Ludwig Levy

Ludwig Levy (18 April 1854 – 30 November 1907) was a German Jewish architect of the Historicist school. He designed a number of synagogues, amongst which was the huge Neue Synagoge in Strasbourg, as well as official buildings such as the ministries of Alsace-Lorraine on the Kaiserplatz in that same town.

Life and work Levy was born in Landau, Palatinate (then belonging to the Kingdom of Bavaria), the sixth child of Jonas Levy, a textile trader from Herxheim, and Barbara Levy, née Machhol, from Edesheim. His older brother Heinrich was a district engineer in Landau. Attracted towards the same profession, Levy started studying mathematics and engineering in Karlsruhe in 1870, to the displeasure of his father who had wished for him to study medicine instead.

After obtaining his degree in engineering in 1875 at the Polytechnical school of Karlsruhe, Levy took classes in architecture in the same school for one year. Between 1876 and 1881, he trained with architects in Mainz and Frankfurt, before leaving for a ten-month journey of architectural studies through Italy. Back in Frankfurt in 1882, he became an assistant to Paul Wallot, the architect of the Reichstag building. He moved to Kaiserslautern later the same year, where he lived and worked as an independent architect until 1886. The Protestant church of Bexbach (1888–1889) is today colloquially known as the "Levy-Kirche".

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