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I n the 19th century, architecture gradually acquired the status of a university discipline;
this development culminated in the right to award doctorates and the introduction of
the “Diplom” degree, which also gave those “private architects” not employed by the state
an academic qualification. Emilie Winkelmann, who was born in 1875 in Aken, not far
from Dessau, and died in 1951 in Hovedissen nr. Bielefeld, was the first woman in
Germany to embark on a career as a freelance architect on the back of this situation. The
various stages in her biography have been well researched : A quiet childhood followed
by a trades apprenticeship and employment in her grandparents’ carpentry and construc-
tion business. Ultimately, her brother having had to sell the firm he had taken over from
his grandfather, and the young Emilie Winkelmann clearly not striving for the conventional
middle-class existence of a wife supported by her husband, she became proactive and
studied Architecture. It was a highly courageous act, as around the year 1900, women in
Germany were actually still not eligible to enroll as students at scientific universities;
where appropriate, they could attend certain lectures and seminars, for each of which,
however, they needed special dispensation. Emilie Winkelmann managed to enroll at the
Technical University in Hanover. Starting in 1902 she attended the five-year degree cour-
se in architecture, though only as a guest student, in other words without the possibility Foto: Bodo Kubrak
of gaining an official qualification. She was refused admittance to the final “Diplom”
degree. Thereupon, she left Hanover and in 1907 opened an architecture studio in the boo- Ohne Pathos • Without pathos: Landhaus Bennaton in Berlin-Westend (1926)
ming Großstadt Berlin; in the early years in particular the company was very successful,
with at times up to 15 employees. Because the professional title “architect” was only pro-
Zeichenhaft • Emblematic: Leistikowhaus in Charlottenburg (1910)
tected of the Reichskulturkammer (Reich Chamber of Culture) in 1933 , she was legally
allowed to call herself “Architektin” (woman architect), but could not use the academic
title “Diploma Engineer”. After 1918, it became considerably harder to find clients, but
thanks to her high profile and the personal contacts she had by now established – in
which the women’s movement also played an important role – Winkelmann, despite
serious health problems, was able to keep her head above water economically until the
1940s. So in the final analysis she worked as a freelance architect for some 30 years,
during which time she completed a large number of highly diverse projects: country hou-
ses and villas for the wealthy Berlin society, manors and agricultural buildings for the
north German landed gentry, ceremonial halls and event venues, multi-storey residences,
communal facilities and residential homes, exhibition buildings and show homes, as well
as factory buildings, warehouses, and the conversion of a guest house. She also took part
in important exhibitions and in 1914 provided a preliminary design for the planned
German cultural building (“House of Friendship”) in Istanbul. In 1928, aged 49, she was
admitted to the Association of German Architects (BDA). Unfortunately, there is still no
detailed catalogue raisonné: The Berlin studio was destroyed in World War II, and many
building records have also been obliterated. As such we are first and foremost familiar
with Emilie Winkelmann’s oeuvre thanks to its reception at the time and clients’ recollec- Foto: Bodo Kubrak
tions, as well as short lists of her projects she was occasionally asked for.

The long 19th Century – Development of the Tried and Tested

Emilie Winkelmann grew up during the days of the German Reich and studied
Architecture at a time when the Wilhelmine state was at its political and economic
zenith. As such she was influenced by the era on both a personal and professional level, Mit freundlicher Genehmigung der Herausgeber wurden der gekürzte Textbeitrag und
and a lot speaks in favor of her, after 1918, having remained committed to that particular die Abbildungen entnommen aus:
business model and the attitudes prevalent at the time, as well as to the clientele she
worked for as an architect. The formally avant-garde, but technically and in terms of
craftsmanship not always convincing impression New Building made was obviously not Frau Architekt
her thing; she was always concerned with objectivity, with discreet evolution, and the
sustainable advancement of the tried and tested. As such, the “Haus der Frau” at the Seit mehr als 100 Jahren:
Book Trade Exhibition in Leipzig in 1914, the only one of the many buildings designed by Frauen im Architekturberuf
Winkelmann to look just like “reform architecture”, was unusual for her work. For Emilie
Winkelmann, other key concepts that also dominated architectural discourse in the 1910s
and 1920s, such as typification and series, the beginning of the industrialization of con- Frau Architekt
struction and the unity of art and engineering were seemingly of just as little significance Herausgeber: Mary Pepchinski, Christina Budde, Wolfgang
as were fundamental conceptual questions and ideas about architectural and moral Voigt, Peter Cachola Schmal – Deutsches Architekturmuseum,
truth: She was a passionate architect, but she did not have a mission. She was most defi- Frankfurt/Main. Erschienen 2017 im Ernst Wasmuth Verlag,
nitely not lacking in an awareness of her own value, but her life and death make clear Tübingen, Berlin. Deutsch/Englisch. 113 Seiten. Hardcover.
that a new profession that has not yet become socially established need not necessarily Format: 24,5 x 30,5 cm. 48 Euro
have anything to do with new programmatic standards and effective public appearance. ISBN 978 3 8030 0829 9 (Buchhandelsausgabe)
She was certainly a pioneer, but at the same a quiet member of society. ISBN 978 3 8030 0828 2 (Museumsausgabe)

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