Before 1939: Refugee Architects to New Zealand

Abstract

In 1939, a number of European architects found refuge in New Zealand from the National Socialist regime. Their subsequent practice led to the notion that their presence had a significant impact on New Zealand architectural culture – especially in transmitting ideas associated with modernist architecture. This paper investigates the European work of this heterogeneous group of architects, all of whom came as refugees to New Zealand. In outlining the biographies of these architects prior to their arrival in New Zealand, insights are gained into their diverse experiences, cultural backgrounds and multi-faceted set of skills. This adds to recent scholarship that discusses the ways in which architectural ideas associated with modernism entered New Zealand and analyses the topic from multiple viewpoints in which the transmission of ideas is understood as a multilateral discourse.

Notes

1. Bernd Nicolai, “Exil-Akkulturation-Kulturtransfer,” in Architektur und Exil: Kulturtransfer und architektonische Emigration 1930 bis 1950, ed. Bernd Nicolai (Trier: Porta Alba Verlag, 2003), 5ff.

2. Nicolai, “Exil,” 6. See also: Friedrich Achleitner, “Die geköpfte Architektur: Anmerkungen zu einem ungeschriebenen Kapitel der österreichischen Architekturgeschichte,” in Die Vertreibung des geistigen aus Österreich, ed. Hochschule für Angewandte Kunst (Vienna: Zentralsparkasse und Kommerzialbank, 1985), 196; Matthias Boeckl ed., Visionäre und Vertriebene: Österreichische Spuren in der modernen amerikanischen Architektur (Wien: Ernst & Sohn, 1995).

3. Wolfgang Voigt ed., Hans und Oskar Gerson: Hanseatische Moderne (Hamburg: Dölling und Galitz, 2000), 8–9.

4. Marie-Luise Kreuter, “Emigration,” in Enzyklopädie des Nationalsozialismus, eds. Wolfgang Benz, Hermann Graml and Hermann Weiß (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1997), 298.

5. Kreuter, “Emigration,” 298. See also: Nicolai, “Exil”; Burcu Dogramaci and Karin Wimmer, Netzwerke des Exils: Künstlerische Verflechtungen, Austausch und Patronage nach 1933 (Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag, 2011), Charlotte Benton, A different world: Émigré architects in Britain 1928–1958 (London: RIBA Heinz Gallery, 1995).

6. Paul Walker, “Migration and Modern Architecture: The Case of New Zealand,” Fabrications 18, no. 1 (2008), 40–55.

7. Walker, “Migration,” 52–53.

8. See for example: Andrew Leach, Frederick H. Newman: Lectures on Architecture (Gent: A & S Books, 2003); Eva B. Ottilinger and August Sarnitz, Ernst Plischke: Das Neue Bauen und die Neue Welt: Das Gesamtwerk (München: Prestel, 2003); Andrew Leach “Helmut Einhorn: Dislocation and Modern Architecture in New Zealand,” Fabrications 14, nos. 1&2 (2004): 59–82; Andrew Leach, “Jewish Culture and Modern Architecture in New Zealand,” presented at Devarim II: Symposium on Jewish Culture in New Zealand, Wellington, 31 July 2005, accessed September 11, 2015, http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:8319/LeachJewishCulture2005.pdf.

9. David Mitchell and Gillian Chaplin, The Elegant Shed (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 31.

10. Mitchell and Chaplin, Elegant Shed, 65.

11. Peter Shaw, A History of New Zealand Architecture (Auckland: Hodder Moa Beckett, 1997), 138.

12. Justine Clark and Paul Walker, Looking for the Local (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2000).

13. Leach, “Helmut Einhorn,” 59–82.

14. Julia Gatley ed., Long live the modern: New Zealand’s new architecture 1904–1984 (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2008), 3.

15. Julia Gatley and Paul Walker, Vertical Living (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2014).

16. Gatley, Long live, 4; Leach, “Jewish Culture.”

17. These are: Gustav Cohn, Lewis Desiderios Deli, Helmut Einhorn, Francis Farago, Fritz Feuer, Richard Fuchs, Ernst Gerson, Rudolph Francis Adolph Kann, Heinrich Kulka, Alexander Neumann, Friedrich Neumann, Max Neumann, Friedrich Ost, Ernst Anton Plischke, Imrich Porsolt, Max Rosenfeld, Friedrich Herz Schwarzkopf, Erwin Ziffer. Since this list only pertains to certificates of naturalisation it cannot be assumed that it is complete.

