Ludwig Bohnstedt

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Franz Ludwig Carl Bohnstedt (27 October 1822,

In the late 1840s, he was appointed a Court Architect; helping to restore Royal properties on the Kamenny Islands, and at Oranienbaum. In 1850, he married Olga van der Vliet (1833–1906). They had five children, including Ernst (1851–1908), a manufacturing director, Alfred (1854–1906), who also became an architect, and Ida (1858–1916), a painter. From 1851 to 1854, he was the Russian government's chief architect. After 1858, he was a Councilor and Professor at the Imperial Academy. During this time, he entered numerous design competitions, mostly in Germany, but also in England, Spain and Italy.

This focus on Germany, as well as health considerations, led him to

The following year, he entered what would become his most important competition; designing a new building for the Reichstag, in Berlin. Over one-hundred architects submitted entries. His design was awarded first prize. Due to unresolved political and financial issues, construction was postponed indefinitely. Some of those involved may have been uncomfortable with his foreign origin.^[1] In any event, he put the matter out of his mind and went on to other competitions; winning one for the new headquarters of the Bank of Finland in 1876. In the meantime, he also became a member of the Prussian Academy (1874), and an honorary member of the Amsterdam Building Academy (1875).

Then, in 1881, the Reichstag project was revived but, instead of using his design, a new competition was announced. His attempts to reverse this decision were to no avail. Many of his colleagues failed to support him, saying that his nearly ten-year-old designs were now obsolete. He reluctantly submitted a reworking of his plans. They received little attention and, in 1882, the contract went to Paul Wallot, an architect from Frankfurt. In 1883, he became ill and suffered a stroke that left him unable to work. He lingered until January, 1885.

References

Further reading

• "Ludwig Bohnstedt" (obituary), In: Zentralblatt der Bauverwaltung [de], 1885, #2, pg.15 (online)
• "Ludwig Bohnstedt" (obituary), In: Deutsche Bauzeitung, 1885, #19 (online)
• Max Berbig (1903), "Bohnstedt, Ludwig", Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (in German), vol. 47, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 84–87
• Dieter Dolgner: Architektur im 19. Jahrhundert. Ludwig Bohnstedt, Leben und Werk, Hermann Bohlaus Nachfolger, Weimar, 1979

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ludwig Bohnstedt.

• Literature by and about Ludwig Bohnstedt in the German National Library catalogue
• Biography @ Park Hohenrode-Nordhausen
• Biography @ the City of Gotha website