Otto Bartning (1883–1959 · architect)

Bartning was born in Karlsruhe in 1883. After taking his school-leaving exam in 1902, he began to study architecture at the technical university in Charlottenburg. He took a trip around the world in 1904 and continued his studies but did not complete them properly, due to unknown reasons. By the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Bartning had already built 18 churches in Germany. In 1918, he became a member of the Workers’ Art Council, the forerunner of the architects' association The Ring. Presented in 1922, his spectacular design of an Expressionist church, the Sternkirche, was never realised. Bartning became famous for a steel church built in Cologne in 1928. Besides houses of worship, he also designed clinics, residences, factory buildings and housing estates such as Siemensstadt. His name is synonymous with the reconstruction of the North Sea archipelago Helgoland. Bartning was honoured upon his death in Darmstadt in 1959.