Rudolf Schwarz

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Schwarz, Rudolf (1897–1961). German church-architect. He studied under Poelzig in Berlin. He worked with Dominikus Böhm on the prize-winning unexecuted design for a church in Frankfurt (1926–7), and Böhm's influence is clear in Schwarz's Corpus Christi Church, Aachen (1928–30), a simple white building with a black altar on a platform reached by a flight of steps. He published a work on church-design in 1938 in which he discussed the relationships of plans, structures, and congregations. After the 1939–45 war he designed a great number of churches, many with reinforced-concrete frames, the spaces filled with brick, glass, and stone. Chief among his works are St Anna, Düren (1951–6), St Michael, Frankfurt (1953–4), and the Church of the Holy Family, Oberhausen (1956–8). 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 was involved in the reconstruction of several German cities after 1945, notably Cologne (where he designed the Wallraf-Richartz Museum (1951–7) ).

Bibliography

K. Becker (1981);
Kalman (1994);
Hammond (ed.) (1962);
Hasler (2000);
Kidder-Smith (1964);
Placzek (ed.) (1982);
Pehnt (1997);
R. Schwarz (1958, 1968);
M. Schwarz & and Conrads (1979);
Stegers (2000);
E. Teague (1985a)