Der Nachruf auf Josef Berger von Joanna Braithwaite, erschienen im „independent“,
sei in der Folge ungekürzt wiedergegeben:
JOSEPH BERGER was a notable exponent in Britain of the Viennese modernist school of archi-
tecture. A product of the Technische Hochschule, he brought the tradition of Adolf Loos to Bri
tain.
Like Freud, Loos, Karl Kraus and Mahler, Berger’s origins were in Moravia, now Czechoslovakia.
The exceilent Gymnasium education of the Austro-Hungarian empire, established under Maria
Theresia, was the catalyst which enabled boys like him, whose fathers were born in the provinces,
to emerge, in one generation, as Creative artists and intellectuals in Vienna.
Discharged from Service in the Austro-Hungarian army in 1917, after being wounded in the Italian
campaign, he behaved with characteristic independence and a degree of calculated recklessness
by making his own way down to the valley, without waiting for a stretcher. Later he was to visit the
same mountains armed only with paintbrushes and watercolours.
Berger began his architectural studies in 1917 at the Technische Hochschule under Adolf Loos
and Oskar Strnad. A protagonist of the Modern Movement, Loos was not only a brilliant architect
and designer, but also a formidable writer, friend of Karl Kraus the satirist and of many of the
leading figures who met and talked at the Cafe Central in pre-1914 Vienna. For Loos simple lines
were of paramount importance; superfluous ornamentation was anathema.
Joseph Berger would say quietly that Loos was not much of a teacher, but had the kind of Perso
nality that would leave its mark on his students: and his influence is perceptible in Berger’s archi
tectural projects. Oskar Strnad was, for him, the more stimulating. Strnad was a brilliant designer,
eclectic, very imaginative and a dedicated and commanding educator. He is seldom mentioned
outside Austria. One can see his influence in the delicacy of Berger’s furniture design.
In 1922, Berger married the artist Margarete Hamerschlag. In private practice he began to make a
name as an architect of distinction, as did his Contemporary Fritz Gross, who also came to En
gland. His brother-in-iaw, Fritz Lampt, who ran the design firm Bimini, commissioned him to de
sign furniture. Later, in England, their friend Lucie Rie, a distinguished potter, and Erich Fried, the
poet, were to make glass buttons for Bimini, when they first emigrated.
In 1934, after the murder of Dollfus, Joseph and Margarete left a darkening political Situation, ac-
cepting a commission in Haifa, then Palestine. He had no illusions about the Nazis or about what
would happen in Austria.
Finding life in Palestine too raw culturally, they made for England in 1936, in time to see the rosy
glow of Crystal Palace burning, and stayed. In 1940, after six bleak months interned on the Isle of
Man as an enemy alien, Berger entered upon one of the most interesting phases of his Profes
sional life. He joined the LCC scheme under Professor Abercrombie, which was to plan the re-
construction of London after the war.
In 1945 he joined the Department of the LCC concerned with building schoots. He designed
Woodbury Down School in London N16, a landmark project in that he was the first to consult the
teachers themselves about what they wanted. He fought many a battle on this subject with reac-
tionary co/leagues at the LCC.
In 1958 Margarete died. He shared the years of retirement which began in 1963 with Regina Gillin-
son-Schein, the cellist.
For the final three years of his life, he had kept the “Last Enemy" at bay. He savoured the good
days with a quiet twinkle in his eye and a little smile of enjoyment. This year he visited Bethnal
Green Museum of Childhood three times to see the exhibition "Professor Franz Cizek and his
Children", where Margarete's work was being schown. He had been writing autobiographical pas-
sages - intelligent, clear, straightforward, uncluttered by sentimentality, threaded with gentle
irony.
Joseph Berger represented the best of Central European civilisation in its translation to an En
gland in which, by temperament, he feit totally at home. Joanna Braithwaite
Joseph Berger, architect and watercolourist, born Vienna 1898, studied at the Technische Hoch
schule Vienna 1917-21, in partnership with Martin Ziegler Vienna 1921-34, FRIBA 1950, married
1922 Margarete Hamerschlag (died 1958; one son), died London 22 August 1989.
ARTUR BERGER
Über diesen Architekten sind uns die wenigsten biographischen Daten überliefert
(geb. 1891 in Wien, gest. 1981 in Moskau). Er war zweimal verheiratet, lebte in Moskau
und arbeitete für Mos- Film.
Ein kurzer Nachruf in der Wiener „Wochenpresse“ (21. 1. 1981) lautet:
Arthur Berger, aus Wien stammender Filmarchitekt, Bühnenbildner und Oskar-Strnad-Schüler,
der mit Georg Pabst und Otto Preminger arbeitete und seit 1936 beim russischen Film Karriere
machte, ist im Alter von 88 Jahren gestorben.
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