Josef Kaiser

Josef Kaiser (1 May 1910 – 5 October 1991) was an East German urban architect associated, in particular, with a number of the country's more high-profile building projects during the 1950s and 1960s. In 1946, following serious illness, he embarked on a career as an operatic tenor: five years later he returned to architecture.

Life

Josef Kaiser was born in Celje, a small town east of Laibach, then in Austria-Hungary and today in Slovenia. Between 1929 and 1935 he studied at the Deutsche Technische Hochschule Prag in Prague, then moving to Berlin where he worked with Otto Kohtz. He combined this with work for a less well known architect, Ernst Flemming, in Weimar. Between 1941 and 1945 Josef Kaiser was head of the "Basic conceptual planning" ("Grundrisstypenplanung") department at the "Germany Academy for Residential Housing" in Berlin-Buch. Between 1955 and 1958 he worked in the office of East Berlin's chief architects. Between 1956 and 1958 he also undertook important commissions in the west, including apartment blocks in Essen, Mannheim and West Berlin. Patriotic Order of Merit in silver