Bruno Möhring

Bruno Möhring (11 December 1863 – 25/26 March 1929) was a German architect, urban planner, designer and a professor in Berlin. He was one of the most important architects of the Jugendstil style in Germany. He received his education at the Technische Hochschule in Charlottenburg.

Early life Möhring was born on 11 December 1863, at Königsberg (East Prussia) to Karl Theodor Möhring and Maria Dorothea Kretschmann Möhring (Kretschmann). His father was an accountant and attorney. After completing the gymnasium in Königsberg, Möhring spent a year training as an apprentice to a builder. He then studied architecture at the Königlich Technische Hochschule in Charlottenburg. His tutors at the institute were Hermann Ende, Carl Schäfer, Johannes Otzen and Johann Eduard Jacobsthal (well known as the architect of major bridges). As part of his training in architecture, Möhring toured Italy and places of medieval German architecture in Nuremberg. His visit to Italy helped him to gain knowledge of the historical development of architecture.

Career Möhring, who was more interested in practical than theoretical aspects of architectural design, started his career as a staff architect with the Berlin Offices for Civil Engineering. Here, between 1888 and 1890, he honed his skills in construction and material technology. In 1910, apart from bridges, he became associated with urban planning, working in Greater Berlin with associates, Rudolf Eberstadt and Richard Petersen. He and his colleagues developed plans for the Südgelände in Schöneberg and the central district of Berlin-Treptow. In contrast to his German contemporaries who were disturbed by the lack of uniformity in the dimensions and designs of the high-rises, he expressed a preference for buildings of different heights, saying it would be "unbearable" to occupy an environment of "office buildings [that] were all of the same size". He suggested that competitions to have the tallest building "gave life to the city".

He was a member of several professional organisations, such as the Berlin Architects' Association (VBA) (in 1891), the Architects Association of Berlin (GCI), a member of the Deutscher Werkbund (DWB), the German Association for Arts and Crafts, and many more. In the yearbooks of 1912 and 1913, he is mentioned as a local steward for the District of Berlin. A Möhring building from the 1902 Düsseldorf Industry and Trade Exposition was brought to Mexico City and now houses the Chopo University Museum of contemporary art.

Personal life Möhring married Anna Burghardt (1866–1939). They had three sons. Hans Joachim was the youngest who died in 1907 as a child. His second son, Bruno, born in 1899, died in the First World War. Their eldest son, born in 1897, also became an architect like his father, inherited his legacy, but died prematurely in 1945 and could not live long to promote his father's Jugendstil architecture.

During the last stages of his life, Bruno Möhring suffered from many illnesses. He died in Berlin on 25/26 March 1929.