Schilling & Graebner (or Gräbner) was an architecture firm based in Dresden, Germany, founded by the architects Rudolf Schilling (1859–1933) and Julius Graebner (1858–1917) in 1889. The firm was under their direction from 1889 until Graebner's death, but continued to exist until 1947, most notably under Graebner's son Erwin (1895–1945). The firm, which initially devoted itself primarily to historicism and later to Art Nouveau and early modernism, worked on mainly buildings in Saxony, including several noteworthy churches, Dresden villas, administrative buildings and entire residential districts. One of the firms' most important works is the Christuskirche in Dresden (1903–1905), which arguably marks the transition of sacral architecture in Germany from historicism to modernity.

Early life and formation of the partnership

Both Schilling and Graebner had met each other when they were just over 20 years old around 1881 while studying architecture at the Polytechnikum Dresden. Even when they initially went their separate ways after completing their training, they did not lose touch, especially since they both worked in Berlin in two different offices in the mid-1880s. The two architects, who were roughly the same age, complemented each other very well. Together they were a formidable and very versatile team, as evidenced by the fact that they not only designed very complex buildings, but they also showed great stylistic differences amongst their entire oeuvre. Schilling, as the son of the well-known sculptor Johannes Schilling, provided the necessary start-up capital and contacts to numerous potential clients. Graebner's strength, on the other hand, was more artistic design. Schilling and Graebner hired several trained architects in their firm over the years, including Oswald Bieber, Heino Otto and Johannes Rascher. During the late nineteenth century, their biggest local competitors were probably William Lossow and Fritz Schumacher. At that time, Schilling and Graebner were the leading architects of the fifth largest city in the German Empire. They were generally considered within the first rank of German architects and were particularly regarded as experts in contemporary Protestant church architecture. They were also inspired in their work by suggestions from Franz Wilhelm Dibelius and Cornelius Gurlitt.

Stylistic evolution

At first, Schilling & Graebner preferred late historicism in their works in Dresden. Their first building commission, the Pieschen town hall, completed in 1891, shows clear features of the Neo-Renaissance, as well as the Villa Muttersegen built in 1891 in Blasewitz or the Lutherkirche in Radebeul. In the years before the turn of the century, Schilling and Graebner also designed neo-baroque buildings, such the commercial building called the Imperial Palace for Hermann Ilgen at Pirnaischer Platz that burned in 1945 during the bombing of Dresden and was later demolished. In 1895 they also designed the neo-baroque interior of the Schellenberger City Church of St. Peter, which was destroyed after a fire. and around 1900 that of the Dresden Kreuzkirche. The latter also showed a significant influence from Jugendstil. For a long time, Schilling and Graebner represented the views in line with the development of Heimatschutz Architecture as it emerged around the turn of the century. With their practice flourishing, in 1899 Schilling and Graebner bought the large winery of Altfriedstein in the present Radebeul district of Dresden and developed the site by laying roads and parcelling the abandoned wine-growing areas into a "Villa Colony Altfriedstein." To do this, they tore down the west wing of the mansion and all the outbuildings of the winery and redesigned the west gable of the remaining east wing. Among other things, they built a pedestrian passage through the corner of the building on the ground floor. From 1902 until the First World War they built numerous villas and country houses there, many of them in the Heimatschutzstil, also called the "Reform Architecture Style." After about 1902, Schilling and Graebner tried to overcome historicism and turned more to a kind of proto-modernism, which was particularly difficult in church building due to the Eisenach regulations that applied there. The first signs of modernity are the residential buildings built in the early twentieth century for the Dresdner Spar- und Bauverein with their austere facades and high functionality. The Christuskirche in Strehlen, built in 1903–05, went far beyond Art Nouveau and points in this direction, which is also very clearly expressed in the Zionskirche in the Dresden Südvorstadt built in 1912–14, but partially destroyed in 1945. This pioneering work also meant that the two architects were invited to join several professional associations. Graebner was member of the directorate of the Dürerbund. As members of the Deutscher Werkbund Schilling and Graebner designed many of their later villas, public and sacral buildings according to the principles of modernity as propagated by this association of artists and industry. The former Zionskirche, built from 1908 to 1912 and destroyed in 1945, was an extraordinary example of this architectural style. However, despite this general line of evolution, it is worth noting Schilling and Graebner also liked to experiment with mixtures of styles.

Work after 1917

After Julius Graebner died in 1917, the firm was continued by his son Erwin Graebner, who returned from the Western Front in October 1918, and replaced his father in partnership with Rudolf Schilling. During this period, further plans for larger buildings such as the Kriegersiedlung in Trachau and the development on the west side of Aachener Strasse in Dresden were implemented. Schilling died in 1933 and Erwin Graebner ran the office alone from then on. During this time he developed, among other things, the plans for several factory buildings of the Leipziger Kammgarnspinnerei, which were blown up in 2007 and captured on video. In 1947, two years after Erwin Graebner's death, the firm was finally dissolved.

Selected works

Villas

Churches

Houses in Dresden

Other buildings and projects