page_title: Oskar Kaufmann
section_title: Self-establishment
hierarchical_section_title: Oskar Kaufmann / Self-establishment
caption_attribution_description: Bremerhaven, Germany: Stadttheater (municipal theatre) Das abgebildete Objekt ist ein geschütztes Kulturdenkmal in der Freien Hansestadt Bremen, mit der Nr. 1552 beim Landesamt für Denkmalpflege registriert. → Datenbankeintrag
context_page_description: Oskar Kaufmann was a Hungarian-Jewish architect. He was an expert in construction and design and was active in Berlin beginning in 1900.
  Among his best-known works are the Krolloper, the Hebbel Theater and the Renaissance Theater, all in Berlin, the Neue Stadttheater in Vienna, and the Habima Theater in Tel Aviv.
context_section_description: From 1905 until 1908, Kaufmann worked on small projects in Sehring's office, such as a bed and breakfast in Berlin that would later be destroyed in World War II. He was also contacted to coordinate the décor for a bedroom used by the Wertheim company. This job put Kaufmann into contact with theater entrepreneur and director Eugen Robert. Robert commissioned Kaufmann to help him in the construction of a new theater he was planning, as Robert had been deeply impressed with the theater Kaufmann had built in Bielefeld. In connection with this and other works Kaufmann constructed while in Sehring's office, Kaufmann established his own architecture firm in 1908, on Luitpoldstraße in the Schöneberg section of Berlin. The firm later moved to Ansbacherstraße in Charlottenburg. The theater that Robert commissioned Kaufmann to build, the Hebbel Theater, gained Kaufmann his first widespread recognition. However, his perceived inexperience still counted against him, as he was not invited to make a bid on the renovation of the Stadttheater Bremerhaven. Only after one of the three architects invited to make a bid, Max Littmann, bowed out of the running, was Kaufmann invited to take his place.
  It was therefore significant when Kaufmann was selected, by a jury including such notable architects as Max Liebermann and Otto March, to design a new building for the Charlottenburg opera. However, for various reasons this never came to fruition. Nonetheless, his work on the Bremerhaven and Hebbel theaters, as well as his selection by the Charlottenburg jury, all served to give Kaufmann a strong reputation as a theater architect. When the decision to exclude Kaufmann from a competition to redesign the Royal Opera House in Berlin for the technical reason that he had not received German citizenship in his thirty years in Germany, was met with scorn and disagreement in the press and among architectural experts, his newfound reputation was only confirmed.
caption: Stadttheater Bremerhaven
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