on the existing urban environment.
It is therefore important today to heal these wounds, retaining the positive
aspects, and re-establishing the necessary cohesion of the urban environment,
so that we can once more experience the natural sense of community which
we so admire when strolling through old cities.
With her extraordinary straightforwardness my wife
-to whom I owe much professional gratitude-once said to our sons (three
of whom are architects): "Our generation has built a lot, but your generation
will have to work hard to heal all that."
I don't overestimate the influence of architecture on people, but I am
sure that the physical alienation of our cities contributes to our inability
to live together harmoniously
It is clearly important to keep its integrity in mind when designing a
building, but it is especially necessary today to consider its neighbors
and to find out what they might have in common.
To be given this prize must mean that you have understood and accepted
my principles. That is a wonderful feeling. I thank you very much!
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On Architecture
by Kevin Roche
I believe architecture is an art and that in practicing it one's ultimate
responsibility is to use every opportunity to create a work of art. And
a work of art is essentially a statement of a position; it is a statement
about something. And it is a statement of belief in something.
It is a reflection on the nature of things, or some aspect of the nature
of things. In addition to all of the justifications we make for a building's
reason for being, which we must do in practice, we have the additional
responsibility to make a statement.
The statement is not necessarily conscious; because it is an artistic effort
sometimes it may be more intuitive. Because one's beliefs when working
on a design are intensely held, one wants to make the statement as intense
as possible so that it is clear and understandable, a thoroughly refined
statement-refined in the sense of clarity-as clear as it can be.
That may be why these buildings are so perceived, but if you do not hold
your beliefs intensely, if you do not believe that you are about something
important, then you cannot create a work of art.
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