Heinrich Gentz

Heinrich Gentz was a German Neoclassical architect.

Family

He was the second son of Johann Friedrich Gentz, master of a mint in the city who became general mint director in Berlin in 1779 and was friends with Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Immanuel Kant, Moses Mendelssohn and Christian Garve. On his mother's side Heinrich was a cousin of Jean Pierre Frédéric Ancillon, a government minister and tutor to the Prussian princes. Among his brothers, Friedrich became a publicist and historian based in Vienna as well as the closest member of Prince Metternich's staff, whilst Ludwig became secretary to the Prussian privy council, Minister for War in the Prussian Finance Ministry and a friend of Friedrich Gilly.

Life

He was born in Breslau and trained as an architect from 1783 to 1790 at the Berliner Kunstakademie under Carl von Gontard. He took a grand tour to Italy between 1790 and 1795, including three and a half years in Rome and a long period studying Magna Grecia ruins in Sicily, meeting Aloys Hirt in Italy and writing a detailed report of these travels. He then worked at the royal building office in Berlin and from 1796 onwards also at the Kunstakademie.
In 1799 he was one of the founder members of the Berliner Bauakademie, where he taught urban planning, and married Henriette Louise Philippine Holtzecker, daughter of Georg Holtzecker and Louise Friederike Sieberdt - they had no children. He was released from his posts in Berlin thanks to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in 1801 and moved to Weimar, where he worked for Karl August on the Residenzschloss and other ducal buildings in Weimar and Bad Lauchstädt. While in Weimar Gentz became close friends with Goethe and got to know Friedrich von Schiller and Christoph Martin Wieland.
In 1803 he not only returned to Berlin but was made a member of the Kunstakademie's senate. As chief architect to the royal court, in 1810 he became the first director of the Berlin Palace building commission. Also in 1810 he joined with Hirt and Wilhelm von Humboldt to convert the Prinz-Heinrich-Palais into a university and joined the Gesetzlosen Gesellschaft zu Berlin, dying in the city the following year.

Architectural work

1798–1800: Royal Mint on the Friedrichwerderschen Markt in Berlin, demolished in 1886.
1800: Friedrich Gilly's tomb monument
1801–1803: Outbuildings at the Weimarer Stadtschloss
1802: Goethe-Theater in Bad Lauchstädt
1803: Kegeltor in Weimar
1803–1804: Reithaus and Schießhaus in Weimar
1804–1808: Gutshaus Beyme (aka the Gutshaus Steglitz or Wrangelschlösschen) in Berlin-Steglitz, in collaboration with David Gilly
1809–1811: Main Building of the Prinzessinnenpalais in Berlin
1810–1811: Mausoleum for Queen Luise in the Schlosspark Charlottenburg.

Unbuilt designs

1806: the Neue Wache in Berlin as part of the project to improve the area between Unter den Linden and the royal palace
1810: the Assembly Hall at the University of Berlin in the Prinz-Heinrich-Palais

Works

Briefe über Sizilien. In: Neue deutsche Monatsschrift 1795, S. 314–345.Beschreibung der für das Huldigungsfest bestimmten und ausgeführten Verzierungen. In: Jahrbuch der preußischen Monarchie 2, 1798, p. 467–476.Beschreibung des neuen Königlichen Münzgebäudes. In: Sammlung nützlicher Aufsätze und Nachrichten die Baukunst betreffend 4, 1800, 1, p. 14–26.

Michael Bollé, Karl-Robert Schütze : Heinrich Gentz. Reise nach Rom und Sizilien 1790–1795. Aufzeichnungen und Skizzen eines Berliner Architekten. Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-922912-57-5.