Fritz Haller (1924 – 2012) was a Swiss Architect and town planner. He was born in the city of Solothurn.
Biography
In Switzerland and Rotterdam, he worked as an apprentice and collaborator with Willem van Tijen and H.A. Maaskant. He founded an architecture firm in Solothurn in 1949. He was a guest professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles from 1966 to 1971. He worked on movement studies with German architect Konrad Wachsman at the same time. Since 1977, he had been a lecturer at Karlsruhe’s Technische Universitat.
MINI, MIDI and MAXI
His structural steel industrial building systems made him popular. After initially experimenting with geometry models, Haller came up with his famous modular and installation systems MINI, MIDI and MAXI in the early 1960s, which were also adopted by other architects. He created the Maxi system for spanning vast spaces due to his work on the building for USM (a metal construction firm) in Karlsruhe. His Mini system was created with shorter spans in mind. Haller designed the widely published 1964—70 modular furniture system created by joint-venture firm USM Haller and the Midi building system for medium distance spans in industrial construction, built in the early 1970s, based on his experiences with loftier building ventures. He was one of the most well-known graduates of Switzerland’s ‘Solothurn School’ of architecture (along with Franz Füeg).
Books
Totale Stadt: Ein Modell (1968) and Totale Stadt: Ein globales Modell (1969) are two of his books on urban planning (1975). Wagsenring School, Basle, 1951—55 (1st phase) and 1958—62 (end phase); Canton School, Baden; 1960-64 buildings for USM, Miunsingen; 1961—66 Hohere Technische Lehranstalt, Brugg-Windisch; and Morat Railways Training Center (with Hans Zaugg and Alfons Barth), which was the first large-scale application of Haller’s Midi method.
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Sources
Byars, M., & Riley, T. (2004). The design encyclopedia. Laurence King Publishing.
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