Thilo Schoder

He is called the most famous modernist architect in Thuringia. In fact, his buildings are most often found in Gera, furthermore in Altenburg and Hermsdorf, and only a few examples outside of Thuringia. So in Zwenkau, Saxony, one house each in the Czech Republic, Westphalia and Hesse. He also designed interiors.

Thilo Schoder studied from 1907 interior architecture at the Grand Ducal Saxon School of Applied Arts (Großherzoglich-Sächsische Kunstgewerbeschule) in Weimar, the predecessor institution of the Bauhaus. He granduated in 1911 and worked as an intern at the Grand Ducal Saxon Construction School in Weimar. He then completed a traineeship with Josef Hoffmann as a draftsman and worked in the fashion department of the Wiener Werkstätte. Schoder returned to Weimar in 1912 to work in the studio of his teacher Henry van de Velde.

In 1916 Schoder started to work in Gera. With numerous designs and the construction of a factory building, Schoder realized the connection between artistic and industrial production. He started to create the production hall of Golde automobile in Wiesestraße. In 1917 he was called up for military service. After the end of the First World War, Schoder became the most important architect of new building in the east of Thuringia. He was appointed to the Deutsche Werkbund in 1919 and to the Bund Deutscher Architekten, the most important association for German Architects, in 1922. But he was rarely in direct contact with the nearby Bauhaus in Weimar. It is assumed that he visited the first Bauhaus exhibition in Weimar in 1923. However, he experienced the inauguration ceremony of the Bauhaus Dessau in 1926. Although he didn't seem to be in contact with a other architects, he ordered the most important journals of the time. In March 1932, he gave up his office due to a lack of orders due to the global economic crisis and emigrated to Norway, the home country of his second wife Bergljot Schoder. In 1936 he received the Norwegian work permit as an architect and opened an architectural office in Kristiansand. In 1938 he assumed Norwegian citizenship.

From 1936, Schoder was involved in the expansion of the “Hannevik Terrassen” residential area: he drew up the general building plan and realized several residential buildings. His efforts to gain more influence in Norwegian architecture were interrupted by the German occupation of Norway in the Second World War. In 1940 Schoder was arrested by the Gestapo due to critical comments in the local press about political developments in Germany. He was then committed to planning work for the German Wehrmacht in Norway. Political rehabilitation in the post-war period enabled Schoder to join the Norwegian Chamber of Architects. With numerous residential and commercial buildings, Schoder became the leading architect in southern Norway and became a protagonist of Sørlandsmodernism.

Source: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thilo_Schoder, translated by Frank Dietze