Oswald Mathias Ungers (* 1926)

A lover of beauty in simplicity will find his own archetypes and geometry. Designing buildings, he will let these images appear in ever new forms, for Oswald Mathias Ungers was able to break down the contradictions between Goethe and geometry.

Oswald M. Ungers was born at Kaiseresch in the Eifel region on 12 July 1926, studied architecture at the Technische Hochschule in Karlsruhe from 1947 to 1950 and, after successfully completing his studies, opened an architect's office in Cologne and Berlin. He taught as a professor at the Technische Universität Berlin from 1963 to 1969, then at Cornell University in Ithaca, of which he was Chairman from 1975 to 1986. In between times, he held other professorships, including one at Harvard University, before becoming Professor at the Kunstakademie (academy of arts) in Dusseldorf from 1986 to 1990.

Oswald M. Ungers was guided by the motto "variety in unity", which shaped his morphological thoughts and deeds. First, one identifies archetypes that are reshaped differently each time - so that the differences arising are not just mere dissimilarities but rather diverse variations on the common archetype and idea. By these means, a unity is achieved based on the fundamental, conceived archetype, though not in the buildings created, which would otherwise just be stereotypes. Ungers cites the example of the growth of a plant, and his ideas do indeed remind us of Goethe's: "All the designs are similar - yet none is the same. The chorus suggests a common law."

Ungers discovered this law in geometry, and in the simple figures, such as straight lines, triangles, squares, circles, cubes, and cylinders that form the starting point of architectural design, determining the size and shape of the buildings and their rooms. This design does not arise arbitrarily outside of time and space, and to be more precise, Ungers stresses that architecture is tied to a location, to its history and spirit, and must be integrated in what is there. The differing circumstances have to be accepted (with all their shortcomings) because architecture cannot be detached from historical reality. Nevertheless, forms that have once been created cannot stay unchanged for ever but instead have to be restructured so that something new arises in the sense of transformation theory, and that the old is re-fashioned. The location should not become motionless and dead but movable and living, through being brought to life and re-lived via a different perception.

Transcending mere intentions, Unger above all succeeded in being able to put his ideas on architecture into practice convincingly and in his own style. Two of many impressive examples are the German Architectural Museum in Frankfurt am Main, and the residence of the German Ambassador in Washington, which it was Ungers' intention to represent more than just a mere functional building by being a "Mirror of German building culture" and a visiting card to present to the host country.

It is both his observations on the subject of architecture and his architecture itself that makes one instinctively wish that an architect like Oswald Mathias Ungers would re-shape Berlin's Schlossplatz, the site of the former City Palace.

Lit.: Architektur 1951-1990. Stuttgart 1991. - Bauten und Projekte 1991-1998 Stuttgart 1998. - 10 Kapitel über Architektur. Ein visueller Traktat. Cologne 1999.

[F. H.]