Most names were published in: “Extract from New Zealand Gazette No. 19, April 10, 1947: 431,” [R23434024AAAC489110/AL11162] Archives New Zealand The Department of Internal Affairs Te Tari Taiwhenua, Wellington (hereafter DIA-TTT). Not every refugee might have also chosen to apply for naturalisation or was granted naturalisation that year (e.g. Helmut Einhorn was naturalised in 1946). The names of Alexander and Max Neumann also do not appear, as both were deceased in 1947. Tibor Donner arrived as early as 1927, and Gerhard Rosenberg came in 1955. Odo Strewe is excluded from this study as he commenced working as a Landscape Architect after arriving in New Zealand and no records of his advertisement agency in Berlin could be found. Helmut Einhorn and Imric Porsolt are not discussed as they were both too young to have gained significant working experience prior to their arrival in New Zealand.

18. These were: Cohn, Feuer, Fuchs, Gerson, Friedrich Neumann, Plischke, Rosenfeld, Schwarzkopf and Ziffer.

19. Wolfgang Benz, Flucht aus Deutschland: Zum Exil im 20. Jahrhundert (München: dtv, 2001), 50ff.

20. Benz, Flucht, 50ff.

21. “Richard Salomon Fuchs: Statement, Wellington, 8 October 1940,” [R24594656ACGO8333IA1 2335/115/1764] DIA-TTT.

22. “Fuchs: Statement,” DIA-TTT and “Fritz Feuer: Statement, Wellington, 4 September 1940,” [R22531256 AAAR4935/1940/50/27] DIA-TTT.

23. Kreuter, “Emigration,” 303–304.

24. Benz, Flucht, 50ff.

25. Kreuter, “Emigration,” 301.

26. Heinrich Kulka, “Letter to Arnold Schönberg: 18 April 1938,” [1938.04.18, ID: 13600] Arnold Schönberg Center: Database of Letters, accessed August 25, 2014, http://www.schoenberg.at/scans/DVD076/13600-1.jpg. Courtesy of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York.

27. Kulka, “Letter to Arnold Schönberg: 28 October 1938,” [1938.10.28, ID: 13565] Arnold Schönberg Center: Database of Letters, accessed August 25, 2014, http://www.schoenberg.at/scans/DVD076/13600-1.jpg. Courtesy of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York.

28. Report of Alien Authority at Auckland (F.I.C. west), “Heinrich Kulka – Alien cert. no. 21954 and Hilda Kulka (his wife) – Alien cert. no 21955,” [R23437210 AAAC 239/AL 21954] DIA-TTT.

29. “Ernst Gerson: Statement, Wellington, 2 September 1940,” [R23434024AAAC489110/AL11162] DIA-TTT.

30. Ann Beaglehole, “Jewish Refugee Immigration to New Zealand: 1933–1952,” in False Havens: The British Empire and the Holocaust, ed. Paul R. Bartrop (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1995), 187.

31. Benz, Flucht, 50ff.

32. Ann Beaglehole, A Small Price to Pay (Wellington: Allen & Unwin, 1988), 16–17.

33. Beaglehole, A Small Price, 18–19.

34. “Francis Farago: Hungarian Jew No. 21957, 9 September 1941” [C554349AAAC489/239/AL21957] DIA-TTT.

35. “Register of New Zealand Presbyterian Church. Ministers, Deaconesses & Missionaries form 1840,” Archives Research Centre, accessed January 14, 2016, http://www.archives.presbyterian.org.nz/Page180.htm.

36. “Heinrich Kulka: Statement, Auckland, 8 September 1940” [C554349AAAC489/239/AL21954] DIA-TTT. Ost names the fund “Czecho-Slovak Trust Fund,” “Frederick Ost: Statement at Wellington Central Police Station Enquiry Office, 20 February 1946”, [R24594385/ACGO/8333/IA1/2328/1115/1493] DIA-TTT.

37. “Czechoslovak Refugee Trust Records,” The National Archives, UK, accessed January 14, 2016, http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C9158.

38. “Max Neumann: Statement at Central Police Station Dunedin, 31 October 1940,” [R23436174AAAC489 204/AL18861] DIA-TTT.

39. “Roll Book entry for Franz Neumann at Edinburgh Dental Hospital and School” [LHB25/6/4] and “Entry for Franz Neumann in the Dentists’ Register in 1938” [LHB25/9/27] Lothian Health Services Archive, Edinburgh University Library.

40. Franz Georg Neumann, Zwei Nachfolger Balthasar Neumanns: Hoh. Philipp Geigel, 1731–1800, Heinr. Alois Geigel, 1765–1798, fürstbischöflich Würzburger Hofarchitekten. PhD diss., University of Würzburg, 1927.

