Fischer, Theodor

Architect, town planner

Born: 28.05.1862 in Schweinfurt

Died: 25.12.1938 in Munich

Fischer studied architecture at the TH Munich under August and Friedrich von Thiersch from 1880-85.

From 1886-89 he worked in Paul Wallot's Reichstag building office in Berlin, then as a freelance architect in Dresden. From 1893-1901 he was head of the newly created Munich Urban Expansion Office and drew up a general development plan that was binding until 1939. From 1901-08 he worked as a professor for building design and urban planning at the TH Stuttgart. In 1907 he was co-founder and first chairman of the Deutscher Werkbund. From 1909-28 he was professor of architecture and urban planning at the TH Munich, while at the same time running an architectural office in the suburb of Laim, where he lived, until 1938.

Fischer's background was in historicism and Art Nouveau, but he focused specifically on the local conditions. The Hessian State Museum in Kassel was built according to his plans in 1907-12 and the art building on Schlossplatz in Stuttgart in 1909-13.

In 1911, Fischer was commissioned with the plans for the Wiesbaden Museum. Fischer designed the museum building, which opened in 1915, as a reflection of a bourgeois attitude towards classical education. The Goethe monument he had already planned in front of the entrance summarized these ideas.

In addition to the representative building tasks, Fischer was also concerned with the question of appropriate living conditions. In 1911, he created comfortably furnished terraced housing estates in Munich-Laim, which were intended for the broader sections of the population. This was followed in 1919-30 by the "Alte Haide" estate in the north of Munich, the first housing estate in a row. Important late works were the Protestant church in Planegg in 1926 and the single people's home in Munich's Westend in 1927.

Fischer's students included architects who were influential in the 20th century such as Erich Mendelsohn, Bruno Taut and Ernst May.