Martin Elsaesser


Martin Elsaesser was a German architect and professor of architecture. He is especially well known for the many churches he built.

Life

From 1901 to 1906, Elsaesser studied architecture at the Technical University of Munich under Friedrich von Thiersch and the Technical University of Stuttgart under Theodor Fischer. In 1905 he won the competition for the Lutheran church of Baden-Baden and started to be active as a freelance architect.
From 1911 to 1913 he served as an assistant to Professor Paul Bonatz, at Stuttgart Technical University. In 1913, he became professor for medieval architecture at the same institution.
From 1920 to 1925 he was managing director of the School of Arts and Crafts at Cologne. In 1925, Ernst May, then government building surveyor in Frankfurt am Main, made him chief of the city's municipal building department whis was responsible for the New Frankfurt project. Elsaesser kept that post until 1932. His largest construction during his time at Frankfurt was the Grossmarkthalle.
During the reign of National Socialism, Elsaesser did not receive any commissions. Nonetheless, he did not opt for emigration; instead he spent the war years in internal exile, pursuing architectural study tours and utopian designs.
After the war, he was professor of design at Munich Technical University from 1947 to 1956.
Many of his churches contain paintings by the artist Käte Schaller-Härlin.
His grandson is the international film historian Thomas Elsaesser.

Buildings (selection)