Johann Poppe

Johann Georg Poppe (12 September 1837 – 18 August 1915), often called Johannes Poppe by English-speaking writers, was a prominent architect in Bremen during the German Gründerzeit and an influential interior designer of ocean liners for Norddeutscher Lloyd. He worked in an eclectic mixture of historical revival styles sometimes called "Bremen Baroque".

Poppe was born in Bremen into a family with a heritage as architects; his father was also a cabinetmaker. From 1855 to 1859, he studied architecture at the Polytechnic School in Karlsruhe, forerunner of the University of Karlsruhe. From 1860 to 1861 he practised architecture in Berlin; he worked under Hermann Friedrich Waesemann on the Rotes Rathaus. But from 1863 on, he worked in Bremen. He was greatly influenced by six years of travel and studying in Italy, Greece, and especially France, where he lived for some time in Paris.

He acquired a reputation by building large public buildings, including the Bremen waterworks (1873), library (1896), Cotton Exchange (1902) and Rice Exchange (1904). He was chief architect for the Nordwestdeutsche Gewerbe- und Industrieausstellung (Northwest German Trade and Industry Exhibition) of 1890; the Festival Hall for this was later known as the Park House. In 1883 he oversaw the redesign of the upper chamber of the Town Hall of Bremen, including one of its three doors, and in 1903 designed new seats for the city councillors; like most of his work, this has been much altered since.

He also designed numerous villas and country houses for the elite of Bremen, mostly in the Horn and Oberneuland districts which at the time lay outside the city. Most of these have since been demolished. He rebuilt Villa Ichon and lived there for many years.

From 1881 to 1907, Poppe was chief interior designer for the ocean liners of Norddeutscher Lloyd, the first "lay" (non-marine) architect responsible for entire ships, and transformed them into floating hotels. He was responsible for the innovation of placing the first-class dining saloon in the centre of the ship, where it could be two or three decks high, lit by a giant skylight. Hired by Johann Lohmann, the director of the company, to do the interiors of the twelve Rivers class liners because of his preeminence as a designer, he first worked on the SS Elbe of 1881; only in 1906, when Poppe was seventy years old, did Lohmann's successor, Heinrich Wiegand, replace him with younger, progressive architects for some of the interiors on the SS Kronprinzessin Cecilie, but he was still responsible for her main public rooms. When Albert Ballin commissioned the first express liner for the rival Hamburg America Line, the Augusta Victoria, he hired Poppe to design the interior. The new headquarters building he designed for NDL (1901–1910) was at the time the largest building in Bremen.

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