Richard Döcker

Richard Döcker (13 June 1894, Weilheim an der Teck – 9 November 1968, Stuttgart) was a German architect and professor associated with the functionalist style in architecture.

Döcker studied architecture at the Technical University of Stuttgart from 1912 to 1918 and completed the main diploma examination with honors. From 1914 to 1917 he was a volunteer soldier in the First World War. In 1921 he passed the second state examination in Stuttgart. From 1922 to 1924 he worked as an assistant to Paul Bonatz at the Technical University of Stuttgart, after which he received his doctorate in engineering (Dr.-Ing.) with a thesis on small house designs.

In 1926 he became a member of the artists' association The Ring and in the 1927 He was the director of the Weißenhofsiedlung construction site in Stuttgart. In 1928 he was appointed member of the German Werkbund and from the same year he worked at the Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM). In Stuttgart he also built the house for the physician and writer Friedrich Wolf. The building in the style of New Objectivity was rebuilt in 1935, destroyed in a bomb attack in 1945 up to the basement and rebuilt in a completely different form after the war.

The Waiblingen district hospital, built according to Döcker's plans between 1926 and 1928 (demolished in 1960), pointed the way. Docker's influential book “Terrace type. Hospital, nursing home, hotel, office building, single-family home, residential complex, tenement house and the city” was published in 1929. Döcker was also responsible for the second construction phase of the Wallmer housing complex in Stuttgart-Untertürkheim, which was built between 1929 and 1931.

From 1939 to 1941 Döcker studied biology at the Technical University of Stuttgart. From 1941 to 1944 he received a service assignment at the reconstruction office in Saarbrücken. In 1946 Döcker became general manager of buildings for the city of Stuttgart, but resigned from this post in 1947 after a dispute with mayor Arnulf Klett. He was elected chairman of the regional group of North Württemberg of the re-established Association of German Architects (BDA). From 1947 to 1960 he was professor of urban development and reconstruction at the Technical University of Stuttgart and head of the architecture department and from 1957 a member of the Berlin Academy of the Arts. In 1958 he taught at the Technical University of Karlsruhe. In the same year he retired and received an honorary doctorate from the university on 28 July 1958.
Source: Wikipedia