Heinz Mohl

Friedrich Weinbrenner and Heinrich Hubsch made Karlsruhe into a centre of European architecture even in the early nineteenth century. The Karlsruhe School still has an outstanding reputation today, deriving not least from Egon Eiermann's educational influence after the Second World War.Like his teacher Eiermann in his day, Heinz Mohl has for several decades been one of the most prominent architects in the German-speaking countries. Whether he is working on green field sites or in historically demanding contexts, Mohl's buildings always show a typological stringence and formal rigour that are rare even by international standards. Mohl's CEuvre is as richly faceted as it is noteworthy in terms of architectural theory, and his recherche typologique can be named in the same breath as the intellectual approach taken by architects like Oswald Mathias Ungers, Karljosef Schattner or Josef Paul Kleihues. A thorough and critical appreciation of Mohl is thus long overdue.This survey of the work and development of the Karlsruhe architect and academy teacher is intended to fill this gap with a wealth of material, some of it familiar, but a great deal that is largely unknown. Beyond this it is intended as an impressive demonstration of the outstanding significance of Mohl's architectural theory and practice precisely in times of ever more rapidly changing fashions and isms, as it vividly reflects the way in which a vigorous master builder is addressing the gradual disappearance of high-quality architectural creation from our everyday life.Frank R. Werner held the chair of building history and architectural theory at the Kunstakademie in Stuttgart from 1990 to 1993, since 1993he has been Director of the Institut fur Architekturgeschichte und Architekturtheorie at the Bergische Universitat in Wuppertal. He studied painting, architecture and architectural history at the Kunstademie in Mainz, the Technische Hochschule in Hanover and Stuttgart University.