Although he worked with some of Germany’s most important architects on some of their most significant projects Sergius Ruegenberg (1903-96) to this day only rings a bell with experts. This is likely due to a rather small body of work to his own name but surely also because of the buildings he worked on as employee are assigned to his employers in the first place: Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion and Tugendhat House or Hans Scharoun’s plans for the postwar reconstruction of the island of Helgoland are just some examples of Ruegenberg‘s involvement in pivotal projects.

The only monograph chronologically following Ruegenberg’s life and work still is Martin Gärtner’s „Sergius Ruegenberg - Eine Monographie. Bauten und Entwürfe zur Berliner Architektur seit 1925“, published in 1990 by Gebr. Mann Verlag. Based on extensive interviews and correspondences with the architect Gärtner paints a lively picture of an architect who constantly took part in competitions, frequently appeared in the press but built only very few. The primary reason for the latter circumstance is the fact that Ruegenberg rarely followed regulations and instead used competitions for the demonstration of his very own ideas about the given task. Two of the few competitions he actually won were those for the mortuary chapel at Waldfriedhof Zehlendorf (1955/56) and the Kolumbus school (1964-70) in Reinickendorf. Although they represent seemingly opposing ends of the architectural spectrum with the rigidly geometric chapel and the organically shaped school they originate in Ruegenberg’s spontaneous and idea-driven approach to architecture. That he nonetheless preferred a flowing organic idiom demonstrates his own house (1959-60) which he consequently aligned with the path of the sun. This nature-orientedness also is the major difference between his and Scharoun‘s organicism since the latter often designed his buildings more inward-oriented.

Although the illustrations included in Martin Gärtner’s book aren’t consistently of great quality the author’s vivid account of Ruegenberg’s life and work together with the elucidation of his architectural ideas make for a wonderful read on a forgotten architect.