Hans Scharoun Bernhard Hans Henry Scharoun ( 20 September 1893 – 25 November 1972 ) was a German architect best known for designing the Berlin Philharmonic concert hall and the Schminke House in Löbau , Saxony . He was an important exponent of organic and expressionist architecture . Life . 1893 to 1924 . Scharoun was born in Bremen , German Empire . After passing his Abitur in Bremerhaven in 1912 , Scharoun studied architecture at the Technical University of Berlin until 1914 ( at the time called " Königliche Technische Hochschule " , the Royal Technical University of Berlin ) , but he did not complete his studies . He had already shown an interest in architecture during his school years . At the age of 16 he drafted his first designs , and at 18 he entered for the first time an architectural competition for the modernisation of a church in Bremerhaven . In 1914 he volunteered to serve in the First World War . Paul Kruchen , his mentor from his time in Berlin , had asked him to assist in a reconstruction program for East Prussia . In 1919 , after the war , Scharoun assumed responsibility for its office as a freelance architect in Breslau ( Wrocław ) . There and in Insterburg ( Chernyakhovsk ) , he realised numerous projects and organised art exhibitions , such as the first exhibition of the expressionist group of artists , Die Brücke , in East Prussia . 1925 to 1932 . He received a professorship at the " Staatliche Akademie für Kunst und Kunstgewerbe Breslau " ( Breslau Academy for Arts and Crafts ) where he taught until its closure in 1932 . In 1919 he had joined Bruno Taut ' s expressionist architects group the Glass Chain . In 1926 he entered the architects association Der Ring . In 1927 Scharoun built a house in the Stuttgart Weissenhof Estate . He had responsibility at the end of the twenties for the development plan of a large housing estate , Siemensstadt , in Berlin . Hugo Häring ' s theory of the " new building " inspired Scharoun in a new architectural direction that departed from rationalism and from preformulated schemata , in order to develop buildings starting in each case from a unique functional character . The organisation of social living space played a central role . 1933 to 1945 . During the Nazi era he remained in Germany , whilst many of his friends and colleagues from the Glass Chain or Der Ring went abroad . In this time he only built a few family houses , one of which is the remarkable Schminke house ( publicly accessible ) in the city of Löbau in Saxony ( 1933 ) . Subsequent houses had to adapt outwardly to politically determined construction specifications , while on the inside they displayed the typically Scharounian sequences of spaces . During the war he was busy with reconstruction after bomb damage . He recorded his architectural ideas and visions secretly in numerous watercolors . With these imaginary architectures he prepared mentally for a time after the Nazis . 1946 to 1972 . 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 school is planned like a small , child - friendly city , and the apartment towers allow for flexible allocation of space and function . 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 , 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 . After 1972 . Some of his most important buildings were only finished after his 1972 death in Berlin , including the " Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum " ( German Maritime Museum ) , the theatre in Wolfsburg and the " Staatsbibliothek " ( State Library ) in Berlin . The extension to the Berlin Philharmonic Concert Hall around the Kammermusiksaal and the " Staatliche Institut für Musikforschung Preußischer Kulturbesitz mit Musikinstrumentemuseum " ( Institute for Music Research and Musical Instrument Museum , Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation ) developed under the supervision of his office partner Edgar Wisniewski , who took over the office after Scharoun ' s death . During the 1980s , the facade of the Philharmonic Concert Halls was provided with a cladding of gold - anodized aluminum plates ; originally it was a white and ocher painted concrete facade . Scharoun ' s original designs had planned a similar cladding , which was not implemented at the time for cost reasons . After the reunification of Berlin Potsdamer Platz , adjacent to the east of the Kulturforum , was rebuilt ; by this Scharoun ' s designs concerning city redevelopment of the area could finally be recorded as complete . Awards and prizes . From 1955 to 1968 he was the president of the Berliner Akademie der Künste ( West ) ; in 1968 he was honorary president . He died , aged 79 , in West Berlin . Hans Scharoun was a founding member of the Paul Hindemith society in Berlin .