Alexander Baerwald
Encyclopedia
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...
best known for his work in Haifa
Haifa
Haifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...
, Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
.
Baerwald was born in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
on 3 March 1877. He studied at the Technische Hochschule Charlottenburg (1897-1901), interrupted by the summer semester 1898 at the Technische Hochschule of Munich. From 1903 to 1927 he was employed with the Prussian Construction and Financial Direction of Berlin, responsible for public constructions in Berlin. He advanced to become a Royal Ministerial Construction Councillor . One of his tasks was the construction management for the new building of the Prussian Royal Library , in Berlin between 1908 and 1913. The building known for its Neo Baroque architecture, following a design of the popular Wilhelmine
Wilhelmine
Wilhelmine is a term for the period of German history, also known as the German Empire. The term Wilhelmine Germany refers to the period running from the proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Kaiser at Versailles in 1871 to the abdication of his grandson Wilhelm II in 1918.Although the father of...
architect Ernst Eberhard von Ihne, adapted by Baerwald, is now the House I of the State Library at Berlin of Prussian Cultural Heritage
Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation
The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation , headquartered in Berlin, Germany, is one of the largest cultural institutions in the world. It was founded by a West German federal law passed on 25 July 1957, with the mission to acquire and protect the cultural legacy of the former state of Prussia...
, in Unter den Linden
Unter den Linden
Unter den Linden is a boulevard in the Mitte district of Berlin, the capital of Germany. It is named for its linden trees that line the grassed pedestrian mall between two carriageways....
street. After designing several other structures in the capital in the early 1910s, including his own villa in Berlin-Dahlem (1912), he moved to Ottoman Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
temporarily around 1912 where he began work in Haifa
Haifa
Haifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...
.
Baerwald is best known for designing the Technion University campus in Haifa, Israel between 1912 and 1924, for which he had been employed by the Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden (Relief association of the German Jews). He also designed the neighbouring building of the Beit Sefer haReali , a school to prepare pupils for a study at the Technion. Today the old Technion building forms part of the Israel National Museum of Science, Technology, and Space
Israel National Museum of Science, Technology, and Space
The Israel National Museum of Science, Technology, and Space is a science and technology museum in the city of Haifa, Israel....
. He became a Professor of Architecture at the Technion throughout much of his later life and he made a significant contribution to the Prussian academic discipline in the country.
In 1915 he built the moshav
Moshav
Moshav is a type of Israeli town or settlement, in particular a type of cooperative agricultural community of individual farms pioneered by the Labour Zionists during the second aliyah...
of Merchavya
Merhavia (moshav)
Merhavia a moshav in northern Israel. It falls under the jurisdiction of Jezreel Valley Regional Council and in 2006 had a population of 722. Founded in 1911, it was the first modern Jewish settlement in the Jezreel Valley....
after his designs. In 1924 he designed the Anglo-Palestine Bank department in Haifa, now operating as Bank Le'umi Le-Israel. He also designed numerous other buildings in Palestine, and in 1925 Baerwald had settled there permanently. There he was acclaimed for introducing academic architecture to the country.
By the late 1920s he had designed the Central Hospital, Afula
Afula
Afula is a city in the North District of Israel, often known as the "Capital of the Valley", referring to the Jezreel Valley. The city had a population of 40,500 at the end of 2009.-History:...
in 1928, and the Phillips House, in Haifa (1929–30) shortly before his death on 27 October 1930 in Haifa.