Presumably he could also speak High German.

But the Stuttgart architect Arno Lederer didn't need to deny the dialect of his Swabian homeland.

In the end, he could do everything in the three dimensions that matter in architecture – detail, house, city.

Just look at Lederer's latest masterpiece, the Volkstheater in Munich.

With the prevailing facade material (clinker brick), it blends into the surroundings of the slaughterhouse district in the Isarvorstadt, in order to appear very self-confident at the same time: A generous archway marks the entrance and, together with the white membrane of the stage tower, signals the claim to that solemnity and presence that belongs to a place of culture.

Inside the theater, Lederer has devoted his creative attention to every corner,

Matthew Alexander

Deputy head of department in the features section.

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Visitors to the Volkstheater, just like the users of Lederer's other buildings, do not need to be aware of this level of care and originality, both as a whole and in the details, in order to be put in a good mood.

Luckily, the extremely well-read Lederer was keen to spread his ideas about good architecture, and through many channels: he was a committed university teacher in Stuttgart and Karlsruhe, a sought-after (and quite tolerant of other attitudes) member of numerous juries and not most recently coveted speaker and interview partner.

He has also emerged as a book author.

In the role of mediator, Lederer found a catchy formula for his idea of ​​good architecture, which has since been quoted again and again: "A house must be able to behave."

On the one hand, this maxim, which aims at inner attitude, external appearance and social manners, met his approach very well.

On the other hand, her tone of voice seemed a bit old-fashioned to some ears, which gave rise to misunderstandings.

In an interview with the trade journal "Bauwelt", one of the interviewees wanted to label him as a conservative architect.

Lederer resisted this classification, and rightly so.

Knowing the history of the building and occasionally going back to its formal vocabulary is not conservative.

The insistence on beauty as a category of architecture is not necessarily either.

Lederer, who had a second home in the Le Corbusier House in Berlin's Westend with his wife and office partner Jórunn Ragnarsdóttir, saw himself as an architect in the tradition of a historically informed modernism that pays attention to the haptic quality of the building materials and does not shy away from the use of color and if necessary, even has the courage to use decoration, as Lederer demonstrated with the Historical Museum in Frankfurt and its complex sandstone facade.

This strand had always existed alongside the radical avant-garde and the mainstream of white modernism.

The attitude of developing a building based on a deeper understanding of its location and in accordance with one's own stylistic ideal has limited the sphere of activity of the LRO Lederer Ragnarsdóttir Oei office regionally due to the associated effort.

Most of his buildings are to be found south of the Main line.

There is not a single building among them that was calculated entirely for show effect, which would have made not only the name of the client but also that of the office and its founder generally known beyond specialist circles;

there is also no skyscraper in the catalog raisonné.

The reward for the supposed self-restraint is a work of remarkable unity.

Anyone who has dealt intensively with an LRO building will most likely recognize other designs by the office as such - for example by their facades, which have arcades, portholes, archways,

In general, curves in the style of Erich Mendelsohn give a harmonious, at the same time elegant and robust plasticity.

Lederer, on the other hand, never used glass on a large scale, he insisted on the clear demarcation between inside and outside.

For him, a clear definition of public space was the basis for successful urban life.

Because they win over their users, one would like to bet that Lederer's buildings will have a particularly long lifespan.

This would fulfill his understanding of sustainability, which he defended against the fads of the latest building technology, whose promises of energy savings can never be kept in the long term.

he insisted on the clear demarcation between inside and outside.

For him, a clear definition of public space was the basis for successful urban life.

Because they win over their users, one would like to bet that Lederer's buildings will have a particularly long lifespan.

This would fulfill his understanding of sustainability, which he defended against the fads of the latest building technology, whose promises of energy savings can never be kept in the long term.

he insisted on the clear demarcation between inside and outside.

For him, a clear definition of public space was the basis for successful urban life.

Because they win over their users, one would like to bet that Lederer's buildings will have a particularly long lifespan.

This would fulfill his understanding of sustainability, which he defended against the fads of the latest building technology, whose promises of energy savings can never be kept in the long term.

Lederer took a special interest in the fate of his home town.

Friendly in tone but tough on the matter, he was involved in a leading position in the Aufbruch Stuttgart initiative, which campaigned for an improvement in the cityscape.

Recently, however, Lederer has spoken with increasing resignation about the situation in the city and wanted to relocate to Berlin, where his four sons had moved, including an architect with whom their parents had worked in a newly founded office.

It would have been good for Berlin if perhaps the best architect in the country had worked in the city for a few more years.

On January 21, Lederer died in his hometown at the age of 75 after a short, serious illness.

His book "Inside is different than outside - reading architecture", which is being published these days, has become a legacy.