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Architect Ernest Weissmann: a "Common" European Immigrant story

Ernest Weissmann (1903–1985), Croatian-born architect is a typical example of European intellectual and émigrés that had an important role in building connections among Europe, USA and the rest of the world. In interwar period Weissmann had an impact on accepting Neues Bauen in ex Yugoslavia and thanks to his frequent stays in Paris, where he worked for Le Corbusier, and London was an active member of European architectural avant-garde gathered within CIAM (Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne). Aware of housing and town crises he advocated the idea of socially responsible architecture and urban and regional planning based on a scientific engineering approach, broader social and economic context, new technologies and freely available resources that implied the change of the socio-political regime i.e. liberal capitalism. Weissmann’s left political views and Jewish origin predicted his further career. He arrived in the USA at the occasion of the New York World Exposition 1939 and stayed. Thanks to his CIAM membership and colleagues from Le Corbusier’s office Weissmann established collaboration with notable American architects including Walter Sanders, Theodore Larson and Richard Buckminster Fuller. Work on Fuller’s Dymaxion Deployment Unit (DDU), low-cost and demountable housing for military troops led him in 1942 to US Board of Economic Warfare in Washington. He was in charge of studies on emergency shelters, building industry reconstruction and supplies in war devastated Europe. Almost the same duties he had in UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (1944-1947). As an Industrial Rehabilitation Division deputy director and director he developed aid program for self-help approach and was involved in planning for industrial rehabilitation. Since 1947 Weissmann worked for UN Economic Commission for Europe in Geneva (1948-1950) and Department of Social Affairs in New York (1951-1965). In charge of housing, town and country planning he was connecting the whole world including his homeland Yugoslavia on the border between East and West by organizing numerous conferences, consultative missions and assistance schemes.

Ernest Weissmann; architecture; urban planning

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