Alfred Messel

Alfred Messel (22 July 1853 – 24 March 1909) was one of the most well-known German architects at the turning point to the 20th century, creating a new style for buildings which bridged the transition from historicism to modernism. Messel was able to combine the structure, decoration, and function of his buildings, which ranged from department stores, museums, office buildings, mansions, and social housing to soup kitchens, into a coherent, harmonious whole. As an urban architect striving for excellence he was in many respects ahead of his time. His most well known works, the Wertheim department stores and the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, reflect a new concept of self-confident metropolitan architecture. His architectural drawings and construction plans are preserved at the Architecture Museum of the Technical University of Berlin.

Alfred Messel was the third son of the banker Simon Messel. The family owned a bank which was later managed by Alfred’s brother Ludwig, first in Darmstadt and then, from the end of the 1870s, in Great Britain. In his youth Alfred Messel began a lifelong friendship with Ludwig Hoffmann, who later became a Berlin city planning official. In 1872 Messel graduated from the Ludwig-Georgs-Gymnasium in Darmstadt (with an Abitur), after which he served in the military as a one-year volunteer in the First Grand Ducal Hessian Royal Guard Infantry Regiment.

In 1873 he attended the Kassel art academy together with his friend Ludwig Hoffmann, followed by architectural studies at the Berlin Building Academy under Heinrich Strack and Richard Lucae. As a civil service trainee he then contributed to a new post office administration building on Spandauer Straße in Berlin designed by the architect Carl Schwatlo, before successfully passing his second state examination qualifying him as an assessor. In 1879 Messel became a member of the Berlin Architects Society, and in 1881 he won the prestigious Schinkel Prize for his plans for an exhibition building on the Tempelhofer Feld, a military parade ground in southern Berlin.

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