MANILA, Philippines - Who is the German architect known for his work on churches and who played a decisive role in the reconstruction of Cologne after World War II?
He was born in Strasbourg in May 1897. He studied under Poelzig in Berlin and worked with Dominikus Bohm on the prize-winning unexecuted design for a church in Frankfurt.
His influence is clear in his Corpus Christie Church in Aachen (1928-1930), a simple white building with a black altar on a platform reached by a flight of steps. This is considered his most famous work.
He published a work on church design in 1938 in which he discussed the relationships of plans, structures, and congregations.
After World War II, he designed a number of churches, many with reinforced concrete frames, the spaces filled with brick, glass, and stone. Among these works are the St. Anna in Duren, Saint Michael in Frankfurt, and the Church of the Holy Family in Oberhausen. He also worked closely with Fr. Romano Guardini at Burg Rothenfels, where he designed the chapel for Quickborn, a large German youth movement.
He also played a decisive role in the reconstruction of Cologne after World War II. After spearheading Cologne’s construction authority between 1947 and 1952 he contributed to the rebuilding of the city with buildings like the Wallraff-Richartz Museum, which now houses the Museum of Applied Art.
In 1960, he published Kirchenbau (Church Building) in which he emphasized the desirability of bringing the congregation into a more intimate relationship with the altar. He preserved more than 70 plans for churches in the book, which he called a primer for church building.
A Roman Catholic, his conception of a church is intensely sacramental. The pulpits are not absent, and these are sometimes treated as centrally important. The altar is so important that his churches grow naturally and organically out of the altar.
His churches are not abrasively modern, but no form in them proceeds from any other source than a spirit profoundly in harmony with the most creative thought forms of his own day.
He died in 1961 in Cologne.
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Answer: Casa Malaparte
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