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Architect
Benjamin Eckel, last edited on 10.09.2022
Name:
Sigrid Anna Gertrud Schaller
Life Dates:
b. 1941
Country:
Employers:
VEB WBK Halle
Office of the chief city architect Halle
Field of expertise:
Architectural design
Education:
Burg Giebichenstein, Halle (Saale)
Memberships:
Bund Deutscher Architekten
Sigrid Schaller was born in Berlin in 1941 as the daughter of a dentist who later lived in West Germany. She grew up mostly in Eisenach, Thuringia, with her mother. After successfully passing the entrance examination, she began studying architecture at Burg Giebichenstein in Halle (Saale). Shortly thereafter her son Jörg Schaller was born. In 1969/70 she paticipated in the construction of a skyscraper in Halle. After working with Wulf Brandstädter at the WBK (Housing construction combinate) she followed him into the office of the city architect, which Brandstädter led from 1983 until the end of the GDR. In this position, Sigrid Schaller played a decisive role in shaping today’s Halle as part of the renewal of the old town.
Sigrid Schaller was active until the year 2017. She has lived in the city of Halle since taking up her studies. Sigrid Schaller describes her career as very smooth, but she also always emphasizes the good contacts and fair, collegial interaction with each other, especially with her later supervisor Brandstädter.
Her main work before the fall of the Berlin Wall is concentrated in the city of Halle (Saale). Here, the buildings in Leipziger Strasse (formerly Klement-Gottwald-Strasse), which were designed to close gaps, her participation in the buildings in the city center (Alter Markt, Brunoswarte, Großer Berlin and others), and her participation in the redesign of Thälmannplatz under Alfred Möller are particularly noteworthy. In addition, she also worked in reconstruction projects (Händelhaus Halle).
Her designs, especially in the inner-city area of Halle, are characterized by small-scale structures, post-modern approaches and consideration for the historic buildings. Many of the projects in which she was involved still characterize the cityscape today. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Sigrid Schaller continued to work as an architect until 2017 (Niebergall & Schaller), most recently as a building safety officer. Outside the city of Halle, she was active in Zeitz and Zörbig.
Her involvement in large-scale construction projects, small-scale prefabricated buildings with partly postmodern tendencies as well as participation in historical reconstructions testify to the versatility of her work.
Scheffler, Tanja: Die großen Unbekannten – Architektinnen der DDR, in: Bauwelt 22.2017, Berlin 2017, p. 10-13, available online: https://bauwelt.de/themen/betrifft/Die-grossen-Unbekannten-Architektinnen-der-DDR-3045387.html (last accessed on 19.04.2022)
Interview between Sigrid Schaller, Jörg Schaller and Benjamin Eckel from June 2021.
Main image: Jörg Schaller, private photography
Fig. 1: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=sigrid+schaller&title=Special:MediaSearch&go=Go&type=image (last accessed on 30.07.2021)
Fig. 2: Jörg; Rüger, Reinhard: Das Händelhaus in Halle; in: Bauakademie der DDR (ed.): Architektur der DDR 1986, Jahrgang 35, Ausgabe 6, Berlin 1986, p. 350.
Fig. 3: Brandstädter, Wulf: Innerstädtischer Wohnungsbau Brunos Warte, in: Bauakademie der DDR (ed.): Architektur der DDR 1986, Jahrgang 35, Ausgabe 6, Berlin 1986, p. 331.
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