Paul Goesch

1885
Paul Goesch is born on 30 August in Schwerin, Germany as the sixth child by Carl and Dorothee Goesch. His father is a district court lawyer.

1886
The Goesch family moves to Berlin where Paul spends his childhood and adolescence and has his first encounters with art and architecture. Due to physical frailty, he often misses school and finds himself socially isolated.

1898
Goesch is fascinated by Catholicism which will become the source of later artistic inspiration. In 1914, he will convert.

1903-10
Studies art in Munich and architecture in Karlsruhe and at the technical college at Berlin-Charlottenburg. Travels to Italy and France, southern Germany, and the North Sea. Maintains close contact with his brother, Heinrich Goesch, and his wife who is a cousin of Käthe Kollwitz.

1909
Goesch moves in with his brother Heinrich in Dresden where Heinrich is a professor. There he paints the walls of a gym with frescos representing the life of Buddha. Together with Heinrich, he becomes interested in psychoanalysis. He studies Rudolf Steiner’s version of Theosophy known as anthroposophy, and he applies the principles of this school of thought to his life, architecture and art.

1913
Goesch spends several months in Switzerland to take part in the anthroposophic movement and to help construct the Goetheanum in Dornach.

1914-17
Goesch works as chief state architect in Kulm, Prussia (now Chelmno in Poland). During this time, he starts concentrating on painting and begins a series of "fantasy architecture" plans and sketches.

1917
Goesch suffers from hallucinations and is hospitalized in a psychiatric clinic for two years.

1919
Goesch is released from hospital and lives in Berlin where he becomes a member of Die Gläserne Kette, [The Glass Chain or Crystal Chain]–a chain letter that took place between November 1919 and December 1920–a correspondence of architects founded by Bruno Taut forming a basis of expressionist visionary architecture in Germany. Goesch also maintains contact with the November Group and the Arbeitsrat für Kunst. He befriends Walter Gropius, Rudolf Steiner, and Hans Scharoun.

1919-20
Goesch works with Bruno Taut in Magdeburg on a restoration project; Taut publishes artwork and essays by Goesch in his Expressionist journal Frühlicht ("Daybreak" or "First Light"). Goesch’s “fantastical architectural concepts” are shown in several exhibitions including the group show Ausstellung für unbekannte Architekten in the Graphisches Kabinett in Kurfürstendamm, Berlin.

1922-34
Diagnosed with "dementia praecox," (what modern psychiatry would likely label schizophrenia) Goesch is admitted to the psychiatric clinic in Göttingen where his brother-in-law, the head of the psychiatric institution, allows him to continue working as an artist. Here, Goesch creates many watercolors and drawings and paints on all materials he can find: envelopes, the back of posters and newsprints, as well as the back of his own artwork. He also uses the walls of his rooms whose murals have been conserved and can be seen today. Goesch’s complete works comprise approximately 2,000 objects, predominantly watercolors and drawings.

1934
Goesch’s brother-in-law is transferred by the Nazi Regime for disciplinary reasons. Goesch is brought to the Psychiatric Hospital of Brandenberg at Teupitz, where the Nazis bar him from painting and force him into manual labor.