Werner Hegemann

Werner Hegemann (June 15 1881 – April 12, 1936) was a city planner, critic on architecture and author. He was born in Mannheim, Germany and died in New York City. [cite web
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title=VASTER SKYSCRAPERS INEVITABLE, SAYS GERMAN EXPERT; Dr. Werner Hegemann
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He began his studies in Berlin and Paris and finally settled for national economy at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Strasbourg, finishing his doctorate in Munich in 1908. Returning to the US, he visited Philadelphia, New York and worked for the "Boston-1915" Exposition, held in Boston 1909.

Back in Berlin, the following year he was made general secretary of the first international city planning exhibition to be held in Berlin in 1910. Afterwards Hegemann was commissioned with the exhibition's official memoir. After extensive travels to collect his materials, he published two volumes on "Der Staedtebau" (City Planning) 1911 and 1913.

In 1913 he was invited by The People's Institute of New York to give lectures on city planning in several American cities. Again traveling widely, after publishing an extensive report on the Californian cities of Oakland and Berkeley in 1915 he worked as a city planning consultant. He established his own firm in 1916 specializing in suburban planning, with landscape architect Elbert Peets as his partner. Later, Hegemann and Peets authored a thesaurus on civic art, commenting on about 1200 samples of the discipline, in "The American Vitruvius" of 1922.

Returning to Europe in 1921, he was made editor of "Wasmuths Monatshefte für Baukunst" (Wasmuths monthly magazine for architecture) in Berlin. The review became known for its international range of architecture and Hegemann's sharp, literate critiques. Meanwhile he wrote debunking biographies of German heroes and, in 1930, united historical and architectural criticism in his book on Berlin: " Das steinerne Berlin" (The stone-Berlin), the work Hegemann is still known for today. Writing political articles as well, he warned against the Nationalsocialists. Before his books were burned in 1933, Hegemann had already left Germany.

Invited by Alvin Johnson, Hegemann taught at the New School for Social Research in New York, where he arrived in late 1933. From 1935 on, he lectured urban planning at Columbia University, New York, publishing his last book on "City Planning Housing" in 1936.

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