Photo courtesy of LRO
With the wit and bonhomie that characterized him, Arno Lederer would say that he tried to avoid “the pallor of the corpse from modernity.” Perhaps in the trail of Behrens, Poelzig, and Mendelsohn, the Swabian architect sought to confer a sensual materialty on an otherwise merely pragmatic and painstakingly worked-out piece of architecture. Without venturing out of West Germany, first on his own and later in association with Jórunn Ragnarsdóttir and Marc Oei, he raised buildings whose expressive facades were invested with a serene gravitas that emphasized their civic purpose: an endeavor Lederer maintained until his death on 21 January this year, and defended through his brilliant teachings at the architecture schools of Karlsruhe and Stuttgart.
LRO: Wir trauern um Arno Lederer
