Probably Hugo Schmölz
and Anonymous
Professor Karl Wach, Düsseldorf. Bauten und Entwürfe
c. 1920-27
Portfolio containing 55 vintage gelatin silver prints. From 8.4 x 16 cm (9 x 17 cm) to 22.6 x 17 cm (23.1 x 17.6 cm), both portrait and landscape formats. Mounted to a total of 49 original cards, each consecutively numbered '1' to '49' in ink lower right (no 31 and 32 not included). Together with printed list of contents in original folder with printed title. - Few prints with slight oxidation mirroring. Folder and cards with slight traces of usage..
The elaborate, artistically designed presentation portfolio was probably created around 1927, shortly before the architect Karl Wach (1878-1952) from Düsseldorf founded an office partnership with the government building officer Heinrich Rosskotten, the architectural office 'Wach & Rosskotten'.
The portfolio documents 15 of the most important, award-winning competitions and projects by Wach to date, as e.g. the competition for the town hall in Düsseldorf and the competition for the Frauenfriedenskirche in Frankfurt a.M. (1926). The characteristic exterior and detailed views can probably be ascribed to Hugo Schmölz who worked for Wach and his later partner. Schmölz also produced stylistically comparable photographs for the GAG [real estate] in Cologne in the 1920s. Karl Wach, who taught at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, belongs to the 'most important and committed representatives of a moderate modernism in the Rhine/Ruhr area whose work has not been adequately acknowledged to date”. (cit. after Christian Welzbacher, Die Staatsarchitektur der Weimarer Republik, Berlin 2006, p. 311)
Further images on request