Karl Gottwald

Karl Gottwald was born in Jeseník to gingerbread maker Franz Gottwald and his wife Anna Gottwald, née Mildner. He attended the Realschule in Opava from 1896, graduating in 1904. From 1904 to 1908, he studied architecture – specializing in high-rise structures – at the Technical University in Vienna, where his professors included architect Max von Ferstel. After completing a year of military service in 1909, he was appointed junior construction officer at the Provincial Building Authority in Opava. He remained there until the office was dissolved in 1928, rising through the ranks from junior official to provincial engineer, and finally to senior building officer in 1926. At the outbreak of the First World War, he was mobilized and served on the Serbian and Italian fronts, as well as at the Ministry of War. After the war, he continued his career at the building authority, now under the administration of the Czechoslovak Republic. In 1926, he married the widow Elsa Keilhauer, daughter of Chilean diplomat Juan Gonzalez Matta. Following the closure of the building authority, Gottwald was prematurely retired and, in 1929, established his own architectural practice. After the death of his first wife in 1943, he married Hildegard Bartel in 1944, the widow of Erich Bartel, the youngest son of Opava builder Augustin Bartel.
Throughout his life, Karl Gottwald was deeply engaged in nationalist circles. Before the Second World War, he was a member of defence associations Nordmark and Schulverein; after the war, he joined their successor organizations, Bund der Deutschen and Kulturverband. He also became a member of the Deutschnationale Partei (German National Party), which likely hindered his professional career; in 1928 he was retired rather than transferred to a post within the newly formed Province of Moravia-Silesia. After the dissolution of the German National Party, he remained unaffiliated, but in 1938 he joined the Sudeten German Party (SdP) and later the Nazi Party (NSDAP), although he did not take an active role. The final stage of his life remains uncertain; the last verified record of him is from his second marriage on 20 October 1944. He is thought to have left Opava during the mandated evacuation on 25 March 1945; no further information about his fate is available.
Karl Gottwald was the author of numerous realized and unrealized architectural projects, both as an official of the Provincial Building Authority and as an independent architect. His first known project was a design for the Hohn detached house in Karlovec (1913). As a public official, he contributed to the design of the Czech Middle School in Opava (1925–⁠1926), the František Sokol Tůma Czech Boys’ and Girls’ School in Radvanice (now Ostrava-Radvanice, 1925–⁠1926), the Provincial
Agricultural Vocational School in Český Těšín (1927–⁠1930), and the Franciscan School of Nursing and Home for Nurses (Franciscaneum) in Opava (1928–⁠1930), which he completed after leaving the building authority.
After 1918, he took over from Jindřich Freiwald the urban planning of the so-called Kylešovský Hill, a villa district built on land subdivided from the estate of Prince Liechtenstein. Shortly after the war, he designed an unbuilt tuberculosis ward for the Provincial Hospital in Opava, and later focused mainly on residential buildings in Opava (including the villa for Johan Fickert at Dostojevského Street 12 (1929), his own villa at Mendlova Street 8 (1929–⁠1930), the detached house for Humbert Ehrlich at Hradecká Street 66, 1932; and the renovation of the home of hospital head physician Kuno Kothny at Hradecká Street 16 (1933). As an independent architect, he also designed religious and public buildings, including the Church of St. John the Baptist in Skrochovice (1929–⁠1935), the convent for the Sisters of Mercy of St. Francis in Osoblaha (1937), the reading room of the municipal library in Opava, including a fresco by Paul Gebauer (1930), and the conversion of the Dominican Monastery in Opava into the municipal museum and archives (1944). Between 1933 and 1938, he also supervised the construction of the Church of St. Hedwig in Opava, based on plans by Leopold Bauer.
Gottwald’s architectural works, particularly those produced during his time with the Provincial Building Authority, are characterized by a conservative style that builds upon the traditions of Baroque, Baroque Classicism, and Biedermeier. His independent designs reflect both a traditionalist approach inspired by Central European architecture and elements of Silesian or German regionalism (Heimatstil).

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