41. “Max Neumann: Statement,” DIA-TTT.

42. Beaglehole explains that the “… aim of immigration policy was to maintain New Zealand’s ethnic homogeneity and to exclude people perceived as not easy to assimilate or in other ways unsuitable.” Jewish immigrants were regarded as “wholly unsuited to our conditions”. Ann Beaglehole, “Jewish Refugee Immigration to New Zealand: 1933–1952,” in False Havens, 187. See also: Lazarus Morris Goldman, The History of the Jews in New Zealand (Wellington: Reed, 1958), 224ff.

43. “Gustav Cohn: Statement, Wellington, 14 December 1940,” [C554272AAC489/122/AL11942] DIA-TTT. “Ernst Gerson: Statement, Wellington, 19 February 1946”, [R23434024AAAC489110/AL11162] DIA-TTT and “Gerson: Statement, 2. September 1940,” DIA-TTT. “Kate Koppel: Statement, Wellington, 13 July 1940,” [R23434024AAAC489110/AL11162] DIA-TTT. Beaglehole, A Small Price, 23–24.

44. Max Rosenfeld, “An Architect to the People: Max Rosenfeld,” in Identity and Involvement: Auckland Jewry, Past and Present, eds. Ann Gluckman (Palmerston North: Dunmore Press, 1990), 195ff.

45. Leach, Frederick H. Newman, 10.

46. Beaglehole, “Jewish Refugee Immigration,” 190.

47. Richard Fuchs, “List of buildings erected during the period of my working as private architect,” The Richard Fuchs Archive, accessed September 5, 2015, http://www.richardfuchs.org.nz/architect.php.

48. “Richard Salomon Fuchs: Alien Registration Certificate No. 12554. Application for naturalisation, 5 October 1946,” [R24594656ACGO8333IA12335/115/1764] DIA-TTT. See also: Myra Wahrhaftig, Deutsche jüdische Architekten vor und nach 1933: Das Lexikon (Berlin: Reimer Verlag, 2005), 168–169; Stephen Sedley, “Richard Fuchs: Composer/Architect,” Crescendo 77 (2007): 17–24. The website Richard Fuchs Archive, http://www.richardfuchs.org.nz/archive_who.php and the film-documentary The Third Richard by Danny Mulheron and Sara Stretton also provide information.

49. “Richard Salomon Fuchs – Alien Registration Certificate No. 12554”. Dora Fuchs ‘Biographische Skizze: February 1970’,” [AR25552; ME162] Courtesy of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York.

50. Andreas Schwarting, “Karlsruhe und der Dammerstock: Architektonische Wechselwirkungen,” in Neues Bauen der 20er Jahre, eds. Brigitte Franzen and Peter Schmitt (Karlsruhe: Info Verlag, 1997), 69.

51. Sedley, “Richard Fuchs,” 22.

52. Schwarting, “Karlsruhe und der Dammerstock,” 71.

53. “Entwerfen heißt, die einfachste Erscheinungsform für ein Bauprogramm zu finden, wobei ‘einfach’ natürlich mit Bezug auf das Formenkleid zu verstehen ist.” Schwarting, “Karlsruhe und der Dammerstock,” 75.

54. “Notes for File: Ernst Ludwig Gerson,” [R22532791AAAR49376/1941/50/1108] DIA-TTT and Eva Rawnsley “A Brief History of the life of my father Ernest Gerson”, Stockade 34 (2001): 19.

55. Commissioner of Police “Ernest Ludwig Gerson – Applicant for naturalisation, 11 June 1946,” [R23434024 AAAC489110/AL11162] DIA-TTT and F. M. Hanson, Commissioner of Works, “Certificate for Ernst Gerson providing details about his position at the Ministry of Works, 4 April 1956,” Wolfgang Voigt Collection, Frankfurt.

56. Voigt ed., Hans und Oskar Gerson, 9.

57. Ernst Gerson, Memoirs From Siberia manuscript: July 1964, accessed September 11, 2015, https://fonetikli.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/memoirs-from-siberia/.

58. Hartmut Frank, “Baukunst, Monumentalität und Heimatschutz: Die Architektur der Brüder Gerson und die Hamburger Schule,” in Hans und Oskar Gerson, ed. Voigt, 47–48.

59. Frank, “Baukunst,” 47–48

60. Hans und Oskar Gerson, ed. Voigt, 15.

61. “Gerson: Statement,” DIA-TTT.

