Hans Scharoun

German architect (Bremen, 20 September 1893 - Berlin, 25 November 1972)

Bernhard Hans Henry Scharoun (20 September 1893 – 25 November 1972) was a German architect best known for designing the Berliner Philharmonie (home to the Berlin Philharmonic) and the Schminke House in Löbau, Saxony. He was an important exponent of organic and expressionist architecture.

After the end of the Second World War he was appointed by the Allies to the city building council and named director of the Abteilung Bau- und Wohnungswesen des Magistrats (Department of Building and Municipal Housing). In an exhibition in the destroyed ruins of the Berliner Stadtschloss (Berlin City Palace) titled Berlin plant — Erster Bericht (Berlin Plans – First Report), he presented his conceptions for the reconstruction of Berlin. Immediately he found himself in a political no-man's land as the division of the city was becoming apparent.

In 1946 he became a professor at the faculty for architecture at the Technical University of Berlin, with a teaching post at the Lehrstuhl und Institut für Städtebau (Institute for Urban Building).
After the war he was able to realise his architectural understanding, both ambitious and humanistic, in exemplary buildings; e.g., in the Stuttgart apartment towers of Romeo and Julia (1954–59), in the Geschwister-Scholl-Gymnasium in Lünen (1956–62) and in the famed Philharmonic concert hall in Berlin (1956–63).

Common to all these buildings is a new kind of entrance to an extremely imaginative and socially differentiated organization of space.
The Philharmonic Concert Hall, internationally recognised as one of the most successful buildings of its kind, is considered as Scharoun's best work. Around the center of the music podium the ranks of spectators rise in irregularly placed terraces, (Read the article "The acoustics of concert halls") and the ceiling planes layer themselves like a tent-like firmament over the architectural landscape.

The German Embassy in Brasília (1963–69) remains the only building that he built outside of Germany.
Source: Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Scharoun