Emil Fahrenkamp
Encyclopedia
Shell-Haus
Shell-Haus is a classical modernist architectural masterwork that stands overlooking the Landwehrkanal in the Tiergarten district of Berlin.- Building and design :...
in Berlin.
Fahrenkamp was born in Aachen, and came to Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...
to work in the office of Wilhelm Kreis
Wilhelm Kreis
Wilhelm Kreis was a prominent German architect and professor of architecture, active through four political systems in German history: the Wilhelmine era, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, and the foundation of the Federal Republic.Kreis was born in Eltville am Rhein in Hesse-Nassau...
from 1909 to 1912. He became assistant, then professor at the Düsseldorf Academy of Art. His work in the 1920s and early 1930s can be seen as an integration of progressive Neues Bauen (simplified forms, flat roofs, repeated window patterns) with features of traditional styles.
During the war Fahrenkamp accepted commissions from the Nazis, although he considered himself apolitical. After the war he remained active as an architect but withdrew from public life.
He died on May 24, 1966 leaving behind a wife and two daughters.