Der Architekt Paul Schneider-Esleben

Doctoral thesis on architect Paul Schneider-Esleben in German.

Heinrich Klotz described Paul Schneider-Esleben's architecture, with its reflexive response to the prevailing historical context, as a microcosm of architectural history. With his glass multi-story car park in Düsseldorf, which quickly gained worldwide acclaim in the early 1950s, the young architect revived the Modernist movement, which had been expelled from Germany in 1933.

The Mannesmann Tower in Düsseldorf, built between 1955 and 1958, drew on the lessons of Mies van der Rohe's work in American exile and created the German prototype of the glass high-rise. Schneider-Esleben also set standards in single-family housing, school, and church construction during the 1950s. In the 1960s, he turned to Brutalism, experimented with new techniques, and developed the first functionally satisfactory airport in Europe in Cologne-Wahn, a model for many subsequent facilities. In this monograph on the multi-talented Schneider-Esleben, presented here by Rolf Beckers, an attempt is made to support Heinrich Klotz's thesis by situating Schneider-Esleben within his historical context.