Heinrich Claus

Heinrich Eduard Friedrich Claus was born in Halberstadt, then the Kingdom of Prussia, in 1835. His father was a cabinetmaker and Heinrich's two brothers also worked in the same profession. But he did not continue the family tradition and studied architecture, probably at a German university. Once trained as an architect, he moved to Vienna in the first half of the 1860s, where he first worked in Karl Tietz’s studio. He was involved, among other things, in the design of prestigious residential buildings erected for the World Exhibition held in Vienna in 1873. Claus was engaged in the preparation of this exhibition as an architect, as well as an interior designer, devising a number of decorative items, such as chandeliers and decorative table centrepieces.

A year later, he was able to put his experience in designing prestigious buildings to good use in his own architectural office, which he founded together with his colleague from Tietz's studio, Josef Gross. Their historicist, mostly Neo-Renaissance residential and commercial buildings can mostly be found along the Ringstrasse in Vienna. Although they mostly applied classical morphology, such as diamond rustication, broken pediments, Corinthian and Ionic pilasters and semi-columns, sometimes supplemented with floral and figural decor, they managed to be very innovative in their design of shopfronts with large glass windows.

The circumstances of Heinrich Claus’ break with Josef Gross are unclear, but from 1883, he began working with another Viennese architect and his close friend Moritz Hinträger. They designed a number of residential and mainly public Neo-Renaissance buildings together throughout the Austro-Hungarian Empire, including Bohemia. They designed school buildings in Svitavy, Nový Jičín, and Jihlava. The local German Boys' School, completed in 1889, was one of Claus' final projects. In 1892, he died suddenly at only 58. He is buried in Vienna.

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