62. Peter Josef Belli, Das Lautawerk der Vereinigte Aluminium-Werke AG (VAW) von 1917 bis 1948 (Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2012), 91ff and 123.

63. J. Kassner, “Höhepunkte Chemnitzer Architektur der Zwanziger Jahre,” Chemnitz – im Wandel der Zeiten, accessed January 13, 2016, http://www.altes-chemnitz.de/chemnitz/architektur1920er.htm.

64. “Cohn: Statement”, DIA-TTT.

65. Helmut Weihsmann, “Red Vienna or ‘Red Glow on the Horizon’,” in Architektur des Roten Wien, ed. Walter Zednicek (Wien: Verlag Walter Zednicek, 2009), 11; Architekturzentrum Wien, Architektur in Österreich, 68–85.

66. Fritz Feuer, “Das Einküchenhaus,” Das Österreichische Bauwesen (1928), 64.

67. Weblexikon der Wiener Sozialdemokratie, “Heimhof: 15 Pilgerimgasse 22–24,” accessed October 2, 2015, http://www.dasrotewien.at/heimhof.html.

68. Antje Senarclens de Grancy, ‘Moderner Stil’ und ‘Heimisches Bauen’ (Wien, Köln, Weimar: Böhlau, 2001), 397–403.

69. Feuer, “Das Einküchenhaus,” 64.

70. Schumann, “Otto Rudolf Polak-Hellwig.”

71. Architekturzentrum Wien, Architektur in Österreich, 68–85.

72. Technische Universität Wien, “Technische Universität Wien, Universitätsarchiv, Hauptkatalog der Studierenden 1918–19, Matr. Nr. 37.”

73. Leach, Frederick H. Newman, 11ff.

74. It appears that Friedrich Neumann was not enrolled at the Ecole nationale supérieure des Beaux-arts as his name does not appear in archives. This might mean that he did not sit or pass the entry test or that he visited the school as an extra-mural student in Camille Lefèvre’s studio. Pers. Comm. Marie-Hélène Colas-Adler, Responsable des Dessins d'Architecture, Collections, Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-arts, Paris 1 October 2013.

75. Leach, Frederick H. Newman, 11ff.

76. Leach, Frederick H. Newman, 10.

77. Technische Universität Wien, “Universitätsarchiv, Hauptkatalog der Studierenden 1918–19, Matr. Nr. 178”; Vera J. Behalova, “Beitrag zu einer Kulka-Forschung,” Bauforum 7, no. 43 (1974): 22.

78. Burkhardt Rukschcio and Roland Schachel, Adolf Loos: Leben und Werk (Wien: Residenz Verlag, 1987), 337.

79. Rukschcio and Schachel, Adolf Loos, 356 and 366.

80. Tanja Poppelreuter, “Raumplan after Loos: The European Work of Heinrich Kulka, 1930–1939,” Fabrications 25, no. 1 (2015), 84–103.

81. New Zealand Police, Aliens & Special Branch, Detective Office, Auckland, “Report of Senr. Det. E. A. Stevenson, No. 2627, 20 July 1946 relative to Heinrich Kulka – application for Naturalization,” [C554349AAAC 489239/AL21954] DIA-TTT.

82. “Aliens Tribunal: To the honourable the Attorney-General, Wellington, 10 September 1940. Ernst Anton Plischke,” [R23434399AAAC489128/AL12312] DIA-TTT.

83. “The Under-Secretary: Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington, 13 May 1946,” [R23434399AAAC489 128/AL12312] DIA-TTT.

84. Under-Secretary, “Memorandum for The Hon. Minister, 12 June 1942,” [R22531247AAAR4934/1940/50/17] DIA-TTT.

85. Eva B. Ottilinger, “Lehrjahre eines Architekten (1903–1928),” in Ernst Plischke, eds. Ottilinger and Sarnitz, 25.

86. Achleitner, “Die gekoepfte Architektur,” 197.

87. August Sarnitz, “Die Neue Welt und das Neue Wien (1929–1939),” in Ottilinger and Sarnitz, Ernst Plischke, 49.

88. Ernst Anton Plischke, Ein Leben mit Architektur (Wien: Löcker Verlag, 1989), 136.

89. Tanja Poppelreuter, Das Neue Bauen für den Neuen Menschen (Hildesheim: Olms Verlag, 2008), 121ff.

90. Achleitner, “Die gekoepfte Architektur,” 196.

91. Achleitner, “Die gekoepfte Architektur,” 196.

92. Leach, “Jewish Culture.”

93. Dogramaci, Kulturtransfer, 20–21; Leach “Helmut Einhorn,” 59.