He not only had a suitcase in Berlin, but an apartment, of course in the Le Corbusier house. And even though there is no building by the Lederer Ragnarsdóttir Oei office on the Spree, he has left his mark. Because Arno Lederer has followed in the footsteps of his mentor Max Bächer, as a pioneer in the architectural scene, as an author and sought-after keynote speaker, as a moral authority and above all as a judge in the most important architectural competitions in Germany, such as that for the Museum of the 20th Century the culture forum.
Unlike Bächer, Arno Lederer built a lot, mostly social housing, schools, theaters, museums, and they are all very beautiful buildings, wonderful to look at, with atmosphere and charm. Although he was in the foreground as office spokesman for a long time, the buildings would be unthinkable without Icelander Jórunn Ragnarsdottir. In 1992, Marc Oei also joined the office, which is now known as LRO, as a partner.
Lederer met Jórunn while studying at the TU Stuttgart. She became an office and life partner in 1985 and later became the mother of four sons. They designed together. Gradually, she also became more public, is active in numerous design advisory boards and is now often asked as a judge.
Arno Lederer taught from 1985-2014 as a professor at the HAT Stuttgart, at the University of Karlsruhe and at the University of Stuttgart. If you ask about the special features of the buildings by the LRO office, it is primarily the aesthetic expression that also has something to say to “normal citizens”. No cold, unapproachable concrete and glass architecture, but warm materials and colors, mostly brick facades, always with a narrative element.
There is a lot of classical modernism to discover, but not the abstract, but that of Erich Mendelssohn, elegant and dynamic, but also playful, here and there a bay window, a round stairwell at the corner, an astonishing arcature of parabolic arches.
LRO architecture has its own character, which is so difficult for modern people, and is one of the few countries that can be assigned to an office today. LRO architecture therefore fits into every old town. In Biberach, for example, the multi-award-winning art museum with the swinging roofs and the facade made of reused demolition bricks. Or the Museum of the City of Frankfurt am Römerberg, a masterfully mastered balancing act between local post-war modernism and red sandstone Gothic.
Lederer was always concerned with building houses for the general public, for public space, “houses that behave themselves,” he once said. He died last Saturday in Stuttgart at the age of 75 after a short, serious illness.
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