Architect Hans Hopp (1890–1971): at the sources of formation of the center of modern Kaliningrad

Abstract

The article is devoted to the constructions of the architect Karl Gustav Hans Hopp (1890–1971), who was actively building in the 1920s in the capital of East Prussia Konigsberg (modern Kaliningrad). H. Hopp was one of the few adherents of the avant-garde who worked in the remote conservative province of Germany. The structures created by him mark the center of the city, which has shifted from the territory of the former Koenigsberg castle and built in its place in 1974 by the House of Soviets (architect J. Schwarzbreim) to the modern Victory Square, which took the place of the Eastern Fair. As the head of the Technical Department of the fair, which played an important role in the revival of economic relations between Germany and Russia, the architect erected a number of structures in difficult years after the end of the First World War. Buildings in the style of restrained expressionism with elements of Art Deco – Torgovy Dvor for the companies participating in the fair (modern city hall building) and the Technique House (modern shopping center “Epicenter”) determine the boundaries and the imagery of the central part of the capital of the Kaliningrad region. The master adhered to radical innovative views on the formal nature of contemporary art, organized in his apartment gallery an exhibition of the representative of early expressionism P. Moderson-Becker, was friends with the author of the study “Abstraction and Feeling” V. Warringer, who taught in Koenigsberg from 1928–1944 university. The monumental buildings of the architect are decorated with expressionist works of the sculptor G. Brachert (1890–1972). In the late 1920s, the architect became interested in the formal techniques of the Bauhaus school and decorated Koenigsberg with unusual buildings for the city (Craft School for Girls, Park Hotel and others).